Training guide

Activity 1.1: Learner-centred education Quiz

Enter quiz

Activity 1.2: How learner-centred are you? (Part 1)

Being learner-centred is about moving further towards the right in the graphic below.

Classroom relationships
Authoritarian Democratic

_{(Authoritarian: a teacher who does not listen to learners, makes a plan and does not adapt it to what their learners need.}

_{Democratic: a teacher who includes all learners in the lesson.)}

Teaching
Teacher as sole expertTeacher as facilitator of learning

Think about your own classroom. Where do you place yourself on the line for classroom relationships, learning and teaching? What would you need to do to move further to the right?

Activity 1.3: How learner centred is this teacher?

Watch the video below. To what extent does the teacher meet the criteria above? Is there anything he could have done better?

Think about a lesson you taught last week. To what extent did it meet the criteria above. Be honest. It does not matter if you feel you could have done better – the purpose of this enhanced SPRINT programme is to help you become more learner centred.

If you think you have met all or most of the criteria this means that you realise the importance of putting your learners at the centre of your teaching, but do continue to read on as you will find ideas in these resources that will help you try out new activities or approaches in your lessons.

Developing learner-centred teaching

Teaching approaches

Date the approach introduced

Date of 1st attempt

Date of 2nd attempt

Date of 3rd attempt

Date of 4th attempt

Confident using this approach

1 - Questioning

2 - Pair work

3 - Local resources

4 - Group work

5 - Storytelling, songs, games and role-play

6 -Involving all learners

7 - Monitoring and giving feedback

8 - Eliciting prior knowledge

9 - Assessing learning

Activity 1.4

Listen to the audio or read the text below which explains the different types of questions that you can ask. As you listen, make notes in your Teacher Notebook. Discuss your notes with colleagues at the TGM to ensure you understand the different types of questions and how they can help in your teaching. When you feel comfortable with the concept of lower order and higher order questions, do Activity 1.5.

Audio transcript

Teachers question their learners all the time. Good questioning helps you to find out what learners know; and is important in assessing their progress. Questions can be divided into two broad categories:

The first is lower-order questions. These involve the recall of facts and knowledge previously taught. They often involve closed questions (that is questions requiring a short yes or no answer, or a single word). For example:

• Did you play football yesterday evening?
• What is the capital of Zambia?
• Does water heated to 100 degrees become steam?

All these questions only require short answers and it’s easy as a teacher to find out if your students have understood the content.

Higher order questions: these are generally open ended and encourage learners to think beyond yes or no answers and elicit different responses from learners. These help the teachers to assess the learners’ understanding of content.

Some examples of higher order questions are:

• What are the advantages of living in a large city?
• How do animals protect themselves from predators?
• What did you do on the weekend?

As you can see these are all questions that require longer answers and they will vary from student to student.

Activity 1.5: Planning for effective questioning

Decide on the topic you are focusing on in the lesson you are planning. Write three lower-order or ‘closed’ questions (yes/no or single word responses) and three higher-order or ‘open’ questions in your Teacher Notebook. Share with your partner/s. 

Which questions tell you more about what your learners understand?

Audio transcript

Many teachers don’t give enough time for learners to answer a question and end up answering it themselves. Try and give your learners time to think.  By waiting after asking a question, there is an increase in:

• the length of the learners’ answers
• the number of learners offering responses
• the frequency of learners’ questions
• the number of responses from less capable learners, and
• positive interactions between the learners.

If one learner has the wrong idea you can be sure that many more have as well, and there are many ways to correct wrong answers and misconceptions. Try and encourage your learners to try again by using the following techniques:

• Pick out parts of the answer that are correct and ask the learner to think a bit more about their answer. This helps your learners to learn from their mistakes.

• You could also write on the board all the answers that learners give and then ask the class to think about them. What answers do they think are right? Are there other correct answers?

It’s important that you, the teacher, listen carefully. If you ask for further explanation for answers, whether they are right or wrong, learners will often correct their answers themselves. You don’t want your learners to feel afraid of giving the wrong answer.

Activity 1.6: Responding to questions

Ask your partner/s your best questions from Activity 1.5. Use the audio and the notes above to practise your questioning skills by using follow up questions based on their response. Try prompting, probing and sequencing by, for example:

• asking how or why questions
• asking to explain in a different way
• asking for evidence/personal experience etc.

