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[Michael Carter Participant]

This project would not have been possible without the work of Jenny and the library staff. The belief in the process and the confidence she instilled, in both teachers and students, truly drove the project on.

As a department we have decided to run the project again next September, albeit with a few minor tweaks, specifically:

• Putting more of an emphasis on the connect and wonder stages of each topic. I was guilty of neglecting a couple of these but in hindsight they really opened up the individual topics to the students
• Ensuring the first lesson clearly spells out the reasons for doing a spider-web discussion (to win hearts and minds as early as possible)
• Making sure students complete the construct sheet as they go along as some found completing it in full a day or two before the discussion a little heavy going

We are very keen to build on this experience and give students a further opportunity to lead a discussion, so we are planning on delivering another inquiry based project in the spring term on the inequality in the distribution of income and wealth.

[Michael Carter Participant]

Hello all,

I have yet to introduce myself on the forum but my name is Michael Carter and I am a Teacher of Economics at Oakham School. I worked with Jenny on this project as the subject lead and would like to add my thoughts from a teaching perspective.

This project was all about providing students with a more focused start to the course and to set the standard for studying economics at A-Level. I had no prior experience of spider-web discussions, or indeed of executing an inquiry based project at A-Level, so it really was new ground for me and our department.

The project really started to take shape once I had noted down my initial ideas on what knowledge I wanted students to take away from the two week inquiry. This was when I realised we had something both engaging and achievable. It also gave Jenny something concrete to work with and the articles that she found worked really well in providing a range of view points. Some articles were more difficult than others, but this was a good way to differentiate and provided the element of challenge we were looking for.

We were pleased with how students engaged with the reading early on and, when necessary, we used a bit of lesson time to talk about the articles and support them in drawing out the key arguments. The mini discussion half way through was a good opportunity to test the water, and to be honest, I came away with slight misgivings over whether a Harkness type discussion was going to work. The students preferred a debate but I felt they were underestimating themselves. After talking to Jenny and colleagues we decided to continue with the plan, on the basis that we would build their confidence with a preparatory lesson immediately before where they could become “experts” on a particular topic and practise making their point in smaller groups. As Jenny has said, this addition made all the difference and enabled all students to participate in the final discussion.

We were genuinely impressed with the quality of the four groups’ discussions and the involvement of all students. It was a real pleasure to see the students leave the room visibly energised by the experience and being proud of what they had accomplished.

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