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Effective Modelling Handbook

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B looked up at the clock. 27 minutes left.

She read the next assessment question again: ‘Explain why the English Civil War broke out in August 1642.’

She underlined the first word. And then highlighted it – an inky orange. So, it was an ‘Explain…’ question. How many paragraphs did that need? She tried to think back to the lesson on ‘Explain…’ questions. Was it two paragraphs? Or was that for ‘How far…?’ questions?

B couldn’t really remember. If the truth be told, she wasn’t really sure why she needed to write in paragraphs at all. But it was listed on the success criteria. And it’s what they always seemed to do in class. So she might as well give it a go.

She looked at the clock again. 26 minutes. Maybe 25. Probably best to stick to two paragraphs. She might not even have time to finish those.

So what could they be about? B thought back to their recent Assessment Preparation lesson. What topics had they been told to include? Religion, definitely. All they ever seemed to learn about was religion. Throughout Year 7, and now Year 8 too!  Was the religion paragraph meant to go first or last? Or did it not matter for these questions? She thought she should probably ask before the next assessment.

What else?

Religion… Ah, it was coming back now. “Religion, money and power – they should be the topics of your paragraphs.” She remembered Sir looking quite serious as he’d told them. So it must be three paragraphs for ‘Explain…’ questions.

Another glance at the clock. 23 minutes. So three short paragraphs? Or just two and make them a bit longer? B wasn’t really sure. She looked at the success criteria to see if that would tell her. But it didn’t. It just mentioned ‘paragraphs’. Plural. Two was plural, wasn’t it?

Ok, enough planning. Time to make a start. The decision about two or three paragraphs could wait. See how quickly the time goes. Anyway, couldn’t she just put money and power together in one?

B picked up her pen and began to write:

‘Religion was very important to people in 1642 which meant…’

She paused. And then scribbled it out. They’d been doing lots of practice on starting paragraphs recently, and she didn’t think that was right.

She tried to think back to the Assessment Preparation lesson again. She wished she could remember it better. What had Sir called those sentences? In English they were… They were PEE paragraphs. So it must begin with P.

P….

P….

Ah, Point sentences. And in Geography they always started paragraphs with Statements. But what did they call them in History?

Something else to ask Sir before the next assessment.

Actually, she didn’t really need to know what they were called, did she? She just needed to know how to write one. What was the trick Sir had told them?

B looked round the classroom. Was there anything on the walls to help? She noticed a few pupils had highlighted most of the question. Ah, that was it! “Highlight the key words in the question and use them to create your topic sentence”.

Topic Sentence! Now she remembered! She wrote ‘TS’ in the margin of the page. She liked it when they did that in class – it made her feel grown up. Like she was doing serious work.

She picked up her highlighter and started highligh… No! It was the inky orange again. She needed a different colour for this. She scrabbled around in her pencil case and tried again. That was better. ‘the English Civil War broke out in August 1642’ was now picked out in a wobbly, fluorescent yellow.

Time to start writing again. Attempt 2. Next to ‘TS’, B wrote:

‘One reason why the English Civil War broke out in August 1642 was religion’.

And then she highlighted the middle of the sentence in yellow, to show she was using the words from the question.

Right, what next?

What else had they practised in the Assessment Preparation lesson?

It was beginning to come back to B. Sir had written a paragraph before the lesson. “I never ask you to do something I haven’t done myself.” Was that the one on religion? Then they had used Sir’s paragraph to write one as a class. B liked that. It was quite easy, copying from the board. And then they had written one themselves.

Though B thought she might have only got half-way through that one.

So what came after the topic sentence?

Ah, Evidence wasn’t it? Like in their PEE paragraphs? Or did the first E stand for Examples?

She could do that. She remembered lots from the topic. Especially about religion! And Sir had written the whole paragraph for them.

B added a few more sentences, trying to remember how Sir had written them.

Was there anything else she needed to include?

Oh, of course. “Make sure you always use ‘this meant that’ or ‘because’ to show you’re explaining.” Sir was always telling them that. Right, a final sentence to add.

B looked at the clock again. 11 minutes left. Time for one more paragraph.

Money or Power? They’d written the paragraph about Money together. As a class. It must have been good – Sir would have made sure. B knew she had it written in her exercise book. With annotations.

But B couldn’t really remember what they’d included in it. And time was running out. She’d have to see if she could remember the half-paragraph she’d written about Power.

Before I go any further, I must come clean. The above is imagined. Completely made up. There was no B. There is no Sir.

But the conversation, the internal dialogue, imagined as it is, remains (I think) valid and useful for our purposes.

Because, as a result of my teaching, I think it’s entirely possible that my pupils could have thought along similar lines during the many assessments I have set.

All of Sir’s comments are things I know I’ve said.

The strategies B was using are strategies I have taught. Again and again.

And the lesson B is remembering back to – a classic ‘I Do, We Do, You Do’ modelling of paragraph writing – is a lesson I have taught ad nauseum.

So not only is the internal dialogue above one I think my pupils could have had with themselves. It’s one I would have liked my pupils to have had. One I taught them to have. If B – or, rather, a real-life version of B – had made a written record of such thinking in her assessment, I would have shared it with the class and held it up as a brilliant model for others to emulate.

But I’m not sure I would anymore. Because – in case it’s not already clear – I think there is an issue with B’s internal dialogue. Many issues, in fact.

Or, to be more precise, I think there are issues with the teaching that led to B’s internal dialogue. My teaching.

Problem 1:

Look again. As she writes, B is not thinking about history. She is not thinking historically. At all. She is thinking about procedures. About steps to take. About short-cuts to use. They are not history-specific. They don’t require any historical reasoning. Indeed, they are designed to bypass that historical reasoning. B is simply selecting some information about the past to include in a paragraph about the past. Yes, that paragraph is answering a causation question. Yes, the paragraph is likely to include some implicit causal reasoning. But B doesn’t seem particularly aware of this. She has missed that the question asks specifically why the civil war broke out in 1642. She hasn’t considered how best to organise her knowledge to answer that particular causation question. She hasn’t considered the possible approaches – the different shapes her causal account could take – in order to choose the best one for the task at hand.

The reason, I think, lies in the lessons I taught before assessments. Looking back now, I think I stopped being a history teacher. Yes, stopped being a history teacher. When I began to adopt the ‘I Do, We Do, You Do’ model, I – unintentionally, without realising it – ended up changing the curricular object. It was no longer ‘causal reasoning’ I was teaching but ‘how to write a paragraph (about the past)’. Or ‘how to write a topic sentence’. Whilst those are both things I want and need my pupils to do successfully, I’m not sure they are, or should be, the curricular object themselves. At least, not as isolated, generic things. They only have meaning and purpose in context. As a way for a pupil to communicate their understanding of and argument about the past. As a way for a pupil to communicate their answer to a particular historical question. So pupils need to argue and think and craft their answer first. Then I can teach them how to communicate it in writing.

Problem 2:

B doesn’t seem to have much agency in crafting her explanation. Or, at least, she doesn’t realise the agency she does have. She is simply trying to remember what she and her peers were told about how to answer the question. Trying to remember the structure her teacher gave them in class. The paragraphs they wrote.

Reading her answer, then, will become a wasted opportunity for Sir. He won’t gain any (or much) insight into what B knows and understands about the seventeenth century. Or about the causes of the civil war. Or about causal reasoning in history. Instead, he will learn how well B remembers the paragraph he wrote as a model. How well she remembers the paragraph topics he told her to use. How well she remembers how to use words from the question to create a topic sentence.

And B will begin to see historical knowledge as something fixed and pre-determined. She will begin to think that historical questions have already been answered. Completely. Perfectly. For good. Her job is simply to learn those answers.

Problem 3:

Even the things Sir did try to teach seem shaky. Fragile. B can’t really remember how many paragraphs to include. It takes her a couple of attempts to get her topic sentence right. She almost forgets to include some ‘explanation’ at the end of the paragraph.

‘Ah, but you made the whole thing up’, some of you will cry. And you would be right, of course.

But I’ve taught Sir’s lesson – the ‘I Do, We Do, You Do’ modelling – many times. I’ve read hundreds of answers produced by pupils afterwards. And, well, they always left me a little disappointed. Many failed to follow the structure I’d modelled – wrote weak topic sentences or ranged across topics within one paragraph. Some forgot to write in paragraphs at all (or chose not to). Others tried to follow every element as faithfully as they could, without really knowing what it was they were doing.

And, on reflection, this isn’t particularly surprising to me. I’m not sure I got pupils to think very hard during these lessons. And without thought, we know there is no memory. Even when I did get pupils to think hard, I wasn’t getting them to think historically. They were thinking about tips and tricks and acronyms and parts of paragraphs. Particular words to include to show the reader they were Explaining and Analysing and Arguing. They weren’t, though, spending sufficient time thinking about the explanations and arguments they wanted to write.

My new aim

Many things helped me reflect on why my ‘I Do, We Do, You Do’ modelling of paragraph writing wasn’t really working. On how it was changing – surreptitiously – the very subject I was teaching.

But one moment stands out. I was re-reading Christine Counsell’s History and Literacy in Year 7: building the lesson around the text. And on page 52 is a remarkable piece of work by a pupil. An essay about the murder of Becket. I first read it during my PGCE. I read it again when planning an enquiry on the topic during my NQT year. And then I re-read it a couple of years ago.

