“How to stop the dip at the start of Y7?” This is a question that I find myself asking every year regardless of whether I’m teaching lot’s of KS3 or very little.  We all know from years of experience that for a range of reasons, students don’t seem to make the amount of progress you’d expect which given the gains they’ve made at KS2 is disappointing.  As we enter this school year I’m taking the approach that the start of secondary school is a critical time and it is important that our new recruits get off to a flying start.

The most important question that I think needs asking is “why is there a dip in the first place?”  This is always a bit of a contentious questions and I’m pretty sure that there’s no one answer to it!  There are however, a few key factors that I think might play a part; 

• Changes in social groupings
• Changes in routines
• The switch from a single teacher to discrete subjects
• The differing emphasises of primary school and secondary school
• The onset of adolescence and the cognitive and emotional changes that come with it
• The huge discrepancy between the amount od Science students from different schools have covered
• And finally, and probably the factor that does the most potential damage; As teachers we treat Y7 students like they are small children again, when the reality is that by the end of KS2 many of them will have been given lots of responsibilities and treated like grownups to a certain degree!

So, what to do to prevent this happening, is the question that we need to ask ourselves.  With this question in mind I intend to try and do things differently this year, trying to factor in both activities that will help develop skills students will need, and keep the enthusiasm that Y7 students have towards Science at the start of their secondary carrier.  Below I’ll endeavour to get down some of the ideas and pedagogies that I’m going to try and put in place.

Start the year with a bang and focus on those key skills that students need to have to help them maximise the progress that they make during this first year.  After spending a little time on routines and expectations, I think some sort of flashy demo (INVOLVING FIRE) will help grab students’ enthusiasm right from the start.  This can lead onto general discussions about what science is and what we need to try and find out and achieve.  Introducing group work at this stage will also be a key feature as this will lead into students being able to learn more independently.  In small groups students will discuss what they think Science is and what they think we want to find out.  At this point I’m going to introduce a short booklet that will help focus students on what they need to think about during the introductory period.

Getting students to focus of what Science is and what they want to achieve.  At the start of this school year I’m going to try and get students to define what excellence is and the steps they need to take in order to achieve their goals.  To help them do this I intend on setting up a small Science fair at the back of my lab so that they can see some of the best examples of work from the previous year.  After my new year 7s have had a look I intend to get them to write a short paragraph on what they want to achieve.  In an ideal world they should be able to give themselves a few steps that they need to take to get there, however, experience tells me that many of them will need a little guidance.  Before getting students to do this then I will go through a few examples of things they might want to think about.

Lab safety is possibly the most important thing to go through with students as many of them may not have worked in a lab before or in some cases ever thought about carrying out an experiment.  Firstly, I think it’s important to try and get students to identify hazards in the lab for themselves.  The traditional way of doing this is to give students a picture of a lab and then get students to identify as many hazards as possible.  To improve on this idea, I intend on constructing a 2d model lab that can be set up in the middle of the room so that I can gather students around it.  I will then be able to ask specific students to identify hazards in the model.  After this starter activity I’m going to give each small group of students a series of scenario where they need to explain what safety precautions need to be followed.  I’ll finish this section of lab safety in a slightly more traditional way and get them to put together an instruction leaflet.  The only major difference is that I’ll have uploaded instructions on what students need to do on youtube so that they can finish them for homework.  

How to carry out a simple experiment (lighting a Bunsen burner) is always one of the stables at the start of the year for any Y7s.  If there’s an activity that really engages students, it’s lighting Bunsen Burners and over the years I’ve seen all sorts done with this activity.  I always liked the idea of giving students a Bunsen Burner licence as it follows on nicely from many students getting pen licences from primary schools so helps keep that continuity.  So, the take this idea to the next level students will have to carry out a simple experiment where they boil water using a Bunsen Burner.  On top of having to write their own simple instructions to light a Bunsen Burner, they’ll also get a chance to take a few readings that in later lessons they’ll be able to analyse.  I’m intending for students to add in their instructions into the same leaflet that they wrote their own lab rules in previously.

Using data is an ever more important skill that students need to develop considering the level of questions where students will need to manipulate data in exams.  The question is “how to make this interesting and not just an exercise in filling out worksheets?”  The way I’m intending to attack this section is to start off by modelling how to use the data they have collected in a previous lesson.  Students will then have to present their results to another group to help develop another skill.

For a student new to secondary school, the beginning of year 7 is a time to reassess your goals and reinvent your interests and passions. The start of Year 7 should not be about ‘easing them in’ or ‘making it fun’. Instead it should be about the skills students will need to achieve in Science over the next five years!

I hope that these ideas help you think differently about how you can approach the start of Y7 in maybe a slightly different way. 

You can follow me on twitter @teacherchalky1 or on Facebook @teachlikeahero. 

Thanks for reading

D Chalk

How can I make revision next year better than this year?

