Ms McCarron described the start of this journey with our Learning Powers in her blog post, “Yoda for Concentration – Learning power 1 unleashed we have,” on 28 Feb 2016.
Last week I unveiled Learning Power #3 – C3PO for Co-operation, the 3rd meta-cognitive power in our series of 8, to my Y5/6 class. As before, we began by enthusiastically sharing the ‘Learning Story’ together, and with their Talk Partners, the pupils identified skills from the story that would be useful in helping them to work with others and be co-operative. They know the format of the unveiling of the Learning Powers by now and are already trying to guess which power, and which character, may be next!
We made a class list of those skills identified and entered into a lively discussion about what makes co-operation important, why it is important, when it might be important and conversely, what might impede co-operation. Having reflected on what might hinder co-operation, I felt that they had thought deeper about how much they indeed value this Learning Power.
Outcome
We referred back to these skills over the next few days (and of course the previous Learning Powers), particularly when working on our DT projects and in our maths investigations. These skills of course apply across the curriculum in every lesson where pupils are together, so this Learning Power is a particularly important meta-cognitive skill.
The pupils said that this is the most important power so far for the success of their Talk Partner scheme…..commenting on how the key skills they identified were very similar to the success criteria they generated for their Talk Partners rules. (See previous blog post “Time to Talk pt 2“)
Finally, we all decided that C3PO’s joke was OK, but he still needs some more practice……and perhaps some co-operation with inventing better ones!
Next Step
The fourth ‘Learning Power’ will be unveiled to the pupils after Easter – “Be Curious“. Who will the character be??