Learning

Design Example
L EA D IN G TH E L EA R N IN G

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 As you make your way through this exemplar, you'll be
invited to explore the learning conversations that went on
between teachers and students, and teachers and
teachers, that helped to inform the ongoing design.

These can be found at the bottom of the page - we'll

signpost where to go, and when, throughout this activity.

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 T h i s Learning Design is
an example only
It includes a lot of detail - more detail than you will include in
your own designs and plans. We’ve written it this way to
demonstrate the thinking and learning process of the
students and teachers.

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CONTEXT
Camila is a Grade 6 teacher working with a
class of 28 students. The school setting is
bilingual, with students learning in Eng lish
and Spanish, although many speak additional
languages.

Camila works closely with one full-time

learning assistant - Aran - and they have
been developing the Learning Design
together.

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Subject/focus/duration:

English

Persuasive writing

Approx. 2 weeks

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 Context
We’ve been thinking about how to make
the writing a good struggle for all
students based on evidence we have Identifying - together - what ‘success’ looks like

from similar topics. W e carried out a

Learning Inquiry on student writing earlier
in the year which revealed they benefit
from scaffolds like:

Examples of the g enre in action (from

Creating rubrics to track and assess their skills
different media and languages)

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 Your learners and their learning
What do you already know about your learners and their learning needs?
How will you personalize the learning to make it a good struggle for ALL students?

The students were inspired by
their learning from our recent
Geography topic on climate
change and wanted to write
something for our magazine on
ways to improve the school
environment.
They’ve asked if they can use Google
This is a great stimulus docs to write and edit their articles as they
for our next topic in like being able to collaborate and share
English: ideas. It also provides a great opportunity
persuasive writing. to practice giving and receiving peer
feedback, which is one of our key skills.
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Factors affecting learning

Looking back on earlier learning designs and inquiries, the

evidence tells us that there are a number of factors
affecting learning - we’ve been thinking about how we
can rethink, remove or improve these.
These factors can be Internal or External Factors.

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 I n t e r n a l Factors

Relevance and engagement Mindset Language

We’re working on embracing errors to Some students lack confidence
The students are passionate
improve learning but some students don’t in collaborative tasks. They’ve
about climate change and
like to ‘make mistakes’ or redraft their work. told me they need keywords
improving the school
Sharing their writing on Google docs could and phrases ahead of the whole
environment, so this is
make them feel vulnerable - could rethink class activities - could improve
positively impacting learning.
how we give and receive feedback and use support and scaffolding.
errors as learning opportunities.
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 Learning outcome(s):

What knowledge, skills and/or understanding do you want your students to learn and get better at?
Do these learning outcomes connect to or build on any prior learning?
Are they relevant and transferable to other subjects and contexts?

Knowledge Skills Understanding

To know the key features To be able to use the key To develop an understanding of
of persuasive texts features of persuasive texts the ways persuasive texts can
to express ideas confidently influence behavioral change .

This topic draws on knowledge from Geography, but also builds on data handling from
Maths, providing a great opportunity to use statistics as a persuasive device.

The skill of expressing ideas should influence the way students give and receive feedback -
which is something we can practice and apply across subjects.
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Phases of Learning
Students will be consolidating their knowledge learning on climate change,
and have used Google docs before to draft their writing. They’ve also worked
on key features and success criteria for other genres so it will be interesting to
see if/how they transfer any of this to the context of persuasion.

Hoping this topic generates some new learning on climate change -

some students might end up treading water unless we build in
opportunities like ‘mantle of expert’ so they can learn from each other and
back up their arguments with evidence.

Exploring the links between persuasive texts and behavioural change will
challeng e some of the students to ‘g o beyond’the finished article,and offers a
great opportunity to look at how we can gather and analyse evidence of this.

