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Challenges in group work assignments.Lines of inquiry:1- Typical difficulties encountered by students1:1 Coordination1:2 Motivation and capability to participate by expressing ideas in front of each other.2- The most frequently encountered difficulties by teachers2:1 Helping the students to overcome timidity that prevents them from participating freely.2:3 Evaluating individual and group work .Q: how can we conduct a fair individual assessment during group work?

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Facilitate students to develop high level of literacy, numeracy and digital competence.

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"Explaining concepts to their peers helps students shore up their content knowledge and improve their communication skills." -Joseph Manfre

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Explaining concepts to their peers helps students shore up their content knowledge and improve their communication skills.

Bob Daemmrich / Alamy Stock Photo

A few years ago, my colleague and I were awarded a Hawai'i Innovation Fund Grant. The joy of being awarded the grant was met with dread and despair when we were informed that we would have to deliver a 15-minute presentation on our grant write-up to a room full of educational leaders. If that wasn't intimidating enough, my colleague informed me that he was not going to be in Hawai'i at the time of the presentation. I had "one shot," just a 15-minute presentation to encapsulate all of the 17 pages of the grant I had cowritten, but how?

I worked hard to construct and deliver a presentation that was concise yet explicit. I was clear on the big picture of what the grant was composed of and provided a visual of it in practice. I made sure the audience understood the "why" behind the grant. I showed how it worked, the concrete elements of it, and how they made it successful. I finished with a scaffold that would help others know how to initiate it within their context, giving them the freedom to make it authentically their own.

I received good feedback from the presentation, and more important, what was shared positively impacted student learning in other classrooms across the state.

A Simple Framework for Presentations

That first presentation took me over a month to prepare, but afterward I noticed that my prep time for presentations shrank exponentially from a few months to a few (uninterrupted) days. Interestingly enough, as a by-product of creating the original presentation, I created an abstract framework that I have used for every professional learning presentation I have delivered since then. The "What, Why, How, and How-To" framework goes as follows:

What? What can the audience easily connect to and know as a bridge to the unknown for the rest of the experience?

Why? Why should they care to listen to (and learn from) the rest of the presentation? What's in it for them to shift from passive listeners to actively engaged? The audience needs to know why you believe in this so much that you are compelled to share it.

How? What are the key elements that make it unique? How is it effective in doing what it does? What are the intricacies of how it works?

How-to? How could they start doing this on their own? How could this knowledge serve as a foundational springboard? Connect it to "why."

Benefits for Students

One of the best parts of presentations is that they help the presenter to improve their communication skills. The presenter is learning how to give a presentation by doing it. To prepare a presentation, the presenter must know the intricate elements of what they are presenting and the rationale for their importance. In the presentation delivery, the presenter must be articulate and meticulous to ensure that everyone in the audience is able (and willing) to process the information provided.

It didn't take long for me to realize that preparing and delivering presentations could provide a valuable learning opportunity for my students.

I recall teaching mathematical concepts whereby students would immediately apply knowledge learned to accomplish the task in silence and without any deeper questioning. Only after I asked them to provide presentations on these concepts did they regularly ask me, "Why is this important, again?" or "What makes this so special?" My students' mathematical literacy grew through preparing presentations with the "What, Why, How, and How-To" framework, which supported them in their ability to demonstrate content knowledge through mathematical rigor (balancing conceptual understanding, skills and procedural fluency, and real-world application).

The "what" served as the mathematical concept.

The "why" demonstrated the real-world application of the concept.

"The "how" demonstrated conceptual understanding of the concept.

The "how-to" demonstrated skills and procedures of the concept.

In addition to content knowledge, the sequential competencies of clarity, cohesiveness, and captivation ensured that the presenter could successfully share the information with their audience. When combined, these framed a rubric that supported students in optimizing their presentation deliveries. The competencies are as follows:

1. Content knowledge. The presenter must display a deep understanding of what they are delivering in order to share the "what, why, how, and how-to" of the topic.

2. Clarity. The presenter must be clear with precise, academic language. As the content they deliver may be new to the audience, any lack of clarity will alienate the audience. Providing multiple modes of representation greatly addresses a variety of processing needs of a diverse audience.

3. Cohesiveness. When making clear connections, the presenter bridges gaps between each discrete component in how they all work together as integral elements of the topic. Any gaps too large may make the elements look disjointed or, worse, the audience feel lost.

4. Captivation. The presenter must captivate the audience through any combination of audience engagement or storytelling. They make the presentation flow with the energy of a song, and in the end, they leave the audience with a delicate balance of feeling fulfilled and inspired to learn more.

Anyone can build an effective presentation with the "What, Why, How, and How-To" framework, along with competencies of content knowledge, clarity, cohesiveness, and captivation. The better we teach and coach others on how to create and deliver presentations, the more we learn from these individuals through their work.

In my class, one multilingual learner responded to the prompt "What are the non-math (life lessons) you have found valuable from this class?" with "I learn what is learning and teaching... I truly understood how teaching is actually learning when I had presentation. I found a bit of desire to being a teacher. I hope you also learned something from this class." I always learn from my students when they present.

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How a Simple Presentation Framework Helps Students Learn

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Explaining concepts to their peers helps students shore up their content knowledge and improve their communication skills. Bob Daemmrich / Alamy Stock Photo A few years ago, my colleague and I were awarded a Hawai'i Innovation Fund Grant.

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Action Research in education leads to genuine, real-time better practices in our classrooms.

Our research into finding solutions to the challenges we face will ultimately improve our students' experiences in our classrooms and their learning outcomes.

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Click on "Add Section."
Label it with your name and topic of interest.
Post your ideas, your research resources, photos, videos, student work, etc...
Post your final presentation and report.

Comment on other's posts.
Are you interested in the same topic?
Could you collaborate?
Did someone else's project spark an idea for you? Let them know.

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Emotions that elicit Exploration of Knowledge

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Emotions that elicit Exploration of Knowledge

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What is the impact of token or reward reinforcement on the attendance and impact of remedial classes.

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Data will be collected as
1) Student Reflections
2) Teacher Reflection
3)Attendance Sheets
4) Marks sheets
5) Student token charts

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The advantages and disadvantages of incorporating a reward system for students.

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Motivating your students to learn and to participate can be very hard. Some teachers have their hands full with class management and they don't even get to teaching.

In order to stimulate learning and to motivate good behavior, lots of teachers use rewards for students.

In this post I'll start with the advantages of reward systems and why you should use one. But watch out. It's not all sunshine and rainbows. Some teachers and educators aren't a big fan of constantly rewarding your students. Reward systems also have their disadvantages.

I'll also show you some fun and creative reward systems you can use and 10 reasonable rewards to give your students. On top of that I'll show you how to put in work a good reward system.

Let's dig in!

Advantages of a reward system
1. Appropriate behavior
Students conform to appropriate behaviors when rewarded either intrinsically or extrinsically.
2. Increased motivation
Students will show interest and raise their participation in the everyday classroom tasks, responsibilities and learning.
3. Joyful students
Incentives for students motivate them to be more productive because they create a feeling of pride and achievement. Being successful makes you happy.
4. Boosted self-esteem
Every success story helps students become more self-confident. They are proud and also encouraged to achieve another successful result.
5. Completed homework
The National Association of School Psychologists suggests that reward systems help motivate students to complete their homework. It's rather shocking that without rewards, students don't complete it.
6. Improved results
Rewarding students encourages and endorses school effort. They lead to improved outcomes for students.

Disadvantages of a reward system

Before you jump into the reward systems, you should also know the disadvantages.
1. Addiction
Students can become addicted to classroom rewards. This means that they won't study anymore without them.
2. Devaluation
After a while rewards are no surprises anymore and they come as expected. They will lose their effect. Watch Dan Pink's excellent TED talk on motivation for more details on how reward systems can utterly fail.
3. Race against the clock
Students focus more on finishing an assignment to win a classroom price, instead of learning what the lesson is meant to teach. Finishing it is more important than to actually understand it.
4. Control and manipulate
Students might feel they are manipulated and controlled by you. This also teaches the student how to manipulate.
5. Increased pressure
The more you praise students, the greater the fall if they can't live up to that praise and to your expectations.
6. Bribes
The line between bribes and rewards is very thin. Rewards can lead to the idea of controlling your students. You'll feel more powerful and use rewards as bribes.

Creative reward systems

On my search for creative classroom reward systems, I came across an interesting Pinterest board: " Classroom Reward System ".

I picked out a few of my favorite reward systems to show you. Most of them are for elementary school. Click on the images to open them!

Source: For the love of teaching math

Source: Fabiola Ramirez

Source: Mrs. Richardson's Class

You can also create your own achievement or reward certificates by using the Canva certificate maker. Canva has many certificate templates available as well. You'll be surprised how much your students value a simple (but beautiful) piece of paper!

10 Reasonable rewards

When you choose a reward for your students or when you let them choose, make sure you are controlling it. Give them a list to choose from, or add a value to each reward. That way, students have to save their tickets, cards, etc., in order to choose a good reward.

