Face to face

I love teaching. I really do. I moan about lack of time, pressures, admin but when the magic is happening I love it. I care so deeply for this bunch of learners already and we've only met face to face once. Anyone who says you can't build community online is welcome to come talk to my learners. We've found our flow. Asynchronous online is working a dream. Everyone is happy. But I can see December coming. An end of term mock looming. An end of topic test and a pre topic test are all on the horizon. Rapidly I set to make the department assessments online based. And then I stop. We will need to do these face to face for fear of....... CAG!

I'm not going to lie I still fear CAG 6 months on. And I had a very small part to play in CAG but the trauma was real. I think when I'm in my old age I will still be able to tell you the names of students I gave a high grade 3 to, knowing they wouldn't get their dreamed of 4. I know I was true and honest and evidence based but I am human. Someone who has studied all year didn't pass, they were unlikely to pass in an exam situation but this year it was me, I said they didn't pass, and that hurts. 

Exams are still happening at present. But we have now had CAG so we know we may have CAG again, anything is possible. We must assess face to face in controlled conditions for potential preparation for CAG. Regardless of CAG fear, that it is the departments decision that this is how assessments are to happen this year and the process is to be standardised. So I bring my learners in, all of them. We split across multiple rooms. In my head one room would do their calculator assessment, another would do their non calculator. When finished I would give each room their next paper calc or non calc. In another I was going to teach solving equations. Something that probably would work a lot better face to face than not. Maximising our opportunity. Me teaching area of 2D shapes face to face would have less of an impact than solving equations I felt.

I had a slide deck ready for the lesson. Some resources to work from. A card sort I had tweaked to be a matching activity so to reduce touching of materials. Ready to go. But I had one of those days, where every meeting takes 10 minutes longer than it should have. Colleagues wanted to chat to me as they hadn't seen me face to face in a while. The day ran away from me. Before I knew it it was lesson time. I went to plug my device in to share my slide deck on the board. There were no wires in the room. I went to print my resources out. There was no printing available. Thankfully the assessments were copied so they could go ahead but the algebra lesson, we'll, that is in real jeopardy!

The obvious solution is to assess all the learners. But I had staggered the groups over 2 weeks. Those who had arrived for algebra this week were anxious about their assessments and wanted another week to revise. Those who had arrived this week for the assessment wanted it over and done with and they would do algebra next week. I decided to test the water with a couple of learners who arrived 5 minutes early and said, ah well shall we not just do your assessment this week rather than algebra? One of them started hyperventilating. This wasn't going to fly as an idea. Stalling for time I started the assessments groups hoping an idea would spark for how to solve the impending car crash that was about to be my algebra lesson. 2.5 hours of free style chalk and talk here I come. 

I always start solving equations with a missing value picture puzzle. A grid of 3 symbols totalling values horizontally and vertically in various combinations. I drew one out on the board. I started to sweat checking I had my values correct. I drew smiley faces, sad faces and hearts as my icons. 3 smileys summed to 18, 2 smileys and a sad summed to 15 and so on. The learners loved it. I drew another and another including a negative value one. All were a hit. I then wrote the equations up. For example for the 3 smileys sum to 18 I wrote 3s=18 and using f for sad  face I wrote 2s + f =15. Then half the class freaked out. They can do it with pictures but not with letters. I laughed, this happens every year I tell them. I tell then that each letter becomes a picture or a shape for them in their mind. The letter is an unknown. A thing that we don't know the value of. Trust is regained and we crack on. 

I show them balance method and function machine method for solving equations. One learner turns to another and says, 'if it was like this in school I wouldnt be here now, this is gold' I am buzzing. I leave the room to swap assessment papers and safely hand out calculators, which is a lengthy process that I hadn't planned for. I return to my algebra group panicked that I have left them so long and the magic will have gone. I needn't have worried! The manager for the site is in there listening to the learners explain the function machine method with delight and passion. He is intrigued too! So I model another answer and I will try to capture it here now, but it needs a bit of theatre which is hard to convey via a blog but here goes:

7m + 4 =25

M gets on the bus, he is joined by 7 of his family.

