#blogsync Marking: WWW, EBI & INT

This month's blogsync topic is all about marking and all entries can be seen by going to http://blogsync.edutronic.net/. There are already some fantastic entries, none of which I will try to emulate here, but I will give my account of the marking expectations at my school and how I have gone about this task over the past half term.

Follow the #blogsync conversations on Twitter using #blogsync.

On arrival at my school this September I was presented with my very own stamper to use when marking my students' exercise books/work. It is very similar to my own stamper I bought from www.primaryteaching.co.uk last year and used when marking...with one slight difference. It wasn't just a What Went Well (WWW) and Even Better If (EBI) stamper but also an 'I Need To (INT) stamper. Here it is...

The significance of the INT part of the stamper is to ensure there is input from the student as to how they are going to action their EBIs that I write based on their work that I mark. The theory is that you get to see a conversation in the students' exercise books where a continuous loop happens with feedback being given, students responding as to how they're going to action their EBIs, evidence of this progress being made in their subsequent work, future feedback on their work with further points to action and so on.









It has taken a while to get used to this system and it is something I have had to not only train myself with, but also my students. When returning students marked work (mainly their homework tasks) I will ask them to look over their WWW and EBI comments and then get them to fill in their INTs. Now this has meant a lot of prodding and guidance as to what constitutes a good 'INT statement' and what is merely copying the EBI that I wrote. For instance, if I have said that a student has added and subtracted fractions well and it'd be EBI they could multiply and divide fractions their INT shouldn't say 'I need to multiply and divide fractions', but must say something along the lines of how they are going to action the EBI. For example, they could put that they are going to look up the topic on mymaths or Manga High. They could say they will stay behind after school on Friday and go to the 'Maths Club' to ask for help. They could look up the topic in one of my YouTube videos, they could ask their tutor (if they are lucky enough to have one). They could ask me for help in/after a lesson. They could look up the topic in a text book etc etc.

Here's an example of the stamper, my WWW and EBI (on a mixed C/B grade h/w sheet) and the students INT comment.



After the students have filled in their INTs 2 things then happen: The first is that when I next take their books in I will check their previous stamp and initial their INT if I feel it is appropriate. If I feel it is not full enough I will suggest something they could do, or provide a bit of extra guidance. For example...

In the below students' h/w he wrote that he needed to look up converting between squared units - fair enough. However, between this time and the next h/w sheet there was no evidence of him having progressed here. So, I wrote a few notes underneath his next stamp and then, following this, he made some additional notes in the back of his book and will look to get this area correct next time round.

This was the original h/w sheet. Here I mark the questions and just tick them if they are correct, cross if not. Sometimes I'll write the correct answers into those that are incorrect, time depending.

I then feedback using the stamper. We are told to try and make the WWW and EBI as objective specific as possible, for example WWW: you are able to add and subtract fractions [grade/level], EBI: you were able to multiply and divide fractions [grade/level]. However, in practice, sometimes this is difficult and I end up putting more vague comments like 'well done, you've got everything correct'. It's these times (when a student does everything well) that it is hard to find an EBI and hard to list everything they did well.

You can see here though that the student identified the need to 'learn how to convert between squared units'

In a following h/w I noticed, having looked back at previous stamps and comments, that the student still hadn't got the converting between squared/cubed units question correct. So, in addition to my usual comments I added a bit of extra feedback and guidance to support the student further.


What resulted was their own notes in the back of their book...

(I'm fully aware this pic is upside down, I have changed its' orientation and tried to insert it multiple times now, but still it wants to stay this way up...Grr)

I'm now awaiting the next h/w sheet to see if they have made progress with this question...fingers crossed.






The 2nd thing that happens after I have done my WWW and EBI marking and the students have done their INTs is that they use their fortnightly computer room lesson to independently go through, look up, and research topics that they need to work on. This could be using mymaths, Manga High, my YouTube channel, BBC bitesize, google, Wolfram Alpha, textbooks etc etc. These fortnightly lessons are used really well to get students to focus on their INTs so they don't merely write them and forget about them.

As a teacher, I am expected to mark each class' books once a fortnight and so each of my class' books have now got somewhere between 3 and 4 stamps in, depending on which week I take them in to mark. Now, I do quite like marking my students books, without it I wouldn't have anywhere near as clear a picture as I do of their work and progress to date. I find it can be therapeutic, but also quite stressful when time doesn't allow you to go through the WWW and EBIs as I'd wish. In order to combat this I have tried to get my students to do their own WWW/EBI and INT feedback. However, there are some students that do not do this so well and so this becomes almost a waste of time, plus I don't get to look over that particular bit of work as much as I would have if I marked it myself.

Plus, there's the same problem when they get full marks...what do they put for their EBI and INT?!












Personally, with the expectations on marking and the inevitability that a member of staff will come into check the books of the class that I perhaps haven't marked as much as others, I feel getting into marking routines is the only way around the workload. It's taken me the best part of the 7 and a half week half term to get into this routine and I now take in each class' books when they have handed in their h/w to me. I take the class' books home that night, mark them, and return them the next day. This means that I mark 3 evenings a week, usually for an hour each time, and then the rest of my time is spent planning lessons/resources etc.

