2024 SGIS Conference: Lessons

The 2024 SGIS Conference was held on 8-9 March at ISL. The title, “Research and Evidence-Based Practice” captured the goal: to expose teachers to current research, and to encourage its application to classroom practice. In his opening address, Dr Frazer Cairns (Director of the International School of Lausanne) suggested that the current goals for educators are to develop creativity and innovation and to “care for the lives of others”, especially given the dangers of environmental disaster towards which we are headed. He also suggested that the critical risks to global security are “misinformation and disinformation”, which lead to “mistrust of fact and authority”.

I. The keynote was delivered by Peps Mccrea, Director of Education at Steplab and author of the High Impact Teaching series, under the title “The Science of Motivation”. In his talk he presented what would be a connecting thread in the sessions I attended: the importance of ensuring “100% attention” towards learning (answer: using formative assessment effectively!). He presented five big ideas or theories, and five concrete strategies. I summarise them below:

Big idea #1. We can define motivation as a system for allocating attention. Despite folk knowledge about “multitasking”, humans can only focus on 1 cognitive process at a time (Dr Paul Kirschner described this very eloquently at EduFest 2019), and learning only happens when we think about the knowledge we are trying to embedd in our long term memory. Therefore, learners need to be given the opportunity to focus on one cognitive task (reducing all other distractions) and to think and create additional neural pathways to strengthen that learning.

Big idea #2. Motivation changes depending on the situation. Anyone who has noticed what happens when a wasp flies into the classroom will know how delicate the process of holding attention (and maintaining motivation) can be.

Big idea #3. Pupil motivation declines over time. This is normal, and it behooves us to plan techniques to reinvigorate motivation at different points in a lesson or learning experience.

Big idea #4. Motivation is a heavily unconscious process. The “decision cost” of where to allocate our attention is too big so it is an automatic process heavily based on our emotional circuitry.

Big idea #5. Intrinsic drivers are more sustainable than extrinsic drivers. Achieving intrinsic motivation takes longer/more effort to integrate, but will be more permanent and lead to better results in the long term. (In fact, intrinsic motivation is disrupted with extrinsic motivators and can reduce intrinsic motivation when the extrinsic motivator is removed. Recommendation: use extrinsic motivators “sparingly and very briefly to get the ball rolling”.

Now, on to the practices that will increase intrinsic motivation– Mccrea called them “Big levers” or drivers of motivation for learning.

Big lever #1: Secure success (in early days of the new learning). Because a student will think back, “How successful was this for me in the past?”, we want to “frame success” for them. Explain why what what they’re learning matters (at the day 2 keynote, Harry Fletcher-Wood suggested creating a problem to solve as a way to highlight the value of the learning), that mistakes are normal, desirable (for their own learning, as well as for their classmates’) and a great opportunity to explore a concept further. Scaffolding also allows them to experience some success early, on which they can build.

Big lever #2: Run routines. Because brains are permanently assessing “how much effort do I have to put here?”, reduce the cognitive effort by creating routines that can become automatic. Then attention can be allocated to the new learning, not to the new processes/ tasks. Routines that are shared across the school in different subject areas optimise the benefits.

Big lever #3: Use “nudge norms”. Elevate the visibility of behaviours you want others to adopt instead of the behaviours you want to eliminate. Recognise when the majority of students are doing what you expect of them and congratulate those behaviours to encourage others to adopt them .

Big lever #4: Breed belonging. Pupils who feel they belong in your classroom will not resist learning with you. Help students find out more about each other and get to know them as their teacher. Convey a sense of purpose to your lessons, which can galvanize pupils into collective action.

Big lever #5: Build buy-in. Choice is only motivating when we feel we are in a “good place” to make an educated decision. As teachers, we should make decisions regarding the what and how we teach in class, and instead invest in securing student buy-in.

1. Overcome expert blindness by regularly explaining the “Why” of the new knowledge. (This also supports metacognitive awareness.)
2. Demonstrate credibility, consistency and care to develop trust.

II. In addition to Peps Mccrea’s keynote, Pritesh Raichura, Assistant Principal and Head of Science at Ark Soane Academy in London, shared some of his “100% attention” routines, which are institutionalised at Ark Soane Academy:

1. 3-2-1 Slant (acronym for “Sit up, Look up, Arms folded, Nothing in hands, Track your teacher”). This routine is used to “reset” the class after short activities like pair-share, short written tasks, etc.
2. Instruction “Sandwich”. Use the following cues in a precise order:
   1. “When I say ‘go’ and not before, you will”
   1. [Insert precise instruction here.]
   1. “Ready?” [Pause] “Go!”
   1. “9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 SLANT”
3. Choral response= ‘I say, you say’. When introducing new knowledge (especially concepts that require assimilation of key terminology), Raichura will ask students to repeat a term all together by prefacing it with “I say, you say [term]”. This increases pupils’ confidence and helps embed new vocabulary.
4. High Frequency Questioning. Every few sentences, Raichura invites students to respond together to a simple question that helps them repeat the content/terms in different ways. This practice is the next step from choral response, and it allows students to practice the language of the unit. It also brings back students’ attention as they get distracted, because he expects 100% participation.
   1. E.g. There are 3 states of matter: liquids, solids and gasses.
      1. How many states of matter?
      1. The three states or matter are liquids, solids and…?
      1. What are liquids, solids and gasses?
   1. These questions can be discussed in pairs, or individual students are called from All Hands Up.
5. All Hands Up. Teachers at Ark Soane have all students raise their hands for high frequency questions because this holds their attention. After choral response and high frequency questioning, when all students have had the opportunity to develop confidence and practice speaking, All Hands Up is not used—the result is that it is easier to gauge who does/does not understand the new knowledge.

III. Carolina Kuepper-Tetzel, Senior Lecturer in Cognitive Psychology at the University of Glasgow, made a very compelling case against using “seductive details”. She summarised numerous studies that concluded that when creating instructional materials, text, images, additional text boxes and the general design must all directlysupport the learning object/main idea. Students (who are not experts in the content) will be distracted or confused by other elements (funny anecdotes, cartoons, illustrations or animations) that do not specifically connect to the content. This is especially detrimental when these elements are introduced at the beginning of a unit of learning as they can lead to misconceptions or misunderstanding. “Seductive details” lower learning because they impact attention, create interference with the flow of the lesson and with schema activation, as well as triggering cognitive overload. Her recommendations to hold student attention on the intended learning:

1. Use pre-reading/viewing questions to focus pupils’ attention.
2. Have students take notes and summarise key ideas to reduce the effect of seductive details.
3. Be very explicit when you encounter a seductive detail and tell students to ignore it in order to extract meaning of the content.
4. Save seductive details for when students have a good grasp of the knowledge from the unit (or when they have high prior knowledge, such as when you are building from a previous unit).

At least two other speakers addressed the importance of maintaining student attention on the knowledge and skills that are intended learning. It certainly inspired reflection on my part: I can be more careful about when I include an anecdote or make a side comment. I can be more intentional  in prefacing it, either to highlight how in my mind it connects to the learning or how it does not and must be seen as a “parentheses” from the learning. I can be more explicit about why we study a specific topic, and what value it has, and return to this idea regularly to strengthen students metacognitive awareness. I can give students more opportunities to develop confidence with new terminology before I expect them to use it by employing choral response and high frequency questions.