Based on previous learning, the writing aspect will be a challenge for some
students. As well as identifying the support they need before we start, we’ll
check in with them through regular learning conversations to make sure we’re
removing any barriers to their learning. 12
Learning focused content,
str ategies, activities & r esour ces
What learning-focused content will your students engage with?
What activities and resources will best support the learning?
How will you provide multiple means of engagement and expression
to personalize and remove barriers to learning?
What strategies will be the most effective and efficient for learning,
teaching and assessing the different types and phases of learning?

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 Knowledge
K:To know the key features of persuasive
texts
Planning to share knowledge (like key features
and vocab) ahead of the learning in a ‘flipped
classroom’ approach. Can then use Kahoot and
short instructional videos to introduce, recap and
review key features of persuasive texts.
To increase accessibility, we will explore a
range of persuasive texts and media -
articles, websites, YouTube videos, social
media, podcasts. Get students to ‘self-
differentiate’ by bringing in their own
examples. Use these to identify and
document all the features of persuasive texts
and media, which we can use as part of our
success criteria.
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Skills
S: To be able to use the key features of
persuasive texts to express ideas confidently
Use graphic organisers to help students combine the
persuasive features/vocab/phrases with their
Geography knowledge and plan structure.
Plan time for students to identify and co- create
success criteria of different persuasive features, and
skills rubrics which capture the steps of getting better at
expressing ideas.
Students will use these for self and peer assessment,
giving feedback, and identifying the next steps.
Explore what it means to ‘express ideas
confidently’ - in terms of their writing but also
giving/receiving feedback. Identify all the
support and scaffolds that we have in place
already. Create some ‘essential agreements’
and use these and the skills rubrics to
practise giving/receiving feedback.
Provide opportunities for regular small group
(and later, whole class) sharing to build
confidence before writing - identify
prompts/starters from initial research and
notes. Practise expressing their ideas out loud
in a debate format, with questions to
challenge each other - why do they think that?
What impact will it have? Why is it important
to change our behaviour? Can they defend /
justify their ideas?
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 Understanding
U:To develop an understanding of the ways
persuasive texts can influence behavioural How do we know if a
change persuasive text has been
‘successful’?

Build reflective questions into exploration of
different persuasive texts and media. Use
the thinking routine ‘Iused to think...now I
think…’ - has the persuasive text changed
their thinking, or how they might act or
behave in the future? Link this back to key
features and continue to build on and
expand the bank of vocab/phrases.
Look at examples of
successful environmental
campaigns - how has impact
been evidenced? Is it about the
number of people changing
their behaviour, or the number
of places etc?
How could we measure the
impact of their articles on
people/places in the school?
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Ongoing reflection
and review
Are your students getting better at the learning outcomes? How
do you know?
What evidence will demonstrate progress against the
learning outcomes?
How will you – and your students - continuously monitor, assess,
and adjust the learning?
How will you – and your students - use feedback to get better?

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Whole class learning has been successful in supporting
the knowledge side of things, with introducing,
recapping and building a bank of key features, vocab and
phrases. Evidence from Kahoot quizzes are showing
improvements over time.
Students enjoyed sharing examples of persuasive media
and advocating for why and how theirs had the biggest
impact.

With the skills, we need to adjust our timings to build in

more practice time - nearly all the students know what
the key features are when quizzed on them, but some are
struggling to recall how to use or express them in the
context of planning for their own article.

A few students are hesitant to start writing - wondering

whether this is a reflection of new learning or drowning?
Are there barriers that we can help to remove? Speak to
students to find out more.

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Want to see a learning conversation with the
students in action?
Scroll down this page to: Example A.

After you have seen Example A, come back to this

exemplar and move on to page 20.

