Summary - Tutorial work 1-7 - Classroom Experiment by Dylan William PDF

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Classroom Experiment by Dylan William...

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Classroom Experiment by Dylan William 8HJ - 1/5 students leave school without basic English and maths - effort leads to success. Boost student engagement - “smart is not something you are, smart is something you get” – Professor Dylan Williams - 12-13 year olds, Miss Jenna, mixed ability class, - hands up one of the most dangerous tools, only ¼ same few put them up - a lot of students don’t put themselves forward due to lack of confidence or fear of ridicule “When you ask a question, students do not raise their hand… “The children who are answering everything you ask them are actually getting smart… their IQs are actually going up. Other children same classroom who are fogroing the opportunity to get smarter. - IQs go up when they answer the questions you ask, gap is bigger as there - 1. You choose the student who will answer the question, by pulling out names on popsicle sticks - students seem aggravated by it, top ability students are missing out, makes them frustrated - classroom culture where its ok for students to be wrong - 2. Daily exercise. Physical activity releases chemical in brain and the result is more focus and motivated students. - teachers start developing techniques for popsicles; such as choosing 2 at a time, or letting students choose,.. bright kids coming out of their shell, but top end still frustrated - 3. All Students Response System. Mini whiteboards for all students. - 4. Traffic Lights. Green is good, yellow is go slower, and red is stop to ask a question - students wrote or drew random things - cups used effectively, don’t have to keep hand held up - writing in a book is independent, overview of what class thinks, can look at others and check answers, answers are quicker, and allows everyone to answer - cups able to see that students really aren’t understanding content - Students are to view miss obey’s lecture. Teachers never ask what they thought of the lesson some believe it undermines the profession - offer help on way to prove practice - students feel privelaged - exercise, measuring heart monitors and keep journals, shows how much effort putting in not just for teachers but for students - French teacher shows improved attitude, calmer, concentrated better with not a peep out of them, for some students it really works. For those who didn’t participate concentration is not as high - using these to put into own teaching practice, more planning, more effort. Change in students – more actively engaged in talking to others, asking for help - top students listen to others more, thinks more highly of other students - One name is missing from the sticks (half way through the experiment) Emily – the intelligent student. If she doesn’t know the answer she feels embarrassing –

ruins reputation among students. High achieving struggle, focus switches from right answers to how much they are learning - 5. Comments not Grades. Because there is an obsession with grades, so students don’t read comments. - high achieving students not impressed - 6. wants parents to engage what is happening to the classroom, parent night with a twist. Engagement, interaction, things have changed, a chance to put your view across, easy to see how some lessons harder or easier than others. Gives parents more information, made the parent feel better to see even their quiet kids engage and participate. - High achieving students now being a bit disruptive e.g. pulling hair, drawing in the back of the books. These students need to be reengaged -> mini whiteboards - 7. Secret Student. Based on research. More responsible for own behaviour using peer pressure and positive reinforcement. Students don’t know whom it is, get points for form based on behaviour. One tick or cross for each period. William, a theatrical student was first chosen. Did not get the point. Student only revealed when point is given. Second day William got it this time. - in marking sheet, allowed students to give peer comments based on what the feedback said. Students able to see this but still worried about grade - IS this right for a secondary school? “it could be you” gives reminders of secret students. When mentioned and reminded it did have an impact. Needs general prompting as they do forget. Effect of peer group pressure, takes responsibility for behaviour as a class. - improvement in behaviour of all students, a lot stepping up - top achieving students such as Emily, Sabrina and Chloe are chatting a lot more, disengaged, Dylan thought white board would work but isn’t, so calls kids today - teachers need to use whiteboards more, constant innovation is tiring for teachers however better use is necessary - students still not happy with not getting grades - mini whiteboards give a chance to show answer, and have to put up so gives teacher ability - students coming around with being able to make mistakes - class makes way to trip - teachers: in terms of classroom participation, enjoy being there more, more progress, behaviour better, learning is easier, more confidence in what they are saying and willing to have a go, ‘unit’ teamwork, class as a whole, brings them together - students: happy environment for people to work in, appreciate other people need chance to talk, share chance to talk, everyone gets to learn more - science no difference, other two subjects (English and maths) significantly greater progress than other year 8s - class learned twice as much in summer term - teachers need to be doing it all the time, sticks and whiteboards used in whole school: which is what school decided to do - can have a significant impact on education in this country Na r a y a n , J . S. , He wa r d , W.L. , Ga r d n e r , R. Co ur s o n ,F .H. ,&Omn e s s , C. ( 1 9 9 0 ) . Us i n gr e s ponse cards to increase student participation in an elementary classroom. Journal of applied Behaviour analysis, 23,

482-490.

Drawing on the above readings, and any others you identify, what are the apparent strengths and/or limitations of using response cards? Introduction The utilization of Response Cards (RC) is not necessarily suitable for every classroom situation. There are a multitude of strengths and weaknesses of this formative assessment tool, thus it is up to the teacher’s discretion to know when or how to incorporate this technique for their specific classroom. As student’s all learn differently, it is found to be difficult to implement this response system into every environment. However, there are many advantages to this that cannot be overlooked. In 1916, John Dewey stated, “students learn by doing” (as cited in Heward, 1994, p.285). This idea has developed into the concept of Active Student Response (ASR), which has a distinct relationship with learning through the act of participation and engagement. Strengths Increasing the implementation of ASR, but in particular the use of response cards, will benefit all members in the learning environment. Instead of individuals answering questions proposed by the teacher, response cards allow all students to respond. The thought of peer intimidation and embarrassment is negated as a classroom with constant participation creates a safer environment with no judgement of an incorrect response (Hardy, 2010a). This increase of student confidence is reflected by the amount of responses demonstrated in the classroom. Response cards provide validation for all students as the teacher acknowledges their answers. Since all students are able to respond, there is no favouritism from teachers in choosing high achieving students over low. Thus, the classroom becomes a facility of learning in which peers can help each other in the acquisition of knowledge. Student’s who understand the importance of knowledge and their own learning will enjoy responding to questions more. As Narayan, Heward, Gardner, Courson and OMness (1990, p. 489) highlight in their study, the use of response cards caused 480 opportunities to respond per lesson, compared to only 40 during hand-raising instruction. The students are encouraged to answer the teacher’s instruction, whether they know the answer or not. This will facilitate an environment where making mistakes is acceptable and is part of life (Hardy, 2010b). More opportunity to respond through RC creates more opportunity to engage with the content and learn. Another advantage of including RC in a teacher’s practice is that it is an alternative formative assessment, as feedback and answers are immediately provided. As Randolph (2007) explains, the teacher is easily able to scan the classroom, and able to see the variety of answers as they display their knowledge. The teacher is then able to deduce the understanding of her students, which enables the educator to repeat the instruction, change her pace, explain the concept differently, or tackle whatever the problem may be before moving on (Heward, 1994, p. 284). Hence, the implementation of RC provides active participation from the students, around 35.6% in these situations (Randolph, 2007, p. 114). This in turn, relates directly to a decrease of 42.3% in off-task behaviour, as found by Randolph in his meta-analysis.