However, there is one 'curve ball' to this routine...my Year 11's past GCSE papers. Since the start of the year our Year 11s have now completed 2 GCSE past papers in class as assessments that we use to track their grades and progress. They have had 1 non-calc and 1 calc paper and these, of course, have needed marking too. These papers are marked question-by-question, a total given, a grade and then students fill in AfL sheets in their feedback lesson. In addition, to support my students further, I have been trying to create 'solution videos' for the questions on these papers and sticking them on my YouTube channel. All this takes time, but in the long run (I hope) will be beneficial to my students.

All the marks and grades from these h/w sheets, papers, marked work etc go into my teacher's planner and I keep track here of how my students are doing, the progress they are making and I can see from this where interventions are needed. I'm quite traditional in the respect of using my planner as my markbook, but I'll also use an excel spreadsheet for past GCSE papers so I can analyse question-by-question how my classes have done on the papers and certain questions.

Here's a pic of one of my Year 11 classes markbooks so far this year...

You can see here the 5 h/w sheets the class have already had (all out of 20) and the 2 GCSE past papers they have sat.

The h/w sheets I use are all mixed C/B grade topics that I give out each week on a non-calc/calc rotation basis. These sheets allow me to ensure my students are keeping the basic skills to achieve each of these grades fresh, whilst we cover over topics in class. I am also planning on creating tutorial videos to go along side these to go up on my YouTube channel to give them another avenue for their INTs, i.e. INT 'look up question (x) on Mr Collins' YouTube Channel, do the practice questions and check my answers'.

If you would like to download these sheets they can be found on my TES resources at:

http://www.tes.co.uk/teaching-resource/Y11-Higher-C-B-Grade-Homework-Sheets-6353581/

I hope this post goes someway to contributing to the debate on marking. By no means do I suggest that this is the way to do it and that I am doing everything I should be. I'm fully aware there are things I can do better with my feedback being more specific at times and I still need to improve the use of the INT part of the stamps. In terms of checking students in class work this comes from my use of AfL and my plenaries. I do look over the students' classwork when I mark their books and if I see something of worth I'll add a comment, equally, if something is seriously wrong I'll comment on it too, sometimes using the stamper, sometimes just freestyling!

I still use my 'Mr Collins likes this' stamp too, when I can see a student has persevered or done a particularly good amount of work/made improvements (like the example shown).













Remember, check out the other posts in this months #blogsync by going to http://blogsync.edutronic.net.

April #blogsync - "Progress in my classroom? How it is made and how I know it."

This is a post in response to this month's #blogsync topic of "Progress in my classroom? How it is made and how I know it." To see all other posts in this month's #blogsync go to: http://blogsync.edutronic.net/

As this month's topic is all about progress in my classroom it has allowed me to reflect on what and how I have been doing with a number of my classes over the course of the year and to see whether indeed my classes are making progress.
As a lot of posts in this month's #blogsync have already pointed out there is not just progress to be had in a single lesson, but also over a longer, more sustained, period of time. It is the latter that I will talk about here as I feel for some (if not all) of my groups this is more important.

I will discuss 3 different ways in which I have seen progress with my classes, using 3 different methods of recording such progress. The first will be with my low-ability (bottom set) year 8 classes, the second will be with my year 9 top set and the third and final example will be from my year 10 set 2 class that are sitting the first of their GCSE Mathematics examination in June this year.

Year 8s (both set 5s on either side of the year) - Times Tables!
When I was given both of the set 5 year 8 classes to teach this year there was one thing that became apparent fairly early on - they were really weak with their times tables. This was mentioned in all of the students' reports at the end of year 7 by their class teacher and was evident in my 1st few lessons with both groups. So, in an attempt to make my students become better with these very important basics I decided to continually test them on their times tables and give them regular practice with them. How I do this is by getting them each, throughout our lessons, to complete the Interactive Times Tables 'game' that I found on the TES. The resource can be downloaded here. Now, I don't do this every lesson with the classes as too much of anything gets stale, but we do them at least once I week, on average, I would say. The students love doing them and often request to do them/ask if we will be doing them in lesson.
The advantage I have of having the bottom sets is that I only have 9 students in one set and 12 in the other. This means that the task does not interrupt our 'normal' lesson activities. I simply, whilst the class are working on the task given in that particular lesson, randomly call them up to the IWB to do the times tables 'game'. The game gives each student 1 minute to answer as many times tables (up to 12 x 12) as they can. Each question gives 6 possible answers to chose from, which for the set 5s is nicely differentiated. At the end of the minute I record their scores in my markbook and then call the next student up until all have had a go.
Then, crucial to the success of the task for this long a time, I give VIVOs (our schools rewards) to all those students that have improved their score by 3 or more, and then give the top 3 an extra VIVO each. This 'progress' is clear for all to see and I read out and congratulate those students that have made the 3 or more points progress from the previous go.

I have created a simple spreadsheet from all the lessons we did this in up to December 2012 and you can see a print screen of the results below...

I have highlighted 'student 4' above as this is the weakest student I teach in either of the 2 sets. This student didn't get a single times table correct in the minute given in his first ever go at it. Since then, the student is regularly getting over 10 a minute correct. Now, some might say that the familiarity with the task would naturally aid this, but for him it is a massive step forward. He has gained confidence with not only his times tables, but getting up in front of his peers and not being afraid to make mistakes, or be getting a lower score than others - and the rest of the class are surprisingly supportive of him and his quest to improve his score. I then created a graph of the class' average scores and you can see how this has improved since the start of the year. There are some dips here and there, and Mathematics is no straight line of progression from start to finish. Some of these 'dips' happen straight after school-holidays and this is a good excuse to remind the students of the need to keep practising them.

