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“A lesson" is the wrong unit for learning

Associate Lead Teacher – Maths

Manor Croft Academy, Dewsbury

darwink@manorcroft.org.uk

@Arithmaticks

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What is Learning?

“Learning is a change in long term memory"

Kirschner, Sweller and Clark (1998)

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The Role of the Teacher – �Prof Sam Twiselton �

  • Task Managers
    • What am I doing?
    • How can I keep students busy in this block of time?
  • Curriculum Deliverers
    • What have I “taught”?
    • Have students remembered it?
    • How do I teach this idea over time?
  • Concept/Skill Builders
    • What have students LEARNED?
    • What are the students thinking about?
    • How can I help students to make connections?

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Poor Proxies For Learning – Prof Rob Coe

  • Students are busy: lots of work is done (especially written)
  • Students are engaged, interested and motivated
  • Students are getting attention: feedback, explanations
  • Classroom is ordered, calm, under control
  • Curriculum has been 'covered' (i.e. presented to students)
  • (Some) students have supplied correct answers, even if they:
    • have not really understood them
    • could not reproduce them independently
    • will have forgotten by next week (tomorrow?)
    • already know it

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Coherence

  1. Small steps are easier to take.
  2. Focusing on one key point each lesson allows for deep and sustainable learning.
  3. Certain images, techniques and concepts are important pre-cursors to later ideas. Getting the sequencing of these right is an important skill in planning and teaching for mastery.
  4. When introducing new ideas, it is important to make connections with earlier ones that have already been understood.
  5. When something has been deeply understood and mastered, it can and should be used in the next steps of learning.

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Coherence

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A Unit of Learning…

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Moving away from the ‘lesson’ as a unit of learning

  • A shift from ‘What can we/I do in this hour?” to �“How is best for my students to learn this concept?”�
  • Allows you to see the big picture
    • How does this idea fit into this unit?
    • How does this unit/idea fit into the subject as a whole?
    • What ideas have students learned before that support this one?
    • What ideas are coming next that this will support?�
  • Complex ideas require time and repetition for learning

“Don’t teach anything now that you will contradict later”

– Danni Quinn

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Seeing the Big Picture

S Planning

A method of medium term planning to enhance concept building and coherence across the unit and the Scheme of Work.

Considers:

  • Start and end points
  • Pre-requisites
  • Key Ideas – concepts & ‘doing’
  • Order of these Key Ideas
  • Representations
  • Variation
  • Misconceptions
  • Tasks and problems
  • Links to other topics

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“A lesson" is the wrong unit for learning

Associate Lead Teacher – Maths

Manor Croft Academy, Dewsbury

darwink@manorcroft.org.uk

@Arithmaticks