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Section 2

Teaching, Learning and Assessing Social Subjects

The quality of interactions between teachers and learners is the critically important feature of effective teaching and learning.

Teaching and learning

Effective teaching and learning comprises a wide range of important and interacting features. These can be gathered under four key organising principles that lie at the heart of effective teaching and learning and that are widely accepted as the basis of good practice. They are concerned with teachers:

    making learning clear for the learner
    using a variety of approaches
    giving and receiving clear, regular feedback
    monitoring progress and attainment in learning.

Making learning clear for the learner

Teachers can support pupils in their learning by:
  • revisiting prior learning
             - Ask pupils what they have already learned and achieved and summarise for the pupils the main            points of previous learning.
             - Make clear the links between new learning and prior learning.

  • ensuring learning tasks and purpose are clear
             - Share the learning objectives with the pupils; provide clear criteria for tasks; write main objectives up            on to an overhead transparency or wall poster and refer to them frequently.
             - Offer clear explanations to pupils of what it is you are asking them to do and of the reasons for the            range of activities in which they will be engaged.
             - Make links between what is learned in class and how it can be used in real situations for real            purposes.
             - Make sure that pupils can see the 'big picture': to where the discrete parts of their learning are            leading.

    See Exemplar 'Individual assignment: Famous Scots' for an illustration of sharing learning/assessment criteria.

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