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Taisa Pavlenko

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Taisa Pavlenko

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Дотримуємося карантину!

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Nastia Voloshyna

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Nastia Voloshyna

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Nastia Voloshyna

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Nastia Voloshyna

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Artem Goncharenko

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Sasha Okminska

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So, the British Council lists the six 21st century skills as:

citizenship

collaboration and communication

creativity and imagination

critical thinking and problem solving

digital literacy

student leadership and personal development.

[ON SCREEN: What do you understand by 21st century skills?]
ROB LEWIS (Portugal): The first thing I think of about twenty-first century skills is that we're already almost a quarter of the way through the twenty-first century. So, it feels to me like, er, the terminology is a little bit strange, er, because surely, the skills have changed, from say nineteen ninety-five to twenty nineteen. But anyway, er, in terms of what it means to me, I suppose I associate it with technology above all. This idea of twenty-first century skills, particularly, the use of, er, communication technology. So, communicating online, above all. And, er, I would associate it quite closely with critical thinking as well, particularly in terms of thinking hard and questioning, er, about what you find online. Er, so, in other words, in other words, thinking about the sources of information that you are finding.
KIRSTEEN DONAGHY (Malaysia): When I think of twenty-first century skills, I think of resilience and flexibility. So, you're able to accept and manage change. I think of digital, digital literacy skills and, before that, obviously basic literacy skills, but also, again, the ability to, erm, take on and use, erm, new technology all the time. And I guess part of that too is, erm, then working collaboratively and understanding how you can use modern tools today, erm,  to work with a global audience, to work, erm, with others, and to learn to be active listeners and, erm, compromise with each other. Erm, there's also self-motivation and the ability to learn, and ability to learn how you learn well and, erm, be able to continually learn. So, it's like, life, like, lifelong learning – it's another twenty-first century skill. So, I think twenty-first century skills are resilience, flexibility, digital literacy, collaboration, learning to learn and lifelong learning and self-motivation – being driven.
[ON SCREEN: Why might 21st century skills be important for learners to develop?
KIRSTEEN: I think these are really important because learners will carry these through into their careers. And we no longer have a job for life. We have a life of jobs. And for our learners to understand that and be prepared for that, we need all of these skills that we've talked about.
ROB: When they leave school or when they leave university, they have to demonstrate that they have these kind of skills now. Er, for me, it was very different. So, thirty years ago, I just had to show my certificate from university when I applied for a job. I think recruitment is much more sophisticated now. Employers can be, not always, but can be, er, clearer about exactly what skills they expect potential recruits to have. So, I think that, above all, that is why twenty-first century skills are so important – to help our learners in the job market. Quite apart from the fact that it's, er, very useful on a personal level to, to have the, the kind of skills we're talking about as well.
[ON SCREEN: Have you adopted any teaching approaches which have helped your learners to develop any of these 21st century skills?]
KIRSTEEN: I think a lot of the curriculum now has a, has more focus on global issues. We have the opportunity to take on schooling projects. So, le-, my learners get to know about learners, other learners' cultures, other learners' difficulties, erm, sometimes political regimes in other countries that fascinate them and, erm, and they, they then also learn to use these tools to collaborate and work together. And it's really interesting and very motivating for them. I also do a lot of, erm, learning to learn work. I try to help my learners become autonomous and teach them how to make choices for themselves, how they can find out how they work best. And this will help them too, in the future, know how they can work and to get the best of themselves. Erm, and then things like portfolio assessments, I think are really useful for the learners to be able to make choices themselves, which, erm, work will be assessed and then to understand their own strengths and weaknesses. ROB: I have to be honest, I can't say I have developed or tried to develop these, er, so-called twenty-first century skills in my students, er. Certainly not, er, consciously thinking yeah, I've got to help them develop these. But I like to think that my approach to teaching and, er, the way I try and raise awareness, er, among students about the kind of activities, or related to the kind of activities that we do in class, is actually part of that. So, critical thinking again, is the, the first point that comes to mind. But also, just getting them to reflect on how they communicate with each other and with other people too. Er, getting them to work together as well, getting them to use new technologies to, to carry out tasks. This is something that I try to do anyway in my teaching, without thinking specifically yeah, this will develop the, the, the set of skills the, er, the so-called twenty-first century skills. So, I can't say I've, er, I've actually made changes for that reason alone. But I do think that, perhaps some of the approaches I take in class, could help students, er, in the long-run. I certainly hope so.