On-task behaviour is beneficial for both the teacher and students. Less disruptive behaviour in the classroom will make a more pleasant environment (Heward, 1994, p. 202) for the teacher to instruct and for the students to engage with. As Heward, Gardner, Cavanaugh, Courson, Grossi & Barbetta, (1996, p. 6) explain, “students who respond actively and often to ongoing instruction learn more than students who passively attend”. However, the thought of using pressure to stimulate student engagement comes into play (Marzano, 2007, p. 102-103). If chances of getting called upon are present, this could be a reason for increase levels of attention by the students, hence, increasing the rate of RC use would capture attention. It is the teacher that will ultimately determine the active engagement of the student. Teacher enthusiasm in the classroom will reflect the academic achievement of their students (Marzano, 2007 p. 100). An educator needs to have a genuine belief in the ASR methods in order to implement response cards effectively in their practice. In episode 1 of the Classroom Experiment (Hardy, 2010a) William exacerbates that “children who are answering everything you ask them are actually getting smarter - their IQs actually go up”. RC allow copious opportunities for this to occur, thus, it is imperative that educators begin to mould the ideas of ASR into their practice. The effects of RC can be produced qualitatively, such that quiz scores increased, where the proportion of students achieving 80% or more was improved by a total of 32.5% compared to hand-raising conditions (Randolph, 2007, p. 114). These results are reflective in student confidence in their academic ability. Thus, there is no doubt that this is why 19/20 students favour the use of RC as an effective learning tool (Heward, Gardner, Cavanaugh, Courson, Grossi & Barbetta, 1996, p. 3). Teachers have the opportunity to foster an environment of unison in learning with the aid of RC. Weaknesses Despite the positive attributes of RC, there are also many weaknesses associated with this technique. The main weakness is the limitation of the depth with student responses. This is a result of the sheer size of the mini whiteboard, which is not large enough to hold extensive answers that are required by many aspects of the curriculum (Randolph, 2007). Thus, they are unable to respond to more critical higher-order question, and therefore can only be used in the response to low-order questions such as recall (Heward, 1994, p. 303). Bloom’s Taxonomy (1956) demonstrates how detrimental a range of questions is in facilitating significant student learning. Additionally, student legibility and size of writing will make it more difficult for the teacher to quickly scan the responses in order to give feedback (Heward, Gardner, Cavanaugh, Courson, Grossi & Barbetta, 1996, p. 3). The only exception to this could be that the instruction is multiple choice or fill-in-the-blank response, which again however, only provides low-order thinking. Also, in terms of resourcing, there is a cost depending on the material used. For RC cards, the cost can be as significant as $89 per classroom (Randolph, 2007). Thus, there are limitations in the practicality of RC in all schools, educators, and classrooms. Many teachers are unwilling when it comes to changing their already developed practice. This poses an issue in whole-school implementation, where many teachers will reject, or not persist the idea of RC in the classroom. This is because

incorporating RC into practices, takes time to prepare in an educators already demanding lives (Marzano, 2007, p.109). The execution of RC into each classroom would also require extensive amounts of adjustments for both the teachers and the students, in which training would need to be made available as a resource for effectively demonstrating its use (Heward, 1994, p. 315). Furthermore, implementing RC into a teacher’s practice will not change the quality of a teacher (Heward, 1994; Randolph, 2007). As Bloom (1980) describes, RC is an “alterable variable” (as cited in Heward, Gardner, Cavanaugh, Courson, Grossi & Barbetta, 1996, p. 8), which has the ability to make a difference but it is ultimately susceptible to teaching practices. Conclusion In conclusion, the application of RC in the classroom is fairly modern which gives reason for the arguments of its use. There is still much more research to be done surrounding RC, although there is a sufficient amount of evidence to say that RC are an effective learning tool that engages students. Additionally, they are an easy method to grasp, and can be relatively low in cost. However, this may resonate as an issue in many lower economic schools. When used correctly, RC are able to significantly develop student academic achievement and class participation for the better. They may not accustom every subject or section of the curriculum, but should be partnered with other ASR learning tools in order to cover more aspects. Word count 1284

Heward,W. L. (1994). Three “low tech” strategies for increasing the frequency of active student response during group instruction. In R. Gardner, III, D. M. Sainato, J. O. Cooper, & T. E. Heron (Eds.), Behavior analysis in education: Focus on measurably superior instruction (pp. 283–320). Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole. http://opac.library.usyd.edu.au:80/record=b3997548~S4 (Heward, 1994)

