The jigsaw classroom, Glow, Assessment and a Curriculum for Excellence in secondary schools…

Posted by: mimanifesto on: March 22, 2009

• In: AiFL | change | future of education | GLOW | ICT | LTS | teaching and learning
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from www.jigsaw.org

This is an approach I’ve been using with one of my S5 classes following an Intermediate 2 course. Those of you familiar with our system in Scotland will be all too painfully aware of the 9 month ‘dash’ through the course to the May/June examination diet. It’s the same in the rest of the UK, and indeed the UK system as exported worldwide (a real living breathing relic of the British empire, our exam system). And of course it sits totally at odds with the aims of a Curriculum for Excellence, in my view, anyway. Anthony Seldon writing in today’s Times online agrees. He says..

 The lifeblood of British schools has become choked by a regime that frogmarches children through exam after exam, leaving them bereft of the skills they need to get on in the world beyond the school gates. No other country in the world is as obsessed with the external exam as Britain

He makes many more good points – one which resonates with my own views again is where he says…

Teachers no longer teach history: they teach history GCSE. No longer biology but biology AS-level, and no longer French, but French A-level. Many teachers know only too well that the current mix of GCSEs and A-levels is profoundly inadequate but few have the freedom they need to do anything about it

So I’ve taken one unit of the Biology Int 2 course (it’s got three such units) and divided it up into four sub units. Each of these units has been given to a group of students (selected by me to mix up abilities and attitudes). These groups were then given the task of constructing a GLOW group and putting together four lessons on their given topic. The lessons consisted of a mixture of didactic teaching, work on ICT using multi-media through GLOW, practical activities (including dissections) and quizzes. They had to build in assessment tools as well as deliver the lessons to the rest of the class. It’s a version, I suppose, of the Aronson Jigsaw Classroom approach

It was really interesting to watch how they went about this task. Many were uncomfortable with the task. They are used to being spoon-fed through these courses, being given notes and handouts full of the facts and learning outcomes lifted from the arrangements documents (helpfully supplied by the SQA). What they are not used to is having to think, research, evaluate material, and then present this in an understandable and interesting format to their classmates. So many struggled and the results have been variable so far. But we are making progress and some have commented on having enjoyed the chance to look at an area of Biology in more detail. Their GLOW groups are full of very interesting material, animations, quizzes, games, video and audio bites, and  yes, even the dreaded PowerPoint’s ! Many of their ‘lessons’ have been very well constructed. This class have only been using GLOW for a few months. My S4 class, who have been using it for their whole standard grade course would have taken to this task like ducks to water (and I will maybe try it with an Int 2 class next session when many of this class will be taking Biology at this level).

So where’s the link to ACfE ? I think its quite obvious where the links to the four capacities are with this so I’m not going to expand further, except to say this – shouldn’t we not be building assessment of this kind of project into the overall examination of the course. Surely the skills gained and demonstrated by the students on this project could count towards their eventual award? there is evidence on discussion boards, lesson plans, GLOW group content and video/podcast material and peer evaluations of each other’s contributions. And surely it’s much more of a true indication of their ability in the subject in the spirit of ACfE ? It’s just the kind of assessment which is the norm for students following the IB courses and it develops independence of thought as well as of learning.

I had some development officers from the LTS ACfE team in the classroom last week to observe this in practice as well as GLOW being used at this level in learning and teaching. I think they got a good flavour of how GLOW can be used as the lynchpin of this kind of  learning as well as a repository for the many different evidence from formative assessment gathered by the students. GLOW has the potential to form part of an eventual e-portfolio for assessment of learning I think. This needs further consideration and may be another way of embedding ICT skills into learning across the curriculum.

And surely it’s evidence of the creative subversion I like to talk about in my use of GLOW; evidence of how it is possible to marry ACfE to the current curriculum. It does take somewhat of a leap of faith though – and perhaps one of the challenges in education today is how to encourage colleagues to make the jump, to not just play safe and teach to the exam, to make the move from the 20th into the 21st century where learning rather than teaching should be the modus operandi….

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