Can I be that little bit better at......understanding why feedbackdoesn't stick?

The feedback goblin

There is no doubting that feedback is one of the most important key components of teaching.  We use it every day, in various forms and in response to various situations.  If used well it can have such an impact on the learning of students.  In fact according to Hattie, if used as effectively as possible, it can have an effect size of d=0.79 which is twice the average impact of other classroom methods.  But that statement itself has one key problem: "if used as effectively as possible".  Unfortunately, as Hattie (2012) states:

"Feedback is among the most common features of successful teaching and learning.  But there is an enigma: while feedback is among the most powerful moderators of learning, its effects are among the most variable" 

So why is the impact of feedback so varied?  Why is it that sometimes when we provide detailed feedback about a piece of work or learning, this piece never improves?  Why is it also the problem that after meticulously providing feedback for students in an effort to move learning forward, this feedback is never acted upon?  Why is it that after providing high quality feedback, students still don't know what to do to make that work better?  There is clearly a chink in the system and identifying it in our own teaching, and then addressing it, can ensure most of our effort is not wasted.  Surely there are simple ways to tweak what we as teachers do to make feedback work better, stick more, empower students and actually make them act upon it.  Well as usual there aren't any miracle cures.  How we give feedback in one lesson may not not suit the next.  How we provide feedback to one student in a class may not be helpful to the person sitting next to them.  The art of providing feedback is a large task to master.  In fact I'm not sure that I will personally ever master it and that gremlin may remain!  However, if we think about what feedback is, what it includes and who is involved in the process, can we get that little bit better at using it?

So what is feedback?

Feedback itself doesn't have one universal definition.  Of the many great attempts to define it there are a few that personally resonate with me:

"the process used by teachers and students to recognise and respond to student learning in order to enhance that learning, during the learning"   Cowie, Bronwen, Bell, Beverley (1999)

"feedback aims to reduce the gap between where the student 'is' and where he or she is meant to be"  Sadler (1989)

The process of is simple at first glance but making as effective as possible requires a lot more thought.  At its most basic is is the simple provision of information about performance, learning or understanding.  At its best it can resemble a map, providing clear references of where we have been, where we are, where we are going and what the immediate landscape may be like as students continue on with their journey.  Its form can come in many ways using both verbal and written methods.  Any provision of feedback by a teacher or even a peer is aimed at helping that individual move the learning process forward.  We use it numerous times in a lesson and it impacts many of our students.  Usually (as stated by both Wiliam and Hattie) it uses a strong goal or learning intention, combined with clear success criteria, as a means to reference feedback to.  This is vital as students need to use this feedback to see what the aim is and how to get there.  When there is clarity in the task or learning taking place, the power of the feedback is improved.  Over the years many educators and teachers across the globe have developed methods and means of providing feedback to students which they find works.  The key though is making the way we use this notion of feedback to have as much impact as possible.  If we can find ways to increase the potential  of feedback, we increase the learning potential of our students.

The problem is though, in both my own teaching and in the teaching of others, I have had so many conversations about how feedback simply isn't sticking with students.  It's not surprising when its's claimed that 70% of the feedback we give is not received by students. In some cases fellow teachers have even questioned whether it is worth the time and effort providing it if it is never read or used.  But I still believe it is.  I don't think that feedback should be written off.  In fact I think it deserves even more attention and investigation.  There has to be reasons or triggers within the process that can be tweaked or improved.  But the process isn't simple itself.  It involves us as educators reflecting on three things:

1. Teacher - how we approach and use feedback
2. The methods - that we choose to use
3. Students - perceptions, views and making it work.

The teacher - our approach and use of feedback

I haven't met many teachers who don't value the importance of feedback.  A few question its effectiveness but I am pretty confident that even they dedicate a lot of their teaching to providing it.  But could it be our approach as teachers that is causing the whole process to lose its effectiveness?  Are our views on its part in learning as clear as they should be?  Do we set it up in a way that means it has maximum impact?  Are we getting students to value the process so that they engage with it?  All of these things are components that we as teachers have control over and can change.  So what could be tweaked (especially in my own teaching)?  Well here's a few areas we as teachers could focus on:

Feedback is not the end of the line - There are times if we are not careful that feedback itself becomes the end product of a piece of work.  It becomes the final thing that we do as teachers when the learning process is over.  How many times over the years have I asked students to submit a piece of work which I then write the only piece of feedback on it.  How many times have student handed in homework and received a comment which then is never subsequently acted upon?  Over time students believe that this is when feedback occurs - when learning is done.  It becomes the end of the line, the final stop and time for students to depart this journey and begin a new one.  With no action its like the students have slept most of the way.  This summative method of providing feedback is the first stumbling point in the whole process.  By providing feedback only at the end of learning, students do not have an opportunity to act on it.  Instead we should be providing feedback that moves the learning forward (Wiliam, 2011).  Feedback that provides a recipe for future action (Wiliam, 2011).  Feedback should be part of the process of learning and not simply the final statement on students work.  Students should receive this during learning and at times when they need it most.  It should form a continued dialogue for which we can see the process of learning evolve.  What this continued and responsive approach also provides is an opportunity for us to plan in deliberate practice which students can engage in to move this learning forward.  All of a sudden this 'end point' feedback feels very redundant and may be the first crack in the system.

When - When to provide feedback is almost as important as how we provide feedback.  Hattie (2012) states that feedback should be "Just in time, just for me, just for where I am in the learning process and just what I need to help me move forward".  As we have just talked about, feedback should be a clear part of the learning process and one that can be used to make subsequent improvements and progress.  Little and often is a sound rule of thumb.  It requires nothing more that gut instinct and knowing your students.  As teachers we should be creating opportunities to feedback during the learning process and this usually occurs when students are stuck.  This timing can ensure that students get back on track and progress forward.  But (and there's always a but), we can get this timely terribly wrong.  If we leave our intervening and provision of feedback too long, students could give up or become off task.  Getting to all of those students effectively and quickly who may be stuck is difficult and one I know I need to reflect on how to manage this better.  But there is an even bigger point to highlight.  Hattie points out that feedback can only build on something: it is of little use when there is no initial learning or surface information.  And so?  Well there are times when I set students off on a task.  They work and the class is silent for a minute or two.  Then what sets in is the 'surely I should be doing something and helping students' default mode.  If I'm not doing something then I mustn't be doing my job. And heaven knows what someone would think if they walked into my lesson and I'm not looking busy.  But jumping in and giving students feedback straight away isn't the key.  As Wiliam points out about the timing of feedback:

"If it is given too early, before students have had a chance to work on a problem, then they will learn less".

So resisting that urge and allowing learning to take place is so vital.  They need to understand what it is they might need feedback on before I actually give it.  Allowing the class to work isn't being lazy, it's giving students the opportunity to learn, and work out what they don't know.  But then again there are also times when we set a task and immediately have a student saying they're stuck.  In this instance the principle is the same.  Instead of providing feedback or giving them the answer, provide further instruction.  They need to learn before feedback is provided.  So with that in mind, is it our timing of feedback that is a reason it doesn't stick?

Marking policy or feedback policy? - This to an extent is probably out of the control of a classroom teacher.  Many schools create a policy and implements it out across the various departments.  Many highlight the expected frequency of marking, the types of comments, methods of feedback provision and much more.  The problem is that we should be shifting from a marking policy to a feedback policy.  Why?  Alex Quigley provides reasons much better than I ever can here.  For many reasons a marking policy can be seen as a strict code of practice that all must follow to ensure that books are uniformed and up to date.  A marking policy can also be seen as simply providing marks which are usually the indicator of an endpoint.  A flick and tick exercise in the worst case.  Instead a 'feedback policy' can help change the mindset of staff and recognise the continuous methods of formative assessment (written or oral) that is given numerous times within a lesson.  It also forces staff to think that providing comments is not the end of the process, but should be part of the process for which students need to interact with.  Tom Sherrington in his post here explains how Saffron Walden County High School have adopted something similar but takes it a step further.  The school has a generic cycle which all staff must follow.  The unique feature though is that each department tailor makes the cycle to fit in to their subject specific context.  What you see in Maths is different from Art but is driven by the same cycle and its principles.  This prompted me to create this cycle for my own purposes.

In its simplicity it all revolves around learning.  The cycle allows me to plan feedback into my lessons as well as use methods/strategies that tick all of the features.  The key areas to focus on in this though is the provision of feedback and feedforward, the time to allow this to be acted upon, and the opportunity to re-assess and ascertain whether the gap has actually been closed.  Could a department or whole school policy be formed on the basis of feedback using a similar cycle?  If that's beyond our influence, can we use something similar to ensure that we create our own personal feedback policy that ensures these key principles are used all of the time?  Simply using it as a basis in our lessons ensures that we as teachers pay more attention to the feedback provision we give.

