Coaching for Learning at Noadswood School

In search of ‘the one’… finding hooks to inspire in enquiry based learning (EBL)

At the end of last term there was a flurry activity confirming that Noadswood had been successful with our bid to remain at the core of Learning Futures in 2010/11; full-on EBL was coming to Noadswood! This is a very exciting proposition for the school and the decision to make EBL the focus of Learning Futures came at just the right time for us. Our aim is to build on our pilot coaching for learning work of last year and to evaluate the role of coaching in EBL and the significance of parental involvement. Personalised learning, pupil ownership and engaged parents are powerful tools for maximising pupil motivation.

Whilst this is a dynamic project to be involved in, the personal challenge for all participating teachers is, however, vast. The focus for EBL is our Humanities curriculum area, including different teachers from several Humanities based subjects. It was with initial trepidation that we took our first steps into enquiry based learning. Whilst the flexibility of the project and its innovative approach appeal to teachers, the sense of treading into the unknown can be daunting. Colleagues have commented that:

“I am excited by the opportunities it provides but a little worried that I might not make best use of the flexibility. I don’t want it to be an opportunity missed.”

“I think it will be a learning experience for us all, staff and pupils and it will be great to do some work with other staff. I am worried about not having enough time to plan collaboratively with other teachers.”

During the summer term, Chris Bush from Waitrose helped to steer the team and foster a feeling of ownership towards the project. It became clear, that whilst we had created enquiry based lessons previously, this would now be done on a much bigger scale. Furthermore, all teachers were wary about finding enough time to collaboratively plan the programme.

In our meetings, it was apparent that teachers will need to carefully scaffold their lessons to engage and motivate students as we help steer pupils onto a course of independent learning and groundbreaking work. The time to co-construct these lessons with both colleagues and students can be difficult to find within a busy teaching timetable.

There are four teaching sets involved in our project; each with a different set of conditions. All sets involved are geared towards assessing pupil engagement. The challenge will be allowing us as teachers to relinquish control of the curriculum and hand this to our students.

The four groups involved are:

1) The Control Group: This group will follow the normal curriculum.
2) The EBL Group: This group will follow standard enquiry based learning work.
3) The EBL plus coaching group: This will involve teachers receiving specialised training and assess the impact coaching has on the pupils involved and the outcomes they produce.
4) The EBL plus coaching and parental involvement: This will assess how to involve parents within the learning process and to evaluate the impact this has.

We have decided to run three separate enquiries throughout the year. Each day will kick-start with an initial ‘deep day’. These are intended to engage students with a theme, which will in turn stimulate discussion and help to frame students’ future enquiries. We have initially decided to use conceptual themes. The purpose for this is two fold. Firstly, to engage students as a concept offers far wider scope and secondly to ensure a cross curricular appeal. The first theme will be conflict. We are now in search of the perfect ‘hook’ to introduce the theme of conflict, which will fire pupils’ imaginations and provoke rigorous enquiry questions. We are also allowing individual teachers to frame the first enquiry phase in the way they feel best suits their own interests and that of their classes. The alternatives are shown below. Whilst the project is experimental for students, it should also allow teachers the opportunity to reflect and experiment within the own classrooms. Furthermore, by following different pathways on the deep day it will allow far greater reflection from all teachers as we move towards the second day.

Whilst we are all working towards a common goal; students creating their own enquiry question in the third enquiry phase, there are a number of options available to teachers at the end of the first ‘hook day’. Depending on the ability of the class, the teacher may want to scaffold the learning of students by generating the enquiry questions themselves. This would allow the teacher to discuss what makes a rigorous enquiry question and allow the students to experience this. For more able classes and ambitious teachers, the class can generate their own enquiry questions. The teacher can then either set up a ‘dragons den’ scenario where pupils submit their proposals and the class votes on their preferred enquiry question, choosing as a class to follow the same one. Alternatively, different pupils and groups can be working towards different enquiry questions centered on the theme of conflict. Within each of the options discussed above is a large amount of flexibility to allow teachers to experiment. The purpose behind this experimentation is to give both students and teachers ownership of their individual projects. Greater flexibility should also lend itself to a deeper learning experience for all involved. As teachers re-group and reflect on the initial enquiry, we should have a greater understanding of what proves most effective when setting up EBL.

“I’m a coach, get me out of here!”

Today, I carried out my first coaching session with my EBL group. They are a mixed ability group and started the lesson enthused about the two week teaching period ahead. As their ‘coach’, I was somewhat nervous. It was my first session and I intended to do an hour of ‘pure’ coaching whilst being filmed by Qing Wang from Bristol University. The class started well as I re-capped the qualities of a ‘good’ coach and their expectations from me. All were very clear that I would ‘guide’ their learning, advise and listen to their concerns. All noted that they were apprehensive about the task ahead. We kick started the day with a movie maker detailing the events of the hook day, they became animated as they remembered the enthusiasm and great ideas that they had produced on that initial day. We discussed why the hook day had generated such excitement, students commenting that it would combat ‘boredom’ and made them ‘feel good’ that they were trusted.’

