My Classroom Experiment: Handing Over the Wooden Spoon

In the top drawer of my desk I have a wooden spoon. Perhaps it's not the most usual teaching tool to be found in an English teacher's classroom but I have found that it's one of my most powerful. 

In an environment where accountability is key, I have developed from a teacher into an assessor: I assess the work in my students' books, I assess their progress on a lesson by lesson basis, I assess my classroom and whether it encourages a suitable learning environment and I assess the type of characters coming into my classroom. I look for personalities, motivations and learning styles to target my teaching appropriately. However, I realised that I was guilty of spoon feeding my students. Although I had developed a classroom where students work hard to become poets, authors and critics - I was also developing a class full of very lazy learners with students relying on me to praise, reflect and set their targets. With this realisation, I have removed the spoon from my drawer. It sits on my desk as a reminder that it is my responsibility to prepare students for the 21st century world by teaching them to be learners as well as linguists.


Here are some of the ways I have used to hand the spoon to my students:

• The Accelerated Learning Cycle I was introduced to this by @JamiePortman. Since then, I have used the cycle to teach students about the learning process - they are becoming aware about the different stages of the learning cycle and how each stage contributes to effective learning.

• Learning Partners After working with @MissSCross, I was inspired to follow her example. By pairing pupils with other students of a similar ability, I have found that they are able to discuss their learning reflect on their work effectively.

• Learning Passport To help students to discuss their learning accurately I have developed organised the APP criteria into an English Passport. Students recieve a stamp from their Learning Partner when they can find evidence for each target - this allows them to track their own progress and it enables effective discussions about their next steps.

• Traffic Lights Inspired by The Classroom Experiment - I have been trialling the use of paper cups as a means of monitorring pupils constantly throughout the lesson. I have found that this has put the onus on the pupil to let me know if they need support rather than waiting for me to realise.

Following Twitter, I am aware that non of these techniques are new and are used - particularly in primary schools on a regular basis but they have reinspired my classroom and I am now seeing pupils engage with their learning process as well as their progress.

So, what have I learnt this term? How important it is to hand over my wooden spoon!