I get knocked down…

Imagine the scene: You’ve at last got your interview for that Deputy Head post the one you’ve always wanted. You sit there in your brand new suit and tie, wriggling uncomfortably; is it the new shirt digging in? Or is it the fact that the suit lies dormant on your Visa account still waiting to be paid for; lying there unloved like a tube of after sun in Cold November. Hands are clasped, tight, sweating, slightly trembling – you casually but cautiously look around at the assembled panel of seven! Yes seven of them!

The lead assassin from the Local Authority stares at you with steely, slate grey eyes. Uncannily he looks a little bit like Bill Oddie but has the compassion and tenderness of Hannibal Lecter – he makes his move and unceremoniously, unsmilingly, unsympathetically draws the first blood. No soft sweetener to put you at ease; No! He goes straight for the jugular; asking a question so alien from the ones you have practised in your head previously; the ones that you have practised with your colleagues; with your family; even the dog had to go through the benefits of collaborative group work, safeguarding; rigorous monitoring and pupil assessment. The question! Oh the question – it still has to be answered! The neurons are screaming frantically in terror as they race around your head looking for the opening line, that ‘Obama slickness’ that will have them eating out the palm of your hand within seconds.

But nothing occurs! The line you are searching for refuses to materialise – that one precious line that could, so easily, save you from the degradation that lies ahead. What happened next is unforgivable and beyond reproach; the elastic band that attaches the brain to you lower jaw suddenly snaps! You’re now the proverbial rabbit in the headlights, in career free fall; falling faster and faster into the abyss. Into the cesspool of self doubt and uncertainty.

The opening question (still insufficiently unanswered) is followed by question after relentless question; each ones picks you up and slams you against the ‘metaphoric’ wall that has just been self erected within your psyche. You once again scan the room looking for a friendly glimpse of humanity, of empathy – but you know you are alone! Alone with only the two evil horsemen of humiliation and indignity for company.

Suddenly from behind the heads of the malevolent septet of distaste gathered before you; a glimmer of hope can be seen – a lifeline. Outside the window a small blue tit hangs upside on a branch, he pecks away nonchalantly at a lush green leaf completely unaware of the torture that he is witnessing through the window. I close my eyes for a brief second and wish we could change places; as I slowly open them again I look for him but alas – he has gone. Left me! Left me alone to be savaged by the baying crowd. Hungry for blood; hungry to stamp out the very last crumb of hope that is contained within my poor, dilapidated, decrepit ego.

Well that was the experience I had of my first ever interview for a Deputy Head post. Can you beat that? If so. I’d love to hear from you.

Oh by the way; ‘On this particular occasion I was unsuccessful’ – And the blue tit? Never saw him again!

Using Bloom’s Taxonomy in the Classroom

Bloom’s Taxonomy.

It sounds very high brow – however, it’s not! Bloom is simply the name of the person who devised this idea and taxonomy simply means to categorise or classify

So what is being categorised or classified?

‘Thinking’ is the quick and accurate answer! Bloom researched what really made people think and what didn’t require much of the grey matter to be engaged. These thinking skills were further grouped into two categories, lower order thinking skills and higher order thinking skills. I’ll start with the first of the lower order thinking skills, a familiar term called…

REMEMBERING

At the bottom of the pile is remembering or recalling, a fairly straight forward task for the brain, this kind of thinking is very useful for pub quizzes, mental maths warm-ups and trying to join in with ‘who wants to be a millionaire’. It’s the ‘you either know it or you don’t’ type of thinking. It may be at the bottom of the pile, but it’s incredibly important for learning; it is the prior knowledge on which you will build future learning. In the classroom this type of thinking is evident when children are labelling diagrams or maybe the teacher is probing prior knowledge, for example, what is a verb? Remembering or recall is the first of the ‘lower order thinking skills’

UNDERSTANDING

As we move up Bloom’s taxonomy of thinking (or down or across – whichever way you choose to view it) we arrive at understanding. If we understand something it means that we can use it in the future. It means we can summarise pieces of information because we know what they mean and what the message is. This kind of thinking is useful for comprehension of text, pictures, the spoken word and predicting outcomes; the learner will know what something means. In the classroom you might hear the teacher ask, what does this symbol mean? Or why are verbs important in writing or in maths why does 12+57=69? Activities that require this sort of thinking might be when children are asked to summarise a piece of text, or asked to talk about the steps in a scientific investigation cycle.

APPLYING

The last of the so called lower order thinking skills is applying. It could be argued that in schools this is a far as we get (Not the schools fault, more the fault of the constraints (mainly time) in which a school operates). However, applying is a very important skill and one that certainly should not be ignored. Maths is often associated with applying, for example children may use (Apply) their understanding of multiplication to solve a word problem, however in literacy if we use the example of the ‘verb’ again; children will not only be expected to know what it is and explain why it is important, they’ll move on to using it in their own writing. The more independently the learner can use prior learning to a new situation, the better they are at applying their learning. Children can also be encouraged to consider where their new learning could be used, for example ask the children to list three new situations where their new learning can be used – this sort of activity can also reinforce meaning and therefore improves the chances of retention.

That brings us to the end of the ‘lower order thinking skills’. Calling them lower order can seem a little harsh, however this is based on the how complex the thinking is. For a brain of over 100 billion neurons, if taught properly, remembering, understanding and applying are a reasonably straight forward task for most of us.

The next three thinking skills are the ‘higher order thinking skills’, a set of skills that sets the brain a more complex task, requiring more of the ‘cogs’ to set in motion. The first of the higher order thinking skills is…

ANALYSING

Ok, so you know the story of Cinderella (remembering), you understand the why she had to run like the wind at midnight (understanding) and maybe you even had a go at the acting out a scene yourself (Applying) – but what comes next? Well, according to Bloom; analysing! Analysing means to break things up into its component parts, considering what makes them different and what makes them the same or similar. The learner may also be asked to differentiate between facts and opinions, or sort objects in different piles. In the classroom, activities that require this type of thinking could be to sort a set of numbers into three categories of your choice (If the categories are chosen by the teacher then it could be argued that this would simply be an ‘understanding’ task). Separating fact and opinion in a piece of text will also require the skills of analysis. Analysing is the first of the higher order thinking skills.

EVALUATING.

Evaluating requires ‘bits’ from the other thinking skills to be effective; for example if you don’t understand a piece of text, you are highly unlikely to be able to analyse it and therefore won’t be able to evaluate it – this makes evaluating a tricky task for the brain! Evaluating means to judge, assess or critique text, objects, films, poetry, the learning process etc. The ‘Why’ question is critical to this skill, in order to judge or assess you must have good reason, to have good reasons you must have an idea what success and failure looks like and this means either using or choosing a success criteria. Let’s take a look at Cinderella again; who was the worst ugly sister? To complete this task you would have to come up with criteria for what is meant by a ‘worst’ ugly sister, the criteria would help with reasoning and ultimately aid the decision, ironically learners would have to analyse the behaviours of the two hags to in order to evaluate (hopefully by now you realise that evaluating is a complex skill.) Consider this, when children are asked ‘What have you learned today?’ a confident answer usually follows, but what happens if they are asked ‘How do you know?’ (You have learned this) A much more complex answer is required; children will need to reflect on the success
criteria to answer this question – This is why success criteria are an essential component of good learning in the classroom.

CREATING (CREATIVITY)

This is the most complex level of thinking. Creating doesn’t just mean submerging you hand in paint and making pretty pictures on paper, it’s far more than that. It means using what you know, understand, can apply, analyse and evaluate to create a thought or outcome that is completely new. Now this might sound like you need Stephen Hawking in you classroom but actually you don’t’. Let’s looks again at Cinderella (I know it’s boring by now but it provides a common thread!) and combine this story with some ‘What if’ questions (What if questions are a great creativity tool!), for example, what if Cinderella had two ugly brothers? What if both of Cinderella’s feet fell off when she ran away from the ball? How would the story be different? These might sound like silly questions, but without an in-depth view of the story, children would not be able to answer them. In science you might ask what would happen if the moon disappeared?… this would test children’s understanding of orbits, moon phases, eclipses and tidal patterns, so whilst the question might seem a little odd, the complexity of thinking in order to come up with a decent answer is enormous. Other ideas might include asking learners to write a diary report from the point of view of a specific character, at a specific time in a story, or in a more traditional sense, creating a piece of art that represents a chosen mood. When creating, brand new though patterns emerge in the brain!

To summarise,

The six thinking skills that Bloom describes are subdivided into two; higher order thinking skills and lower order thinking skills, see below;

Lower order thinking skills	High order thinking skills
Remembering Understanding Applying	Analysing Evaluating Creating

It is important to note that when lower order thinking skills are being used, the learner is usually unaware that they are being used (Unconscious thought), however when higher order thing skills are in operation, the learner is aware that they are thinking (Meta-cognition), this is because it takes a greater cognitive effort to perform higher order thinking; it is more complex. When designing activities to promote thinking skills consider how they can be used for differentiation; rather than making the task ‘harder’, for example, more writing, or larger numbers/values, consider how Bloom’s taxonomy can the task more complex, i.e. moving into higher order thinking

Why SATs don’t work!