What we say - Thinking about every single comment that we pass to students as a form of feedback can be quite a challenging task.  There are times when we have the best intentions about providing feedback in a certain way.  Occasionally though, we may say things or pass feedback that actually isn't as helpful as it could of been.  These are the times when what we say probably has the biggest impact as a teacher for how the feedback is received.  So what things should we think about?  The next few points address this:

Faulty interpretations - There are times when providing feedback to a student may not be beneficial at all.  Hattie in his 2007 paper explains that feedback:

"is most powerful when it addresses faulty interpretations, not a total lack of understanding. Under the latter circumstance, it may even be threatening to a student: “If the material studied is unfamiliar or abstruse, providing feedback should have little effect on criterion performance, since there is no way to relate the new information to what is already known” (Kulhavy, 1977, p. 220)."

Hattie explains that students who are really struggling with understanding will not benefit at all when we try to intervene with feedback.  He advises that at a stage like this it is probably more beneficial to provide further instruction, additional explanations or clarity through an example.  Now this shift is easier to do when we are working face to face with students and providing oral feedback.  But on pieces of classwork or even home learning, the comments that we give can have a limited effect.  It also becomes quite a large task to provide clear enough instruction for students in written format.  It's simply easier to tell them face to face.  So when students are really struggling in this setting, instruction and not feedback is vital.  Knowing this, can we tweak the comments we give on these pieces of work, or even arrange time set aside to act on this in person?



Whole class feedback - Now I have been guilty of this a lot.  There are times when after observing the class or speaking to a few individuals we make an address to all students.  Our intentions are honorable as we seek to share a common misconception or error with everyone.  The problem is that most of this feedback misses our students as they are unsure or unaware of who this feedback is actually being directed to.  If nobody knows who it is for then who is actually receiving it?  As time efficient and as well intended as this is, simply providing feedback on such a large scale loses its overall effectiveness and becomes a method that has low impact.  Targeting specific individuals or working with small groups is a more beneficial strategy.  Can we as teachers be more mindful of this in the future?

Giving and receiving - David Carless in 2006 wrote a paper titled 'Differing perceptions in the feedback process'.  I will refer to this a lot more later on but a startling number of facts from his research emerged.  Again it centers around the efficiency of the feedback that we provide.  In his study, he found that 70% of teachers claimed that the feedback that they gave was detailed enough for students to use.  Unfortunately only 45% of students agreed that feedback was of this standard.  This is quite startling and if it is similar across all classrooms, that is a lot of wasted feedback which is simply not hitting home.  So as an educator is there a way that we can make these percentages align?  Well using advice from Carless, Hattie and Wiliam, there are a few things that we can do to improve the impact.  One is to address the complexity of our feedback.  Carless noticed that on a number of occasions, students found the comments of the teacher too confusing, too detailed or too specific to that task.  Dylan Wiliam also confirms this and states that sometimes less is more in terms of what we say/give.  The feedback we are providing should be helpful to the learner in making future improvements.  Unfortunately we sometimes provide feedback that is very accurate and specific, but this simply makes students unsure of what they need to do to progress or work on.

Carless also makes the point that sometimes this feedback is too task specific and is not seen as transferable to future learning.  Instead of addressing specifics that may not be revisited in the future, look at generic skills such as 'how effective students are referencing evidence' as a basis instead.  This is something that can be used repeatedly and more frequently in future tasks.

Finally, interpretation of grading or assessment criteria can also be too specific.  These can sometimes be extremely detailed and long winded.  Students can find the terminology and differences between boundaries confusing.  As teachers are we able to break this down into more manageable chunks which students can access and reference more easily?

Praise or no praise? - I feel that this may cause the most debate.  This is also an area that I had the most discussion with colleagues at school about.  Praise is a tough thing to isolate when giving feedback.  We sometimes do it automatically.  I know that I use "Well done....." or similar praise comments when talking about students work.  But the giving of praise can actually be detrimental when trying to provide feedback.  Praise on its own has very little impact as it provides no constructive instruction to the learning or task.  Mixing praise with other comments can also reduce the impact of feedback.  As Butler (1988) found out, 'feedback through comments alone led to learning gains, whereas marks alone or comments accompanied by marks or giving praise did not.'  It seems that the giving of praise redirects the attention of the student and actually distracts them from the comments that they are receiving.  So what are some of the pitfalls that research suggests we fall into?  Well it is suggested most praise is normally directed towards the student themselves.  It comes in the form of comments like "Good girl" or "Great piece of work from a great student".  This is difficult for the student to reference or take control of.  It also fails to tell them what to do with the work or even acknowledge gaps in learning?  Hattie (2011) identifies that student orientated praise also affects their self perceptions.  Some will want to be seen as a good student, others will want to avoid being a good student because praise is present in the classroom.  Another issue is we usually praise underachieving or struggling students more.  This can ultimately lead to praise being given out when it isn't really deserved, or even worse, that praise being seen as false so future praise has even less impact.

But wait a moment, are you saying we shouldn't give praise?  Not at all, instead we need to turn to the work of Dweck.  As Wiliam (2011) states:

"It is also essential that praise is related to factors within an individual's control, so praising a gifted student for simply being gifted is likely to lead to negative consequences in the long term (Dweck, 2006)"

Hattie (2011) also agrees with this by saying that:

"praise directed to the effort, self-regulation, engagement, or processes relating to the task and its performance (e.g., “You’re really great because you have diligently completed this task by applying this concept”). This latter type of praise can assist in enhancing self-efficacy and thus can be converted by students back into impact on the task, and hence the effects are much greater."

So what does this mean?  In a nutshell, most research says that if we give praise we should be directing it to variables that students have control over.  These are things such as effort or process.  By issuing praise and attributing to how hard a student has worked ("It's really great to see how much effort you have put in") or the way in which they have done it ("A really fantastic way in which you have structured your....") means that the student can do something about it.  They have control over the amount of effort they put into future tasks.  They also have control over the strategy, method or way in which they complete a task.  So can we as teachers change the way we use praise?

Grades or no grades - Again this is a very difficult discussion to have.  Our education system is built up on the notion of grades, however as a form of feedback they have no effect and in some cases make the learning worse.  Giving grades to students has shown to cause no improvements in subsequent work.  To many, as soon as students get a grade, the learning stops (Kohn, 1994).  It is seen as the end of that particular learning process.  We therefore need to think very hard about how we use them.  Dylan Wiliam dedicates a whole section to the use of grades in feedback.  In numerous research studies around the use of feedback with students, grades on their own or combined with comments have no impact on learning.  Even when you combine them with comments I hear you say?  As Wiliam points out:

"Most teachers, therefore, are surprised to learn that the effect of giving both scores and comments was the same as the effect of giving scores alone.  Far from producing the best effects of both kinds of feedback, giving scores alongside the comments completely washed out the beneficial effects of the comments"

Wiliam points out in this situation the teacher might as well just give the grades on their own as the students won't learn anything and it will save teachers a lot of time.  There are three obvious reasons why grades aren't helpful.  First of all they provide no constructive feedback.  Giving a student a grade doesn't indicate what was achieved and what gaps still need closing.  Secondly, a grade focuses students attention away from any comments.  Some students seem hooked on them and ultimately want to know how well they achieved, sacrificing the urge to improve.  Thirdly, grades feed fixed mindset students.  How many times do we give out grades only for the following thing to happen - students compare with their peers.  All of a sudden the opportunity for moving forward is restricted as students look for social status.  As is the suggestion from numerous pieces of research, constructive comments are much more beneficial to learning than grades.

But hang on, we need to give grades so can we make their use better?  Well yes we can.  I will explain methods of using grades as a form of feedback in my next post.  In a sneak preview, if we break down what a grade means and use it as a criteria for success, a grade can be tweaked to be quite a beneficial method fo feedback to share with students.  It just takes some thought.  So can we step away from grades if possible, or even use them more constructively to improve the impact of feedback?

The students - perceptions, views and making it work for them

In both my #TLT13 and ResearchEd presentation, I saved my focus of students to the end.  Simply because what we do and the methods we use are under our control.  How our students react or engage with feedback is not.  We can set up the best systems and use the best methods, but if a student does not do anything with the feedback, the system fails.  In fact during my session a number of people discussed exactly this point.  One delegate explained what on paper was a fantastic method of providing feedback.  Unfortunately the student response was rarely as high as they expected.

As well as consulting the books and research papers, I conducted an in house survey of 100 students from Year 7 through to Year 11.  The questionnaire I used can be found here. I will refer to this at certain times although my findings were almost exactly the same as what researchers were already saying.  What is listed on the image below are the numerous reasons that students said feedback didn't work for them.

So why doesn't feedback stick with students?  As I stated earlier, it is claimed that 70% of feedback is not received by students.  This is a pretty low return rate for something we know has so much impact if used well.  So what is going on in our feedback process?  Why is it that sometimes students just don't engage or do anything with the feedback we give them?

