In the French lesson I saw an excellent resource that I could incorporate within my classroom to allow more inclusive learning. The use of whiteboards mean that I was able to obtain instant feedback of the pupils, the silent middle pupils did not feel insecure about giving answers to question and they felt included. As Collins (1996) says we need to take steps to make these pupils ‘active learner’ and I feel this was a resource that made these pupils more of active leaner.
Within the Science Lesson I saw some skills that where useful for inclusive learning, I found that the use of questioning effectively meant that I was able to assess the pupil’s progress and understanding of a concept.
‘…teacher has an opportunity to learn about the progress of each group’
Weinstein (1991), p.g.4
Also by being able to circulate the classroom to each group this allowed me to improve my relationship with those who tend to be quiet and not speak out. Approaching the pupils rather than the pupils having to come to the teacher means that the silent middle that tend not to speak out even when struggling will be able to air their concerns. I was able to talk to them on a one-to-one level.
During observations I found that these group of silent middle pupils were able, they were of high ability, but what they tended to do is get on with the given work, even if they were struggling they would battle through it themselves, rather than ask for help. When being asked a question directly about the Mathematics they would not answer or just nervously give one worded answers. This was what my situation was with this group of pupils, using the strategies that I have observed and reading I was able to develop a series of lessons with the focus on inclusive learning for silent middle.
In the first lesson I looked at taking the first steps to making the silent middle active learners, I looked at the use of whiteboards and the traffic light system. The traffic light system allows the pupils to assess their own learning of enlargement of shapes and the scale factor , showing a red card mean that they did not understand enlargements, amber card means they need more practice and green mean that they understand and able to complete the task independently(Hodgson & Pyle(2010), p.g.6). The visual representation offered immediate feedback and allowed me to determine their level of success, and a non-verbalised manner. I noticed that those silent middle pupils where quiet happy to use this resource and it was non-intrusive to them and it was a signal for me approach them if they were on amber or red to give them guidance to them through the task. Also the use of the whiteboard was effective as again I was given immediate feedback and able to mentally note down if a pupils was struggling with the work. Making more use of these two resources means that I would slowly gain the confidence of the pupils (silent middle) and move them to become more active learners. Learning does not only take place when involved with whole class discussion. What I needed to do is move on to more collaborative learning strategies such as group work.
I found that pupils did not know formally know how to work together in the classroom Weinstein (1991) stated that ‘students need support and training in how to work together effectively…’ (p.g. 8) Therefore, when I planned my second lesson I made sure I made time to formally tell the pupils of the expectation of group work and made sure for my continuation of teaching this group I kept reminding them of group work expectations. I had to reinforce the message of group work quiet a lot in the lesson as the pupils where still raising their hand for me to help them rather than using the groups. But I found it gave me a lot more time then to go around and help those pupils who were quiet in the class. I found that they was becoming more confident as they were comfortable with those pupils around them and the fact that the groups were smaller (they didn’t excess 4 pupils per group), this was something which Keys and Fernandes (1993) founded in their report that pupils preferred working in small and familiar groups. Also the silent middle where becoming more vocal but only within the group of four pupils. As I set up the classroom in the manner for group work, for the continuation of my teaching practice I maintain this style of seating which allowed the pupils to continuously work with the groups when having difficulties with the task. I need to maintain this strategy but I do not want to pupils to get used to the groups of four so the main stream teacher suggested mixing the groups up every half term so that pupils can work with others.
One of the main barriers with silent middle is they had a tendency not to answer any questions voluntarily moreover when a question is being directed at them. One strategy that I found from assessment for learning (Pawlik, 2011) was to use the random name generator; this was a means for pupils to be picked at random without the biases of a teacher choosing the pupils. It meant that all the pupils need to be paying attention as questions could be asked by me (the teacher) as random. I found that it did work well with some of the silent middle as it gave them an opportunity to air their answer instead of being overlooked by the more vocal pupils. However, I did have two pupils (from the group of silent middle) who would not answer the question they just did not say anything. I tried to give them some encouragement by giving them the start of the sentence but still got no response. In reflection this made me think about what Weinstein (1991) talked about with group work that sometimes it was best to let the pupils talk among their own subgroups before a whole class discussion. This would have given the silent middle pupils time to reflect on the answer in their comfort zone and then give them more confidence to answer in the whole class discussion. One disadvantage of random name generator that I found was that it was ‘random’ meaning I would have no control over who was picked next. But then I remembered what Pawlik (2011) said that if the name were on lolly stick you could ‘fix’ them reading out their name rather than the name on the lolly stick. Through these assessments for learning techniques I found that I had a group of pupils who struggled with mathematical concepts, some of these pupils were from the silent middle so it was welcoming to know that they were beginning to express concerns about their learning.
A group of pupils needed more time when it came to explaining a task. The main stream teacher suggested that as I had room in the classroom that once the rest of the class had a task to get on with that I brought this group of pupils together to a sub group and go over the general concerns they had. When planning I knew that this group of pupils would struggle with factorising algebraic expressions so I first tried to gradually introduce the whole class to factorising an expression by starting with factorising numbers, as a starter. Secondly I planned so that once majority of the class where able to factorise, I would then be given the time to work with this group of pupils to talk about factorising. Again I saw that the silent middle pupils tended to speak less so I tried to include them in the conversation and start by giving them easy quest such as ‘what can you see in the expression is common to both terms?’ I did work, they did speak out more but I found that they are so used to being quiet that it is the norm for them.
This is something that Collins (1996) talk about; ‘refusal to participate’ (p. 42) she then goes on to talk about how their behaviour is built up over time (primary school to secondary school) and so to break this process down we need to use resources very sensitively that will eventually lead to changing these pupils into active learners. The resources that I used
- Whiteboards
- Traffic light system ; Red, Amber and Green cards
- Groups work
- Random Name selector
- Not choosing the same person to speak
- Asking those who are struggling to gather round a table and giving them a detail explanation on what they are struggling with.
All of these ideas, point to the one objective; gaining a better relationship with the pupils so I am more approachable. I need to preserver in the group work, build up the activities of using the whiteboards and make sure that in every lesson I teach this class that I use the traffic light system. If I can teach this class over a long term then using these techniques I will be able to build confidence in the silent middle to air their ideas and thinking, to start with maybe on the whiteboard but build on this to eventually they will speak out in the lesson and become active learner like the rest of the class.
References
- Collins, J. (1996). The Quiet Child. Great Britain: Biddles.
- Helen Fisher (2011): Inside The Primary Classroom: Examples of Dissatisfaction Behind A Veil of Compliance, British Journal of Educational Studies, 59:2, 121-141
- Hodgson, C & Pyle, K (2010)A literature review of Assessment for Learning in science, A Report to the National Commission on Education, Slough: National Foundation for Educational Research in England and Wales. Accessed 20.12.11
- Keys, W. and Fernandes, C. (1993). What Do Students Think About School? Research into the factors associated with positive and negative attitudes towards school and education, A Report to the National Commission on Education, Slough: National Foundation for Educational Research in England and Wales
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Pawlik, P (2011), lecture of Assessment for learning, Manchester Metropolitan University, Didsbury
- Thompson, G & Bell, J (2011): Mired in the shadows: quiet students in secondary schools, Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 32:3, 399-413
- Weinstein, S (1991) The Classroom as a Social Context for Learning, Annual Review of Psychology, Vol. 42: 493-525