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ALISTER: [To camera] I think it's important that we do focus on critical-thinking questions from time to time, we ask questions which aren't obvious. And perhaps challenge their existing, erm, ideas of, of the world. I think every element of education should have, erm, the potential to exploit critical-thinking ideas and to promote critical thinking in our students to help them look at the world and, and just see it through, through clear eyes and ask the questions, which help to understand what's true. And not just accept everything blindly that they hear.

[In classroom. Learners discuss the questions]

[To camera] As a format for the lesson, I can use that every time. Together, we discovered a question, effectively. So, we looked at something, we looked at a map. From that basic examination, finding countries, looking at it, laughing about it, a question emerged. Obviously, it's a question I had before the lesson. But it emerged, as far as the class was concerned, this question emerged – Which is bigger? Greenland or Australia? Er, and then the rest of the lesson is looking into that question. Understanding the question and maybe looking at some answers as well. The hook is the question. And if you've got that fascinating question, then, erm, as long as the question stays interested, interesting, sorry, then you've got the attention of the learners. And I think so much of effective learning is about motivation – wanting to be there, wanting to listen, wanting to understand.

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Learners today live in a globalised and interconnected world, and the quantity of information available to them is increasing more rapidly than at any time in history. The ability to think critically and solve problems is therefore essential.

What are critical thinking and problem solving, and how do they benefit learners?

Critical thinking is a very specific kind of thinking which can benefit learners in three main ways. First, it's effective. It helps learners to avoid common mistakes such as only seeing one side of an issue, discounting new evidence if it conflicts with previously held views, reasoning from passion rather than logic and failing to support statements with evidence. It helps learners become more open-minded. Second, it's novel. Critical thinking involves thinking in new ways – not just remembering previous situations and solutions that are similar enough to guide you. Lastly, critical thinking is self-directed. It requires independent thinking that isn't overly controlled by the teacher or anyone else.

Why are critical thinking and problem solving important?

One reason that critical thinking and problem solving are essential skills is that they enable people to make better decisions and improve their livelihoods. A growing proportion of jobs now require teams of people across the globe to work together to solve unique problems, using approaches that are effective and self-directed. However, few learners learn these skills at school.

PISA tests have revealed that in most countries, fewer than one in ten 15-year-old learners are able to use creative approaches to solve fairly complex problems. According to management consultants McKinsey & Company, 75 million young people around the world are unemployed, yet they do not have the skills needed to do the high- and middle-skilled jobs available.

Of course, critical thinking and problem solving are also important for other reasons which go far beyond jobs. The goal of education is also to enable learners to fulfil their potential and make a positive contribution to the world. Better critical-thinking and problem solving-skills will achieve this too.

Can critical thinking and problem solving be taught?

Critical thinking and problem solving aren't general skills. In other words, being able to think critically about one thing or solve certain types of problems doesn't mean you can think critically about other things or solve other problems. This means learners need content knowledge as well as strategies for critical thinking and problem solving. It's therefore more sensible to integrate critical thinking and problem solving into school subjects, rather than teaching these skills in isolation.

Critical-thinking and problem-solving strategies, such as looking at an issue from multiple perspectives, first need to be made explicit by the teacher and then practised extensively by learners. You need to be prepared to model critical thinking, ask questions and provide feedback that enables learners to solve problems. To help achieve this, curriculum resources will need to be redesigned with critical thinking and problem solving in mind. Last but not least, the focus of exams needs to shift to evaluate these skills as well.

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In this activity, learners work in groups to build a tower using plastic straws and tape. One learner in each group observes the other members of the group and takes notes on how they interact and communicate.

Aim

For learners to develop their collaboration and communication skills by carrying out a group task.

Time

This activity takes around 30 minutes, including post-task discussion.

Age group

This activity is suitable for older primary learners and above.

Resources needed

For this activity, you'll need:

one pack of straws, scissors and tape for each group, with the same amount of each resource for each group

one tennis ball per group

one worksheet for each observer with questions, as shown on this slide.