Here are a few reward examples:

1. Pick a game at recess

2. Sit with a friend

3. Teach the class a favorite game

4. Take a homework pass

5. Be the teacher's helper for the day

6. Draw on the chalkboard

7. Choose any class job for the week

8. Use the teacher's chair

9. Take home a class game for a night

10. Do half of an assignment

These are just a few suggestions. Here 's a list with more fun rewards!

Online reward system for primary school

When it comes to class management in primary school you must have already heard of ClassDojo. If not, don't worry, I'll explain it to you.

ClassDojo is a free digital reward system in which every student gets evaluated on positive and negative behavior. Not only the teacher has access to ClassDojo, also the students and their parents can access the platform by entering a unique code.

As a teacher, you set up some "behavior tags". A behavior tag consists of a description and an icon. You can add icons with a description of your own. Choose a description for the positive behavior tags and a description for the negative behavior tags.

Positive behavior gets the value "+1" and negative behavior gets "-1". The teacher assigns the positive and negative behavior icons to the students.

When the class or week ends, you can take a look at the overview of the behavior icons you assigned to your class. You can check out the student individually or the whole class. You can also add a comment for the student's parents.

With ClassDojo students can keep their own digital portfolio. Students can add pictures and videos of work to their Story, and share it with their parents.

The fun thing about ClassDojo are their little monsters. Every student is a different monster. It's very visual and funny!

Online reward system for middle school and high school

Of course, you need to be able to manage older students as well. They won't be eager to behave better because they get a badge or a treat. They need something else. You'll need Classcraft.

I've recently discovered this amazing class management game! This is probably the most awesome game and class management solution I've ever seen. I'm a total fan of the fantasy world, so why not just use your imagination in the classroom?

Classcraft engages students to live by your class rules in an interactive way.

Students can create their own avatars that have special powers. They play in groups. If someone ignores a deadline, it may fire back on the whole group. Working together and having respect for each other is very important.

Students can gain different points by playing by the classroom rules. For example: students who help other students receive a certain amount of points. When they have enough points, they can use a power like: the "warrior" can eat in class". They can also lose those points by not playing by the rules. If they lose all their points they get a sentence like: bring a treat for the whole class or hand in an assignment a day early.

You can choose every power and sentence. Classcraft also has a timer and a stopwatch available, as well as a quiz tool where the avatars have to battle a "boss". In order to beat the boss, they have to get the answers right.

How to put a reward system to work

School reward systems can help, but you can't just try out something without clearly thinking it through. Here's how you best put a reward system to work.
1. Set class goals
Set class behavior goals that are achievable and measurable. For example: when you raise your hand, all the students stop talking within 20 seconds. Let your students participate in setting up those goals. It will motivate them more to abide by the rules.
2. Define how you will use the reward system
This is the key to success. When are students receiving rewards? What are your boundaries? Make your intentions clear. For example: students will receive a reward when they help another student, they finish homework a day early, when they participate in class.
3. Explain why you gave a reward
Give your students specific, genuine feedback attached to the reward. For example: "John, you showed respect by letting Marc in before you".
4. Give students a voice
Like I've said before, it's important to let your students participate in choosing rewards. To be sure that rewards are valuable and motivating for the students, you can have a brainstorm about it. Let them put together a list of acceptable rewards. You still have the final word!
5. Reward early
Just like giving feedback, rewards must be given shortly after the shown behavior. In that case, students won't forget what they did to deserve it and other students won't get suspicious.
6. Lessen the rewards over time
Raise your expectations for the student's behavior in order to receive the same reward. Students shouldn't get addicted to rewards. They have to work because of an intrinsic motivation. As students achieve success in your class, they can learn to be motivated by their own achievements.
7. Give random rewards
Rewarding students randomly for their behavior and achievements keeps them on their toes. They'll want to be on task just in case!

I've shown you some reward systems, but there are still many more out there, on the internet. Take a look at this website. I'm sure you'll find some inspiration here.

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Using reward systems to motivate students

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Motivating your students to learn and to participate can be very hard. Some teachers have their hands full with class management and they don't even get to teaching. In order to stimulate learning and to motivate good behavior, lots of teachers use rewards for students.

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The Impact of Remedial Class on Students' Learning Achievement

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Collaborating to improve learner outcomes

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Collaborating to improve learner outcomes

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Collaboration is the process of working together to achieve a common goal. In teaching, the common goal is always improved learner outcomes.
Teacher collaboration involves:debating, planning, and problem-solving together
Inquiring together, using evidence and research to guide decision-making
Capitalising on each other’s strengths and working with each other’s weaknesses
Actively contributing to a respectful and supportive learning environment.

Reference: https://elearning.tki.org.nz/Teaching/Innovative-learning-environments/Collaborative-teaching

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Collaborating to improve learner outcomes

Collaboration is the process of working together to achieve a common goal. In teaching, the common goal is always improved learner outcomes.

Teacher collaboration involves:

debating, planning, and problem-solving together

inquiring together, using evidence and research to guide decision-making

capitalising on each other's strengths and working with each other's weaknesses

actively contributing to a respectful and supportive learning environment.

Active collaboration is particularly important for creating a growth-based learning environment and for increasing student learning progress. Research shows that teachers who work together and learn from each other are more successful in improving student outcomes than those who work alone.

Through growth to achievement: Report of the review to achieve educational excellence in Australian schools ,(March 2018)

Shifting from "my learners" to "our learners"

Active collaboration requires a shift from managing the learning of a single group of learners to taking collective responsibility for the success and wellbeing of all learners. Innovative learning environments (ILEs) are changing the ways that teachers teach, plan, and inquire into teaching together, but regardless of the teaching environment, effective collaboration requires a shift of thinking from "me" to "we" and from "my learners" to "our learners".

We must stop allowing teachers to work alone, behind closed doors and in isolation in the staffrooms and instead shift to a professional ethic that emphasises collaboration. We need communities within and across schools that work collaboratively to diagnose what teachers need to do, plan programmes and teaching interventions and evaluate the success of the interventions. We need communities that promote and share professional development aimed at improving teacher effectiveness and expertise, that devise performance 'dashboards' to show success in learning and achievement and that build a coalition of the successful.
What works best in education: The politics of collaborative expertise

Teachers at Stonefields School discuss teacher collaboration in an innovative learning environment, including the shift they have taken from individual to collective effort. The teachers discuss the mentoring, support, dialogue, and questioning that come from teaching in a shared space.

Collaboration and inquiry

Collective inquiry is at the heart of teacher collaboration because it brings teachers together as learners, with a shared goal of improving learner outcomes. In professional learning communities, all teachers contribute as equals, seeking to understand and respond to what is happening for their learners. The focus is on problem-solving together, drawing on both research and student evidence to inform and evaluate changes to practice.

Collective inquiry fosters a trusting and open learning community in which mistakes are an accepted part of learning.

Teachers at St Patrick's Silverstream discuss the benefits of participating in a professional learning community. They comment on the importance of taking ownership over your teaching practice, examining its impact, and being open to making changes.

Key benefits include:

a sense of "all being in it together"

having a critical friend to support you

trying new things and getting feedback from students and colleagues on their impact

being part of an ongoing process on reflection.

Benefits of active teacher collaboration

All members of learning communities benefit from effective collaboration.

Learners benefit from collaborative teaching because teachers take collective responsibility for the progress of all learners. Teachers who know how to collaborate effectively model skills of collaboration to their learners.

Collaborative teaching environments provide opportunities for teachers to learn from and with each other on an ongoing basis. Teachers can observe other teachers in action, engage in professional conversations about the impact of different approaches, and get feedback on their own teaching.

Collaborative teaching teams capitalise on each other's strengths, support each other's professional growth, debate ideas, and problem solve together. This creates synergy, allowing teams to achieve more than they would if teachers work independently.

Educators and students at the Grow Waitaha Eduhui in Christchurch share the impacts of collaborative teaching and learning. Teachers are seeing higher levels of student engagement and improvements in achievement. Students comment on the benefits of working collaboratively and having agency over their learning.

Dr. Julia Aitken discusses the benefits of students being able to observe teachers collaborating, a skill that has many real-world applications. She comments that effective collaboration may involve working constructively and professionally with people you don't naturally get on with.

More information "

Developing collaborative capabilities

To collaborate effectively, teachers need to be deliberate about developing their collaborative capabilities. This includes:

actively contributing to a safe and supportive teaching environment

being skilled at managing conflict

having a growth mindset

taking collective responsibility for the wellbeing and success of all learners.

Key factors that contribute to collaborative teaching

This diagram from Stonefields School illustrates key factors that contribute to collaborative teaching.

More information "

Relational trust

Relational trust is a prerequisite for engaging in challenging conversations and for creating an environment where participants are open to their practice and the outcomes they achieve for students being made transparent. Where there is relational trust, members feel free to open up and acknowledge what they do not know, take risks, and use their knowledge and expertise to support others in the community. Trust relationships facilitate the sharing of data and information about students and the provision of supported educational pathways.

