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ERRR052_Jim Knight on Instructional Coaching, Summary

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Three recommendations for designing and selecting effective professional development.

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This animation aims to cut through the complexity that surrounds metacognition by providing a clear example of what it looks like in practice. It could be used to start colleague conversations, build staff knowledge when designing and delivering Effective Professional Development on metacognition.

https://youtu.be/sAik_RQY_Dg

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evidence suggests the use of ‘metacognitive strategies’ – which get pupils to think about their own learning - can be worth the equivalent of an additional +7 months’ progress when used well. however

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while the potential impact of these approaches is very high

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less is known about how to apply them effectively in the classroom.  this guidance report reviews the best available research to offer teachers and senior leaders practical advice on how to develop their pupils’ metacognitive skills and knowledge. the report has recommendations in seven areas and ‘myth busts’ common misconceptions teachers have about metacognition.  for example

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some teachers think they need to teach metacognitive approaches in ‘learning to learn’ or ‘thinking skills’ sessions. but the report warns that metacognitive strategies should be taught in conjunction with specific subject content as pupils find it hard to transfer these generic tips to specific tasks.

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Apply metacognitive strategies in the classroom.

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WalkThrus collects, curates and clarifies the most effective teaching techniques, bringing the world of research to every teachers' fingertips with precise descriptions and dynamic visuals. Become a Walkthrus Member today!

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Listen to Becoming Educated on Spotify. The mission of Becoming Educated is threefold: - to inform, giving teachers the robust academic basis for really meaningfully interrogating practice. - to challenge accepted thinking, dangerous assumptions and the "dead wood" in tired professional dialogue.

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2020 hasn't been great, it's not over but without sounding pessimistic it doesn't look like things are back to the "old normal" yet! However, there are silver linings and this year has been a fantastic year for online professional learning for educators. As I am based in the Middle East, but originally from the UK and teach at a British school, I often feel like I am missing out on so many great events taking place. This year I have been able to watch, listen, learn, and share. I have collated these excellent online presentations and you can access them below by clicking on the different links for the different categories. I will continue to add to this and develop this digital CPD library. I hope you enjoy it and find it useful!

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Research and Resources for every classroom.

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I've written about retrieval practice several times in other posts but here I just want to make it easy to lay out various alternative methods for the process of reviewing your students' knowledge and understanding. Before doing that, I would suggest that there are some key principles:

1. Involve everyone: Good techniques involve all students checking their knowledge, not just a few and not just one at a time as you might do when questioning.

2. Make checking accurate and easy: it should be possible for all students to find out what they got right and wrong, what they know well and where they have gaps. Every technique involves students testing their knowledge and then checking their work for accuracy and completeness. (This is not the same as giving students extended mark schemes to mark longer assessments which, for me goes beyond a simple retrieval practice activity)

3. Specify the knowledge: Where appropriate, it's better if students know the set of knowledge any retrieval will be based on, so they can study, prepare and self-check. It must be possible for students to check their own answers which has implications for the way the knowledge requirements are laid out.

4. Keep it generative: students need to explore their memory to check what they know and understand; this means removing cue-cards, prompts, scaffolds and cheat-sheets; it means closing the books and thinking for themselves.

5. Make it time efficient: The idea of each technique is that they can be used repeatedly in an efficient manner without dominating whole lessons.

6. Make it workload efficient: None of these methods involve the teacher checking the students' answers, creating unsustainable workload. A teacher might choose to check the occasional test but that's no use for routine practice.

1. Quick Fire Quiz
Everyone know this one but it can still be done well or badly: Teacher reads out the question or presents them via slides or an audio tape (eg in MFL). The questions can be spontaneously generated or prepared. Questions can be simple factual recall, mental maths or multiple choice;

All students write down their answers. Teacher reveals the answers, one by one or all at once. Students check which they got right. Swapping answers to check is an option but it can be a faff and takes away from the message that students need to be evaluating the depth of their own learning. If you've prepared this in advance, it is much more time efficient if students can see the answers all at once to check rather than wait for each to be read out.

It's important that the teacher discusses common wrong answers - which is one of the main functions. If you can do lots of confidence-building questions quickly (rather than deliberately hard ones) - you can get a great buzz of enjoyment. Knowing things is fun!
2. Paper Quiz
Everyone gets a copy of the questions and writes down answers at their own pace within a time limit. This is much less teacher-directed. It frees the teacher up to circulate and spot common errors as they emerge. It allows for a wider range of question types and makes it easier to engage in with worded questions that can be hard to read from a slide.

The checking process is much better done with pre-prepared answers rather than reading out answers one by one. Why? Because it is quicker, allows for more detail in the answers, it allows students to focus on things they got wrong and helps to build their capacity for self-assessment.
3. Silent Self-Quiz
Try this. Which ones do you know? (Answer provided)

How well can you learn these labels? (Test and then check)

In a test like this, students can generate answers and then check if they were right, silently and privately. They can repeat this multiple times. Any number of resources can be used - blanked diagrams, cue cards with answers on the back, maths questions with answers kept separately. This process keeps the outcome of the assessment with the student - the most important place! They learn what they know and don't know. You can then discuss common errors and problems. It saves a lot of time with asking questions and marking them - all of that is done mentally by the students.
4. Paired Quiz.
Here, we start using Dylan Wiliam's excellent strategy: Activating students as resources for one another. In order to maximise the extent of retrieval practice that goes on, it is fantastic to get students to quiz each other in pairs. One student has the material - questions, answers, cue cards, knowledge organiser, text - and asks the other student questions. "Test me" - it's a well-used technique and can be harnessed in lessons. Give a time limit and then get them to swap around. You get a room full of students checking their knowledge. I've seen this done in superbly well in languages where the teacher circulated to check for accent issues and common errors listening in to the multiple paired quizzing dialogues.
5. Self-Explanation
Beyond simple recall, ask students to explain something to themselves. You simply give students a few silent moments to complete a mental task. They have to generate a version of what they understand that they can either then self-check or write down or use to respond to further question. However the process of mental rehearsal is important.. making this explicit helps to train those who don't do it spontaneously.

