WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.349 Today I will be talking about how we get students to take 00:00:03.399 --> 00:00:05.239 ownership of their learning. 00:00:05.699 --> 00:00:10.779 It really continues on from last week's episode where I unpacked the 00:00:10.790 --> 00:00:15.979 four key insights into the strategies that really drive student engagement 00:00:16.429 --> 00:00:20.549 from the recent report, on classroom engagement from Lego Education. 00:00:21.150 --> 00:00:24.000 I want to start by thanking you firstly for listening to Blooming 00:00:24.000 --> 00:00:29.019 Curious and encouraging you to leave a review for the show, , because the 00:00:29.020 --> 00:00:33.305 more reviews a podcast has, the easier it is for people to discover them. 00:00:33.705 --> 00:00:38.144 And the more educators discover this podcast, the more inspired they'll be 00:00:38.175 --> 00:00:41.305 and that of course means more students ultimately benefit. 00:00:42.035 --> 00:00:45.924 So let's talk about students taking responsibility for their own work. 00:00:46.544 --> 00:00:51.324 I think it's important to realize that there is a difference between 00:00:51.404 --> 00:00:54.890 compliance and busy work, and engagement. 00:00:55.690 --> 00:00:58.420 The students that always follow the directions that complete the 00:00:58.420 --> 00:01:02.939 tasks we set and the same ones that raise their hands to answer a 00:01:02.969 --> 00:01:06.179 question are not necessarily engaged. 00:01:06.539 --> 00:01:10.559 They are often the people pleasers, the ones that want to 00:01:10.570 --> 00:01:12.399 be seen as doing the right thing. 00:01:12.750 --> 00:01:14.510 The ones that don't want to get into trouble. 00:01:15.335 --> 00:01:20.395 I don't know about you, but I often hear, and I've experienced this in my own class, 00:01:20.795 --> 00:01:24.874 that children just sit there and they expect you to pour information into them. 00:01:25.304 --> 00:01:29.404 They're passive receivers of information, and then they do 00:01:29.404 --> 00:01:30.835 nothing with that information. 00:01:31.334 --> 00:01:33.704 That's ultimately disengagement. 00:01:34.385 --> 00:01:39.885 And so often, we're killing ourselves, delivering a lesson, we do the talking, we 00:01:39.885 --> 00:01:44.354 do the questioning, and then students go off and they complete a task that we set. 00:01:44.825 --> 00:01:45.985 We do all the work. 00:01:46.149 --> 00:01:49.309 We end the day with sore throats from all the talking and it's 00:01:49.309 --> 00:01:52.960 no wonder we're exhausted and constantly on the brink of burnout. 00:01:53.629 --> 00:01:55.899 But it doesn't have to be like this. 00:01:56.360 --> 00:02:01.149 What we really should be doing is getting students to do all the work. 00:02:01.520 --> 00:02:04.399 They need to be taking ownership of their own learning. 00:02:04.809 --> 00:02:09.209 They are the ones that should be talking and questioning and doing, not us. 00:02:10.009 --> 00:02:13.069 So how exactly do we get students to do this? 00:02:13.844 --> 00:02:16.874 Well, from my own experience working with inquiry and project based 00:02:16.874 --> 00:02:21.355 learning, I know that when children are interested in a topic and it's 00:02:21.364 --> 00:02:25.015 something that's relevant to their own lives, they're better engaged. 00:02:25.494 --> 00:02:29.424 They need to feel that it has meaning beyond the task that 00:02:29.424 --> 00:02:30.715 they're doing at their desks. 00:02:31.424 --> 00:02:37.454 This is why asking a question or setting a problem to explore is so important. 00:02:38.074 --> 00:02:43.844 And then you get students to work in small groups to find a solution to that problem. 00:02:44.249 --> 00:02:46.269 or the answers to a question. 00:02:46.869 --> 00:02:50.200 And by the way, this is the basis of an inquiry classroom. 00:02:51.099 --> 00:02:54.569 But we don't just set a question and then tell kids to go off and 00:02:54.569 --> 00:02:56.499 look for the answer in small groups. 00:02:57.640 --> 00:03:01.140 If you do that, you will find that students start messing around, 00:03:01.369 --> 00:03:05.509 they're chatting about everything except the problem, and very soon 00:03:05.789 --> 00:03:07.339 you'll have chaos on your hands. 00:03:07.700 --> 00:03:10.489 And then you're going to be left thinking inquiry is a terrible 00:03:10.489 --> 00:03:11.939 strategy that doesn't work. 00:03:12.439 --> 00:03:15.950 And that's because you haven't taken the time to first teach 00:03:15.950 --> 00:03:21.079 children explicitly what to do, how to approach finding the answers. 00:03:21.520 --> 00:03:25.049 You have to model the model, as Jessica Vance says. 00:03:26.029 --> 00:03:28.535 You have to train them up first. 00:03:29.055 --> 00:03:33.125 And now I know that many teachers out there, and it might even be you listening 00:03:33.125 --> 00:03:37.384 right now, will be saying, . I haven't got the time to train them up and 00:03:37.394 --> 00:03:40.075 teach them these skills to do inquiry. 