AGQTP Day 1 2007

Wednesday 28th was the first appearance of AGQTP this year.
As usual it was full on from the first.
We made a transfer booklet - small, eight page booklet made out of folding paper.
I wonder if I can describe how to do it? Let's see...fold an A4 sheet in half, then in half again and then again - so you have folded into eighths. Open it up to the first fold. Along the closed edge, tear half way down the page (to the next fold). Open it up, mountain fold along the middle, push the torn halves in opposite directions, fold the paper back together again along the natural folds. You should end up with eight pages of naturally opening booklet. Either that or a small, flying crane.
Anyway on the booklet I wrote a number of questions which I tried to answer during the day:

1. Find 5 Cooperative strategies
   T Chart - we used to map our beliefs about teaching and learning and our practices which show our beliefs in action.
   Round Robin - use when you have groups to generate ideas. Each group brainstorms on paper for a short period of time then passes on to the next group. With the new piece of paper, the group must add to ideas already there. Keep going until to receive your initial piece of paper. Groups can then choose the best three ideas.
   Hot Potato - similar strategy except that it is done within a group and each person writes down one idea and passes it onto the next person. A good way of getting all members of a group to contribute.
   Paired interview - one person acts as a questioner and the other person answers the question. Then reverse roles.
   Expert Jigsaw - Divide the idea or skill under study into 4-6 sub-topics. Get students into groups of the same size as the number of sub-topics. Each member of this "home" group is then given a number from one to the maximum number of sub-topics (e.g. 4). Then, all the number ones from each of the home group come together as Expert Group One, all the twos into Expert Group Two etc. Hand out or point out material from each of the sub-topics. Each expert group now takes responsibility for trying to understand the concepts or skills explained in the sub-topic. Once this is completed, they move back to their home groups and explain each sub-topic to the rest of the group. Whew!
   Tournament Prioritiser - still to get my head around this one.
   
   
2. Details on how Tribes is a different cooperative approach.
   Not much on this as we only skimmed the surface to get some sort of overall idea of the concept. Seems quite successful and the focus is on getting students to get on with each other.
   
3. How does Round Robin work - see above. Further ideas - give each group a different topic to work on; still pass the ideas onto the next group - but each group only adds ideas for the different topics.
   
4. What is the silent card shuffle - cards of a sequence of ideas (eg Blooms taxonomy) are cut up and shuffled. Then each group silently rearranges the cards in "correct" order. This would silence the more vocal, dominant members of the group. Then, when the group is finished, they can verbally challenge the arrangement. Finally, this is compared to the commonly acceptable arrangement.
5. What does it mean to "understand" something.
   Constructive Pedagogies talks about deep understanding - a concept that has fascinated me for a long time. My understanding of Understanding is that it is the ability to transfer what you know to new and unusual situations. Still need to work on this.
6. List of Cognitive Strategies
   3, 2, 1 - Come up with three facts, 2 insights and 1 question about a topic (or combinations of this).
   Main Point Marking - slightly more detailed reading of a document than skim reading. Just get a highlighter and point out the main points. I like students to then go back over it and say why (using annotations) the points highlighted are important. Finally, I get them to number the highlighted points and rank them in importance using numbers.
   2Q - answer two questions after an activity: What went well, where could you improve or could have done things differently.
   RAS alerts - highlight important areas to come and your expectations so that students are aware of what is important and what is not.
   Alert symbols - use different colours for each group and say that the Blue group has to be aware of one idea or concept being presented and will then report back a summary of the end of the presentation.

Traffic Lights was another teaching strategy. Each student needs a green, yellow/orange and red card. Green means - "I'm ok (no need to help me)"; Orange/yellow means - "I'm struggling but I am willing to work on it"; Red - "I need help".

Homework for the session includes:

• Research cooperative learning
• Find out about Tribes
• Do a journal entry
• T-chart of actual teaching practice - compared to the T-chart of beliefs. Audit your classroom.
• Need to get a folder to put in all the stuff we get at this conference. Divide it into three - action research done; handouts from the sessions; journal.
  

I will need to follow up the following:

• Using blogs for journaling. Possibility of using CESA online as a forum.
• Getting an electronic copy of the XPATA learning planning - has a number of cooperative and cognitive teaching strategies. We are due to get a PDF version.
• Dates for the next meetings: 14-15th May; 7th-8th of June; 3 August; 19 October - Presentation.