This, for my lower set year 8 classes is great progress. Especially as it was the one key thing they needed to improve on from year 7. They have all made progress over time, no matter how small and I'm starting to see now a greater ability for them to perform other tasks, and at a much higher speed than before. For example, when working out the area of rectangles they are able to relate this to the times tables 'game'.

Year 9 - Student Topic Trackers
In order for me to show progress in my Year 9 set 1 lessons I regularly have used my student topic trackers. I posted previously on the use of these here.

The topic trackers are a great way of showing 'progress' with the students' confidence from the start of the lesson to the end. On the topic trackers I split out all of the learning objectives for the series of lessons I will teach them on that topic. The lesson objectives progress in terms of their levels as you go down the sheet. For each objective there is then a 'before lesson', 'after lesson' and 'after revision' section for them to rate (on a scale of 1-4) their confidence with the lesson objective/s. This lesson based progress-o-meter is a good way of me seeing if the students have understood and feel more confident than they did at the start of the lesson.

Equally, from topic to topic, it is a good way of me seeing the progress they are making throughout the year. At the end of each topic I get the students to give themselves a level based on the topic trackers and the lesson objectives they feel most confident in and their respective levels. Then, from topic to topic I record, again in my markbook, the levels both the students give themselves and the levels I give them based on end of topic tests and h/w scores.

The topic trackers are then used for the students revision to go over those lesson objectives that they perhaps weren't so confident with. I can see these coming into play much nearer the end of the year when they will sit a GCSE linear paper prior to being setted for Year 10.

Here's an image of one of the topic trackers...

There have been a few suggestions from members of staff at my school as to how I could improve the use of these. The first would be to take their books in and do my 'teacher's comment' half-way through the topic, to make the feedback to them more useful perhaps as they go throughout the topic and be a bit more formative. The second is that they take quite a while to sit down and do the teacher's comments in the first place, so for every topic to cover in a year this could become too much. They do indeed take a lot of marking, is it worth it - yes, I think it is. Could the process be sped up somehow - I don't know yet. I have recently stopped using them with the class due to some topics we have covered being merely a 'refresher' lesson as the class would have covered it in previous year groups and so the topic tracker hardly felt relevant here. However, for those 'new' topics, or those that require a series of lessons to teach I will still continue to use them as I feel they are a good way of the students seeing the progress they are making - even if, as some would surely argue, it is only with their confidence and no concrete evidence of them actually making progress with the objectives. However, I would counter that by saying the 'after lesson' scale gets filled in in the 'plenary' part of our lessons having tested the students knowledge with an appropriate task. My teacher's comment and level are then based on the class work throughout the topic/objectives and their end of topic tests.

Year 10 - GCSE Mock Grades
In order to see if my Year 10s are making progress I have relied mainly on them completing GCSE mock papers and comparing the grades with their targets.
The class, to date, have done 2 official mock exams (Unit 1 [non-calc]) - 1 in January (straight after the holidays) and 1 at the end of February. They will sit one soon too by doing the Unit 2 paper (Calc), which will give me a further indication of their progress to date.
These results have given me a good idea of progress that has been made (if any) and the 'gap' still to close to their target grades.

Following the class' February mock, which was done in examination style conditions with the rest of the year group in the school hall, I showed them this notebook slide at the start of the lesson where I gave them their results back...

The 3 bar charts show (from left to right) the results from the January mock, the results from the February mock, and the class' target grades.







From the January mock the progress the class made was clear to see. We went from having 9 Ds, 18 Cs and 3 Bs to...6 Ds, 16 Cs and 8 Bs. There is still a notable jump to get the class to their target grades, but these are targets for the end of Y11! Still, I obviously want them to get their by June!

In that same lesson I gave out 'awards' for those students that had 'progressed' in some way from the January mock. The certificates/awards I gave out can be downloaded from my TES resources here. I gave those students that had progressed from getting a D grade to a C an award, those that went from a C to a B and those students that had continually showed progress in both the mock papers and all tests we had completed in class. There were plenty of students that received certificates in these lessons and this in itself showed me that the class have made progress (over the year).

I hope this blog post has been of use to others in how I have tried to show progress that my classes are making. I feel that learning Mathematics is definitely a 'marathon and not a sprint'. Sometimes students don't understand a concept or topic for years and then all of a sudden 'click' with it and get it. Sometimes we have to go back in our learning and make mistakes in order to progress.

Whether we, as teachers, are able to show that our students are making progress every 20 minutes of our lessons is something I'm not sure can actually be done. Can we show that progress is being made over time - Yes!

This is how progress has been made in (some of) my classes and I hope I have shown how I know it.

I'm still here. Will I be in another 3 years? #blogsync 3

This post is a response to the 3rd #blogsync topic of 'Wasted Investment? Why do so many teachers leave the profession in the first 5 years?'

To see all other posts on this topic go to http://share.edutronic.net/

I'm still here. Will I be in another 3 years?