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 Learning Conversation - Example A
The learning conversation
with Matteo was really useful.
W e made some changes to
the next lesson to include
time for feedback and sharing
and gave everyone home
learning time to recap and
consolidate their learning so
far.
Also, built-in time for
volunteers to demonstrate
how they got started with the
planning template, and
provide
some tips to
other students.
Students loved Matteo’s idea of
using videos with subtitles and
suggested printing off the
transcripts so they could
highlight useful phrases. This
created a great opportunity for
a ‘spot the persuasive
adjective/adverb’ activity.
We’ve noticed a big
improvement in their range of
persuasive vocabulary
after this and
the students who
were originally
hesitant to write
are now confident
to try things out.
After the first week we spent some time as
a whole class reviewing progress against
the original success criteria.
A few students volunteered to read some of
their writing out loud for feedback. W e noticed a
lot of the content was fact-based and could
sound ‘one-sided’ and ‘bossy’. Even though
modal verbs and adverbs (might, could,
probably,possibly etc.) were identified by the
students as part of our success criteria,it was
clear that some needed to consolidate their
learning of these and how they can be used to
encourage people to change their behaviour.
Students using ‘strong’ verbs and adverbs to
state their opinion - explore moderate and
tentative.N eed to find out more about what
students think would help them with this.
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Want to see another learning conversation with
the students in action?
Scroll down this page to: Example B.

After you have seen Example B, come back to this

exemplar and move on to page 22.

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Learning Conversation - Example B
After speaking to
Isabella, we’ve
expanded the idea of
learning partners into
‘learning groups’ with
4-5 students peer-
assessing each
others’ writing.
This has positively impacted the
quantity and quality of peer
feedback, and we now have a
range of examples of this in
action - audio notes, videos,
comments on Google docs etc.
But there are a few students who
are still finding it difficult to make
progress with writing
independently. We’ve spoken to
them, but they say they have
everything they need. What else
is going on?
Would like Sam to visit as
another set of eyes and ears to
try and identify what factors
might be affecting their learning
and what we can do about
them?
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Let see now some more examples of Pre,
During and Post-learning conversations
between teachers and/or teachers and
students.
Scroll down this page to: Examples C, D, and E.

After you have seen Examples C, D, and E, come

back to this exemplar and move on to page 24.

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Examples of Pre, During and
Post Learning Visit Conversations

Some great insights from Sam - worked with Mo, Anja, Jack and
Mia to co-create ‘essential agreements’ for giving and receiving
feedback. Because these came from their own experience, they
were confident to present them to the rest of the class.

These have already had a positive impact on the feedback students

g ive to each other - it’s now more clearly focused on the success
criteria and skills rubrics, and students can demonstrate how
they’ve used this to adjust their writing.

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Evaluation
of learning
W hat evidence demonstrates progress against the
learning outcomes?
How will you use this evidence to further improve student
learning? How will you use this evidence to adjust or
improve your planning and practice?
What are the next steps for your learners and their learning?

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 Knowledge
Numerical evidence from Kahoot quiz data shows a
steady improvement in identifying and recalling key
features of persuasive texts in all students.Initially
there was a discrepancy between the scores and
their own perception/self-assessments, mostly with
students reporting higher levels of confidence.
When we dug into this, there was some confusion
between students self-assessing their geography
knowledge rather than their knowledge of
persuasive features.
To know the key features of persuasive
texts
We triangulated this numerical and perception evidence with
what we observed from the final articles - students who were
confident in their geography knowledge tended to rely more on
statistics and facts over persuasive writing techniques from the
success criteria.
The drafts and redrafts over time showed an increase in the
number of features from the success criteria - and in learning
conversations with the students we also noted their increased
confidence in explaining how they had used these and why
they made their writing more persuasive.
In student self-assessment - 8 felt they had used all of the key
features on the success criteria, 15 used between 5-8 features,
and the rest below 5. However, these self- assessments did not
match teacher assessments, with only 3 students achieving a
Level 5, and the majority achieving a Level 4. Need to address
this next writing topic.
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 Skills
persuasive texts to express ideas confidently
We know skills get better through deliberate practice
over time - and this was certainly the case with moving
students from knowing the features to using them to
express ideas confidently.
Fortunately, expressing ideas is a skill we will transfer to
other subjects and contexts, and the students have
helped us to identify a number of useful strategies and
techniques that we can draw on to consolidate their
learning next time.
To be able to use the key features of
The rubric which we co-created based on analysing
a range of persuasive media was successfully used
by all students to give and receive feedback - all
demonstrated some movement - either from
Beginning to Developing, or Developing to Mastering.
A few students crafted some ‘beyond Mastering’
steps - can use these to consolidate skills in future
learning, with these students coaching others through
practice.
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 Skills
We monitored the use of features from our success
criteria and linked our feedback on the Google docs
directly to these.
We felt we could have highlighted and shared more
examples of where students had successfully used the
persuasive techniques, and also where they had used
feedback (ours or each other’s) to improve their writing.
This is something we can do with our next learning,
whatever the context.
We observed students growing in confidence in a couple of
ways - one was through sharing ‘out loud’ in group work and
debates, and the other was through the way they provided
feedback to others (in person and via the Google docs). The
essential agreements really moved this skill forward as
students looked for ways to make sure their feedback was
‘constructive’ and were able to justify why this was.
In addition to monitoring the quality of students’ feedback, we
also noted the quantity (ie. how many comments left on the
Google docs) - interestingly this number decreased over time, as
students wrote less, but focused more on the quality of the
feedback.
Learning conversations with students - in class, and from the
Learning Visits - were invaluable in identifying ways to
support and scaffold this skill - whilst also being a great way
to practice expressing their ideas to us with confidence!
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 Understanding To develop an understanding of the ways
persuasive texts can influence behavioural change