Oral feedback - In my school survey this issue came up a lot.  Students commented quite a lot on how they preferred oral feedback as it was given specifically to them in a face to face situation.  Students were able to ask questions and seek clarity if needed.  However, many students said although they liked this, there were frequent times when the teachers moved on to speak to another student and they instantly forgot what was said to them.  There are other considerations with oral feedback as well.  Carless (2006) indicated that "whilst tutors may view oral comments as feedback, students may not recognise this form of feedback as much as written comments".  Maybe what we tell students doesn't sink in because if it isn't on paper students aren't sure if it is simply a conversation or a suggestion.  They may miss that it was actually feedback designed to help them improve.  So can we design a process where we can use oral feedback to explain, whilst reinforcing it in written form?

Too much feedback on work = work must be bad - This is a common theme with students.  "If there's a lot of writing on my work it must be bad and I therefore don't read it".  Now this is a common mistake.  Sometimes students need to have detailed feedback but it seems that some students ignore feedback if they see a lot of it on a page.  It seems that they buy into a culture that only poor work receives mass feedback where as good work receives minimal (sometimes only a grade).  In Dylan Wiliam's book Embedded Formative Assessment, he talks about a student conversation in which a girl says "When you get a lot of feedback on your work, it means it wasn't very good".  As the explanation went on, the girl indicated that good work receives a high grade and a little comment like "Good job", whereas less successful work is returned to the students with lots of annotations from the teacher.  As Wiliam states, "To this girl, the more "feedback" you got, the worse your work must have been".  As he points out, used in this way "feedback really is punishment".  So is our helpfulness and good intentions the reason why students ignore our comments?

Peer feedback - In Nuthall's book 'The Hidden Lives of Learners', it is claimed that 85% of the feedback that students receive is from their peers, yet most of this is incorrect (also referenced in Visible Learning, Hattie 2009).  At first I didn't believe this and thought the numbers were out, but actually observing this in the classroom, you see that students ask each other for help or direction far more than they ask you.  How many times do you see individuals checking with each other, or asking each other questions or using a partner when they get stuck?  The problem as Nuthall points out though is this information is usually wrong.  In my survey I found some students gave an answer to their peers just to shut them up.  In Nuthall's book he points out how some students have the best intentions but again give wrong information.  The question here then is, if we know this is going on, surely we need to dedicate time to teach students how to give effective feedback in the first place.  Is this a reason that learning doesn't improve?  Feedback outside our control is given, but it's usually wrong?

How good teachers feedback actually is - I've talked about this before but it seems that students perceive the quality of feedback differently than we do.  With our best intentions, in our eyes, the feedback we provide we believe is helpful.  In a study by Carless (2006), he found that tutors perceived their feedback more positively than students did.  There was a huge gap though with students perceptions though.  For example, Carless found that 38.4% of the teachers in his study thought they gave detailed feedback to students, where as only 10.6% thought they did.  Now it is important to note that his study was in FE but do we think the feedback we give is helpful?  As Hattie and Wiliam point out, sometimes our feedback is too detailed, too specific, to confusing and doesn't move the learning forward.  We need to ensure that we use little and often, focusing on key steps to move the learning forward, referencing it as much as possible to the aims and criteria of the learning.  What we give should act like a map or even scaffold the process further.  Do we do this enough though?

Ability and the fear of error - It seems from the study by Carless (2006) that students of a higher ability were more receptive to feedback.  This was because of their greater confidence and better understanding of both the learning, and what good performance entails.  However, with less able students, feedback carries the risk of being discouraging and misunderstood.  As Carless states "An ability to provide pertinent feedback that does not impact negatively on student egos seems to be a useful skill for tutors to develop".  Now this all works on the self belief of a student and ties in very closely with my next point about the work of Carole Dweck.  Whilst more able have the ability to act upon feedback, do the less able have the capability to work with it as effectively?  Do we differentiate what we say to different students in our class or is it a one size fits all model ?  I know I need to think hard about this.

Dweck's work also links to this issue.  Of her research, Dweck found that students could roughly be split into two types: fixed learners or growth learners.  Growth learners thrive on challenge and see mistakes as a process to learn from.  However, fixed mindset learners worry about errors as an attack on their intelligence and ability therefore are less receptive to it.  These fixed learners aren't just the less able students in the class who attribute poor work for not being very bright.  It can also be the highest achievers whose status in the classroom is equally under threat from feedback, failures, errors and mistakes.  As a teacher, do we work to shift these students to become more growth orientated?  We do this through helping them see that "by working, you are getting smarter" (Wiliam, 2011).  With these students we need to give feedback on things under their control and not attributed to intelligence.  These are things such as effort and the process of which students have worked.  But as teachers do we do this?  Do we get these fixed learners to embrace feedback and learn from mistakes?  If not then it's no surprise that these students don't engage with it.

Teachers give too much feedback - As simple as it sounds (and I have mentioned this in various forms throughout) "In giving feedback, less is often more" (Wiliam, 2011).  Again, sometimes our best intentions, the amount of feedback that we give can be too detailed, too confusing and of moderate quality.  If we refine what we say and focus on a few points, the impact of feedback with students improves.

We don't do anything with the feedback - As I stated in the teacher section, a number of students, especially in my own survey, found that feedback was given but there were no opportunities to follow it up.  This completely devalues the effectiveness of it and over time, students become desensitised to it.  Why would they ever read feedback if there was never an opportunity to act on it?  It becomes a redundant task.  Feedback should be part of the learning process and embedded in a culture of the classroom.  If we don't value it then students won't either.

The feedback I get focuses on what I've done wrong, not what I need to do to improve - It's really easy, especially with a marking policy, to purely focus on what students have got wrong rather than what they need to do to make work/learning better.  Wiliam (2011) talks about how this type of feedback is "rather like the scene in the rearview mirror rather than through the windshield".  If we purely address "what was deficient about the work submitted" then we don't provide students with the chance to improve or move the learning forward.  Do the methods we use address both what needs to improve as well as how to improve?

Involve me in the process - At times, feedback to students can be seen as "You've done this work, now here is my judgement".  As teachers we need to use our experience and expertise to rightly help students move forward.  We have the biggest understanding of gaps in knowledge so should be providing guidance.  But a common theme from students was how it sometimes feels a one way process.  Some students in my in house survey indicated that they knew the particular weaknesses in their work.  The spoke about how they would have loved the opportunity to have been asked if there was anything in particular they would like the teacher to focus on when they check it.  Involving them in the process makes them more receptive to it.

Robotic feedback - For simple efficiency we as teachers usually give out generic feedback statements or comments to groups of learners.  If we didn't we'd be marking and providing feedback for days on end.  But students check with each other and find that if other students have the same worded comments, all of a sudden it becomes impersonal and loses its impact.  They worry that if we haven't put in the effort, why should they.  Now we know that is not the case but students see this as robotic feedback.  They see it as cold and not specifically targeted for them.  Now this is a tricky one, unless we increase our work load (which I don't recommend) is there a way we can tweak this so students do feel it is there to help them?

So now what?

Having an understanding of what we do as teachers, and how students perceive feedback, is a really important point.  The aim is not to completely reinvent how we give feedback, but assess why things might not stick and look to tweak/get that little bit better.  In my next post I will look at methods that aim to tackle many of the above points and make the feedback we give actually have an impact.  In the meantime, here are some more literature on feedback and how to make it more effective:

The student questionnaire: https://www.dropbox.com/s/b273k5xzfxsvnzr/Feedback%20Questionnaire.docx

This is being submitted as part of Octobers #blogsync. Read the other entries here: http://blogsync.edutronic.net/

#TLT13 and ResearchEd Making Feedback Stick presentation - David Fawcett http://prezi.com/cy5bd7p2k1gl/making-feedback-stick/

Embedded Formative Assessment - Dylan Wiliam 2011 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Embedded-Formative-Assessment-Dylan-William/dp/193400930X

The Power of Feedback: John Hattie and Helen Timperley http://education.qld.gov.au/staff/development/performance/resources/readings/power-feedback.pdf

Differing perceptions in the feedback process: David Carless http://www.victoria.ac.nz/education/pdf/david-carless.pdf

Visible Learning for Teachers - John Hattie 2012 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Visible-Learning-Teachers-Maximizing-Impact/dp/0415690153

The Hidden Lives of Learners - Graham Nutthal 2007 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hidden-Lives-Learners-Graham-Nuthall/dp/1877398241/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1383154410&sr=1-1&keywords=hidden+lives+of+learners

Edssential - Feedback category http://edssential.co.uk/feedback/

Edssential - Marking category http://edssential.co.uk/marking/

Can I be that little better at……using cognitive science/psychology/neurology to plan learning?

