www.taolearn.com

Learning Skill resources available – ATL tab

For……

the money?

the status?

the power?

the admin work?

the meetings?

To Teach?

- to make a difference?

- to open up young minds,

develop understanding,

impart wisdom and

knowledge

- to help children to succeed?

“Teaching is the canny art of

intellectual temptation”

- Jerome Bruner

“Teaching involves putting children into

difficult situations out of which they can

only get by thinking”

– John Heron

Growth

intelligence, personality

and abilities are open to

development

effort makes the difference

failure is an opportunity to

learn

focus is on improving

Fixed

intelligence, personality

and abilities are fixed

the more effort you have to

put in the less your ability

failure is catastrophic

focus is on proving

“you didn’t try hard

enough”

“you weren’t paying

attention when I

taught that”

(effort attribution)

Feedback to boys

“you’re just not very

good at maths”

“you never check your

work”

“you’re just too thick”

(ability attribution)

Feedback to girls

“I’m not very good at

word games”

“I guess I’m just not

that bright”

(ability attribution)

Feedback from girls

“I wasn’t paying

attention”

“I didn’t try very hard”

“Who cares about your

stupid test anyway?”

(effort attribution)

Feedback from boys

…for effort

“you are so hard working,

persistent, determined.…”

links approval to an

attribute of the child over

which they have control -

they can grow, develop and

improve

assessment becomes a

measure of progress, an

opportunity to learn

…for ability

“you are so smart, talented,

intelligent….”

links approval to an

attribute of the child over

which they have no control

- they can’t grow, develop

or improve

assessment becomes a

critical judgement, an

opportunity to fail

1) Get the words right

- change “I can’t” ”I haven’t yet”

(ability attribution) (effort attribution)

2) Get the pictures right

- imagine yourself doing it right

3) Get determined – practise persistence

4) Celebrate every success

To what do you attribute success and failure

in your classroom?

Do you give effort grades?

Do you have any grade-less marking –

formative only?

Focus any praise for achievement on observed

effort rather than ability – for all students

Can they be learned?

How?

By exposure to adversity?

Does all adversity create resilience?

Resilient Students ‘Helpless’ Students

Goals set learning goals –

learn for understanding

set performance goals –

learn for grade

Tasks to test themselves to gain approval or avoid

disapproval

Challenge seek out new

challenges

avoid new challenges

To achieve success believe effort is more

important than ability

believe ability is more

important than effort

Reaction to failure take responsibility,

learn from mistakes

take no responsibility,

repeat, give up

View of intelligence is flexible, can be

developed and grown

is fixed, unalterable with

definite limit

Locus of Control internal external

Future expectations optimistic pessimistic

Locus of Control – Rotter (1966)

Learned Helplessness – Optimism/Pessimism – Seligman (1975)

Takes

action

- Internal

LOC

Positive

Thinking

Takes no

action

- External

LOC

Negative

Thinking

Op

tim

ism

an

d P

ess

imis

m

Locus of Control

The Gnostates

Takes

action

Positive

Thinking

RESILIENTHOPEFUL

STOICVULNERABLE

Takes

no

action

Negative

Thinking

Takes

action

- Internal

LOC

Takes no

action

- External

LOC

Locus of Control

Internal:

Absolute need to be in control Uninterested in others opinions

Takes full responsibility for own success and failure

Makes changes in response to failure

More resilient

LOCUS OF CONTROL

External:

“There’s nothing I can do” Takes no responsibility

All success and failure is due to outside forces

Makes no changes in response to failure

More helpless

The belief that you can take action to affect your own life

1) You are in a taxi in a big city when it stops in traffic and waits,

about 1/2 mile from your destination, 10 minutes pass with no

movement. Do you:

a) just wait patiently

b) ask the taxi driver to find another route

c) pay off the taxi, get out and walk

d) get out, walk to the front of the traffic jam, find out what

the problem is, fix it, get back in your taxi and carry on

a b c d

2) You are on the footpath and someone is struggling to parallel

park their car . Do you:

a) keep on walking

b) ask them what their problem is

c) guide them in using hand signals

d) tell them to get out of the car so you can park it for them

Ext.LOC

Int.LOC

Locus of Control

3) You are in a project team at work. What is your normal role?

a) leave it up to everyone else to do all the work

b) focus on doing your own part only

c) help manage everyone else’s tasks as well as your own

d) complete everyone else’s tasks as well as your own

a b c d

4) Your family is going to New Zealand for the next school holidays.

