Action research: Teaching and Learning Communities: Jan 2017

Approach: Lesson Study in planning teams

Line of enquiry: Differentiation when teaching whole class (and without ability groups) to ensure all pupils progress.

Learning: 

● ‘Marvellous mistakes’ approach supportive of all pupils and very effective method for exploring the learning.

Use of Talk Partners , changed weekly and with well-established routines   supportive of all pupils and also promoting  greater  autonomy.

 Use of pre-teaching of key skills/ concepts to pupils who might lack confidence highly effective at setting them up for success in the lesson to come.

● Sentence starters can be very helpful scaffolding for pupils when they are attempting deeper lines of enquiry.

 ● Providing opportunities for pupils to pose their own questions from a prompt (patterns seen, puzzles, questions, ideas) can empower them / help them become more autonomous.

 ● Dynamic use of visualiser to demonstrate learning mid lesson again supportive; again involves building on mistakes (or strengths) ; again allows for in depth exploring of the learning. 

●Careful choice of low threshold high ceiling challenge very important.

 ● Importance of awareness / planning for possibilities to extend/adapt the learning mid lesson.

 ● Important of pupil understanding mathematical (or other) language and supporting pupils to understand this- as a way into learning/ as an important success criteria  for the learning.

 ● Importance of using different question types. Importance of both explicit  targeted questioning and more open ended questioning to ensure both support and autonomy.