ILS

1. ILS Independent Learning Skills

2. Objectives • Assess the different skills required from GCSE to AS Level • Consider the bigger picture - what is education? • Understand what teachers mean when they talk abut ILS • Reflect on your own ILS strengths and weaknesses

3. From your own experience... • From what you have experienced so far on your AS courses ... - mind-map on your tables what you feel the main differences between GCSE & A Level study are.

4. The difference between GCSE & A Level • More weighting on A02 and A03 skills – evaluation, analysis & application skills • Less content delivered in class & more independent wider reading • Expectation of wanting to learn – you’re here because you want to be • Regularly set homework and strict deadlines • More student led learning / questioning

5. What is education? Education is what societies lay on to equip all their young with the knowledge, skills, attitudes and values they will need (and which cannot be reliably assumed to develop in the normal process of growing up) to flourish amidst the risks, demands and opportunities of the future, as the ‘elders’ imagine it will be.

6. Building learning power • “The test of successful education is not the amount of knowledge that pupils take away from school, but their appetite to know and their capacity to learn.’ SirRichard Livingstone What can we do as an institution to ensure that during your time with us and after you leave us, you leave with the capacity to learn?

7. What is ILS? “I know I’m bright, and that I’m going to get good grades. But I worry I’ve become a tape-recorder. I worry that once I’m out of school, and people stop handing me information, I’ll be lost.”

8. What is ILS? • Critical thinking skills • Problem solving skills • Emotional intelligence • Using the latest technology to enhance your learning • Asking effective questions • Literacy skills • Developing intellectual curiosity • Building on teacher feedback • Developing effective learning habits

9. What will ILS sessions cover? • All of those things  • Your programme for the next 6 weeks will be designed to help you learn to learn: • Introduction to ILS • Being brave - the relationship between failing and success • Asking effective questions - asking the right questions to get the right answers • Emotional intelligence - knowing yourself - how do you learn • Information literacy • Summarising and paraphrasing - how to do the wider reading

10. Rate your own ILS • Complete the short questionnaire as honestly as you can. • You will get the opportunity to review your responses to your questionnaires at half term to see how your skills have progressed.

11. Final word • “The largest effect sizes on students’ achievement occur when teachers become learners about their own teaching and when students become their own teachers.” John Hattie

12. ILS Session 2

13. Objectives • Discuss the qualities needed to be a successful student • Participate in the group challenge • Reflect on failures to improve future successes

14. When wrestling a gorilla you don’t give up when you’re tired, you give up when the gorilla is tired. Discuss...

15. Being brave • Today’s session looks at being brave. • Being an A Level student is all about being brave and turning failure into success. • You won’t always succeed, but what you learn from your failures will make you a better and more successful student

16. Group challenge • You will need a pack of playing cards • Your task is to arrange the cards in the following order - Clubs - Ace to King Hearts - Ace to King Spades - Ace to King Diamonds - Ace to King Your mission is to do this as a group in the fastest time.

17. Group challenge • You now have your group times. • But, you need to do it faster! • In your groups you have 5 minutes to discuss and write down, 3 new strategies that you will try as a group to reach your goal. Complete the same exercise again implementing the strategies that you have just discussed

18. Feedback • How does your second time compare to your first time? • How effective (or ineffective) were the new strategies that you tried? • What could be done still to further improve your time?

19. Reflection • Think of a particular task, homework or a whole lesson in your subject that has not been successful: • What didn’t go well? What didn’t you understand? • What will you do to improve the situation? Where will you get help? What do you need to find out more about? • What are the consequences of not acting?

20. So what? “Out of clutter find simplicity. From discord find harmony. In the middle of difficulty, find opportunity.” Albert Einstein

21. ILS Session 3

22. Learning points

23. What do you know about EastEnders?

24. Find out

25. Need to know... 1% • Research suggests that teachers ask approximately 300-400 questions day. • On average a teacher asks a question every 43 seconds. • What percentage of questions in the classroom are asked by students?

26. Questioneering • Questioneering is an attitude which embodies the adventure of enquiry. • A quality question is created and asked by a student; is driven by a sincere need to know and be further thinking; generates further questions and/or leads to fresh insights that expand horizons of understanding.

27. Pants questions asked by students “Can you help me? I don’t get it.” “What time does this lesson finish?” “What is the answer to this?” “Can I do this at home instead.”

28. Postman • On a separate piece of paper write down 3 questions that you have for one of your social sciences teacher. • What haven’t you understand or what do you want to find out more about? • Clearly put your name and the name of your teacher on the paper

29. Learning points for ILS session on Effective Questioning • Try out different questioning techniques and reflect on which are the best questions for learning • Describe what the term ‘questioneering’ is. • Reflect on what questions you haven’t answered in your subject areas • On your post-it write down 3 learning points for the lesson • What have you learnt from today’s session? • Stick on the door once you have completed.

30. ILS Session 4

31. “All learning has an emotional base.” Plato In your groups mind-map what you think is meant by the phrase - “Emotional Intelligence” What are the consequences in the real world of being emotionally unintelligent?

32. What is emotional intelligence? • Emotional intelligence (EI) refers to the ability to perceive, control and evaluate emotions. Some researchers suggest that emotional intelligence can be learned and strengthened, while others claim it is an inborn characteristic. • Emotional intelligence is, "the subset of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one's own and others' feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one's thinking and actions" (1990).

33. How emotionally intelligent are you? • Complete the emotional intelligence test.

34. Targets • What are your strengths - write down at least 3 of your core emotional intelligence strengths • Where are your strength gaps - what key areas of development for emotional intelligence? • What will you do to improve in these 3 areas?