What is the story of Henry VIII's Six Wives? Run through it... then check.
6. Demonstration and Performance
Of course LOTS of knowledge isn't simply quiz-able declarative knowledge. You can ask students to show what they know: a procedure; a technique; a routine. Have you learned it? Show me... Of course as a student shows what they can do to a teacher, they are showing themselves what they can do. This is important. Again, the intensity and frequency can be amplified by getting students to show each other in pairs rather than one-by-one with the teacher, as long as they have the tools to evaluate success. This is common in practical areas and performance areas - sport, music, art - but it also has a role in science, maths, English where the modelling process could be framed as 'teaching'. eg teaching the class how to answer a maths problem.
7. Paired or individual elaborative-interrogation
A form of quizzing that can be done in pairs or as a silent private process, is elaborative interrogation. This is where students explore their schema by answering How and Why questions.

Why does this happen? How does it work? Why does it work? Why did she say that? Why do you use that structure? Why is that the most important reason? How do you know?

If you train students to use some of these question stems and give them resources that help them to verify the answers, this makes for a deep retrieval practice exercise
8: Tell the story; rehearse the explanation
Lots of knowledge forms a narrative structure - a series of events, a process, cause and effect. So, the retrieval practice can be formed as 'telling the story' to someone else who can play the role of verifier. Any explanation can then be improved and rehearsed. You can get better at telling a story in more detail.

Here are some examples. Tell the story of a water molecule as if follows the water cycle: (with or without key words provided)

Why does the sun rise in the East?.... How good was your friend's answer? Now you have a go...

Of course this material can be used for self-explanation in the first instance.
9: Summarising
This is a useful recall process although it is less precise in terms of checking - because every summary can be different. A retrieval process can be something like:

Last week we looked at renewable energy. Summarise the main advantages and disadvantages of a wind farm: Go! .

Then show your definitive response for checking:
10. Map and Compare
This method is where you want to check students' capacity to make links. Ask them to make a memory map of the key aspects of a topic... eg: Reactions of Metals OR Themes in Hamlet OR Generating Electricity. These things can be much tighter sections of knowledge too: Types of radiation; the key events and figures in the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Students then make mind-maps in a quick, memory -dump style before checking against a good resource - their knowledge organiser, exercise book or a teacher-completed version: What did you get right? What did you miss out completely?

Trial by Ordeal? What can you remember? Go.....

Further reading: Check out these documents. The summaries by @olicav are superb but also read the original papers they relate to.

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Image Credit: https://emptechgroup.com/the-internet-of-things/ I've written about retrieval practice several times in other posts but here I just want to make it easy to lay out various alternative methods for the process of reviewing your students' knowledge and understanding. Before doing that, I would suggest that there are some key principles: Involve everyone: Good techniques involve...

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Rehearsal first; retrieval practice later – an important distinction.

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In December, Efrat Furst delivered a superb masterclass as part of our In Action series where she explained the stages of learning using the models used in her brilliant blog posts such as Within t…

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Retrieval Practice: Research & Resources for every classroom: Resources and research for every classroom

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

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PAGE 154 | OVERVIEW OF INSTRUCTIONAL COACHING CYCLES AND THE ROLE WALKTHRUS CAN PLAY

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The technique of bringing information to mind for improving and increasing the learning process is known as Retrieval Practice. Consciously recalling knowledge helps learners in long term retention of knowledge, and to pull their knowledge "out" and analyze initial learning.

Retrieval practice (formerly referred to as the " testing effect") is a useful revision and effective learning technique that helps in memory retention because it involves recollection of prior knowledge, which improves the chances of knowledge shifting to long term memory.

Cognitive Psychologists Professors Roediger and Karpicke are well-known leaders in research on the application of retrieval practice in school environments. Roediger Et Al. indicated that when students study a passage repeatedly, they will remember more in the short-term. However, when they engage in factual recall more frequently, they improve their long-term learning (Roediger Et Al., 2006).

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Using Retrieval Practice in school environments

Depending upon the grade levels, the Retrieval Practice condition isappliedin several ways in the school environment. It can be as easy as trying to recall initial learning mentally or on a paper without involving complex materials or without reviewing the learning materials. Following are some ways to use retrieval practice in the classroom:

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Learning scientists work on retrieval practice

1. Practice tests: Teachers can ask students in a Middle School Science Classroom to write their practice questions; students can use practice questions from the textbook or use those provided by the teacher; they can make and share questions with their study partner, or use online sources to find questions. Teachers can also ask students to first write the correct answers to the questions in short answer format and then ask students to find the correct answers to the same questions presented as multiple-choice questions in the final test or unit exam.

2. Flashcards - For students in primary grade levels, teachers can ask students to write questions on one side of the index card and answers on the other side of the card. Students can also use flashcard software systems or create flashcards on a computer and print them out.

