Teaching and Learning at NCBIS

NCBIS places a high priority on the learning skills of its students. We work hard to ensure that as teachers we are up to date with the latest research and ideas to ensure that our lessons allow students to learn to their full potential. The secondary school aims to bring in at least one specialist trainer from outside Egypt each year to work with the staff and to supplement the training given to teachers during our staff training meetings.

Brain Friendly Learning

The school has made brain friendly learning one of its top teaching initiatives over the past few years. Brain friendly learning raises awareness of how the human brain works and in particular how our brain learns new information. Teachers consider the implications this has for their teaching and use it to inform the planning of lessons which will maximise the learning of our students.

During the academic year 2005-2006 Trevor Hawes visited NCBIS to lead a staff-training on Brain Friendly Learning.

How brain friendly is your teacher? See the 10 step optimal cycle for Brain Friendly Learning

Assessment for Learning

Whilst we continue teaching brain-friendly lessons, this year we have added Assessment for Learning as our learning focus. Assessment for Learning is a formative assessment initiative that is being widely used in UK schools. Brain friendly learning has much to do with how the teacher plans lessons, whilst Assessment for Learning shifts the focus of learning onto the student. In this initiative assessment is used to mean any information that the teacher receives from the student (either verbal or written) and the feedback that the teacher gives back to the student either through marking work or oral feedback in the classroom. This assessment becomes Assessment for Learning when the teacher uses the information to modify their teaching and the student uses the information to improve their work.

During the academic year 2006 – 2007 the school welcomed Prof. Gordon Stobart from the Institute of Education in London and one of the original authors of Assessment for Learning (Assessment for Learning – Beyond the Black Box (Assessment Reform Group, 1998). He visited the school on two separate occasions during the year to train teachers in effective use of Assessment for Learning.

Do you use Assessment for Learning to help improve your learning?

Study skills

At NCBIS we aim not only to teach subjects but also to teach students how to learn. Time is allocating in the tutorial programme to teach students the most effective ways of learning and how they can organise their lifestyle to maximise the amount they learning at school. We believe that all our students can, with training and guidance, both succeed in their academic studies and have time to take part in a wide range of other activities both within school and outside school.

Are you ready to learn? Take our lifestyle survey!

Are you able to use Assessment for Learning to help you improve your work?

• Do you always know what your teacher expects you to learn in a lesson?
• Do you know what standard your teacher is expecting in your work?
• Can you look at your work or a friend work and know how good it is?
• Can you critically question the content of your own work?
• When your work is marked are you able to tell what you should do to improve your work?
• Do you use the comments your teacher gives you when your work is marked to help you improve future work?

10 Step Optimal Cycle for Brain Friendly Lessons

1)      The teacher should establish an appropriate learning environment

• The classroom should provide a safe, secure learning environment where students will be challenged and will succeed

2)      The teacher should connect the learning

• To previous learning for example by starting lessons by reviewing previous learning and explain how the new material relates to it.

3)      The “big picture” should be painted

• Outline the whole lesson at the beginning – particularly good for right brain people

4)      Learning objectives should be defined

• Include learning objectives (what the student will learn in the lesson) and success criteria (how the student will know that they have learnt what was expected of them by the teacher)

5)      Present information

• In a way that reaches a variety of learning styles (visual, audio, kinaesthetic)
• Information is more memorable if relevant, interesting and emotional (Think which lessons do you remember most from school?)
• Brain learns best with short bursts of concentration – so the activity could be changed every 20 – 30 minutes

6)      Teacher don’t just pass on information  - they should increase knowledge and understanding

• Lesson should contain an appropriate activity to turn knowledge into understanding.
• Once the idea has been taught students need an activity that allows them to practise the learning. This allows students take ownership of the knowledge

7)      Student learn best if they are able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding

• Provide opportunities for students to explain their learning e.g. by explaining it to a peer
• Opportunities should be given to allow student to use a range of different intelligences (what are multiple intelligences?)

8)      Reviewing for recall and retention

• A regular review cycle will increase recall and retention

9)      Feedback

• Make opportunities for regular and immediate feedback improves learning
• Make opportunities for peer and self assessment

10)  Preview

·        Start the first lesson of the year by previewing the whole year

·        Spend the last minutes of the lesson previewing the next

·        New concepts can be learnt more easily if they are previewed in advance

Multiple intelligences in Gardner's words

(From Educational Leadership, Vol 55, Number 1, September 1997, pp 20-21)

1. Linguistic intelligence is the capacity to use language, your native language, and perhaps other languages, to express what's on your mind and to understand other people. Poets really specialize in linguistic intelligence, but any kind of writer, orator, speaker, lawyer, or a person for whom language is an important stock in trade highlights linguistic intelligence.

2. People with a highly developed logical-mathematical intelligence understand the underlying principles of some kind of a causal system, the way a scientist or a logician does; or can manipulate numbers, quantities, and operations, the way a mathematician does.

3. Spatial intelligence refers to the ability to represent the spatial world internally in your mind– the way a sailor or airplane pilot navigates the large spatial world, or the way a chess player or sculptor represents a more circumscribed spatial world. Spatial intelligence can be used in the arts or in the sciences. If you are spatially intelligent and oriented toward the arts, you are more likely to become a painter or a sculptor or an architect than, say, a musician or a writer. Similarly, certain sciences like anatomy or topology emphasize spatial intelligence.

4. Bodily-kinaesthetic intelligence is the capacity to use your whole body or parts of your body – your hand, your fingers, your arms – to solve a problem, make something, or put on some kind of a production. The most evident examples are people in athletics or the performing arts, particularly dance or acting.

5. Musical intelligence is the capacity to think in music, to be able to hear patterns, recognize them, remember them, and perhaps manipulate them. People who have a strong musical intelligence don't just remember music easily – they can't get it out of their minds, it's so omnipresent. Now, some people will say, ‘Yes, music is important, but it's a talent, not an intelligence’. And I say, ‘Fine, let's call it a talent’. But, then we have to leave the word intelligent out of all discussions of human abilities. You know, Mozart was damned smart!

6. Interpersonal intelligence is understanding other people. It's an ability we all need, but is at a premium if you are a teacher, clinician, salesperson, or politician. Anybody who deals with other people has to be skilled in the interpersonal sphere.

7. Intrapersonal intelligence refers to having an understanding of yourself, of knowing who you are, what you can do, what you want to do, how you react to things, which things to avoid, and which things to gravitate toward. We are drawn to people who have a good understanding of themselves because those people tend not to screw up. They tend to know what they can do. They tend to know what they can't do. And they tend to know where to go if they need help.

8. Naturalist intelligence designates the human ability to discriminate among living things (plants, animals) as well as sensitivity to other features of the natural world (clouds, rock configurations). This ability was clearly of value in our evolutionary past as hunters, gatherers, and farmers; it continues to be central in such roles as botanist or chef.

Are you ready to study?

·        Take our NCBIS lifestyle survey.

·        Give yourself a mark out of 5 for each of the following statements.

·        The closer to 70 your final score is the more prepared you are to study effectively.

·        Want to improve? Focus on the areas you scored the lowest marks on first.