It’s a brilliant, fertile piece of work. Counsell includes a range of professional development activities you can do with it. But re-reading it most recently, as I compared it to my own pupils’ writing, I was struck by one thing: it is so obviously, so authentically, the pupil’s own work. Their own structure. Their own words. Their own argument.

Their own thinking.

And it was so much better than anything my pupils were writing. Not in spite of the lack of ‘perfect’ structure. Or despite the apparent absence of ‘I Do, We Do, You Do’ modelling of how to write each paragraph. But because of these things.

The work – the argument, the thinking – is better because the teacher focused on teaching these things. Or at least, focused on teaching these things first. Spent more time on the historical aspects of the task at hand instead of the procedural (how to write a topic sentence, how to structure a paragraph etc).

Reading the Becket essay gave me a new, and very clear, aim. A new vision of what success would look like in my classroom. I wanted my pupils to write in the same way. To write essays that were completely, authentically theirs. That were driven by argument. Pupils who had something worthwhile to communicate and a need, a desire to communicate it. Pupils who made conscious choices as they wrote. Not choices about procedural elements (or not only choices about procedural elements). And not choices I had made and then told them to copy. But historical choices of their own.

It was going to be easy, wasn’t it?

Ways forward

Well, no. It wasn’t easy. Isn’t easy. It’s a journey I, and my pupils, are very much still on. But I think I’m beginning to see early shoots of success. Signs that – whilst we’re nowhere near the destination – we are, at least, on the right path.

So here are a couple of principles I’ve adopted to move my practice on, followed by a recent example from my own classroom:

Principle 1:

I now try to start by identifying the curricular object. A historical curricular object. Not ‘how to write topic sentences’ or ‘how to structure a paragraph’. Or how to use a particular sentence construction.

But:

the different shapes a causal account might take. And which might be most useful or persuasive or appropriate when explaining why the barons rebelled against their monarchs.

particular approaches historians take to describing change/continuity. And how we might use them to describe the nature and pace of change in Jamaica after the abolition of slavery.

the way we can use sources to establish evidence for claims in response to a specific question about the Inka Empire.

And I’m trying – I repeat, trying – to focus on teaching these things. Really teach them. Thoroughly. Immersing pupils in situations that help them to see why they matter, the problems they solve, and how to do them themselves.

And only then showing pupils how that might manifest in writing. Only once they have something to say.

Rather than what I used to do. What the ‘I Do, We Do, You Do’ model encouraged me to do. Which was bypass this historical thinking and reasoning and give pupils a structure that made it look like they were doing it. When in reality, I was the one doing it all.

Principle 2:

None of this is new, of course. None of this is anything I’ve had to work out.

Because I am spoilt – completely spoilt – to have a huge published discourse of history teachers who have gone before me working this all out (and continue to do so). Teaching History, and a whole range of edited collections published in the last 20 and more years, are full of accounts of history teachers grappling with these questions. What exactly is the curricular object? What is it I am really trying to teach my pupils to know, do and think? And how might I achieve it?

Even where I might decide the particular ‘activity’ in an article or chapter is one that won’t quite work with my pupils or in my hands or for my purposes, the thinking that lies below the activity helps me see where to go. What I’m trying to achieve. What thinking my pupils need to do and be made aware of.

And so many of these articles and chapters, even those where it might not be explicit, are ultimately about improving pupils’ historical writing. Because by helping pupils to better think historically, we help them to better write historically.

And so my second principle has been to find historical solutions to historical problems. History teachers’ solutions to history teachers’ problems. And adapt them for my own contexts and purposes.

Classroom example 1:

Regular readers – both of you – might remember my Year 9 class from earlier in the term. And their essays about the causes of the First World World War. The ones that were a bit ‘meh’.

The ones where I regretted not doing a card sort.

Well, recently we’ve been looking at another causation question. This time about the rise of fascism in Italy and Germany. Reading pupils’ answers last week, they were definitely better. Showed richer understanding. And, crucially, they were getting closer to the essay about Becket’s murder. They were more individual. More authentic. I could see the conscious choices my pupils were making.

Oh, and despite spending less time on topic sentences, their topic sentences were better.

How had we got there?

I put my own advice into practice (and the principles above), and this time we did a card sort. Or, rather, lots of card sorts.

1) I started by forcing pupils to organise their cards into long-term, medium-term and short-term factors. They were familiar with this from our work on the causes of the First World War. So it gave them the opportunity to revisit this way of shaping a causal account, as well as an opportunity to familiarise themselves with the cards.

But there was a problem. They needed to explain why fascism gained support in both Italy and Germany. As pupils soon began to realise, this approach wasn’t going to work. They were beginning to see that the particulars of the question might affect the shape their causal account would need to take…

2) Next, I told pupils to organise the cards into three factors I gave them instead: the legacy of the First World War; economic crisis; the Russian Revolution. Crucially, they had to put each card into only one factor. They thought. They puzzled. They complained. They argued with me and said it didn’t work. I must have got it wrong. There were cards that had to go in two or more categories.

To begin with, I stayed strong. Hid the smile on my face and told them they had to make a choice. For every card. Some became stubborn. Threw their cards down on the table. Tried to tell me categories they thought would work better.

They were beginning to demand agency…

3) Eventually, I relented. Told pupils they could create their own categories. Pupils rushed to reorganise their cards. Created their own ‘big reasons’. Discussed with their partner the best name, or heading, for these new categories. Argued with each other about which collection of ‘big reasons’ could provide the most persuasive answer to the question.

4) Only in the last 10 minutes of the lesson did we turn our attention to writing. I asked pupils where in their essay they could tell me what their ‘big reasons’ were. And pupils now wanted to know the answer. They had ownership over their essay structure. They wanted to be able to tell me what this was. And of course, they already knew the answer. “We can put our big reasons in our topic sentence, Sir.” A few minutes of drafting later, and the lesson was done.

I hadn’t modelled a whole paragraph, or told pupils what to include in one. I hadn’t told pupils what topics to focus their paragraphs on. I hadn’t given pupils any tricks for how to construct a perfect topic sentence.

And yet, reading the essays pupils wrote, closed book, a week later, so many of them did these things. Chose to do these things. Not because I had told them to do them or had modelled how.

But after being shown the historical reasons for doing so.

A final thought. This is not to say that modelling is bad. Or that the ‘I Do, We Do, You Do’ approach isn’t fit for purpose.

Rather that, in my classroom and in my hands, trying to model to pupils how to complete the whole, final outcome didn’t work. And taking a slower approach, that foregrounds the historical reasoning and thinking I was (without realising it) bypassing, seems to be leading to rich(er) rewards.

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This is an extract from The Metacognition Handbook which was published by John Catt Edu in June 2021.
Very often, we show students how to create a successful piece of work, but we don't always show them how to quality assure it when they have finished. Students sometimes hand work in which is very obviously incorrect, or clearly missing a key ingredient. They have come to the end and are no longer interested in regulating themselves because they see it as 'finished.' Maths teachers will be painfully aware of this - students handing in work where a small but significant error has been made, a slip of a decimal place, a division instead of a multiplication, a positive instead of a negative number, a calculator mistake, and suddenly the student is producing an incorrect answer, even though they understand the topic and process perfectly well. It is important to model to students that they check their work afterwards, using metacognitive questions like:
"Does my solution make sense?"
For example, a simple maths problem might say:
There are twice as many girls in the class as boys. If there are 9 boys, how many girls are there?
This seems very easy, but if a student mis-reads and divides instead of multiplying, they might put an answer of 4.5

Asking themselves, "does my solution make sense?" helps them to identify their error - no, you can't have four and a half girls. I must have made a mistake.

Most of what we do in the classroom is far more complex than this. We need them to be able to review substantial pieces of work in a meaningful way, and it will take time for them to develop this skill. As with everything else, using question prompts is the best strategy:
Does this make sense? Does this fit the brief? Does this answer the question? Does this match the success criteria I have been given? Have I checked my work for my personal common errors? Am I satisfied that this is the best I can do right now? Are there any elements of my work I am uncertain about or have questions about?
I find it very useful to get students to consider key questions like this before handing in their work. You might start training them in this method by using talking partners at first - get students in pairs and have them ask each other these questions about their work.

1. Students complete their work

2. They use the prompt questions to review their work

3. They have a conversation with their partner where they discuss those questions and any changes they think they should make

4. They make the necessary changes

5. They write a short reflection to make those changes explicit:

I identified X error(s) in my first draft, so have made improvements by... I noticed that I had forgotten to include... so I have added this... These changes have improved my work by... Next time I'm going to ensure that I...
I also often ask students to review their work and write any remaining questions or uncertainties in the margin where appropriate. Students ask themselves: What do I still need to know? What knowledge would have made this work even better?

They might write questions in the margin such as:
Is this the right way to use this word? Could I have used a more appropriate quotation? Is there another Shakespeare play where something similar to this happens? What did you say last week about this, Miss?
By identifying these questions for themselves, they are acknowledging the work they still need to do. They are also explicitly saying that, even though they are handing in this piece of work, it's still really a work in progress.

To read more about Metacognition, you can find another blog extract here: What Does Teaching Metacognitively Look Like? Or buy the book here.