“How can I make revision next year better than this year?”  is a question that I find myself asking this time every year.  Every year we try something different or more accurately a slight evolution of what we have done before in the hope that we’ll finally find the magic formula for revision that will revolutionise our exam results.  Undoubtedly the changes that we make will make a difference, but I always find myself disappointed that it never seems to make more of a deference.

If I think about how revision has changed over the last 10 years, it is virtually unrecognisable now to how it used to be.  10 years ago, revision was still sending students on study leave, and hoping that they might actually do some revision.  At the time, no one really did anything about teaching students how to revise and I was still very much a new teacher so couldn’t, or didn’t know what to do about it.  Luckily as the years have gone on this has been addressed to an extent. 

The first big step forward, but not one that many teachers appreciated at the time, was to do away with study leave.  At this point I’ll admit that this might not be the same everywhere, but in our situation we had to face the fact that once students walked out of the front gate, only to return for exams, the likelihood of them doing much revision was limited.  So, by getting rid of study leave provided more time to deliver the syllabus as well as being able to put together a proper revision programme that could be delivered during normally timetabled lessons.  This in turn presented it’s own set of problems.  The main problem was “how to keep students motivated and deliver a series of lessons that will actually make a difference to their overall grades?”  

“Why don’t students do better in exams?” was the question that I found myself asking when thinking about the previous problem.  I’m sure we’ve all come across students who seem to pretty much know the course when spoken to before the exam, however, when the results come in they don’t do as well as you previously thought they would.  So, the second big step forward was to use exam questions effectively during revision lessons to give students the tools they need to effectively answer questions during exams.  I’m sure we’ve all used past papers with students but I’ve never been sure with using a whole paper at a time with the students I’ve had.  It was a complete revolution when I started using exampro to pick out and use specific exam questions with students. 

There are a number of ways that exam questions can be used with students to help prepare them for what they will face in the exam hall.  Some of the things that I have found are effective over the years are:

• Giving students a few exam questions to do for homework every week so they build up their confidence over time.
• I often use exam questions, especially long answer questions, during lessons as AFL.  Not only does doing this allow you to see how students are doing, it helps them to develop their own exam technique, and understand where the marks are coming from.
• During revision sessions I’ve got students to work collaboratively to answer questions either as a class or in small groups that can then by reviewed and discussed so that students see where the marks are coming from.

The next stage in my journey of revision was the realisation that students need to be taught how to revise.  A key step towards this was to take on Year 11 as a whole, and as a school start putting on revision assemblies to explain different revision techniques and how they can be used in practice.  One of the first areas looked at is getting students to construct their own revision time tables to help structure their own revision.  This was critical as I think that often the assumption is made that just because we as teachers can organise our time, then students should be able to do the same.  As we all know this is not the case!  Some of the other revision techniques covered in these sessions where:

• Making flash cards
• Mind mapping
• Making summary notes
• Traffic lighting content to help with prioritisation
• Making question & answer cards

So, this takes us up to about 3 years ago, and by now things were starting to head in the right direction, however there was still a long way to go.  By now I could have been lured into a false sense of security, however, even though students had had lots of input in terms of how to revise, they still didn’t know where to start.  The next stage of my journey was to put together loads of examples of revision materials that they can make for themselves.  At the same time, I also started producing students lists of revision tasks that they can work through.

That almost takes us up to the present with just the exception on last year.  During the last year I made some significant changes to the way I got students to approach revision.  The first major change I made was to build on the time table that students were putting together by giving them lists of tasks that needed to be completed, taking 10-20 mins each, to coincide with their time tables.  To help students understand what each task, I produced task help cards which were put up on notice boards at the start of each week.  Due to the sets I had, I bit the bullet and faced the fact that many of them weren’t going to produce their own summary sheets or buy revision books, so I produced a range of sheets for them to stick into their own revision books.  It also became apparent that one of the newer ways that students are revising is to use youtube.  The biggest change I therefore made last year was to put together a series of revision videos to put on youtube.

So that brings us bang up to date, and yet again I’m starting to look forward to how I’m going to structure revision next year, and given the lessons I’ve learnt, I’m going to yet again be making a few changes.  As this year will be the first time the new reformed 1-9 GCSEs in Science will be going through, it seems like the ideal time to overhaul everything and create a cohesive programme of revision that will run throughout the year.  Below I’m going to outline what I intend on doing and some of the rationales given the lessons learnt, behind it.

I’ve started off with the new specification, and have built a series of daily revision tasks taking 10-20 mins each around it.  This will give Year 11 students 246 short revision tasks to work through.  This will amount to around an extra 61 hours of revision that students won’t realise that they are doing throughout the year.  At the start of each term students will be given a task sheet that they can stick into their revision books, which can be periodically checked to see if students are keeping up.

To help students complete these revision tasks, I’ve put together a series of task cards which outline the tasks and what students need to include.  The main difference with the way I’m going to be using these next year will be to work on how students can engage with them.  To this end I’ll be putting them out on the school’s twitter, face book and Instagram accounts.  As a school, we have also invested in showmyhomework which I’ll also be putting them on to help engage parents.

