When I have finished teaching a Sixth Form Group. One of them raises a hand “Can I have a list of what to do?”, a part of my soul dies.

Checklists are very prescriptive and lead to a formulaic journey whereby the learning is controlled by the teacher’s assessment of what to do and not the students. I decide to deviate from the learning and get the students to make a list of the positives and negatives of using a checklist. It goes like this:

· For

o you know what to do next (i.e. you don’t have to think for yourself).

· Against

o You lose your creative decision making, you might have a different idea of what you want to do next.

o Learnings appears the same

o Personal interests are lost

o You may have a better idea

Next, we consider all the possibilities of how we can expand the learning, we go full circle and come back to a list. A fail? Maybe not, I respond “so lists aren’t bad as long as it is your list and you’re in control of what you consider the important parts of the learning”. (Personally, I quite like a list too, I just don’t want to have to mark the same work in the same order, it’s not developing any creative thought patterns, it’s not exciting).

If you use a prescriptive list you should use them carefully. Most teachers use them as they fear the failure of the student but then you are never going to create resilient learners. Have failure early on in a course and students will travel further. I have sat back and watched some monumental failures in a classroom only for the student to come and say, “this isn’t working.” Great (give the student credit for identifying the problem) then ask, “why is it not working”, “What is your next step”? “What is it you want to achieve?” Then you get some interesting conversations and advice and ideas can be discussed. Stepping back is one of the greatest strategies (unless someone may have an injury, safety first!)

Here are my ways to use a checklist to encourage personal outcomes:

· Get students to create their own list and put them in the order they feel is important

· Provide them with a list of too much and ask them to concentrate on the best 3

· Tell them to do nothing unless they want to or give the option of additional work….. this is a reverse psychology trick and in my experience, leads to students producing more work. I am not entirely sure how it works but it does.

· Don’t give them all the information, make it vague so they need to interpret the task themselves. They may come back with questions as they begin to work out what they believe they need to do.

· Allow them multiple starting points.

· Get them to assess their own learning and create their own next step.

Checklists: A poison to creativity in the classroom

Mary Ellen Wiltshire

STEAM IN STEM – NO. 1 – ARMOUR/BODY PROTECTION

Why we should be thinking about connections in Education

Art, Revolution and the Curriculum – more questions than answers…..

How to get students to find their own way

Review – Here Be Dragons

Welcome