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Modelling the Work Review | Funky Pedagogy

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This is an extract from The Metacognition Handbook which was published by John Catt Edu in June 2021. Very often, we show students how to create a successful piece of work, but we don't always show them how to quality assure it when they have finished.

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Some of the most interesting discussions I've had with teachers in recent times have been about the challenge of making modelling work so that students all learn to do the things they are modelling. In one case it was in English. The teacher found it frustrating that, despite feeling she was doing the 'right things' in her modelling, several students still couldn't get going. Over a series of instructional coaching discussions we identified what was happening. If you had a video of her alone, you'd see a teacher giving a really clear exposition of how to write the paragraph in the form required. As a knowledgable adult writer, it made total sense to me. But, if you were to see it through the eyes of one of the struggling students, it was like a novice dancer watching an expert: impressive but overwhelming. Put simply, there were too many steps to learn all at once. Initially the teacher had asked the class to copy down the exemplar as she live modelled it - but we identified that in doing this students were not mentally engaging with her explanatory talk; they were just focused on copying the words correctly. Not enough thinking was being done. She changed approach, broke it down into even smaller steps and got students to discuss and then practise their own version of each small step - phrase by phrase. It took longer but the results were far better.

I've had similar discussions in other contexts too. Ollie Lovell discusses the issue in relation to 'worked examples' in his excellent Cognitive Load Theory In Action book.. - see a discussion of it in the video here. (view from 27.35)

As Ollie explains, worked examples are not examples students do for practice after a teacher explains some model answers; they are examples teachers and students work through together before students then practise independently.

As with the English modelling example, the learning happens in the extended handover with the teacher carefully managing the cognitive load and reducing scaffolding slowly, step by step. An example of this is the use of backward fading in maths problems - but the general idea applies elsewhere.

One way to thing of this is in terms of a handover, baton-style:

A baton exchange is only successful if the receiver get a firm grip. If you look from a distance, it might appear instantaneous. But learning doesn't form in that way with knowledge leaping from the teacher to the student:

Watching a teacher perform a task doesn't necessarily mean a student can do it, even if they have seen exactly what the teacher has done and heard them explain it really clearly. There's just too much to take in, to process and turn into knowledge they can deploy themselves.

What is needed is a much more extended hand-over where the teacher works with the students to do the task together:

Zoom right in on that baton hand-over. It's not instaneous; a crucial time passes when both people are holding the baton together. In that brief moment, they are communicating through the touch: Have you got it? No, not yet. Ok, I'm still with you. Grip harder. Have you got it now. Nearly, keeping holding, I'm nearly there.. Ok. You're ready.. Off you go. Yes, I'm ready, let go. I already have.... you're away.

In a real world lesson context the ' We do it together' process is the key to modelling. Ollie Lovell refers to this as the 'alternation strategy'. This is where students get a sense of what it feels like to do the task successfully, working towards the moment of independence. Students who struggle need this to be longer, with more smaller steps, more iterations of to and fro until they are up and running. This period will be fuelled by lots of checking for understanding and guided practice on the details. I've met teachers who hold back from this - they think of it as spoon-feeding and spoon-feeding is a bad thing. I have to say to them - no, it's not; it's ok. It's teaching! Don't drop that baton for fear of over-helping. Of course you have to let go in the end... but only when they're ready.

So, if modelling isn't quite firing for you, the answer is likely to be that you need to break it down even more, getting students to practise each step with you alongside them even more before you move onto the next one. As with learning a dance, once you know the steps you can then start to link them together, to practise several at once until, eventually you have the whole dance. Sometimes you just need to practise the beginning, the middle or the end - and the same is true for writing and maths problems. You don't always need to start from the beginning - so varying the point at which modelling begins can be a useful thing to consider.

Update. Here's a fabulous graphic from David Goodwin.

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The art of modelling... it's all in the handover.

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Some of the most interesting discussions I've had with teachers in recent times have been about the challenge of making modelling work so that students all learn to do the things they are modelling. In one case it was in English. The teacher found it frustrating that, despite feeling she was doing the 'right things'...

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How can you confidently implement live modelling in your classroom?

Many teachers are afraid of live modelling. But if we don't do our thinking aloud in front of our pupils we're doing them a massive disservice. Isn't it time all teachers faced their fear so we can help pupils conquer theirs?

Although all of Rosenshine's 17 Principles of Instruction are important, ' Think aloud and model steps ' is one of the most vital. And yet, it's the one that I've seen less and less of in recent years. Perhaps it's because interactive whiteboards and PowerPoint presentations are ubiquitous now. The first lesson I ever taught didn't involve either. It didn't even involve a dry wipe marker. Instead, I had to write everything on the board in chalk. Yes, that makes me feel old.

Death by PowerPoint?

There's no denying that interactive whiteboards have been a game changer where they have been used well. They have allowed teachers to combine multimedia - words, images, video - with considerable ease. Not only have they allowed us to save a lot of time (and paper), but the opportunities for dual coding have been greatly enhanced.

But I can't help feeling they have also contributed to the loss of something very precious: thinking aloud.

It's comforting isn't it, knowing that everything you need is just a click of a button away on the next slide? But I remember a time when this was not always the case. I remember a time when you had to write everything on the board - live! And this often meant speaking your thoughts aloud, especially if you lost your train of thought and had to go back a few sentences to pick it up.

The biggest benefit of this approach is that pupils get to hear their teacher thinking their way through something. They hear it being broken down into the steps they will need to take themselves.

Show don't tell

The best way to teach pupils how to put down their ideas on paper or to solve a problem is to do it yourself. When we're on a journey, we need to show them how to get to their destination. It's no good just telling them.

Making mistakes, unintentionally or otherwise, is one of the powerful aspects of live modelling. We need to show our pupils that we too are not immune to getting things wrong. If we don't, how are they ever going to learn that failing and picking yourself up is a vital step on the road to making genuine progress?

A script for live modelling an essay/longer answer

Over the years, I've been refining my approach to live modelling, especially for essays/longer answer questions. I always imagine that I'm setting out on a Lord Of The Rings-style journey with my class (or 'fellowship' if you prefer). We're setting out to conquer the thing that holds all pupils back from success: fear.

I have used plural pronouns ('we') throughout my script below. Sometimes it is appropriate to model exclusively in the first person 'I'. You may not want audience participation, especially if it's the first time attempting this sort of task. But if you've done something similar as a class before, and you want to promote retention by including your pupils in the decision-making process, stick with 'we'.

If you're concerned pupils will misbehave while you're busy on the board, insist they copy down everything you write on the board - mistakes and all.

1. "Do we have everything we need?"

Model collecting your materials. Quotations? Dates? Key words? Whatever you need for your subject, model getting it together.

This means picking up the relevant bits from primary texts, stimulus materials or notes from previous lessons. Display these somewhere so you can draw on them when you need to, lightening the cognitive load. If you have two whiteboards (electronic + traditional dry wipe), perhaps use one to display the materials and keep the other clear for writing the essay.

2. "Ok, let's go..."

Put pen to paper/marker to whiteboard. This is the scariest step for most pupils. It's like leaving the shire, the safety of home. The potential for failure can be overwhelming and stop them writing.

So show them you're not afraid. Write the first thing that comes into your mind. Your brain is primed with everything you need so it probably won't be too far off the mark. Even if it is, making corrections live is essential.

3. "Are we going in the right direction?"

Before you go too far, take a look back. Check what you've written against the success criteria. Treat the mark scheme like the map. It has your destination but doesn't tell you how to get there. For that you need a compass.

4. "We could include this... or we could write this instead..."

Whether you're inviting audience participation or you're just talking aloud to yourself, it is crucial that you voice your options loudly and clearly.

If the class have had a go at something similar before, you might get them to be your compass. If so, ask them to suggest next steps. You could even say "I think I might do this..." and ask them whether they think this is a good idea or not. Effective modelling goes hand in hand with canny questioning.

5. "I think we're going the wrong way here... Let's do this instead."

If you make a mistake, don't rub it out. Instead, cross it through and move on. Show your students that struggle is normal!

6. "Let's see how we did."

When you've finished, look back at the success criteria/mark scheme to evaluate your performance. Although things will have gone well overall, it's vital to look at the crossings-out to see where you could have gone completely down the wrong path. Pupils will have learned the importance of reflecting on their own performance.

Technology: it's how you use it

I don't mean to come across as a Luddite here. One of the best pieces of kit to equip a classroom with is a visualiser. They can be a great asset for live modelling. But, as with all technology, it depends on how it is used. I've seen too many visualisers being deployed as a glorified camera to merely show pupils' completed work - usually the best example of something.

My feedback to those teachers has always been: where's your work? In particular, where was your work in progress? Did you share this with the pupils? Did they hear you thinking aloud?

Whatever their tool of choice - visualiser, whiteboard, chalkboard - teachers who get the best from pupils know that live modelling is essential.

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How Can You Confidently Implement Live Modelling In Your Classroom? via @TeacherToolkit

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Many teachers are afraid of live modelling. But if we don't do our thinking aloud in front of our pupils we're doing them a massive disservice. Isn't it time all teachers faced their fear so we can help pupils conquer theirs?

