Participate and share: Interactive session 
Recorded Session
Attendees will learn:
The fundamentals of the Critical Skills Classroom (antioch.edu/csc) approach challenge design combining SEL/Skills & Dispositions and academic content.
How to select appropriate academic and skill/ disposition targets for different stages of group development
How to select the correct type of challenge (Basic, Academic, Scenario, or Real World Problem) for different stages of group development
A systems-based approach to instruction in which the challenge is one part of an experiential approach to learning.
Evidence of success: participants will select and begin the design of a challenge for use in their own context.
Outline:
5 minutes: Welcome and Introductions
10 minutes: Share examples of the different kinds of challenges, using videos from the classroom teachers who created and facilitated them. (Cost prevents those teachers from attending in person) During this time teachers will select the type of challenge they'd like to design and share their choices in via padlet.
15 minutes: Work step-by-step through the challenge design process. I will guide participants through each step so that we're creating together. Share examples via Google Folder
10 minutes: Table talk Reflection- Look across the examples. What do you notice? What do you wonder?
5 minutes: Closing
Baron et al, S. (2004). Evaluation of aspects of the Critical Skills project in Glasgow. University of Glasgow.
This report is an evaluation of aspects of the Critical Skills Project (CSP) in the Smithycroft Learning Community, City of Glasgow Council. The evaluation was undertaken by members of the Faculty of Education in the University of Glasgow as part of the national evaluation of projects supported through the Scottish Executive Education Department’s Future Learning and Teaching programme (FLaT). The evaluation was undertaken between April 2003 and October 2004.
The Critical Skills Programme (CSP) has been acclaimed as a form of teaching and learning that will better equip young people for the challenges of the future. Before this can be validly accepted, however, it needs to be established whether such pedagogic methods can effectively be introduced into existing procedures and, perhaps more importantly, whether the critical skills pedagogy impacts on young learners in a meaningful way that better equips them with the tools they will need to think and act both independently and with others when faced with a new learning challenge.
CSP has its origins in the US and is now located and extensively used in Antioch University in New Hampshire. It is a particular model of co-operative learning- an approach to teaching used widely in USA and Canada. It involves learning in an active, collaborative and student-centred learning process.
In 2001 CSP was introduced into a cluster of schools in the Smithycroft Learning Community in the City of Glasgow. Formal training sessions were organised for teachers in a number of schools and pre-five establishments within the Community.
Crossouard, B. (2012) Classroom assessment and education: Challenging the assumptions of socialisation and instrumentality, Education Inquiry, 3:2, 187-199, DOI: 10.3402/edui.v3i2.22027
The opportunity offered by the Umea Symposium to probe the intersection of quality and assessment immediately brings into focus a wider issue – that of the quality of education which assessment aspires to support. Prompted by recent research into formative assessment in Scottish primary school contexts, the paper explores how formative assessment has become associated with an overly benign understanding of learning which misrecognises the possibility of undesirable learning and does not seem to address the inherently political nature of education. Having illuminated the potential inequities of formative assessment practices, the paper then asks what role formative assessment might play to support an understanding of education that is not simply about the transmission of traditional social norms, but also aspires to illuminate their social construction and their political nature.
Crossouard, B. (2009). A sociocultural reflection on formative assessment and collaborative challenges in the states of Jersey. Research Papers in Education, 24(1), 77-93. https://doi.org/10.1080/13669870801945909
Abstract: Drawing upon data arising from an evaluation carried out for the Jersey educational authority, this article discusses the interaction of two professional development initiatives, formative assessment and critical skills thinking, bringing the two initiatives together from the perspective of Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT). This allows the illumination of the power relations that are embedded within assessment practice and in consequence the importance of an instructional design that addresses these elements. After giving an overview of sociocultural learning theories and contextualising the research and the two initiatives in question, the article draws on the data to suggest the overlap between the mediating tool of a ‘challenge’ and the CHAT concept of an ‘activity system’. It discusses the value of constructing a shared, collective focus (or object) for task activity; the authenticity and extended experiential nature of the task; the collaborative division of labour in the execution of the task and its assessment. Drawing upon the evaluation data, it is suggested that formative assessment might focus more strongly on extended task design, with the aim of creating spaces for student agency that is nevertheless in dialogue with curricular requirements. This also entails paying more explicit attention to the social positioning of teachers and learners, as well as amongst learners themselves, and ensuring that power relations are not glossed over in discussions of assessment regimes. In this respect the concept of an activity system seems potentially useful to teachers, not only researchers, in engaging with the complexities of designing classroom activities that support students’ critical engagement and participation in different communities of practice.
Hart, M. (2009). Implementing Change in Instructional Delivery of Classroom Curriculum: A Phenomenological Case Study of Classroom Teachers Implementing A Problem-based Learning Approach in the Classroom [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. University of Massachusetts Amherst.