In my last post I talked about how a number of factors throughout an academic year can help inform what you plan, how you plan it, and ultimately why you would plan it that way.  It took into account a lot of experience, trials, research and an underlying understanding of teaching.  In this post, I look at how knowing a little bit about cognitive science, psychology and neurology can affect the way in which you plan learning.  It’s always interested me how something I teach students’ one day can be forgotten only a few days later.  How is it that something I was so confident was memorised (or learnt) by students seems to vanish so quickly.  And that will be the underlying theme running through the posts.  How can we actually (or as best as we can) get the stuff we teach learnt in a way that students will remember it for a long time to come?  Now I may be speaking out of turn, but knowing how to make things 'stick' so that they can be retrieved at a later date, and methods we can plan into our lessons to do this, should at least cross our mind when putting a plan together.  You may not do anything out of the ordinary, but understanding how the brain works (that is if we actually really know how it works?) could help make what we plan to do to, and how we plan to do it, be that little bit more effective.  But first, here’s a summary of three background pieces of information you should be aware of:

It’s all a bit…..chemical-ly?

In a short sweet summary, the brain creates memories or templates through the release of various chemicals in the brain.  The two main ones are glutamate and dopamine.  Dopamine is the chemical that as teachers we want students’ brains to be releasing to ensure what we are teaching actually sticks.  It’s essential for making templates and connecting neurones to have this present in learning.  But how?  Well dopamine is predominantly released in two ways.  One of them is stress.  Although stress releases dopamine, it actually floods the brain and causes future problems.  It releases other chemicals that inhibit learning and actually affect the areas concerned with memory.  A more appropriate way is through reward and anticipation of reward (Curran, 2008).  As a teacher this can be created by the level of challenge and the way we involve students in learning.  I’ll talk about it a little later.  The main message here though is that if we create a highly stressful environment for students, we shouldn’t be surprised if things don’t stay in students memories for long.

The brain has a working memory, and it’s a really important part if we want things to stick.

In essence, when students are learning in your classroom they initially use their working memory to process and filter what it is you are teaching them.  The working memory however has limited space and can get very crowded very quickly.  It can also get filled up with distractions or irrelevant information which is why students sometimes misunderstand or can't remember things.

"Working memory is the workspace in which thought occurs, but the space is limited, and if it gets crowded, we lose track of what we're doing and thinking fails" 

(D.T.Willingham Why Don't Students Like School) 

Now the working memory deals with the ‘here and now’.  It’s what students use when forming an understanding as we teach them or explain something.  Information resides in here as students make meanings or develop understanding.  When the conditions are right, this information can then be transferred to the long term memory.

Working memory is a key player in getting information into our long term memory

Daniel T. Willingham in his book Why Don’t Students Like School? explains that working memory and long term memory work hand in hand with each other.  When the working memory is dealing with new information, it calls upon the long term memory for relevant background information to help make sense of it.  Once the working memory has thought about it, understood it and made meaning of it, there is a good chance that this information is committed to the long term memory.  This is a very basic analogy and isn’t as simple as it sounds.  If it were, students’ would remember a lot more than they already do.  But they key message here is that information needs to be attended to in the working memory otherwise there is little chance of a lasting memory ever happening. 

So how do we do this?

1 - The working memory is limited in space though so we need to consider this in our planning.

It is therefore really important in planning to ensure that when an element of learning is taking place, we don't over complicate it or create unnecessary distractions.  Ensuring that the attention of the student is purely on the learning is something that should be considered when planning.  Will the example you give or the task you design actually alter the students focus elsewhere and away from the topic in hand?  Nuthall in his book discusses how students’ recollection of information can be affected by the type of activity we design.  He states “sometimes memory for the task itself is longer lasting than the content the task was designed to teach”.  Willingham also gives a great example in his book where a teacher creates a task that resulted in students creating PowerPoint presentations.  Sounds normal yes?  The point he raises though is many students focused on the quality of the PowerPoint (the animations, fonts, pictures) and focused very little on the content they were learning.  Obviously the level of learning and what could be remembered about the topic at a later date wasn't very high.  That isn't to say though that we give up using variety and being creative in lessons (because this is an important part of remembering which I will talk about later), but the suggestion is to work on the content first, refine it, learn it and plan it before putting it into a new context (a poster, presentation, leaflet).  Therefore the learning in lessons, and time to create drafts, will need time carefully planned into it and come prior to starting such activities.  Getting students to think about, analyse and design what goes into a presentation before they hit the computers is a consideration that should be taken on board.

2 - Knowing things makes it easier to learn new things

Ok that again is a bit simplistic but the constant theme coming through Nuthall, Willingham and the work of Bjork is that having prior knowledge helps understand new knowledge much easier (although Nuthall does go on to say that if students of different abilities have the same learning experience they will learn just as much as each other).  It is though very difficult to know how much prior knowledge each individual has.  In my last post I talked about the importance of knowing the prior attainment of your group and using this to inform future planning.  But this is normally in the form of data and doesn’t tell you what they really know.  There is the possibility of planning in pre-tests or other introductory activities but maybe we could make the initial planning that little bit simpler.  One consideration is the careful planning of what is taught first and the sequences/pathways that follow.  The tip is to build upon prior knowledge so logically ordering what is taught first so it snowballs and draws upon old information can easily be mapped out before starting a unit.  Building upon prior knowledge and learnt information makes learning new topics easier.  This is down to the fact that new knowledge retrieves and builds upon the older information to form new connections.  The order doesn't have to be linear though and by using hooks, larger questions or starting with a broader concept, we can start with a wider idea which we can begin to learn about.  So is there a logical order in your subject?  Is there something that is vital to know first?  

3 - We can make using the working memory more efficient

This is more of a rationale rather than a tip.  As my earlier quote from Willingham explains, if there is too much going on in the working memory, students can lose sight of what is going on and the process fails.  Although there are no known ways to improve working memory, there is advice to using it more efficiently.  If working memory has a limited space, crowding it with numerous pieces of information can make the learning more difficult and less likely to be remembered (as I touched upon above).  A lot of new information we learn is done so by combining or linking to existing understanding or background knowledge.  By making what you teach more likely to be stored in the long term memory, it is easier to retrieve it again in future when you need it and is more space efficient (for the working memory) when doing so.  It therefore makes learning new information more achievable, especially when you need already learnt information (background knowledge) to do so.  So planning to commit as much information as possible through these suggestions can make the learning of new information easier.  Makes sense to me.

4 - It will only stick if you think about it

Willingham in his book talks about the importance of getting students to think about the knowledge they are paying attention to.  He explains that “your memory is not a product of what you want to remember or what you try to remember; it's a product of what you think about”.  It is therefore important we take his tip and “review each lesson plan in terms of what the student is likely to think about”.  If we are to help commit what we are teaching to students’ memory to be recalled later, we need to ensure the level of thinking is high throughout.  Unfortunately, many a lesson in my early career rarely had students thinking hard about anything at all.  Should I have been surprised when test scores weren't great?  So the step forward (in my case using SOLO taxonomy) is to constantly check planning before hand to evaluate the quality and depth of thinking that progresses through the lesson.  Am I hitting the surface and background information at the right times to build up background knowledge, and then working with it at a higher level later on to compare, evaluate, analyse and predict?  Willingham also talks about the fact that it's not just the level of thinking taking place, but the making meaning of what is being thought about.  Are the activities we have planned to use actually the most effective to help them understand what the information means?  This involves clever task design to ensure this happens.  The use of concept maps, challenge, well thought out questions and carefully planned tasks need to become part and parcel of what I do.  So, if the lesson I have planned doesn't make students think, or even understand the meaning of what is being taught, then it's back to the drawing board!   

5 – Pitching it right

As I said earlier on, the challenge that students are faced with when learning can help improve the likelihood of longer lasting memories to be formed.  Willingham talks about solving problems (in a wider sense) and engaging students in cognitive work.  If students aren't actually thinking and making meaning then it won’t be learnt.  He also warns that “without some attention, a lesson plan can become a long string of teacher explanations, with little opportunity for students to solve problems”.  So reviewing how challenging the lesson will be is again a really important point.  Have you pitched the work right?  Is there too little opportunity for students’ to think and be challenged? 

And then there's the neurology side (as highlighted by A. Curran). If I want to get the brain cells firing I also need to go back to the fact that the level of challenge needs to be pitched adequately in order to create an emotional response (emotion improves what is remembered).  In a very (and I mean very) basic summary, to learn new things we need chemical reactions involving the release of dopamine to be present.  Dopamine is normally released when a reward is present.  The emotion and reward of learning, and resultant dopamine release, is essential to commit knowledge to the long term memory.  It's the chemical which binds the neurones together to create memory so is essential I help (if I can) to get them firing and dopamine released.  Pitching a task too easy creates no real reward.  Why would it?  There simply isn't a reason for that feel good feeling to happen.  On the flip side, creating a task so difficult and without clear steps to achieving it students feel helpless and see it is not achievable is also not conducive (but don't make the task easier, make the thinking around it easier).  Again, knowing your group and planning to push individuals to create new meanings is another sure fire way to commit information to the long term memory.  Planning to get that dopamine release isn't going to be easy, but pitching challenge is surely the way forward.