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@TeacherToolkit
Ross Morrison McGill founded @TeacherToolkit in 2010, and today, he is one of the 'most followed educators'on social media in the world. In 2015, he was nominated as one of the '500 Most Influential People in Britain' by The Sunday Times as a result of...
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How do you scaffold teacher-instruction in the classroom?

For years I have firmly believed that the most effective teachers 'model' the work being asked of their pupils. Professor Barak Rosenshine's 40 years of teaching and learning research supports my experiences. This post offers a summary of the research and what this technique looks like in the classroom.

In this post, I'd like to remind readers of Rosenshine's 17 Principles for Effective Instruction and articulate in this two-minute read, how teachers can model success criteria - one of the recommendations. Finding reliable ways to ensure students meet and

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How Do You Scaffold Teacher-Instruction In The Classroom? by @TeacherToolkit

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Finding ways to get students to meet and master lesson objectives is tough. Why not give the 'I Do, We Do, You Do' mantra a trial in your classroom?

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According to the EEF Metacognition and Self-Regulated Learning effective modelling and metacognitive instruction are intrinsically linked, enabling students to transition from novice learners to students capable of independent learning and metacognitive thinking. Subsequently when used appropriately teacher modelling can be highly effective tool, however when used inappropriately it can be a crutch that inhibits learning (Haston, 2007).

Modelling is neither a new or surprising concept in regards to effective instruction, with traditional teaching and learning once accomplished through apprenticeships rather than formal schooling. In apprenticeships learners can see the processes of work, for example a carpenter will teach an apprentice by allowing them to observe their movements and techniques. As such the expert carpenter models his or her craft and in so doing so reveals their expert subject knowledge and skills to the novice apprentice. In formal schooling the art and practice of problem-solving/task completion is not necessarily demonstrated or observable to the students, and it is the norm for too little attention is paid to the reasoning and strategies that expert teachers employ when they solve problems (Collins et al, 1991). Meanwhile in traditional apprenticeships the expert shows the novice how to complete the task and provides feedback by explicitly directing students to monitor and evaluate, until the apprentice/​student can do so alone. While Collins et al (1991) do not advocate a return to full apprenticeships, they do advocate an approach they term ​"cognitive apprenticeships" in which explicit teacher modelling aims to make visible the covert processes of experts.

It must be noted however that modelling is not as simple as showing a student how to complete a task, whether that is hitting a tennis serve or completing a quadratic equation. Schonfield (1985) claims that problem-solving knowledge remains inert for many students, and that many schooled students fail when faced with problems that fall outside patterns they are familiar with, this may be due to a lack of modelling or ineffective modelling they have observed. Effective modelling should enable students to reflect on the processes of task completion and then gradually remove the modelling scaffolding, thus developing independent and highly metacognitive students. The question must be asked then; what constitutes effective modelling and how can we, as teachers, become not only subject experts but also expert modellers?

Live modelling and think-aloud

Simply providing students with a model of a completed task, such as a piece of extended writing created prior to the lessons, is unlikely to have much success or sustained impact on student outcomes. Doing so only acts to simply obscure the processes used by experts during the tasks creation. The EEF clearly state that modelling is more effective when teachers and students are engaged in the task being modelled and the model creation - the model is created in front of students eyes. In this process teachers should be encouraged to ​"think aloud" (Hartman, 2001) verbalising the metacognitive processes undertaken by experts when engaging with a task. It is these regulative processes, such as planning, monitoring and evaluating before, during and after task completion that students are generally unware of. However ​"live modelling and thinking-aloud" is not easy, for one trying to do this while managing a class full of students is challenging, but more importantly as Tanner (2012) notes it can be difficult as a professional to remember a time when we did not think as one and, therefore many of the skills and processes we use when completing tasks become tacit and covert; even to ourselves. If modelling is to be effective than it must make these tacit processes explicit to our novice learners - this means that there should still be a certain amount of preparation to ensure that you have considered all the processes and steps you will need to verbalise/​model to students. Teachers should also consider how they can punctuate their modelling with questioning that ensures students are ​"thinking about their/​your thinking", using questions such as ​"what am I doing" and ​"what is the reason for doing this?".

Braamska et al (2002) have conducted research into the effectiveness of different types of modelling. In their research they discuss two types of models - the mastery and coping model. The mastery model performs the task perfectly, demonstrating positive attitudes towards task completion and high levels of confidence. A coping model may be considered slightly more empathetic, showing hesitations and errors in the modelling process but demonstrating a gradual improvement in the quality of work produced by the model. In a study of 214 Dutch students Braamska et al found that there was a correlation between observer-model similar competency and the model effectiveness. As such they suggested that high attaining students may benefit more from focusing on mastery/​better models, whereas weak students may benefit more, in the short term, from observing weak models. They argue that seeing a weaker/​coping model will normalise the struggle they need to engage with them, but also demonstrate the ability to progress beyond this initial difficulty to successful task completion. Importantly they did note that the positive impacts of observing weaker models became less with time, and that both low and high attaining students would begin to benefit from observing strong models and then having the opportunity to ​"do it themselves". The EEF advocate that providing students with this opportunity to immediately practice the task after demonstration is vitally important.

By Ben Crockett, Research School Associate, Durrington Research School

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Durrington Research School, part of the Research School Network

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Effective feedback plays a vital role in boosting student progress. However, there is an equally important place for teaching practice that addresses misconceptions before they arise. Measured failure and desirable difficulty are also key parts of learning, but making sure that the difficulty and failure come at the right time is key.

Modelling is a great way to make sure that your teaching has the right levels of success and challenge. Efficient modelling can also drastically reduce your workload outside of the classroom. But how many teachers really think about how they model in class?

In the most simple form, modelling is about seeing before doing and therefore minimising the ambiguity around an outcome. It follows that learning and the application of learning is then streamlined and students are able to effectively mould their own practice around the teacher's examples.

It is of course a bit more complex than this in practice, especially as subjects vary so much in terms of content and outcomes. However, there are some simple ways to ensure effective modelling.

Live modelling

There is nothing more empowering for a class than seeing their teacher do what is expected of them (and do it really, really well). Live modelling allows students to see how an answer can be formulated. That correlation between thought process and articulation of ideas on paper is often a step that teachers miss - but it is such a powerful tool. Live modelling allows students to see how to formulate a paragraph, an argument or a response. It also allows teachers to question students and get their input. Of course, you have to be confident in your subject knowledge to succeed with this approach - you need to be able to practise what you preach.

Knowing what 'right' looks like

Modelling is all about providing a target for students to aspire to. The model you provide needs to be of sufficient quality and so being clear on what the success criteria are is of paramount importance (teaching topics can be tough enough without creating misconceptions from sub-standard modelling). For exam groups, it is always good practice to use exam board exemplars to inform your modelling to ensure that you do not model the wrong thing. At key stage 3, modelling should follow similar criteria to that in key stage 4 - the way in which the information is presented will of course be very different, but the end goal remains the same. Ultimately, consistency in approach is key.

Pre-planning to avoid misconceptions

Regardless of what you are teaching, misconceptions will arise. Making sure that your modelling is planned to "pre-address" common misconceptions means that you do not waste valuable teaching time and that students remain engaged and motivated. Doug Lemov's tracking model is one way misconceptions can be tracked live within lessons, and his principles for planning for misconceptions during curriculum design are an equally powerful tool (see Teach Like a Champion, 2010).

Modelling is an effective way of avoiding misconceptions altogether. By highlighting common stumbling blocks, you can prepare your lessons and sequences of learning accordingly. A lot of confusion in learning comes during the application and well planned and well timed examples are an effective way of circumnavigating issues - if you see them coming. If you cannot see them and they arise, you can then use live modelling to clear up misunderstanding.

Modelling success and failure

One of the big misconceptions from teachers when it comes to modelling is that it is removing the challenge from tasks if you show the students the outcomes you want. I vehemently contest that.

When I do training on modelling, I often use the analogy of drawing a tree . My instruction is to draw a tree: one person draws a palm tree, one draws an oak, and two draw a tree with no branches. Now I have a problem - all have followed the instruction, but what kind of tree was I expecting? Without a clear model of expectation, how is a student going to do exactly what you want of them?

Of course there are times when you model the intentional opposite; it is not all about showing students exactly what to do, but also what not to do.

Modelling bad responses is also a good way of allowing students to engage with common errors. By highlighting what not to do, teachers are able to teach students what to look out for in their own work. In my subject, English, my favourite is starting creative writing with "The..." . Pupils are in absolute uproar if I ever start any writing with this determiner because it is something they have been conditioned to avoid.

Boxing clever

Modelling is about showing and applying. One big mistake that teachers often make is that they do not allow students to apply the learning from the model in a suitable context. It is futile giving a model and then getting students to simply apply it (perhaps having changed only minor details) - they will just copy blindly. Instead, the stimulus, the input, the quote or the source need to be substituted so that pupils have an opportunity to apply the modelled ideas in a separate and different task.

Removing the scaffolding is something that increases the desirable difficulty and moves tasks much more toward the level of challenge that we know is so necessary for learning. Remember, if we do not increase the level of challenge, we are not effectively modelling.

Effective modelling makes you a better teacher. Models are enablers - they are there to help students see what outcomes could/should look like. It allows your students to engage and succeed and it reduces your workload because common misconceptions are addressed as or before they arise.