00:03:40.144 --> 00:03:41.795 I have a curriculum to get through. 00:03:42.705 --> 00:03:45.925 Well, as you heard in last week's episode, and I urge you to have a 00:03:45.925 --> 00:03:51.075 listen to that episode if you haven't already, that teacher engagement 00:03:51.405 --> 00:03:53.145 leads to student engagement. 00:03:53.694 --> 00:03:58.415 And the way teachers become better engaged is through taking ownership 00:03:58.694 --> 00:04:00.615 of their own personal learning. 00:04:01.305 --> 00:04:05.725 And as we also heard from that data that was published by LEGO Education, 00:04:06.955 --> 00:04:12.000 is that when students are engaged, Teachers enjoy their jobs more, and 00:04:12.000 --> 00:04:14.060 that leads to better teacher retention. 00:04:14.720 --> 00:04:19.945 So doesn't it make sense that if we as educators make engagement our mission. 00:04:20.615 --> 00:04:24.345 Then not only will we enjoy our work more, but students are going 00:04:24.345 --> 00:04:27.695 to love learning more and they'll take ownership of their learning, 00:04:28.045 --> 00:04:30.065 which isn't that ultimately our goal? 00:04:31.294 --> 00:04:33.235 So let's get back to teaching those skills. 00:04:34.115 --> 00:04:39.223 Let's take asking questions as an example, since we want children to be asking good 00:04:39.223 --> 00:04:43.534 questions and we want them to find out the information to answer those questions. 00:04:43.934 --> 00:04:47.394 Now, if you follow Trevor McKenzie, you will know that he has a new 00:04:47.394 --> 00:04:52.584 book out and this book is all about different questioning techniques. 00:04:53.064 --> 00:04:57.714 I will leave my affiliate link to the book in the show notes so you can get it there. 00:04:58.604 --> 00:05:03.914 But you start by setting a problem or by giving children a short. 00:05:04.209 --> 00:05:09.539 piece of text or get them to watch a short video clip and then you ask them 00:05:09.799 --> 00:05:15.549 to ask questions or to come up with questions to which the answers were found 00:05:15.579 --> 00:05:19.939 or to which the answers are found in the text that they've just read or in the 00:05:19.939 --> 00:05:21.639 video clip that they've just watched. 00:05:22.219 --> 00:05:26.439 I've used this technique in my classroom many times and it works 00:05:26.459 --> 00:05:30.129 wonderfully because students don't feel that pressure of having to 00:05:30.129 --> 00:05:31.799 come up with a question first. 00:05:32.129 --> 00:05:35.294 It's a sort of reversed engineering process. 00:05:36.124 --> 00:05:42.604 They then brainstorm questions in pairs or small groups, pairs are probably better, 00:05:43.054 --> 00:05:46.814 and then they write their questions onto sticky notes and then they come 00:05:46.814 --> 00:05:51.984 up and they place those questions on a continuum of whether the question is a 00:05:51.984 --> 00:05:55.764 deep question or a shallow question or a thick question or a thin question, 00:05:55.764 --> 00:05:57.504 basically just another way of saying 00:05:57.979 --> 00:05:59.569 an open or closed question. 00:05:59.989 --> 00:06:03.119 There are lots of examples of this in Trevor's book, too. 00:06:03.939 --> 00:06:08.949 And what you've just done is taught children the skill of asking questions. 00:06:09.569 --> 00:06:14.069 The basis for engagement because you've obviously discussed the 00:06:14.069 --> 00:06:18.839 questions and where they've placed them and you've got them to work in 00:06:18.839 --> 00:06:22.519 small groups, which is another key insight from the engagement data. 00:06:23.489 --> 00:06:26.469 And it's that students value working together. 00:06:26.989 --> 00:06:30.559 And you're getting them to move and to be hands on because they've got to 00:06:30.599 --> 00:06:34.289 get out of their seats, they've got to place a sticky note onto the sheet of 00:06:34.289 --> 00:06:36.219 paper that you have or onto your board. 00:06:36.979 --> 00:06:40.709 Now, I know this probably sounds really simple, you just hearing it 00:06:40.709 --> 00:06:45.579 like this from me, but I can assure you that once you try this, you will 00:06:45.579 --> 00:06:48.019 feel the energy in the room change. 00:06:49.484 --> 00:06:53.434 This is the kind of learning you'll do when you're working on projects. 00:06:53.854 --> 00:06:59.374 Children will take the skills that you've taught them in a questioning lesson like 00:06:59.404 --> 00:07:03.774 I've just described, for example, and then they'll apply it to their own projects. 00:07:04.244 --> 00:07:06.104 They'll ask better questions. 00:07:06.364 --> 00:07:08.554 They'll know where to look for the answers. 00:07:09.074 --> 00:07:12.644 And they'll present their answers and their findings in a way that 00:07:12.644 --> 00:07:16.854 you've also previously taught them in an explicit lesson, whether 00:07:16.854 --> 00:07:21.344 that be an information report or a PowerPoint or an oral presentation. 