1st Conference Ozyegin University, Istanbul , May 26th 2018

How to do the right things by doing things right

Demand High, effectiveness

and deep learning
Adrian Underhill
Sponsored by Macmillan Education

adrianunderhill.com
demandhighelt.wordpress.com
facebook.com/demandhighelt
 Leadership literacy
1. Managers do things right, leaders do the right thing (Warren Bennis)

Do things right: According to the book; informed by convention

Do the right thing: According to need; informed by the situation

A good starting point for effectiveness in teaching. Leadership and Teaching

share aims and values on:
Making meaning;
Learning;
Feedback,
Mobilising people,
I often observe people in top positions doing the wrong things well
(Warren Bennis)
Good leaders give meaning
2. Meaning… Good leaders make people feel that they're at the
heart of things, not at the periphery. (Warren Bennis)

Everyone feels that he or she makes a difference to the success

of the organization.
When that happens, people feel centered and that gives their
work meaning.
Leaders are made
3. Leaders are made … The most dangerous leadership myth is
that leaders are born — that there is a genetic factor to leadership.
(Warren Bennis)

That's nonsense; in fact, the opposite is true. Leaders are made

by learning about leadership through life and job experiences -
not with university degrees. (Warren Bennis)
Good leaders are perpetual learners

4. Good leaders are highly proficient in learning from

experience. … learning is the essential fuel for the leader.
(Warren Bennis)

Leaders use the organisation as an adventure playground for

their learning
Learning itself is a leaderly act, a way of getting things done.
Learning your way into and through a situation … changes the
situation
Apply Bennis’ 4 points to teaching effectiveness

1. Doing things right V Doing the right things

See for yourself what is going on
2. Give meaning
Self expression, voice
Learning itself is meaningful
3. Teachers are made
By being open to learning, experience, people
4. Teach by learning
Inquiry: suspend assumptions, judgments
Demand-High

Inquiry Questions:
Am I engaging the full learning capacity of my students?
Do I keep my students on a starvation diet of learning?
Are my learners capable of more?
Am I covering material rather than focusing on deep learning?
Do I see the learning – or only the activity in front of it - the task?
Do I let the task to do the teaching?
Would they learn more if I demanded more?
How could I do that?
 the Demand-High meme
A meme is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads from
person to person within a culture—often with the aim of
conveying a particular phenomenon, theme, or meaning
represented by the meme - Wikipedia

Tweaks…
What small shifts in attitude, and tweaks in techniques, can we
make to change the whole focus of our teaching towards getting
more learning happening?
Reclaim learning territory - for full engagement
To demand high we need to reclaim some learning territory
We are learning beings. Learning brings us closer to ourselves
One group? Or 24 private lessons? Seeing learning
Challenging learners at their own‘learning edge’
Meaning, Meaningful practice
Self Expression. Having a voice in the world
Feedback
Mistakes / ‘Protakes’
Inner Workbench
Playfulness
Four categories of tweak
1. 3xP We learn from practice > feedback> upgrade > practice etc.
It is the practice that makes the difference. Not explanations.
Deepen practice by moving from repetition to self expression
2. Upgrades. Any student utterance can be upgraded, usefully,
enjoyable, given the right feedback and encouragement
3. Inner Workbench for listening and speaking Active use of the
inner ear and inner voice in language work; Deeper modelling,
Exercising long strings of words Don’t repeat after me.
4. Mistakes Liberation from fear of mistakes. Mistakes as syllabus.
Say mistake and correction. Outcomes V mistakes

Playfulness; Zooming in/out; Private lessons, Seeing learning

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Two ‘Demand Low’ traps in oral work
1. Ping Pong
Extinguishing T’s question with only one St response
T Question  St Answer  Stop.
This happens when I look for correctness rather than learning
Solution: Multiple responses Ping Pong Pong Pong Pong

