Thread by @MrAWGordon

THREAD:
Spent the last few days observing fellow teachers and it's really strengthened my position on a number of different areas of classroom practice 👇🏻

✅ Demanding absolute silence and ensuring all eyes are on the teacher for any instruction, explanation or modelling. Holding students to a high standard here.

✅ Ensure the purpose/focus of the lesson is explained explicitly and linked to the SoW. Had some brilliant discussions with staff around a clear title slide, thinking about cognitive load and not having a title, series of objectives, criteria and starter task all together. Why?

✅ The power of established classroom routines for order, attention and management. Ensure pupils know where they stand. I think promoting the negatives of split attention is vital, we can’t expect pupils to listen intently if they are writing from the board. Be crystal clear.

✅ Think about cognitive load on our slides. What actually needs to be on the PowerPoint? Equally, if a visualiser isn’t present, the whiteboard is an aid for explicit modelling and breaking down of key concepts. Don’t hide behind your desk and present a barrier to the students.

✅ I think addressing misconceptions straight away is a must. Don’t allow them to fester at any point in the lesson and damage learning. Ensure no opt out in tasks. Everyone is working to the same enquiry or objective. Use scaffolding not differentiation for the sake of it.

✅ There’s still a danger to plan lessons around a ‘progress check’ of the previous Ofsted framework. Appreciate the nuances of learning and embed lessons and knowledge into the wider scheme. Don’t rush or force mini plenary checks for the sake of it.

✅ How do we know students have understood something? Are we allowing opportunities for them to show us this during the lesson? Are we ensuring deliberate practice opportunities are given frequently in each lesson? Don’t make assumptions.

✅ Are we realistic with time requirements for tasks? What is the purpose of a challenge question? This is something I’m really sceptical about. Is it fed back? Why label it? Why not embed into it questioning or tasks? Pitch the lesson to the top and ensure challenge throughout.

✅ Framing student responses for clarity. If you are bouncing responses from different students for wider discussion, paraphrase and explicitly explain the arguments, debates and key points in classroom discussion. ‘Student A has said this...’ Allow thinking time and pause.

✅ Responding to student responses with ‘that’s a lovely idea’ or ‘interesting viewpoint’ without probing deeper and asking for an explanation limits students from thinking hard and being continually cognitive active. Use ‘why’ and push deeper to explore student ideas.

✅ I think teacher presence is something to explore deeper. A quiet voice doesn’t mean a weak teacher. It’s interesting how staff members use gestures, their body and movements to break down ideas, capture attention and aid engagement. How are we showing enthusiasm here?

✅ Ensuring school routines and rules are followed. Something small like not speaking to a student and asking them to place their bag on the floor can fester and impact the whole community. High expectations, clear standards.

✅ Maintain your position as the person in the charge of the room and don’t allow students to hijack discussions. Yes opportunities will present themselves to explore contextual and relevant real world examples but act as a calm mediator in points of debate between students.

✅ Make links throughout SoW. Each individual lesson shouldn’t be treated in isolation. I love the idea of the curriculum as a box set here and lessons build upon each other and links between knowledge across lessons need to be made explicit and revisited to strengthen schema.

✅ Using more whole class feedback mechanisms, voting systems and choral response to gauge answers and understanding of all students before drilling down and cold calling certain individuals.

✅ When we ask students to discuss questions with their peers or think individually, how many questions do we include. If we have four on the board and the time frame is unrealistic, what impact will this have? Be selective with question selection as well as the core knowledge.

✅ An assumption, why do we ask pupils to write something down and copy extensively? What’s the purpose of this? To get silence? Like to explore more around the purpose of writing notes and how this links to explanation, content and whether it’s done for the sake of it to show.

✅ Build transitions in the lesson. ‘Now that we’ve established this, let’s...’ Show links throughout the lesson and focus on building on knowledge. Zoom in and out. Signpost and frame knowledge and tasks. Model how prior understanding is used to aid the next steps in learning.

✅ Promoting the use of Key Words and academic terminology. Using the whiteboard as a reference points and insisting on student’s repeating comments to use key words. Planning opportunities to introduce students to new terminology and embedding these into classroom vocabulary.

✅ Retrieval isn’t just a standalone task students complete on entry and then we move on. It should be inbuilt and a consistent thread throughout the entire lesson. What is the purpose of a physical exit ticket? Why do we even call it this?