6 – Three is the magic number

In his research that focused on how students actually learned in classrooms, Nuthall found that students who were exposed to a new concept on three different occasions and in a variety of experiences, stored the information in their memories for longer.  He states that:

“We discovered that a student needed to encounter, on at least three different occasions, the complete set of the information that she or he needed to understand a concept.  If the information was incomplete, or not experienced on three different occasions, the student did not learn the concept.”

Now using this principle, Nuthall was able to successfully predict what students would learn/remember with an accuracy of 80-85%.  An important warning though is that simple repetition will not be sufficient.  The three different experiences must come in a variety of mediums and ways.  Variety is therefore the key.  He also stresses that one great explanation is not enough.  So why three times?  Well he explains that new concepts aren’t transferred from the working memory into the long term memory until enough information has been accumulated to warrant it to make the move.  Students need to have sufficient understanding, knowledge of meaning and be able to link it to prior knowledge.  So in planning out a topic, will students really encounter a concept a minimum of three times each in their own varied way?  If not, this may also be a reason for things not sticking.

7 – If you don’t use it you lose it

This is a saying that I have heard for many years but is not quite right.  It's true that things become harder to remember as Willingham states when he says "we forget much (but not all) of what we have learned, and the forgetting is rapid".  Bjork (who I will introduce in a moment) along with Curran explain that it’s not a case that previously well learnt information we haven’t thought about is simply removed from memory.  They say it is not as simple as that.  Obviously our long term memory doesn't have an infinite capacity (do we really even know how much it has?), but one thing is for sure, if we don’t get students to revisit things, the connections or ‘route’ to them becomes weaker and more difficult.  Bjork talks about the fact that these things simply become harder to retrieve.  In some of the work by Bjork, subjects struggled to remember information they had learned a long time ago.  When presented with possible answers or cues, they suddenly remembered.  It wasn’t that the information was lost.  It was just harder to find or retrieve and the prompts help with the process.  So how can we ensure that we can help students learn something so that it is accessible a long way down the line (like during the exams period?).  As point 8 states, ione consideration could be ‘Practice, practice, practice’.

Interlude – Intro to Bjork

I thought it might be beneficial to stop for a moment and explain a little bit about Robert Bjork.  Some of what I will now talk about use slightly different terminology and I wouldn’t want to confuse examples.  One of the things that has got me most excited is the work of Robert Bjork, the Cognitive Psychologist from UCLA.  He poses some VERY clear considerations of how to tweak planning to improve long term memory.  Much of his work is not just applicable to the planning of lessons, but is also very important to long term planning of schemes, units or whole courses.

Bjork's work ties in with Willingham's research in a number of places.  Bjork talks a lot about long term memory and the fact that what goes in there is dependent on two indices: its storage strength (SS) or its retrieval strength (RS).  He talks very clearly about the importance of creating an environment where any new information is done so in a way that SS and RS is high.  Designing lessons where both (or even one of them) are low, could make remembering this information very difficult.  So what are these two elements and how to they link with planning?
Storage strength - 'How well learned something is'.  It makes perfect sense that learning something in depth increases the chance that it will be stored in the long term memory.  The better it is learnt the greater the storage strength.  If it has high storage strength, it is pretty likely that it will be stored in the long term memory ready to be 'retrieved' at a later date.

Retrieval strength - 'How accessible (or retrievable) something is'.  In very simple terms, retrieval strength works a little like this: The better you learn something, the higher the storage strength, the higher the retrieval strength.  Retrieval strength is your ability to recall, or retrieve, information at a later date.  Now retrieval strength decreases over time which is why a few months or years down the line we find it difficult to remember something even though it is on the tip of your tongue.  If something only has a low storage strength it will decrease quicker than something which you have learned well and ultimately has a high storage strength.  Obvious to say then that if you want to remember something a long way down the road, you need to ensure what you learn is high in both SS and RS.

But what implications will this have on my teaching?  How can I plan to have both of these?  Well Bjork identified a number of conditions which over time increase the chances of high SS and RS - which in turn leads to information being retained for much longer.  Now Bjork warns that these principles “slow down the apparent learning, but under most circumstances help long term retention, and help transfer of knowledge, from what you learnt to new situations”.  He dubbed these conditions desirable difficulties.  These conditions are purposely difficult and challenging to the students and assist in long term learning.  Whether you see 'rapid and sustained progress' in 25 minutes is unlikely.  But short term effects are not the goal here (and neither is it mine).  So how does Bjork’s work tie in with the others?  Let’s get back to the tips.

8 – Spacing it out (carefully mapping out practice, practice, practice).

Willingham and Bjork both have similarities in a lot of their work.  Willingham talks about the need revisit work and states “It is virtually impossible to become proficient at a mental task without extended practice”.  It is important then that things we want to stay retrievable in the long term memory need to be engrained in it adequately.  Practicing and repeated learning of a task can help make that information stick.  It also makes it more accessible in the long term memory and this helps new learning and the function of the working memory more efficient.  We therefore need to ensure that repeated practice is planned out throughout the year to ensure that a topic is revisited.  A way to do this (as agreed by both Willingham and Bjork) is space out learning and times when we come back to a topic.  As Bjork explains:

“It is common sense that when we want to learn information, we study that information multiple times. The schedules by which we space repetitions can make a huge difference, however, in how well we learn and retain information we study. The spacing effect is the finding that information that is presented repeatedly over spaced intervals is learned much better than information that is repeated without intervals (i.e., massed presentation).'”

In numerous studies in this field, Bjork and other researchers have found that the revisiting a topic multiple times over an extended period has a huge impact on the long term learning.  Obvious hey? But do we always plan to do this?  Bjork explains that by spacing out the intervals between revisiting a topic, we are encouraging the retrieval strength to decrease (The new theory of disuse - Bjork & Bjork 1992).  He also promotes that we plan to have the duration between intervals increases each time as well.  But why do this?  Research showed that information with a high storage strength, which was allowed to lower in retrieval strength over time, actually improves the subsequent learning of it when revisited.  The brain stores this information much better the second, third, forth time round and improves the retrieval strength as it goes.  The act of trying to remember what we almost forget is a good thing for memory.  Therefore planning to revisit topics and working out an optimal gap between revisiting it (increasing in length each time so it is almost forgotten) can have a very high effect on the long term learning of it.  From a planning perspective, it is therefore vital that topics are mapped out through units and schemes, with opportunities for them to be revisited or recapped.  Although this may seem time consuming to plan, or logistically a bit of a headache, the long term benefits can be far greater than simply blocking topics together (massing practice which ultimately results in very poor retention and retrieval strength) which is something we, and a lot of other schools, currently do.

9 – Interleaving

Now if I spaced and revisited topics from a course using the previous idea, you might quickly realise that you would run out of available time in your curriculum.  A way to ensure that spacing is done more efficiently is to weave numerous topics together throughout the year.  An example of this may be linking a topic I cover at the start of the year, say gender in sport, with a topic I teach a few months later, sponsorship in sport.  This process is called interleaving and requires the learner to constantly reload information from the long term memory.  A more extreme version of this may be to teach gender in sport, then age in sport, then diet in sport and so on, until finally returning to recover gender in sport, age in sport......etc.  As you can see, this could be logistically impossible with the time constraints of a 2 year GCSE course.  At a first time of trying this very different approach it could also be perplexing for students.  Instead, using the principle of spacing, combined with my initial example of interleaving, can result in a very exciting programme of study.  It steps away from the blocking of topics (massing practice) and allows for retrieval and storage strength to be increased.  It also allows juxtaposition of various topics and deepens understanding.  Planning out the course more effectively using this principle can be easily done.  The use of SOLO taxonomy in my personal lesson design also assists the achieving of this.  It does require careful mapping out, but reworking schemes this way ensures SS and RS increase.  A winner for long term learning.

10 – The testing effect

“Taking a test often does more than assess knowledge; tests can also provide opportunities for learning. When information is successfully retrieved from memory, its representation in memory is changed such that it becomes more recallable in the future and this improvement is often greater than the benefit resulting from additional study.”

Being asked to retrieve information alters your memory so information becomes more re-callable in the future.  Bjork identified testing as a method that can help make this happen.  This isn't testing purely for assessment though, although it can serve both purposes if needed.  The process of testing allows the connections towards that piece of information to strengthen, and therefore be easier to access than other methods.  It can be done in a number of ways.  Here are three which I will be planning to use over the year:

If we start in a logical order, Bjork found that testing prior to a topic or unit can has an improved resulting effect to long term learning.  This is an easy enough task to put in place and can be planned for at the start of any new topic.  “Although pretest performance is poor (because students have not been exposed to the relevant information prior to testing), pretests appear to be beneficial for subsequent learning (e.g., Kornell, Hays, & R. A. Bjork, 2009).”  It in itself provides cues for the then to be learnt information which makes it more learnable.