Procedure

1. Ask learners to work in groups of four or five. Explain that they are going to work together with their group to produce a free-standing structure using plastic straws and tape. Explain that one person in each group will act as an observer. Allocate an observer for each group.

2. Tell learners to collect their resources and give the observers their instructions in the worksheet. Explain that they will need to watch all the participants in the group very carefully and note down how they behave.

3. Set a time limit of around 20 minutes. Explain that learners must work together on the structure, and their work will be judged on height and appearance. Explain that their tower must be able to support the weight of one tennis ball. Remind them that it must be free-standing.

4. Monitor and check that the observers are taking notes. Tell learners when they have one minute left.

5. Bring the activity to a close. Ask the groups to look round at the other structures and decide which is the tallest and which looks the best. They should also confirm that it can support the weight of a tennis ball. Declare a winner.

6. Ask the observers to work together as a new group, while keeping the other learners in their original groups. Tell the observers to compare their observations. Tell the other learners to discuss these questions:

What skills did you use in this task?

What did you learn from the task?

7. Collect feedback from each group.

Could you use this activity with your learners? How would you adapt it?

Observer

Your role is to observe everyone and make detailed notes on what is happening with the task and with the people in your group.

How are the participants working together? Are they working well as a team?

Is there a leader in the group?

Is anyone working alone? How does that affect the team?

Are they co-operating and getting on with the task?

Can you see any other roles emerging in the group – for example, harmoniser, energiser, timekeeper, information giver, information seeker?

How are they communicating?

Is there any language which has been misunderstood and therefore has produced issues with the task?

Is anyone trying to communicate their point but not getting it across? What's happened?

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Some of the most important skills a 21st century leader needs

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Some of the most important skills a 21st century leader needs

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include collaboration, communication, creativity and calculated risk-taking. A 21st century leader needs the ability to motivate and inspire other people through their vision, but also to coach, listen to and sometimes challenge them. They must be passionate and adventurous, but also flexible and sensitive to the needs, skills and personal qualities of other people in the group.

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Digital literacy IS the ability to find , evaluate, utilise, share  and create content using information technologies and the internet.
Digital literacy is important to all teachers, not just those who teach ICT. This means schools have a responsibility to not only promote the development of digital literacy among learners but also build it into the professional development of all teachers so that they're better placed to help their learners. Teachers shouldn't presume that their learners are already digitally literate and that they can do little to help them. Teachers have a critical role in guiding and supporting learners, modelling safe and acceptable practices and in encouraging learners to think critically about digital technologies and the opportunities and risks they might present. It's also true that digital literacies have become so important for the development of other 21st century skills and learning content across the curriculum that they're now essential.
Digital literacy involves mastering a rather complicated mix of skills. You can help your learners do this by integrating these skills into your classes, together with the regular content they deal with in the curriculum.

Activities  to help develop digital literacy
Crowd-sourcing

Infographics for comprehension

Digital note-taking

Reporting and responding

Online comic strip

Video learning journal

Video dictionary

Interactive story time

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How can you develop creativity in your classroom?

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How can you develop creativity in your classroom?

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Both creativity and imagination can be nurtured in school – but they can also be suppressed. Everybody is creative in different circumstances, and you need to create the correct environment for creativity. First, it's important to teach creatively, using imaginative and innovative approaches to deliver the curriculum and make learning more interesting, exciting and memorable. Yet to teach for creativity, in other words, in ways that enable learners themselves to develop their creative capacities, you need to encourage enquiry, imagination and exploration. You can do this by asking enabling questions that encourage dialogue and exploration such as 'What if...?', 'Why?' and 'What would happen if...?' You can also achieve this through extended role play, exploring issues from a particular perspective and experimenting with thoughts and options. You can model possibility thinking, an important element of creativity. If you shape learning around a provocation, a big question or a series of questions, this is more likely to generate creative and imaginative thinking than a curriculum that focuses solely on the transfer of knowledge. Finally, learners are more likely to be creative if they're working towards an outcome or product, if the task has the right level of challenge and requires risk-taking, and if learners can work with you to co-construct the approaches used.

Remember that repetitive and uninspired teaching, with too much emphasis on testing and exams, can reduce learners' ability to be imaginative and creative.

