Observing learning in your classroom
After a year or so of working with Learning Power Felicity ( teacher Yr 6 in a large Primary school began to feel that her pupils seemed poor at listening. She knew that their attitudes to listening and learning how to do it better would be even more important to the students in secondary school. She asked herself what was making her feel listening was an issue.
What do good listening skills look like?
- What might I hope to see that would convince me that listening was alive and well within my pupils?
- What questions might I ask myself during a learning walk around my classroom, beyond ‘Are they listening?’
After looking at the online unit dedicated to listening and the listening chart in particular, Felicity developed the following questions:
Do my students
- Maintain eye contact with me and the TA?
- Maintain eye contact with their peers?
- Encourage each other to speak?
- Offer positive feedback?
- Re-cast / paraphrase to check understanding?
- Consider how others might be feeling?
Do my students listen for:
- For facts and information?
- For the main points?
- For the speaker’s intentions, emotions and values?
- For what is not being said?
Do my students listen to:
- Me during whole class teaching?
- Each other during whole class discussions?
- Their talk partner?
- Others when learning in a small group?
She noted down what she perceived to be happening in her classroom across several lessons. This swift observation went a long way to identifying what students did and didn’t do in terms of listening and pointed the way forward for further developing listening skills.
fishbone v39 circles and EOM.ppt