The Friyay Mindset - Issue #5

February 05, 2021

Happy Friday!

With all the uncertainty around exams this year, it's understandable that some students might be losing their focus on how to prepare for the end of year assessments. For the last few weeks we’ve been sharing some descriptors you can use in a departmental setting. The idea of these is that you might be able to use them as a starting point for auditing where a team or department might be up to with regards to supporting vision, effort, systems and so on. This week is the turn of practice.

Here’s Something to Try…

Where are you up to with supporting practice?

Departments who develop students’ awareness of what good revision is – recognising that collating and memorising information is only one part of effective revision – might be doing some of the following activities:

  • Discussing practice as a process that has a series of steps. “First, you need to collect and collate your information, and get it memorised. Next, crucially, you need to use this information to solve difficult problems under timed conditions. This is where micro-exams come in...”

  • Sharing research with students so they are aware of which practice methods have the highest impact on subsequent learning, and modelling those techniques in class – acknowledging these methods may feel more difficult, but that they will have a better impact on learning.

  • Giving access to a wealth of exam questions rather than hoarding them for later use. Cutting up exam papers so that students can move in and out of exam-conditions for short periods of time. Modelling this in class – a fifteen-minute micro-exam, for example.

  • Organising questions by topic, but also by difficulty or by command verb, and ensuring students have had experience of unusually challenging questions.

  • Regular in-class testing of recall to develop an awareness of retrieval practice.

  • Encouraging RAG-rated revisits of topics, questions, or skills so that students are working on the things they find hard as opposed to the things they can comfortably do.

  • Designing drills that help develop a particular skill before trying again under timed conditions. “We’re going to spend fifteen minutes constructing one A grade paragraph and analysing its characteristics. Now try and do another, but in ten minutes. Now try doing three paragraphs under timed conditions.”

  • Keeping up a class awareness of the importance of effective and efficient practice.

Possible practice questions: How often do you challenge yourself? Which techniques do you prefer to use for practice? When was the last time you tested yourself? When was the last time you got someone else to test you? What do you think you should do more of to help you improve? Do you tend to focus/practice the content that you enjoy? In your studies – how do you feel/react when you have made a mistake? Do you access exam papers? Mark schemes as part of your revision? What revision materials do you use/produce? Do you review your work to make it better?

Here’s Something We’ve Been Reading…

Kate Jones has done a fantastic job of taking the the research around practice and making it practical for the classroom. If you've not already seen it, we think it's a good investment. Kate is Head of History at The British School Al Khubairat, a fantastic school in Abu Dhabi, that we've had the pleasure of working with for the last couple of years.

Buy Retrieval Practice: Research & Resources for every classroom by Kate Jones (ISBN: 9781912906581) from Amazon's Book Store. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders.

Here’s our latest offer…

If you are interested in getting your students to be more proactive, we are running an online session on developing metacognition and proactivity for teachers of KS4 and KS5 - 25th February, 3.30 - 4.30pm . Please email us at [email protected] if you'd like to reserve your place and we will send you a zoom invite. We are limiting this to a small number of places to allow some discussion and the opportunity to ask questions.

Have a great weekend,

Steve & Martin