3. Writing prompts - The writing prompts technique is very effective for encouraging students to think about a specific subject and to show what they know. For example, the teacher can write an incomplete sentence on a card and ask the students to complete the sentence e.g. "A plant needs sunlight to ________".

4. Concept maps: Karpicke Et Al. (2014)explained that creating concept maps, is like writing prompts; but, students create a keyword map of related words instead of writing complete details of retrieval tasks. Students will create concept maps by writing the title at the top of the page and drawing a large circle. Then, they will add circles with keywords about the topic. For different grade levels, the concept maps would indicate what the students don't know while showing what they already possess in their long term memory.

Elaborative Interrogation: This is an effective method, which mostly includes detailed 20 questions, which is useful retrieval practice in classroom settings. Elaborative interrogation does not involve the writing of any sort, but a student may write the answers and is better with two or more students. To use the Elaborative interrogation technique in an educational setting, the teacher would make pairs of the students, and give each pair of students a topic and several questions to ask. The main purpose is to encourage students to think deeply about the topic and recollect what they truly know.

using quizzes for retrieval practice

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When did this happen?

Why did this happen?

How does it work?

Why does it work?

1. Quizzes: For different grade levels, quizzes are the key ingredient that can be performed in several different ways. These can be performed individually or in groups, pairs, or as a class. Teachers can give colour cards or clickers to the students for answering or they can make the different teams in the class. While considering the level of difficulty, teachers can also use different apps and websites to ask multiple-choice questions or to conduct multiple-choice tests.

2. Placemats: Itis easy to make placemats. Worksheets provide a great way to assess prior knowledge. However, like other study strategies placemats can give great results when they are used alongside other popular methods and educational materials. Placemats are more effective for teaching elementary school children; but, there remains a risk factor for children becoming bored or just stopping to care. Therefore, placemats must be used to perform complex tasks in intentional and responsible ways.

3. Copy-cover-and-check method: To apply this retrieval practice in school environments, teachers would ask students to simply cover their lecture slides with a card, try to recall the text on the slides, and then remove the card to check. This technique provides the learning assessment without needing little-to-no extra effort before starting to apply retrieval activity in classroom settings.

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research based strategies to improve learning

Below are some examples:

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Getting retrieval practice right

retrieval practice learning model

If teachers know the kind of questions that will be asked in the course exam, they can also help students by providing successful retrieval practice conditions suitable for similar kinds of questions. Therefore, retrieval condition in classroom settings increases the possibility that students would successfully recall relevant information for their upcoming high-stakes exams.

Depending upon the level of difficulty, teachers can implement cued recall tests and use cue cards to remind students of complex materials and complex concepts. After using the retrieval method, it is suggested to check notes and textbooks to ensure correct and complete retrieval of the information. Cue cards strategy would rectify any mistakes, and give immediate feedback about what one knows and what one doesn't know.

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Other Revision Techniques

Retrieval practice activity becomes more effective when it is performed along with othereffective learning techniques. There are many benefits of testing but the following are some other revision techniques that can have positive effects on retrieval educational practice in making it more effective through creating new memory paths for the knowledge being recalled.

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nine ways to use retrieval practice in your classroom

Spaced Retrieval Practice

Spaced retrieval practice is a popular method and a useful retrieval-based learning strategy of Cognitive Science, which means studying a topic more than once but having long gaps between learning sessions. In other words, it divides learning into time. Research in cognitive psychology shows that the spacing effect is more beneficial for long-term, meaningful learning. The space must be of longer duration rather than very short breaks. This strategy works better than rote learning because students get the time to forget the details before striving to access them. The best way to use spaced retrieval practice in classroom settings is to not quiz the students for some time after studying the information. Afterwards, students can be engaged in ret rieval-based learning activities or they will be asked short-answer questions using flashcards or other learning techniques for practising spacing and retrieval.

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Interleaving techniques

The process of changing subjects or topics rather than just paying attention to one topic for long periods is called interleaving. For instance, rather than studying Biology for four consecutive hours, a student would study Chemistry for an hour, Biology for an hour, History for an hour, and Mathematics for an hour.

In this study time, the student would be using flashcards, making mind maps, or self-quizzing for a long-term, meaningful learning and effective retrieval practice in classroom settings.

Both spacing and interleaving techniques can help increase students' long-term meaningful learning and memory retention of important information.

When a student utilizes interleaving alongside spacing and effective retrieval practice, it improves test-enhanced learning and improves the effectiveness of all three of them.

Interleaving is also a useful Retrieval based learning strategy to retain several topics into memory in a specific amount of time. Interleaving improves meaningful retrieval-based learning by mixing up topics closely related to one another. This improves students' learning process and their ability to differentiate between numerous concepts.

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1. Retrieval practice is an effective strategy because it helps reinforce schemas that learners have created, which helps them save the information in their long term memory. In a study, Carpenter & Lund (2016) observed that high-performing students benefited in exams more from retrieval-based learning class activities than copying and rote learning; on the other hand, low and middle-performing students benefited more from copying and rote learning as compared to retrieving

2. Retrieval practice enhances the retrieval-based learning activities; concept mapping, flashcards, or any of the other powerful learning strategies will promote meaningful learning as compared to re-reading or highlighting. Through self-explanation students explain to themselves parts of a learning material which improves their understanding. Also, prior laboratory studies have shown the effectiveness of the practice of retrieval, which can be broadly characterized as recognition tests, cued-recall, and free-recall (McDaniel Et Al, 2011).

3. According to an Assistant Professor, Cognitive Scientist, & Former K-12 teacher, Pooja Agarwal, the act of calling information to mind or retrieval, our memory for that specific information is strengthened and it becomes less likely to forget about that information.

