TLLP supports teacher learning

Not every learning team can have a facilitator like Marian O’Connor. Another useful support is the Ministry of Education’s Teacher Learning and Leadership Program (TLLP), which provides funding for resources and release time for experienced teachers to research fields impacting their professional practice and student learning and to share their findings with colleagues around the province.

Math head Pam McCallum, OCT, and English teacher Sue McCullough, OCT, teach at Madawaska Valley District HS in Barry’s Bay in the Renfrew County DSB. Their TLLP action research focuses on the effectiveness of teaching methods such as co-operative learning in a boys-only Grade 9 class to increase their literacy skills. They are also researching teaching methods to help improve girls’ numeracy skills in an all-girls Grade 9 class.

The pair has taught single-gender Grade 9 math classes for the past five years and single-gender English classes for the past two. For the past four years, a male teacher has taught the single-gender boys math class. After a year-and-a-half of formal TLLP research, here are some of their findings.

• A teacher’s classroom management style has to be diverse, as females tend to be more verbal, with the ability to focus, and males tend to be less able to express ideas verbally and in writing and have shorter attention spans, especially if they’re not engaged.
  
• The gender gap for females in numeracy have closed while the gender gap for males in literacy is still a significant problem.
• The maturity levels of males and females are substantially different, yet their ability to learn is essentially the same. Thus, teaching methods are of vital importance and must consider these differences.
• Some teaching methods suitable for males:
• Use fast-paced, structured and proven teaching and classroom management strategies, such as co-operative learning techniques.
• Begin each semester with classroom and team-building activities that focus on teaching social skills and classroom structures and increasing comfort and safety by having the students find commonalities amongst themselves.
• Teach co-operative learning techniques at the start of the semester and use them consistently throughout the semester.
• Teach and stress social skills, for example, listening actively, showing respectful body language, offering constructive criticism and distinguishing between assertiveness and aggressiveness.
• Build in competition between co-operative teams or between the males’ English class and the females’ English class.
• Use a teaching style that focuses on daily repeated assessment for learning to make compulsory the key elements of effective co-operative learning, which include positive interdependence, individual accountability, equal participation and simultaneous interaction (PIES).
• Facilitate class and group discussions that creatively guide immature or undeveloped responses into critical thinking and focused ideas.
• Let the students use technology (such as blogs, wikis and SMART Boards) in meaningful ways, and let them teach the teacher.
• Be prepared to network to find appropriate learning tools for technology, and put in the time to use these as a formative assessment.
• Re-educate males on what reading consists of, and affirm that what they are reading is considered suitable.
• Differentiate reading materials and what males individually produce as writing by offering or suggesting graphic novels, magazines, newspapers, Facebook, Twitter, etc as options to consider.
• Students need to be able to organize and present ideas regardless of how the material is presented, so open up the forms of writing at first, and then later lead them to writing essays.
• Putting girls together seems to result in a more cohesive group. Most girls tend to strive to do their best, and they are supportive when they don’t have to consider male attention. Adversely, males become more temperate when females are in the class.