Write your examples in your Teacher Notebook.

Use your questions in your lessons next week and try some of the ways of responding.

Activity 1.7: Questioning in action

Watch the video below which is made of four short extracts, three from one lesson plus a fourth extract from another lesson. Now consider the following questions:

• What questions did the teacher ask?
• How did the learners respond?
• How did the teacher deal with learner responses?

Plan a set of questions that you could use in your classroom later this week. If it is helpful, use the classroom example below to get some ideas that you could adapt.

Classroom Example 1.1: Using questioning

Read the following classroom example together.
What did you notice? Discuss your ideas with a colleague, drawing on the audios and notes about using questioning to promote thinking.

James was teaching a class of 90 with Grades 1, 2 and 3 in the same room. In the corner of the classroom he made a ‘shop’. Over a few weeks he and the children had assembled a collection of old food packets, which he arranged on a ‘table’ made from a large cardboard box he got from a shop-keeper in the nearby town. He had put price labels on all the items.

In a maths lesson, he wrote three different sets of questions on the chalkboard:

• Grade 1 had mainly closed questions, with short answers. They had to be able to put numbers in order from the smallest to largest, sort objects by size and shape and add single digit numbers up to 10. He asked questions such as ‘which is the most expensive item’? Is it cheaper to buy X or Y?
• Grade 2 students needed to be able to add and subtract numbers vertically with sums up to 100 and recognise numbers up to 1000. He asked them questions which involved working out how much change they would get from 100 ZMK.
• For Grade 3 students, he asked more demanding, open-ended questions, such as ‘what could I buy for 100 ZMK?’ He also made some links to work they had done on healthy eating and asked them to work out the cost of a healthy meal and explain why it was healthy.

The children worked in pairs in their own grade levels.

At the end of the lesson, he asked the Grade 3 students to check the work of the Grade 1 and 2 students and to report back to him how they had done. While they were working, he listened carefully to the conversations. He made a note of those who seemed to need more help, so that he could support them in the future.

By using skilful and carefully-targeted questioning, James was able to use the same resource to make sure that all the children had the opportunity to learn.

Did you notice...

• James planned his questions in advance
• Children find open-ended questions more difficult. By giving them a chance to discuss the answers in pairs, they were able to help each other.
• James used the Grade 3 children to support Grades 1 and 2. This meant that all the children received some feedback and is a useful technique in a large mixed grade or mixed ability class.

Activity 1.8: Reflecting on teaching

After you have used different questions in three or four lessons, reflect on your experience with one or two of your colleagues – the ‘good habits’ and ‘things to avoid’. Did you manage to establish some good habits? Did you manage to avoid the pitfalls? Make notes in your Teacher Notebook.

Effective questioning can be combined with all the classroom approaches that will follow. Try to establish the habit of planning your questions – particularly open-ended ones – and keep practising the different ways of responding to learners.

Classroom Example 1.2: Pair Work

'I have 125 students in my class so I always thought that active teaching approaches could not work, but I started using pair work and I have learnt that that is not the case. I often set two or three open questions which I ask students to discuss in pairs. While they are talking, I walk around and listen. This can be quite difficult as the room is very full! But we manage and the children like the fact that I move around more. After five minutes, I ask for some responses. I can’t possibly get feedback from every pair, but during a week, I try to make sure that most people have been the ones to feed back at least once. Working in this way has also helped me to notice the children more. I did not realise that although Charlie is noisy, he struggles with open-ended questions and that, although Grace is really quiet, she thinks deeply and has really good ideas.'

Audio transcript

In everyday situations people work alongside, speak and listen to others and see what they do and how they do it. This is how people learn. As we talk to others, we discover new ideas and information. In classrooms, if everything is centred on the teacher, then most learners do not get enough time to try out or demonstrate their learning or to ask questions. Some learners may only give short answers; and some may say nothing at all. In large classes, the situation is even worse, with only a small proportion of learners having the chance to say anything at all.

