As I said in the previous post the 'challenge for all' really changed my teaching from stretching the more able to challenging everyone and not by giving them more activities to do. Dylan Wiliam is just a treasure trove of hints and tips every time he writes or speaks. In one piece I read (the full article is here) he talks about activating students as instructional resources for one another. In its simplest terms he talks about before a piece of work is handed in a peer marks it and signs to say they have done so. If there are any remedial actions needed the peer must let the learner know, as if there’s anything missing when the teacher marks the work it is the peer that is responsible not the original learner. I liked this as I could easily see this in maths working well. You could give some learners a mark sheet to help them and for others you could ask them to do it without. Everyone could be involved. I was then browsing the brilliant trythisteaching and came across this Doctor’s Diagnosis It takes Wiliam’s idea and asks learners to prescribe remedial work to the originator.
I took some prescriptions from the trythisteaching templates into my lesson. We were looking at sequences.
Ben has completed the task. Stacey has marked his work and corrected his error. What I like about this is the level of differentiation available. Depending on my instruction Stacey could have just asked Ben to look again at part B, she could indicate the date we looked at the topic, or she could research a resource online that would help Ben and share that with him. I also like that they don’t need to be in the same class. Stacey is from group B and Ben group A, same set just opposite timetable. The possibilities of this are endless. You could do it verbally in class. However, when I tried this all I heard was “good try” “you did this bit great”. I found that when students had to put their comments in writing they became more focussed in their feedback. I find that many great teaching and feedback ideas are tricky to fit with maths as a subject but this one worked for me!
I am known when mentoring to say “if it isn’t in the plan it won’t happen” I am not pushing lesson plans, please don’t mistake me! What I mean is, whatever you use to plan, make sure all your activities and episodes are planned. For example, for progress checks against the learning intentions I encourage student teachers to have a slide in their presentation to ensure that they happen. (It’s not just student teachers that need reminding of this, I am more than aware!) I needed to ensure that I remembered to include a 'challenge for all' element in my lessons. As I have an open door policy for all staff, and especially mentees, I always need to be on point. I like doing one thing once and doing it well so that it is always the same level of planning from me. I found that whilst creating all these 'challenge for all' activities I found that some worked and some didn’t. So I hit upon a choice board. I created a Padlet of my 'challenge for all' activities. If you are unfamiliar with Padlet, it can be used as a virtual noticeboard with ideas pinned to it. If you are out of free usage of Padlet there are alternatives, try Linoit. My padlet looks like this:
I loved Fighting Talk on BBC Radio Five Live when I was younger. It was part of my pre match routine. The game ends with defend the indefensible. Two players were given opposing sides of a statement to defend. The statement was purposely controversial or opposing to the participant views. For example, one participant was asked to defend the statement that his wife’s cooking was terrible. He refused to engage! I have found that this format plays great in maths lessons.
Imagine we are looking at solving equations x^2 = 36
Ben is asked to defend that x=6
Stacey is asked to defend that x=18
What I like about this is that both need to calculate the correct answer. Stacey needs to identify where the misconception has come from in order to defend it. I am a big fan of learners knowing the common misconceptions in order to avoid them. All to often in maths I see the power of 2 mis-interpreted as multiplying by 2!
I found that defend the indefensible worked in many lessons and I could generally think of them on the spot! Any time solving or rearranging with algebra was involved I would challenge the whole class with defend the indefensible. We would do it as 2 teams against each other or lots of small pairs debating to the class. I found it a nice way to promote respect and listening along with developing debate and argument forming skills.
Spot my error and tick or trash were brought to my attention via TES. Spot my error came from the fabulous alutwyche https://www.tes.com/teaching-resources/shop/alutwyche (he is also on Twitter https://twitter.com/andylutwyche) and tick or trash I originally found on the old but brilliant Number Loving from Laura Rees Hughes A lot of the Number loving resources are now to pay for on TES. Tick or trash has a question in the middle and to the left and right are two answers, one is correct, to be ticked, and one is incorrect, to be trashed.
The spot my error tasks from alutwyche are quite comprehensive. I have enjoyed adapting this idea. I will present and incorrectly answered question on the board and ask the learners to spot my error. This also helps with the inevitable board work mistakes I make daily as it gives me a great cover story! The spot my error from alutwyche and my own ones all focus on displaying a common misconception. Again if learners know the common misconception and can realise where it comes from they can avoid it. Both STEM and NCETM have resources and evidence explaining the common misconceptions in maths. You can find them here and here. The NCTEM also has a great paper on inspection worthy mistakes made by students here. It makes a great read. Broadly it suggests that “Conducting appropriate class inspections of mistakes in student work can create pedagogically powerful moments in the classroom.” One of the most powerful types of mistake to investigate, the article says, are those that approach the problem from a different way that the broad solutions from the class, as if the problem had been interpreted differently. This is my aim when I create either defend the indefensible, spot my error or tick or trash activities. How could the problem be interpreted and how different will the answer be?
My final activity in challenge for all is to create cheat sheets. I was shown these by my mentor in my NQT year and they have been with me every since. Do you remember the old, make a poster lesson? I hated them in school as I would rather be at home watching MTV Select than in school making posters! As a teacher I also dislike them as really, what are the learners learning apart from how to use fineliners of contrasting colours to make 3D lettering? A cheat sheet is like a poster but different! Have you ever had this... You ask the learners after a lesson, how much of this are you going to remember? Queue awkward faces and panic! It happens multiple times a day to me! A cheat sheet gives the learners a way out of this. You ask learners to imagine that they have 2 minutes before the exam and their present self wants to tell their future self all about this topic and they need to make a cheat sheet to record it. I normally model one as an example. I follow a thought or spider diagram. I encourage the learners to make it personal to them. A specific error they made in class they may want to clarify or they may want to emphasise a specific stage of the process.
This rough example (apologies!) is personal to the learner. They are clearly wanting to remember interior means inside the shape angles. They are also keen to remember it’s angles around a point rather than in a circle! With my adult learners, evening class learners specifically, we do this weekly as they worry they won’t be able to remember it. I don’t blame them, maths is hard, many are working and raising families as well as coming to maths. We end up with a bank of 20 or so personalised cheat sheets. The learners then have a revision guide ready to go when exam day comes.
I am now pleased with where I have got to with my 'challenge for all'. There is challenge for all available in every learning episode via my padlet or prepared activities (if I remember!) It has been powerful in helping me develop skills to enable understanding rather than offering more tasks for my learners to complete. My learners were initially sceptical but embrace the challenge now and enjoy unpicking where the incorrect answers have come from.
