Guidance for Assignment 2 Answer each of the following questions (1 – 4) to demonstrate that you can use Claxton’s theory in practice. 1. How do you build up your own resilience when faced with a challenging learning task? 2. What strategies might you adopt when working with another adult or a child to build up their resilience? 3. Try the same activity for each of Claxton’s other R’s – resourcefulness, reflectiveness, reciprocity. 4. How useful do you find Claxton’s theory as a useful means of identifying and supporting learning? Pages 4 – 6 in Chambers, M. Powell, G. Claxton, G. (2004) Building 101 Ways to Learning Power, TLO. Claxton, G. (2000) Wise-Up. London: Bloomsbury. Visit websites www.buildinglearningpower.co.u www.guyclaxton.com Please see extract below: The unit is more than just finding out about Claxton’s work. This is just a cautionary theory. The granddad type figure is in fact Piaget and the other just a mad scientist of learning. When we look at any theory and relate it to school we need to be beware of two different types of theory which inform what Educational Professionals do in school. Firstly the traditional and well established psychology theories. Children and young people need to be observed, rather than experimented upon. As soon as we observe we change conditions of behaviour. Therefore the observation data we collect is open to question. Laboratories are not suitable places to observe behaviour, nor really are observations on psychologist’s own children. Yet all of these techniques have been done. Many of these strategies are drawn from traditional psychology theories and from some of the more recent learning theories. This does not mean that they are no good, it just means that you need to make judgements about their validity. As Claxton writes ‘all learners sometimes find learning difficult. It can be messy and confusing and often defies detailed planning. Good learners are able to work independently but they also rely on learning with and from other people – including teachers. Good learners know when to give up: at least for the time being, until they find a suitable resource to help combat the difficulty. They make plenty of mistakes, but are always on the look-out for ways to learn from them. Self-esteem along won’t improve learning power, but self-esteem will increase whenever learners become more competent.’ Claxton calls this diagram the ‘learning power mind’ which contains the 4 Rs of Learning Power – resilience, resourcefulness, reflectiveness and reciprocity. He makes it quite clear that in order to develop learning power educational professionals need to work on these four aspects of students’ learning. The first R of learning power involves learners learning to be resilient. The effective learner get caught up in the pleasure of learning – watch a 4 year old carefully absorbed in moving sand in small spoonfuls from one container to another; not being distracted by others coming to the sand tray or building blocks on the floor by them; watch them noticing and really getting a sense of the relative size of the containers, the quality of the sand; the tiny grains and the colour; watch the stickability keeping to the task. Lets take examples of resourcefulness with a slightly older child, remembering that none of these 4 R’s are age related and apply in different ways to all of us. Questioning in the classroom situation is always rather a mute point, but there are often times when curriculum tasks in class do build on areas children are already interested in. Reflectiveness involves the learner in being ready, willing and able to work out their learning in advance. Obviously many learners need to be taught how to do this and much of the work of the Educational Professional involves looking at how to teach children to plan their work out in advance, monitor and adapt it along the way; draw out the lessons from experience and finally be able to understand the learning and yourself as the learner. The NNF and the NLS have shown particularly good models of this meta-learning, by encouraging teachers to think out their thoughts as they complete – for example – a piece of writing on the board ‘Shall I use this word or do I need a longer sentence’ ‘What sort of premier words would go best here?’ and in maths requiring children to explain how they came to a particular answer. This meta-learning is particularly important in helping both the Ed. Professional and the pupil to work out how misconceptions develop. It involves the delicate balance of being self-reliant and sociable; learning the complex skills of learning with others; getting inside others’ minds and picking up others’ habits and values.