M➡️x7

Then 4 of his mates get on the bus

M➡️x7➡️+4

The bus pulls into the bus station and they are at stand 25

M➡️x7➡️+4 = 25

They go round town then they want to go home. To get home they need to get the bus from stand 25.

The bus sets off and 4 of his mates get off first, then 7 family, what house number does m live at? 

? ⬅️ ÷7⬅️-4 = 25

Weve done no maths so far. All we did was write out the question long hand then the inverse underneath, now let's work this out. 

M=3

The manager is whooping so are the class. One learner is in tears that finally she can easily solve equations. We move on to brackets. Then unknowns on both sides. Followed by unknowns on both sides with brackets. I hand write a series of questions out. Praying that they will fall nicely as answers. I copy 7 sets out and give them 20 questions. Not enough but the best I could muster. I was doing a lot of the hard work this lesson but I couldn't see another way round with resources lacking as they were. I went to check in the assessment groups who had been supervised by colleagues in my absence. All were laughing at the cheering from the algebra group! Desperate for their turn for algebra next week! 

After 3 hours and a clean down I left happy with my lesson. The assessments are done for 2/3 of the class and we can catch the rest up next week. All my learners in my algebra group made progress. I would have liked them to do more practise but I will reflect on their homework productivity and see where the land lies then. I had great learner feedback from the algebra group to the manager. But also to my assessment supervising colleagues. One learner said, 'she's so funny, I bet she's singing about algebra to them! She's a right laugh! '

And that's the magic. The penny dropping moment when solving equations suddenly looks like a guess the value picture puzzle. The magic is when solving equations can be solved mentally whereas they would have been ignored previously. The magic is when you have tears of joy at algebra rather than tears of sadness. The magic is when learners shout about how much fun your lessons are. The magic is being there for your learners and building those relationships. 

2.5 hours of chalk and talk algebra is not something I want to repeat but I'm glad I did it! Is this magic more magical face to face than online? I would have taught it the same online and they would have done more practise but would I have felt the same magic? Probably less so due to us being asynchronous. Were we synchronous yes I would have felt the same magic I am sure. But do I need to feel the magic? My learners would still have felt the magic as all those moments would still have happened. Does my magic count?

I am being told from colleagues and from my PLN that it's so much harder teaching online. Yes it is as activities need more careful planning. Sequencing is more crucial and what you could have carried face to face in 3 leaps you need to take 5 baby steps with online. But that doesn't make face to face better, does it? Today I had no printer, no tech, Covid rules and regulations and it was stressful from start to finish. It can't be a poor man's narrative that teaching online is the poor relation to teaching face to face. There are pros and cons to both, but what I am excited about is that we haven't even begun to scratch the surface of the potential pros in teaching online

Angles in parallel lines

I have to admit that this is not a topic I am personally brilliant at. Every time as a department we did a mock paper there would always be a heightened anxiety I had if there was an angles in parallel lines question on the paper. I am not great at spotting F and Z angles. I struggled with it at school. I was taught it as F and Z angles and they’re no longer allowed as descriptions! It’s just not my kind of topic, I have a brain that means I have to work harder with shape space and measure topics! I have some great lessons to demonstrate alternate and corresponding angles and I heavily rely on these to be clear in my demonstrations. I have to admit in my early years of teaching I had my fingers crossed that all the students would get on board with it and there wouldn’t be many questions! As the years have gone on I am more confident to field the questions that learners have on the topic but I can’t help but empathise with those learners that just don’t get it!

Have you ever sat in a training session thinking, nope no idea where this is going, what time is lunch? You can see that look on learners' faces sometimes and I see it more often than not in angles on parallel lines. One year I had a learner who was in a bridging provision, not quite an alternative provision but not a mainstream school placement, she just couldn’t grasp angles in parallel lines. I went back to teaching angles on a straight line and recapped that. She turned and looked at me and said “yeah what’s that got to do with this stuff though?” and I thought, oh yeah she’s right! It made me think. What is the best way to sequence angles on parallel lines? I wasn’t sure I had it right? I went back to the exam boards scheme of work. I then checked another exam boards scheme of work and both indicated angles in polygons and angle facts on lines were the building blocks to angles in parallel lines. So yes, what did it have to do with this new topic of angles in parallel lines?

