This workshop turns research published by Iowa State University earlier this year into practical activities that embed subject learning into long-term memory and connects discreet knowledge to context and application.

[4 mins to read]

I am presenting with Ed Dooley, Deputy Headteacher at Bluebell Primary School in Norwich and SSIF Maths project lead. Ed has extensive experience with Cooperative Learning via our work in the Sheringham SSIF project. I have also sideline-supported his research into Cooperative Learning and procedural skills in maths using the EEF’s DIY Evaluation Guide, which he recently presented at the Norwich Research school. (More on the Evaluation Guide and Cooperative Learning in the addendum below).

Handouts & Headlines

As a delegate, you will be issued the new accessible 12-page guide HOW TO USE SPACED RETRIEVAL PRACTICE TO BOOST LEARNING by Shana K. Carpenter, Ph.D. Pooja K. Agarwal, Ph.D, of Iowa State University and may also choose to download a PDF copy on the Eventbrite page in advance.

Aside from point one, you will see the workshop headlines closely follow the logical structure of this document.

1. What is Cooperative Learning?
2. What is retrieval practice?
3. What is spaced retrieval practice?
4. The evidence supporting spaced retrieval
5. Implementing spaced practice and potential challenges…

At each and every turn we will be using Cooperative Learning Interaction Patterns to embed your new knowledge about retrieval and spacing. Through direct experience, you will come to understand why you should be using these activities with your learners. You will also clearly see the intimate connection between Cooperative Learning and direct instruction.

Book on Eventbrite now.

Ofsted & Knowledge versus Skills?

We will of course be making connections between retrieval practice and the 2019 draft framework:

“Over the course of study, teaching is designed to help learners to remember in the long term the content they have been taught and to integrate new knowledge into larger concepts.”

Very importantly, we will see how “rote” memorisation is not about mindless regurgitation, but rather is the very foundation and precondition for deep thinking and application of complex skills. In that sense, this workshop demonstrates how Cooperative Learning completely circumvents the conflict between “progressive” and “traditional” approaches which we recently discussed in connection with the Participatory Budgeting workshop. You will also discover how rote learning of hard data may actually close the gap between disadvantaged learners and there more fortunate peers. Again, we have looked at this previously in Cooperative Learning; Closed Questions, Closed Achievement Gaps, where we discuss an original article by Andy Tharby.

 

 

Addendum: DIY Evaluation and Cooperative Learning

There is a lot to be said about the Education Endowment Foundation’s DIY Evaluation Guide and I am very honoured to be involved in a small scale research intervention with Ed Dooley to measure the impact of specific CLIPs on very specific learning objectives in maths with two groups of roughly fifteen pupils, who will be taught using exact same subject materials with and without CLIPs.

We hope to make this a model a scalable intervention for the benefit of other schools (especially those in the Sheringham SSIF) and to demonstrate on a meta-level that Cooperative Learning is the ideal vehicle for sharing research and developing best practice, whether your network is a MAT, a cluster or a opportunity area project. This was, of course, the topic of Sharing What Actually Works – The pragmatic alternative to “evidence” last month.

Resources

• Putting evidence to work: a school’s guide to implementation
• The DIY evaluation guide
• Standard for teachers’ professional development
• Using tests for evaluation— EEF’s approach

Some related articles

• EEF Teaching and Learning Toolkit; a Cooperative Learning gloss
• Engaging staff effectively with their CPD; A Cooperative Learning gloss
• “Mum wasn’t good at maths either, love…” Girls, Maths & Cooperative Learning