ERO (2017) Collaboration to improve learner outcomes, p 12

Relational trust takes time and effort to establish. Key factors that can contribute to relational trust include:

keeping learner needs at the centre of everything you do

encouraging each other to try new things

being familiar with people's strengths and suspending judgement about their weaknesses

being open about your own mistakes and challenges

accepting other teachers' "non-negotiables"

learning how to engage in difficult conversations

having strategies in place for when things aren't going well.

Teachers at the Grow Waitaha Eduhui explain successful collaboration is supported by:

building relationships with your colleagues - identifying teacher strengths and areas that need work

understanding what collective responsibility means

knowing your learners and keeping the needs of the children at the centre of decision making.

Establishing a shared vision for collaboration

Having a shared vision is an important part of successful collaboration. Teachers who understand the impact collaboration can have on learners, and on their own teaching practice, are more likely to commit time and energy towards collaborative practices.

A key part of the process is deciding together on the systems, approaches, and measures that will help the team collaborate successfully.

Dr Julia Aitken discusses the importance of having a shared vision for the purpose of education. She highlights the importance of understanding the "why" of change rather than just changing for the sake of it.

Professional conversations

Professional conversations are conversations that focus on improving learner outcomes. Examples include:

observations and improvement-focused feedback

identifying issues of practice and problem solving them together, often as part of a professional learning community

critically examining student results and exploring what they mean for professional practice.

Dr Helen Timperley, Professor of Education at the University of Auckland, discusses key findings from her literature review examining the research on professional conversations at schools. She describes enablers for effective professional conversations .

Resources - the tools, materials, protocols, and expertise that help to shape conversations.

Relationships - relationships of trust, challenge, and mutual respect that lead to participants feeling empowered to make a difference.

Processe s - processes that keep the focus of conversations on learner outcomes.

Knowledge - enabling knowledge that leads to changes in practice.

Culture - an inquiry-focused and problem-solving culture in which participants take collective responsibility for problem solving and creating change. A key factor of developing such a culture is teachers being prepared to examine their own practice.

More information "

Managing conflict

Developing the communication skills required to manage conflict is essential for successful collaboration.

A key challenge for all teachers is knowing how to have difficult conversations with colleagues (conversations that you might prefer to avoid).

The small stuff, often quite low level, can have huge "get up your nose" potential. How tidy, how timely, of how your hub colleagues do a wall display has the potential to cause dissonance, or what we have simply come to term rub amongst team members."

Martin & Bradbeer (2016)

Learning how to address points of difference with a colleague includes understanding the conversation that needs to be had, when it needs to happen, and the right person to have it with.

Kirsten Harris-Tatana from South Hornby School discusses the steps teachers employed to establish trust and build relationships that support collaboration. Using Joan Dalton's Learning Talk series, the team identified keys to building successful relationships, including:

discussing, acknowledging, and agreeing on non-negotiables before working in a collaborative space

taking time to discuss small problems

supporting new team members by seeking their ideas and input into already established systems and processes.

We have watched the most synergetic teams provide time and forums to have conversations about how individuals like to be supported, how they like to be communicated with - "elephant time" on meeting agendas, where potential elephants growing within the hub are addressed and worked through.

Martin & Bradbeer (2016)

A continuum of conflict management

This table shows how teachers at Stonefields School define a continuum of conflict management.

Manages conflict: The capability to proactively address and resolve conflict through collaborative sense-making

Conflict addressed through sense-making conversations.

Source: Creating collaborative effectiveness: One school's approach .

More information "

Team teaching

In innovative learning environments (ILEs), teachers often work directly with another teacher (or teachers) to meet the learning needs of a large group of learners. Benefits of this approach include:

the ability to group learners according to need, for example, by running needs-based workshops

combining expertise, including cross-disciplinary knowledge

opening up the teaching and learning environment so that teachers and learners learn from one another

opportunities to experiment with alternative approaches to teaching and learning.

Dr Julia Aitken discusses the benefits of working in a collaborative learning environment. Teachers are able to provide targeted support to small groups of students. Collaborative learning environments provide opportunities for teachers to learn from each other through observation and feedback. Dr Aitken provides examples of ways secondary school teachers collaborate across disciplines.

Educators from secondary schools around Canterbury share their cross-curricular approach to collaborative teaching and learning.

Participants of the Canterbury Delving Deeper Conference 2016 share how a change to more collaborative practice has worked for teachers and learners.

Models of team teaching

ILEs provide opportunities for teachers to structure the way they work with students in different ways, depending on the learning needs of the students.

Models of team teaching include:

One teach, one observe: teachers take turns teaching and observing. The purpose of the observation is to gather data that can be analysed later.

Station teaching: each teacher takes responsibility for teaching a different skill or area of content. Students move from one station to the next. Some of the stations can involve independent student learning.

Parallel teaching: teachers teach the same content to different groups. This can be used to differentiate the learning experience, covering the same content but at a different pace or with extra scaffolding.

Tag-team teaching: both teachers share the delivery of content to a group of learners.

Read more about models of team teaching:

Collaborative planning and assessment

Planning and assessing collaboratively helps teachers to better meet the needs of diverse learners.

Collaborative planning

Collaborative planning provides opportunities for teachers to work to their strengths. At secondary schools, collaborative planning can help to make cross-disciplinary connections evident, with students exploring key concepts in different contexts.

Anita Head, year 5-6 team leader at Halswell School, discusses the enablers of student success within their innovative learning environment. Shared planning via Google Docs has been important to ensure that each staff member understands what's happening for each of their students. Anita explains, "The key things that have enabled successful learning for our students have been that the staff are all working collaboratively together. So we're learning from each other and developing any of our needs and our strengths in our own practice and we're able to offer a wider range of opportunities for the students.

Planning tools and templates

Everyone's In - An inclusive planning tool that supports teachers to apply principles of Universal Design for Learning when planning.

Collaborative planning template examples - Crowd sourced Google slides with screenshots of teachers' shared planning.

Collaborative assessment

The primary purpose of assessment is to improve students' learning by identifying gaps in what students know, understand, or can do. Because most assessment occurs naturally through everyday classroom interactions, collaborative assessment can require some creativity. For example, some schools track information on behaviour and learning using SMS. (The SMS has been set up to produce a monitoring grid once data has been submitted via text, so teachers only have to enter the data once.)

While larger classes may mean it takes more time to get to know students and their learning needs, having more teachers means that while one teacher works with a group, another can gather data from individual students. Conducting one-to-one formative and summative assessments provides a much clearer understanding of individuals' skill levels. This data can then enable teachers to group and regroup learners for activities according to the skill being taught or practised. Share data gathered through online tools that work best within your team, for example your SMS, Google spreadsheets or docs.

Supporting students to use online tools to demonstrate their learning provides teachers with easy access to their learning processes, enabling virtual feedback and feedforward.

Lisa Dovey, year 7-8 team leader at Halswell School, discusses the benefits of collaborative teaching. Her team uses Google Docs and Google Hangouts to support collaborative planning, teaching, and assessment. She explains, "We do a lot of planning together, which is really fantastic. It means that all of our strengths are put together."

Formal assessment tools

Formal assessment tools can be used to provide valid and reliable information on student learning. Here are some examples:

Other examples of assessment tools are available via TKI .

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Resources

Grow Waitaha

The goal of Grow Waitaha is to assist schools to achieve pedagogical change in a meaningful and manageable way, with a network of support, and to put learners at the centre of that change. This page links to Grow Waitaha's list of resources on approaches to collaborative teaching.

Research and readings

The key components to creating effective collaborative teaching and learning environments

This research project investigates the key components necessary to create effective co-teaching relationships and environments.
What is professional collaboration and how can its practice be enriched and led to support student learning within and across schools?
Gina Benade researched what leading effective and disciplined collaboration within and across schools looks like to better understand how this process can enhance and influence student achievement.

A framework for transforming learning in schools: Innovation and the spiral of inquiry

Using a range of examples from New Zealand, Australia, and Canada, this paper makes the case for new approaches to designing learning and teaching and how we might achieve this. It also provides a model for long term PLD within schools.

Hattie, J. (2015) What works best in education: The politics of collaborative expertise, London: Open Ideas at Pearson

Hattie explores developing collaborative expertise across of all parts of the education system - collaboration horizontally (from teacher to teacher, from school to school) and vertically (from teacher to school leader to policy-maker).

High-quality collaboration benefits teachers and students

A summary analysis of the study by Ronfeldt, M., Farmer, S., McQueen, K., & Grissom, J. (2015). Teacher collaboration in instructional teams and student achievement. American Educational Research Journal, 52 (3), 475-514.

Martin, S. & Bradbeer, C. (2016). Creating collaborative effectiveness: One school's approach. SET: Research Information for Teachers, New Zealand Council for Educational Research, (2)

Creating the conditions for effective teacher collaboration has been seen as a critical component of the work that leaders have been engaged in at Stonefields School since it opened in 2011.

ERO (2017). Collaboration to improve learner outcomes. Wellington: Education Review Office, Te Tari Arotake Mātauranga

This publication is designed to support Communities of Learning | Kāhui Ako by bringing together research findings about effective collaboration in education communities. It is supported by the publication Communities of Learning | Kāhui Ako: working towards collaborative pratice.