I questioned myself. I know it is 2 sets of lines and angles facts but why do I teach it as an abstract standalone topic? Was it because of my previous lack of knowledge in the topic? Was I projecting my fears onto my learners? So being brave and taking the risk with my next group of learners I taught angle facts on straight lines and around a point then in the lesson on angles in parallel lines I left it as a challenge for them to calculate missing angle values in parallel lines. Unsurprisingly with their existing knowledge they were able to answer the problems. Obviously their reasons weren’t alternate and corresponding angles but their numerical value answers were correct. I then taught my usual lessons edited a bit so that we covered the reasons for parallel lines in the following lesson.

Now I teach GCSE resit to 16+ learners. I teach 16-18 and 19+ learners and as you can imagine both groups require different approaches. I find that 19+ often crave the knowledge for perfect answers and will tackle angles in parallel lines with greater ease than 16-18 learners. 16-18 learners have sat the exam already, if not more than once. They have seen angles in parallel lines in many forms already, they’ve learnt F and Z to help them remember but then had that crutch taken away and ‘should’ know how to calculate missing angles in parallel lines with reasons. However they haven’t achieved a grade 4 and have to sit the exam again and what if they still ‘can’t’ calculate angles in parallel lines? So I now teach it as 2 sets of angles on a straight line problem and that the angles repeat. For example:

When you look at the mark scheme, the majority of the marks are for the numerical values, 

This is taken from Edexcel Foundation Paper 2 2018. ¾ marks are for numerical calculations. This example had an isosceles triangle included as well as parallel lines. I have now, almost, enjoyed teaching angles in parallel lines this way. I find that if their angle fact knowledge is secure I can introduce the labels on top for alternate and corresponding angles easier. 

You may not have the difficulties I had with angles on parallel lines, you may not even teach maths! My point is had I not been challenged with “but what does that have to do with this stuff though?” I would never have looked at my sequencing on the topic. Perhaps you have a topic that often falls flat in class? It may be worth re-evaluating your sequencing up to that point, does it make sense, almost ask yourself, yeah so what? Why am I teaching it this way? I don’t need to remind you if you are in education of the need for impact impact, IMPACT! If you taught it this way what would be the intended impact and if you taught it that way what would be the intended impact? What is the actual impact? Can you trial both ways? 

We must, as educators evaluate where we have been on the learning journey in order to guide our learners to their intended destination. We don’t often have the time or prioritise the time to undertake such evaluations but hopefully this post inspired you to take a moment and think? 

blended learning 2

Earlier this week I shared a brief, very brief, Slidesmania template adapted to a maths classroom for geometry. It went off! I mean it was really popular. This struck me for 2 reasons. 1 staff are working or thinking about planning in the summer. And 2 staff need quick easy to adapt ideas. If you missed this and have no idea what I am on about the link to the blog is here. As part of #VIA20 and a Google Innovator it was probably one of the simplest examples I have ever constructed. This made me think about the level of interest... I'm too techy in my normal work!

Normally I will say here is an idea, we can then take it online with this idea and students can adapt it with this idea. Actually we're not in a new idea world at the min. We are in a substitution world. Looking at Puentedura's SAMR model. We are rapidly trying to substitute our traditional classroom activities with online activities. We are not limiting ourselves and stopping at substitution but this is the current state of play. Even for me, my classroom is quite paper heavy to be fair and I am trying to move my content online. Sure I have flicks and hints of tech but as it's a linear paper exam activities are regularly paper based.

When we learn a new skill we are asking our brain to learn the new skill as well as linking it to our previous experiences and making room for us to adapt it in future experiences too. That's a lot. So if it's a lot for us, it's going to be a lot for our learners. Especially in FE where you may be returning to education after a 20 or 30 year gap and all of a sudden it's all online. That just seems overwhelming. We need to make it as familiar as possible and as simple to use for learners to settle them in and from there we can build to new ideas. Now in terms of accessibility I'm not fully there yet, in a general sense. I am fortunate that where I work we have Texthelp products so many issues are overcome with those tools but if you're not; sorry I don't have all the answers for now. One thing I can recommend greatly is nOverlay. It's a chrome extension and puts a coloured overlay on your browser. For those who need things on yellow paper, this helps virtually. If you're using a chromebook turning on select to speak or any of the other accessibility features may help too. But yes hands up, I don't have all the answers for accessibility yet.

