Why do we count in 4s?

 Why do we count in 4s in England?

As a former maths teacher who chose to work in #FEmaths I think we may need to look at assessment at age 16.

I give the analogy of a pilot in my book.

A pilot proves knowledge has been acquired and retained on key aspects of flying in an exam. But to fly a plane commercially they accrue hours of competency. They evidence, over time, how they apply this acquired knowledge. They progress in their roles held in a hierarchical structure with flying hours a key part.

When I think about assessment in England, we assess at 16 a whole course approach and those who don't achieve the desired grade 4 are immediately affected for the rest of their lives. 

Imagine a student who achieved a grade 3 in maths but 7s in all other subjects. They gain 4 A levels (not in maths). Go to university and achieve a BA. They do an MA and then decide to get a job.

The first qualification that is often required is a grade 4 in English and maths. The rest of this students brilliant study doesn't get taken into account unless that grade 4 is there.

The 4 is what counts.

Sure the student can re-sit alongside other study but the point is, we place all our emphasis on this assessment designed for students aged 16.

What were you like at 16?

We don't take into account experience, skills, evidence of learning over time. 

We count in 4s.

I say this having taught an adult who worked as a healthcare assistant in a hospital, during covid, who wanted to be a nurse. They re-sat maths 6 times. They earnt a healthcare assistant wage for the 6 years of re-sits they took. They gained vast care and medical experience in that time. The year of covid they passed maths and immediately began a nursing qualification. Upon completion all the years experience were recognised and they entered nursing at a higher band salary than would be usual.

The experience counted but only after we counted in 4s.

So I come back to the pilot example, yes a skills test of the basics. Then a process of evidencing learning over time, applying the subject to real life, showing what you know in a variety of non exam ways. Sounds like a good maths course for 16-19 years olds, no?

These are not our decisions to make but we can raise our voices and show how we think change would deliver better for our students.

We need to stop counting in 4s.

This analogy and other arguments for disruption are in my book which is raising funds for charity. It is also available as an audio listen along version as well. Info at www.whatthetrig.co.uk 

Building Communities Online ish

Relationships play a key part in what I do. As a professional and as a teacher. What I love is getting to know, and helping people. I recently presented at Canopy Live on building communities online. This is a session I trimmed down from a full day's training that Dr Lou Mycroft and myself offer colleges and schools ( happily discuss more about this with anyone interested, anytime). We talk about the practice of care in what we do and making people feel valued.

Forgive me for forgetting where I heard it, but the saying, you haven't arrived in the room until you have spoken. How do we create that culture of safety for students to feel that they have arrived and able to speak?

In the #JoyFE #IdeasRooms the opening round is always 'How are you?' This is a perfect way to arrive in the space, everyone feels valued, everyone is heard, no pity party is held but pain is acknowledged. And sometimes we need to say we are not OK and for that to be acknowledged for us to start to feel better. yet when teaching, this is a question I tread very carefully with. It is not that my students are worth less than my colleagues who I share this caring practice with. It is that I want my students to feel safe.

We know teenage years are incredibly awkward for many, we have lived them after all. If I were not OK when I was 16 and my maths teacher asked how I was, I am not sure what my answer would have been. possibly, 'yeah fine', and move on to the next person or maybe 'actually I'm unwell and I really need help because I have recently experienced X'. The first answer worries me as a teacher. I want my students to feel that they can talk to me about anything. I really do. How do I know when they are fobbing me off and saying they are fine when they are not? How do I unpick that as a teacher who sees them once a week? But it is the second answer that concerns me most.

A few weeks ago I was teaching online and I asked my students my own version of a question that welcomes them into a space. (Secret revealed shortly, hold on!) In the chat box came all the answers from my students and I commented on them as they came in. Then a student posted, "I've got the rona." 

When you ask "How are you?" You have to be prepared for the raw, honest and hurtful response that you may hear. You have asked how the other person is, and they are choosing to share. You can't preempt that response, therefore you cannot regulate your emotions to what is about to come your way. You are open and vulnerable to what is coming, you made your position clear when you asked "How are you?" Whilst vulnerability is brave and respected it is not a naturally comfortable position.

So what did I do with my ill student? I (rightly or wrongly) offered empathy, offered support and offered them a breakout room to chat more. Their reply was "nah, it's just having to isolate that does me in" 

What my student wanted was for how they are feeling to be acknowledged, they didn't need any help at that time. It is wonderful that I am aware and I can offer support for them in other classes and check on their health in a follow up message later. But they weren't annoyed at having Covid-19, they were annoyed at having to isolate. This then prompted a lengthy 15 minute chat between students about how isolation was causing havoc with their work and personal lives outside college. 