But if you use pair work, this gives learners the chance to think and try out ideas and new language. It can provide a comfortable way for learners to work through new skills and concepts; and works well in large classes. Pair work is suitable for all ages and subjects and it is especially useful in multilingual and multi-grade classes, because pairs can be arranged to help each other. Once routines for pair work are set up, you will find that learners enjoy learning this way.

Activity 1.9: Organising pair work

Working with two or three colleagues, use the video and audio on pair work and the notes above to write down three ‘top tips’ about using pair work.

Share this with others in the TGM and create a poster of 10 top tips. You can put it up in your school to remind you all of the benefits if using pair work.

Audio transcript

Pair work is about involving everyone and can be done successfully with a large class.  But pairs need to be managed so that everyone knows what they have to do, what they are learning and what your expectations as the teacher are.

To establish pair work routines in your classroom, you should do the following:

• Manage the pairs that the learners work in. So sometimes they can work in friendship pairs; sometimes they will not. Make sure they understand that it is you who will decide the pairs in order to help them maximise their learning.
• Sometimes you could pair learners of mixed ability together so that they can help each other; and at other times pair learners working at the same level.
• Keep records so that you know your learners’ abilities and can pair them together accordingly.
• At the start, explain the benefits of pair work to your class, using examples from family and community contexts where people collaborate.
• Model the task at the front with two learners, or with you and a learner, so that everyone is clear on what they have to do.
• Keep initial tasks brief and clear, and monitor the learner pairs to make sure that they are working as you want.
• Make sure that learners can also turn or move easily to sit and face each other.

During pair work:

• tell learners how much time they have for each task and give regular time checks
• Praise pairs who help each other and stay on task.

Most learners enjoy the atmosphere of everyone talking and working. As you move around the classroom observing and listening, make notes of who is working well together, be alert to anyone who is not involved, and note any common errors, good ideas or summary points for you to share with the class.

Activity 1.10: Pair work in action

• watch the video below which shows teachers organising pair work with Grade 1 and Grade 7 students.  
• discuss the things you notice as a group
• draw on the two pieces of audio, the notes and the video to plan an activity with two or three of your colleagues, which you can try next week in your classroom. Try to include some effective questioning in your plan as well.

Classroom Example 1.3: Differentiation by task

Rita teaches Grade 6 English. She chose some words which were causing problems for learners and wrote the words and definitions on separate pieces of paper. She asked the learners to form pairs with the person next to them. This meant that they worked with a friend, and often higher attainers were together and lower attainers were together. She gave each pair ten words and ten definitions and asked them to match them up. When they had finished and she had checked them, they swapped their words and definitions with another pair.

Some pairs completed it very quickly but some found it difficult and needed a great deal of help, so it was difficult to organise. She discussed the experience with her friend, who taught Grade 4. She decided to keep the pairs how they were but gave them different sets of words. The high attainers had longer, more complex words – including some they had never met before and had to guess the meaning of – and the low attainers had shorter, more common words.

She found it worked well. The low-attainers gained confidence and learned some common words which would help them in the future, and the high-attainers were challenged to try and read and understand new words.

Classroom Example 1.4: Peer support

Changu teaches Grade 2 and her learners are beginning to read short sentences. In a literacy lesson, she wrote out some short sentences on pieces of paper. She put her children in pairs, and they practised reading the sentences aloud to each other. She had many different sentences but with similar, simple words. She was not very pleased with how it went as some of the pairs found it very difficult and some found it very easy. In the next lesson, she tried again with different sentences, but this time, she deliberately put the children in mixed-ability pairs. This worked much better as the good readers were able to help those who found it more difficult. She found that some of the slower readers gained confidence and could read the sentences, and the good readers enjoyed helping them to sound out the words.

Did you notice...

• Each of the teachers used different ways of organising their students in pairs.
• Changu used mixed ability pairs as peer support. This can really help you as a teacher of a large class.
• All the activities in these examples can be adapted for different grades.

Activity 1.11: Planning a pair work activity

Think
On your own, think about the activity you tried. What was the purpose of the activity? What did you want the children to learn? What did they learn and how do you know? Write your ideas in your Teacher Notebook.

Pair
Share your thoughts with your partner. Add any further reflections to your original ideas.

Share
In a group of three or four, explain your activities and how you organised them to each other. Say what went well and what you would change next time.

Finally
Plan another pair work activity. Make sure you try it next week and reflect on how it goes.