Further information & resources

Teach Like a Champion: Doug Lemov's blog: http://teachlikeachampion.com/blog/

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Effective feedback plays a vital role in boosting student progress. However, there is an equally important place for teaching practice that addresses misconceptions before they arise. Measured failure and desirable difficulty are also key parts of learning, but making sure that the difficulty and failure come at the right time is key.

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Students constantly create products and performances, be it writing a poem or factoring an equation, passing a rugby ball or designing a website. These are all the result of combinations of procedures, some relatively simple, others highly complex. A key component of great teaching is the explicit modelling of these processes so that students learn how to adapt and apply their knowledge.

Here are five simple strategies that make for high-quality modelling:

1. Model live
Demonstrating how to solve a problem is common in some subjects, but can be completely absent in others. If your students write regularly, you should certainly model it live. Scripting a text at the front of the class with your students. Not only will you model subject-specific academic language, but you will also unearth the complex thought processes that contribute to successful writing. It may feel like a messy, stop-start affair but it's an immensely powerful tool.

2. Show empathy
Take a nuanced approach and pre-empt the setbacks and emotional anxieties a task or problem might lead to. Guide your students through strategies that overcome these as you model, using phrases such as: "When I first looked at this problem I didn't know where to start - and then it hit me that I should ..." and: "It's OK to feel frustrated at this point; I often do."

3. Punctuate with questions
The most effective modelling often goes hand in hand with quick-fire questioning. Two types of enquiry are particularly important: the descriptive question ("What am I doing?") and the explanatory question ("Why am I doing it?"). For example, a PE teacher modelling a javelin throw will ask probing questions such as: "What are my fingers doing as I grip it?" and then, "Why am I gripping it this way?" There will be many more questions as she demonstrates the full run-up and throw.

4. Use multiple exemplars
The quality of an exemplar can be hard to judge in isolation, so comparing excellent and poor examples can help students to identify the reasons for success. Multiple exemplars are also important to ensure that you don't stunt creativity in subjects that call for divergent responses. For example, when teaching creative writing, ensure students see a range of excellent examples to help them realise that high-quality prose comes in many shapes and sizes.

5. Don't overdo it
Beware that modelling doesn't lead to a dependency culture. Sometimes models should be removed to allow students to think and make mistake for themselves.

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How to use modelling successfully in the classroom

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Andy Tharby, an English teacher in a secondary school in West Sussex, offers his top tips for effective modelling, based on ideas from his latest book, Making Every Lesson Count: six principles to support great teaching and learning, written with Shaun Allison

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Learn the 4 key components to modeling that will help you teach more clearly and help your students learn more effectively.

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Helping teachers access neuroeducation 🧠 

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7 Lesson Modelling Tips by @TeacherToolkit

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"The Handover"

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Tom Sherrington in conversation with Ollie Lovell

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UK Podcasts

Class Teaching Podcast · 2021-07-04

Shaun Allison and I discuss what remote teaching has taught us about modelling.

Class Teaching Podcast

Durrington research school educational podcast.

No. of episodes: 13

Latest episode: 2021-07-04

Education

Where can you listen?

Episodes

Popularity over time

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Episode 6 - modelling (what remote teaching has taught us) - Class Teaching Podcast

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Shaun Allison and I discuss what remote teaching has taught us about modelling.

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In this episode of the SecEd podcast, Matt Bromley interviews Jackie Beere and Kevin Piper about metacognition and self-regulation.

The panel define their terms and discuss ways to help students develop metacognitive skills in order to support their wellbeing, and their learning and progress. They debate whether metacognition can be taught as a transferable skill or if it is domain-specific, and discuss the importance of a teacher modelling different learning strategies. The podcast offers a number of practical ideas and tips for teaching staff.

Featuring Jackie Beere, an educational trainer, former headteacher and author of many books for teachers, and Kevin Piper who has taught for 35 years in schools, colleges and universities and is now director of education at Creative Education.

You can listen to this episode of the SecEd Podcast above. To hear other SecEd podcasts, or to subscribe for free to new editions, search for 'The SecEd Podcast' in your podcast streaming application of choice. Or visit www.sec-ed.co.uk/knowledge-bank/podcasts/

For details about The SecEd Podcast, or to suggest future topics, email editor Pete Henshaw at editor@sec-ed.co.uk

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The SecEd Podcast: Teaching metacognition

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In this episode of the SecEd podcast, Matt Bromley interviews Jackie Beere and Kevin Piper about metacognition and self-regulation. The panel define their terms and discuss ways to help students develop metacognitive skills in order to support their wellbeing, and their learning and progress.

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Why do students need scaffolding? | InnerDrive Online Academy

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Modelling is one of the many strategies that can enhance the learning process and help students raise their game. Modelling can be found in all aspects of life, from learning how to tie shoelaces to following a cooking tutorial on YouTube.

However, it can be especially useful in the classroom. Modelling is a technique that allows educators to teach more efficiently and ensure that their students are making the most of their time in class. So, what exactly is modelling and how can we use it to further students' learning?

What is Modelling?

Modelling is an instructional strategy. This strategy includes demonstrating the desired skill or behaviour. During this process, teachers simultaneously describe what they're doing and why they're doing it. Research suggests that modelling fosters positive student outcomes. It is an interactive process that, through structured guided practice, makes concepts more accessible. It can encourage students to become more reflective, and has been shown to increase on-task behaviour, student engagement and achievement.

Modelling a thought process, rather than an action, can be a little complex. Explaining to students how you came to a decision, based on various mental processes, can be challenging. However, sometimes if you share your own experiences that helped aid your own understanding of the concept, it can often offer your students an authentic insight into the development of that skill. This is sometimes called 'mental models'.

Learning becomes a much smoother process after teaching your students efficient ways to build on the quality of their thinking. 'Mental models'can help guide students to approach and solve problems more effectively. Encouraging students to build this kind of skill can have many long-term benefits. In any situation, both inside and outside of the classroom, they can apply what the mental models taught them and resolve issues successfully.

Benefits of Modelling

Modelling is a visual expression of the topic you're teaching, making it easier to understand. Research has shown that visual explanations can improve learning. Using explicit examples whilst modelling can help reduce student confusion and enhance their understanding of the concept or skill you're teaching them.

A research study found that modelling increased students' on-task behaviour by nearly 3 times more than those who were not exposed to modelling. Modelling during your lesson gives students an opportunity to interact and engage with what they are learning. Evidence has shown that participating in interactive activities in the classroom can lead to significant learning gains; this study of 643 students found that classrooms where diverse and engaging learning formats were used were associated with higher levels of student achievement.

How to Model Effectively

Modelling in the classroom can help address misconceptions before they arise. However, it must be done so that students fully grasp the concept or skill with little to no need for further guidance. Research suggests that a good model is:

Clear

Consistent

Concise

It should include several demonstrations; more if the skill being taught is complex.

Modelling is most effective when it has a narrowed focus and directs students' attention to the significant aspects of the skills being modelled. So, try and keep your demonstrations brief to avoid confusing students with long explanations that they may forget. Concise and easy to follow instructions can really make all the difference when it comes to a student being able to replicate the task and develop their skills.

When modelling in the classroom, it can help to have at least one student involved in the process. Showing that another student, a peer, can learn the skill helps the rest of the class visualise themselves doing so. When choosing a student to help you, it is useful to choose at random. This eliminates the chances of only academically strong students being selected and instead, shows students of all levels that they too can learn the skill successfully.

Final Thoughts
Modelling provide accurate and useful representations of the knowledge students will need to solve problems. Teachers may wish to include modelling in their teaching process, as it can help students develop useful skills with long-lasting positive benefits. By creating clear, simple-to-follow steps that students can easily implement in their own learning, we can develop independent learners.

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How to model a thought process for your students

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Modelling is one of the many strategies that can enhance the learning process and help students raise their game. Modelling can be found in all aspects of life, from learning how to tie shoelaces to following a cooking tutorial on YouTube. However, it can be especially useful in the classroom.

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INTRODUCTION

It would be hard to imagine a practice more integral to science than modeling. Indeed, some have even defined science as, “a process of constructing predictive conceptual models” (Gilbert, 1991). Scientists model in order to visualize and organize their thinking, to distill complex ideas into simpler representations that can be shared with and evaluated by peers or communicated to others, to test hypotheses, and identify gaps in our understanding. Not surprisingly, science learners also benefit from using and creating models to develop and connect their knowledge as they learn within a discipline. Model-based instruction (MBI) that engages students in using, building, revising, and evaluating models can promote multiple dimensions of science learning, including both development of content understanding and skills (Schwarz et al., 2009; Louca and Zacharia, 2012). Despite the foundational role of models in science and the robust evidence base underpinning MBI, models and modeling are not well represented in curricula or instruction designed to train future biologists, particularly at the undergraduate level.

Recognizing that few practical resources exist to help instructors transition toward model-based classroom practices, we developed the evidence-based teaching guide (EBTG) Modeling in the Classroom (https://lse.ascb.org/evidence-based-teaching-guides/modeling-in-the-classroom). The EBTG provides instructors a tool kit for incorporating models and modeling into their classrooms and highlights core ideas, important considerations, and key examples related to MBI (Figure 1). In this guide, we present modeling as a scientific practice and show how modeling promotes scientific and systems thinking, and how modeling can serve diverse learning goals across a range of biological subjects and subdisciplines. We also provide recommendations for scaffolding modeling instruction and delivering feedback that promotes and strengthens students’ development of model-based skills. In addition, the guide includes a selection of model types that are commonly used in biology instruction, including phylogenetic trees, simulations, animations, diagrams, conceptual models, concept maps, and tactile models (Figure 2). Each core idea and model type is supported by a brief summary of key research findings and actionable advice intended to help instructors make evidence-based decisions about classroom instruction. Links to select articles direct readers to original research, and an Instructor Checklist details considerations and recommendations to help instructors incorporate modeling into their classroom practice. It is our hope that the guide will provide a suitable combination of research-based findings and practical suggestions so that instructors will find both encouragement and support when considering, adding, or refining modeling in their instruction. In this essay, we 1) introduce the main ideas represented in the modeling teaching guide, and 2) discuss needs and opportunities for research on modeling instruction and students’ modeling skills, especially at the undergraduate level.

FIGURE 1. Screenshot representing the landing page of the Modeling in the Classroom guide. This provides an overview of choice points.

FIGURE 2. Examples of model types described in the guide. (A) Example phylogeny in recommended branched format (Novick and Catley, 2018). Figure shared under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (Ceballos, 2018). (B) Fused-filament tactile model to allow visualization of noncovalent interactions to rationalize enzyme substrate complementarity. Reproduced from Babilonia-Rosa et al. (2018) with permission from the Royal Society of Chemistry. (C) Process diagram of electron transport chain and oxidative phosphorylation that supports understanding membrane role, appearance of proteins, and how reactions occur. Figure presented under Creative Commons 3.0 license (OpenStax College, 2013). (D) Example student-created conceptual model using structure–behavior–function formatting with signaling (teal), gene expression (blue), and phenotype (purple). (E) Simulation window from Cell Collective showing model components in colored boxes, the simulation control sliding window, and the simulation graph of cellular respiration (Bergan-Roller et al., 2017). Figure shared under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

WHY USE MODELS IN A CLASSROOM?

Our experiences as instructors of introductory biology underpin a desire to create learning opportunities that allow students to see and understand the complexities of life. After all, biology is more than memorizing disconnected facts. Organizing one’s biological knowledge, however, can be overwhelming. Modeling can help scientists and learners question, organize, and visualize their understanding. The process of creating and evaluating models may help learners develop and reinforce connections between seemingly disparate ideas, resulting in deep and long-lasting learning. Thus, modeling can support learning goals related to biology content, making content more versatile and transferable for students. Like scientists, students can also use models to make and test predictions, explain phenomena, or communicate research results.

Models and MBI can also support the development of systems thinking skills. Although we currently lack a framework describing the systems thinking skills life science students should develop, it is clear that modeling can support students as they learn to describe and reason about biological systems. In particular, modeling can support students as they learn to identify and describe a system of interest—the boundaries of the system, the elements comprising the system, and how those elements interact.

Finally, modeling can be a component of formative and summative assessment. Students can interpret given models in multiple-choice or short-answer questions to address the central role models play in the discipline. Students can create novel models to demonstrate content understanding as well as modeling skills. By having students create models for formative or summative evaluation, we allow students to express their thoughts through different modes, thus making the classroom more inclusive. Additionally, student-generated models have great utility in revealing student difficulties, particularly as they relate to mechanistic explanations. These models allow instructors to provide rapid, individualized, and specific feedback to promote both better modeling and conceptual understanding (Evaluation Feedback section in the Modeling in the Classroom Guide).

HOW SHOULD INSTRUCTORS IMPLEMENT MODEL-BASED INSTRUCTION?

Articulating clear and specific learning goals should lead to making instructional decisions that are consistent with the intended learning outcomes. This would include choices in model selection that would support specific learning objectives; modeling should not be added just for the sake of modeling but deliberately tied to learning goals. For example, phylogenies can be used to demonstrate relationships between organisms, and tactile models can show structure–function relationships in macromolecules. Ideally, depending on the learning goals, classroom activities may involve students using and interpreting given models, or creating, evaluating, and revising their own models.

Skills required for interpreting, using, and building models are not intuitive, but can be developed with practice and instruction. Instructors cannot assume that models transparently convey meaning for students (Schönborn and Anderson, 2009, 2010). Students need guidance on how to read and interpret each new model they encounter, even if the only difference is in formatting (Wright et al., 2018; Scaffolding section in the Modeling in the Classroom Guide). Thus, when implementing model-based instruction, planning sufficient time and activities for instruction, practice, and feedback is essential. Deliberate practice and scaffolding of modeling activities allow students to acquire and use skills and build on these skills through increasingly complex tasks (Hobbs et al., 2013). Modeling is especially suited for small-group work, as it allows students to cooperatively communicate what and why certain components are needed in a model and how those components work together in the context of the modeled system (Scaffolding section in the Modeling in the Classroom guide).

The modeling skills students practice in the course of instruction should be assessed in ways that are consistent with the learning objectives, which may require departure from conventional, closed-response tests as students interpret or construct models. Instructors’ feedback should similarly be aligned with one’s learning goals for modeling and should address both content knowledge and modeling skills. For concrete steps to incorporate modeling into a course, please see recommendations throughout the Modeling in the Classroom guide and in its associated Instructor Checklist.

OPEN RESEARCH QUESTIONS

While many principles of model-based teaching and learning have been identified, research on model-based instruction in the college biology classroom is a growing field that still holds much room for progress and discovery. Important areas that require more research include best practices of instructional design and classroom implementation, as well as model-based learning of concepts and acquisition of science process skills.

Classroom Implementation and Instructional Design

Multiple kinds of models (Example Models section of the Modeling in the Classroom guide) are relevant in biology, including qualitative conceptual models of processes and pathways, quantitative models and simulations, three-dimensional models of molecular or anatomical structures, phylogenies representing hypotheses about evolutionary relationships, and more. Further research is necessary to build upon what is currently known from research on learning progressions (Schwarz et al., 2009) to identify which types of models and modeling skills should be included at different stages of undergraduate biology education. Research should also help educators define learning goals, design instruction and assessment, and optimize approaches for providing feedback to learners. Student-generated models, used as a type of assessment, can provide information about students’ conceptual understanding of a topic, but also about achievement of modeling skills and abilities—a core Vision and Change competency of undergraduate biology education.

Providing meaningful and actionable feedback to students about their work is a critical component of instruction and is still generally an area in need of research. As a result, there is limited evidence about how best to evaluate and provide feedback to students on their models or on the process of modeling itself. When students construct models, it is particularly challenging for instructors to articulate feedback about both the form (model organization and structural features) and the substance (biological content) of these artifacts. Form and content are intricately connected components of models, which likely affect one another. In light of these considerations, multiple research questions are still to be explored, including:

What kinds of models should undergraduate biology students be able to create, interpret, and use at different stages in the curriculum?

What should the goals of model-based instruction be? Should modeling be used to help students develop deep conceptual understanding of biology, to teach specific modeling skills, or perhaps a combination of both?

How should instructors introduce and scaffold classroom activities to promote students’ fluency with models and modeling? Should instruction about different types of models (e.g., simulations, phylogenetic trees, conceptual models) be scaffolded in different ways?

When (e.g., for what kinds of models and what core concepts of biology) is it appropriate for students to build models, as opposed to using provided models?

How can modeling be effectively and efficiently integrated into assessment approaches?

How can we structure feedback on modeling such that it is meaningful and actionable for students?

Development of Knowledge and Skills

Creating and using models are core scientific practices. Scientists use models for a variety of purposes depending on what they are communicating, to whom, and for what purpose. While it is clear that models and modeling have important cognitive benefits for learners, we are only beginning to explore how model-based learning can foster students’ understanding of the nature of science, support deeper conceptual understanding of content, and promote systems thinking. For example, learners struggle to build connections within and across biological systems and to reason about system dynamics, causality, and emergence. Modeling may promote development of these reasoning skills, which are part of the broader frame of thinking referred to as “systems thinking.” While the field of biology education research acknowledges the importance of systems thinking skills, there is no consensus on what comprises systems thinking or how to assess systems thinking skills in the undergraduate classroom. In light of these considerations, multiple research questions are still to be explored, including:

Under what conditions could model-based learning foster students’ development of science process skills (making hypotheses and predictions, articulating causal explanations, etc.)?

How can we teach students to evaluate models and to identify model limitations and constraints?

How can the integration of modeling in a biology curriculum support not only content understanding, but also development of systems thinking skills? How do we measure competence in systems thinking?

CONCLUSION

Models can illustrate hypotheses, generate predictions, propose mechanisms, represent research findings, or describe the current understanding of structure and function of complex systems (Modeling Goals & Purposes section of the Modeling in the Classroom guide). As an instructional tool, models can transform the student experience from the static into the dynamic, the flat to the 3D, and siloed to integrated. Models have the potential to change students’ view of the biology classroom from one in which they memorize lists of facts and take tests to one in which they learn to represent and reason about biological systems that are dynamic, multidimensional, integrated, and complex.