What is your normal role

a) let someone else organise everything

b) just look after yourself

c) organise the flights and accommodation and make sure

everyone in the family knows what they need to do to get ready

d) pack everyone’s bags for them, organise every minute of

the holiday, keep hold of everyone’s passport and tickets and herd

them all along like sheep

Ext.LOC

Int.LOC

Take control of their lives where they can?

Take action to achieve their own goals?

Take responsibility for their own successes and

failures?

1) Creating goals

2) Making plans

3) Taking action

4) Following through until the job is finished

5) Taking responsibility for all outcomes

6) Making changes in response to failure and trying again

7) Building on any successful outcomes, learning from any unsuccessful outcomes

Positive

Thinking

Negative

Thinking

Op

tim

ism

an

d P

ess

imis

m

LEARNED HELPLESSNESS

Your beliefs about the origins of good and bad luck

Optimistic:

“I create my own good luck, any bad luck is due to others”

Challenge seeking, risk taking

Bounces back in response to failure

More resilient

Pessimistic:

“My bad luck is my own fault, any good luck is due to others”

Challenge avoiding, risk averse

Gives up in response to failure

More helpless

1) You park in a car-park building and go shopping. When you return you see that there is now a big crease all the way down one side of your car where someone has crashed into you.

What do you say to yourself? a) “Some idiot has run into my car! Where is the carpark

attendant, he should have prevented this. b) “Bad stuff happens”c) “This is all my fault, I knew I shouldn’t park here”

a b c2) As you get closer to the car you notice that you have also got a flat

tyre and you know you don’t have a spare. What do you say to yourself now?

a) “OK, that’s enough bad luck, something good has to happen now”

b) “Sometimes I have a bad day”c) “Why does this always happen to me? Every time I go out

in the car something bad happens”

Opt Pess

Optimistic and Pessimistic Thinking

3) You manage finally to wrench the drivers door open and as you do something falls down from behind the dash onto the floor. You pick it up and discover it is a piece of jewelry of great personal value that you had thought was lost which because of the crash has now been found.

What do you say to yourself? a) “Even my bad luck is good” b) “Sometimes good things happen”c) “Maybe I should find the culprit and thank him for crashing into me”

a b c

4) You settle into the car and notice a piece of paper on the passenger seat. You read it and see it is from whoever crashed into your car offering to pay to fix up your car and also to lend you another car until yours is fixed.

What do you say to yourself now? a) “I knew it would all come out right in the end”b) “Sometimes I have a good day”

c) “Something terrible is bound to happen now”

Opt. Pess.

OPTIMISTIC THINKING

personal pervasive permanent PESSIMISTIC THINKING

Good Luck“I caused it” “Everything

will be like this now”

“It will last forever” Bad Luck

Bad Luck“Someone or

something else caused

it”

Nothing else will be

affected”

“It is already over” Good Luck

Optimistic thinkers have:

•better physical health

•50% more antibodies in response to vaccine

•reduced risk and less severe disease

•less depression and mental illness

•longer life

•more happiness

•more resilience after failure

Pessimistic thinkers are:

•more accurate judges of their own abilities

•less inclined to take risks

•less likely to blame others for their mistakes

but they suffer from:

•poorer health

•more depression

•more helplessness

Overcome their ‘I can’ts’?

Choose the most efficacious response in different

situations?

Optimistic responses are most useful in most

situations except in situations of:

▪ Self-judgement of critical abilities

▪ High risk

▪ Making mistakes, admitting blame, taking

responsibility

1) remembering past successes

…………………………….…(list them)..…………….………………………

2) looking for the positives in everyday life

………………………….……(list them)………………………………………

3) taking chances, being more spontaneous

4) challenging myself

5) celebrating all my successes and any good luck

6) making positive future plans

7) encouraging others to be more positive

Internal LOC

Optimistic

RESILIENTHOPEFUL

STOICVULNERABLE

External LOC

Pessimistic

RESILIENTHOPEFUL

STOICVULNERABLE

33%

37%

17%

13%

Take the Gnostates test at: www.taolearn.com/gnostates/index.htm

Gnostates

RESILIENTHOPEFUL

STOICVULNERABLE

bounces back

takes control

always learning

leader

takes calculated

risks

self-motivated

conservative

pessimistic

solid, reliable

frustrated

diligent, persistent

self-blaming

positive attitude

easy-going, relaxed

risk taker

procrastinator

prefers the easy

option

self-promoting

accepting

passive

depressed

“I can’t”

helpless

self-limiting

Take

control

where you

can

Practice optimistic thinking

Advantage effort over ability as the key to academic

success

Focus on learning for understanding rather than

learning for grades

Develop internal LOC and an optimistic outlook

Make resilience a high value attribute in the school

Celebrate the overcoming of adversity

Directly teach the process of failing well

Work in pairs.Your goal is to solve the following puzzle:

You have 12 cannon balls, all the same weight except one. You know one is a different weight from the rest but you don’t know if it is heavier or lighter. You have a balance big enough to hold all the cannon balls if necessary.

Your task is to find the odd-ball by using the balance a maximum of 4 times.

You have 2 minutes.

I failed at …………………………….

How I am feeling now about that is …………

What I am going to do about that is ………..

• nothing, ignore it

• blame the presenter for an unfair test

• blame the seminar/weather/my mood/my tiredness/Kiwis in

general, for setting me up

• accept my failure as an expected result due to my own inherent

lack of ability in this area

• forget about it, put it behind me, carry on regardless

• weep, moan to my partner, feel useless, get depressed

• make a commitment never to attend stupid sessions like this one

again

• accept that failure is ubiquitous, universal and completely out of

my control ……………………………. or something else??

Failure is - the state or condition of not meeting a desired or intended objective”

1) Think of a failure in your life, one for which you were responsible, when through your own action or inaction you failed to achieve your goal, your objective

2) Then think of how you responded to that failure, how did you process that failure afterwards, what did you do subsequently?

One time when I made a mistake or set a goal and didn’t achieve it was…

What I did after that was…

The most significant difference between the

high achievers and the underachievers was

that all the high achievers had

learned how to fail well

- whereas all the underachievers were

failing badly

Failing Well

Acknowledge your failures

- take responsibility for your

own actions

- work out what you did

wrong

- make changes, and

- have another go

Failing Badly

Shift blame to others – the

school, the teachers, other

people

Ignore or deny failure

Catastrophise – add drama to

failure to avoid dealing with it

Avoid any activity that could

possibly result in failure

Universalise failure

1) Managing the emotional response to the

idea, the concept and the word failure?

2) Taking action to re-process failure to turn

any failure into a learning experience

What are some of the reactions to failure that you

observe in your classroom?

Are you comfortable with the word/concept of

failure?

How can you help your students to become more

comfortable with the word/concept of failure?

What could you do to make sure in your class that

every failure is reprocessed and learned from?

Failing Well Failing Badly

Emotional reaction to failure is short livedand fuel for improved performance

Emotional reaction to failure is longlasting and debilitating

Expecting to experience some failure innew learning situations

Denying failure exists or believing thateverything is failure

Using strategies to learn from failure No strategies to learn from failure

Being adaptable and making changeswhere necessary

Focusing on own shortcomings, believingit is impossible to change

Using perseverance, organisation andeffort to minimise the possibility of failure

Eliminating any subject or task in which failure is experienced

Establishing complete control in someareas

Avoiding situations where failure ispossible

Viewing failure as temporary and specificeg. lack of effort

Viewing failure as pervasive andpermanent eg. lack of intelligence

Taking responsibility for own actions infailure situations

Being content with underachievement

IF AT FIRST YOU DON’T

SUCCEED,

MAKE SURE YOU

FAIL WELL

Encourage students to take on new challenges and to use

failure as feedback

Help students to see any academic failure as a failure of

process not of the individual and as an important step to

success – process focused classroom

Teach the skill of failing well

Always allow for the reprocessing of failure

Celebrate learning from mistakes

LOOK

THINKPLAN

DO

How to fail well

take action

describe what happened list the facts

take responsibility for your own

actions

what did I do that worked?

that didn’t work?

what will I do differently next

time?

make a change and have another go

Setting up experiences for students that bring about

the development or use of Affective Skills like self-

motivation, resilience, perseverance, leadership,

‘bouncing back’ after mistakes and failures

Outdoor Education – taking students out of the

classroom can create opportunities for the

development of these skills – eg. Al Jiggins

take on new challenges

test themselves against themselves

maximise their effort

overcome adversity

develop greater resilience and

learn how to fail well?

