Research Taster

To help pupils become independent learners, it can help if you give them activities that support them to think for themselves. You can also use talk to develop pupils' learning, by pushing them to think hard and then getting them to apply their understanding in the next activity. For example, one study showed how a teacher started off her lesson by asking her pupils to suggest criteria for performing a poem. She probed, challenged and polished their suggestions. The teacher then performed the poem to the class and invited the pupils to critique her performance using the criteria the pupils had created earlier.

Your evidence 

To find out how effective your current approaches are at giving pupils activities that help them to think for themselves and using dialogue to develop their understanding, you might like to work with a trusted colleague to observe each other’s lessons, noting:

Afterwards, you could discuss with each other how far the activities and classroom interactions helped the pupils to think for themselves and apply their understanding and what kinds of activities might have helped even more. 

Moving forward

Having identified areas where you can further refine your practice, you might like to see if you can improve upon the kind of activities and dialogue you use with your pupils. Would you find it helpful to work with your colleague to devise another set of activities aimed at helping pupils towards understanding and thinking for themselves, for example, about what constitutes quality in an area such as writing an account or making a presentation?

  Find out more

You can find out more about fostering learner independence on the TLRP Learning how to learn project at: http://www.tlrp.org/proj/phase11/phase2f.html

You can find out more about using dialogue to probe pupils’ understanding and develop their thinking on the Research Informed Practice website: http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/research/themes/speakandlisten/talktalk/