Introduction
G. K. Chesterton (G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (Mineola, NY: Dover, 2004), 1.) once wrote that he was too ready to write books on the
feeblest provocation. It is reasonable to suggest that the existence of the
transiently useful artefact you are now holding could be evidence that the
same accusation could be levelled at its author.(As Alastair Smith brilliantly puts it: I like self-deprecating humour
Im just not very good at it.)
This book is an experiment to see if it is possible to make something a
thing that is (perhaps), by nature, intrinsically boring in some way interesting.
(This could reasonably be argued to be the mark of a decent teacher.)
So, it is a challenge I have set myself: is it possible to spend a few months
immersed in the shallow puddle of the plenary, and come out holding some
form of brittle petal that will not only help you, dear colleague, to improve
your practice, but will also entertain?
The process of writing this thin volume has been to read everything ever
written about the plenary, and try to turn it into a series of workable jokes.
And then, having failed to do so, to tell you about the best strategies, and
how you might go about implementing them; as well as which ones you
should avoid, because they are either stupid (see the anagram and the wordsearch), or because they are merely a marginal, incremental repetition of
some non-idea (see both the anagram and, indeed, the wordsearch). But
before we go into the useful arena of the practical aand specific, lets briefly
divert into a more big picture look at the plenary.
By the end of this chapter (I hope) you will be able to:
1 Identify and articulate what your students will get out of a well conducted
plenary.
2 Regurgitate what Ofsted have to say about plenaries and, in particular,
where they think we are going wrong.
3 Clarify what you think about certain aspects of planning a plenary
(relating the plenary to the objectives, starting with a plenary, mini
plenaries) good or bad.
4 Relate to the problems that your students might have with plenaries,
and have strategies to overcome these.
5 Use the plenary as an effective part of your already well-developed
Assessment for Learning (AfL) strategies.
6 Relate your understanding of the plenary to what Professor John Hattie
has to say about the end of the lesson.
7 Be marginally better read on the subject of domain specificity than
your colleagues and, perhaps, have an opinion as to whether domaingeneral
and domain-specific ideas of cognition are mutually exclusive
or not. (This may not make any sense to you now. And it may not
make any sense to you later on.)
And thats just Part 1.
Organisationally, the book has been constructed (if that is not too baroque
a term for such a short tome) with in-built differentiation at its core. The
majority of readers will want a brief overview of how one might most profitably
conduct a plenary (this is in Part 1: An Overview of the Plenary), and a
few decent ideas on easy strategies to use that may have some benefit for
their students (this is in Part 2: Analogue Plenaries). If your needs have been
fulfilled by these two sections, Id advise you not to bother going any further,
as the second half of this book is heavy going if you are not of a mind to try
and understand some nearly difficult stuff.
For the gifted and talented reader(s) teaching spods, bloggers, CPD coordinators
and assistant and deputy heads in charge of teaching and learning
there is an acknowledgement that writing a book, however short, on a
metacognitive activity and not brushing on metacognition would be an act
of professional negligence (it is therefore covered, albeit clumsily, in Part
3: Metacognition for Beginners). Where the book begins to fly a little, and
where it is, I feel, potentially useful is in Part 4: Digital Plenaries. Many of
these ideas will appear, and indeed are, simple. Id say that this is not necessarily
a reason to write them off, as it is rarely simplicity that is the enemy
in teaching. It is in this section that I have attempted to translate my reading
of the research into strategies that, plausibly, might have a substantial
impact on the students learning in your specific domain.(If you understand that this is a joke (albeit an unfunny one), then you should definitely read
Parts 3 and 4.)
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