Using testing within lessons is also an effective method to increase long term learning.  As stated earlier, the process forces the brain to retrieve information from long term memory and can make future retrieval quicker.  It's effect can be very powerful (in one study students remembered 61% of information from repeated testing compared to 40% from repeated study - Henry L. Roediger, III, and Jeffrey D. Karpicke).  Adding tests as a starter, mid lesson activity or even plenary are very easy to organise and implement.  But what type of tests are best?  Although there are no sure fire answers, Bjork found the use of multiple choice tests to have a higher effect.  As Bjork explains “Little and E. L. Bjork (2010) argue that when students do not know the answer to a multiple-choice question, they may try to retrieve information pertaining to why the other answers are incorrect in order to reject them and choose the correct answer. It is this type of processing leads to the spontaneous recall of information pertaining to those incorrect alternatives, thus leading the multiple-choice test to serve as a learning event for both the tested and untested information.”  Therefore the use of multiple choice and working out the various options, helps improve the retrieval strength and subsequent long term retention.

Finally, Bjork identified that using tests and quizzes with students and their peers is a much better way of ingraining information to the long term memory than simply hitting the books.  I personally have already found this an outstanding revision tool as explained in an earlier post here.  Using testing as a desirable difficulty in the revision season can again increase retrieval strength.

11 - Final consideration: Mnemonics and other ‘tricks’ can help

Something we covered with students in our Learning to Learn course where simple memory tricks to help students remember information.  Now if there is information to be learnt, which requires little thought or seem meaningless together, a way to remember them is to use mnemonics or acronyms.  Because these pieces of information need to simply ‘be known’ in order to progress onto future learning, the use of these strategies can be very helpful in these instances.  So as Willingham explains, we shouldn’t be afraid to use them when suitable.  The same can be said for approaches like chunking.  If you don’t know what it is, it’s a method by memorising information by grouping things by association.  An example might be by remembering all of the fruit, then the stationary, and then the sports equipment from a long list of words.  The working memory works better when it isn’t overloaded.  By chunking numerous topics, this counts as one piece of information in the working memory, not several individual pieces.  It therefore makes for an effective, and efficient, quick little method to share in class.

If we believe what these principles say, by focusing on the way we plan in a slightly different way, we could be improving the chances that students learn information for the long run.  Hopefully these methods allow students retention rates to improve, rather then being forgotten only a few days, weeks or months later.

Links and further reading:

The Hidden Lives of Learners - Graham Nuthall

Why Don't Students Like School - Daniel T. Willingham

The Little Book of Big Stuff About the Brain - Andrew Curran

Applying Cognitive Psychology to Enhance Educational Practice - Robert Bjork

Deliberately Difficult - Why It's better to make learning harder - David Didau

Everything you thought you knew about learning is wrong - Garth Sundem

Effective Exam Revision - 'Drill Baby Drill!' - Alex Quigley

Why is it that students seem to understand but then never remember? - Kris Boulton

Ooh, and I've just found this:
http://www.learningspy.co.uk/training/wellington-education-festival/ - David Didau presentation

Can I be that little bit better.....at planning lessons?

In my previous post I highlighted the point that after a number of years of rambling through new ideas, theories and strategies, it was time to actually sit down and reflect on how to improve the learning that takes place in my lessons.  It is time to cull the ineffective practice and gimmicks, in substitution for a deliberately chosen approach that reflects my current thinking.  It is time to think about designing lessons that get the best out of my students.  It is time to come up with a plan.....about planning.

As a PE teacher traditionally trained to deliver practical lessons, a very fundamental and ridiculously basic approach to planning a lesson could look something like this:

- Key question/Driving question/Hook into the lesson content/Learning intentions

Students get changed

- Warm up linked to the focus of the lesson content

- Teach the skill/tactic/content

- Deliberate practice of that skill

Planned opportunities throughout the practice to give and receive feedback

Teacher intervention, feedback and evaluation

- Teacher whole class feedback and error correction

- Opportunity to practice the skill/tactic/content and work on correcting errors

Planned opportunities throughout the practice to give and receive feedback

Teacher intervention, feedback and evaluation

- Apply the skill/tactic/content to a wider context (challenging, higher order task - a conditioned game for example)

Planned opportunities throughout the practice to give and receive feedback

Teacher intervention, feedback and evaluation

- Teacher whole class feedback (with student evaluation and feedback)

- Link to future learning (what is coming next and where today's lesson fits into the bigger scheme of things)

Now in addition to this, you would obviously plan the type of tasks you do to highlight or embed the learning.  You would plan how your groups would work, opportunities for responsibility, resources, questions and so on.  And after years of teaching practical lessons, I'd probably say that I am confident in delivering a a half decent one.  But here's the problem.  No one ever taught me how to teach theory lessons.  Not in any depth anyway.  We spent a small time at University touching the surface of the topic, but never actually spending time understanding the difference (mainly due to the fact we teach far more practical than theory).  

Many an early year I used my 30 slide powerpoint and chalked and talked my way through theory lessons.  Obviously students became restless, learning wasn't great and I never knew what was wrong.  I then went the complete opposite and chucked in numerous gimmicks and activities with fireworks, pyrotechnics and smoke machines.  Students were up and about, sorting cards, filling in sheets, speed dating, learning on their own......but were they?  Were they actually learning and remembering what I taught?  Again, something wasn't working but at last I had pretty much worked out what.  I'd realised that I had been at each end of the spectrum.  Neither approach I had used allowed me to get the content to be learnt in any real depth.  There was no real strategies to embed and ingrain the content to memory.  No meaningful recall.  Instead I was rambling my way through lessons full of shallow learning.  My planning and understanding of how to plan a great lesson was only just coming together.  

Since then a number of interesting and key points have become common practice.  They don't always produce great theory lessons.  Sometimes they bomb right in front of my eyes.  Putting all of these things in one lesson might not necessarily work or might over complicate things.  But what follows are a number of considerations and points that will form part of my thinking for the current year.  I won't use all of them all of the time, but having an understanding and an eye on them should make what I do that little bit more effective.

1 - Know your subject and content

This goes without question.  It is essential that we know the content and topics we are delivering.  As teachers we are the primary source of information for students and having a good grasp on what we are teaching is vital.  Many a lesson I have to re-read or recap what it is I will be teaching.  I aim to know enough that I can answer as many questions as possible, and have enough depth in my understanding that I can stretch theirs.  With a concrete subject knowledge it is then important to plan what to do with it.  As Hattie talks about in Visible Learning for Teachers, being able to determine what elements of a topic need to be concentrated on more, what sequence would be best to teach it, what context is most appropriate for the material and so on is very important.  Seeing things through the eyes of your class (which differ immensely from group to group) is a real skill and needs that planning time to ensure you deliver what they need to know the best way for them.  As a teacher, doing my homework and background preparation ensures I can plan effectively.

2 - Where possible, plan collaboratively

"Planning can be done in many ways, but the most powerful is when teachers work together to develop plans, develop common understandings of what is worth teaching, collaborate on understanding their beliefs of challenge and progress, and work together to evaluate the impact of their planning on student outcomes."

Hattie 2012

This isn't always possible with the endless paper tasks and additional responsibilities we all have.  It is though an important factor to consider and one which we should all make time for.  Using colleagues to bounce ideas off of can be an excellent way of designing lessons.  There have been numerous times when I actively seek out colleagues and run ideas past them.  I know many departments set time aside to collaboratively plan larger schemes of work, but having a critical buddy to work with on individual lessons can be a great resource.  

"The co-planning of lessons is the task that has one of the highest likelihoods of making a marked positive difference on student learning."

Hattie 2012

Find time, allocate it somewhere on your timetable and aim to meet up to plan lessons.  Ron Berger in his book 'An Ethic of Excellence' talks frequently about how his fellow teachers meet regularly and critique each others plans.  Jeff Robin from High Tech High always runs project tuning sessions within his faculty.  This scrutiny of ideas can only improve the quality of the lesson you are planning.

3 - Keep it simple

"Make things as simple as possible, but no simpler"

Albert Einstein 

I can't stress this enough.  In my own experience, if I can see that what I am planning seems a lot, it usually is.  Instead of lots of little tasks and activities, using a few with dedicated time committed to them allows my students the opportunity they need to spend time really learning the content.  Busy doesn't always mean they are learning. As Daniel T. Willingham talks about in Why Don't Students Like School, "without some attention, a lesson plan can become a long string of teacher explanations, with little opportunities for students to solve problems".  This has happened to me in my early stage where over complicating what we did in a lesson restricted the time to meaningfully engage in actual learning.  It also makes it difficult for students to remember things long term if there is not enough time spent thinking and making meaning about information. 

Over the years I have seen that the learning I plan in my lessons takes time if students are to grasp it.  As Willingham states, "thinking is slow, effortful, and uncertain' so it's up to me to ensure there is time planned for this to happen.  Time to discuss, question, answer and reflect are better spent than simple tasks that rarely stretch the mind.  You'd be surprised at how quickly time can fly when students get fully involved in their learning.  Identify what is important.  What will make students think?  What will help students get a firm grasp of the content knowledge you are sharing?  Focus on that and ditch the rest.

4 - Learning objectives or not?

This will be the discussion of my next post where I aim to clarify poor use of them and how to have them make more of an impact in lessons.  Whether or not you believe in LO's, or even have a choice in using them, as Wiliam and Hattie talk about, lessons and learning need an aim/outcome/goal (as long as it doesn't spoil the journey - D.Wiliam).  Before planning the content of my lesson it's important to identify what the aim or intention is.  Students also need to know this so they understand what they have learnt, where they are and what they need to do next.  Understandably, hand in hand with LO's comes clear and transparent success criteria.  Planning to incorporate these in lessons is key.  Pull out these objectives or intentions from the curriculum, schemes of work or syllabus.  But don't let this restrict you.  Be brave enough to go beyond what is prescribed but be wary of time limitations.

5 - Learning first, then activities

"It is relatively easy to think up cool stuff for students to do in classrooms, but the problem with such activity based approach is that too often, it is not clear what the students are going to learn"

D.Wiliam 2011

Always plan what you want students to learn first.  Many a naive day as an early teacher I spent hours making and resourcing lessons with numerous activities.  Many of these rarely got beyond the surface level of what I was teaching and hardly got them thinking at all.  Cutting, sticking, putting in envelopes.....cripes!  Tessa Matthews tweeted a comment out a while back stating:

"Just remember the golden rule: If a resource takes longer to make than to deliver, don't do it!"  

Only because of mistakes in the past I now tend to agree.  Planning fewer and stronger activities with less resources and more thinking are far more purposeful.  If there is one thing I've learnt, it is that learning something takes time.  It can also be slow and we must allocate this time to students to focus on what is important.  If we consider what cognitive scientists say as well, sometimes these activities actually divert attention from the real learning and causes it not to be learnt at all.  I also feel that constructing less resourced activities means that I create more time to at home to mark students books, think about my opportunities for feedback, begin to identify the key questions I may ask in lessons and so on.  Personally this for me has been a much more effective use of my time and impacts the learning in my classroom more than anything else.  Think of simpler yet stronger questions.  Design activities that challenge and promote thinking.  Use tasks that help understand meaning as well analyse, evaluate, hypothesise and predict.  Time for me to be more effective and efficient.

6 - Looping the learning

This has been my thought for a long time from teaching practical lessons.  Cycles or loops play a very prevalent part in my planning.   Every time I teach a skill, it always loops back round and then spirals into the next lesson.  In fact it's the bread and butter of what PE teachers (in my experience) do.  It allows knowledge to be learnt, embedded, assessed and then applied to the next topic.  Bringing the learning full circle at the end of a lesson and seeing what has been achieved and what is still left to learn also informs future planning.  This was reinforced when I first dabbled with the Accelerated Learning Cycle in theory lessons (TEEP is an adapted version of this).  The cycle ensures that learning is visited, worked on, revisited, fed back upon, revisited.....  Since then the foundations of my planning has been focused on moving away from a linear pathway to a singular goal, instead looping the learning and then spiraling this into new topics.  Going full circle allows me to return to the aim of the lesson and ascertain whether it has been learnt.  If it hasn't, I can work through a cycle on that particular aspect and then return to assess understanding again.

7 - SOLO (Oh no!) and other structures

As a planning tool in itself, SOLO has been revolutionary in my teaching.  Love it or hate it, using it as made what I teach, the order or sequence I teach it in, much clearer.  It's fundamental ideology of teaching an idea, the facts, relating them and then extending or manipulating the content makes perfect sense to me.  As Hattie states in Visible Learning:

"Teachers need to move from the single idea to multiple ideas, and to relate and then extend those ideas such that learners construct, and reconstruct, knowledge and ideas.  It is not the knowledge or ideas, but the learner's construction of this knowledge and ideas that is critical"

SOLO has allowed me in terms of planning to structure what it is I intend to teach. Our subject (GCSE PE) requires knowing and understanding lots of individual pieces of information.  For the particular topic we're focusing on, it helps me break down what are the core components that need to be taught.  It allows me to build up knowledge very clearly which can then be built upon with new knowledge or meaning.  Once this knowledge is learnt it can then be linked to other concepts with their relationships explored.  We can then go even higher up the taxonomy and think about transferring this knowledge to new situations or asking abstract questions.  By it's nature it goes from shallow to deep learning.  SOLO doesn't have to be shared with students explicitly.  If its only use is to merely inform your planning it helps ensure the depth of content can be clearly and visibly covered.  SOLO isn't the only way of planning lessons though.  In fact I would strongly step away from prescribing a method.  There are no miracle cures or magic potions!  Find what is effective and works best for you and your students.

* Now you may have noticed in my previous point that I intend to loop the learning more.  Make my lessons more of a cycle and then link through into the next topic.  I aim to move away from a linear structure with a simple start and finish point.  But hold on, SOLO by its image looks very linear.  Well it is if you use it like that.  But after using it for a while I've become confident in exploring a topic through the taxonomy.  This topic itself becomes a multi-structural component of a larger unit.  The individual topic therefore loops and spirals into a broader area of study and allows students to create multiple links.

8 - Know your group

One of the most important things to consider when planning is knowing your group.  Using data and building upon prior achievement is essential.  Checking books, marking homework, formatively and summatively assessing students allows you to build up a picture of how secure students content knowledge is.  Hattie rates prior achievement as having a d=0.67 effect size and is 'is a powerful predictor of the outcome of lessons'.  It is therefore important to consult this before planning your next sequence of lessons.  What do students already know?  What still needs covering?  How best might I teach the content to this particular group?  All questions along these lines need you to have a finger on the pulse as it were.  From here you can then adequately pitch lessons and challenge students.

Understanding and knowing your students is also important.  Although I teach PE and the stereotype is that they are all sports playing students who love all activities, never once have I ever had two classes the same.  One student may be interested in Football with a different understanding of sport to a student who is interested in Gymnastics.  I therefore need to consider this in my planning, especially when thinking about how to explain an idea or put something into context.  As Willingham talks about in his book, one example for one student may not help another learn the same piece of information.  Knowing my students helps me plan to ensure this doesn't happen.  Variety is the key.

9 - Getting challenge right!

Planning and pitching the level of challenge of your lessons can be a difficult task.  It is important (as highlighted in my last point) that knowing your group and where they are will help this.  What you plan to do needs to be related to prior learning - which is why formative and summative assessment, and what you do with it, is so important.  For a while I thought I'd planned challenging lessons for all.  But that was the problem.  I rarely differentiated on an individual level and predominantly set the same task for all.  Challenge should apply to the learning, not merely the task.  And the learning needs to challenge all students.  Now this is a real skill and one that I have been honing for a while.

So when planning challenge this year, I will pay particular attention to the level of it in my lessons.  It's important the I pitch it right.  Too easy and there is no reward.  Feedback has less effect and becomes low value.  Too hard and it can provide a feeling that achieving this goal is unobtainable.  As Harry Webb talked about in a recent post, it needs to be not too hot and not too cold (love the Goldilocks analogy to ZPD).  The only way I will know if the levels are correct is if I go back and check prior attainment and know my group before planning my lesson.

So why pay more attention to challenge this year more than before?  Well because of the various factors that it links to.  Memory and feedback being two in particular.  If we are to get the glutamate and dopamine present whilst learning and thus commit what we are learning to memory, we need to ensure that what work we set is challenging (so there is potential for a reward - achieving the goal) and actually achievable (to release the reward - chemicals).  If work is too easy and not challenging, these chemicals aren't released as highly and won't be committed to the long term memory (the aim of learning).  Similarly, as stated above, the effect of feedback improves with the higher level of challenge.

10 - Memory, Curran, Willingham and Bjork

Now I talk more about memory in my next post as there is a lot to cover.  It's an area that I've been interested in for a number of years and one which I think can pose a number of considerations for planning.  There are a number of principles put forward by numerous cognitive scientists, psychologists and neurologists.  These principles talk about how we believe the brain and memory works, and many suggestions have been put forward to how these principles can improve long term memory and learning.  Even if you approach it with a sceptical eye, some of the considerations require only a small tweak to your planning, but the effects could improve how well a students learns and remembers what you teach them.

11 - Backward design

This is a point mentioned in Visible Learning for Teachers and is something we have used a lot in the past.  The principle is to decide on the end point or goal for a unit, topic, scheme or even lesson.  This is the main important information that you wish students to learn.  The procedure than involves working backwards and build up a route to the final intention.  The process is excellent as it allows you to map out the fundamental pieces of information that is required, and then built upon, in order to reach the final goal.  The process also allows you to identify the main concepts that need to be covered, as well as concepts that could be omitted, allowing you more time to cover the important information in depth.  From the point of a cognitive scientist, stripping back what you teach and spending more time reinforcing, thinking and making meaning of the important concepts is a more effective way to learn the content.  The process of working backwards and identifying the outcomes and goals at the start also means you spend the majority of your time planning the learning.  Only after this is done and fleshed out, do you then look at activities.