I would love to answer this question with a whole hearted 100% YES! However, I have no idea what the next 3 years of my teaching career are going to present me with and as other posts on this topic have suggested, some teachers may have left the profession after their teacher training year and NQT year due to the sheer amount of work just not easing off. Sure, we all know it's hard work and that the first few years are tough, but then should we also expect things to get easier as we gain more experience and get used to the pressure and workload, perhaps this isn't going to be the case?!

What I do know is that this IS the profession for me, I love what I do and I'm constantly inspired by those I work with, the people I interact with on Twitter, and most importantly...my students. There's a number of reasons why I haven't left yet (and why I'm pretty sure I won't be leaving anytime soon)and I think these reasons lie in my background coming into teaching:

1) I failed Uni 1st time round.
2) I worked abroad.
3) I've had so many different jobs I can't remember them all.
4) I did 2 years as a Cover Supervisor.
5) I completed by degree part time whilst doing 3) and 4).

Back when I was at college it got to the point in my A2 year where everyone was starting to apply to University. I still didn't know then what I wanted to do, or even what I should do. So, inevitably I followed the crowd like the sheep that I had become - merely following a path that essentially was what I was told I should be doing given by GCSE grades and A-Level predictions. It was almost as if college and University were expected of me. So, I applied to Universities and chose a course (Information Mathematics BSc) that I had little idea about, but fitted with the subjects I was doing at University. No wonder, towards the end of the 2nd year I decided to leave. This was a pretty low point as I had no idea where I was going next.

So, naturally, I became a holiday representative for a '18-30' holiday company. I lived and worked abroad in Ayia Napa, Cyprus and then Kardamena, Kos, Greece in the 2 summers I held this post. The reason I mention this is that this job was relentless and the hours I worked this role are pretty similar to those that I currently work as a teacher. You were under pressure constantly to hit sales targets and got very little sleep in entertaining your customers and ensuring they had the best holiday of their lives. This, alone, stood me in good stead for what I was to experience in my GTP year and now in my NQT year. The lack of sleep I managed to get working as a holiday rep has definitely benefited me in the sense that, since 2007, my body clock has not adhered to normal social conventions; very rarely am I asleep before midnight and I hate mornings. In addition, being a holiday representative gave me confidence, resilience and the ability to stand in front of hundreds of teenagers and not be afraid to make a fool out of myself.

However, during my year in Kos I decided enough was enough and I needed a 'sensible' career. So, I returned home and looked into what it was I was going to do. I had always had in the back of my mind the desire to become a teacher, being inspired by my form tutor that I had at school (Mr Dearsley) and so this was really the only thing that I thought of doing. Now, what did I need to do this...oh yes, a degree (at least I did back then)! So, I started to do my degree around the '9-5' jobs I held over a 2 year period. Luckily, a family friend was the manageress of an employment agency and so I was able to get a good amount of temporary jobs falling back on my GCSE/A-Level results. These jobs were very limited in the amount of time they took up past the point where I left the offices at 5pm, nothing like what I currently experience. This worked for me. I was able to get home and do my course reading, essay writing, research and essentially get my degree completed. At no point was I thinking about the job I was doing at the time and these ranged from doing customer service work to doing statistical analysis for holiday companies.

I was still missing something though - I needed to get into teaching somehow! The chance came at the most inopportune of moments, I was at a birthday party and one of my old MFL teachers was there. Naturally we got talking about school, the fact I was doing my degree part time to eventually become a teacher, and then that proverbial door opened...I was invited to take part on the school's year 8 Germany trip. Following the trip I was then offered a job as a Cover Supervisor.

This is the reason I'm still a teacher today - the experience I gained and the enlightenment as to what it was actual like to teach in a school when I was working as a Cover Supervisor had me under no illusions as to how difficult the job would be. I saw the worst of the worst when I was covering lessons. Behaviour in some of those lessons was awful. I had days when I thought 'why on earth do I want to be a teacher'. I had days where nothing seemed to make sense in terms of what staff where being asked to do one minute and then what they were being asked to do the next. Nonetheless, I survived, and in some respects I thrived too. For every bad moment I was able to find at least another 2 good moments to counter-balance the negatives. This, I feel, is (for some teachers) what they are missing coming into the profession - reality. No romanticised version of what school and teaching is like, but a real idea of what goes on, how to deal with it and what to do when things don't go exactly as planned.

I'm glad things didn't go as was initially planned for me, I'm glad I didn't go School --> College --> University --> PGCE --> Teacher, I needed more than this. I've come into the profession at a later point in life than I perhaps would have, I have far more experience than the typical NQT has, and I truly believe that without it I wouldn't have the strength to deal with everything the job entails.

So now I'm here what could put me off?

1) The workload?
2) Expectations of the job?
3) Further responsibilities?
4) Behaviour?
5) OFSTED?
6) Other Staff?
7) *
8) *
9) *
10) *

*add as appropriate

As the above suggests, I can't think of 10 reasons - I've struggled to think of 6 and some of them are more as a consequence of the other posts I've read on this topic.

The workload could be a finishing factor. Like in a 'Mortal Combat' battle I could become so burnt out by the never decreasing workload that I'm stood dazed, weak and waiting for someone to respond to the 'FINISH HIM' cry.

The expectations on me as a teacher to do all those other duties beyond actually teaching my classes could cause me to end it all (my teaching career that is, not life itself); I'm talking mainly about all the meetings here I think?

Further responsibilities. This may be the most appropriate one for me personally I feel. I'm keen to improve and develop as a teacher, this inevitably will mean at some point I will want/look to take on more responsibility. Whether this be as a key stage coordinator or a 2nd in department, perhaps as an assistant head of house, an AST (or whatever they're being called now). I'm cautious about not diving into these positions too soon, for fear that the extra work will become the factor for wanting to leave. Being ready is essential. Am I ready - I'm not sure yet. Is it a reason some teachers leave the profession within the 1st 5 years? I'm sure it's at least someone's reason.

Behaviour. It could be that the deteriorating behaviour of students gets to me. But I do feel this is one for the more inexperienced. Those that perhaps were guarded away from the more difficult classes in their training year/NQT year. Those without the experience I had as a cover supervisor. NQTs are apparantly not to be given the most difficult classes to teach. I don't know how much this is true but I know I've got some tricky ones - has it affected me, no. Do I moan about having some of these classes and are they difficult to teach, oh yes!

OFSTED? They've been mentioned in the vast majority of posts in this month's #blogsync, and perhaps this is due to the fact that they are the pressure; the people for whom school's are 'performing'. I've experienced them come into my school when I was a cover supervisor and put the school in special measures. The effect they had on staff moral was shocking, the atmosphere they leave in the place when they're gone is edgy at best and there is definitely a fear of them. Personally, I don't believe that someone coming into one of your lessons for 20 minutes on one particular day in the school year can have any real judgement as to what goes on in your classroom throughout the whole of the year, or even since the last time they visited you and/or your school. The process, of course, needs to be there, but by no means would I get hung up on the fact that someone's opinion of one of my lessons may not be same as mine. In my opinion the only opinion that matters is that of the students I teach. Do they feel safe and respected? Do they enjoy our lessons? Are they learning? Am I doing the best I can for them? They (OFSTED) are not a reason to leave.

Other Staff. In a recent INSET session hosted by @vicgoddard, Vic spoke about radiators and drains. Radiators being those enthusiastic NQTs that are inspired by and inspire other teachers (I got a few dodgy looks from my table at this point). Drains are those people that seem to suck the life out of the place, moan about everything, sometimes just for the sake of moaning, and essentially bring everyone else down. I don't like these people, and have little time for them. I'm lucky to be in an office where everyone is a radiator. Sure we have moments where we are drains, but for the vast majority of the time we are discussing ways to improve, sharing ideas and generally enjoying our work. My advice to anyone starting teaching is to avoid the staffroom or the particular corner of the staffroom where these 'drains' reside - they'll suck you in and you won't like the person you become and neither will other people!

Who knows what the future has in store for me and my teaching career. As I suggested in the opening statement to this #blogsync I don't think I will be one of those teachers that leaves within the first 5 years of the profession. I'm here to stay.

So, there's only one thing left to say really, one resounding thought I've had in my head whilst writing the last few paragraphs...I'm still standing!

'Don't you know I'm still standing better than I ever did
Looking like a true survivor, feeling like a little kid
I'm still standing after all this time
Picking up the pieces of my life without you on my mind'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bz7ifClpT4g

Assessing and building on students prior knowledge (#blogsync)

Last month saw the very first #blogsync. If you missed it - check out my first entry on 'The Universal Panacea - Time' here.

This month's #blogsync is centred around classroom practice and all the blog posts are aimed at 'a teaching and learning strategy intended to elicit the highest levels of student motivation in my subject'. For this month's #blogsync I have chosen to discuss assessing and building on students prior knowledge. The reasons for me doing this is that I feel it is one of the most important things we do as teachers, as if we don't properly assess students prior knowledge we'll just end up going over old ground - over and over again; students learning nothing new.
Also, a secondary reason for me doing this topic is that as part of being an NQT one of the standards I have to collate evidence against is standard 2 'promote good progress and outcomes of pupils' of which one of the bullet points is 'be aware of pupils' capabilities and their prior knowledge, and plan teaching to build on these'. So, it has been my aim, this past half term, to focus my teaching on this bullet point, and in turn, write this post and reflect on my ability to do this in my lessons and how it has impacted on those lessons and my students' progress.

This will be just one of the posts in the series of blog posts on the topic above (in bold), to see the rest go to http://share.edutronic.net/.

So, when I was choosing my topic for this month's #blogsync I was trying to think of how I get students motivated in my subject (Mathematics) and there were a number of ways I achieve this. However, I can have the most practical of activities, put the lesson in a context my students will relate to, use as much ICT and music as I desire but none of that would matter if what I was teaching the students was something they'd done before. And so it seemed to me that the best way of me eliciting the highest levels of student motivation was to pitch the lesson right in the first place - the only way of doing this...checking what they already know and then building upon it!

I see Mathematics as a set of building blocks; blocks that can be built upon, but without the basics, can often fall apart leading to students easily forgetting concepts, or even whole topics. I like the layered approach you can often work with in Mathematics in terms of you know how to do 'x' and so we can now use 'x' to do 'y'. Sure, some topics can be taught as 'one off' lessons, but the majority involve using something you'd learnt previously to access a new problem.
There are however, those topics in Mathematics that students fail to grasp throughout their schooling that inevitably have to be taught year after year, or at least revised with classes. This, I believe, should happen in the 'assessing students prior knowledge' part of teaching any topic. Ideally students will be presented with something they should have learnt before, tested on it, and then moved on to a new problem using their prior knowledge. It's at this point I, as a teacher, would see where the class were at and then teach my lesson accordingly. If this meant going over gaps in knowledge or covering misconceptions the students may have then great, if it means that all students are ready to move on, even better.

