Stuart Twiss « Let's Think

Let’s Think in Finland

By Stuart Twiss, 3rd July 2018

As a Let’s Think tutor I visited Finland in spring at the invitation of teacher educators at Turku University. They are very interested in the Let’s Think approach and I was interested in what sets Finland apart as a high performing education system with a narrow range of attainment. There are of course many differences […]

By Stuart Twiss, 15th June 2017

Let’s Think is rooted in a subject. The subject provides the context within which pupils face challenges to their powers of reasoning. The challenges also arise from the essential requirements for a pupil’s deep understanding of the subject. Thus in Let’s Think Secondary Science we have a lesson, ‘The P Word’ which is set in […]

There's an emphasis on early play, cooperation and the values and skills needed to live a rounded life.
Inclusive and comprehensive with additional support as part of mainstream schooling for children with educational needs.
It's a permeable system where progress to higher tiers in education remains available to all. Support and counseling for students throughout education aiming to help before problems arise.
There are no tuition fees for basic or higher education.
Free school meals throughout education.
No testing but professional assessment and student self assessment.
No inspection system but lots of guidance, support and additional funding.
Highly educated teachers given professional autonomy over pedagogy, curriculum and assessment.
Local authority maintenance of schools.
A broad base of schools, universities, teaching unions, local authorities and the central education department that support the vision for education and develop reforms collaboratively.
All provided at a similar cost to the UK!