2. Rubber stamping
Saying ‘good’ when it isn’t, then leaving it
Solution: Upgrades…

Tweaks for multiple responses and upgrades

Multiple responses
1. Help Sts develop committed responses
2. Sts self check responses
3. Collect responses in the group
4. Examine responses in the group
Upgrades
5. Offer individual upgrades – in the group
1. Inner voice: Develop a committed response
 Get ready to say it… but don’t ….!
 Find the words you want in your inner voice
 Practice silently inside
 How many words?
 Join the words together
 Where will you put the stress, How will you say it?
 Get ready to say it…. All this was in your Inner Voice
 Now say it aloud … just for yourself… in your Private Voice

 Using The Inner Workbench (Underhill in Meaningful

Practice: A Tribute to Earl Stevick (ed Arnold) CUP 2010
 2. Private voice: self check response
This Private Voice enables the student to :
- Practice privately, but hear their outer voice
- And notice the difference between their inner and outer voice.

 This is also a good anti blurt device…. because during the
internal assembly and rehearsal Sts can notice and change slips
and uncertainties
3. Public voice: Collect responses

 What is your answer? And yours? And yours?

 Who has something different?
 Listen to each other as we go round
 What did she say?
 Did you hear him?
 Listen to the differences - Can you hear them?
 Is that the same as his?
 How many different ones have we got?
4. Class examine their responses together

 Is that Ok?
 Do you want to change it?
 Are there any mistakes in that?
 Yes? How many?
 Who likes this one? Which one more English?
 Can you improve it?
 Can you write yours / hers on the board?
 Let’s put all the different ones on the board…
 Now, one of these is correct…which one?
Upgrade rather than correction
A correction: makes something ‘wrong’ into something ‘correct’
An upgrade: improves whatever is offered (mistake or not)
A correction: can’t be corrected. It is a stop. The St turn ends
An upgrade: continues… It is a direction. It removes the ceiling

You don’t need a mistake to do an upgrade: If there’s a mistake -

the upgrade corrects it. If there’s no mistake - we still upgrade.

Correction Anxiety – Correction stops the lesson, that it is not

the lesson
Learners aren’t interested in each other’s mistakes
5: Offer individual upgrades – in the group

To St A: How many words …?

To St B: Say it faster
C Slower and more clearly,
D Where is the stress?
E Yes, now join the words together …
F You need another word…
G Take a word out…
H Say it with interest!
5: (Cont) individual upgrades – in the group

I Whisper it,
J Make it a question,
K Change it!
L Change one word
M Look at your pronunciation
N That’s correct, but now In English!
O All of you…find another way to say the same thing
 Tweaking mistakes
 A Dictation

Before:
- Ask Sts to choose a dictation text
- Sts predict words they will get wrong.
- Are you sure you want to get them wrong? Sts check again
- Each St gives a number for the mistakes they will make…
After:
 How many did you make? Was it more, or less?
- Choose your best mistake. Interview it (Hello mistake? How did you
get here? Where did you come from? Will you come again? Have
you any advice?)
- One or two students tell the story of their best mistake.

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DH Tweaks, efficacy, doing things right

For learner: Deepen learning. Increase commitment

Meaning from self expression and from learning itself
Doable demands
Unhook from fear of mistakes
Diet of fully engaged learning

For teacher: State of inquiry … trying to see learning

Go behind the task
Apply DH anywhere, with any material, any method
Bring the teacher alive as co-leader/learner
Doing the right thing rather than doing things right..
 1st Conference Ozyegin University, Istanbul , May 26th 2018
How to do the right things by doing things right

Demand High, effectiveness and deep learning

THANK YOU!
Adrian Underhill
Sponsored by Macmillan Education

adrianunderhill.com
demandhighelt.wordpress.com
facebook.com/demandhighelt
Facilitator

Teacher

Lecturer
Facilitator

Teacher Topic Method

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Facilitator Topic Method Relation-
ship

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In a changing and challenging world learning
is the only way forward.
… Learning how to learn is the key