The contents of this guide reflect our collective interests and experiences using models and modeling in our classrooms for more than a decade. Initially, modeling provided a way for us to step away from multiple choice and toward assessments that more closely reflect authentic scientific practice. We soon came to value the ways in which models capture and condense students’ thinking and to appreciate modeling as more than a skill to develop in our students. Modeling has become an approach for how we deliver instruction and a method for introducing and connecting new ideas. We have found that modeling activities make us mindful to demonstrate links between ideas and avoid the expert blind spot. We are more careful to communicate our thought processes, making them more accessible to students learning the material for the first time. We make concerted efforts to specify relationships in material covered, avoid making leaps between steps, and create opportunities for students to do the same. Through modeling, we can see how students approach the material of our courses and then give feedback to address deficiencies.

Modeling is now an indispensable and nonnegotiable component of our instruction. While the research on modeling in undergraduate biology continues to grow, we believe there is strong support for including modeling as part of undergraduate biology instruction. In our experiences, we have seen students use modeling techniques from our classrooms to study for other, non–model based classes and develop research plans. We propose that modeling should be incorporated throughout a curriculum to help students understand the profound role that models play in our discipline and to encourage them to use models for purposes well beyond our classrooms.

Ultimately, the goal of this guide is to help you, our fellow instructors, incorporate modeling into your classrooms in ways that serve your specific needs. Whether it is helping your students externalize their thinking, practice quantitative reasoning, predict and explain system behaviors, or evaluate their understanding of foundational biological processes, modeling is a flexible and valuable tool for accommodating myriad instructional goals.

REFERENCES

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Gilbert, S. W. (1991). Model building and a definition of science. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 28(1), 73–79. Google Scholar

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OpenStax College (2013, June 19) 2508 electron transport chain. Retrieved June 3, 2019, from https://cnx.org/contents/[email protected]:[email protected]/Carbohydrate-Metabolism Google Scholar

Schönborn, K. J., & Anderson, T. R. (2009). A model of factors determining students’ ability to interpret external representations in biochemistry. International Journal of Science Education, 31(2), 193–232. Google Scholar

Schönborn, K. J., & Anderson, T. R. (2010). Bridging the educational research-teaching practice gap: Foundations for assessing and developing biochemistry students’ visual literacy. Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education, 38(5), 347–354. Medline, Google Scholar

Schwarz, C. V., Reiser, B. J., Davis, E. A., Kenyon, L., Achér, A., Fortus, D., … & Krajcik, J. (2009). Developing a learning progression for scientific modeling: Making scientific modeling accessible and meaningful for learners. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 46(6), 632–654. Google Scholar

Wright, L. K., Cardenas, J. J., Laing, P., & Newman, D. L. (2018). Arrows in biology: Lack of clarity and consistency points to confusion for learners. CBE—Life Sciences Education, 17(1), ar6. Link, Google Scholar

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Effective Classroom Practices Video 8: Sequencing and Choice

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Rosenshine Masterclass II Sequencing Concepts and Modelling

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Learn how to structure and sequence teaching units in a way that is most beneficial to children's learning...

How to decide what to teach and when
If a curriculum is to be coherent and follow a logical progression, we need to pay attention to the order in which we introduce and revisit knowledge, in whatever form that might take, say Kat Howard and Claire Hill...
The curriculum in many subjects is dependent on a deliberate approach to the sequencing of knowledge. This is because one concept often relies on the understanding of what has come previously and what will come next.

Effective sequencing can also provide a way of embellishing and unifying what may otherwise seem like disconnected fragments of knowledge. To create a sense of coherence for the discipline that we teach, we need to ask ourselves:

Cognitive load theory

Cognitive load theory informs our curriculum sequencing by revealing the role of memory in helping students build the cognitive architecture required to access the curriculum effectively.

As working memory is limited, we need to sequence our curriculum to reduce cognitive load. This can be done by drawing on prior knowledge and logically sequencing episodes of learning so they accumulate in small stages. It's about securing understanding at one stage before moving on to the next.

This assists in reducing cognitive load as students can draw more effectively from their long-term memory. This therefore reduces the load for their working memory. Although activating prior knowledge is an effective method for reducing cognitive load, this needs always to serve new learning.

Take, for example, the idea of introducing the concept of colonialism through a study of the British Empire. Students need to access a working definition of 'empire', relying on their understanding of vocabulary such as 'monarchy' and 'reign'.

"As working memory is limited, we need to sequence our curriculum to reduce cognitive load"

You provide an explanation of imperialism, with a brief allusion to your previous teaching of Russia the year before. This is polished off with the image of Queen Victoria's statue that displays the words 'The entitlement of Great Britain' underneath.

In this example, prior knowledge functions as extraneous load. Students are left grappling with their working definitions of key terms and their recognition of Queen Victoria. This is alongside a plethora of completely new information.

It's made even more complicated by your attempts to draw prior knowledge from pupils with very little context.

Retrieval tasks

However, you could instead open the lesson with a retrieval task that prompts students to recall the definitions of 'empire,' 'monarchy' and 'reign'. You can then frame these within the context of the lesson. This makes explicit the connection between Queen Victoria and the British Empire's role in widespread colonisation.

This way, you're managing cognitive load and the activation of prior knowledge is purposeful for the lesson. This results in your delivery being far more cohesive and ensures one idea connects to and informs the next.

Whilst careful sequencing can support new learning by exposing its relationship to prior knowledge, we need to ensure its activation does not contribute to extraneous load. When sequencing learning we need to judiciously select the knowledge most likely to support and connect to new learning. This is so that we don't unintentionally hinder students' understanding.

This requires a systematic, streamlined approach to the activation of prior knowledge with explicit connections between what has been learnt and what is to come next. This is so that these connections strengthen students' cognitive architecture, rather than act as an extraneous distraction.

More curriculum sequencing advice

Curriculum sequencing

Sequencing of the curriculum is clearly more than the ordering of its component parts. It's about the relationships and connections between them, and the deeper understanding that the sequence allows our students to access.

It is more than simply 'this follows this, follows this'. Instead, it's a narrative. It tells the story of our subject and is a conversation between its parts.

However, curriculum design can sometimes be reduced to 'Fragments of knowledge [that] float around without being placed in a coherent structure', as noted by Mary Myatt in her book Building Curriculum.

"When sequencing learning we need to judiciously select the knowledge most likely to support and connect to new learning"

Or, in some cases, it's disjointed units of work merely connected by the command words of GCSE exam papers, with no real sense of cohesion.

We begin to move towards a better model when we start to see how one episode of teaching requires prior knowledge to not only reinforce memory but to access new learning.

However, teaching one unit and then returning to some of the core knowledge of that unit later as a bolt-on exercise in retrieval practice is unlikely to have the desired effect of creating strong schematic models for students.

The approach we take in activating prior knowledge needs to pay service to the internal dynamics of our subjects. These are complex, transformational and symbiotic.

Digging deeper

When returning to key knowledge, we must undertake a revisiting that digs deeper than simple retrieval. We need to explicitly draw attention to where we have seen this vocabulary, concept, behaviour or pattern before. Then we need to expose its relationship to what we are teaching now.

It's a process that involves foreshadowing, reference, embellishment, echoes and evolution. It's a continuous ebbing and flowing between the simple and the esoteric, rather than a mere layering of one building block on top of the other. This could be as simple as using signposting statements:

Where have we seen this before?

What does this remind us of?

How does this have a relationship with what happened previously?

How does our understanding of the previous concept inform our understanding of this one?

To sequence our curriculum in a way that is sensitive to, and prioritises these internal dynamics, we need to have some understanding of how this works in our subject and how we can harness this when designing our curriculum.

Knowledge structures

To understand the relationship between the components of our curriculum, we need to consider how structures of knowledge affect their sequencing.

For the purposes of curriculum sequencing, we can broadly divide knowledge structures into those which are hierarchical and those which are cumulative.

Subjects may be more hierarchical than others or more cumulative, but to define them as distinctly one or the other would be to oversimplify the nuances of these definitions and the subjects they apply to.

Broadly, we may consider subjects such as English literature, geography, history, art, drama and music as more cumulative than hierarchical. This is because there are fewer threshold concepts that require one component being taught before the next. Although units of study may be related, they are less likely to be reliant on each other for understanding.

However, subjects with more cumulative structures still benefit from unifying principles to reinforce an understanding of the subject discipline.

Kat Howard (@SaysMiss) is a senior leader at the Duston School, Northamptonshire. Claire Hill (@Claire_Hill_) is trust vice principal and secondary improvement lead at Turner Schools in Kent. This article is based on an edited extract of their book, Symbiosis: the Curriculum and the Classroom (John Catt, £14).

Using cognitive science to plan humanities

Unlock understanding for primary pupils by using the key concepts of cognitive science to organise your humanities curriculums, says assistant headteacher Marc Hayes...

Imagine this. You've spent hours on your latest unit of work, done a ton of research, identified potential misconceptions, created beautiful resources... and by the end of the unit, the children still fail to tell you at least five things they've learned.

This familiar frustration plays out in primary schools across the land. But why does it happen so frequently? Cognitive science offers us an answer.

What is cognitive science?

It explains that a child's working memory can only hold three to four pieces of information before being overloaded. For content to be stored in long-term memory, a child must spend a substantial amount of time thinking about it. They must also consider it repeatedly over time.

