Thursday, March 3, 2016

Promoting Further Learning #1

What is Promoting Further Learning?
Promoting Further Learning is about what happens after assessment has taken place to support the student with further learning (Michael Absolum p.120)

It is what the teacher does or says to assist the student to make their next steps in their learning. It is based on feedback given by teacher, parent or peer, and focusses on how we prompt, how we scaffold, how we praise, and how we discuss the learning. There are five strategies for promoting further learning:
- Explanation
- Feedback
- Learning Conversations
- Reinforcement of Learning
- Feedforward

Everybody involved in promoting further learning has a role. One of the most important roles is the role of the student and their accountability and ownership for their learning. 

How do I Promote Further Learning?
When looking over the strategies of further learning, I can identify with all five of them. But my main practices are Explanation, Feedback (not necessarily about the learning), and most recently Feedforward.
I prefer to give additional information instead of a new explanation on a concept. There are times when, regardless of the explanation, students still don't understand, this is where I request help from other students who have grasped the concept. I find collaboration between pairs works really well for the promotion of further learning between students. Currently I do find it hard to explain some concepts to my Year 4 students as this is the first year of teaching this age level. 
I use reminder prompts with my more abled students. Those who demonstrate student agency confidently and who seek further learning for themselves. Sometimes just a second key word is often enough of a prompt to set them off again.
Feedback is always given to students, however, on reflection, not necessarily based on the actual learning. I need to focus on the Learning Intention and provide my feedback and feedforward based on this.

What do I need to change in my Practice to Promote Further Learning?
I use reinforcements for a range of student situations. Michael Absolum (2006) talks about the type of reinforcements used to build motivation and how they can be in any form but should reinforce the learning not the performance or behaviour. I have identified that I reinforce performance and often forget about the learning or progress that has been achieved meaning students are often not being awarded for their progress.  

My Next Steps (Further Learning)
- focus on WALTs and building Success Criteria with students
- reinforce the learning progress, not the performance of the learner
- give the student sufficient time to assess and adjust their own learning


Reference:

Absolum, M. (2006). Clarity in the Classroom: Using Formative Assessment. Hachette Livre NZ Ltd, Auckland