4. Yana Weinstein (2013), an Assistant Professor at University of Massachusetts, Lowell, states that retrieval practice is useful for protecting against the negative impact of previously memorized information on the learning of new information, alongside increasing the retention of subsequent information.

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Benefits of Retrieval Practice

Research in cognitive scienceindicates that students may find it difficult in the beginning; but, having students vigorously recollect the information will benefit them greatly. There are many benefits of Retrieval Practice in classroom settings. Some of the most important effects of retrieval practice are:

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Challenges of using Retrieval Based Learning

Both teachers and students show concerns about classroom practice of r etrieval-based learning activities. Some teachers do not recognize the effectiveness of retrieval practice and they are hesitant to use retrieval practice because they feel that they might have to change their teaching style or the textbook. But, it's not true because the effectiveness of retrieval practice is not only about receiving the information. Teachers must see how their students use spacing and practice the things that have been taught. Also, some teachers believe that retrieval practice would waste their class time. But, it's not right too. Application of r etrieval practice will act as a learning tool that will enable students to learn more quickly and retain more information in their long term memory.

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building a model as retrieval practice

Using mental modelling for retrieval-based learning

The block building methodology that we have been using across schools in England was initially seen as a knowledge-building tool. Some of our member schools quickly realised that this engaging pedagogy was a useful way of finding out what students knew. We have seen educators ask students to build a conceptual model of a body of knowledge. This type of creative retrieval based activity is more engaging than multiple-choice tests. Unlike multiple-choice and short answer questions, students have to create a structure that represents a particular piece of knowledge. This for example could be a timeline, I hierarchical structure or categorising items into groups. The process uses student creativity to make sense of complex materials. These types of alternative learning strategies are more accessible than traditional classroom tasks as they free up the working memory to do more critical thinking. You can see the learning tool in action on the dedicated webpage.

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References

Blunt, JD & Karpicke (2014). Learning with retrieval-based concept mapping - Journal of Educational Psychology.

Carpenter, Lund, Coffman (2016) A classroom study on the relationship between student achievement and retrieval-enhanced learning, Journal of Educational Psychology, Springer.

Mark A. Mcdaniel & Barbie J Huelser (2011). Test-Enhanced Learning in a Middle School Science Classroom: The Effects of Quiz Frequency and Placement, May 2011Journal of Educational Psychology 103(2):399-414

Pooja Agarwal, (2013). How to use retrieval practice to improve learning.

Roediger and Karpicke (2006). Test-enhanced learning: Taking memory tests improves long-term retention, Educational Psychology Review, journals.sagepub.com

Yana Weinstein (2012). Testing improves true recall and protects against the build-up of proactive interference without increasing false recall. Taylor & Francis.

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The technique of bringing information to mind for improving and increasing the learning process is known as Retrieval Practice. Consciously recalling knowledge helps learners in long term retention of knowledge, and to pull their knowledge "out" and analyze initial learning.

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Knowledge organisers for primary – How to get the best out of them - Teachwire

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Keeping you up-to-date with the latest on education, including great teaching ideas and current issues in education.

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As my work with various schools and colleges progresses, I'm increasingly aware of a wide range of approaches to professional development across the system. In certain contexts, each of these delivers positive outcomes and I feel it's important not to be to absolute or purist about CPD structures given that so many models can deliver. Are there some general features they share that lead to them being successful? Yes, I think each model shares these characteristics:

Evidence-seeking: Teachers engage with evidence about what is working and what might work better - looking at assessment information and/or research evidence.

Harnessing Expertise: There's expertise in many forms, from many sources - but it's needed to drive a good CPD process. Teachers have their own expertise and can go a long way just sharing it between them - but this usually blends with other sources including books and blogs, external providers and webinars or external courses and workshops.

Evaluative processes and mindsets: Each process involves teachers in seeking to do better, rather than to produce show lessons or defend the status quo; teachers are open the idea that they could be more effective and QA processes reinforce that way of thinking rather than inhibit it.

Cycles of reviewing, planning, and deliberate practice: There's a rhythm over a year - cycles of reflection, selecting ideas and trying them out to see if they have an impact, then practising to do them well. They are processes - not events.

Alignment to some shared ideas about teaching. There's a shared language or framework for teaching that allows people to talk about their practices and strategies meaningfully. It's not about each person going off to do their own thing, reinventing the wheel.

Contributing to a community of practice. Each teacher focuses on themselves but also plays a role in a wider collaborative community of professionals sharing ideas, at least within their immediate team.

Sustained over time - incentives and motivation. Effect processes are sustained so that teachers go through various stages from initial engagement with ideas through to implementing and embedding them in their practice. This means there has to be a motivational force of some kind that keeps them going.

