A Book of FAIL

Ross Morrison McGill’s new book “100 Ideas for Secondary Teachers” contains many brilliant ideas and easy ways to improve lessons. One that has caught on via Twitter and various blogs is F.A.I.L. (First Attempt In Learning). It's not a new idea and I have seen First Attempts Inspire Learning which , sorry Ross, I think I may prefer!  There is also a great TED video on failure, by a teacher, that is also worth watching:

This ties in with some of the ideas we have been working on in my school ACE group; we want our students to become more resilient and in control of their learning.  


I have also been working with Y12 on their first essay plans. There was great fear in the room; fear that I wanted to turn to excitement! Many of the girls I teach are scared to get things wrong, especially the most able. My GCSE Set 1 almost refuse to do activities where there is a risk of getting something wrong... and this is something I want to challenge.

It very much links to the blog post I did on redrafting and improving work recently; it requires a real culture shift in my current school.

So my idea... I have asked various groups of students to back track and find a series of progression, either during Y12 or through the first year of the GCSE course. Some exam questions (GCSE) or essays (AS), that hopefully display that individual child's progression from one place to another.

Ritchie Gale speaks of how we should be displaying the progress in our classrooms in his excellent recent post, yet my challenge is that I teach in 17 different rooms. So I decided to go into print; today I produced my first book of F.A.I.L.! A current Y13 who provided 6 essays which show how she started with a decent C grade but worked her way to very high A grades.

I am now working how best to use my first (hopefully in a series!) F.A.I.L. publication:

• Lend to certain students to read?
• Photocopy for the whole class? (and blow the RE budget further!)
• Make a display in someone else's classroom?
• How will a student best use it? Just read it?
• Is it possible to inspire students by reading others progress?

Any ideas gratefully received! 

Redrafting to Perfection?

Since being recommended the work of Ron Berger by Richie Gale, I have become a big fan. I decided to use his idea of working towards perfection with my Y8s. It is the idea that by using feedback and encouraging students to redraft and redo work, there will be great progress and improvement. This video explains it very well:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqh1MRWZjms

From the Y8 unit 'Creation', I allowed each student to pick one of three individuals cited as a Christian who had concerned for the environment: St Francis of Assisi, Sister Dorothy Stang or Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha. They were to write a magazine article about the person for the fictional 'Eco Living Magazine' justifying their inclusion in the magazine as a Christian.

The students wrote their articles on lined paper, as opposed to their exercise book, and then got at least two people to peer mark it. They were to correct spelling, punctuation, add suggestions and improvements - as well as adding some encouraging comments! I encourages them to 'ask the expert' with them asking to think carefully about who to ask for help, about what.

Unfortunately I only have a limited number of the drafts, but they ended up covered in coloured markings and improvements. Here are two that I managed to salvage from students (but are two of the less annotated!):

 

They then got booked into a computer room to type up the improved version, aiming for 'professional perfection':

 

The quality of the work was far superior to their drafts and their normal homework. It really helped having their peers correct and improve their work. They were all determined to work for perfection too! They were getting each other to 'be editor' in the computer room; students needed a final proof read before printing!

It was far easier than I thought to create a collaborate environment, whereby students were really focused on improvement and working towards 'the perfect article'. They were happy to have their first drafts written all over, improved and corrected; these are girls who are often slaves to neatness from the word go!

There are time considerations to take into account, this took two lessons instead of one for a start. I was also fortunate to be able to book at computer room, writing it out again from scratch may have been a little tedious (and perhaps not showing enough progress for an observer). The 'culture of excellence' was powerful to see in action, and students (and I!) enjoyed it.

I may try it with GCSE students and exam questions of 6th Form and an essay... I think I may show them the video first to explain a little better why we are trying to do this!

Update 6/11/13: Tom Sherrington has also recently blogged about this <here>. He grabbed this screenshot to show the power of redrafting: