CPD ideas from Twitter Part 2



More CPD ideas from Twitter.

This blog follows on from my previous one (0) and discusses some other ideas that I have implemented using CPD that I have gained mainly from Twitter.

Starters and Feedback.

I have updated my starter questions to encourage retrieval of past work, and I do this by mainly setting low stake quizzes. However, I do feel as I have missed a trick here. I appreciate the importance of feedback but by allowing the class to mark the work themselves I have allowed them to write down the workings and the answers as we were going through it as a class.


From Effective Peer and Self-assessment. (1)


“If learners can reflect accurately and honestly, the evidence can back up teacher’s judgements and give an insight into pupil thinking.”

Unfortunately not all my students were reflecting honestly. This is a hard thing for me, as a teacher to write, as I have always thought that I could trust all my classes, but it has become apparent that some of my students are aiming for a quiet life.

What I do now is to have the starter questions on the students’ desk, they then work in silence (one of the few times I ask for silence) and hand me their paper back during the lesson. It does mean more work for me but I can identify areas where students are not retrieving correctly and feed that back to the whole class.

I believe that retrieval practise is vital, and I agree with the statement (taken from retrivalpractice.org (2))


‘As an additional benefit, retrieval practice helps us to identify gaps in learning. In other words, not only does retrieval improve learning and help us figure out what we do know - more importantly, it helps us figure out what we don't know.'

Thus, feedback should always be provided to students after retrieval practice.’

My only divergence from this is that I do give feedback after the practice, but it might either be later in that lesson, or at the start of the next lesson. If I do carry it over to the next lesson then my starter is now led by me looking at the areas that were commonly missed, and at the people who demonstrated the biggest misconceptions. Feedback is crucial – students must know if they are getting it right or not, but I must get an honest assessment of their progress.

Feedback and Whole Class Feedback.

There has been a lot of debate on twitter regarding feedback. Reading through a number of tweets I have become aware of Whole Class Feedback (WCF). The image below is taken from @MrThorntonTeach (3) and seems to me to be the best format.

With WCF it is possible for me to mark a set of books from the whole class in a shorter time (45 minutes). Instantly there is a record of who missed the lesson and did not complete the work. I would suggest the most important boxes are the Misconceptions and actions, Cause for Concern and DIRT question ones. These allow me to think what have I not taught well enough, what can be done to correct this, is there anyone specifically making this type of mistake (or is it the whole class) and then finally I can set a starter based on DIRT activities. The DIRT starter activities could also be considered as retrieval activities, but the students are retrieving and correcting data from the previous lesson.

It is worth mentioning that in our classes we perform short marking, where we can pinpoint areas that a student is making a mistake and get them on track quickly during the lesson, as opposed to marking and feedback after the lesson. As there are 30 students in the lesson and only one teacher it is not possible for me to see every student every lesson, so WCF is the perfect complement to short marking.

Why bother with TES?

Sorry for being a little mean, there will always be a place for TES, but it is irritating when searching for references to find the majority of suggested ones cost. I certainly have nothing against people making money from their resources, but there are so many good, free, resources available that the chances are you can find better ones elsewhere.

My first go to website is @mathsjem’s (4). The time that @mathsjem must have put into finding and grouping these resources, as well as creating and sharing many of her own ideas must be scarily large, but the benefit for us is that they are easily accessible and fining resources is a simple task.








There are some other websites that I like, but instead of me listing them I will just share a tweet from @MrBayew (5).

'Thread: My top 11 go-to websites when planning lessons:'

I have used most of these websites before and I am yet to fail to find something useful on each one. The website I mention most often to parents is (tweet 11) as @Corbettmaths has organised tons of useful stuff, including past paper questions and relevant videos, in an easy to search format that allows students and parents to revise a topic in a different way, and work through a problem at their own pace.

If I trying to find student misconceptions then I will use diagnostic questions (7) . The concept, from @mrbartonmaths is an obvious one once it is pointed out. Let’s give the students a multiple choice question, but instead of one answer and three random answers, give four answers which could be arrived at if the student has a misconception.

For example,


If y = 2a, what is y when a = -3.


Is it:
a) 6 -- misconception about multiplying negatives and positives
b) -1 -- misconception about the meaning of algebra
c) -6
d) 8 -- misconception about indices.


A further concept behind diagnostic questions is that instead of doing one big question, which might involve three steps to complete, I would break it down into three mini-topics which enables me to find out where any misconceptions actually occur.


A break down of how I have used these websites to improve my teaching will be a future blog.

What do I do when students are working?

I have taken the following from one of @ChrisMcGrane84 blogs (8).

“I should try to never be tempted by the computer and my comfortable chair while children are in my classroom. No matter how well they are doing, and no matter how much other work there is to do, the teaching and learning is why I am there. These opportunities to support, challenge and extend learners - these opportunities to make each what each child is thinking feel valued occur most when I teach between the desks."

This is a good thought for me to bear in mind. I am presuming that the 84 in Chris’s twitter name refers to being born in 1984, to be similar I would have to put in 67. I have recently taken to sitting down at my desk whilst the students are working, but the above quote makes perfect sense and shames me into being on my feet throughout the lesson. As stated earlier my department correctly expects short marking in each lesson, so by walking around I am able to watch the students work and praise, correct and challenge where necessary.

Side Note: I have previously been on a course and I have heard from other teachers that the advice from non-teaching ‘specialists’ is to set tasks for the students and do some planning whilst they are working away! Haaa as Miss Krabappel would have said. Chris has shown the way.

Since reading and reflecting on Chris’s blog I have taken to rewriting my seating plan. I now look at the SEN and PP students and put them closest to my desk. The High Achievers I will put further away from my desk. My thinking is that those closest to me will need the most help, so I can get to them quickest, and, as I am fairly loud, the chances are that if I am helping one student there will be others who will listen and act upon that same help, so they will be able to work through the problem at the same time. Obviously the other students in the class will need help at some stage, but

i) I will get to them and help them in the lesson and

ii) they will have made some progress in the lesson and will likely help each other out when stuck.


Thank you for reading. I am finding that writing a blog is useful for me as it makes me think through the how and why of what I am doing in my classroom. I hope that in the future I will be able to refer back to what I have written and either keep doing the same thing if it works, or replace things with better ideas as they come along.

References.


(1) http://mapmiddlesbrough.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Effective-Peer-and-Self-Assessment-VGF.pdf?x37914

(2) https://www.retrievalpractice.org/beyond-memory/

(3) https://mrthorntonteach.com/2016/04/08/marking-crib-sheet/

(4) http://www.resourceaholic.com/

(5) https://twitter.com/MrBayew/status/1011714096574672896

(6) www.corbettmaths.com

(7) www.diagnosticquestions.com

(8) http://chrismcgrane.blogspot.com/2018/06/some-things-ive-come-to-realise.html
































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