Honestly, as an adult, these were not the concerns that I was expecting. But this is what we do, we expect certain behaviours from students. Prensky (like or loathe the term digital native and immigrant) talks about how teachers need to communicate in the language of students. I struggle with a lot of what Prensky wrote in that piece but I think there is something in our expectations as teachers vs what students reactions. I am not talking about inappropriate behaviour nor refusing to engage with work. I am talking about how we, as adults, think along one path and students may think along another. How we expect students to respond to "How are you?" and how they choose to respond may be different.

So what do I do? I ask a random question that falls into my head. My previous top 10 hits have included asking "favourite sci-fi film?" "Pepsi or Cola?" "Best size of Easter egg?" "Favourite Christmas song?"

What am I trying to do? I am trying to welcome my students into the space by asking an extremely low stakes question. I can then engage with responses and hopefully build rapport. They have arrived in the space once they have spoken. This started off with good intentions and has been well received. So much so that with a returning student (a student who didn't achieve their target grade and is being compelled by law to resit again) said when introducing me to our new class together "You will like her, she asks all sorts of questions to get us going, she is funny like"

Student Feedback Worth it?

 This post is inspired by a thread from Twitter here started by Jude Mortimer (She is well worth the follow too :)

We were discussing the pros and cons and time saving tips on giving FE maths students, particularly adults, written feedback and target setting. Let me tackle target setting first off. I set my students targets at the start of the year. This is personal to them. I know it should be grade or qualification related, and sometimes it is. But sometimes it is to develop my English understanding of maths to support my son in high school. Once it has been, to be able to help my foster kids with their maths when they start high school. Most often it is, to get a grade 4 so I can apply to be a nurse/teacher/lawyer/paramedic/and so so many more careers that require it. My students are engaged with their target, we refer back to them regularly. I write them in all our student documentation on our systems. Minimum target grades are always entered and one grade above prior qualifications or an agreed minimum grade between me and the student if no prior qualifications are held. I will often refer to student targets in their one to ones with me. Rightly or wrongly I still do one to ones at least once a term. I set revision work for my students in my classroom and call them all one to one to a separate room and chat about their progress. I find it really useful to have quality time together and away from others to avoid awkwardness. I am by no means prefect in my lesson style but I am sharing truthfully what I do.

Work scrutiny was the next part of the thread. My department has booklets we have made and these are to be ready to be called upon when needed for work scrutiny as well as 3 times a year in formal work scrutiny periods. My student's work is never readily available. Not sorry. Why do I want to keep their work? Why does it need to be kept in a drawer in the office? Radically I let my students take their work booklets home. I let them reflect on their notes and revise from them all the time. I actively encourage them to do it! I call the booklets in ahead of work scrutiny week but I won't see them in between times. And that's OK. My feedback is given in another format as well. These booklets are covered in student marked work and my verbal feedback that they capture or highlighted notes to remind them to refer back to a specific example they copied form my modelled board work.

This has led to department discussions. I am a huge fan of everyone in the department try to do the same things at the same time for consistency so it doesn't sit well with me that I do something different. But I genuinely don't get why I need to keep their booklets? They make notes in them, they write in them, they reflect on them, they belong to them not me. It is their learning journey.

The thread then asked for tips on what should go into department booklets. I have to admit I don't think we have ever nailed this, in all the incarnations. But I do insist on QR codes being added to each page. The QR code links to a video from YouTube related to the topic. Giving students support that when they are revising from their booklet they can see some modelled work to help them address some misconceptions. Or if they are absent they can see an overview and seek out more work. One of my biggest challenges is getting the titles we call topics over to students. I am often asked, what do you call this question? I want to do more of them. So in the booklets is an exam question on the topic and the title. Like forming expressions for isosceles algebra questions or ratio for the 10p 5p question, if you know you know!

So then I was asked how do I give feedback, and how much written feedback to my students? I have found a process that works for me, it may not work for you and I am not saying it is brilliant. It is actually pretty basic but, like I say it works for me. In our college we need to have summative assessment that is defined in the lesson. We also need to give students next steps. I don't have an issue with this and have included it in my feedback template. So here it is:

I have used this with 16-19 and adults alike and it has iterated over the years and this is it's current version. Well it has been like this for 2 years now! 

Checkpoints - from sharing the learning intentions all the way through my lesson I ask students to reflect as to where they are on the progress line. The aim is to visually see progress over the lesson and them celebrate that. If they don't make progress, which happens!, it can also promote messages form students as to what has gone on. At each episode in the lesson I do a mini assessment, usually an exam question, and then I ask them to reflect on their progress line.

Assessment - the defined assessment in the lesson will be flagged as such by me. Here I ask them how did it go? This can be a score from the student of their opinion on how the assessment went.

Follow up - this is where I respond and provide next steps. These and my retrieval grids are on the tables at the start of the lesson. I collect them in at the end, read and respond to them, scan them in so I have a record and return them to students the following lesson. 