So, in order to show how I have assessed my students prior knowledge, what I did with it and what affect it had on the lesson and my students' learning I will talk about 3 different lessons (and 3 different ways of assessing students prior knowledge). I have chosen these 3 lessons as these lessons were the ones in which I was teaching the class a new topic for the first time. As I have been in my current school since September I don't have the luxury of having taught the students before (last year, the year before etc - I have been teaching them since September!) and so don't know what they may/may not have covered last year. Sure, I have held conversations with colleagues who did teach my classes last year as to what they did with them, but will my students have actually retained this information and still have a working knowledge of it? This, is what I will be essentially checking in each of the lessons I have highlighted. I must point out at this stage that I am very much still learning how best to assess my students prior knowledge and, indeed, how to plan a lesson following this initial assessment and being flexible enough to go in whichever route the class need to venture down! So, that being said, if anyone has any pearls of wisdom they can share I'd be more than grateful to hear from you.

Lesson A1 - Year 9 - Linear Equations
(Socrative) see http://mrcollinsmaths.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/socrative.html for my 1st post on using Socrative.

Before teaching this lesson I received an e-mail from my HoD with a Socrative quiz he had used in his class and having used one of his quizzes before (see blog post above) I thought this would be a great way of assessing what my top set year 9 class may already know from last year. The quiz only consisted of 10 questions, all ranging throughout the topic that I was just about to teach the class - Linear Equations. The only objectives for that topic that the quiz didn't cover explicitly were plotting inequalities and shaded regions, which the class would eventually go on to once I was confident they knew how to plot a linear equation, recognise the gradient and y-intercept from its' equation and be able to recognise parallel lines and lines that were parallel with one of the axes.

So, I introduced the quiz to the class and the minute I said they'd need to get their mobile phones out there was an immediate joy about the room! The students, all, in turn, completed the online 'live' quiz and I had the results coming up on the board so I could see how the students were doing and how many of the 10 questions they were getting correct; the competition between them was fantastic. The only problems with the Socrative quiz and assessing my students prior knowledge at this point was that on the 'live' screen you just see a mark out of 10 for each student and so as much as I could see generally how many questions they were getting right, I couldn't tell which ones exactly they had got correct/wrong. However, at the end of the quiz, once all students had submitted their answers you are able to send yourself a report of the students answers to peruse and use in your lessons. So, as not to embarrass any students I didn't delve into these too much in the lesson, and perhaps I should have done as I needed the time to go over the individual questions and assess where I needed to go next. However, this I could do later! I was almost helped by the fact that the time left of the lesson wasn't exactly that plentiful. Due to students having to share mobile devices/my computer/my iPhone the Socrative quiz ended up taking a good half hour to complete fully. So, for the remainder of the lesson I did two things...

The first was to go over each question in turn, covering any misconceptions the students may have had and also giving them instant feedback on the questions they had just answered. The benefit this had for them is that they could see which ones they had got wrong and why. I heard a lot of 'oh yeah...' noises coming from the class as I was explaining each question; I went through the quiz on the IWB just like they would have done on their mobile devices and then added notes to the board where needed for them to jot down.
The second thing I did, for the remainder of the lesson (about 10-15 minutes) is I got the students up at the board and in pairs, using my IWB buzzer resource I found online [see http://www.tes.co.uk/teaching-resource/IWB-Buzzer-6258257/], I asked them various questions on the quiz and new topic we were starting - I tried to cover here the misconceptions they had previously with some of the questions.

So, the lesson itself turned into a whole period of assessing prior knowledge and covering the misconceptions and gaps they may have had. This was more than I had wanted to spend, but in hindsight it actually allowed me to consider more what they had learnt before and it helped refresh their memories. Plus, I was then able to build on this in out next lesson.

For our next lesson I had analysed the results from the Socrative quiz and found some common areas of weakness - nearly all students were unaware of parallel lines and that the gradient of parallel lines being the same and therefore the equation only different by the y-intercept. Also, the students seemed to lack knowledge of equations of lines parallel to the axes, namely lines like x = 1 and y = -3 etc. The common misconception here was that they believed that horizontal lines had an equation x = c and vertical lines had an equation y = c. So, for our next lesson I chose to do some group work with the students moving around desks in a carousel format. There were 5 different tasks (5 tables of 6/7 students) all linked to the learning objectives in the students topic trackers and based on the questions that were commonly poor from the quiz. Task 2 was with me at the IWB going through equations of lines parallel to the axes as this was the main misconception from the previous lesson.

What I found was that I was much clearer on what I needed the students to do having spent a focused amount of time assessing their prior knowledge and having analysed the results properly. It then allowed me to cover the specific topics that needed work and has now set us up for our lesson on shaded regions and inequalities after half term. Students were fully motivated in both lessons and I feel this was a) down to them being able to use their mobiles to do the Socrative quiz and b) due to the group work lesson (I feel I'm pretty good at managing and facilitating group work lessons) but also down to the fact that students were at that point in their learning where they were (unaided) trying to remember their previous learning and then using my input to then put this into practice in the group tasks I had designed for them in the following lesson.