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Collaboration is the process of working together to achieve a common goal. In teaching, the common goal is always improved learner outcomes. Teacher collaboration involves: debating, planning, and problem-solving together inquiring together, using evidence and research to guide decision-making capitalising on each other's strengths and working with each other's weaknesses actively contributing to a respectful and supportive learning environment.

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Reflection:
1. STREAM projects
2. I movies/ Key note presentations/ audio files
3. Calculations/ Plotting graphs- Laboratory reports
4. Use of key terms/ writing reports- coursework evidence

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Effectively developing students growth in communication.

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Expanding Students' Ideas About How to Give Presentations

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Expanding Students' Ideas About How to Give Presentations

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Reflection questions:

Who is my audience?

Am I trying to persuade, inform, or entertain?

What would I like to see as an audience member?

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As soon as we tell our fifth-grade students that they will be presenting a project, they immediately ask, "Can I make a PowerPoint?" After years of responding, "But you don't even know what the project is yet," we decided there had to be a better way for our students to get started on projects.

Many elementary students love sharing what they have learned with their class but are sometimes unsure of how to go about it. Frequently, this leads to an excited presenter but a disengaged audience. After brainstorming what our expectations would be for students' projects, we came up with three things that we thought were most important for successful project planning: purpose, depth, and delivery. By using our simple, three-step framework, our students have been able to create detailed, engaging projects that use a variety of delivery methods. This framework also gives students more autonomy in their work, something that's particularly important for this age group.

Purpose

Before students can begin a project, they have to have a specific purpose in mind. Often, this purpose comes from the teacher, but when students decide the direction of their project, they feel empowered to grow their own ideas. If they can clearly explain the purpose of their project, they can move quickly into the research portion without having to sift through the seemingly endless resources at their fingertips. We like to use the Question Formulation Technique to help our students get started. After generating questions, students can choose the question that interests them most.
Purpose reflection questions:

Why am I doing this project?

What questions do I have about this topic?

What am I excited to learn more about?

Depth

After choosing a topic or question, students must break it down into smaller pieces. This could mean finding connections between their topic and personal interests or generating more questions that will lead them closer to finding the answer to their main question. This provides the road map that will help them identify the resources they should use and direct their research.
Depth reflection questions:

How detailed do I need or want to be?

What resources are available and reliable?

Delivery

Helping students find an appropriate method of delivery is an extremely important part of our framework. In the past, our students have felt limited to using only basic presentation tools, like slides or posters. While students may use these methods, we do not want them to feel confined to only those options. Young learners are stunningly creative and should be able to share their knowledge in a way that they find exciting, but also in a way that is appropriate for their topic.

We encourage our students to shift their focus from presentation tools they are familiar with to the tools that best suit their project. Further, students need to identify their audience and if they are hoping to inform, persuade, entertain, or some combination of those. If students are unsure which presentation method to choose or are working in groups and disagree about method, they can use a decision matrix to help. We also encourage our students to think about what they would be excited to see as an audience member.
Delivery reflection questions:

Who is my audience?

Am I trying to persuade, inform, or entertain?

What would I like to see as an audience member?

Supporting Student Voice and Choice

In our classes, we usually encounter two types of students: those who cannot wait to share and those who would rather do anything other than present something in front of an audience. This is something we love because it means we can help our learners find creative solutions.

We want our students to feel empowered to authentically be themselves, and every presentation is an opportunity for that to happen. For example, one of our former students was shy in front of the class but loved puppets. He was able to present his projects on recycling and pollution with his puppets, and, honestly, he captivated his audience more than many adult presenters we have seen. Another student loved Minecraft and created an entire human body, complete with in-game signs identifying and describing each organ and body system.

We have seen skits, songs, models (both physical and digital), videos, radio shows, dynamic slide presentations, drawings, and animations from young learners who were excited to share them. We have students using technology tools and programs that we had no idea existed, yet they are able to combine the tools with their newfound knowledge with ease. Further, every time a student presents to our classes, we get to learn something new about them and see their skills applied in a new way.

Since we implemented our purpose, depth, and delivery framework, our students have been sharing their research with us and asking for our feedback on their choice of delivery method, instead of simply copying and pasting information from the internet. We have moved beyond presentations for only our class and have had students present ideas to other classes and our school leadership team. Our students feel empowered to take their learning outside of our classroom walls and naturally expand their knowledge beyond our standards and curriculum. They feel connected to the information they are sharing and have grown personally as well as academically.

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Expanding Students' Ideas About How to Give Presentations

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As soon as we tell our fifth-grade students that they will be presenting a project, they immediately ask, "Can I make a PowerPoint?" After years of responding, "But you don't even know what the project is yet," we decided there had to be a better way for our students to get started on projects.

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Importance of Developing Communicative Competence Among Students.

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Importance of Developing Communicative Competence Among Students.

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Learning Objectives

1. Define communication competence.

2. Explain each part of the definition of communication competence.

3. Discuss strategies for developing communication competence.

4. Discuss communication apprehension and public speaking anxiety and employ strategies to manage them.

Communication competence has become a focus in higher education over the past couple of decades as educational policy makers and advocates have stressed a "back to basics" mentality (McCroskey, 1984). The ability to communicate effectively is often included as a primary undergraduate learning goal along with other key skills like writing, critical thinking, and problem solving. You likely haven't heard professors or university administrators use the term communication competence, but as we learn more about it in this section, I am sure you will see how communication competence can benefit you in many aspects of your life. Since this book focuses on communication in the real world, strategies for developing communication competence are not only limited to this section. A "Getting Competent" feature box is included in each chapter, specifically to help you develop communication competence.

Defining Competence

We have already defined communication, and you probably know that to be competent at something means you know what you're doing. When we combine these terms, we get the following definition: communication competence refers to the knowledge of effective and appropriate communication patterns and the ability to use and adapt that knowledge in various contexts (Cooley & Roach, 1984). To better understand this definition, let's break apart its components.

The first part of the definition we will unpack deals with knowledge. The cognitive elements of competence include knowing how to do something and understanding why things are done the way they are (Hargie, 2011). People can develop cognitive competence by observing and evaluating the actions of others. Cognitive competence can also be developed through instruction. Since you are currently taking a communication class, I encourage you to try to observe the communication concepts you are learning in the communication practices of others and yourself. This will help bring the concepts to life and also help you evaluate how communication in the real world matches up with communication concepts. As you build a repertoire of communication knowledge based on your experiential and classroom knowledge, you will also be developing behavioral competence.

The second part of the definition of communication competence that we will unpack is the ability to use. Individual factors affect our ability to do anything. Not everyone has the same athletic, musical, or intellectual ability. At the individual level, a person's physiological and psychological characteristics affect competence. In terms of physiology, age, maturity, and ability to communicate affect competence. In terms of psychology, a person's mood, stress level, personality, and level of communication apprehension (level of anxiety regarding communication) affect competence (Cooley & Roach, 1984). All these factors will either help or hinder you when you try to apply the knowledge you have learned to actual communication behaviors. For example, you might know strategies for being an effective speaker, but public speaking anxiety that kicks in when you get in front of the audience may prevent you from fully putting that knowledge into practice.

The third part of the definition we will unpack is ability to adapt to various contexts. What is competent or not varies based on social and cultural context, which makes it impossible to have only one standard for what counts as communication competence (Cooley & Roach, 1984). Social variables such as status and power affect competence. In a social situation where one person-say, a supervisor-has more power than another-for example, his or her employee-then the supervisor is typically the one who sets the standard for competence. Cultural variables such as race and nationality also affect competence. A Taiwanese woman who speaks English as her second language may be praised for her competence in the English language in her home country but be viewed as less competent in the United States because of her accent. In summary, although we have a clear definition of communication competence, there are not definitions for how to be competent in any given situation, since competence varies at the individual, social, and cultural level.

Despite the fact that no guidelines for or definitions of competence will be applicable in all situations, the National Communication Association (NCA) has identified many aspects of competence related to communication. The primary focus has been on competencies related to speaking and listening, and the NCA notes that developing communication competence in these areas will help people in academic, professional, and civic contexts (Morreale, Rubin, & Jones, 1998). To help colleges and universities develop curriculum and instruction strategies to prepare students, the NCA has defined what students should be able to do in terms of speaking and listening competencies by the time they graduate from college:

1. State ideas clearly.

2. Communicate ethically.

3. Recognize when it is appropriate to communicate.

4. Identify their communication goals.

5. Select the most appropriate and effective medium for communicating.

6. Demonstrate credibility.

7. Identify and manage misunderstandings.

8. Manage conflict.

9. Be open-minded about another's point of view.

10. Listen attentively.

These are just some of the competencies the NCA identified as important for college graduates. While these are skill focused rather than interpersonally or culturally focused, they provide a concrete way to assess your own speaking competencies and to prepare yourself for professional speaking and listening, which is often skill driven. Since we communicate in many different contexts, such as interpersonal, group, intercultural, and mediated, we will discuss more specific definitions of competence in later sections of the book.