Text messages - Here students chat with me. They capture my verbal feedback. We discuss private issues that they don't want to share in class time. We identify barriers to learning that they may be experiencing. Or simply students ask questions they are too scared to ask in class. I have read it all in these messages! The foster mum alerting me to a new child on placement and her being unable to do any homework the coming week. Through to the 16 year old starting a new job and needing to move back in with his dad and wanting to chat about how that was making him feel. I find that this space gives my students space to share their voice.

Here are some examples:

You can see my green pen scribbles replying and responding, and in these examples there aren't many next steps other than referring to let me know how you get on after attempting the homework. I love to see the progress marks growing as the lesson goes on. I love to hear my students voices, those conversations we struggle to have in large classes, so it is great we can do this privately too.

Obviously this is all in the face to face classroom. When online teaching my students have made use of the private chat in Google Chat and we still have these conversations. I ask them to enter their progress in a Google Form during the lesson. The same form over and over again. It is 1 question, rate where you are against the learning intentions. The beauty of Google Forms is that the responses are time stamped so I can see the journey in the Google Sheet after the lesson.

Like I said this isn't perfect but this is what works for me, if it has sparked an idea for you to use, please let me know!

asynchronous for all

As I've been blogging my journey in teaching online has led me to asynchronous teaching. Asynchronous teaching allows learners to learn at their own pace. I construct the routes but they choose the path. Choice is key here for me. My learners are used to the choice and they are invested, they know their own journey through every lesson. They have the comfort of knowing that they have a backup plan to scaffold for them too.

But why did we end up at asynchronous? My class are adults. The traditional barriers for adults returning to education are listed here by the DfE in 2018. There are 3 key ones that I want to focus in on; childcare, work commitments/costs and fear. The beauty of FE is that it is the most welcoming of all education establishments. My adults have already taken a significant step in enrolling on my course. They want to be here. In the traditional battle of hearts and minds of a maths teacher, this is a huge advantage.  Although they have enrolled in our class there are still logistics involved. To attend every week they need to be away from work in good time. There can be no staying late for meetings at work on this evening. They need to give their kids tea early so they can be back out of the door in good time to get to the community centre for class. All not impossible tasks but require skillful juggling by my learners. Juggling that I recognise and appreciate.

I have high standards. Some often tell me too high but I like where my standards lie. Yet I am always supportive. My learners last year, pre covid, would let me know if they couldn't make class. Often accompanied with completed work or work arrived after the lesson. There was a mutual respect, I treated them as my equals which meant I respected the endeavours they had in arriving at class and respected when they failed in those endeavours but informed me that they were to be absent. Add in covid and we needed to re evaluate. Those who are still attending work are now in a more reactive space and late meetings have to be accommodated. Although children are at home they still need supervising for learners to attend the Centre for class, but who can be that adult in relation to bubbles and isolation? 

My adult learners and I agreed that rather than a cyclical attendance of bubbles we would all convene, together, every week online. It was from here we moved to asynchronous, but not immediately. This it the third barrier to education I mentioned, the fear.

My adults are all nervous. Everyone unsure of their own abilities in maths. This gcse that has eluded them for so long is now staring at them, taunting them, telling them it is out of reach. My job is to squash that noise and help my learners believe. I need to show them that maths happens in everyday life and we can apply those skills to this qualification. In the face to face classroom cold calling is a challenge. Last year Ruth left my class in week 2 when I dared to ask her a question. By week 18 she was modelling at the board. Let's now imagine that fear online. Compounded by their fear of their own digital skills. They are witnessing their children navigate platforms with ease that after many years are still alien to them. Cold calling is like a seance, knock 3 times if you know the answer. The fear is real for all my learners. Knowing this, I started with relationship building first i showed them how much I cared and we formed those bonds required for them to trust me to address that fear.

Meet Steve. Steve is early 20s and is working in a supermarket. He has been told that the supermarket would welcome him onto a degree apprenticeship once he achieves gcse maths. Steve enrols on my course. This isn't Steve's first course at our college. Steve has studied here for over 6 years. Every year attempting to achieve gcse maths. When I receive my registers there is a large highlighted mark next to his name and an accompanying 10 page document. This document includes all his prior learning support plans. Steve is diagnosed with 3 learning difficulties. He requires a teaching assistant (TA) one to one. He has 50% additional time allowed for exams. Steve is going to need me to carefully plan his learning.

When we began face to face, Steve was the only one to object to moving online, as he, quite rightly, wanted to know how it would work with his TA. I promised him I would have a think. Think I did and I reached out to the TA dept. Sadly there were no TAs available for my evening class. We can debate the morality of this later. Essentially our college only secured TAs 9-5 and 5-9pm on 2 evenings a week. My lesson day was not one of those 2 evenings. I therefore knew Steve's TA support would be out of class unless I changed my approach.

