On Friday morning, I had the pleasure of welcoming over 100 teachers in to my session on developing confident learners at the National Education Show in City Hall, Cardiff. It proved an interesting start to the day and one that has had me thinking, a lot ever since.
Powerful learning experiences take place frequently in EYFS, Primary, Secondary and FE classrooms (and outside of them) across the land, where learners engage with the knowledge, experiences and challenges placed in front of them by their teacher, who knows them really well. Where learning is powerful, many threads are woven together, different layers of learning, knowledge, skills, mindset, experience, discovery, challenge, immersion and confidence. Bonded together, these provide a learning experience where learners prior knowledge and understanding have been activated so this new experiential lesson provides an additional layer of learning, deepening understanding and comprehension also developing the learners recall and practical skills. Learning is deep, memorable and powerfully strong yet the experience can unravel, the learning become overwhelming, resulting in anxious or insecure learners, who, when faced with challenge, have little or no confidence.
We need to ensure that our learners are confident and are ready, open and willing to take risks in the classroom which will take them out of their comfort zones but will enrich, develop, deepen their knowledge, skills and understanding whilst boosting their self-esteem and confidence along the way. We do need to allow learners to struggle, to ponder, to think, to link the knowledge with prior learning experiences and have time to discuss this with their peers so that they can link the learning and arrive at an answer together. Experiences like these build confidence and if we don’t provide our learners with them, opting to give them easily achievable tasks and experiences where they arrive at solutions easily or just tell them the answer, learning experiences will be the poorer for it.
So what are the characteristics of a confident learner? And what does this look like in the classroom? Consider this for a moment – think of the learners in your classes (as I found out from one teacher on Friday; in one primary classroom all 36 of them) and reflect who are your confident learners and what characteristics do they display in the classroom?
Of course, as humans we can be confident in some areas of our lives and not in others. I am a confident linguist, I am a very confident French speaker. I am not a confident mathematician and my confidence has waned speaking Russian these days. So there are areas of our lives where we are more confident than in others. This is perfectly normal and this is the same for every single other human on the planet. Whether we choose to share it publicly or not is another matter. Some people do share their less confident side more, others hide this away, preferring to focus on their strengths and not engage with subjects, activities or experiences which will take them out of their comfort zone leading them in to the struggle zone. For some adults this is terrifying and paralysing, this is the same for some of our learners too, so it is our job as teachers (and fabulous teaching assistants) to help our learners develop their confidence and have a go, to engage with the learning in experience (in my case maths and algebraic equations) and to not allow them to shy away from it. We want strong and confident learners who have a positive mindset, who will have a go and engage with the experience, task or activity and be richer, more knowledgeable and increasing more confident for it.
I asked the teachers in the room to consider themselves for a moment and to reflect on the full term, to revisit the return in September and the journeys with their classes this year so far in this first term. I asked them to put aside how tired they were feeling (Friday as the last day of term for many teachers in the room) and to ask themselves were they confident teachers? After considering this only 5 or 6 said they felt they were confident teachers (and teaching assistants). I was surprised, shocked even, that the many wonderful practitioners in the room were not confident in their own skills, knowledge and abilities. We have to ask ourselves, if we are not confident teachers, how can we hope to develop confident learners in our classrooms?
We know that human nature for many of us means that we tend to be self-depreciating but as classroom practitioners we have to be sure that we are modelling the skills, behaviour, thinking and conduct that we want our learners to pick up on. As teachers we need to ensure that we are great role models for our learners and that our behaviour is communicating the message that ‘we can do this’, task, subject, sum by giving it our best shot. If we want to develop confident learners, we have to be confident in our own skills and abilities and when faced with a challenge, not shy away from it but to seek out solutions and ways overcome this, because we can’t shy away from life. And I had to learn maths as well as languages.
We can model this by modelling our thinking and managing our behaviour, and sharing with our learners, by thinking about this metacognitively. Asking questions such as:
- Where have I encountered this before?
- What did I do and what happened then?
- Did it work? If the answer is yes, then could I do the same now? If no, what can I do differently to get a different result / experience / answer.
- Is there someone who I can ask to help me become better at this?
Modelling thinking is a superb way of talking ourselves down, it manages the anxiety and worry within us and does not allow it to take hold. We are in control and working through our thoughts and experiences to arrive at a different final solution. Using this in the classroom is a great thing to do to help learners engage with learning experiences which they may want to shy away from. Showing our learners that as teachers we also need to do this is a way to help them overcome any lack of confidence or negative feeling towards an activity task or subject.
If confidence is ‘being certain in your abilities’ and ‘a feeling of having little doubt about yourself’ we want our learners to have strategies where they can be certain that their thinking can help them embrace and overcome any challenge that they are faced with, which in turn will develop their confidence.