At the end of the 90s a shift in education began; (for the very best this shift came much earlier) the idea of personalised learning became popular; and rightly so – every educator, parent and pupil know they are different from others; they are individuals.

As individuals, all learners need to be treated and educated as such. Schools went to work on the idea of personalise learning – and did a great job, especially when children were part of the assessment and planning process.

Exciting themed curriculums, building learning power, assessment for learning and the use of technology encouraged youngsters to set their own targets, present learning in a variety of ways and grow as collaborative, empathic individuals.

This was refreshing and the great news is that this still happens in the best schools, facilitated by outstanding practitioners who live a breathe learning.

There is a however a ‘BUT’ – A thought weaver blog wouldn’t be complete without a ‘rant’,’ a ‘catch’ or ‘however’. It will therefore come as no surprise that all of the positivity above comes with a huge dose of irony!…

So here goes; whilst talented, dedicated practitioners facilitate personalised learning, independent thinking and an approach that gives children the habits and disposition that will last them a lifetime, education is still in the grip of league tables and examinations.

What’s our point? League table are based on ‘standardised’ tests, test that are devoid of any independent thinking, are personal to no-one, where any sort of collaboration is not only frown upon, but is called cheating!

Real learning cannot be measured; by its very nature, creativity canning be scored, it’s hugely difficult to test collaboration and we can’t count how many questions children ask. Or from a different perspective, during the 2011 SATs tests the children never needed to use ICT, ask questions, collaborate and assess. To make matters worse, many questions/or the language used had no relationship to their own lives. (What on earth is a ‘Frond’ – Michael Rosen has plenty to say about the reading test! supporting the point we make here http://tinyurl.com/5vuerrx)

Children are not statistics, they shouldn’t be treated as a cell in an excel document (or even worse a raise online stick person) and year 6 children are not football teams competing in a league tables.

Children are individuals, on their own learning journey. Will they be successful? Perhaps the pupils should ultimately be the judge!

The Thought Weavers

The School ‘Gene Pool’

Six months ago, I was watching an RSA presentation by Sir Ken Robinson. One aspect particularly caught my attention; this was the idea of an educational ‘Gene Pool’. This fired my thinking; he was right! Our educational system (Regime may be a better description) has a DNA of its very own! Unfortunately that Gene Pool is out of date.

So what is contained in the school ‘Gene Pool’ let’s have a look…
Lining-up, Bells, Lessons, Year groups,  Sit still-Be quiet, Mr/Mrs/Sir/Miss, Exercise books, Text books, Underline heading, Stickers, Assembly, Good presentation, Uniform, Corridor etiquette, Hands up, Ability groups, Grades, Exams, Looking = listening, Certificates, Maths is important and art is not, Core subjects get you a good job, Timetable, Bright pupils Or not, Work, You’re academic or not, Whistle = stop, Guess what’s in the teacher’s head etc…

I’m sure you could think of plenty more. The point being, which ones actually add to the learning adventure the pupils should be on? What is the point of bells? Why does presentation have to be ‘neat?  Why is art discarded to the lower echelons of curriculum hierarchy?

How does the educational ‘Gene Pool’ relate to the world beyond the school gates. Has education got it right?

We would contend that it hasn’t! The school Gene Pool is too old, outdated and not fit for purpose. Imagine if life beyond the classroom was the same: going to the gym would have to be a P.E lesson (We’d have to stay for an hour as well!); we’d all have to wait for a bell for lunch, who would be in the higher ability ‘surgeons’ group in the local hospital? What would the timetable be when we were on holiday?  When would we have the time to record our every move (Neatly of course)? And what would happen to the crowd at the football match when the referee blew the whistle?

Whilst this post is a little tongue-in-cheek, it has a serious message…Children in schools are too often being trained simply to operate within a school, not within a society. The school ‘Gene Pool’ does not reflect the lives children will have!

In Twitter however we have found some hope! Especially the innovative use of ICT (as apposed to it being an extra trimming within a Victorian model) Blended learning, Google Docs, Blog writing, Video and Editing etc offer pupils a link with the ‘real world’ – Why – Because this is the world in which children are growing up. A world where change is continual, where time is irrelevant, technology is king and where learning is accessible at any time in any place! This should be a starting point for a revolution; a new school ‘Gene Pool!’

The Thought Weavers