Whilst being a firm advocate of instructional coaching, my experience so far is that this often emerges from other models that are already working quite well. It's 'next level' in terms of depth of impact but it's not necessarily where you have to or should start. Each of these structures can be very impactful, albeit with different limitations:

Underpinning nearly all good CPD systems is a culture of teachers pursuing their own improvement. It's possible to support this with access to good resources - the classic CPD library - but, to make sure things are happening, this can be formalised in various ways eg with individual teacher enquiries or professional learning journals or structured external courses, in person or online. Solo operators sometimes flock together in reading groups or just do their own thing attending conferences, watching webinars or engaging with the edutwitter world. It's all good and should be encouraged. The challenge is to harness the autonomy that many teachers enjoy when left to fly solo with the need to ensure all teachers have access to expertise and are making improvements to their practice in a deliberate, sustained manner. Some teachers thrive with this approach, selecting areas that are very much geared around their interests and needs but, on its own, it won't be enough.
2. INSET Driven
INSET sessions run at whole-school level or for large groups can be useful although they present the opposite challenge to the Flying Solo model. There's power in everyone hearing the same input and engaging in discussions around the same concepts relevant to their shared context. Importantly, even here, I think they need to be regarded as part of a flow so that, there's an explicit expectation that teachers will take ideas from a session, do something with them over a defined period and then feed that into the next one. They are not 'one and done'. In between, teachers are autonomous - so there is some freedom but also a risk of drift, dilution and divergence. The red dot is the expert - someone presenting and championing the ideas. They can have a role in the initial delivery but also in keeping the ideas circulating between sessions. The bigger the groups, the less active the champion is and the longer the time between the sessions, the lower the likelihood of the ideas having impact on any given classroom. The expert could be an external person - but it's the ideas that matter, not the person delivering them and, even if initially external expertise is needed, somebody else needs to keep that flag flying when they've gone.
3. Team Driven
This is an important structure in any school or college. Arguably this element of CPD is the real driver of improvement in most places. The small group of professionals meets regularly enough for ideas to carry from one meeting to the next. The leader can build alignment around a common agenda whilst still allowing individuals to explore ideas on their own terms within agreed parameters. There can be an intensity and focus to this that is highly motivating. The success of this process depends on the leadership of the sessions - they need to give time for reflection and planning involving every member of the team; the sequence of sessions needs to support sustained focus - not flitting from one idea to another. There needs to be a culture of critical reflection; the team has to contain the expertise to fuel itself.
4. Team Pairs
This is a development of Team Driven CPD, particularly useful for bigger teams or where the needs of the team are diverse or the whole-team sessions can be quite far apart. Here, colleagues within a team pair up and engage in a process of shared planning, paired coaching, peer observation or 'unseen observation', fuelling each other's cycles of reviewing, planning, and deliberate practice. Pairs can report back to the others as part of the team meetings, sharing their experiences with implementing the ideas. Pairs can be nimble with finding time for these interactions and that can be important if time for whole team gathering is harder to engineer on a frequent basis within any given context. Trust between pairs can be built quickly so that feedback and critical reflection happen, although there is always a risk of cosy-buddy relationships that pay lip-service to the process without offering any challenge.

5. Independent Triads

Several schools and colleges use this structure where all teachers are part of a triad. The triads engage in cycles of reviewing, planning, and deliberate practice following agreed protocols. Part of this is the value of joint observations: two people observe the third person. Sometimes this is linked to ideas from Lesson Study. This allows the observers to check their perspectives with another - and it avoids the post observation discussions becoming personal and overly subjective. The third person provides a moderating influence and/or a source of challenge. There's a motivational power in three people pushing each other through the process over multiple cycles. Another aspect is that two people can report on a lesson to the third person who has the role of challenger: What worked? Why? Which students struggled? Why was this? What could you do about it? etc.

The risk with triads is that people don't find or make time for talking and observing in between their team meetings -so the cycles don't have as often as might be possible with pairs; also some places introduce documentation as part of a QA process but this can become unwieldy and off-putting. Again there is also a risk of the cosy-buddy problem: it happens, everyone has a nice time - but it doesn't make any difference.

6. Guided Triads.

This is Triads with Teeth! Here, the triads engage in cycles of reviewing, planning, and deliberate practice, based on common issues within a team or across teams. However, an additional element is added whereby the triads regularly report to an external person - a team coach or SLT member who tracks and guides their progress. This helps keep the process on track timewise but also provides an external source of probing challenge and/or supportive guidance or expertise. I've seen these sessions in action and they can be quite superb. The external person asks process questions: What is working? What challenges have you experienced? Where have you seen learning gains? Which strategies are you planning now? How will you know if they're working? The teachers bring examples of student to work to show how things are having an impact. The business of the lesson observations is stripped away to focus on the outcomes. This is really useful, especially where people are new to the process or perhaps struggle to run their cycles efficiently. In terms of time commitment, you can set up half-termly check-ins giving triads time to meet and discuss in between.
7. Coached Pairs
This structure has elements of guided triads and team pairs but the coaching person is a continual presence. The way this works is the coach meets regularly with the pair to discuss their ongoing improvement process. It could include their peer lesson observations, work sampling and general discussions of the strategies. This might be a primary school leader talking to the two Year 5 teachers, for example. The meetings allow the coach/leader to model good probing questions. They ask questions related to specific strategies or curriculum elements that each teacher is trying to work on. What's working? What could be improved? How can you tell? How can we get even more students to excel on tasks like this? This keeps the discussions very focused without it being about all the possible issues that arise in a lesson observation. The process allows the leader to model good probing dialogue that the teachers can then continue to use in their own discussions later. Again the three-person dynamics can allow for more probing without the personal/sensitive response - it makes people focus on problem solving and co-construction of next steps.

8. Instructional Coaching

With instructional coaching, the relationship between teacher and coach is fostered and sustained over multiple iterations and has the capacity to drill into the most precise details around what the learning problems are and what the teacher's action steps might be. It assumes a level of knowledge on the part of the coach and a skillset that can draw out the optimum response from the teacher - so developing the coach's capacity to do that well is a training issue in itself. I have found that really good coaches have developed these skills after engaging as the leader/coach in some of the other structures. The key is to blend the all-important side-by-side in-it-together dynamic alongside the knowledge of the playbook of high impact strategies, gauging how to frame next steps in a way that makes sense to the teacher from their perspective. At it's best, this approach is highly effective but it's important to develop the process and it's expansion at the rate at which it can be sustained with the people you have.

Bring it all together: Three Streams

In all of these approaches, it's helpful to think of multiple activities happening together. It's possible to run several systems at once: INSET plus Team-Driven plus Coaching Pairs and Triads. The more explicit the shared framework for teaching is, the easier it is for these different elements to work in harmony as key ideas are explored in different but reinforcing ways.

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CPD Models. 8 different ways teachers can engage in professional learning

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As my work with various schools and colleges progresses, I'm increasingly aware of a wide range of approaches to professional development across the system. In certain contexts, each of these delivers positive outcomes and I feel it's important not to be to absolute or purist about CPD structures given that so many models can deliver....

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In many of Dylan Wiliam's talks and publications he references five 'key strategies' that support the implementation of effective formative assessment. The five strategies each get a chapter in his excellent book Embedding Formative Assessment (2011) which builds on the work he developed with other colleagues in the 90s and 00s.

The five strategies were expressed as early as 2005:

1. Clarifying, understanding, and sharing learning intentions

2. Engineering effective classroom discussions, tasks and activities that elicit evidence of learning

3. Providing feedback that moves learners forward

4. Activating students as learning resources for one another

5. Activating students as owners of their own learning

Leahy, Lyon, Thompson and Wiliam (2005).
Very commonly, Wiliam presents these ideas in this helpful table, linking the strategies to core assessment concepts:

In my work as a consultant and teacher trainer, I give a lot of 'evidence-informed' advice to teachers. Of late, this has been influenced largely by discussions about a knowledge-rich curriculum and my reading of Rosenshine's Principles of Instruction, cognitive load theory, and various other papers linking cognitive psychology to classroom practice.

However, it occurred to me recently that most of this overlaps entirely with Wiliam's five strategies and that is what I want to explore here. To some extent, schools and teachers often feel they have have 'done AfL to death' in countless CPD sessions over the last 15 years. Time was when you couldn't get a job unless you said 'AfL' about 12 times in an interview. Sadly, my sense is that the wisdom at the heart of Wiliam's ideas about responsive teaching/formative assessment gets washed out either a) by the delusion that the strategies are already embedded in day-to-day practice or b) by the sense that this is a box ticked and people are really ready to move to the new thing. Truth be told, a lot of 'AfL' was and is a mile away from the formative assessment practice Wiliam is talking about.

Essentially, I feel that, among the important things every teacher should know, the five strategies should be there, part of the core curriculum for teacher development. Here's how I see it all connecting:
1.Clarifying, understanding, and sharing learning intentions
Wiliam says 'if you don't know where you're going, you'll never get there'. This is largely about curriculum planning. I read 'learning intentions' as meaning: what do we want all students to know and be able to do? In the detail, this means spelling out what knowledge - in all its forms - they should have and how to apply this knowledge in new contexts. It chimes perfectly with the wave of work being done around curriculum design. It also resonates with the strand of Rosenshine's Principles of Instruction around sequencing concepts, providing models and appropriate scaffolding.

It also means 'what does excellence look like?'. This connects to ideas about assessment and comparative judgement and teachers knowing the standards. Significantly, the implication from Wiliam is that in 'clarifying, understanding and sharing' - teachers, students and their peers all need to know both the knowledge requirements and the criteria for excellence in any performed task. This goes far, far beyond writing a mandatory one-line LO on the board at the start of every lesson! (Aarrghh!). It suggests a lot of very explicit exposition and discussion about the target knowledge and the features of any endeavour that constitute ever increasing degrees of success.

This, in turn, feeds into ideas about self-regulation and metacognition. Successful learners will be good at self-regulation, planning and monitoring their progress towards learning goals in a deliberate self-directed manner. Knowing the learning intentions very well is essential for that process to work.

So the links here are numerous: curriculum, knowledge, standards, self-regulation, scaffolding, modelling.
2. Engineering effective classroom discussions, tasks and activities that elicit evidence of learning
In some ways, this 'strategy' is a one-line summary of most of the rest of Rosenshine's Principles of Instruction. 'Discussions, tasks and activities' covers a lot of possibilities. At the centre of it is the idea of 'responsive teaching'. Instructional teaching has to be highly interactive so that teachers are getting feedback from their students about how well their schemas for the material in hand are forming and how fluent they are becoming retrieving and using what they've learned. The challenge for teachers is to involve as many students as possible which leads to the need for good questioning routines and good knowledge-check routines where the ratio of student involvement is high and the information received has a good diagnostic component.

Rosenshine talks about the need for checking for understanding and asking lots of questions in a probing style. Wiliam focuses on question design - including good diagnostic multiple choice questions - and the role of all-student response techniques.

Links: Rosenshine's Principles of Instruction. Shimamura's 'Generate-Evaluate' model. Ideas about retrieval practice. Nuthall's ideas about 'hidden lives' and the idea that we can't be remotely confident about learning taking place until we check - now, and again later.
3. Providing feedback that moves learners forward
Feedback is a thorny issue, woven into discussions about the use of formative and summative assessment, marking and workload, grading and the value of data as a tool to improve learner outcomes. The key in Wiliam's work is the emphasis on moving learners forward. It's this thinking that informed the ideas I expressed in this ' feedback as actions ' post.