Developing Competence

Knowing the dimensions of competence is an important first step toward developing competence. Everyone reading this book already has some experience with and knowledge about communication. After all, you've spent many years explicitly and implicitly learning to communicate. For example, we are explicitly taught the verbal codes we use to communicate. On the other hand, although there are numerous rules and norms associated with nonverbal communication, we rarely receive explicit instruction on how to do it. Instead, we learn by observing others and through trial and error with our own nonverbal communication. Competence obviously involves verbal and nonverbal elements, but it also applies to many situations and contexts. Communication competence is needed in order to understand communication ethics, to develop cultural awareness, to use computer-mediated communication, and to think critically. Competence involves knowledge, motivation, and skills. It's not enough to know what good communication consists of; you must also have the motivation to reflect on and better your communication and the skills needed to do so.

In regards to competence, we all have areas where we are skilled and areas where we have deficiencies. In most cases, we can consciously decide to work on our deficiencies, which may take considerable effort. There are multiple stages of competence that I challenge you to assess as you communicate in your daily life: unconscious incompetence, conscious incompetence, conscious competence, and unconscious competence (Hargie, 2011). Before you have built up a rich cognitive knowledge base of communication concepts and practiced and reflected on skills in a particular area, you may exhibit unconscious incompetence , which means you are not even aware that you are communicating in an incompetent manner. Once you learn more about communication and have a vocabulary to identify concepts, you may find yourself exhibiting conscious incompetence . This is where you know what you should be doing, and you realize that you're not doing it as well as you could. However, as your skills increase you may advance to conscious competence , meaning that you know you are communicating well in the moment, which will add to your bank of experiences to draw from in future interactions. When you reach the stage of unconscious competence , you just communicate successfully without straining to be competent. Just because you reach the stage of unconscious competence in one area or with one person does not mean you will always stay there. We are faced with new communication encounters regularly, and although we may be able to draw on the communication skills we have learned about and developed, it may take a few instances of conscious incompetence before you can advance to later stages.

In many introductory communication classes that I teach, a student usually says something like "You must be really good at this stuff since you study it and have been teaching it for a while." At the same time students assume that I have a high level of communication competence, they are hard on themselves for being at the stage of conscious incompetence, where they catch themselves communicating poorly in regards to a concept we recently studied. In response to both of these comments, I say, "Just because I know the concepts and definitions doesn't mean I always put them to good use. We're all imperfect and fallible, and if we expect to be perfect communicators after studying this, then we're setting ourselves up for failure. However, when I do mess up, I almost always make a mental note and reflect on it. And now you're starting to do the same thing, which is to notice and reflect on your communication more. And that already puts you ahead of most people!"

One way to progress toward communication competence is to become a more mindful communicator. A mindful communicator actively and fluidly processes information, is sensitive to communication contexts and multiple perspectives, and is able to adapt to novel communication situations (Burgoon, Berger, & Waldron, 2000). Becoming a more mindful communicator has many benefits, including achieving communication goals, detecting deception, avoiding stereotypes, and reducing conflict. Whether or not we achieve our day-to-day communication goals depends on our communication competence. Various communication behaviors can signal that we are communicating mindfully. For example, asking an employee to paraphrase their understanding of the instructions you just gave them shows that you are aware that verbal messages are not always clear, that people do not always listen actively, and that people often do not speak up when they are unsure of instructions for fear of appearing incompetent or embarrassing themselves. Some communication behaviors indicate that we are not communicating mindfully, such as withdrawing from a romantic partner or engaging in passive-aggressive behavior during a period of interpersonal conflict. Most of us know that such behaviors lead to predictable and avoidable conflict cycles, yet we are all guilty of them. Our tendency to assume that people are telling us the truth can also lead to negative results. Therefore, a certain amount of tentativeness and mindful monitoring of a person's nonverbal and verbal communication can help us detect deception. However, this is not the same thing as chronic suspicion, which would not indicate communication competence. This is just the beginning of our conversation about communication competence. Regarding the previous examples, we will learn more about paraphrasing in Chapter 5 "Listening", conflict management in Chapter 6 "Interpersonal Communication Processes", and deception in Chapter 4 "Nonverbal Communication".

"Getting Competent"

Getting Started on Your Road to Communication Competence

The "Getting Competent" boxes throughout this book are meant to help you become a more confident and skilled communicator. While each box will focus on a specific aspect of communication competence, this box addresses communication competence more generally. A common communication pitfall that is an obstacle on many students' roads to communication competence is viewing communication as "common sense."

Many students note that some of what we learn in communication classes is "common sense." I agree with this observation in some cases but disagree with it in others. As I've noted before, this class builds on knowledge that you have already gained, through experience and observation as a person with many years of communication under your belt. For example, a student might say that it is "common sense" that conflict avoidance can lead to built-up tensions that eventually hurt an interpersonal relationship. But many of us avoid confronting what is causing conflict in our relationships even though we know it's better to talk about our problems than to let them build up. In order to put that "commonsense" knowledge to competent use, we must have a more nuanced understanding of how conflict and interpersonal communication relate and know some conflict management strategies.

Communication is common in that it is something that we spend most of our time doing, but the ability to make sense of and improve our communication takes competence that is learned through deliberate study and personal reflection. So, to get started on your road to competence, I am proposing that you do two things. First, challenge yourself to see the value in the study of communication. Apply the concepts we are learning to your life and find ways to make this class help you achieve your goals. Second, commit to using the knowledge you gain in this class to improve your communication and the communication of those around you. Become a higher self-monitor, which means start to notice your communication more. We all know areas where we could improve our communication, and taking this class will probably expose even more. But you have to be prepared to put in the time to improve; for example, it takes effort to become a better listener or to give better feedback. If you start these things now you will be primed to take on more communication challenges that will be presented throughout this book.

1. What aspects of communication do you think are "common sense?" What aspects of communication do you think require more formal instruction and/or study?

2. What communication concept has appealed to you most so far? How can you see this concept applying to your life?

3. Do a communication self-assessment. What are your strengths as a communicator? What are your weaknesses? What can you do to start improving your communication competence?

Overcoming Anxiety

Whether you will give your first presentation in this class next week or in two months, you may be one of many students in the introduction to communication studies course to face anxiety about communication in general or public speaking in particular.

Decades of research conducted by communication scholars shows that communication apprehension is common among college students (Priem & Solomon, 2009). Communication apprehension (CA) is fear or anxiety experienced by a person due to actual or imagined communication with another person or persons. CA includes multiple forms of communication, not just public speaking. Of college students, 15 to 20 percent experience high trait CA, meaning they are generally anxious about communication. Furthermore, 70 percent of college students experience some trait CA, which means that addressing communication anxiety in a class like the one you're taking now stands to benefit the majority of students (Priem & Solomon, 2009). Public speaking anxiety is type of CA that produces physiological, cognitive, and behavioral reactions in people when faced with a real or imagined presentation (Bodie, 2010). Research on public speaking anxiety has focused on three key ways to address this common issue: systematic desensitization, cognitive restructuring, and skills training (Bodie, 2010). Communication departments are typically the only departments that address communication apprehension explicitly, which is important as CA is "related to negative academic consequences such as negative attitudes toward school, lower over-all classroom achievement, lower final course grades, and higher college attrition rates" (Allen, Hunter, & Donohue, 2009). Additionally, CA can lead others to make assumptions about your communication competence that may be unfavorable. Even if you are intelligent, prepared, and motivated, CA and public speaking anxiety can detract from your communication and lead others to perceive you in ways you did not intend. CA is a common issue faced by many people, so you are not alone. We will learn more about speaking anxiety in Chapter 12 "Public Speaking in Various Contexts". While you should feel free to read ahead to that chapter, you can also manage your anxiety by following some of the following tips.
Top Ten Ways to Reduce Speaking Anxiety

1. Remember, you are not alone. Public speaking anxiety is common, so don't ignore it-confront it.

2. You can't literally "die of embarrassment." Audiences are forgiving and understanding.

3. It always feels worse than it looks.

4. Take deep breaths. It releases endorphins, which naturally fight the adrenaline that causes anxiety.

5. Look the part. Dress professionally to enhance confidence.

6. Channel your nervousness into positive energy and motivation.

7. Start your outline and research early. Better information = higher confidence.

8. Practice and get feedback from a trusted source. (Don't just practice for your cat.)

9. Visualize success through positive thinking.

10. Prepare, prepare, prepare! Practice is a speaker's best friend.

Key Takeaways

Communication competence refers to the knowledge of effective and appropriate communication patterns and the ability to use and adapt that knowledge in various contexts.

To be a competent communicator, you should have cognitive knowledge about communication based on observation and instruction; understand that individual, social, and cultural contexts affect competence; and be able to adapt to those various contexts.

Getting integrated: The NCA notes that developing communication competence in speaking and listening will help college students in academic, professional, and civic contexts.

Levels of communication competence include unconscious incompetence, conscious incompetence, conscious competence, and unconscious competence.

In order to develop communication competence, you must become a more mindful communicator and a higher self-monitor.

Communication apprehension (CA) refers to fear or anxiety experienced by a person due to real or imagined communication with another person or persons. Public speaking anxiety is a form of CA that more specifically focuses on anxiety about giving a public presentation. Both are commonly experienced by most people and can be managed using various strategies.

