This isn't just a Visualiser, it is a Superpower
(This is the visualiser I bought my daughter when she started teaching English).
If I had to sum most blogs on how to teach in one word it would be this: complex.
Complexity is my enemy. Complex solutions have multiple ways of going wrong. Simple solutions are almost foolproof. Because of this, their results are powerful.
Here are 4 simple ideas:
Cold call as often as you can.
Put students work under the visualiser as often as you can.
Choose their work at random.
Use a timer for all your activities.
I could give you 6-10 bullet points to exemplify the nuances of each one. 40 layers of complexity.
But, if you just follow just these 4 relentlessly, you’ll find most of them out for yourself, and a few more I have never thought about.
And your students will
Work hard
Think hard
Remember more
Here is an email I received from a head of science. We had worked together for one hour, rehearsing the curriculum conversation in advance of Ofsted.
I never do anything just for Ofsted. If students work hard, think hard and remember more, they’ll be sorted for life, even if Ofsted disappears.
We spent a small part of that hour talking about the 4 steps I’ve outlined for you above. This is what she did directly after our meeting.
Dear Dominic,
Thank you for these notes, it really was a very productive and though provoking meeting. Lots to take on board and try out, so thank you so much for your time
In my next lesson (looking at Photosynthesis) after out meeting, based on our discussion I changed the way the lesson was delivered.
Or rather tweaked the way I tested the learning of the content.
The pupils watched a video on the practical. We then did a lot of cold calling about the practical, including steps, variables and rationale.
If pupils did not know the answer the questions was bounced to another pupil then back to that same pupil. I repeated some questions to check they were listening.
At first they were very nervous about answering, but then got into this and even said they enjoyed it as one pupils said they “enjoyed the tension”. Their knowledge and understanding did improve.
We then looked at another way of carrying out the practical, and pupils discussed (turn and talk) the ‘why’ of each step with further cold calling from me.
They then were shown the table of the What and Why of the practical, before completing a gap fill on just the techniques on a printed sheet with the visualiser being used for accountability and feedback.
Moving on, we then applied what they knew to a 6 mark question.
I cold called pupils on how they felt about this style of question (mostly negative/fear based) and we discussed how we can get better at them.
Using the visualiser I explained the question to pupils and they all tried to answer it. The visualiser was used to display the timer and then to check answers.
I showed the mark scheme to pupils and discussed how I would score the answers and provided feedback.
All pupils were then given time to refine their answer before further examples were checked and unpicked for misconceptions or precision of language use. Scores ranged, and started at around 2-4 marks improving to 4-6 after feedback.
This was a vigorous lesson that provided a lot of feedback and chances of success. (We had spoken about Rosenshine’s 80% success rate).
Pupils were very positive about this, and about the quality of what they produced at the end of lesson. The work was to a good standard, showing a high level of understanding.
But also importantly this was an easy lesson for me to deliver and to prepare. It now makes me want to change a lot of our current resources! I will feed this back to my department and we will start rolling out a more vigorous way to test memory and get pupils thinking hard!
I was on a roll today and used Mini whiteboards to quiz year 9 on key concepts this afternoon instead of doing a copy and complete in the book! I could see easily who knew what and when I could move on to the topic. This was a quicker solution to redoing the slide today.
Thank you again for such simple yet powerful changes. I loved teaching both lessons today even more than I do normally!