As teachers and teaching assistants, we are the professionals in the room and as @VicGoddard says ‘we make the weather’ so if we are not confident in our own skills and abilities we need to make sure that we are not communicating this to our learners in a way which might be negative, but one which has a ‘can do’, positive, metacognitive, growth-mindset – ‘I might not be able to do it yet’ approach. Why? Well because confidence enables learners to identify and, with support, and in time, take care of their own learning needs and taking responsibility for their own learning. Confidence enables learners to think, act and follow their own thinking, seeking out different knowledge or experiences to arrive at a solution. Yes, they might go off on a tangent, seemingly down a rabbit hole, but with guidance and support learners can be guided back to the original task and to finding the right solution. Of course you’ll know your learners well and know who these are.
We identified that confident learners are ones who are:
- not afraid of challenges
- self motivating
- focussed
- not always confident in everything
- like feedback and act upon it
- often independent and can be trusted to work independently
- thinking for themselves
- managing their own learning
- seeing failure as an opportunity to learn
- self-reflective
- use the tools at their disposal to complete tasks
- sometimes mistaken for arrogant/argumentative
- happy
- healthy
- positive
- aware of what they can do and are secure in this
- not fearing failure, (they may not like it, who does?!) but see this as an opportunity to learn
The impact of confidence in the classroom is palpable, demonstrated through increased engagement, independence, happiness, enjoyment, positive behaviour and wellbeing of the learners. This is why we want our learners to be confident with a ‘can do’, positive mindset. It enables learners to have a deeper understanding and potential knowledge base to call upon as a result of being open to different learning experiences because they are secure in what they can do and know, and have strategies which they can apply to help them when they find themselves out of their comfort zones! Of course as teachers, we have to ensure we know our learners well so that we plan, provide scaffolding and challenge learners appropriately , in order to develop their thinking, learning and knowledge and skills base in the completion of tasks, whilst not overwhelming them. We do not want a negative experience which will of course undermine the confidence they do have and are developing.
When identifying strategies which we can apply in our classrooms to develop confident learners, in my experience, we should be thinking of:
- learners needs and knowing our learners well
- our classroom environment
- planning effectively and appropriately with scaffolding, enrichment as well as stretch and challenge tasks
- the link to previous learning, and share this with them
- setting up tasks carefully and clearly
- allowing thinking and planning time
- modelling tasks especially the metacognitive thought process behind this
- drawing out a model answer from learners allowing them to add, build and challenge what has gone before
- providing a checklist and success criteria
- showing learners what a great one looks like so they know what they are aiming for, what you are looking for, have a gallery of great pieces previously completed
- dual coding tasks to give greater access to content / tasks
- providing help-stations / research-stations / corners of the classroom where learners can go if they are stuck / need help / need more information
- asking curious questions which helps their thinking
- reminding them what to do if they are stuck / aren’t sure how to proceed
- 3B4Me
- Class Question
- Go to the Help-station / Research-station / Gallery
- Use the checklist / success criteria
- Where have I seen this before? What did I do? What happened? What do I need to do differently?
- If I did know what would I do / say / write?
- Refer to the model piece
- Refer to previous feedback, what did that say I should do ? Have I done that?
Finally, how do we know that we have confident learners in our classrooms and what will this look like? How do we collate evidence of impact? I always think that because I know my classes really well I try to think of a visitor entering in the room and ask myself would they see confident learners? By putting myself in their shoes I am distancing myself so that I can clearly find evidence of developing confident learners? What might this visitor think and be looking for?
- Are students engaged in their work and enjoying it?
- Do they know what they are doing and why they are doing it?
- Are any stuck and if so what are they doing about it? Have any / many given up?
- Are they using previously learned knowledge and applying this confidently?
- Are they recalling key information / using key terminology with increasing ease / expertise?
- Are they developing their skills?
- Are they showing what they know more clearly?
- Are they self-regulating / checking their work against the task / activity outline / checklists / a success criteria?
- Are they making the same errors / showing the same misconceptions? Do they know that they are and what are they doing about this?
- Are they re-drafting / improving their work?
- What is the atmosphere in the room like? Is it conducive to building confident learning?
- Would the students say they are confident, can do it?
Granted as a busy teacher in charge of a class these questions give lots to think about but if we are serious in our aspiration to develop confident learners we have to not only know but ensure we are not assuming thus seek out evidence from our learners to celebrate and share with them. This will also provide us with the opportunity to sit back and watch the class and to understand where confidence is developing and what else could be done.
Thank you to the teachers who attended and participated in the session, the feedback received and to the many who stayed behind at the end to continue the conversation and extended invitations to visit their primary and secondary schools to help them on their journeys in developing confident learners. Diolch!
For Further Reading consult the Education Endowment Foundation’s work on Metacognition and Self Regulated Learning here.
cristahazell 