Teaching new content in bitesize chunks and reviewing it afterwards until pupils have memorised it are two important principles for effective teaching and learning.

However, with so much content to cover - especially in the humanities subjects - this can be a real challenge. Considering curriculum sequencing can help. The way we structure and sequence teaching units has a significant impact on what children learn.

By thinking about how content builds on prior knowledge and returns to key concepts, we can unlock opportunities to support memorisation. This makes our teaching more effective, as pupils develop their understanding and make meaningful links to what they already know.

"The way we structure and sequence teaching units has a significant impact on what children learn"

At my school, we've been working on making content more memorable for a number of years. We've tried being more specific with the content. And regular retrieval practice. We've also tried finding high-quality texts and reading them repeatedly.

All have had some impact. But we still found that children's ability to discuss their learning in their own language and on their own terms was quite limited.

Considering the curriculum sequencing more carefully - especially referring back to similar ideas throughout a unit - has, however, had some promising effects. We feel now that children are more able to articulate what they have learned and more easily give examples.

Here are three ways in which you could sequence content in humanities over different periods of time...

History

A key idea of Ancient Egypt is the concept of pharaoh. If children have one lesson on Egyptian monarchs, their understanding is likely to be limited. They may remember that pharaoh is the name for an Egyptian king or queen - a concept that's already familiar to them, so is easier to remember.

They may also remember some catchy names like Tutankhamun or Cleopatra. But if we give all the more ambitious content about pharaohs in one lesson, they are unlikely to be able to recall it all later.

Instead, we can return to the concept over a series of lessons. We can understand pharaohs in terms of their position in the social hierarchy when exploring Ancient Egyptian society; their divinity when exploring Ancient Egyptian religion; and how their tombs can help historians understand this period of time.

Returning to the concept not only enforces the definition of pharaoh, but it also develops children's conceptual understanding - their schema.

By structuring content to make repeated links back to the core knowledge of the curriculum, we can not only prevent forgetting but actually deepen understanding.

Geography

Some concepts in the humanities are massive and really do require more teaching time than we might first think.

I used to think children could learn about climate in a couple of hour-long lessons. How wrong could I be? Whilst previously I might have been happy with my children being able to parrot that 'climate is the average weather of a place', I've become increasingly bothered that not only is this a superficial understanding, it is also next to meaningless without rich examples underpinning it.

It's important to remember that the national curriculum describes the 'outcomes' of teaching sequences. For something like climate, the outcome - being able to understand climate as a concept - is a consequence of learning about its many components and thinking about how they are related.

"We can always find ways to improve and optimise our teaching sequences at every level"

For children to achieve this outcome, they will need to have learned about weather, the water cycle, the sun's intensity at different latitudes, climate zones, the relationship between climate and biome and why certain vegetation grows in certain parts of the world.

Embedding these components in different units of study across KS2 is one way to provide sufficient examples of a concept without overloading children in a single lesson or series of lessons.

It's important, however, to make sure pupils are aware of how all the components connect to the central concept.

RE

Whatever the local specification for RE, determining what content to teach is a substantial task for any RE leader. To gain a rich understanding of the many concepts we might teach, we need to return to them time and time again, using meaningful examples to illustrate key components.

Whoever designs the RE curriculum at your school can support you to achieve this by setting out the content required for each year group. Also, importantly, they can describe how that content links to and builds on what children have already learned.

This RE curriculum map from Hethersett CEVE Primary encourages pupils to make links between different religions/worldviews
Take, for example, the concept of forgiveness in Christianity. Children in KS1 may learn that forgiveness is a core Christian belief and hear stories such as the Prodigal Son. In KS2, pupils might return to the concept of forgiveness. However, they'll approach their learning with increased sophistication, going into more depth.

Returning to a familiar story gives children the chance to extend their understanding of what that story means for Christians. Afterwards, they could learn about other important stories, such as Joseph and his brothers. This is useful once they have practised the more sophisticated content about forgiveness in a familiar context.

We can always find ways to improve and optimise our teaching sequences at every level. When you're next reviewing your subject, planning or teaching materials, it can be a good idea to think about how the content fits together. This supports children to remember more of what you've taught them.

Cognitive science glossary

Working memory

This is the part of the brain that holds and manipulates information while we think. It's a bit like the brain's workspace. Like a physical workspace, it becomes difficult to think effectively when there is too much going on.

Cognitive scientists suggest that working memory can typically hold three to four pieces of separate information before becoming quickly overloaded. They also suggest that we can hold information for about 30 seconds before we lose it, unless we rehearse it.

Long-term memory

This is where the brain holds information for long periods of time. If children have information in their long-term memory, we can class them as having learned it.

LTM is stable and somewhat infinite in its capacity. Retrieval practice strengthens memories.

Cognitive overload

This is where the working memory has too much to think about. Unfortunately, it isn't limited to curriculum content. It includes any sensory information such as sights and sounds, including any background noise and distractions.

We should try to reduce any sensory information which is non-curriculum content to optimise learning for our pupils.

Marc Hayes is a Y6 teacher and assistant headteacher for primary curriculum at Roundhay All-Through School, Leeds. Follow him on Twitter @mrmarchayes and see more of his work at marcrhayes.com

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Curriculum sequencing - What to teach and when - Teachwire

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Kat Howard and Claire Hill examine the importance of curriculum sequencing when it comes to effective curriculum design...

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Posted: 03 Oct 2019

Estimated time to read: 3 mins

Lesson planning is a crucial part of PPA (Planning Preparation and Assessment), it can be the difference between a successful lesson and a complete classroom catastrophe. Ensuring that teachers have access to tried and tested marking techniques can reduce workload and improve teachers' mental health, as well as maximising students' academic progress.

What is Lesson Sequencing?

Lesson sequencing is a holistic approach to lesson planning. It clusters lessons together to make transitions between them as smooth and simple as possible. Lesson sequencing uses the 'Learning Arc' concept to create a plan that gives students exactly what they need to learn effectively at different stages of the learning process.

The Learning Arc

Lesson sequencing positions lessons along this learning arc (i.e. having a lesson devoted only to the introduction stage, then two lessons devoted to the exploration stage and another for the Consolidation stage.) This makes it easier to plan a sequence as a full arc, then break the arc down into lessons and homework tasks. Properly sequenced lessons improve communication and the learning environment of the class as a whole whilst saving teachers time and effort that is usually expended writing long, lesson-by-lesson plans.

Lesson Sequence Plan

This provides a combination of guidance and independent learning at every step of the process. The addition of well-positioned homework tasks that give students value can progress their development even further. By ensuring that homework is set for a reason and is genuinely valuable, we give students the tools and knowledge they need to progress along the arc.

The main steps to creating a lesson sequence plan

Choose an overall objective to get your students from the beginning to the end of the learning arc. The objective of each lesson will be to get one step closer to this sequence objective.

Determine how a sequence can progress the class along the learning arc

What do students need to progress to the sequence objective and how can you get them there? Make note of all aspects of the topic that they need to learn.

Break this sequence down into manageable chunks

Once you've set out everything along the learning arc, break the information down into smaller chunks to set the outline for each of your lessons.

Ensure each chunk fits into a lesson and an accompanying h/w task

You might have to do some regrouping, but once you've broken the sequence down, you'll get a good idea of what you need to teach in each lesson.

Using the sequence as a guide, build out each lesson with its own objective and supporting resources, as well as a valuable homework task to either consolidate on the lesson previous or prepare for the upcoming lesson. (For help with this, download our sequencing lesson plan template below).

What makes a good lesson?

A good lesson is one that simultaneously engages, challenges and supports students in their journey from the beginning of the learning arc to the end. It ensures that all students are where they need to be and know what they need to do to progress. A good lesson plan also takes into account the needs of SEND (Special Educational Needs and Disabilities) students and will have a section for differentiated work so that the whole class is able to progress at the right pace.

This is made easier by planning in a sequence, rather than lesson by lesson, as sequences tend to set SEND support protocol, possible extension work and differentiated work for the entirety of the sequence, this helps to ensure consistency in lessons, putting students at ease.

How can SLT facilitate outstanding lesson sequencing that saves time?

Giving teachers the time they need to properly conduct PPA is vital. The government's School Teachers Pay and Conditions Document stipulates that teachers must be given at least 10% of their workweek set aside for guaranteed PPA, within their directed time of 195 days or 1,265 work hours. This ensures that teachers have time to create lessons within the school day that are engaging, useful and a vehicle for getting students from the beginning of the learning arc to the end of it.

In order to facilitate outstanding lesson planning, SLT should seek to provide helpful content like a lesson plan template and possible assessment strategies that aid better workload management and help staff to cut down on planning hours. By confronting the workload crisis head on and safeguarding teachers' mental health and time, not only will schools see happier, less stressed staff, they will also see more engaged, higher achieving students.

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What is Lesson Sequencing and How Can it Save You Time?

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Posted: 03 Oct 2019 Estimated time to read: 3 mins Lesson planning is a crucial part of PPA (Planning Preparation and Assessment), it can be the difference between a successful lesson and a complete classroom catastrophe. Ensuring that teachers have access to tried and tested marking techniques can reduce workload and improve teachers' mental health, as well as maximising students' academic progress.