Exercises

1. Getting integrated: Evaluate your speaking and listening competencies based on the list generated by the NCA. Out of the skills listed, which ones are you more competent in and less competent in? Which skill will be most useful for you in academic contexts? Professional contexts? Personal contexts? Civic contexts?

2. Think of a person you know who you think possesses a high level of communication competence. What makes you think this? What communication characteristics do they have that you might want to have yourself?

3. What anxieties do you have regarding communication and/or public speaking? Since communication and speaking are a necessary part of life, identify some strategies you can use to manage those anxieties.

References

Allen, M., John E. Hunter, and William A. Donohue, "Meta-analysis of Self-Report Data on the Effectiveness of Public Speaking Anxiety Treatment Techniques," Communication Education 38, no. 1 (2009): 54-76.

Bodie, G. D., "A Racing Heart, Rattling Knees, and Ruminative Thoughts: Defining, Explaining, and Treating Public Speaking Anxiety," Communication Education 59, no. 1 (2010): 72.

Burgoon, J. K., Charles R. Berger, and Vincent R. Waldron, "Mindfulness and Interpersonal Communication," Journal of Social Issues 56, no. 1 (2000): 105.

Cooley, R. E., and Deborah A. Roach, "A Conceptual Framework," in Competence in Communication: A Multidisciplinary Approach, ed. Robert N. Bostrom (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1984), 25.

Hargie, O., Skilled Interpersonal Interaction: Research, Theory, and Practice (London: Routledge, 2011), 9.

McCroskey, J. C., "Communication Comptence: The Elusive Construct," in Competence in Communication: A Multidisciplinary Approach, ed. Robert N. Bostrom (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1984), 259.

Morreale, S., Rebecca B. Rubin, and Elizabeth Jones, Speaking and Listening Competencies for College Students (Washington, DC: National Communication Association, 1998), n.p.

Priem, J. S., and Denise Haunani Solomon, "Comforting Apprehensive Communicators: The Effects of Reappraisal and Distraction on Cortisol Levels among Students in a Public Speaking Class," Communication Quarterly 57, no. 3 (2009): 260.

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Define communication competence. Explain each part of the definition of communication competence. Discuss strategies for developing communication competence. Discuss communication apprehension and public speaking anxiety and employ strategies to manage them. Communication competence has become a focus in higher education over the past couple of decades as educational policy makers and advocates have stressed a "back to basics" mentality (McCroskey, 1984).

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Co-operative Speaking Strategy through Peer Interaction.

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Co-operative Speaking Strategy through Peer Interaction.

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Teaching speaking must be focussed on the real language use and  speaking in English teaching is referred as an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing, receiving and processing information (Brown, 1994; Burns & Joyce, 1997).

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Strategies in keeping students' attention while attending class virtually.

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Strategies in keeping students' attention while attending class virtually.

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This past year has presented a unique challenge for teaching that has truly never been encountered before. As a teacher in a regular classroom, you are able to control or at least observe the actions and behaviors of your students. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, teachers can often struggle to truly retain the attention of their classes. Teachers can only see a small box of your student, it is almost impossible to know that you have your student's full attention at all times. Below are six unique ways to capture and retain your student's full attention at all times.

1. Cut Back to Only What is Crucial

A part of you will be thinking that every part of your lesson is important! To an extent this is true, but unfortunately a child's attention over a Zoom call is reduced even further than it usually would be in a classroom. Even though distraction is present at school through classmates, there are even more distractions at home. If there is too much 'fluff' or 'fat around the meat' of what you are trying to teach, students will drift off or lose focus and not retain the information.

2. Make 'Eye' Contact

Business journalist Steve Mirren details the importance of eye contact on Writemyx and Brit student. He says, "Even though actual eye contact is impossible over online platforms, it is important to look at the camera during live sessions or during recordings." Although it may be tempting to look at your recording camera or screen while you teach, the most important aspect of teaching is maintaining connection with your students. Even though the only connection you can make is through a camera, this will retain your student's attention and increase their capacity to learn.

3. Be Clear and Organized While Teaching

It is always extremely important to be clear and straight forward while teaching, but even more so over the computer where a student's attention is so fleeting. Amy Harper from 1 Day 2 write and Origin writings has often stated that, "Students will seize any moment of 'weakness' where you falter to drift off and check out mentally." Make sure that you write a concise lesson plan for yourself and stick to it. Try not to let your student's wander off on tangents or get off topic yourself while teaching. Staying focused yourself will turn up mirrored in your students.

4. Set Clear Lesson Plans and Goals for Each Session

Following on from the previous point regarding organization, comes the ideal of lesson plans. Though you need to have your own personal lesson plan, but also provide them for your students. Lining out a clear three-point plan of 'learning goals' for your students will break up the lesson for students and give them goals of learning to reach each lesson.

5. Work in Breaks and 'Check-In' Points

Breaks are almost as important as the teaching segments, as they keep students' attention captured and let students recuperate from the learning segments and re-focus. Individually check in with your students if you can, make sure that they are all on task and understand the content. Breaks and check-in points are key to maintaining your student's focus during online lessons.

6. Be Commanding and Captivating

This one is the string that ties it all together. Lesson plans, planning, and organization are all crucial parts to building an effective online learning experience but can only be tied together with simple good teaching. Effective and productive teaching is the key that unlocks student learning and is what will truly capture your students attention. Though there are many aforementioned contributors to keeping student attention, the most effective way to keep your students captivated is to simply be captivating. Love what you do and do it well. Be creative, inventive, and teach your students to love what you are teaching as much as you do.

Being captivating and keeping student attention over the last year on online platforms has been incredibly difficult for teachers. A child or teenager's attention span is short enough as it is, and online learning has not made that any easier. Hopefully, the above six tactics will be a stepping stone to improving online learning for not only your students, but make lessons more enjoyable for teachers as well!

Tags: Remote Learning, Remote Teaching, Virtual Classroom

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Author: Regina Wheeler

Regina Wheeler is an accomplished e-learning consultant at Phd Kingdom and Do my coursework. She is constantly moving from project to project, as she is around the world. She loves speaking and writing on management, marketing and finance. If you would like to read more of her work, you can find it on Write my essay.

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6 Ways to Keep Your Students' Attention During Remote Learning - Sched

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This past year has presented a unique challenge for teaching that has truly never been encountered before. As a teacher in a regular classroom, you are able to control or at least observe the actions and behaviors of your students. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, teachers can often struggle to truly retain the attention of...

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Hello Erwin. I would like to join your group (Taif).

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Dear Erwin
I would like to join your group
Tareq
Thank you

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Population of study - Grade 9 Students

Hypothesis - Student's mental math improvement will result in summative math improvement

Reason of Research - We believe that students struggle in their summative assessment because they have poor mental math

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Pls use this template for your PLP Report.

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Supporting Students with Reading Comprehension Skills

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Supporting Students with Reading Comprehension Skills

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This is an example of an action research project on test anxiety on reading comprehension tests for non-native speakers of English. The study was conducted in a junior high. You may read the full study online: http://www.amazon.com/Students-Skills-Reading-Comprehension-Tests-ebook/dp/B006JS1MEK/ Action research projects offer a systematic way for teachers, instructors, facilitators, moderators, mentors, coaches, managers, and anyone who is required to manage people.

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Jean McNiff and Jack Whitehead- doing and writing action research- Sage, London 2009

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How can a teacher kickstart action research in their classroom?

These three methods are a simple and highly effective model for teachers to develop action research. You can learn more in Just Great Teaching and discover implementation ideas in a practical training day.

What about classroom research?

With the rise of research influencing education, we need to also raise the profile of action research in the classroom. The challenge for all teachers is how to do this in the busy nature of school life. Below I offer some models which can be used in two ways: a) for day to day classroom practice and b) developing as a school culture for teacher appraisal, where teachers set their own targets - a process alien to some schools, which I am pleased to report, is slowly evolving in schools.

1. Where to start?

You may want to consider using the 5 Minute Research Plan as a framework, but here are a set of simple questions to consider:

1. Who? Which student names crop up time and time again? Which students are rewarded the most? Which have few rewards and no behaviour incidents and are generally off the radar? Find a method for identifying a group of students.

2. What? Search for proven programmes to improve, for example, behaviour from nearby schools or organisations that can support particular groups of students.

3. When and where? On which day and at what time should this intervention occur, and in which space?

4. How? Which intervention and adult is best suited to the child?

5. What next? What impact has the intervention had and what progress has been made?

Download these two research templates from the resources section of this website...

2. Accessing research better

1. Sign up to your subject association's magazine or the Chartered College of Teaching. This subscription will give you access to research beyond paywalls.

2. Organisations such as BERA, BELMAS, the EEF, NESTA and various think tanks and other popular organisations offer useful newsletter subscription and do make a difference!

3. Use apps such as Pocket - brilliant for reducing workload and our inbox - to save any interesting articles you come across and would like to read when you find the time.

4. Try Audible to listen to books on the move and subscribe to an ever-increasing range of teacher podcasts.

5. If you are starting to consider a master's or doctoral degree, consider using plugins on your internet browser such as Mendely, Zotero and Google Scholar to save, access and offer citation.