This qualitative research study examines the holistic experience of secondary classroom teachers who are changing their predominant instructional technique from a mostly traditional teaching method to a student-centered, problem-based approach to curriculum delivery. Using field notes, interviews, focus groups, observations of classrooms and faculty meetings and related document study in conjunction with, and as driven by, simultaneous analysis, the researcher inquired about the nature of implementing change in instructional delivery and those influences that both help and hinder the process. Data revealed four categories with related findings: practices of changing instructional delivery, a teacher focus on students, elements of working within a culture of change, and the personal experience of implementing a change in instructional delivery.
M. Martin , J. E. Wilkinson , A. McPhee , I. McQueen , F. McConnell & S. Baron (2006) Implementing Critical Skills in UK schools, Journal of Education for Teaching, 32:4, 423-434, DOI: 10.1080/02607470600982076
Cooperative learning, which is a relatively new form of pedagogy developed in North America, has recently been introduced into a number of schools in the UK. One such form of this pedagogy is referred to as Critical Skills. Two systematic evaluations of pilot projects which have implemented Critical Skills in UK schools have recently been undertaken. The paper reports on the evaluation of one such pilot project in a cluster of schools and pre-five establishments in the city of Glasgow and compares the findings with the evaluation of the project in Jersey, England, involving all the schools on the island of Jersey. The evaluation of both projects identifies a number of common issues in introducing innovative pedagogical practices with established and experienced teachers. The paper addresses a number of models of innovation and proposes a model of ‘immersion’ to secure the sustainability of innovative teaching and learning arrangements.
Optimus Education. (2008). The Critical Skills Programme: rising above critical levels.
Many teachers who have gone through the Critical Skills Programme (CSP) have declared it has changed the way they teach forever. Why does the programme raise such enthusiasm? Colin Weatherley, manager of CSP in Scotland, looks at its development and explains its strengths.
Reeves, J., & Blake, A. (2008). Critical Skills Programme Evaluation. University of Stirling.
The University of Stirling was commissioned by East Ayrshire Council and the Critical Skills Programme (CSP) Network to undertake an evaluation of the effects of the involvement of East Ayrshire teachers in CSP training institutes over the last few years. Working with a group within the authority a questionnaire was devised which was issued in April 2008 to all those teachers who had attended these training events. The questionnaire was designed to find out: which CSP techniques trainees were using in their schools; what they felt the impact of their use of CSP techniques had been on their pupils and themselves; and the level of networking and collaboration between teachers resulting from their involvement in the programme. Besides the closed questions relating to these topics teachers were also provided with spaces to make comments on the impact of their involvement in CSP, and their experience of collaboration and most chose to do so.
Richardson, T. (2005). States of Jersey- Assessment at key stages one and two evaluation of the effectiveness of teacher assessments. Serco Learning Consultancy.
Summary of findings: The pilot study to replace SATs with teacher assessments is successful. This is particularly evident in the schools that have also developed an increased focus on pupils’ learning with initiatives such as ‘assessment for learning’ and ‘critical skills’.
In the schools visited, teachers’ assessments are accurate and valid in both Years 2 and 6. The accuracy of these assessments is beginning to be moderated effectively through increasing liaison and co-operation between primary schools, and also between primary and secondary schools.
The Department for Education is managing the change to teacher assessments well. There is a willingness to establish best practice and to help schools to benefit from this as they implement teacher assessments instead of SATs.
Sebba, J., & Crossouard, B. (2006). An Evaluation of Assessment for Learning Initiatives in Jersey: Final report. States of Jersey Department of Education, Sport and Culture.
A 2006 evaluation of formative assessment work done on in Jersey by Kings College and how that initiative integrated with the teacher training done by Critical Skills. The study was conducted by the University of Sussex. Two extended research projects by Barbara Crossouard (cited below) were conducted based upon this particular evaluation.
Wragg, E. C., Wragg, C., & Chamberlin, R. (2004). Jersey Critical Skills Programme: An Evaluation. States of Jersey Department for Education, Sport and Culture.
An evaluation of the Critical Skills Programme in Jersey was commissioned by the States of Jersey Department for Education, Sport and Culture in September 2003. At that point over two hundred teachers had been trained over a period of two years and it was considered important to assess whether the programme was achieving its aims in providing learners with the skills, values and attitudes to become independent and interdependent life long learners in the 21st Century. Professor Ted Wragg led the evaluation team and he, Dr Caroline Wragg and Dr Rosemary Chamberlin conducted the evaluation over two and a half terms, completing the report in September 2004.
Based upon this report, the States of Jersey committed to training all teachers and Head Teachers on the island. Training was completed in 2010. Jersey eventually developed their own trainers to take the initiative forward.
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