I intended for this initial session to be a structured coaching day. The intention was to encourage pupils to reflect on the day, the ideas that they had, had and to evaluate how far that they had actually achieved these. The questions and work sheets we produced were based on ideas from the Buck Institute and my coaching questions were framed by the training I had received from Sam Green. Pupils assessed the progress that they had made, what research they had done and evaluated where they thought they were in the enquiry process. They started to map out the two week period and discuss what they needed to do. This was a very valuable experience but one which led to key characteristics of the dreaded ‘drama’ triangle being exhibited. Some students were delighted by the work they had done, and sort to take the helm of the group as others looked on unable to get a word in edge ways. Others found themselves increasingly frustrated by the more dominant members of the group. Some felt a strong sense of inequality in their groups, especially when it was inevitably discovered that some members had worked very hard and others had done very little. As a teacher, I found it difficult to ‘coach’ them through their problems. The class had been given total freedom over their groupings, and as the hour unfolded some were finding that they had made poor choices which would make completing their project difficult. One group were taken outside as we discussed their problems. I tried to coach them by focusing on their outcome, what did they want, how would they get there, what obstacles were in the way and how could they over come these?

Whilst this session proved to be somewhat exhausting for the classes ‘coach’, there were many valuable lessons that we can draw from this. Firstly, pupils struggled with their groupings. The benefits of total freedom which had previously been embraced had come back to haunt some groups. They struggled to work within their groups and grappled with the concept of what constitutes effective research. These initial concerns are we believe part of the learning process. As teachers and coaches we could have grouped pupils to minimize these problems, however if we are intending to make pupils more independent and resilient then pupils need to make their own decisions, implement these and adapt to the consequences of these. Thus placing the emphasis of the first phase of EBL, on the learning process more than the final outcome.

A further problem was a pupil fixation on their ‘outcome’. Every student was powering towards creating a power point or movie maker. They had little concern about ‘research’ or what constitutes effective research. For most groups it involved cutting and pasting information and the gathering of pictures, all to put in their outcome. During this phase we will need to go back to basics about how to research. In the second phase to avoid this pre-occupation with the outcome, perhaps the outcome should come in much later. This will allow pupils to focus in more on their research questions and the methods they will use to acquire this knowledge. There were many positives about the session but the drama triangle and pre-occupation of some groups on the public outcome did leave one very frazzled coach with a lot to think about for next time!

Eddie Stephenson

Introducing….the Coaches Corner

My second coaching session saw the introduction of some ‘coaching innovations’. The class who are the topic of my blogs are part of a split class. After consultation with other colleagues and observations from Qing Wang, we decided that the pupils were not getting enough ‘one to one’ coaching time. The job of ‘coaching’ pupils was made more challenging by the large numbers of pupils in the class. We as teachers, found that the process was challenging as groups constantly felt they needed assistance. The sheer volume of help required meant that pupils were not getting all the help they needed. In my second session with the class, we introduced the ‘coaches’ corner’. This idea was inspired by a conversation between Steve Rollett (Humanities Curriculm Leader) and Qing after an observed EBL lesson. The idea was to create a system, by which pupils could take a card number and come to the coach corner to seek advice and guidance. Only four cards were produced, this was an intentional decision designed to encourage pupils to think independently and to avoid a queue around the classroom for the corner.’

‘Coaches Corner’ in practice:

Early Panic:

The lesson started well as pupils sought to get into their groups and organize their work. They were informed of the new corner and immediately became obsessed with obtaining one of the ‘lucky’ four cards. It became clear that the groups were in no way planning what they would do lesson by lesson. The structured sheets that they had filled in to identify their aims for each lesson, were not referred to regularly. Rather, they appeared to actively seek out their teacher at the start of every lesson to seek guidance on what to do.

Coaching Sessions:

The individual group questions focused on two aspects of their project; ICT access and group dynamics. One group of seven exclaimed that their group leader was away and so they could not possibly do any work! As their coach, I tried to take on a more hands approach to this ‘problem’ asking them about their strengths and how they could organize their group. The conversations focused on the importance of the ‘team’ over one group member. It was an interesting challenge to try and get students to a place where they recognized their individual talents and saw how these could be utilized by the group.

Other groups also realized that whilst they remained convinced ICT access was an integral part of their work; all acknowledged that in order to make their electronic outcome they would need to actually answer their question.

Organization:

The recurring theme which prevailed throughout this lesson was that pupils were not organizing their work to any real depth. They knew that they needed to ‘research’ but they were still unsure of what this really meant. They were unsure of what good research really looked like. We had modeled examples of this with them; however their research skills seemed to lack the focus necessary to answer their questions. They understood the surface features of enquiry but struggled to scratch beneath the surface of these. During this phase and the second phase more attention will need to be focused on what makes effective research, so as to ensure pupils understand what makes a rigorous enquiry.

Pupil Behavior:

The coaches’ corner is an avenue that we will pursue again; however it will need to be adapted. Whilst the concept is sound, it did leave the rest of the class struggling to know what to do. The members not involved in the corner found it difficult to maintain focus in their groups, often wondering over to other groups and becoming involved in off topic conversations. It was a challenge to ‘coach’ some students whilst trying to ensure that the others stayed on task.

Future adaptations:

The coaches’ corner is here to stay but how it is implemented will need to change. Allowing pupils a limited slot was a successful idea, however the pupils not involved in this did require more structure. After consultation with Steve, we decided to create a structure to the lesson for those who weren’t in the ‘corner’. This would involve time for consultation amongst the group, research and of course the opportunity to visit the coaches’ corner. We hope that this will give more structure to their lessons, so as they become more engrossed in the research that they are conducting.

Eddie Stephenson