Provide a rationale for the teaching and learning activities you have selected or devised to demonstrate your chosen aspect
Provide a rationale for the teaching and learning activities you have selected or devised to demonstrate your chosen aspect.
Throughout this assignment my aim is to explain what we did for our micro lesson and the explanation behind why we did it.
For our micro lesson we have decided to focus on two aspects of citizenship, group work and developing effective learners.
We felt group work was an important strategy to implement in our lesson because it is an alternative approach to individual practice and has gained popularity in recent years. We came to the conclusion that the group work would allow the students to foster many benefits such as:
'Development of social skills. Working with other students may help them to develop their empathetic abilities, by allowing them to see others' viewpoints, which can help them realise that everyone has strengths and weaknesses' (DFES, 2000, p.18)
We thought if we focus on this aspect of citizenship, we will enhance student's communication skills, social skills and many other factors which will allow them to become good citizens.
Developing an effective learner is also a key aspect in our micro lesson because we as a group felt that students' learning is more effective when it takes place in an environment where students can express their opinions freely, i.e. in a non threatening classroom. Therefore we feel this strategy will incorporate very well with group work
Once we had outlined our two aspects which our group was going to focus on, our next step was to decide which year group our micro lesson would be directed at. This was quite an easy decision to make because we as a group, thought year nines would be an ideal year group to teach since year nine pupils should have the ability to demonstrate key citizenship concepts such as taking part in simple discussion and debates on topical issues affecting them selves and others. They also have the skills to listen to others viewpoints and understand that people have different views on issues. Further more they are reaching the age of maturity. Thus this would allow us to draw on key aspects in our lesson.
Once we had made our two vital decisions on the main aspects of citizenship, and the year group we were teaching we could now start to build on the foundations of our lesson plan.
Next step was to choose our desired learning outcomes (DLO). To obtain these DLO'S we looked through the national curriculum programme of study for citizenship and selected key points which will fulfil our two teaching aspects.
We selected key point 2a, 3a and 3b from the heading developing skills of enquiry and communication also developing skills of participation and responsible action: ...
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Once we had made our two vital decisions on the main aspects of citizenship, and the year group we were teaching we could now start to build on the foundations of our lesson plan.
Next step was to choose our desired learning outcomes (DLO). To obtain these DLO'S we looked through the national curriculum programme of study for citizenship and selected key points which will fulfil our two teaching aspects.
We selected key point 2a, 3a and 3b from the heading developing skills of enquiry and communication also developing skills of participation and responsible action: pupils should be taught to:
2a: Think about topical political, spiritual, moral, social and cultural issues, problems and events by analysing information and its sources, including ICT- based sources.
3a: use their imagination to consider other pupil's experiences and be able to think about, express and explain views that are not their own.
3c: reflect on the processes of participating.
(The National Curriculum Handbook, 1999. p.184)
Taking the above key points in to account we planned our lesson. Once we had accomplished this successfully we obtained our desired learning outcomes. Our DLO's were as follows:
* All pupils will learn about the importance of group work in order to become a more effective learner, by working well in a team to solve a task.
* All pupils will be producing their own ground rules and adhering to them throughout the lesson.
* All pupils will be participating in group activity tasks and will have to reflect on the process of participating.
We left the DLO's until the end as we thought this was one way of assessing whether our DLO's had been achieved. Each DLO would have been achieved within two thirds of our three part lesson; hence this allowed us to incorporate the key stage three strategy's recommendation for a three part lesson, i.e. starter, main teaching and a plenary. We felt this was important because our starter will allow students to sharpen prior learning and will focus on skills which will be needed in the main part of the lesson. The main part of the lesson provides time for introducing a new topic and to make clear to the class what they will learn and the understanding behind it. Finally the plenary will allow time where the teacher can help pupil's assess their developing knowledge i.e. whether they have achieved the set DLO's.
The starter we selected is known as a snowball activity. Students were asked individually to right down a good set of ground rules for a group discussion. We chose this activity when reading through unit 7 'Group Work Teaching and Learning in Secondary Schools' (DFES, 2000. p.4) because we learnt that a "snowball" activity provides a very tight structure for group work and is an ideal way to start a group activity. Also young people work best when they are involved in developing their own ground rules.