12 - Build in time for feedback and even more time to act upon it - high effect size so plan it

This is a topic that I will cover in depth at a later date in more detail.  Apologies for the buzz word, but if we are to 'close the gap' between where learners are and where they need to be, they need time to act upon any high quality feedback that they are given.  At times though it can feel like books can be meticulously marked, only for the comments and subsequent improvements to lay idle in students books.  If I am honest, in the past a large number of comments I have written have never been acted upon.  But why would it if I don't build time in lessons to act upon feedback?  And that is the big question.  When can we find the time.  With the mounting pressures of some subjects to get through endless content and fit it into a short time frame, finding that time to dedicate time to improving work can be tough.  But I really urge you to do so.  In my later post I will look at methods you could use to make things stick, but in terms of planning there are some ideas and considerations you could look to implement.  

A very simple way is marking books regularly, and upon returning them, setting aside the starter/bell work time, or even half of the lesson to allow students to improve their work.  Read the feedback and act upon it.  If it becomes regular enough students will become accustom to it.  Work will also improve.

Add DIRT time.  This is very similar to the idea above borrowed from David Didau.  Simply meaning Directed Improvement and Reflection Time, start planning some DIRT in your lessons and get students acting upon comments.

Or maybe, just maybe....?  If you want to take a step further and really revamp your planning, you could go a long way by using the ideas of Ron Berger and the process of critique.  I have blogged about this previously here but it involves spending a lesson critically analysing students draft work and providing extremely structured feedback for each other.  Time is dedicated to improving these these drafts and the process goes on.  So why is this different from the other suggestions?  Well, the quality of student-to-student feedback is a lot higher.  Also, the process of giving, receiving and then acting upon feedback becomes a culture of your classroom.

13 - Plan your key questions - not all but a few

As you plan your lesson and review it (particularly looking at it through the eyes of the students), try to think about particular things you need students to really know, and areas where students might become confused.  Take 2 minutes to look through your plan and think 'What would I ask if I was in this lesson?' Any common misconceptions you can spot?  For these times, can you preempt this and begin designing some of your questions?  I would encourage you to think about some strong questions which you can then use during the lesson to support the learning taking place.  What I would put caution to is planning out all of your questions.  When you get in the classroom the direction of students thinking can take multiple turns and there is no way you can plan questions for all eventualities.  As you become more experienced you will be better equipped to shoot from the hips and deal with the twists and turns of students learning.  Spending time thinking about a few key ones though are vital.

Plan your hinge questions as well.  What are these I hear you say?  They are questions you use at a key point in a lesson (usually after the main concept has been taught) to check the understanding.  Presented whole class and in the form of a multiple choice, they allow a very quick snap shot before proceeding with the lesson.  I'll talk more about these in a later blog.

Using a taxonomy such as Blooms or SOLO as a guide can also help you plan questions that increase in the level of thinking and challenge.  Don't forget that remembering and understanding questions can be just as important as evaluating and analysing.  More on this in a later post!

14 - Marking to inform your planning 

A very wise man by the name of Kenny Pieper once wrote a great blog post on how marking can inform so much in terms of your lessons and really drive your planning.  It is so important to act upon your marking and it gives a real insight into the understanding that students have.  Mark more regularly and let what you find out direct what you plan in subsequent lessons.  Were there any misconceptions and misunderstandings that you need to revisit next lesson?  Think about it, if you don't use your marking, you could go lessons without realising students really didn't get what you talked about a few weeks back.

Also, can you plan opportunities for marking within lessons?  Are there opportunities where you could plan an extended task (because its beneficial, not too just create time) where you can go and mark students books there and then.  Instant impact and instant feedback!

15 - And lastly, lesson plans (box ticking!!).

Is there a miracle planning tool?  The saviour of planning?  A best way of doing it?  This is a tough area to talk about as Ofsted say one thing, rumors from what inspectors have said contradict this.  Some (not all) SLT and leadership teams can also misinterpret messages from above and prescribe methods.  The key message though should be plan thoroughly in whatever format suits yourself, your subject, your students or your school.  Remember that there are key elements and ensure whatever planning format you choose, these key elements are included.  Mark work, formatively assess, use schemes and curriculum documents.......will all help.  Don't tick boxes for ticking boxes sake.  Do what is right to plan the best lessons for your students.

Can we all be that little bit better?

I have a feeling that this post may be the beginning of how I redefine myself as a teacher.  My journey in education is probably as predictable as anyone else.  After finishing a 4 year university course training me to become a PE teacher, I have spent year on year looking to refine my practice in an effort to make what I do, more effective and beneficial for the students I work with.  My role as a Learning Innovator and part of the Learning and Teaching Group (LTG) has directed me towards various readings and literature.  The gentle nudge from Chris Fuller to engage with the world of Twitter has brought me some great (and challenging) discussions about education.  The world of blogs and blogging has also opened my eyes and made various practices, pedagogy, research and ideas more accessible.  All of this though has led me to scrutinise and think a lot harder about what it is that I do and how I deliver a lesson.  It has made me think about what the various core ingredients that I could improve in my practice are to become that little bit better at what I do.  It has made me wonder if what I am doing in lessons is the best it could be and actually effective at all.

So, just over a year on Twitter and various readings/discussions later, and a number of blog posts from the like of Kev Bartle,  Alex Quigley (here) and Joe Kirby (here) has led me to assess what I am doing and what do I need to do better.  I've taken this self reflection approach many times before, but this time I am assessing my practice on a larger, more holistic scale, and looking at the various areas that I could improve for next year.  The influence from cognitive science and those beloved effect sizes have really spun my current thinking on its head.  The research and evidence based practice that is now more accessible than ever before ensures that there is never a moment to settle for second best.  And why should I?  My main goal is to educate students and 'coasting' in my practice will not ensure I do this as effectively as possible. There has been a quote from Dylan Wiliam which has been referred to a lot lately and relates to this, explaining:

 ‘Every teacher needs to improve, not because they are not good enough, but because they can be even better’.

Now I feel that I can be better.  In fact I know I can be better.  I feel that through reflection on the specifics of my teaching, this micro-analysis will only help me move forward towards the teacher I wish to be. Zoe Elder may call this a marginal gains approach to the profession where I review and move forward the key areas by 1%.  This marginal gains approach may not make my results improve dramatically, it may not make my students learn better immediately, it may not be seen as adequate to others in the profession (is there even a right way? as described by David Didau).  But what I hope it does is helps me to do what John Tomsett calls 'Keeping the main thing the main thing'.  I have tried hard to ensure what I do though does have a positive impact and is backed up by principles, theory and evidence.  So what will follow over the next few posts are things that I have read, digested, reflected upon and now plan to implement in my practice from next year.  Gone are the various gimmicks and low impact activities.  Instead what I aim for is a stripped back and simple approach, putting the core essentials at the forefront and focusing on elements that encourage effective learning.  In come what theory confirms or evidence backs up.  A new insight into how learners learn and how to maximise achievement will be the focus of my review.  I aim to focus on what I believe combine to make effective learning in my classroom.  Improvements in feedback, planning, assessment, use of learning intentions and questioning.  I won't be changing the world in which I teach, throwing out everything I have ever done and starting from fresh.  Instead I will be putting the core essentials under the spotlight and determining what I can do best.

The core principles of teaching & learning that I will put under the spotlight.

My final thought before I go is 'Shouldn't all teachers be doing this anyway?'.  Well as the various posts earlier talk about, we can get into the stage where we plateau after a few years of teaching.  As workload increases and accountability mounts more and more pressure on us, there can be the sense or false worry that changing the status quo could be dangerous.  It can lead to apprehension and hesitance in moving practice forward.  But I feel that this is 'safe' approach.  Identifying an area of weakness in our practice (as feedback in theory lessons was for me) and working on refining it ourselves, using what we know works and backed up by readings, is such a key aspect.  It is taking control of your own CPD and actually working on what matters to you.  And in the age of social media, this is now easier than ever.  I honestly feel that as forward thinking as I am, the power of Twitter and educational blogs is really what has kept me striving to progress further.  Never have I had so many articles and posts at the touch of a finger.  It is this use of this social media that Joe Kirby talks about that could have its place in raising teachers professional practice. Finding that dedicated time throughout the year to scrutinise what it is you are doing is so important.  Analysing what works, what evidence/research says could make it better and measuring the impact that your teaching is having in the classroom is key if we are going to keep educational quality moving forward.  Maybe I finish with a challenge to you all.  Take time to reflect, analyse the 1% gains, strive to be better and improve the quality of what we deliver to learners.  I strongly feel we all have a duty to be that little bit better and now have the support and links available, more than ever before, to continuously do this.  So if this post does anything, make it be that you find time to actually take control of your own development.  Put yourself in charge.  Read, connect, discuss and debate.  But all in all, take the step to improve your practice.  Not because you're not good enough, but because you (and I) can be even better.