The one improvement I would possibly make when using Socrative quizzes again is to get the students, in a flipped classroom style, to complete the quiz at home prior to the lesson. This way the class have got some h/w to do to set them up for the next lesson/topic, I could analyse the results and then go from there. The only disadvantage of this is that students are obviously able to look up answers online and so the results may not reflect a completely honest version of my students knowledge?


Lesson A2 - Year 10 - Stem & Leaf Diagrams
(ABCD Fans - quiz) see http://mrcollinsmaths.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/abcd-fans-revisited.html for my post about my ABCD Fans (and the hassle I've gone through with them [well worth it though])

This lesson with Year 10 was a lesson in which I was asked to teach a class that I do not regularly teach and so the only information I was given is that they needed to be taught stem and leaf diagrams and that they may have done it in the past, but I'd need to make my own mind up as to how much they already knew and how much to start from scratch.
So, with this in mind I thought about how I could check what they already knew and then move on from here. I decided to use my ABCD Fans and a brief 10 question quiz. I also ended up planning a lesson or series of lessons for the aftermath of the quiz depending on where the students would be at. This included me planning a lesson essentially teaching stem and leaf diagrams for the 1st time, a lesson where the students had some prior knowledge but needed to go over a few things (working out the median, mode, range etc) and then a lesson where they were absolutely fine and needed moving on to back-to-back stem and leafs and comparing data sets. I found this useful in terms of my planning and for future use but also very time consuming. I think, naturally, with more experience, I'd be able to do a certain amount of this off the top of my head based on teaching the topic a few times but as I'm a NQT I needed to spend a bit more time planning resources and routes based on what the class would need.

Now, I mentioned the quiz had 10 questions. The first 4-5 questions were just on averages and working out the median, mode and range of sets of data. These questions were completed with relatively little difficulty and I only needed to just check a few things, provide 1 further example with one question and then write some key information on the board for the students to use at a later data. Question 5 or 6 was simply a picture of a stem and leaf diagram, multiple choice answers and the question...'what is this diagram?' They all knew what it was. Next question - how do I work out the median from this diagram - same picture of the stem and leaf diagram with a purposefully tricky set of multiple choice answers whereby 2 of them were just the leaf part of the most common numbers, one was the correct answer with the actual number and one was the amount of the number that appeared the most. All students were slow with answering this one and barely any of the ABCD Fans moved, let alone were held in the air above their heads indicating to me an answer of some sort. So, rather than go through the remaining questions I stopped them there and then got up my ppt on stem and leaf diagrams.
I reminded the students how the data gets put into the stem and leaf and then how you could work out the various averages. I then, as you can see in my previous post [http://mrcollinsmaths.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/whole-class-stem-leaf-diagrams.html] got them to create a stem and leaf diagram themselves.

The advantage my quick quiz had was that I was able to see quickly where the students knowledge stopped and then was able to build on it and work with what they did know. You could argue that I could have continued with the quiz as they may have known the last few questions but these were checked and covered in what followed in the lesson.

The lesson went fantastically well, and rather than before with the year 9 class where I went over the answers in greater length I was able to stop the activity as soon as I had a judgement on where I needed the lesson to go and then went there. I feel with the Socrative quiz there needed to be a greater analysis of results where as with this approach I could easily see when the students where getting the answers right and when they were 'stumped'.


Lesson A3 - Year 10 - Ratio & Proportion
(DfE Standards Unit - exam questions and sample answers [with mistakes])

The last example of having assessed my students prior knowledge and looking to build on it was with my regular year 10 class when covering ratio and proportion.

Now, this is a topic, that having taught KS3 classes a lot more than KS4 over the past few years, I have a good idea of what is covered prior to students entering year 10. However, I wouldn't want to assume that this knowledge had been assimilated and so used the DfE Standards Unit lesson on proportion with the intention of taking from it the bits that my students needed and then moving them on to looking at direct/inverse proportion and the constant of proportionality.
I chose the standards unit task as the lesson is based on students being initially given 4 exam style questions involving proportion, answering these with their partner and then being given some sample answers (with mistakes and correct answers included) and then marking this work just as if they were a teacher.
The advantage this had is that as the pairs were working on the 4 questions I was able to make my way around the room and ask the students questions as to how they were going about answering the questions. This, in itself, highlighted some prior knowledge and equally a good amount of missing knowledge. However, from when the students got the sample answers to correct, the missing knowledge was partially sorted as the students were able to see methods of working and were able to correct them or just tick them. I think for a lot of them it was a case of knowing how to get started with the questions and understanding what it was they were being asked to do. Once they saw the initial workings they were able to correct the mistakes the sample material had made (adding denominators of fractions for example).

After this initial paired work I asked the class questions as to how they went about completing the questions and then covered all of the mistakes in the answers before moving on. I used the flow diagrams part of the lesson to link proportion to multiplication and checking the students new the unitary method. We didn't quite have enough time to get on to looking at direct/inverse proportion in the lesson for the amount of time I felt we needed on this. So, without moving on too fast I got students, again in their pairs, to finish off the last part of the lesson which was to come up with their own proportional problems for their partner to solve using the flow charts we had discussed.


