Let's Think programmes
Starting soon...
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The following programmes are confirmed as running this year.
Grafton Primary, Islington, London starting on 4 October:
Hugh Myddelton Primary, Islington, London starting on 3 October:
Ambler Primary, Islington, London starting on 17 October:
University of Cambridge Primary, Cambridge starting on 28 September:
Let’s Think Maths Level 2 (for teachers who have completed a Level 1 programme:
See the flyer for more details.
Royal Greenwich Teaching School Alliance, London:
- Let’s Think Maths Primary programme
- Let’s Think in Science Primary programme
- Let’s Think in English Primary programme
- Find out more: http://www.rgtsa.co.uk/node/130
King’s College University, London:
Other English programmes are likely to take place in Norfolk, Cornwall and Torquay. Email michael.walsh@letsthink.org.uk to express your interest.
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Testing Cognitive Acceleration in an international school context
The 2016-17 school year saw the teacher training and implementation of Let's Think in English in grades 5 and 6 (years 6 and 7) at Inter Community School (ICS) Zurich, a private, non-selective, international school in Zurich Switzerland.
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With training from Michael Walsh and support from Alex Black, our own Theory of Knowledge teacher, we were able to fully implement the program in a very collaborative environment where there were often two trainee teachers in the room for the Let's Think Lesson.
This was done as an action research project and included pre and post testing using the piagetian volume and heaviness and pendulum tests as administered by Alex Black. The data is still being refined and follow up testing is planned, however at this time we can see a very significant effect size.
Positive program evaluations were reported from all teachers involved in the training and all feel it has impacted their teaching across classes and disciplines. Students were also asked to evaluate their experience and these were also very positive. In the words of one grade 5 student, " I thought there really was nothing it taught us other than thinking a little deeper".
The idea of a small scale cognitive acceleration intervention came about as a result of recent discussions with Michael Shayer. He has been very concerned about the anti-Flynn effect and its possible causes. One hypothesis to test is the idea that a well designed set of activities that address the early concrete operations can allow students to be accelerated in their cognitive development in preparation for other Let’s Think programmes. These activities are based on the schemas assessed by the Volume and Heaviness (Scientific Reasoning Task II). The idea is that specific prompting of students in the 2A to 2A/2B transition would make them ready at an earlier stage for later cognitive acceleration.
This hypothesis will be tested in ICS Zürich with grade 5 (UK year 6) in the coming year. Using the much used format of cognitive acceleration research, Piagetian data changes will be matched with other normally used indicators of educational achievement. In our case the ACER tests. These are taken in October by our grade 3 to 10 students. These tests are taken in Mathematical Literacy, Reading and two indicators of writing proficiency. It is hoped that such small scale interventions using lessons specifically designed for primary school science can be the subject of critical lesson study and development.
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New EU-funded research project
A strategic partnership between Let's Think, The University of Lincoln in the UK, University of Turku Finland, The TA Group Latvia, Carter Community School, Daugavpils Krievu vidusskola-licejs Latvia and Kirkonkylan koulo Eura Finland has been funded with 390,00 Euro under the EU Erasmus Plus programme for the development of an innovation called the Assessment Companion for Thinking Skills (ACTS).
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ACTS is a tool to help teachers recognise the progress made in thinking by their pupils and one that is formative in pointing to the support that the pupils need to become more skilful thinkers. The project will run from September 2017 to June 2020.
We expect that the assessment tool will describe what thinking sounds like: verbatim examples of student thinking and what it looks like and moments in a process of thinking captured by video or photograph. These features will be organised in the assessment tool to show both the approaches to effective thinking that people employ and the progress that might take place within these approaches. It should also show common problems in thinking.
If you are interested in getting involved in the research, please contact info@letsthink.org.uk
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Helping low achievers in Key Stage 3
Alan Edmiston has been experimenting with the use of Let’s Think primary mathematics materials for struggling learners in KS3. Low achieving sets of about a dozen pupils taught by NQT teachers in three different secondary schools really struggled with the Year 5 P-CAME lessons. These pupils in Year 7 were struggling to get the grips with the very concept Let’s Think Through Maths 6-9 tackle in Year 2.
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Alan began to cherry pick the lower primary Let's Think maths lessons for use with the older group and the pupils became instantly more engaged and began to talk - this was the foot in the door to enable them to start to make progress. Recently the idea has been picked up by a couple of the Maths Hubs. If you would like to find out more about this initiative then please get in touch with Alan.
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Cognitive Acceleration in Science: an international update
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With an introduction linking reasoning patterns, the work of Michael Shayer and Philip Adey, the statue of Queen Victoria in Sydney, Dublin, Tonga and the UK, the CA symposium at the European Science Education Research Association in Dublin began!
University of Queensland PhD student Tim Smith described his research investigating the mechanism through which general cognitive development occurs. An experienced teacher, supporting teachers in Australia using CASE and CAME, Tim’s work will focus on how the different ‘measures’ of thinking relate to each other.
Anita Backhouse @Lincoln, UK and Chair of the Let's Think Forum discussed the assumptions underpinning successful education interventions. Her work showed the importance of teacher engagement, interest and collaboration.
David Treagust presented the doctoral work of Tongan student, Teukava Finau, CAME in Tonga. Teukava used a quasi-experimental design to investigate the effects of a year long professional development program of CAME. Tongan students showed very large gains in mathematical ability and self-regulation, self-efficacy and task value with large effect sizes.
Tom McCloughlin shared part of Susan Ryan’s PhD work using multi-dimensional scaling to analyse teachers’ confidence and implementation of metacognition during CASE lessons.
Discussant Grady Venville focused on the themes of all the research papers, highlighting the enduring legacy and challenges of CA approach in primary, secondary, science, mathematics and other lessons. Clearly, current data shows that CA enables students to be more engaged with their thinking and positively impacts their school scores and attitudes towards their learning. Schools often want the results of CASE but may not understand the need to have all the systemic support in place. As Philip Adey once remarked, ‘if the package works, don’t take it apart’.
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Take a look at Kevin Groarke’s blog where he describes teaching Let’s Think Maths lessons to his North London primary pupils. He offers some interesting insights into some familiar Let’s Think lessons and some new draft lessons we are in the process of developing. Kevin attends the Level 2 Let’s Think Maths Network Meetings held at UCL Institute of Education in London. This group of experienced Let’s Think teachers meet once each half term to explore and design new Let’s Think lessons. If you are interested in attending these, please contact s.seleznyov@ucl.ac.uk
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Sophie Pearson, Let's Think Science teacher
Sophie is Head of Biology at Whitley Bay High School.
I first become engaged with Let's Think Science two years ago and I first really took to the fluidity and the challenge of the lessons.
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I appreciate the fact that you do not give an answer and leave pupils to struggle for themselves. I also like the way I can coach my students and highlight ideas to steer the class into an interesting direction.Since becoming a Let's Think teacher, I have become more willing to allow and facilitate parallel discussions within the specifications in all years. I am also building better relationships with students by engaging in 'off topic' chats. This has allowed me to really get to know some of my more quiet pupils. I find that the start of the lesson allows me to open up more pupil led discussions.
I plan to teach Let's Think lessons in any spare time I have with my new job, and I will also be looking to incorporated some of the tasks into other science lessons; for example sharing the ratio tasks with my feeder middle schools. We did lots of lessons with one of my Year 9 classes last year and I am looking forward to seeing how they cope as they begin their GCSE science courses.
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