Reading+Week+2+Cornish,+L+Garner+J.+2008

Reading Week 2 Cornish, Linley & Garner, John 2008

Pages 134-156

Great...this is the one that's withinanother text....and not on kindle! Will return to soon.

Notes refer to: Cornish, Linley and Garner, John 2008 'Extract: Some Teaching Skills' Page 24-48

Explaining "The teacher skill in explaining should not be underestimated in terms of its importance. Student achievement is higher in classes where teachers spend more time explaining, demonstrating and giving examples and classes that they spend a little time in explicit teaching". Pg 26 Research has shown that children most value a teacher who has the ability to explain. In a recent study teachers were not aware that this was valued so much amongst students. Teachers did not identify the ability to explain as a characteristic of an effective teacher.

A good explanation, in our view, is one that encourages a learner to be actively involved in trying to understand what is being explained (rather than accepting what is being explained as something that can just rote learnt). Pg 27 Good exclamations should be part of a constructivist classroom. While the teacher – the explainer – is transmitting information or knowledge, he or she will be doing so in a way that encourages the learner to think rather than just accept the explanation." pg 27

Not all exclamations are good explanations, some leave us confused. There are reasons for this – the explainer did not pitch the exclamation in your zone of proximal development. - he or she used to many difficult and unfamiliar words with detracted from the ability to concentrate- language and discourse was not appropriate for building upon existing schemas -too much material was covered without pause for review or to check understanding. Teacher was not skeptical oftheirs explanation. He/she did not allow enough wait time to ensure learning was connecting new knowledge to prior knowledge. - no mapto follow as an aid to explanation. Students need clear expectations and goals. Diagrams can assist -teacher waffled. Teacher needs to know his or her content. Teacher should give exclamations using clear language that appropriate to learner's level of understanding. Writing and speaking should be done so it is easily understood, be that clear, loud voice, legible writing etc.

Explantaion can be improved if the explainer is clear about the purpose.

Types of Explanation Explaining is 'an activity aimed at 'giving understanding to another''. Pg 28. This understanding can be simple or complex. When a teacher explains what he or she wants the class to do and write step-by-step instructions it is simple understanding. There is not necessarily any realisation of why they are engaged in a particular activity.

In our opinion, giving understanding to another implies the more complex type of understanding, one which is different from the description or other type of telling. The sorts of things letters need to understand include: Concepts– including those which are new or familiar to the learner, like density of prejudice; Cause and effect – that produced by the cooling of air; procedures - classroom rules, home work requirements, have to convert fractions to,decimals. Relationships – between people, things and events: why footballers and pop stars are both called entertainers. Processes – how machines work, how animals or people behave.

There are many different ways of classifying exclamations, many of them quite complicated. The above list can be viewed as one system of classification.

A relatively simple and effective way of classifying everything is to categorise exclamations as interpretrative (what?), descriptive(how?) and reason-giving (why) as seen in lecture!!!

"Recognising that an explanation might require a particular focus (interpretive, descriptive or reason – giving) can help you to pitch your explanation in an inappropriate way." pg 29

An effective explanation may consist of more than one type of explanations for example, the what, why and how may need to be explained. "Explanations can be multifaceted, involving several of the features listed above (concepts, cause-and-effect, procedures, purposes and objectives, relationships, processes). Pg29

Contexts will determine the complexity of explanation. 'any subject can be taught effectively in some intellectually honest form to any child in any state of development.' Jerome Bruner pg 29 therefore "anything can be explained to any learner in some intellectually honest way". Pg 29 Explanations must be adapted to the explainee, that is they are pitched within the explainee's zone of proximal development. Since different learners have different zones of proximal development, teachers will offen need to offer 'multiple explanation' depending on what individual students know, the current misconceptions, terminology with which they are familiar, and most effective forms of explanation for them. Pg 30

Features of a good explanation. (many are interrelated) - the learner understood it, however this will be dependent upon a range of things including -prior knowledge and experience (and therefore the current schema for the particular concept, issue or event being explained) -their motivation and concentration - whether you include visual or other learning tools as part of your explanation, ie which learning styles you address -the learners emotional state -distractions (such as who was walking past the classroom or whether a particular student is noticing them)

no explanation will be perfect for every learner in the classroom many factors listed above are out of the teachers control to explain effectively a teacher must adapt explanations to each learner, allow for socialconstructivism, include visual aides, and stimulate interest (question, ignite discussion)

Delivery -clarity and fluency in language (define the terms, use explicit language, avoid vagueness (using words that have no literal meaning in the context of explanations like he goes as opposed to he said, wicked as great, sick as great etc.), use voice variation) - use of emphasis (verbal and non-verbal, repetition, verbal cueing, paraphrasing) -getting feedback

structure 1. use of aIds 2. Use of examples 3. Organizing principle (inductive or deductive)

Define new terms. Teachers overestimate the students ability to grasp concepts. Careful attention to definition an extension of vocabulary is positively related to pupil achievement. Therefore vocabulary building is an essential aspect of any explanation because it helps students to grasp concepts. Definitions need to be processed in some way by the learners as to develop deep understanding.

structure of explanation It is very difficult to give an effective explanation if you're not confident about the content. what is not well-known cannot be explained clearly. Pg 40 An explanation of clarity is coherent. That is, there is an introduction to the issue or problem being explained, a middle section which contains the essence of the explanation and which presents the key ideas in a logical sequence, and a conclusion which sums up or reviews explanation.

Use of AIDS and materials All people learn differently, some of what we call visual learners. Be aware that when providing explanation you need to include several different aspects to it – speaking or writing yes, but also different aids to learning such as visual aid, concrete materials and some sort of physical movement (such as moving the way to demonstrate the shape of a graph in geometry.) using aids helps different learners to understand and their inclusion adds interest to explanation. Many students view listening as a chore.

Use of examples "Understanding is enhanced by the inclusion of examples in the explanation, especially examples which relate to every day experience." ph 42 Examples help us translate the information, they help us process, and contribute to understanding they often seen as the basic components of all at this and explanations and demonstrations.

Organisation of presentation of explanations Deductive- begin with the general rule, deduce specific examples, then repeat the rule. Inductive- begin with specific examples and then ask the students to induce the general rule. Example, example,rule.

Inductive can take longer especially if the examples are hands-on or activity based. Inductive explanations "tend to be more open because the students are asked to make suggestions about the rule principle to be induced rather than being shown specific cases of the rule principle" pg 44 this puzzled for discovering element is more likely to engage students and have them actively involved in trying to understand the rule idea of principLe. Deductive explanations can also be open if students can be asked to think of examples of the rule. Less common though.

Different approaches to information processing – simultaneous was successive- are correlated in different ways with the type of reasoning use. Simultaneous synthesis is strongly correlated with inductive reasoning and teachers therefore need to provide experiences which are compatible with individual students information processing styles. If a teacher always uses deductive explanations, those students who process information in simultaneous manner are less likely to understand and days to process information in successive manner. Pg 45

Improve your explanations by; maintaining eye contact with class using handouts and overheads to help students follow the presentation and focus on important ideas avoiding high levels of detail, supplemented by graphs tables or illustrations right important information on the chalkboard (hello it's 2012 interactive whiteboard) define new terms and concepts providing outkine for note taking present relevant examples to explain major ideas Relate new information to prior information summarise important ideas.

Student exclamations When we attempt to explain something to someone else we often realise the deficiencies in our own understanding? By giving students an opportunity to explain their opinions we are allowed an insight into how they are learning and where their level of understanding is at, whilst also allowing opportunity for them to reflect upon their own knowledge and think about having learned. We encourage students to think megacognitivly.