00:07:22.244 --> 00:07:27.814 The bottom line is that if you want students to take ownership of their 00:07:27.814 --> 00:07:31.944 learning, we need to make that learning relevant to their lives. 00:07:32.724 --> 00:07:37.574 We've got to find inspiration in what's going on in our community. 00:07:37.959 --> 00:07:40.639 What's going on in the world or in their homes? 00:07:41.519 --> 00:07:46.389 If they're learning about persuasive texts, for example, let's not get them to 00:07:46.389 --> 00:07:49.369 write about the same old boring things. 00:07:49.569 --> 00:07:53.589 Yes, we can use, what's better, cats or dogs, to teach them the 00:07:53.589 --> 00:07:58.769 structure of a persuasive text, but then we allow them to write about 00:07:58.769 --> 00:08:03.869 something close to their own hearts, something that affects them directly. 00:08:05.029 --> 00:08:08.849 I remember a few years ago in my year two class, I had a family 00:08:08.849 --> 00:08:13.199 that were building their own home and their child was fascinated 00:08:13.199 --> 00:08:14.719 with the whole building process. 00:08:15.339 --> 00:08:19.889 He didn't love reading or writing, but when I allowed him to integrate 00:08:20.049 --> 00:08:24.399 this house building project into his own work, into his own writing, 00:08:24.439 --> 00:08:27.079 into his own planning, he lit up. 00:08:27.719 --> 00:08:32.709 He made a model diorama, he wrote about the process, we read about house building, 00:08:33.079 --> 00:08:37.739 and we even included it in our mathematics lessons, working out the perimeter, 00:08:38.379 --> 00:08:42.569 which we then took further and walked out the perimeter of our school playground. 00:08:42.939 --> 00:08:45.189 And this was something that children could relate to. 00:08:45.589 --> 00:08:48.909 It was something they saw around them all the time with 00:08:48.909 --> 00:08:50.369 all these houses being built. 00:08:51.109 --> 00:08:56.644 To take ownership of their learning, children need to be engaged. 00:08:57.524 --> 00:09:02.544 . We simply cannot as teachers carry on with this thing where we think that we're just 00:09:02.545 --> 00:09:06.025 going to pour information into children and then they're going to be engaged and 00:09:06.025 --> 00:09:10.365 actually apply this information to real life settings to transfer this learning. 00:09:10.875 --> 00:09:12.295 It's just not going to happen. 00:09:12.525 --> 00:09:15.335 I haven't seen it happen and I'm sure you haven't either. 00:09:16.075 --> 00:09:19.055 We have to get children to take ownership of their learning. 00:09:20.030 --> 00:09:22.700 We cannot do the learning for them. 00:09:23.260 --> 00:09:26.610 We are just the facilitators that lead them on this path. 00:09:27.410 --> 00:09:32.460 So to get them to take ownership of their learning, they need to be engaged. 00:09:32.960 --> 00:09:36.390 So let's recap how we get students engaged and taking 00:09:36.420 --> 00:09:37.940 ownership for their own learning. 00:09:38.569 --> 00:09:43.010 Number one, is we make this learning relevant to their own lives. 00:09:43.560 --> 00:09:47.380 Number two, is we get them to do the talking, the questioning 00:09:47.390 --> 00:09:49.110 and the working, not us. 00:09:49.815 --> 00:09:53.545 Number three, we get them to work in small groups. 00:09:54.365 --> 00:09:58.195 Number four, We get them out of their seats. 00:09:58.745 --> 00:10:05.115 And number five, we get them to do hands on tasks, where they're doing, where 00:10:05.115 --> 00:10:09.905 they're making, where they're creating and finding solutions to problems. 00:10:10.924 --> 00:10:13.834 I hope this episode has given you something to think about 00:10:14.074 --> 00:10:17.875 and perhaps inspired you to try something different this week. 00:10:18.195 --> 00:10:19.985 I would love to hear your thoughts. 00:10:20.400 --> 00:10:25.320 on this, so please send me a DM on Instagram or Facebook, just 00:10:25.320 --> 00:10:28.830 look for Blooming Curious, and share your thoughts with me there. 00:10:29.630 --> 00:10:35.690 And if you would like more actionable strategies to nurture curiosity and a 00:10:35.690 --> 00:10:41.070 love for learning, then sign up to Get Curious, my weekly newsletter for curious 00:10:41.120 --> 00:10:43.550 forward thinking educators just like you. 00:10:44.435 --> 00:10:48.755 I'll leave a link in the show notes, so just go there and click and sign up. 00:10:49.555 --> 00:10:51.115 Once again, thanks for listening. 00:10:51.204 --> 00:10:56.124 And please leave a review if this content has resonated with you so that educators 00:10:56.125 --> 00:11:02.165 can find this podcast and until next week, remember, curiosity isn't just a trait. 00:11:02.545 --> 00:11:03.675 It's a superpower. 00:11:03.965 --> 00:11:08.324 And that's why you absolutely must stay Blooming Curious.