Audio transcript

The outside environment can be seen as a place to collect resources; but it can also be an extension of your inside classroom. Here are some ideas about how to use the local environment to support, resource and extend your classroom teaching. 

Wherever your school is, there will be many living things that you can collect and bring into the classroom for short periods for your learners to investigate and observe. Either you could do the collecting, or you could take your class out to help you. Bringing in leaves, for example, will enable learners to study these more closely. Some insects can be kept in suitable containers or conditions for a short period of time. But do ensure that learners stay away from dangerous insects or animals such as snakes or wasps.

Be clear what your learners are going to learn and give them time to observe the creatures safely, so the students are not frightened, and also that they do not frighten the animals. Make sure that they respect the animals and plants; and understand how important these are to the community. 

Remember, they can also use their own bodies to do things like investigating the effect of exercise on heart rate; or understanding how muscles work together. 

There are many things that you might be able to collect from the local environment – whether you are in a rural or urban setting. These can help you in the classroom. These include: 

• rocks and stones to study or use as counters
• recyclable materials, such as card, paper, wire, wood, plastic bottle tops and containers. 

All of these and many other materials can be gathered over time, so that when you want to do modelling with your class you have a stock of resources. Or when you want to do posters you have some card for each group to write on. Always ask if you can have the materials you see. And get your students to help you gather the materials in advance of your lessons. For example, on one of the TESSA activities, children make models of animals out of ‘rubbish’. This can help younger children learn the words for different parts of an animal, or for older children to learn about specific adaptations.

Activity 1.12: Ideas for using local resources

Watch the video about how the teacher is using local resources in their lesson. 

In your Teacher Notebook make notes about what resources the teacher used. 

• What was the teacher doing? 
• What were the learners doing? 
• Did the teacher use any questioning or pair work? 
• How did they integrate the local resources in the lesson?

Share your notes with a colleague. Did you notice the same things? Did you notice something your colleague did not?

Activity 1.13: Storing and sharing local resources

Here is a list of items that are readily available in your homes and in the community. For each one, think of a way of using it to support teaching.

Old food packets
Bottle tops
Plastic water bottles
Tins and cans
Newspaper
Leaflets
Buttons
Stones and sticks
Plants and leaves
…….

Make a table like this in your Teacher Notebook to record your responses.

Talk to your colleagues about how to store resources you make and how you can make them available to each other. You can make a bigger table for the school where all teachers can share activities they have used in their lessons.

Classroom Example 1.5: Organising a visit

Read Peter’s experience of organising a visit.

‘I teach social studies to Grade 3. We were covering the section ‘learning about money’. I decided that the local bank manager would be a good person to come and talk to the class. In the syllabus it says: 

Knowledge about: Income and Expenditure; Items people ‘need’ – food, water and shelter, and ‘want’ – toys, games and sweets in life; Saving up for things you need or want in the future; Having money, losing money stolen, wanting things you cannot afford.

Mr Malet arrived at school five mins before the lesson, and I was getting quite worried about whether he would turn up. I had not met him before – we had talked on the phone and communicated by text message. He came into class and after I had introduced him, he talked to the class for over half an hour. I could tell they were getting restless, but he was such a fierce looking man, they kept quiet. He talked about how to set up a bank account and then gave a lecture on the perils of spending more than you earn. At the end, I asked the children if they had any questions. They didn’t so I thanked Mr Malet and he left.’

In your groups discuss how Peter could have made the visit more successful and productive for the children.

Activity 1.14: Local experts

As you plan, think of how you can incorporate a local expert or visitor into a part of a lesson. What do you want the learners to gain from the visit? What activities would you ask your learners to do in order to get the most from this? Discuss with your colleagues which subject in the coming week or two would most benefit from this. Write notes in your Teacher Notebook.

Activity 1.15: Reflecting on your professional development

On your own, look back through your Teacher Notebook and make a summary of some of the main things you have learned in this course.

What has helped you to learn? Are there any critical incidents that made a big impact on you? Think back to last term – write down any ways in which your lessons are different now.

Discuss your reflections with a colleague and set yourselves three targets each for next month. Think about the things that you think you need to improve and what you can do to achieve that improvement.

Complete the quiz here