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Assessment for learning in practice

AFL emphasises the creation of a learner-centred classroom with a supportive atmosphere, where students are not afraid to make mistakes and learn from them.
We are going to look at five approaches or strategies that you can use in a lesson or programme of study.

1. Questioning
Questions are a quick and important way of finding out what your learner understands about a subject. You can use this information to plan their teaching.

There are two main types of question: closed and open.

A closed question requires a short answer, such as remembering a fact. The answer is usually right or wrong.
For example, a Geography teacher might ask: 'What is the capital of Peru?'

On average, teachers only wait 0.9 seconds after asking a question before taking an answer from a learner. Mary Rowe suggests that increasing 'wait time' to three seconds improves the quality of answers.

One way to help increase 'wait time', and to ensure the whole class is actively engaged, is to ask your learners to write down the answer to a closed question on a piece of paper, mini whiteboard or tablet, and hold it up. This immediately gives you feedback about who understands, who does not, and therefore what the next steps in the learning might be.

A good strategy to use if a learner gets the answer wrong is to make this into a positive event. You could say: 'I'm glad you said that, as I'm sure lots of other students have the same misunderstanding.'

In an AFL classroom, finding out what learners do not know is as valuable as finding out what they do know. This knowledge will help you to see what material your learners need to spend extra time on to make sure that they all understand.

Open questions need longer answers, and often require the learner to provide an opinion.
E.g. A Physics teacher might ask: 'What will happen to the flow of water through a hose pipe if a smaller nozzle is fitted to it? Explain how this relates to the study of voltage, current and resistance in a simple electric circuit.'

Open questions like this allow all learners to try to answer the question and be part of a discussion. You can then facilitate this discussion, asking questions to develop the discussion such as 'Tell me more about that' and 'Why do you think that?'

'Dialogic teaching' is a term that describes on-going talk between teachers and learners, which leads to effective learning. If you discuss ideas with your learners, you can get a clearer view of what understanding your learners have about a topic, and put right any misunderstandings.

Reflection
Watch the video of a teacher talking about how he uses questioning. Do you use any of these techniques in your own classroom?
Transcript
Want to know more?
This video shows good use of closed questioning. How would you adapt this for your own classroom?

2. Feedback
Feedback is the process in which learners come together with their teachers to discuss where they are in their learning, where they want to be in their learning, and how they are going to get there. It usually involves looking at a particular piece of work done by the learner. Feedback can be described as the 'bridge' between teaching and learning.

The aims and objectives of any assignment must be clearly understood by both the teacher and the learner. You can help by providing 'success criteria' before your learners start work.

Feedback might involve marking. However, a learner may only remember the mark/grade and not act on any comments to improve their work. In an AFL classroom, a teacher will give 'comment only' feedback on their learners' work. If you do want to add a grade, give this later on, so that the learners read the comments before they receive the grade. Effective feedback depends on task-focused comments, rather than ego-focused comments.

Here is an example of ego-focused feedback: 'Great work Melanie, the best in the class.' This kind of feedback can make strong learners complacent, thinking that they do not have anything to do to improve. They might also be scared of trying something they find difficult in case they lose their high place. Weak learners can feel as if there is nothing they can do to get better.

You should aim to provide feedback to each learner that praises task-focused aspects of their work, but also contains targets about how to improve their learning.
E.g. 'Ali, you have written a good introduction to your story. Now, can you think how you can make the description of the main character more striking?'

Reflection
Think about a time when you gave feedback to a learner that could be described as more ego-specific than task specific. What might you have done differently?

Want to know more?
In this video, Dylan Wiliam explains why task-focused feedback is more effective than ego-focused feedback.

There are some good examples of how to give effective feedback in different subject areas on http://www.teachthought.com.

In this handout, by the RAPPS project, you will find lots of suggestions for different ways of giving classroom feedback.

3. Peer assessment or peer feedback
Peer feedback, or peer assessment, is the process by which learners assess each other's work and give each other feedback. This feedback is based on an understanding of what makes a successful piece of work. The teacher is vital to this process, as teachers know their learners and can help them to develop their critical and reflective thinking skills.

Giving learners independence is a great way for them to take responsibility for their own learning. Peer feedback also helps learners to develop their social skills and to use higher-level skills such as thinking critically and analytically.

