Talk and Science

Wrecsam/Wrexham26th June 2009

Putting talk at the heart of learning

• Andrew Wilkinson - Oracy - 1965• Harold Orton - English dialect survey

• Britton, Barnes, Rosen 1974• Collaborative Learning Project 1983 • Language in the National Curriculum• Oracy Project

1993•“Where appropriate”•IRF•Interactive whole class teaching

Some good news

•Dialogic teaching (Alexander)

•Exploring talk (Mercer)•Antidote and SEAL•Philosophy for children•APP (wait and see!)

Build on prior knowledgeMove from concrete to

abstractEnsure everyone works with

everyone elseExtend social language

into curriculum languageProvide motivating ways to

go over the same thing more than once

How does collaborative learning help

thinking?

Visual/kinesthetic support for concept

development

Opportunities to value prior knowledge

Supportive environments to formulate new

ideas

Opportunities to rework/reword ideas and

provide time for reflection

Opportunities to revisit learning in

attractive ways

Templates for pupils to develop their

own activities

Scaffolds talk at all levels

simultaneously

Provides tasks that model thinking

processes

Transformation of information

Activities that provide access to the curriculum,

opportunities to practice predictable

language structures and improve social

relations

Build on prior knowledge

• Buzz groups/talk partners• Information gap

Move from concrete to abstract

• Key visuals/graphic organisers• Humanising the abstract

Some key visuals

• Chart• Grid• Venn diagram• Tree diagram• Sequencing line• Time line• Cycle

• Diamond Nines• Sorting table• Tracks

Everybody working with everybody

Create different roles and then jigsaw!

How do you jigsaw?

Move social language into curriculum language

Provide motivating ways to go over the same thing

more once

How are activities planned?

• What do we want the children to know?• What kinds of thinking do we hope they will practice?

• What kinds of language do they need? Necessary language and potential language?

• What key visuals best produce the thinking and the language?

• Can we make our activity collaborative/sociable?

Here is an example!!

• We want children to consider the different habitats of animals.

• Where do they live?

• What is it like there?

• Why do they live there?

• How do they survive and/or thrive?

What key visual will help their thinking?A sorting grid or chart.

This can be made into a game.• You need 4 people, one baseboard and two sets of cards (different colours.)

• Work with a partner to make a team of two.

• Shuffle your cards and place them in a pile facing down.

• Take it in turn to turn over your top card and decide where to put it on the board.

• The winning team gets four in row vertically, horizontally or diagonally.

• Decide whether to have challenges or a checking system.

Collaborative Learning and the National

Forest•Inspired by a vision•Fits in where there is space•Committed to growth•Scattered outcrops all over the place

•Plans to cover the whole country

Go to http://www.

collaborativelearning.org/wrecsam.html

For links to all the resources you have seen

today including the powerpoint.