On that back of my success with youtube during the exam period last year, I intend taking it one step further next year.  The plan is for each revision task, there will be a corresponding help video on youtube that explains the task and outlines some of the key information students need to include.

Instead of giving students a series of summary sheets at the end of the year to help with last min, I’ll be giving them then throughout the year, building them into weekly revision sessions. While we’re on the subject of revision sessions, I’ll be basing them on the revision tasks that students should have worked through.

One of the main issues that I’ve come across is how to make students value & then use the revision materials they put together.  I’ve found myself thinking back to making pop up books when I went to school a long time ago, and remembering how engaging it was.  So, when looking online I discovered the concept of interactive notebooks which I’ll be getting students to put together throughout the year as part of their revision.

The final big change that I’ll be making next year is the way I’m going to use exam questions.  The plan is to periodically give students short 30 min mock exams based on the revision tasks they should have completed during that phase of revision.  The main reason behind this is twofold.  The first reason is to act as AFL to ensure students are working through the revision tasks they have been set.  The second and more important reason is to help students develop their own exam technique throughout the year.

I hope that these ideas are different for many others out there and they have provided some inspiration for things you can do within your own lessons and in your revision sessions.

You can follow me on twitter @teacherchalky1 or on Facebook @teachlikeahero. 

Thanks for reading

D Chalk

Revision! How can we make it more effective?

At this time, every year one of the main questions that teachers begin asking is “how am I going to make my revision this year have a greater impact on how students perform in exams?”  This of course leads into the second question, “how can I make students see the importance of revision?” This is a question that has plagued me for years and I feel that I’m no closer to having an answer than I was 10 years ago!  I have however, made a few observations into some of the reasons behind this mind set:

• Students are afraid of failing, which would only be made worse if they had put in the revision beforehand.    So, there will always be some students that will have decided that if they do little or no revision then don’t perform, they can blame it on a lack of revision rather than admitting that they simply didn’t understand the content.
• In some cases, students will have had unconditional offers to get onto courses and don’t need any results.  When this is the case, students often have no motivation do any revision as what they will be moving onto doesn’t require any particular grades.
• At this time of year, students will be bombarded with revision from all angles.  Inevitably, there will always be some students that buckle under this increased pressure. 
• There can be an entire host of other external problems that help prevent students revising.  One particular favourite that comes to bite me every year is that the fair comes to town in or around the exam period every year.  When faced with this I can’t think on many 16 year olds that would choose to stay in and revise instead of going to the fair with their friends.

The question therefore is, how can I make the most of the revision period before the start of the exams.  Unfortunately, the answer I have come to is that there is no one correct answer, different strategies will work with different students.  There are however, a few tried and tested methods that seem to work with students every year.  I don’t claim that all of these ideas are my own, but I’ve tried to outline some of them below:

Before students begin their own revision get them to carry out a subject knowledge audit.  This is a way of identifying the areas of the syllabus that students are most comfortable with. The information elicited can be used to inform what they need to revise first, and those areas that they don’t need to spend as much time on.  This can be a powerful tool as experience has taught me that 9 times out of 10 students would rather focus on areas that they are already confident with as this is an easier option.

Once students have pin pointed the areas that they need to focus on they need to think about how they are going to do this.  One effective method of doing this is by chucking.  Chunking is an excellent way to make large quantities of information more manageable.  All students need to do to carry this out is to put together similar topics into small groups that they can work through & revise in short sections. 

Concept mapping:  A concept map requires students getting everything they now about a concept down on a sheet of A3.  Students then need to think about a particular question (preferably long answer) and numbering the information in the order that they would need to put it in an exam question.  After students have completed this they can either use their concept map to answer questions, or more effectively, allow students to use their concept map to put together a short presentation that they can use to explain a concept to another student.

Flashcards are proven to improve your long-term memory using the theory of spaced repetition. This practice involves learning a topic and re-visiting it at set intervals to test themselves.  There are a few different ways that students can use flash cards both inside and outside of lessons. 

• Students can provide flashcards with short pieces of information on them that they can quickly run through when they’re out and about.
• Students can write an exam question on one side of the card then the answer on the other.  They can then use them to test themselves.
• Students can work together and split up the work load.  One of them can take half the topics they need to revise and vice versa.  Students can then use them to either question each other on the content or teach each other the content.

Past papers are a vital way that students need to use when revising as an ability to pick out what an exam question is asking is a skill that they need to develop.  There are a variety of different ways that they can be used.

• The most simplistic way that past papers can be used by students is by downloading them from the exam board, working through them, then using a mark scheme to see how they have done and where they need to improve.  Alternatively, students can work I pairs or in groups, answering questions then peer assessing each other’s work.
• You can use past paper questions as part of a circus activity.  Stick the question to a large sheet of paper on one side and the answer to the question on the reverse.  Ask students to start answering one question then after a certain amount of time get them to move onto the next question & continue answering it.  After students have moved round 3 or 4 times get the final student to mark the answer using the mark scheme and feedback on how well the question has been answered.
• Students can be given an exam question an asked to produce a mark scheme for it.  Once they have done that they can let another student answer the question that they can then mark using their own mark scheme.
• You can ask students to break the exam questions up into smaller sections.  Once they have done this they can then explain to other students how to answer each specific section.