6 billion mobile devices in the world – in 2014 will exceed human population

95% of new phones are internet capable

41 billion OTT + 20 billion SMS messages/day

183 billion emails per day (2013) of which 70% were spam

In next 5 years 77% increase in data traffic expected in the Middle East and Africa, 76% in Asia/Pacific region and 67% in Latin America

Mobile video data is 50% of all data transmitted

every piece of subject matter was available to your students on the internet, and

they all had access to internet linked tablets, and

they all had access to high speed broadband all day....

What could teaching look like then?

Sugata Mitra

curious

interested

adventurous

courageous

resilient

good learners with

good skills – of

effective learning?

Are they:

• self-motivated

• self-managed

• self-directed

• self-regulated

• autonomous

• independent

• lifelong learners?

Why do you think it is that the longer children

stay in school

- the less curious they become?

- the less questions they ask?

..... is always self-regulated

SRL – self-regulated learning

A focus on the teaching of learning skills in the national

curricula of 12 countries and across the IB world

The proliferation of high quality school subject based

websites

The ubiquity of internet accessible devices

The availability of high speed broadband

The high level of comfort your students all have with the

digital world

Process Oriented Skills Based Guided Inquiry

Learning

To teach the skills of effective learning, practice

inquiry and develop self-regulated learners

Focus on developing the skills of effective learning needed to learn

the subject matter effectively

Pose questions, outline problems, give clear measurable learning

objectives and time frames

Allow students to work collaboratively in small groups

Assign roles – researcher, questioner, recorder, director

Enable students to connect to the best subject based internet

(and other) resources

Facilitate their journey

taolearn.com/students.php- the Art of Learning website with links to many free sites to help you design lessons and to help your students with their study including:

marktreadwell.com/Digital_Resources

marktreadwell.com/Image_Libraries

- huge libraries of digital resources for teachers

topmarks.co.uk- search engine for many great school subject websites

1) Work with the person next to you – groups of 2-3 people with one

internet connected device per group

2) Connect to www.topmarks.co.uk

3) Select common interest ‘subject’ and ‘level’ – click ‘go’

Early Years = < 5 yrs old

Key Stage 1 = 5 – 7

Key Stage 2 = 7 – 11

Key Stage 3 = 11 – 14

Key Stage 4 = 14 – 16

Advanced = 16 – 18

Higher Ed = > 18

4) Find as many useful websites in your subject area as you can

5) Analyse them using the table in your booklet

khanacademy.org- really clear clips explaining every part of most subjects

brightstorm.com- great videos and much more in Maths, Science and English (American English anyway)

getrevising.co.uk/resources- all subjects at all levels, great new shared resources arriving from other students daily – contributeyour own

studyblue.com/notes/high-schools/- make and share online flashcards, quizzes and notes, study on-line and on your phone, you need to join up first but its free

johndclare.net and spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk- good sites for history, all countries, all ages

s-cool.co.uk and bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/- good resources for all subjects for GCSE or MYP

mrbartonmaths.com/goodsites.htm- a collection of free maths sites for GCSE or MYP

rod.beavon.clara.net/chemistry_contents.htm#Physical- great site for Chemistry at all levels

quizlet.com and easynotecards.com/index- flash card makers for most subjects

Take an existing lesson and turn it into a series of

questions, the answers to which will lead the

student to the conclusions you are after.

Find the web pages you would need to link up to

design an internet based inquiry learning

exercise to enable your students to find the

answers to the questions you propose.

Question: what is the essence of inquiry learning?

Research the following 5 topics – 1 or 2 persons per topic:

Open badges

Digital literacy

The autotelic classroom

Search limiters

Boolean operators

Discuss all your results

Find a common theme that links all 5 topics and answers the

question

• Technological limitations – number of internet devices,

broadband & wifi availability and reliability?

• Financial limitations – cost of connectivity?

• Lack of good subject based websites in the language of

instruction?

• Security, difficulty in isolating sites for students to use?

• Focus, concentration issues with students on-line?

• Lack of awareness in teachers of what is available on-line in their

subjects

• Fear of trying something new?

Teach them the right skills

Give them lots of opportunities to practice

resilient, self-regulated learning – in the

classroom

Build in systems of reward for resilience and for

self-regulation

Make sure students reflect on the development

of their own proficiency

“Do not then train youths to learning by force

and harshness, but direct them to it by what

amuses their minds so that you may be better

able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent

of the genius of each”

Plato - 427 – 347 BC

BLOOM’S REVISED TAXONOMY