Mike Scaddan - Engagement - the Key to Success
Reticular Activating System - What is this?
You Control the target and focus – forget WALT’s – he brought them to schools in 1998. A WALT to him is ‘We are going to have fun in English’ – Don’t spend time doing WALTs all the time.
Where attention is your energy goes.
You never know what is around the corner.
Question for the room: What do you want to be your focus today?
Hmmm.
Questions:
- How effectively do you reflect?
- How well do you adapt?
- How effective are you at taking action?
Who takes marking home?
Do it in class. Students MUST be part of the process. Says if ERO asks why – tell them Mike said. Be fresh. Have students be part of that learning.
The educational world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those… E=MC2
So What?
Increased pedagogical knowledge.
More than 15 engagement strategies to come throughout the presentation
I fear the day when literacy and numeracy will become more important than children understanding themselves, how they learn and what their talents are. Schools must provide this opportunity…
Learning about learning and learning about what it means to be a contributing human, should be a powerful exploration for everyone in your school community.
Why would we ever talk to a kid about something that they don’t have any awareness of?
Remember – the brain that does the work, does the learning.
We do the work. Way too much of the work.
It takes a lot of time for us to get confident about answering a question – let alone thinking about what the answer could be.
"I’m not going to say anything until you ask me a question." - Love this. Making us think of questions so that we can learn how to learn more effectively - and as a result -how to be better teachers.
Quick Facts:
Your brain is ready for algebra at the age of 18.
Kids are able to tell the time from 10-12.
A whole lot of kids who can get the right answer – but can’t apply it to real life.
If we keep giving things for nothing they become nothing of worth.
We need depth in it. It’s our job to arrange the scene.
Our achievers are not achieving.
Knots poem –
There is something I don’t know
That I'm supposed to know
I don’t know what it is that I don’t know
And yet I’m supposed to know
And I look stupid
If I seem both not to know it
And not to know it.....
Rd. Liang
Three reasons to ask questions:
- Make sense of it - what you're learning
- 60% will have the same question
- Help yourself
Talking about questioning and those who didn’t have the courage to ask the question – then you feel stink.
Questioning Technique - He said – who’s got a question? And he sat down.
It seemed a long time. But it was merely ten seconds for the first person. And a minute or so for me to formulate one. Then another two minutes to get the courage to say mine. No result there either - Why? He doesn't know.
Question from the audience - If this is true about questioning – how do we change the culture of that?
Need to have a different way of questioning
Learning situation – rather than telling them what they need to know.
Ice Cream lids – as whiteboards – BRILLIANT.
“I’m going to show a short video. There’s something about learning in it."
Foo Fighters – 'Learn to Fly'
Our Group's Suggestions:
- Same person can take on different roles in the classroom.
- Lots of different people in the classroom setting.
Mike's take on the Foo Fighter's video:
- Have to recognise that learning will happen – have a focus. Not a WALT.
- Need passion!
- Learners come in all shapes and sizes. Have the same size furniture.
- People like to sit with themselves.
- We all have our own baggage.
- Need visuals in our classroom.
- All turned on by different things.
- Need to company our learning with kinaesthetic gestures
- Need Take Off
Two issues facing 21st Century Schools
Self-Belief
Engagement
Outcome: Positive focused students.
(Image - Rugby posts of issues– ball w pos focussed students)
Because many students have poor engagement skills and low self-belief, teachers have to spend a lot of time trying to motivate their students.
Direct motivation is not our job.
Our job is to create an engaging state where students want to motivate themselves.
I like that he lets us talk and spend time thinking.
Five things we’ve liked about his teaching and learning style – creating motivation and engagement:
- Non-threatening.
- Expectations of us - Told us that we were going to be learning, that we would be learning about thinking
- Personal - Told us info about himself
- You First then Me - Making us come up with our own answers before he tells us what he thinks
- Music - Had music playing when we came in
- Humour!
- Accepting Responses - When you’ve responded to us – he’s responding to our attitude and behaviours
My Thoughts: I'd like to think that I do those (above) but... I know I can do them better.
I want to create a culture where it’s good to take risks.
When we make a mis-take (Hollywood take sign) – we feel awful because we don’t want to be embarrassed and be the centre of attention.
Instead think of a mistake as:
- What was missing?
- What can we take with us?
Cool activity with little footsteps – ask Andrea.
Picture on the projector - covered by five different colours - helps to change our initial predictions and thoughts around what the picture could be. Our thoughts change with the collective too. Don't want to be wrong.
My prediction: Plane restaurant – not a plain restaurant.
Answer: Plane House.
LOVE his Punniness! --> I’m not going to have a plain house it’s going to be different.
We don’t want right answers in the world – we want different answers.
My thoughts: Making predictions this year – with Y10 and Y9 students has been awesome. They're making them naturally now without full on prompting. :)
Why put so much of the finished product on the walls? I want to see a journey.
Scale is always changing.
Want students to be passionate.
Students diarise what they’ve learnt. - love this idea!! :)
Bell Curves were designed for casinos.
Putting people in a box. Box gets smaller.
Don’t lower your sights with your students. Or with yourself.
Do we box our students with the National standards – being below or at – or capable of being above but scared?
Four different rooms in your head.
Original “Brain Rooms” model John Joseph Med
- Global, goal setting, big picture
- Logical sequential
- Limbic area responsible for emotional response
- Amygdala
Limbic is homeground. This is where you are all the time. It dominates your life and brain.
This is why relationships are so important. They need to know what they’re getting out of it.
This “home base” is also the centre for motivation and emotional self talk.
Works on two main questions for Males: product oriented
- Why are we doing this?
- What is in it for me?
Works on two main questions for Females: Process oriented.
- What will this do to my relationships?
- What is in it for me? What will I get out of it?
Both of these questions are overly active in primary and secondary school students.
At 75 we’re actually speaking the same language.
Males: See, Do, Communicate
Females: See, Communicate, Do
So what happens to our self-belief when our methods of learning .... missed the last of this point..
Motivation and Engagement
Motivated all the time? 3-5 kids consistently motivated
De-motivated all the time? 3-5 consistently de motivated
Neither motivated or demotivated – majority of the class
Everyone is a priority learner.
Use the style of teaching that works – practical, action based, applicable.
The Young Brain in particular requires risk and opportunity to develop and mature.
At the same time – we need boundaries
Needs emotional links, repetition and personal sense and meaning to learn.
These needs can be catered for using choice and variety.
Respect your Hippocampus… Too much, too fast and it won’t last.
Talk less, talk for less time and make whatever you are saying important and relevant.
Stop having so many visuals in the room. Good art galleries provide SPACE around paintings - because SPACE helps define the art.
Need space in an environment to find what they need.
Our classroom is there for a purpose – not to look pretty.
Interruption free zone is needed.
What is a teacher? A guide not a guard.
What is learning? A journey, not a destination.
What is discovery? Questioning the answers rather than answering the questions.
What is the process? Discovering ideas not covering content.
What is the goal? Open minds not closed issues.
What is the test? Being and becoming, not remembering and reviewing.
What is learning? Not just doing things differently but doing different things.
What is teaching? Not showing them what to learn but showing them how to learn
What is a school? Whatever we choose to make it.
Lee Crocket, Ian Jukes, Andrew Churces