Students teaching each other: Micro teaching involves students teaching each other ideas & content during a lesson.  There is lots of evidence that shows that students make the greatest amount of progress when they have to explain ideas & concepts to each other. Below I have outlined how to carry out a micro teaching activity with students and have tried to detail some of the possible preparation that needs to be in place to ensure that this activity has a meaningful impact on student progress.

The first stage in any micro teaching activity is to enable students to gather the information for themselves.  If students have to find things out for themselves they will make more progress than if they are just spoon fed it.  This can be done in many different ways.

• Flipped learning:  Before the lesson you can let students know what they will be teaching and then set appropriate videos for them to watch. Students can then use this to make notes on the content they need in preparation for the next lesson.
• Directed reading:  Students can be given the content they will be producing a micro teaching presentation or short lesson on.  This method works most effectively when students have to pick out key information from the text and then have it taken away before they start interacting with other groups.
• Use exam questions:  During revision, different groups of students can be given different exam questions that they need to explain to other students how to answer.
• Information hunt:  Before beginning the micro teaching activity, put key information around the room that students will need to use.  Give students some time in small groups to go around and gather the information they need to carry out the micro teaching activity.

Once students have collected the information they need, they need to put together a short lesson or presentation on a particular concept.  This can take the form of a traditional short presentation or a short lesson where students have prepared some simple resources to help them teach.  Once your students are ready set them up work around rows of tables as shown in the pictures below

After students have worked around all the other groups you can carry out more traditional AFL to assess how much progress students have made. 

Another method that I think is becoming ever more useful is the use of youtube by students when revising.  As with most revision pedagogies there are any number of ways to use it, which realistically deserves more than a short section in a single blog.  The way that I’ve used it this year is to enable students to fill in gaps that they have previously identified by watching one of a range of videos on it on youtube.

Revision games are another really good way to help keep students engaged during lessons.  There are a number of different games you can use but most of them start with students going over content and then within the game answering questions on that content.  Here are a few ideas of games I have used:

Blockbusters

Anyone who grew up i the 80s will know what Blockbusters is.  Do not assume that your students will as I found out with my Y13 class who had no idea what it was.  Watching classic Blockbusters for 10 mins during the lesson was time well spent I feel.  The way that this game works is to get students to read some content, then produce a Blockbusters board with questions on based on what they have read.  Students then using counters, need to answer questions and either work horizontally, or vertically across the board.

Snakes & Ladders

How many ways are there to play snakes and ladders?  Surprisingly, a lot more than I ever thought possible.  The basic premise to using snakes and ladders is to set up a board with questions on based on what students have read.  I'd advise briefly running through the rules with them first as many of them will have very different ideas of how to play.

Get through the maze game

This game came out of the fact that I really like the film Labyrinth from the 80s.  After students have read a piece of key information they need to roll a dice to see how many spaces they can move.  If they come to a question square they need to answer the corresponding question before they can move on.  As with all mazes the aim is to get to the finish first

Battle Ships

Growing up one of my favourite games to play on a rainy Saturday afternoon was Battle Ships.  Students need to pick 5 positions to place their ships, they then need to take it in turns to pick grid references to try and find each other's ships.  The twist is that each square has a corresponding question that students need to answer based on some key text printed on the board somewhere.

Dice questions

There are a wide and varied range of different dice games you can use in lessons.  Basically most of them centre around students reading some key information, then picking questions to answer from a list either by rolling one or two dice.

Question Grids

The general idea behind this type of game is to give students a 3 by 3 or 6 by 6 grid with questions on based on something students have previously read. Students then simply need to roll a dice twice to pick a question to answer. After students have been playing this for a bit, you can pick on students at random to answer the questions so you can ensure that they have been getting the correct answers.

Game Boards

This is an idea that once you get it set up, can be used in a range of different lessons.  When putting a board together you need to include a range of different squares to help keep students engaged.  Some of the squares that I include are primarily question squares, miss a go squares, move back or forward squares ect.  Once you have set up a template you can tailor your board to the lesson you are teaching.

Key word game

I like many of my colleges did use to think of literacy was just the domain of English teachers.  However, I have come to the realisation that we all need to try and play our part.  After looking at where students lose marks in exams is by not using key words, or using them incorrectly.  So one of the more recent things I'm trying to give a go is to primarily ensure that the key words for the lesson are embedded in my lesson outcomes, then building up a starter game around those key words.

Come up with your own question game

The last idea that I'm going to discuss are games where students come up with their own questions based on the key information they have read.  This sort of game works in a similar way as many other others I have outlined, with the exception that instead of giving students questions to answer they need to think them up themselves.  I've found that this works particularly well with higher ability students, however, lower ability ones have found it more difficult and need more guidance.

