Team-Level Professional Learning | SKIP Tasks & Examples

Purpose:

• Teachers better understand the purpose of individual questions in upcoming assessments

• Teachers prepare their responses to error following the assessment

• Assessments are quality-assured

Criteria:

1. Print copies of an upcoming assessment

2. Run through the assessment, question by question

3. With each question ask:

   • What is this testing?

   • Is this question helpful to me as a teacher?

   • How will I respond to this if a pupil gets this wrong?

4. Decide whether the Assessment is valid, reliable and meaningful

5. Make any improvements to the assessment to make it more valid, reliable and meaningful

Resources:

Purpose:

• Teachers enhance their subject knowledge through being taught by more expert colleagues

• Teachers can prepare how they would explain/model/teach key idea by observing how expert colleague explains/models it

Criteria:

1. Arrange for session to be led by an 'expert colleague'

2. The 'expert colleague' models how they would teach the idea/concept within their expertise

3. Other teachers make note of:

   • Subject content

   • Language used in explaining the concept

   • Examples or models used to explain the concept

4. Other teachers practice explaining the concept using the same models and examples

Purpose:

• Teachers develop knowledge of component parts of key concept/idea

• Teachers practice breaking complex ideas down into consumable parts to reduce the cognitive load of their instruction increasing the probability each child will be successful in the learning process

Criteria:

1. Select a key concept / idea

2. Break this idea down into atoms: all of the bite-size sub-tasks and specific knowledge that needs to be taught for this concept to be understood

3. Arrange and sequence these bite-size atoms into an optimum order of teaching to maximise a pupil's chance of understanding the idea.

Examples:

Purpose:

• Teachers develop their knowledge of exam requirements and typical exam language and questions

• Teachers practice breaking down questions into the composite knowledge required in order to be able to answer it proficiently

• Teachers anticipate the misconceptions their pupils might have if they answer it incorrectly

Criteria:

1. Select an exam question from a recent exam

2. Break the question down into the key knowledge required in order to be able to get full marks in this question

3. Discuss how misconceptions might come to the surface in this question and how we could identify and correct these if pupils make these mistakes

Resources:

Purpose:

• Teachers practice and plan how they might use drawings and images to represent complex ideas or concepts

Criteria:

1. In smaller groups, select an idea /concept that you are all teaching over the next two weeks.

2. Practice drawing a picture / diagram / series of diagrams that would help pupils to understand this idea / concept better.

3. Discuss how you would match up this drawing with narration in order to maximise pupil's chance of success in understanding the idea / concept.

Resources:

Purpose:

• Teachers consider how they would stretch their higher attaining pupils

• Teachers prepare independent extension / enrichment tasks for their higher attaining learners

Criteria:

1. Consider a topic / idea / concept that is coming up in the next few weeks

2. Discuss what you would do to stretch / enrich / enhance your pupils' subject knowledge here

3. Create independent enrichment and enhancement tasks for past-threshold pupils, that will allow the teacher to focus on the mastery / corrective instruction for their pupils who did not get 80%.

Examples:

Purpose:

• Teachers can develop their lesson planning skills by getting feedback from a colleague

• Teachers engage in planning lessons, which saves time having to do it themselves

• Reduces workload as teachers plan all together rather than alone.

Criteria:

1. In smaller groups, select a concept / idea that you are all teaching over the next two weeks

2. Any members who have already planned or taught this before can show / talk through their plans and sequence of examples, if not they can plan together

3. Other members can provide feedback on this:

   • Is anything unclear

   • Is the sequence correct?

   • Has this been broken down enough?

4. Teachers walk through the teaching of this topic together and rehearse explanations

Resources:

Purpose:

• Teachers actively engage in the process of anticipating misconceptions

• Teachers develop their knowledge of misconceptions that can arise from the teaching of this idea / concept

• Teachers develop a bank of resources that support them in pre-empting these misconceptions

• Teachers develop a bank of resources that support them in exposing these misconceptions

• Teachers develop a bank of resources that support them in responding to these misconceptions

Criteria:

1. Identify a challenging concept/idea

2. List all of the possible misconceptions

3. Discuss how these misconceptions can be pre-empted

4. Plan questions that will expose these misconceptions

5. Plan tasks/examples/explanations to correct these misconceptions

Resources:

Purpose:

• Teachers can understand the pre-requisite knowledge for each concept / idea

• Teachers can plan to adapt their lesson in response to pupils having insufficient pre-requisite knowledge

• Teachers can develop pre-requisite knowledge primers for use in their Do Nows.

Criteria:

1. List all of the pre-requisite topics that pupils need to know in order to be ready to learn this idea

2. Plan how you can prime/check for these pre-requisites

3. If pupils are missing the pre-requisite knowledge, what can you do to fill it in?

Examples: