Thread by @adamboxer1

@KateJones_teach Mm good question, one I get asked a lot. A few thoughts, though a full answer would be beyond the time I have just now:

1. Obviously a specified amount of time is a bad idea. It reeks of genericism and bad management.

@KateJones_teach 2. Consider *why* you do your Do Now. If it is to give your students the opportunity to do retrieval practice, then a five question starter is not going to cut the mustard. This is lethal mutation territory. >

@KateJones_teach I have around 600 questions in my bank for GCSE which excludes all procedures like balancing equations. If I wanted to cover each one just twice in a two year course, I would need 240 lessons. I have around 210 lessons. And that's just for twice!

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@KateJones_teach The work students should do on retrieval at home far outweighs what I can do in a five question lesson starter.

@KateJones_teach Another purpose would be to test prerequisite knowledge, see if your class is ready for today's learning. This is great, and should expand in time to take as long as it takes, but it means you aren't doing much spaced retrieval on old topics in class. >

@KateJones_teach Because of both of these, I use the 5 question Do Now not as a retrieval opportunity (though it is a slight one) nor to get information on prerequisite knowledge. I use it to
a. Check that students are doing home retrieval
b. Build my culture of retrieval

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@KateJones_teach Because of this, I do it quickly. It doesn't take me long to figure out which kids are doing the work and which ones aren't, and this adds to what I already know from having reviewed their work on @Carousel_Learn >

@KateJones_teach @Carousel_Learn When people say things to me like "It's taking us forever, students don't know stuff and we have to go over it" I'm like the question isn't

"how long should I spend going over it?"

but

"why haven't I set things up so that they *do* know stuff?"

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@KateJones_teach @Carousel_Learn That's why programs like Carousel (and there are others, too) are so powerful. They outsource the bulk of the labour and change your classroom role from having to slog out crap retrieval with kids who don't know anything to checking and monitoring how well they are doing. >

@KateJones_teach @Carousel_Learn That'll do for now. I've been meaning to write a blog for Carousel for ages on how I build a culture, scripts I use etc. Just got to find time!

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