One method that I’ve never been 100% about using as it can lead some students into doing less revision is to produce revision notes for students to use.  The big advantage of this is that it helps ensure that students have all of the important content they need at hand.  There are many ways that they can use them, the method I’ve used a lot this year is to start the lesson with students highlighting key points then building the rest of the lesson around the information they have worked through.

The last area that I’ve tried to look at this year is playing the long game.  At the start of each term I’ve given my students a list of short revision activities to work through each day.  I’ve then put up on displays, and have sent out instructions via a number of different ways more detailed instructions what they students need to do for each task.  I’m hoping that little and often will have made a significant difference this year.

I hope that these ideas are different for many others out there and they have provided some inspiration for things you can do within your own lessons.  If you want anything in this blog clarifying please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

You can follow me on twitter @teacherchalky1 or on Facebook @teachlikeahero. 

Thanks for reading

D Chalk

How to use Class Dojo in some innovative ways!

For many years, I have had trainee teachers to look after and every now and again I find that I must ask myself “why do you put yourself through all this extra work every year?”  Luckily last year my trainee rose to the challenge and reminded me exactly why by introducing me to the online Classdojo application!  ClassDojo is a behaviour management tool for the classroom. Each student has a profile – complete with their own avatar – to which teachers can assign positive and negative points throughout the lesson.  This in itself, is a really powerful tool which can be used to re-enforce expectations, however, as a KS4 specialist I’ve tried using it in a few more innovative ways to help engage students especially when it comes to revision.

At the start of Year 11 I set up a dojo with all my students on especially for revision sessions they attend.  At the end of every week you can let students know how many sessions they have attended and you can then make comparisons between attendance and the progress they are making.  You can then use this to help encourage other students to start turning up.  If I were to take this to the next level I’d like to try and use this to engage with parents and let them know what sessions their offspring are attending as this function is available.

Within my day to day revision lessons, I have given students a point for every question that they answer correctly.  This doesn’t sound very exciting or innovative until you start to take into consideration how Year 11 students can become disengaged as they are having revision rammed down their throats in every lesson.  I found that within a few lessons those students who I have to really push to answer anything started to want to answer questions.  On a completely personal not I have to admit that I’m quite sarcastic and have developed a unique understanding with my students who now get freaked out if I’m overly nice to them.  So, I went in and edited some of the responses that come up on the screen to reflect my own personality which has gone down really well.

The last more unusual use I want to talk about is using Classdojo when carrying out class quizzes.  Traditionally I’ve only used dojos with individual students but there’s nothing to say that you can’t set up a dojo with group names that students have picked themselves.  In one lesson, I sat student in groups along table in groups of 4 and on half the screen had a web page open with their group names on and the score they’ve achieved, and on the other half I had a screen showing the students using a camera.  I then ran the lesson like an episode of University Challenge by giving each group a buzzer then giving points out when students got questions correct. 

I hope that these ideas are different for many others out there and they have provided some inspiration for how you use Class Dojo for other things not just behaviour management.

You can follow me on twitter @teacherchalky1 or on Facebook @teachlikeahero. 

Thanks for reading

D Chalk

Why don't High Ability Students Make Progress & What Can You Do About It?

Anyone who has been teaching a long time will tell you that the main thing that used to matter was that every student gets at least a grade C in your subject.  The main reason behind this was for years the progress measures was only interested in students getting five Cs or above, and then more recently getting five Cs or above including Maths & English.  Whilst in real terms out in the real world anything below a C is often seen as a failure so getting a C was important, did these two factors really encourage us to push the higher end as much as we could?  I think, myself included, that our answer would have to be no! 

So, in more recent years, the progress measures have now been changed to actually look at student progress rather than just that final grade.  I’m sure that they’ll be those who’d lynch me for suggesting this, but I honestly think that in terms of pushing students to make the greatest amount of progress they can, measuring an end grade against a start point has been a good thing.  The biggest issue that this has caused however, is that it’s a lot more difficult for a higher ability student to physically make as much progress in terms of levels achieved.  This is one of the main factors behind the much greater focus on higher ability students as well as those students on the C-D boarder line.

Higher ability students are defined as a student who performs at, or shows the potential for performing at, an outstanding level of accomplishment in at least one domain, Maths, English or the Sciences, when compared to other students of the same age, experience, or environment and is characterized by exceptional gifts, talents, motivations or interests.  High ability students need to have educational experiences which help them meet their full potential.  So what does this actually mean?  I think it actually means that a student who is better equipped to make outstanding progress than others.  Basically it boils down to a few simple facts:

1. The student has a high reading age so is able to access high level content
2. Has an ability to understand mathematical problems
3. Is self-motivated so has pushed themselves during Primary school

The problem facing us now is, how can we ensure these students who enter secondary school with a high level of achievement maintain that level throughout, and achieve the high-level exam results which they should be capable of.  I quiet often find myself thinking about this question and maybe the start point should be to try and come up with some of the potential reasons that these high ability students aren’t making the progress they are capable of.

The annual dip in progress at the start of Year 7.  When students are in Year 6 they are a big fish in a small pond, so it may come as a culture shock when they start secondary school that they are now the youngest students.  Just to compound problems, the data that comes up from Primary school is often not with the secondary school for one reason or another at the start of the year.  This can lead to HA students not being put in the correct set which may cause them to become disheartened and damage their positive view of schools.  The last major problem is the way that teachers may view Year 7 students.  This issue arises when teachers (myself included) almost that we need to slowly ease all students in, giving them work which might not be as challenging as it could be. 

Differentiation within the top set where you find most HA students.  In most other classes, you will consider differentiation, possibly in how can I push the top end but more often what you can do to support the bottom end.  When it comes to a top set this doesn’t seem to happen as much.  What we need to be thinking about in terms of differentiation is, what we can put in place to really stretch the top end. 

A lack of stretch and challenge within lessons.  One of the main problems that comes up when you speak to HA students is that they don’t feel challenged in lessons.  In part this comes from the fact that often the teacher will feel that they need to impart as much knowledge as possible to HA students, so often fall into the lecturing trap!  This is possibly exactly the opposite to what HA student’s needs as they won’t find sitting & listening for a long period very challenging.

Peer pressure.  I could talk about this one all day however, there is already a wealth of research out there on this point.  For whatever reason, academic success is not something that often students want to exhibit to other students.  This often comes out as answering questions with “I don’t know” rather than stretching themselves.  Eventually this becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy and students convince themselves that they don’t actually know.

Students may develop a lack of desire to learn over time.  Although capable of completing their school work to a high level, they lack the initiative or motivation to succeed.  These are students that can do the work, are highly intelligent, but have decided that there are other things that are more important.  In many cases, they are distracted by out-side factors, emotional issues or a variety of other factors that are out of our control.  I think that out of all the possible reasons, this is the most unfortunate as there is a limited amount you can do. 

These reasons are by no means an exhaustive list but it gives us start point from which to work from.  So, the most important question we need to ask ourselves is “what can we as teachers do to push those HA students to make the expected level of progress when it comes to exam performance?”  I don’t claim to be an expert but here are some of my musings on ways to approach this issue.

The first major thing that we need to think about is what pedagogies can be used to truly stretch and challenge HA students.  I think that the conclusion that most of us have come to is that the main thing that will push these students is to get them to be self-reliant and able to independently teach themselves and others.  There are a variety of methods out there to get students teaching each other ranging from taking a section of the content in a lesson and teaching it to each other I small groups, all the way to mentoring.  Here are a few outlines of some methods I have used:

Micro-teaching:  Students are put in small groups and either given content or asked to research a specific topic.  Once they have done this, get them to put short presentations together that they can use to teach other groups with.  Th really stretch students ask them to think of one question each to ask the presenting group. 

Mentoring:  HA students can be used to mentor other HA students further down the school.  As most student’s will start their GCSEs in year 9 now, this mentoring of the content to younger students can act as excellent revision for HA students.

Putting together revision videos:  This is something of a new phenomenon in education, but as the technology is there it should be used.  Providing that the students aren’t physically filming themselves or others they can use diagrams and talk over them to produce revision videos for each other.

Open ended research tasks:   This one might not be appropriate for every subject, however, in many there should be an element of self-directed learning where they can explore their own interests within a subject.  One example which I’ve tried before is letting my Year 11 students who also take History to look into how the Haber process was exploited to enable Germany to make explosives and why Fritz Haber was convicted of war crimes.

The start point to many lessons centres around discussing concepts with students.  When pupils share their opinion with you, or with a partner during discussion, push them to explain what underpins that opinion. Do not let unsupported assertions escape without asking “Why?”, “What reasons do you have for thinking that?”. You can even train your pupils to start asking these questions of each other.  There are a few ways to help students do this but the easiest way I use is to let students choose who they are going to ask questions to rather than you as the teacher choosing.  This helps enable HA students to take ownership of the lesson so feel like they are in a small way in control of their own learning.

Avoid Worksheets:  One thing that is almost as bad as death by power point is death by worksheet!  For years one of the main approach to differentiating for the top end was to provide more worksheets for if they finish tasks early.  The main problem with this is that if students are finishing tasks a lot earlier than you would expect your pitching your tasks too low!  Nothing will bread resentment in your HA students like giving them more worksheets to do if they finish early as it can make them feel like they’re being punished for doing well.