Our reflection and feedback time in the learning groups generated a lot of discussion around
this understanding, as students asked each other questions where they had to defend and
justify their choices. The Thinking Routines (‘I used to think,now Ithink’ and ‘What makes you say
that?’)really helped to scaffold these lively debates.

We practised these first with the other examples of persuasive media that the students shared
(podcasts, videos, social media etc.). Doing this they could easily identify techniques used to get
people to change their behaviour.This helped them to be more confident in challenging each
other’s articles.

Students wanted to know what influence their finished articles would have on
behavioural changes of others in the school community,so we looked into ways to capture
feedback and reactions fromdifferent stakeholders.

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Understanding
We published the articles on the school website along with a short survey for parents and students -
capturing some numerical and perception evidence. 90% of respondents agreed the articles were
persuasive, with 85% agreeing they would change their behaviour in some way to support
improvements in the school environment.Some students have asked to follow up with the 15%who didn’t
agree to find out why and what else they could have included in the articles to have persuaded them -
the statistic also helped to develop our understanding that persuasive texts can influence but are not
guaranteed to change behaviour because change is in the hands of the individual.

We also have some observational evidence about influences on behaviour.For example, 2 parents have
set up a committee with students to monitor and reduce food waste. 3 parents (fromoutside our class)
contacted the PTA to say their business wanted to work with the school to reduce single-use plastics
(one idea was to design a reusable water bottle). Students from Sam’s Grade 10 class have taken the
lead on redeveloping some green space into a vegetable plot - and will work with the canteen
committee.

The students feel really proud of their articles and the impact of this on the wider school

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Next s t e p s f o r l e a r n e r s and their l e a rn in g :
Continue to develop the skill of expressing
ideas confidently through different subjects
and contexts - consider another Learning
Visit to continue gathering evidence to help
improve strategies for this.
Look for ways to capture student voice
earlier in the design process - they are
really getting to know themselves as
learners and what helps them to be
successful, so we need to build on this.
Build in time to compare final self-assessments
against teacher assessments and use examples of
success criteria in action from a range of student
work to collaboratively ‘build’ a whole class
example of Level 5 writing .
Transfer learning outcomes to next History topic -
build on to consider the influence of context in
combination with persuasive techniques on
people’s choices and behaviours
Inquire into ‘embracing errors’ as a learning opportunity
- we noticed a theme of students personalising
mistakes and worrying about taking risks in front of their
peers. Could launch a Learning Inquiry into intentionally
embedding errors into learning. (Watch video
“Embracing errors to improve learning” in Module 3)
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