Evaluating the 3 factors that are known to prevent adults from returning to education I decided to give asynchronous study a trial. The lessons are shared on a Friday, work is due by Thursday and on a Thursday there is a shorter session where we workshop exam questions on the weeks topic. In switching to this my keyworker students no longer had added anxiety for attending extra meetings. Parents no longer had to rush food down with their kids in order to leave the house on time. No one was dealing with unnecessary risks by mixing bubbles for childcare to attend class, and Steve could do his lesson with his TA in a 9-5 slot.

The work that I set all my learners involved a video of me talking over my slides, as per the way it old have done it face to face. Then they would do a task, ideally self marking and easy to re attempt. This allows my learners to get instant satisfaction from being correct, be it their first of 10th attempt. They didn't need to wait for me to come round and mark in the face to face classroom so why do they online? I always hand out answers with tasks when face to face. Learners tick and flick their own work, I give them feedback. This is the same online, they submit their marked work and I give detailed, personalised feedback with next steps.

Steve declined TA support. He wanted to give it a go just me and him. We had a long chat and he said he works better with his mum at home and if I was OK with it he wanted to give it a go with his mum helping him. We agreed weekly we would have a 10 minute checkin 1 to 1 before the workshop to address misconceptions. I was anxious,  I had never taught to this degree online before. I was the only maths teacher teaching asynchronously and I had to document that Steve had declined TA support which meant he would struggle to get any later if we needed it. But fortune favours the ....

Week 1 Steve took 18 attempts on the homework but achieved 100%. His asynchronous classwork was also all correct, I couldn't track number of attempts though. In our discussion he asked me probing follow ups to some of the questions. This told me he had participated in the work and was trying to progress. Week 2 was a similar story but there was an exchange of messages mid way through the week where Steve was adamant he was right but the website was telling him he was wrong. I videoed myself answering the same question and sent it to him. He had been wrong and could now see where he went wrong. Steve, using my video for a prompt reattempt the work and submitted it all correct.

Week 3 Steve came with a long list of questions to his 1 to 1. All of which were reasonable given the topic and were what I had planned for the live workshop session. So we had a chat about how Steve was finding the course instead and saved his questions for the workshop. Week 4 and 5 Steve came with common misconception questions again to the 1 to 1. We glossed over them and I said we would do them in more detail in the workshop. Steve was happy and we talked about how his shift pattern had changed and it was a good job we didn't have set times for classes. In the live workshop in week 5 Steve unmuted after an example and said. I think I get this now, can I go? Of course he could, the workshops were only ever a mop up, the asynchronous work is what mattered. 

Week 6 Steve cancelled his 1 to 1 but came to the workshop. He also helped a fellow student out by explaining he originally made the same mistake but realised what he had done wrong. I struggled to stop the Cheshire cat grin from appearing on my face at my pride at his depth of knowledge of the topic. That joy of learning is infectious and is the main reason I say in the job. Seeing Steve develop and grow gave me the biggest buzz. Proud doesn't come close. He told me his enjoyed learning and helping others.

Sadly I had to leave the group at Feb half term. In my final workshop Steve came along. It was great to see him as he didn't always feel the need to attend workshops anymore as he was doing so well! He didn't have any misconceptions that needed looking at, he was flying. Dont get me wrong there were multiple messages exchanged between Steve and myself weekly about work and workload. Mainly Steve's questions were for conversation and confidence, not errors that he needed addressing. He was doing very well. When he came to my final session and unmuted to answer a question after a modelled example. I was beaming again. He unmuted a second time to help a peer out who lost her trail of thought when explaining her workings out. He stayed on at the end of the call.

'I just wanted to say thank you, no one has ever found a way to help me learn and you did, I can do it. In a class I get lost I don't know whats going on, but here, the way you lay it out, I can and I know it's working'

The pandemic has robbed us of many things but also opened new avenues. I have done more CPD than would ever have been possible since lockdown 1. If I had met Steve in class fave to face we would have got him a TA in class and we would have continued as per his previous experiences. Despite my confidence in my teaching abilities in terms of helping him, I know he wouldn't have achieved the level of independent learning he has this year. Let's look at what he said, 'xthe way you lay it out', the videos, the modelling, the short self assessing tasks. The immediacy of the feedback of these tasks worked for Steve. He also said 'in class I get lost' we all know that feeling, as a learner, in a class where we have lost what's going on in a lesson. We have had a lapse where we lost what was going on and we now can't keep up. For Steve this was every lesson. Easing the pressure of learning asynchronously helped him. It removed the fear.

So when we look at synchronous and asynchronous models do we look at them in terms of inclusion models?