Meaningful Homework (less is more!) The topic of homework can often be divisive among teachers as most of use can’t come to a consensus on how to set it.  There are several ways to set homework, you may set exam questions or revision tasks.  There has been a lot of talk about flipped learning over the last year, and after giving it a go I’ve found that it can work really well for HA students.  Flipped learning basically is an instructional strategy and a type of blended learning that reverses the traditional learning environment by delivering instructional content, often online, outside of the classroom. It moves activities, including those that may have traditionally been considered homework, into the classroom

Innovation:  Think out of the box!  HA students are extremely able so it’s an ideal opportunity to try all those innovative techniques that you’ve never dared try before.  In terms of lessons for HA students, they’ll really appreciate it and you’ll really enjoy teaching them.

Writing exam answer mark scheme or questions to use:  For those of us who are used to teaching exam groups every year, we all use exam questions especially when it comes to revision.  The question is how can we spice using exam questions up to ensure HA students are really engaging with them?  One method that I have used is to allow students to act as the examiner.  There are a few of ways I’ve found to do this:

1. Give students a variety of model answers and get them to mark them using a mark scheme.  Once they have done this you can question them about why they have given the marks they have.
2. Students can be given an exam question, then asked to construct a mark scheme for it.
3. Students can be showed the answer to a question, then asked to put together a question for that answer.

So, in conclusion here are some of my closing thoughts in the subject and what you need to consider before teaching any HA student.  Identifying the student’s next steps and creating cognitive dissonance.  This means being aware of exactly where you need your students to be heading and how you can enable them to get there. Injecting elements of novelty and variety into the learning experience.  This will help students keep that love of learning and so helps enable them to make progress without realising that they are working hard.  Offering opportunities for independence and self-direction.  You need to ensure the tasks you are setting are open ended so provide real opportunities for students to stretch themselves.  Providing opportunities to work with like-minded peers.  This is a bit of a no brainer.  The main thing that’s going to enable HA students to make progress is to enable them to teach themselves and others using group work. 

I hope that these ideas are different for many others out there and they have provided some inspiration for how you can stretch and challenge your HA students.

You can follow me on twitter @teacherchalky1 or on Facebook @teachlikeahero. 

Thanks for reading

D Chalk

What is independent learning & how can I use it in my own teaching?

One of the buzz words of 2016 was independent learning but the question I found myself asking is what is independent learning & how can I use it in my own teaching?  Independent learning is defined as when an individual is able to think, act and pursue their own studies autonomously, without the same levels of support you receive from a teacher at school.  So, what does this actually mean?  When I think about independent learning these are the main things that come to mind.

Independent learning helps stretch higher ability students.  This is because when students are working independently they need to be self-sufficient.  Often the skills they need to develop in order for this to happen go hand in hand with higher order thinking skills.

Independent learning helps students develop a growth mindset.  Dweck defines growth mindset as “In a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work—brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment”

When planning independent learning tasks, try, and enable students room for manoeuvre so that they can be creative, think out of the box or both.  There are a few ways round this. When setting homework tasks that will .really stretch the independence of students, give them options to choose from.  In lessons think about tasks that are going to challenge your students and cause them to have to access the lesson content in a way that they will have to be able to explain it to another student if they have to.  

If students are working independently then they must be doing something by themselves.  This was the first main misconception on my part as what I’ve come to believe is that what independent learning really is, is any sort of learning where I’m not directly responsible for what students are learning.  This also means that students can still be learning independently when working in groups or pairs.

If students are working independently then they will by divine intervention, make more progress!  The second realisation I’ve had is that even though independent learning promotes higher level thinking, you don’t need to try and crowbar it into every lesson as it’s not always appropriate.  A more important point is that there is no rule that says that even if you have set an independent learning task there’s no reason that you can’t still give your students guidance or a framework to work within.

Independent learning doesn’t just mean homework.  For years, this was a common misconception made by many teachers across the board.  You can plan independent learning tasks into your lessons.  The most important thing to think about when doing this is to start with the independent learning task you want your students to do, then construct your lesson around it as your students will need to be pre-equipped with the tools they need to complete the task effectively.   

Independent learning should help increase student’s confidence and motivation in lessons.  Because student’s are taking responsibility for their own learning they will be able to help direct the direction they take.  If students are helping to choose how they are learning they should become more motivated about their own learning.  If students are engaged within their learning it should make them more confident about explaining what they are learning.

The final realisation I’ve come to believe about independent learning is that it allows students to work at their own pace.  And with that in an ideal world you’ve discovered the holy grail of teaching.  A pedagogy that allows differentiation, the stretches the most able students, that frees up the teacher in the lesson to help support less able students and that allows students to be creative in their own learning.  If only it was that easy.

The question that I heard asked time and again is “how can I effectively use independent learning within my own teaching?”  This is a question that I’ve been wrestling with for a long time, and I think that I can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel.  Below I have tried to outline some of the methods and activities I use to help independent learning both within and outside of my lessons. 

Get students to teach each other using micro-teaching.  Micro teaching involves students teaching each other ideas & content during a lesson.  There is lots of evidence that shows that students make the greatest amount of progress when they have to explain ideas & concepts to each other. Below I have outlined how to carry out a micro teaching activity with students and have tried to detail some of the possible preparation that needs to be in place to ensure that this activity has a meaningful impact on student progress.