Apart from feeling I had found my happy educational place I found that we also had something to share via Let's Think. The feedback given after CPD based on some Let's Think science and maths activities and the pedagogical principles that underpin our approach convinced me that teachers colleagues in Finland are striving for the collaborative and challenging educational environments that Let's Think creates. They also want to access the rich and engaging activities in the various schemes that have been produced for primary and secondary age children. They feel that their students are lacking the opportunities to develop their own strategies for problem solving within the curriculum and can avoid challenges. The children's reluctance to work together on problems within the curriculum was also an issue for them. They also wanted to know how to shift the emphasis form teacher input to pupil ownership. Does that sound familiar? Fortunately we have a chance to visit Finland again as Turku University is one of our strategic partners within the ACTS project led by the University of Lincoln. Another partner is the Thinking Approach Group of Latvia . This 3 year project has begun to develop An Assessment Companion for Thinking Skills which aims to help teachers become more clear when children are thinking, the opportunities for developing thinking and the progress made by pupils as their thinking develops. We are at an early stage of understanding each partner's perspective on thinking and there will be more to write about this later but already our differences and similarities are the origin of some challenging collaborative work. More evidence, if any were needed, that a mixed group in Let's Think is most likely to be profitable for thinking. [post_title] => Let's Think in Finland [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => lets-think-in-finland [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2018-07-03 18:47:52 [post_modified_gmt] => 2018-07-03 17:47:52 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => http://www.letsthink.org.uk/?p=1020 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) [1] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 929 [post_author] => 97 [post_date] => 2017-06-15 09:50:46 [post_date_gmt] => 2017-06-15 08:50:46 [post_content] => Let's Think is rooted in a subject. The subject provides the context within which pupils face challenges to their powers of reasoning. The challenges also arise from the essential requirements for a pupil's deep understanding of the subject. Thus in Let's Think Secondary Science we have a lesson, 'The P Word' which is set in the context of the pitch of a sound wave created within a set of tubes. In this lesson the student has to reason which of three variables has an effect on the pitch. They are faced with the challenge of identifying and then excluding variables by choosing pairs of tubes that differ only in one variable say, length, whilst variables of width and material remain the same. This is the same reasoning necessary to establish a controlled experiment to establish a proof of a relationship of cause and effect. Let's Think is also rooted in a pedagogy. The way the teacher interacts with the learners is particular to the Let's Think goal of engaging the majority of pupils with a higher learning demand than they might be expected to achieve on their own. The Let's Think teacher gains the skills necessary to quickly establish the context and to build with the learners a relevant vocabulary and concrete understanding of the situation and then present the challenge in such a way that the student can see clearly what is required even though they may not yet be able to puzzle their way to the solution. The Let's Think teacher's skills include an awareness of what is happening in the learning and of responding in ways that support peer to peer scaffolding and provide scaffolding for the whole class. The Let's Think teacher values and finds time for the reflection on learning that provides an opportunity to rehearse the reasoning as well as to consider the strategies they and others have used to arrive at the new meanings. Let's Think began as Cognitive Acceleration through Science Education, CASE at KS3 and this in turn spawned interventions in mathematics, technology, the creative arts and English across the primary and secondary age range. It seems possible therefore to attempt some small trials in other subjects. Geography for example. Where to start? Experienced teachers of geography are well aware of the challenges that their students face. They know when the subject is a struggle although they may not describe the nature of that struggle in terms that a Let's Think teacher might, as one of a type of reasoning and of reasoning mapped against Piagetian developmental stages. Thus the challenges that pupils face in understanding, using and making maps are well known to be difficult for pupils of all ages. They struggle to translate the 2D into 3D, to adjust the scale of the map to find the distances in reality and to understand and create symbols. They struggle with the absolute and relative orientations of the map and the place of something virtually moving across the map. If the students are challenged by the content and if the content is important to the teacher then this suggests that there is something that could possibly be the genesis of a Let's Think lesson. Over the last year and a half I have been working with 4 geography teachers to develop a small number of Let's Think geography lessons that we have trialled with classes in Y7 and Y8. We started with the curriculum and the teachers' intuitions about what is typically more challenging content. We then explored that content to identify and describe a reasoning pattern, something challenging in that content that the student has to get their head around, which some but few students are able to do but where others are likely to struggle. We developed 10 lessons in the context of maps and the flooding of the Somerset Levels. The lessons were geography lessons but had a Let's Think focus around a reasoning pattern such as the use of symbols, exploring scale as a ratio, translating 2D to 3D and vice versa, developing formal models, understanding effects based on combinations of causes. We then taught the lessons. Here we were faced with the issue of Let's Think pedagogy, the teachers had little iof any experience of Let's Think and were in fact interested in seeing another approach and another teacher. The lessons were therefore taught by me as a Let's Think tutor and observed by the geography teacher. We reflected at the end of each lesson trial on both the quality of reasoning and the quality of the the geography. Some lessons were too challenging for students, too long or not engaging but most were exciting, rewarding and as one pupil put it 'brain hemorrhaging' in their power to prompt thought. We have refined the less successful lessons, abandoned some initial ideas and have a small number of trial lessons that the teachers will now teach in what they consider to be the Let's Think way. So here lies a challenge for us. If, to be a Let's Think subject teacher, you need to have the subject expertise and the Let's Think pedagogy how does one develop a new Let's Think teacher in geography, or history, or PE? Perhaps a collaboration of Let's Think expertise and subject teacher's expertise is the way forward? [post_title] => Could there be such a thing as Let's Think Geography? How to use what we know about Let's Think in 'another' subject. [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => could-there-be-such-a-thing-as-lets-think-geography-how-to-use-what-we-know-about-lets-think-in-another-subject [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2017-06-15 09:51:50 [post_modified_gmt] => 2017-06-15 08:51:50 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => http://www.letsthink.org.uk/?p=929 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) ) [post_count] => 2 [current_post] => -1 [in_the_loop] => [post] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 1020 [post_author] => 97 [post_date] => 2018-07-03 18:44:24 [post_date_gmt] => 2018-07-03 17:44:24 [post_content] => As a Let's Think tutor I visited Finland in spring at the invitation of teacher educators at Turku University. They are very interested in the Let's Think approach and I was interested in what sets Finland apart as a high performing education system with a narrow range of attainment. There are of course many differences between Finland and the UK. Finland is a lot colder in late March than the UK. Helsinki was -20 whilst London was +8 Celsius. Finland has a small population in a larger country: 17 people per square km. The UK has a larger population in a smaller country: 259 people per square km. There are a lot more trees in Finland and the Finns love to eat food gathered from the woods. You are more likely to find a sauna in a Finnish home! Because education systems are not isolated from the climate and cultures we might expect differences and some of the differences do seem to arise from the geographical, political and social history of Finland rather than any educational principles. For example a difference that seems to affect the psyche of people in Finland is the extent to which there was and is land ownership. Finland has a population used to land ownership and it is widely distributed. As one Finn put it, 'We all had a small farm, a lake and forest'. This wide distribution of land wealth meant that Finland didn't move from a feudal social system to an industrial one in the way that the UK did. Another evident difference in the Finnish approach to life was explained to me as being based on the experience of Finland after gaining independence from Sweden and the subsequent resistance to the Russian and German invasions of the 20th Century. There is a fierce independence and resilience in extreme conditions that permeates people's choices. People are pragmatic rather than political. The social contract with Government is that it takes taxes to solve problems that affect the population and these problems are best solved by collaborative action and agreement. What stood out for me as a different about education in Finland from such a brief visit was:

There's an emphasis on early play, cooperation and the values and skills needed to live a rounded life.
Inclusive and comprehensive with additional support as part of mainstream schooling for children with educational needs.
It's a permeable system where progress to higher tiers in education remains available to all. Support and counseling for students throughout education aiming to help before problems arise.
There are no tuition fees for basic or higher education.
Free school meals throughout education.
No testing but professional assessment and student self assessment.
No inspection system but lots of guidance, support and additional funding.
Highly educated teachers given professional autonomy over pedagogy, curriculum and assessment.
Local authority maintenance of schools.
A broad base of schools, universities, teaching unions, local authorities and the central education department that support the vision for education and develop reforms collaboratively.
All provided at a similar cost to the UK!

Let’s Think in Finland

By Stuart Twiss, 3rd July 2018

Could there be such a thing as Let’s Think Geography? How to use what we know about Let’s Think in ‘another’ subject.

By Stuart Twiss, 15th June 2017