Some of the key messages that Wiliam offers in relation to feedback that I cite very often are:

Feedback is only successful if students' learning improves - and this depends on their capacity to understand it and inclination to accept and act on it. It's got an interpersonal, motivational element that can't be brushed aside. Giving feedback isn't a purely technical, objective task - although it does have to suggest actions students can actually take rather than offering a nebulous retrospective critique.

The goal is to change the students' capacity to produce better work, not just to improve their work. Austin's Butterfly is wonderful - because it shows what effective feedback can achieve - but Austin has only truly benefitted if, later, he is more able to 'look like a scientist' or draw beautiful butterflies without feedback: he needs to be able to generate his own feedback and become more independent.

This links formative assessment to metacognition and self-regulation and Rosenshine's ideas about moving from guided to independent practice. If we're still reliant on external feedback to tell us if we've succeeded (SatNav style), then we've still got a long way to go. Effective learners can link their work to the success criteria and generate their own ongoing self-correcting feedback narrative.

Links: Ethic of excellence, Rosenshine guided to independent practice, self-regulation.
4. Activating students as learning resources for one another
I think this is the feature of Wiliam's five strategies that deserves more attention. All too often teachers create major bottlenecks by forcing all classroom interactions to pass through them. However, if teachers develop strong routines where students support each other's learning in a serious structured manner, then the ratio, quality and frequency of student interactions with the knowledge in hand can increase significantly. We can't have a dialogue with every student at once but they can all be involved in meaningful dialogues with each other to support the process of working out 'where the learner is' and 'how to get to where the learner is going'. This is where disciplined ' think pair share ' becomes so powerful.

Wiliam cites Slavin in showing that well-designed collaborative learning can yield significant gains - but it has to be done such that everyone is learning. There are so many ways to do this e.g students checking their partners' answers using all manner of quizzing formats and generative processes and elaborative-interrogative questions (why? how?). Pairs are probably the most efficient and effective use of this strategy - because of the ease of switching in and out of the interactions. If one person in a pair acts as the verifier for the other, using exemplars, fact sheets, mark schemes as a reference, the extent of retrieval practice and feedback can be increased hugely. Another example might be using structured dialogues for practising the use of language or rehearsing explanations and arguments. Provided that there is a strong process for evaluating students' responses for accuracy and quality, a high volume of peer-to-peer interactivity is powerful.

Links: Hattie's 'reciprocal teaching', Shimamura's 'think it, say it, teach it', Slavin's collaborative learning, Sumeracki and Weinstein on elaborative interrogative questions and retrieval practice.
5. Activating students as owners of their own learning
In all honesty, I find that implementation of the strategy behind this feel-good-phrase, often falls into the dust of 'noble intent' rather than delivering something tangible. However, it is actually highly actionable and links directly to many other ideas. 'Owning your own learning' is at the heart of strong self-regulation and metacognition: setting learning goals, planning, monitoring and evaluating success in tasks links to those goals; forming effective schemata that take account of big-picture questions and themes that inform subsequent conscious rehearsal and elaboration. However, these 'goals' are not broad brush life goals; they are learning goals - the next steps in improving writing fluency, science knowledge, confidence with maths and languages, physical fitness etc.

The point is that these characteristics of effective learning can be fostered by setting up good routines and expectations. Teachers can help students to know where they are going and where they are on the curriculum journey. This can be supported by:

giving students access to long-term topic plans, the syllabus, the wide scope overview before diving down into the details;

setting out milestones in the progress journey so that students can take their bearings and plan their own next steps through appropriate forms of practice, becoming increasingly independent.

setting out clear relational models for conceptual schema building - as per Shimamura's Relate in MARGE.

providing exemplars of performance at various levels of success up to a high/exceptional level so students can compare their own work against a scale and see for themselves where they are and what short-run learning goals might be achievable to move forward.

If a student knows for themself what they need to do in order to improve and gains the experience of being able to achieve success through applying effort to these self-determined goals, then they begin a positive upward spiral of confidence building, growth mindset-inducing, self-regulation that fuels even more success.

Links: Rosenshine: practice; Shimamura: Relate; Growth mindset; self-regulation.

To some extent I feel that the issue has been that 'AfL' or even 'formative assessment' has been too broad a term; too much of a catch-all, thereby allowing various degrees of corruption and dilution to take root. I think that it's when you get into understanding and deploying the five separate strategies that it finds form. That's the understanding of formative assessment that teachers need. It's powerful stuff, right there, where it's been for years.
Key References:
Wiliam, D., & Thompson, M. (2007). Integrating assessment with instruction: what will it take to make it work? In C. A. Dwyer (Ed.), The future of assessment: shaping teaching and learning(pp. 53-82). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Wilam, D (2011) Embedded Formative Assessment. Solution Tree Press.

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Revisiting Dylan Wiliam's Five Brilliant Formative Assessment Strategies.

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In many of Dylan Wiliam's talks and publications he references five 'key strategies' that support the implementation of effective formative assessment. The five strategies each get a chapter in his excellent book Embedding Formative Assessment (2011) which builds on the work he developed with other colleagues in the 90s and 00s.

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In my Learning Rainforest and Evidence-informed practice CPD sessions, a core element is a focus on the power of questioning. In my view, good in-house CPD and feedback from lesson observation should put teachers' capacity and confidence with questioning at the centre. In my experience, great questioning is the hallmark of a really effective teacher and sits right at the top of the list for things teachers can and should improve. It's far far more important to support teachers with questioning than, for example, to fuss about the quality of their marking or accuracy of their data entry.

As I've explored elsewhere, there is good evidence for the role questioning plays in securing strong outcomes. It's the frontline of formative assessment and the key tool in responsive teaching. Teachers need feedback to them from multiple students in order to gauge how successful they have been in securing learning from their teaching. As Rosenshine explains, effective teachers ask more questions from more students in greater depth, checking for understanding, involving all learners and exploring thinking processes and misconceptions as well as correct answers.

See: Rosenshine Exploring Barak Rosenshine's seminal Principles of Instruction: Why it is THE must-read for all teachers.

See: Teaching Fundamentals Teaching Fundamentals: Checking for Recall and Understanding

Based on my reading and work with teachers over the years, I have found a particular repertoire of questioning strategies useful for teachers to work on and this is the list I usually work through in my training.

In combination, these seven strategies unlock the full power of questioning, each working on a different principle. The idea is to work on one or two with deliberate practice until they form a set of organic, default modes for engaging in responsive teaching.

Cold Calling: (Based on Lemov, TLAC)

Principle: All students should be involved in engaging with the teacher-student dialogue with time to think, and not be allowed to hide, dominate or be overlooked.

Practice: No hands up. Teachers ask questions and then select students to respond based on their knowledge of the class, avoiding the pitfalls of hands-up or calling out. This is an inclusive process that conspicuously involves all students, front, back, in the corners, shy, confident.. everyone. It's not a one-off strategy; it needs to be the default mode for most questions; absolutely routine.

No Opt-Out: (Based on Lemov, TLAC)

Principle: Students should feel safe in answering when unsure but, if they don't know or get things wrong, they should be given the opportunity to gain confidence by consolidating correct or secure answers. Also, students should not be allowed to opt out by saying 'I don't know'.

Practice: If a student or several students get an answer completely or partially wrong or they say they don't know, move to other students or provide the correct answer. But then go back to all those students who made errors or couldn't answer giving them a chance to now say the right answer. This gives them an opportunity for practice but if done routinely, it also means that students soon learn there is no value if offering 'I don't know' as a defence, in the hope of being left alone!

Checking for Understanding:

Principle: Teachers should not assume that knowledge aired and shared in the public space of the classroom has been absorbed; learned, by any individual. It's necessary to check for understanding from students to determine whether they understood what you meant? Do they now have the level of understanding you are aiming at?

Practice: After any exposition or question exchange with a particular student, ask a number of other students to relay back what they have understood. Even if they are answering a question that someone else has already answered, it's valuable for others to be given a chance to offer their version, showing what they have understood and, in so doing, giving the teacher feedback about how successful the teaching has been. It's especially powerful to ask multiple students, often yielding various different responses which throw up subtle points for further teaching.

Probing:

Principle: In order to explore a student's schema in any depth, you need to ask them several questions; asking several students one question each provides shallow responses compared to when each student has to provided multiple responses.

Practice: Make it the default that, in any given exchange, you are asking each student, 3,4,5 questions before moving on, probing for understanding, checking for misconceptions, adding extra challenge, providing scaffolding to engineer success. See Probing.
Great Lessons 1: Probing
Say it again, better:

Principle: It's normal for first responses to be half-formed as students think aloud and formulate ideas. A second opportunity to respond allows them to finesse their answers, adding depth, accuracy and sophistication. It's important not to inhibit students when they are unsure; it's also important not to allow them to assume mediocre answers are good enough.

Practice: When students offer a short, half-formed of partially incorrect answers, say, 'thanks, that's great....now say it again better. Try again but make sure you add in X and link it to idea Y' giving them an immediate opportunity to give an improved response.

Think, Pair, Share:

Principle: In pairs, all students have space to think, to air their initial thoughts, to confess their lack of knowledge and to prepare to give good answers, to rehearse. They are all involved and subsequent discussions then have lots of material to explore. It prevents 'blood out of stone' silences inhibiting discussion and it prevents 'forest of hands' or calling out cultures taking hold.

Practice: Give the class a specific time-cued task - e.g. to decide on four main points in order of importance, in three minutes - get them all talking in pairs and then, on time, bring them back together with a signal. Then engage in probing, cold call questioning asking them to report back what their three points were.
The 'Washing Hands' of Learning: Think Pair Share
Whole-Class Response:

Principle: Sometimes is useful or even essential to get a response from every single student at the same time. This provides quick feedback to you as the teacher about the success of the relevant teaching and learning exchanges, identifies individuals who need further input and can help direct subsequent questions or exercises as you respond to the feedback you gain.

Practice: My preference is for using whiteboards over any technology: they are cheap and quick and allow for responses to multiple-choice questions as well as practice sentences, calculations, diagrams - a full range. You set the question, give some response time and then, on cue ....3,2,1 Show Me.... Students all show their answers at once. A simple A, B, C, D = 1,2,3,4 show of fingers also works very well for multiple-choice. It's vital to engage with the responses. and then to adjust your teaching accordingly, consolidating, re-explaining or moving on as appropriate.
THE Number 1 Bit of Classroom Kit: Mini-whiteboards
There are obviously other strategies too but I find that this set gives teachers all they need to engage in highly effective responsive teaching. It's a case of practising each form of questioning deliberately and building up an ever improving default-mode repertoire over time.

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Great Teaching: The Power of Questioning

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In my Learning Rainforest and Evidence-informed practice CPD sessions, a core element is a focus on the power of questioning. In my view, good in-house CPD and feedback from lesson observation should put teachers' capacity and confidence with questioning at the centre. In my experience, great questioning is the hallmark of a really effective teacher...