Learning and Thinking Skills - Teaching Expertise

In this series looking at 'effective participators', in this issue we look at a technique known as the World Café – another form of cooperative investigation that can be used to encourage students to engage actively with the issues that affect them

This week we will look at an approach known as Appreciative Inquiry – another form of cooperative investigation that can be used to encourage students to engage actively with the issues that affect them

This e-bulletin continues our focus on developing 'effective participators'. This issue we look at Narrative Enquiry – a form of cooperative investigation that can be used with students, staff, parents, governors to encourage active exploration of the issues that affect them

This e-bulletin continues our exploration of how the QCDA personal, learning and thinking skills framework can be put into practice. For the summer term, our focus is on the final key competence of the framework: that of 'effective participators'

We are currently looking at the crucial role of metacognitive plenaries in helping our students to develop a more reflective mindset. Last time we looked at some activities designed to introduce the concept of metacognition – or 'thinking about thinking' – to young learners. In this bulletin we will look further at the idea of helping students to 'learn for transfer'

This e-bulletin and the next will be looking at the crucial role of metacognitive plenaries in helping our students 'learn for transfer'

This bulletin provides an overview of what is meant by effective ‘debriefing’ – an essential skill for any practitioner who wishes to generate conversations about learning in their classroom

This week begins a series on how to help young people develop as ‘Reflective Learners’

This issue we continue to look at practical activities that can be used to help young people explore the idea of 'emotional resourcefulness', focusing on helping students to become increasingly sensitive to other people’s feelings and perceptions

The activities shared this week are designed to help students become more aware of the blocks and limiting beliefs that get in the way of that potential, and how these are often reflected and reinforced by the language we use

We continue to look at practical activities that can be used to help young people explore the idea of 'emotional resourcefulness', that is, the capacity for self-knowledge and understanding – and the ability to make the best use of that understanding

Anne de A'Echevarria looks at more practical activities that can be used to help young people explore the idea of 'emotional resourcefulness' in the context of young learners' self-management, using Emotion Concept Line; Recipes; Emotional Swap

Anne de A'Echevarria looks at practical activities that can be used to help young people explore the idea of 'emotional resourcefulness' in the context of young learners' self-management, using a circle diagram

Help young learners to start thinking and talking about the concept of 'self-management', and thereby begin to uncover for themselves the skills and dispositions involved

Learning and Thinking Skills looks at a range of different ways of assessing students' creative development, and engaging students in that process, including Geoff Petty's model of creativity

Learning and Thinking Skills explains a strategy to teach the thinking skill of analysis to pupils across all subject areas, including downloadable examples of the strategy in use

To encourage creative thinking further, these strategies are designed to help students expand and develop their initial ideas by encouraging them to see new possibilities through playful experiment and discussion

Anne de A'Echevarria looks at two more some practical 'creative thinking tools' for classroom use

Anne de A'Echevarria looks at three practical 'creative thinking tools' for classroom use

Learning and Thinking Skills looks at activities that can be used to initiate dialogue about creativity between staff and students

Creative thinking is Anne de A’Echevarria's new focus within her exploration of the QCA Personal Learning and Thinking Skills framework — in this issue particularly focusing on staff working together to encourage creative thinkers across the curriculum

This Learning and Thinking Skills completes the focus on a structured apporach to social skill development, based on the QCA’s Personal, Learning and Thinking Skills strand, ‘Team Workers'

Pupils' social skill development is the focus of Anne de A’Echevarria's third e-bulletin on pupil team work, core to the QCA’s Personal, Learning and Thinking Skills framework

This ebulletin begins to look at how to troubleshoot common problems that students face when asked to work together in groups or teams. It continues Anne de A’Echevarria's focus on ‘Team Workers' from the PLTS curriculum

Anne de A’Echevarria explores Kagan’s Cooperative Learning pedagogy as part of her in-depth focus on the ‘Team Workers' strand of the QCA’s Personal, Learning and Thinking Skills framework

What kind of language do students need to develop if they are to think and learn effectively as a team? This e-bulletin is the second Learning and Thinking Skills to focus on 'Team Workers'

This e-bulletin is the first Learning and Thinking Skills to focus on the 'Team Workers' strand, highlighting strategies that can help students to learn with, and from, each other more effectively

In this e-bulletin, Anne de A'Echevarria looks at how to help pupils explore what enquiry looks like in different subject areas across the curriculum

Decision making is the focus of this week's Learning and Thinking Skills, as we continue our exploration of developing 'independent enquirers’

How can you help students evaluate information effectively? Anne de A'Echevarria provides some answers as part of our in-depth focus on developing ‘independent enquirers’ – the first of the six areas of the QCA’s Personal, Learning and Thinking Skills framework

Now looking at the value of enquiry tools when organising and making sense of information, Anne de A'Echevarria continues to explore the process of developing ‘independent enquirers’ in Learning and Thinking Skills

This e-bulletin focuses on thinking tools for promoting emotional engagement and ownership - again focusing on the first of the six areas of the QCA’s Personal, Learning and Thinking Skills framework, developing ‘independent enquirers’

After introducing enquiry, Anne de A'Echevarria helps students develop their own understanding of what enquiry is and how it might be structured using resources and practical activities, as a continuation of our in-depth focus on developing ‘independent enquirers’

This Learning and Thinking Skills provides suggestions of how to introduce the idea of enquiry to young learners using practical ideas and classroom resources, as the first in our series taking an in-depth focus on developing ‘independent enquirers’ - the first of the six skill areas of the PLTS framework

'Teaching thinking' raises key questions and concerns about how something as complex as 'thinking' can be described in order to make it accessible and visible for colleagues and students

What is your wish-list for the kind of skills you would like your students to leave school with? This issue explains the QCA's framework for Personal, Learning and Thinking Skills (PLTS) and provides ideas on how you can apply this in practice