What I have learnt from focusing more heavily on students prior knowledge is that my students are challenged more so than what they may have been had I assumed some sort of prior knowledge and decided personally on where I thought the class would be. I have also learnt from this that I need to continue to do this at the start of each topic and come up with new ways of checking what my students already know. I think that in subsequent years I will naturally have a better idea of what my students will already know, especially if I am to keep certain classes over the next few years etc. However, the experience I have now gained from doing this #blogsync and reflecting on what it has meant for the motivation of my students and the impact on their learning, even if I don't teach the same classes I will have a much better idea of how to effectively assess their prior knowledge and adapt to it.

Thank you to those of you that have taken the time to read this - I know it's been a bit of a long one and thanks to those of you that may suggest other ways in which I can go about assessing students prior knowledge.

Remember...go and check out the other posts on http://share.edutronic.net/.

The Universal Panacea: TIME (#BlogSync)

January 2013 sees the 1st month of the #blogsync initiative set up by a series of bloggers via Twitter. The #blogsync is a central hub where all blogs on a common topic are shared amongst a community of bloggers/teachers/educational gurus. To see all of the posts on the below topic click the following link ==> http://share.edutronic.net/

The 1st topic is: "The Universal Panacea? The number one shift in UK education I wish to see in my lifetime".

Having thought about the 1 universal thing that I feel could remedy UK education there was only really one answer based on my experiences so far... TIME!

If only we, as educators, had more time.

More time to plan our lessons - not just your 'bog standard' lessons but 'all singing, all dancing' lessons. Lessons that will blow our students' minds. Lessons that will grab our students attention from the minute they step through our classroom door to the minute they have to leave. Lessons that will take into account all of the multifaceted things we, as teachers, have to take into consideration when teaching a group of 30+ students. I know that I spend far too much time at the weekend and of an evening planning lessons as best as I possibly can for my classes, but even then I still find that some lessons end up being planned within a limited time frame.

Last year, when completing my GTP, I read many books that knew full well that teaching becomes a massive prioritisation task - what needs to be done now and what can be left for later. They also knew that you can't spend hours planning each lesson as there's just not the time in the day/week/term to do so. So, the suggestions of certain books is to give each class one 'all singing, all dancing' lesson a week. However, as noble as this seems that still means the majority of your lessons that week will just be 'ordinary' and surely that is just not 'outstanding'. It may be realistic, but not 'outstanding'.

More time isn't just needed to plan lessons either. There's marking to complete. There's reports to write. Parents to ring and get the support from. Resources to create and share with colleagues. CPD to complete and reflect on. E-mails to send and answer. After school revision sessions to run. and so on and so on. If we're to do all of the things we're expected to do in the current time frame we are given to do it, it's no wonder that corners end up being cut and essentially all these jobs are just done to the level required, rather than the level possible.

So, where can this extra time come from? Can we even get it from anywhere? Unfortunately my name is neither Bernard nor do I have a magical watch to freeze time...

...imagine if we all had one of these watches. How amazing would it be to, in the middle of the lesson, stop the clock and just take 5 minutes to reflect on what is happening around us. To freeze everything around us would enable us to: look at each and every student's book to see what, exactly, they had achieved so far in the lesson, to reflect on how we had just taught what we had taught - did I do a good enough job? Have I left anything out? What do we do next, what are our next steps? Is there something happening in the room that, perhaps, I wasn't aware of whilst helping the student I was previously helping? Could my TA do with a bit of guidance as to who to support next in the lesson and how best to do this? All of these questions are things that we have to take snapshot judgements on in the flow of a lesson. I know I often forget to say certain things (mainly giving out homework). Sometimes I find time just runs out in the lesson - we get so wrapped up in what we have been doing that the bell goes and you realise you've got to let them go to their next lesson - they possibly don't want to leave, you definitely don't want the lesson to end!

However, in realism, this isn't going to happen in my lifetime. So, is there a realistic solution?
I used to teach, last year on my GTP, a year 8 class for a 'double' period. This period lasted for 1 hour and 40 mins and the students were often given a 5 min break in between the 2 periods as that was when the normal lesson changeover would be taking place. Now, initially when I took over this class I was slightly daunted by the fact I would have a double period with the class and that I'd need so much more content for my lessons. However, what I found is that we were able to do so much more given the extra time and I treated the lesson as that - a lesson. Not a double lesson but an extended lesson with a short break in between. The break allowed my students to take a breather and for me to assess where we were from the first half and where to go in the 2nd half - adapting my planning where necessary. I think this structure worked quite well and there could be something there to build on?

Alternatively, we could have an afternoon a week free. I know some schools finish early on a Friday in order to complete CPD or as extra PPA time. I feel that it would be feasible to extend the Mon-Thu school day to 4pm and then have this afternoon free to complete marking/planning, go on courses, speak to and share ideas with colleagues etc. Would it solve all my time problems, of course not - but it may give that extra bit of time needed to make a significant difference to the quality of each of the tasks a teacher is required to do?

I'd be interested to here form anyone who does have a half day one day a week for planning purposes etc. Does it make a difference?

I'm sure I'm not the only one who would like to see teachers given more time to complete the job we are employed to do, as to whether it is feasible is another question.