Once students had individually developed a set of ground rules, they were than asked to compare their list with a partner, and agree on a set of ground rules which are needed for a group discussion. We paired students up because we wanted to introduce group work gradually, this would be less threatening then facing the whole group suddenly.
Students were then told to pair up with another pair to create a foursome and combine all the ground rules together and select the four most important ground rules which are needed for a group discussion, and write them down on flipchart paper. This activity was initiated so that the students could implement their ground rules through out the lesson. This would allow them to see their rules on a flipchart paper which were later posted on classroom walls; this would give pupils a sense of ownership throughout the lesson.
Students were placed in seating arrangements. The seating arrangement that we had decided on was for the students to be sitting in a circle for a discussion, this was planned to create a more open and inclusive atmosphere amongst their peers.
We provided our students with two tasks to engage with throughout the main teaching of the lesson. We used structured mix grouping for task one because a structured mix ensures that there are a variety of students within each group which would allow a range of pupil's views, this mix grouping caters for all students.
"Some teachers deliberately organise some mixed group working to broaden pupil's perspectives and experiences, though the outcomes appear to be variable."
(Ofsted, 1996, p. 20)
This task stepping stones, was purely based upon student's completing a task by using all the skills required for group work. {Ground rules}. The aim of the task was to get from one side of the room to another without any talking but other forms of communication were allowed (see appendix 1). We felt stepping stones was an ideal task for the first part of the main lesson because it ensured the group to be effective learners by ensuring that they all worked well as a group and implemented the ground rules they obtained in the first part of the lesson. All three learning styles were required to accomplish this task. This we felt is an important issue because pupils learn in many different ways i.e. visual, auditory and kinaesthetic.
'Students learn better and more quickly if the teaching methods used match their preferred learning styles.
As learning improves, so too does self esteem. This ahs further positive effect on learning.' (S. Davidoff &Owen van den Berg, 1990)
Our next task was the circle game. The aim of this task was that pupils had to start the task by facing inwards and by the end of task had to face outwards without breaking the circle i.e. untangling each other. The purpose of this activity was to get everybody communicating and working together in order to achieve the task. Within this activity we divided the students in to two groups. Males and females. The reason for this was to compare how well each gender worked together. The benefit of single gender grouping is that it is socially more comfortable for some students.
"Inspectors frequently find that boys and girls choose to work and play separately.
They seldom opt to do collaborative or group work in mixed sex groups, and sometimes show a marked reluctance to do so". (Ofsted, 1996, p. 20)
Our purpose of the plenary was to assess whether pupils had achieved the DLO's set at the beginning of the lesson. We decided we would use the final five minutes of the lesson to reflect upon what pupils had learnt. This we felt was a very important part of the lesson as pupils, individually and as a group can gather their thoughts as to what they have learnt and if any misconceptions have occurred it would be a perfect time to understand and resolve them.
Finally to conclude the planning of the micro lesson we ensured all group members were fully involved by giving a role to each individual i.e. myself to teach the starter, Pippa and Sue to take charge of the main lesson and Michelle to take charge of the plenary. This however does not mean we did not help each other in the planning of the lesson; we all contributed equally to the micro lesson, and agreed on every aspect of decision making through effective group work.
Bibliography: ~
Official publications:
DFES. (2000). The National Curriculum. Handbook for Secondary teachers in England. London, DFES/QCA
DFES. (2003). Teaching and Learning in Secondary School: Pilot. Unit 7: Group work. London, DFES
DFES. (2003). Teaching and Learning in Secondary School: Pilot. Unit 8: Developing effective Learners. London, DFES
Ofsted. (1996). The Gender Divide. Performance differences between boys and girls at school. London, HMSO
Website resources: ~
Sue Davidoff and Owen van den Berg. (1990). Learning styles and Teaching
http: www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/methodology/learning_style.shtml
[Accessed 5/5/05]
Hallam S. (2001) Success of mixed ability classes. Psychology and Human Development Institute of Education University London.
http://ioewebserver.ioe.ac.uk
[Accessed 5/5/05]