The first stage in any micro teaching activity is to enable students to gather the information for themselves.  If students have to find things out for themselves they will make more progress than if they are just spoon fed it.  This can be done in many different ways.

• Flipped learning:  Before the lesson you can let students know what they will be teaching and then set appropriate videos for them to watch. Students can then use this to make notes on the content they need in preparation for the next lesson.
• Directed reading:  Students can be given the content they will be producing a micro teaching presentation or short lesson on.  This method works most effectively when students have to pick out key information from the text and then have it taken away before they start interacting with other groups.
• Use exam questions:  During revision, different groups of students can be given different exam questions that they need to explain to other students how to answer.
• Information hunt:  Before beginning the micro teaching activity, put key information around the room that students will need to use.  Give students some time in small groups to go around and gather the information they need to carry out the micro teaching activity.
• Once students have collected the information they need, they need to put together a short lesson or presentation on a particular concept.  This can take the form of a traditional short presentation or a short lesson where students have prepared some simple resources to help them teach.  
• Once your students are ready set them up work around rows of tables as shown in the pictures below

After students have worked around all the other groups you can carry out more traditional AFL to assess how much progress students have made. 

Open ended homework tasks:  These do pretty much what it says on the tin, they provide students with an opportunity to expand their own learning outside of the classroom in a direction that interests them.  There are a few ways to approach this form of independent learning:

1. Set students a general inquiry question that they must research then produce some sort of report on.
2. Set homework tasks which allow students multiple routes to get to an outcome.
3. Allow students to collaboratively to produce a video on a certain topic

Modelling activities:  When getting students to build models to explore concepts you still need to start with the content, however, you don’t necessarily need to stand at the front of the class and physically teach it.  The first step in allowing students to construct models is to allow them to collect or put together the information they need to help them build the model themselves.  This can be done in a few ways; you can use flipped learning and set students a series of youtube videos to watch & make notes on to help them, or lay out a range of information and allow students to gather what they need in small groups.  In some cases, you can give students a sheet with the content on and allow them to highlight what they think is relevant. 

Once students have the information they need, don’t assume they will automatically know where to start.  In many lessons where students are given a chance to build models to explore concepts there isn’t just one correct answer, however, there will still be a range of criteria that students need to incorporate into their models.  Before students start building their models don’t forget to give them a rough frame work to help them structure their ideas that they will incorporate.  In some cases, when you are giving students a task to complete where there is lots of scope for interpretation, it is worth showing students examples to help them get going.

Allowing students opportunities to feedback on each other’s work.  Peer marking is often a contentious method. Using it relies on students understanding what the correct answer is and that they will be able to mark answer without being overly harsh or generous.  The other major problem with peer marking is the quality of the feedback that they give each other.  If the feedback they give doesn’t aid progress has it been worth the time it has taken them to give it?  The way that I think effective peer marking should be carried out follows a few key concepts.

Firstly, if I’m getting students to do any peer marking I get them to do it in green pen.  If students do their marking in green it is easy for them to distinguish between their marking and mine.  It also gives an opportunity to easily comment and give feedback on the quality of peer feedback.

When getting students to make each other’s work don’t presume that they will automatically know how to do it.  It’s been my experience that most students have no idea how to mark a piece of work.  The way to get around this is to give students a strict framework to mark to.  If you want students to mark for SPAG, give them the key words that need to be spelt correctly.  If you want students to mark for specific content get them using a mark scheme to allow them to see what the correct answers are.  Using peer marking takes some time to get right as your students will need some training, however, it’s a useful tool to have I your arsenal.

Allow students to set their own tasks:  This one does come with a little health and safety warning, I would only use it with a class that I felt confident with, and which I’d already set a relatively strict framework for students to work within.  The first thing to do is to ensure that you share the lesson outcomes with students so they know what they need to achieve by the end of the lesson.  From there it’s up to them to set their own task to get there.  Put students in small groups or pairs to do this and then ask each group what they have decided to do to make sure that they will achieve what you want.

Group brain storming activities:  This is a short activity that can allow small groups of students to feed off each other’s creativity, therefore helping each other to expand their own learning.  Start with giving your students a topic to work on expanding it with as much as they can think around it.  Then rotate students around each other’s work and get them to expand on what’s already written.  Continue this process until students are back at their original work, then get them to use the information to compete some sort of collaborative task.

Interrogating the text:  Students are given an unfamiliar piece of text.  In pairs or small groups they are asked to:

1. Formulate important questions the text should be able to answer, or they hope the text will answer.
2. Read the text, highlighting key points,
3. Discuss the key points and agree answers to the questions formulated in ‘1’.

This is by no means a complete list of the things you can give a go; however, they are some of the methods I’ve given a go and have worked pretty well.  I hope that these ideas have provided some inspiration for how you can use independent learning within your own lessons.

You can follow me on twitter @teacherchalky1 or on Facebook @teachlikeahero. 

Thanks for reading

D Chalk