Research tips video for teachers

3. Conducting your own research

Once you've started reading up on research relating to teaching and learning and incorporating some ideas into your teaching practice, you might want to conduct your own action research project on a specific area that interests you. Here is an excellent framework Mark Quinn (UCL) and I provided to fourteen teachers who took part in our Verbal Feedback Research Project.

Ask

What do we know about current practice?

What types of evidence can we gather?

What evidence can we gather that will be valid?

What will be an efficient way of measuring change?

What should the final outcome be?

Investigate

What types of evidence are currently available?

How do we test them for validity and reliability?

What are the pitfalls of evidence collection?

How do we collect evidence without it adding to teachers' workload?

What ethical risks should be considered when collecting the data?

Innovate

What tentative claim could we make once you have your focus and evidence and you are starting to trial ideas?

What is your evidence currently saying?

What is expected, unexpected, overheard and contrary evidence?

How can you transfer this knowledge from research and development?

Reflect

What do we know about effective professional development in this area?

How can your research and development align with this professional development?

How can you share and celebrate your findings?

Later this week and using the above, I will be publishing some research conducted with UCL to answer the Verbal Feedback research Project question: 'To what extent does verbal feedback improve student engagement among disadvantaged pupils in Year 7 or 8?' It may help shape the marking narrative...

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How Can A Teacher Kickstart Action Research In Their Classroom? 3 Helpful Methods To Ease The Burden by @TeacherToolkit...

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How can a teacher kickstart action research in their classroom? These three methods are a simple and highly effective model for teachers to develop action research. You can learn more in Just Great Teaching and discover implementation ideas in a practical training day. What about classroom research?

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When teachers redesign learning experiences to make school more relevant to students' lives, they can't ignore assessment. For many teachers, the most vexing question about real-world learning experiences such as project-based learning is: How will we know what students know and can do by the end of this project?

Teachers at the Siena School in Silver Spring, Maryland, decided to figure out the assessment question by investigating their classroom practices. As a result of their action research, they now have a much deeper understanding of authentic assessment and a renewed appreciation for the power of learning together.

Their research process offers a replicable model for other schools interested in designing their own immersive professional learning. The process began with a real-world challenge and an open-ended question, involved a deep dive into research, and ended with a public showcase of findings.

Start With an Authentic Need to Know

Siena School serves about 130 students in grades 4-12 who have mild to moderate language-based learning differences, including dyslexia. Most students are one to three grade levels behind in reading.

Teachers have introduced a variety of instructional strategies, including project-based learning, to better meet students' learning needs and also help them develop skills like collaboration and creativity. Instead of taking tests and quizzes, students demonstrate what they know in a PBL unit by making products or generating solutions.

"We were already teaching this way," explained Simon Kanter, Siena's director of technology. "We needed a way to measure, was authentic assessment actually effective? Does it provide meaningful feedback? Can teachers grade it fairly?"

Focus the Research Question

Across grade levels and departments, teachers considered what they wanted to learn about authentic assessment, which the late Grant Wiggins described as engaging, multisensory, feedback-oriented, and grounded in real-world tasks. That's a contrast to traditional tests and quizzes, which tend to focus on recall rather than application and have little in common with how experts go about their work in disciplines like math or history.

The teachers generated a big research question: Is using authentic assessment an effective and engaging way to provide meaningful feedback for teachers and students about growth and proficiency in a variety of learning objectives, including 21st-century skills?

Take Time to Plan

Next, teachers planned authentic assessments that would generate data for their study. For example, middle school science students created prototypes of genetically modified seeds and pitched their designs to a panel of potential investors. They had to not only understand the science of germination but also apply their knowledge and defend their thinking.

In other classes, teachers planned everything from mock trials to environmental stewardship projects to assess student learning and skill development. A shared rubric helped the teachers plan high-quality assessments.

Make Sense of Data

During the data-gathering phase, students were surveyed after each project about the value of authentic assessments versus more traditional tools like tests and quizzes. Teachers also reflected after each assessment.

"We collated the data, looked for trends, and presented them back to the faculty," Kanter said.

Among the takeaways:

Authentic assessment generates more meaningful feedback and more opportunities for students to apply it.

Students consider authentic assessment more engaging, with increased opportunities to be creative, make choices, and collaborate.

Teachers are thinking more critically about creating assessments that allow for differentiation and that are applicable to students' everyday lives.

To make their learning public, Siena hosted a colloquium on authentic assessment for other schools in the region. The school also submitted its research as part of an accreditation process with the Middle States Association.

Strategies to Share

For other schools interested in conducting action research, Kanter highlighted three key strategies.

Focus on areas of growth, not deficiency: "This would have been less successful if we had said, 'Our math scores are down. We need a new program to get scores up,' Kanter said. "That puts the onus on teachers. Data collection could seem punitive. Instead, we focused on the way we already teach and thought about, how can we get more accurate feedback about how students are doing?"

Foster a culture of inquiry: Encourage teachers to ask questions, conduct individual research, and share what they learn with colleagues. "Sometimes, one person attends a summer workshop and then shares the highlights in a short presentation. That might just be a conversation, or it might be the start of a school-wide initiative," Kanter explained. In fact, that's exactly how the focus on authentic assessment began.

Build structures for teacher collaboration: Using staff meetings for shared planning and problem-solving fosters a collaborative culture. That was already in place when Siena embarked on its action research, along with informal brainstorming to support students.

For both students and staff, the deep dive into authentic assessment yielded "dramatic impact on the classroom," Kanter added. "That's the great part of this."

In the past, he said, most teachers gave traditional final exams. To alleviate students' test anxiety, teachers would support them with time for content review and strategies for study skills and test-taking.

"This year looks and feels different," Kanter said. A week before the end of fall term, students were working hard on final products, but they weren't cramming for exams. Teachers had time to give individual feedback to help students improve their work. "The whole climate feels way better."

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How Teachers Can Learn Through Action Research

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When teachers redesign learning experiences to make school more relevant to students' lives, they can't ignore assessment. For many teachers, the most vexing question about real-world learning experiences such as project-based learning is: How will we know what students know and can do by the end of this project?

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A website of Teacher Action Researches carried out in South America.

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A website of Teacher Action Researches carried out in South America.

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by Susan Verner 425,727 views

You are in a small classroom at your local language school or university. It is almost the end of the semester, and your speaking class has been fun all year. They have learned vocabulary, done role plays and strategic interaction, and practiced speaking to one another and to you. The big question now is how do you evaluate their progress? You either speak or you don't, right? It's either good or it isn't. The good news is this: you can give objective grades in a speaking class. Just use the following criteria as you evaluate your students' speaking abilities, and you can give them helpful feedback as to their language learning and also a fair and well earned grade.

Here's How You Can Evaluate Speaking

1. Create a Rubric
Most teachers will be familiar with the concept of grading with a rubric, a table with different criteria and a grading scale. If you have never created a rubric before, it's really quite easy. Simply choose the criteria on which you will grade students and list them along the left side of the page. Then create an even number of columns along the top of the page.

Four is the easiest to start with if this is your first rubric. These columns will represent potential skill levels of your students. For each criterion, define what level of the ability a student at each of the four levels would exhibit. For example, the most straightforward way to label the boxes on the rubric would be, " Meets expectations high, meets expectations low, slightly underperforms, does not meet expectations. " The more rubrics you make, the more detailed you can be in your descriptions. Then, as you evaluate each student, determine at which level he or she is performing. Take the average level among the criteria and you have an objective grade with suggestions for areas in which your student can improve.

2. Pronunciation
Pronunciation is a basic quality of language learning. Though most second language learners will never have the pronunciation of a native speaker, poor pronunciation can obscure communication and prevent an ESL student from making his meaning known. When evaluating the pronunciation of your students, listen for clearly articulated words, appropriate pronunciations of unusual spellings, and assimilation and contractions in suitable places. Also listen for intonation. Are students using the correct inflection for the types of sentences they are saying? Do they know that the inflection of a question is different from that of a statement? Listen for these pronunciation skills and determine into which level your student falls.

3. Vocabulary
After noting your students' pronunciation levels, move to vocabulary. Vocabulary comprehension and vocabulary production are always two separate banks of words in the mind of a speaker, native as well as second language. You should encourage your students to have a large production vocabulary and an even larger recognition vocabulary. For this reason it is helpful to evaluate your students on the level of vocabulary they are able to produce:

* Are they using the specific vocabulary you have instructed them in this semester?
* Are they using vocabulary appropriate to the contexts in which they are speaking?

Listen for the level of vocabulary your students are able to produce without prompting and then decide how well they are performing in this area.

4. Accuracy
Grammar has always been and forever will be an important issue in foreign language study. Writing sentences correctly on a test, though, is not the same as accurate spoken grammar. As your students speak, listen for the grammatical structures and tools you have taught them. Are they able to use multiple tenses? Do they have agreement? Is word order correct in the sentence? All these and more are important grammatical issues, and an effective speaker will successfully include them in his or her language.

