Demand high for teachers and learners - Practical ideas for making learning visible and engaging your students' full learning potential

Our initial question is simple:

Is whatever I do enabling students to be challenged to their full human learning capacity?

Demand-High is the beginning of an enquiry. It isn’t fixed or concrete or certain – but it does take a stand and argue. It isn’t a method or anti-method but it has a view on how any method is applied.

Other questions swiftly follow from this starting point:

What is my role in helping them to be fully challenged? How can I tell when this is happening?

Have the tasks and techniques I use in class become rituals and ends in themselves? Do I need to shift preoccupation from running a successful task to optimising learning?

What small adjustments can I make to optimise the doable demand on the students’ learning processes? What is the minimum tweak necessary at any point in any lesson to shift an activity into the challenge zone?

This session introduces key concepts and practical ideas behind Demand-High and encourages you to relate them to your own experience, whatever your preferred methodology.

Jim Scrivener is an ELT author and Head of Teacher Development at Bell. Adrian Underhill is an independent trainer and consultant. Together they run a website about Demand High: http://demandhighelt.wordpress.com