A successful peer feedback session requires learners to 'think like a teacher' for each other. Each learner will apply the success criteria to another learner's work, and make value judgements based on these. The learner then has to give their partner ideas for how to improve the work. In doing this, they will both be increasing their own understanding of what makes a successful piece of work.

At primary school level, the theory behind AFL is the same, but the tasks might be different, to reflect the different stages of the pupils' cognitive development. For example, learners could use pictures to describe positive and negative aspects of the work.

Reflection
Watch the video of learners taking part in a peer feedback session. Notice how independently they are working. Would this be effective for your learner?
Transcript
Want to know more?
In this video, learners explain what they like about peer feedback.
Transcript
4. Self-assessment
'Students need to learn for themselves how they move up to the next level ... they need to internalise the process. Learning cannot be done for them by the teachers.' (Mary James, 1998)

In self-assessment a learner evaluates their own work, and thinks about their own learning. This helps them to make sense of what the teacher says, relate it to previous learning and use this for new learning. Ultimately, self-assessment enables learners to set their own learning goals and be responsible for their own learning. However, be aware that learners cannot become reflective learners overnight. It takes time and practice to develop these skills, and the role of the teacher is crucial in encouraging this.

"Students need to learn for themselves how they move up to the next level."

Introducing learners to self-assessment
When you introduce self-assessment to your learners, carefully guide the process. To start with, give learners a list of questions to ask themselves, and write down the answers. Starting a 'learning log' or 'reflective journal' is good practice. This is a notebook in which the learner documents their recent experiences, asking themselves questions such as:
'What made sense and what didn't?'
'How does this subject fit in with what I already know?'
'What did I do well and what could I have improved?'

Ideally, you will talk to each of your learners individually to guide their thinking until they feel comfortable with the process. Self-assessment is an activity which requires one-to-one tutorials to be fully successful. In these short sessions, you can ask questions to help your learners to reflect on their studies.

Having thought about how their work could be improved, your learners can then set themselves targets to make their work better. These targets can cover any aspect of learning, from time management to asking more questions in class if they do not understand something.

5. The formative use of school tests and exams
This 'Getting started' guide has focused mainly on formative assessment strategies and checking learning in the classroom. However, learners often have to take summative school tests such as end-of-year exams or final exams.

Return marked test or exam papers to learners, so that they can spend time understanding where they earned most marks and where they had misunderstandings.

After the exam or test, find out which questions were answered less well by most learners. This will give you important information about what subjects, ideas and skills your learners need to work on. You can then focus on explaining the areas of the syllabus that gave problems to most learners. Your learners could also re-work exam questions in class in pairs or groups as a peer-learning activity.

www.headguruteacher.com explains in more depth how internal school tests and exams can be used to maximise learning.

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Getting started with Assessment for Learning

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AFL emphasises the creation of a learner-centred classroom with a supportive atmosphere, where students are not afraid to make mistakes and learn from them. We are going to look at five approaches or strategies that you can use in a lesson or programme of study. 1.

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How do you use questioning in the classroom?

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Вебинар «Использование Flipgrid в рамках дистанционного обучения»

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Flipgrid Инструкция для учеников. Мобильная версия и версия для ПК/ноутбуков.

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About the project

Students, especially teens suffer from social distancing during the pandemic. Even If they get on well with their parents they miss alike social contacts. And of course 15 year-olds want to liberate from their parents. Furthermore there were hardly any possibilities to experience something new and exciting.
The project ist about what heir retreats were / are and what they did / do for their well-being. The results are collected in a sort of travelblog or in a padlet.

AIMS

The students will get to know students from a different country. They' ll learn how English works as a lingua franca. They'll also learn about possibilities and strategies to overcome difficult times and situations auch als the social distancing during the pandemic.

WORK PROCESS

Each student writes a short profile first. They'll share the profiles, meet in groups of three online to talk about small-talk topics. Then each works individually in their retreat. The, present their retreat during covid pandemic by describing the place and atmosphere. They'll add photos.
For early finishers there is the task to add a dream retreat.
After that, they'll See and read each other's entries. They'll meet in groups online and discuss their retreats.

EXPECTED RESULTS

I expect the students to use the English language well and describe places and atmospheres thouroughly.
I also expect them to learn about each other's culture and places.