Strength  “students learn by doing” john dewey 1916 (285)  reuiring students so actively respond the teacher can ensure relevant responses occurring. An active response in this sense means a response that produces movement or change in the environment that can be detected by someone who can provide feedback to the student, be it teacher, peer, or student herself. (286)  active student participation correlates more stongly with achievement than does passive responding (286)  can only know if they understand by them responding  1. ASR generates more learning. 2. ASR provides important feedback to the teacher (290)3. ASR is correlated with increased on-task behaviour. On-task student is better able to see and hear instructional stimuli than the off-task student, reductions in dispruptions, teacher likes it when students well bhaved and on task. (292)  enables each student to respond, students can learn by watching others (299)  “The higher ASR rate achieved with RC takes on additional signigicance when its cumulative effect over the course of a 36-week school year is calculated. Based on the results of this study, if RC were used instead of HR for just 20 minutes per day, each student would make more than 5,000 additional academic responses per school year.” (302)  Weakness  not a silver bullet  will not turn a bad curriculum into a good one content ent had to be raised each day.  large amount of new cont  Testing not as short term as it is in real life(313)  Much more research is needed (314) – if ASR more-so put into place then need to reteach teachers specific ways to provide feedback and implement (315) Both  Feedback follows each response and focuses on the accuracy and topography of the students’ response. Reduces likelihood of student practicing errors (p284)  “ASR is a simple concept and its relation to student learning… is relatively straightforward. Fluent in the knowledge and skills of curriculum however, presents the classroom teacher with some challenging engineering problems (292)  teacher easily detect responses (299)  study showed improvement of results in next-day quizzes and weekly tests when used RC to respond at the conclusion of each lesson (302)

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Page 312 shows ways to implement various ASR methods (both high and low tech) in order to achieve high level learning. Lots of resources and prep needed. Might not always work with every part of curriculum. Page 303: Potential advantages of write-on response cards include: 1. Curriculum material with multiple correct answers can be used, 2. Students can emit creative responses 3. A more demanding recall-type response is required rather than the simpler recognition-type response and 4. Spelling can be incorporated into the lesson. Possible disadvantages of write-on response cards include: 1. The ASR rate may be lower due to the time needed for writing and erasing, 2. Error rates are likely to be higher 3. Variations in the size and legibility of student’s writing can make their responses difficult for teacher to see

Marzano, R.J. (2007). The art and science of teaching: A comprehensive framework for effective instruction.Alexandria, VA: ACSD. http://opac.library.usyd.edu.au:80/record=b3821682~S4 (Marzano, 2007) Strengths:  Keeping students engaged is one of the most important considerations for the classroom teacher (p98) -> activities capture attention in a way that enhances their knowledge of academic content

Weaknesses:  Useful type of question is forced choice (109) e.g. true/false, multiple choice, fill in the blank. Require preparation, limits knowledge (low-end questions only) - students can just guess

Both:  What causes engagement is complex (p99) researchers have identified at least three types of engagement: behaviour, emotional and cognitive  Strong links between teacher enthusiasm and student achievement (pg100)  Mild pressure as a stimulus for engagement: if chance of getting called, raise level of attention (102-103). Increase rate of response captures attention. Even wait time focuses attention (103) 

Randolph, J.R. (2007). Meta-analysis of the research on response cards: Effects on test achievement, quiz achievement, participation, and off-task behavior. Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, 9, 113-128. http://opac.library.usyd.edu.au:80/record=b3997422~S4 (Randolph, 2007)

Strengths: 

Educational interventions that have high levels of active student response, defined as "an observable response to an instructional antecedent" (Heward, 1994, p. 10), have many benefits. For example, Heward's (1994) review of active student response strategies found that teaching strategies that promote high levels of active student response increase learning (Fischer & Berliner, 1985; Greenwood, Delquadri, & Hall, 1984; Pratton & Hales, 1986), provide immediate feedback to the teacher, and are correlated with increased on-task behavior (Carnine, 1976; Miller, Hall, & Heward, 1995; Sainato, Strain, & Lyon, 1987).

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Display of knowledge -> shows listening and understanding of content Allow multiple students to respond Response cards used in primary, secondary, and tertiary for a variety of subjects and for range of learning abilities (disabled kids can use) -> successful

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Effe c t sc a nbed i s pl a y e dqua nt i t a t i v e l y :1. Test scores had an effect size (Cohen's d) of 0.26 in the response card direction. The proportion of students receiving 80% or

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better on tests rose from 41.8% to 52.1% in the response card condition. 2. Quiz scores were 0.80 standard deviations higher in the response card condition than in the h...