5. Communication
A student may struggle with grammar and pronunciation, but how creative is she when communicating with the language she knows? Assessing communication in your students means looking at their creative use of the language they do know to make their points understood. A student with a low level of vocabulary and grammar may have excellent communication skills if she is able to make you understand her, whereas an advanced student who is tied to manufactured dialogues may not be able to be expressive with language and would therefore have low communication skills. Don't let a lack of language skill keep your students from expressing themselves. The more creative they can be with language and the more unique ways they can express themselves, the better their overall communication skills will be.

6. Interaction
Being able to say what you mean with a foreign language is one thing, being able to interact with others is another. Ask your students questions. Observe how they speak to one another. Are they able to understand and answer questions? Can they answer you when you ask them questions? Do they give appropriate responses in a conversation? All these are elements of interaction and are necessary for clear and effective communication in English. A student with effective interaction skills will be able to answer questions and follow along with a conversation happening around him. Great oratory skills will not get anyone very far if he or she cannot listen to other people and respond appropriately. Encourage your students to listen as they speak and have appropriate responses to others in the conversation.

7. Fluency
Fluency may be the easiest quality to judge in your students' speaking. How comfortable are they when they speak? How easily do the words come out? Are there great pauses and gaps in the student's speaking? If there are then your student is struggling with fluency. Fluency does not improve at the same rate as other language skills. You can have excellent grammar and still fail to be fluent. You want your students to be at ease when they speak to you or other English speakers. Fluency is a judgment of this ease of communication and is an important criterion when evaluating speaking.

These criteria, pronunciation, vocabulary, accuracy, communication, interaction and fluency are all markers of a student's overall speaking abilities.

Students may excel in one and struggle in another, and not necessarily the ones you might think. Help your student understand these qualities of effective speakers. Let your students know that you will be listening for these qualities when you evaluate their progress and encourage them to improve their English in these areas. Also, listen to them both when they talk to you and when they talk with other students. They should be able to speak well with one another.

After all, most of the English they will use in the future will be with other nonnative speakers. Finally, remember that a true evaluation will take into consideration more than just the oral interview on the final exam. Listen to your students throughout the semester. Note how they improve in these areas. Encourage them as speakers and learners, and you are sure to reap the benefits, too.

P.S. If you enjoyed this article, please help spread it by clicking one of those sharing buttons below. And if you are interested in more, you should follow our Facebook page where we share more about creative, non-boring ways to teach English.

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by Susan Verner 425,727 views You are in a small classroom at your local language school or university. It is almost the end of the semester, and your speaking class has been fun all year. They have learned vocabulary, done role plays and strategic interaction, and practiced speaking to one another and to you.

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Educators need to use both creativity and knowledge of their students to create lessons that foster engagement.

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The purpose of our action research was to explore classroom opening activities and their effectiveness on students’ attention span and engagement in the classroom. 

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The purpose of our action research was to explore classroom opening activities and their effectiveness on students’ attention span and engagement in the classroom. 

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What benefits of student engagement are vital for success in academics?

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What benefits of student engagement are vital for success in academics?

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What benefits of student engagement are vital for success in academics?

*This post has been updated for accuracy.

The key to student engagement is generating interest in subjects that they may otherwise find "boring." Educators need to use both creativity and knowledge of their students to create lessons that foster engagement.

But what, you may ask are the benefits of increased student engagement?

Discouraging Dropouts

According to Statistic Brain, 8.1% of high school students dropout. Even though this number has been improving over the past few years, it is important that we continue to reduce it.

High school dropouts generally are less successful and more likely to be incarcerated than those who graduate. It is crucial that educators react to changing student needs in order to mitigate the risk of these high school dropouts.

The reason many students ultimately dropout is a lack of engagement with their education. If we can give children a sense of belonging in the classroom, they are far more likely to experience success, which will ultimately lead to higher graduation rates.

Involving Your Students in School Activities

It is no coincidence that disengaged students have the least amount of involvement in school activities. Why is this? Students that do not feel engaged with their education often do the bare minimum to just get by. They are not likely to put in extra effort outside of what is absolutely required.

The solution to this problem is simple. Educators must make a special effort to encourage these students to become more involved. As students become more involved in school activities, they will have a greater sense of belonging, which will ultimately lead to greater academic success.

Reducing Class Disruptions

Every educator can think of a scenario where lessons must be taught repeatedly. This might be necessary because of the difficult subject material or because the students are distracted.

In every classroom, there are also students who often speak out of turn and disrupt the lesson for everyone. More often than not, these kids are acting out because they do not feel adequately engaged in the learning process. Students are more receptive to lessons if they feel interested and engaged in the subject.

Outside of the obvious benefits to student success, fewer disruptions also make teachers more efficient and effective. Instructors who aren't required to constantly revisit topics receive additional free time to teach new material more thoroughly.

Increasing Attendance

According to Get Schooled, students who miss ten or more days are 20% less likely to graduate from high school.

How many students do you think would miss their big soccer or basketball game? Probably not many. So why is it so difficult for educators to develop students that are as passionate about learning as they are about their extracurricular activities? At this point, you may have guessed that engagement is the key to generating this passion.

Once these students are engaged, we can expect them to become more active in the classroom. With increased activity comes a greater sense of responsibility towards the subject and school in general. School can become a sense of pride and enjoyment, which makes these students far less likely to miss class.

Fostering Interaction and Community

It is no secret that children have become increasingly dependent on and consumed by technology. Fifty years ago they played outside together, now they sit alone for hours playing video games. What they are really missing out on is interaction with other children and building a sense of community.

One of the most effective ways to socialize is through our schools. A majority of the friends that I have were made through the school system. Whether it was elementary, middle, or high school, the interactions I had during and after school enabled me to make many friends.

Students who aren't engaged in school often become removed from school activities, which can hinder interaction with others. If we make a conscious effort to engage students, they will have more positive feelings towards school and will be more likely to engage with their fellow students.

Implementing One Solution with Many Benefits

Even with the vast improvements that have been made to the education system, kids are still falling through the cracks. Every child deserves a fair shot at a good education and the benefits that come along with it.

Many problems that people encounter in life start to develop in their school years. Taking aggressive, positive steps today to engage students and improve their overall school experience can help prevent future issues.
Today's blog post written by Eric Walters
Image courtesy of UBC Library Communications

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This post has been updated for accuracy. The key to student engagement is generating interest in subjects that they may otherwise find "boring." Educators need to use both creativity and knowledge of their students to create lessons that foster engagement. But what, you may ask are the benefits of increased student engagement?

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My hypothesis was that if students physically put their fingers/pens/pencils/cursors on the same words being spoken by a speaker, they would retain more information and improve the scores on listening exams. This can work well when any teacher in any subject is lecturing and students hear the words and match it to the written text.

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My hypothesis was that if students physically put their fingers/pens/pencils/cursors on the same words being spoken by a speaker, they would retain more information and improve the scores on listening exams. This can work well when any teacher in any subject is lecturing and students hear the words and match it to the written text.

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By equipping  the students with success skills like  critical thinking, problem solving, and self-management .Project-Based Learning or PBL is an approach where students try to find solutions to an essential question that is based on a real world challenge.

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By equipping  the students with success skills like  critical thinking, problem solving, and self-management .Project-Based Learning or PBL is an approach where students try to find solutions to an essential question that is based on a real world challenge.

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The effective use of questioning to improve teaching and learning

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The effective use of questioning to improve teaching and learning

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Fantastic contribution from the team. Thank you to all the 235 students to who took part in the survey.

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A summary of the team's research from October 2021 to May 2022. Great job and its been a pleasure conducting the Action Research with you guys.

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Anas talks about Action Research at Ajman.MOV

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Mrs. Shannie shares her student feedback after implementing her PLP Action Research project.

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action research short video interview with students

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Mr. Said and Mrs. Shukria studied the effects of using lesson starters to see the effect on student engagement and motivation. Check out their presentation at the PLP Fast Track session.

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Did you know that 94% of our students feel they learn better when teachers ask good questions. 

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Did you know that 94% of our students feel they learn better when teachers ask good questions. 

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See how Mr. Abas, Mr. Anas, Mr. Basem and Mr. Khalil were able to transform the way they used questioning techniques in their classroom.

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Improving outcomes during remote learning. 

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Improving outcomes during remote learning. 

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We discovered ways to improve student outcomes during remote learning! Check out our findings!

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My is research based on style of lesson delivery and assessment methods (Nearpod, quizzes, PowerPoint and world wall). Previous research has been conducted via forms and questionnaires whilst studying for my post graduate degree in education. I also used trial and error methods in the classroom to gauge an understanding of which method was preferred by students.

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Mr. Karam analyzes student surveys and shares his findings. Take a look at the difference between grade 9 and grade 11 students.

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Is it true, that core subjects’ lessons are too many, long and hard? Is it true that term based subjects demand too many tasks/projects?

Our research approach was based on cond

ucting two surveys (qualitative approach) and then applying statistical analysis for both survey’s results (Quantitative approach).

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Check out our findings! After conducting this study... We can now better support students to complete their tasks in year based and term based courses.

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PLP year-based subjects versus term-based subjects