The ideas in this post are expanded on in the chapters about planning, subject knowledge and students in my book What do new teachers need to know?
As an English teacher, the perennial complaint I’ve heard from students as they set off on a bit of independent writing is ‘I don’t know how to start it.’ Independence can be a bit frightening for students and without real clarity about what they’re doing, lots may falter.
At times, this complaint reveals a gap in your teaching where independence could have been handed over more gradually. At times, it’s just annoying as it feels like you’ve done everything possible to get students ready. I/We/You feels almost ubiquitous to the point that everyone knows that we should gradually hand over the level of support. But I have experience (and so do the teachers I talk to) of planning a careful I/We/You only to watch it fail when it reaches the need for independence.
Here’s a (definitely incomplete) list of problems and solutions and resources that we can use to address them.
I – Teacher Input
| Problem | Possible Solutions |
| There’s no check that students are ready | To attach new knowledge to existing knowledge, it’s worth checking that students have the existing knowledge we think they do. Some people call this a pre-requisite knowledge check. We could do this with mini-whiteboards or hands down questions. Planning teacher input should prompt the question What do students need to know to get this? How can I check they know this? |
| Students aren’t engaged/listening | Fundamental in its nature and probably more common than we’d like to admit, student attention is so important. Teachers should probably develop a system for getting attention that looks like this: Calling students to attention (I like a narrated countdown for this). Narrating the positive/thanking those getting it right Anonymised correction – ‘Waiting on two to put pens down’ Use of behaviour policy where instructions aren’t followed And maintaining attention by: Self-interruption Use of individual names Check for listening questions Beyond this, we can think about the way we structure the content of an explanation or model as well. Michael Pershan suggests starting explanations as a series of questions most people can answer. The point here is to engage students in the topic and make them feel successful, like they understand where they are in a topic and how new learning might link. We might need to be careful in how we collect responses here. We might ask the questions rhetorically or take responses. |
| Resources are busy with details you won’t cover or students won’t need | Reduce the complexity of your explanation by focusing on the act of communication. Don’t mistake information on a slide or page for explanation. Don’t assume students will get something because they’ve seen it, read it or been in the presence of it. I’ve written about how paring back the superfluous stuff around our explanation can help to focus on the things that matter. Femi Adeniran challenges us to focus on planning explanations rather than focusing on resources. He describes how conversations that can really help our teaching improve will likely focus on the minutiae of the examples we use and the steps we take to make teacher input effective. |
| The explanation/model rushes through several complex ideas | Break down the explanation into component parts. How we break content down is easy to say but complex to do and is really quite subject specific. An example from English: it’s not uncommon for an English teacher to model a whole paragraph and then get the students to write a whole paragraphs. With certain classes, particularly as you progress up the age range, this makes a lot of sense. However, students are practising lots of component skills when they write a paragraph. If they’ve not practised these separately, they may struggle to string them together. This is even true with KS4 English groups who are being taught use particular phrases and structures in exam question answers. It’s worth questioning whether the I/We/You we’re planning is expecting too much independence to transfer to students too quickly. |
We – Shared Practice
| Problem | Possible Solutions |
| There’s no We | Teacher input of complex ideas should generally be followed by co-construction, the We phase. But it’s easy to miss this step, convincing ourselves that students are ready for independence. They’re nodding or seem to be following. They don’t tell us they have any questions when we ask. Planning a We involves considering how we are handing over responsibility. What’s a version of the task students will have to do independently? How can we do that together? Or how can we start students off on that? That might be a multi-stage problem, a sentence, a paragraph or an answer that we start but students finish. If it’s on mini-whiteboards, we can tell very clearly whether students are getting what we want. If it can’t be done on whiteboards, we can circulate or take responses. |
| There’s no adaptation even though it’s needed | It’s hard to adapt in the moment because, even when we aren’t being observed, lots of us don’t like to deviate from our plans. Depending on the subject, it’s also hard to adapt. We might need to come up with additional tasks very quickly which is not straightforward. Perhaps the easiest option when students are struggling is to turn our You into an extended We. |
You – Independent Practice
| Problem | Possible Solutions |
| There’s no check that students are ready | The We element might fulfil this purpose but when students are about to embark on complex tasks, it’s worth checking they understand the steps. Checking understanding of instructions can be powerful way to make sure students are ready for the task. |
| Circulation doesn’t support the learning | If students are working independently, chances are that silence will be helpful. To set this up is often more complex than we assume. Asking for it doesn’t always achieve the results we’re after. Circulating works well when we’ve: Checked students understand what we’re doing/how to get started Pause at the front to scan that expectations are being met/for any potential issues. Name the lap – Tell the students (and ourselves) what we’re focus on. These things help to keep us and the students more focused on the focus of our practice. |
This list is far from definitive but hopefully it offers a quick diagnostic process to consider where we might be going wrong when I/We/You doesn’t lead to the results we’re after.
Peter Foster 