Thinking about what will be needed in September, whatever that brings, we need to build relationships. Something as simple as a slides presentation with each learners name as a title and a slide for the teacher. Then everyone adds a video using INSERT>VIDEO introducing themselves. This can be a regular check in tool too, how are you feeling, how's the work going? General ideas. Or use it for topic based discussion. Personal connection is huge. Those uncomfortable with video could insert a bitmoji and an audio file using MOTE. Once we have the relationships we need to get content delivered. Delivering in a live meeting virtually sounds exhausting and tricky to manage, why not alternate or switch it up?

The value of a teacher is in their guidance and support. A live meeting where teachers and students chat through ideas, misconceptions, how tasks went sounds like a wonderful meeting that everyone wants to join. A meeting where a teacher talks over slides and students zone out does not. Why not share videos that cover the content and set students work. Then you can have the nice chat about how it went and where to improve.

Thinking of all this made me feel inspired to make this I built a bookcase and inserted books for algebra, each links to a video, from YouTube and some questions. I think it is easy to follow and can be replicated regardless of subject or topic. Now obviously students wouldn't be left to cover all of this on their own but this with a virtual meeting every week checking in sounds like a supportive approach that allows learners to push themselves asynchronously of they want to. To link to slides within a presentation it's INSERT>LINK you can link to another slide or an external website. Here the little library in the top right links to the first slide. The videos were all dropped in by INSERT>VIDEO and then safe searched on YouTube. The questions are either pdf exam booklets run through ilovepdf and converted to slides or free self marking websites. I hope it's useful, it's a step up from the hyperbook and allows us to build as we step back into the classroom. If appetite continues I will keep playing, thanks for reading.

Fully editable blank version of the library template here. Please feel free to use it but remember it was from here that you found it and credit it as such, a tweet saying you have used it would be nice :)

Circles, pi and Slido! The best lesson ever?

I'm not sure I should write this blog post but anyway! I taught for 3.5 hours 10 adults GCSE Foundation Maths where we looked at shape, space and measure topics. I had planned to do this lesson last week but due to a family emergency I was absent. As my class are adults I was nervous today that I may get a rough ride for the inconvenience of skipping out on them last week. Not true, they were wonderful. One lady said, "never apologise for putting your kids first". I thought, wow that's really powerful. I'm hoping to hold onto that when I am saying no to the million CPD lates I'm asked to do but I realistically can never deliver.

So I have to admit there was a very free and easy approach to my planning, I had a tonne of activities photocopied for a variety of SSM topics as I was out of sync with my scheme of work. I took a look and thought we will start with circles and see where we end up. We had just finished statistics and graphs as a topic a couple of weeks before so I quickly rustled up a retrieval grid on that, set that out as they arrived whilst I checked over my Google Slides presentation on circles. Just at that moment in walked 2 colleagues to do a peer observation. I have an open door policy. As an experienced teacher I feel it is my duty to offer an open door policy. Generally staff ask ahead of time out of courtesy if they can come in. I always reply with "come anytime, I won't be doing anything special" today's lesson couldn't have been more true! 

Off we go then with circles in Google Slides. I have my learning intentions displayed and I write them on my board with my keywords to remain for the whole lesson. I also write the date in words. I'm a bit of a stickler on this one as good habits help make better teachers I think. I was once taught by a head of department that if you write the date in words you are showing learners that there is a quick way to write the date but have pride and high standards and wrote it fully. I quite like writing it in words and it upsets me when it is missing from classroom boards and when it is written as 1/2/20 I always flash back to my old head of department. 

In the slides presentation I have inserted slido. Now Slido is a great polling tool that pops in really easily. It is an add-on to Google Slides (I am a Google Certified Trainer so most things I do are in GSuite) I have used Pear Deck before but due to connectivity issues at the remote campus I find Slido works better. I break down the learning intentions by grade, a grade 3 student should be able to do this and a grade 5 student can do this. I give my class my same old speech: "if we teach to a 4 and we fall short we will get a 3 so no apologies I teach to a grade 5 to give you the best chance of achieving a 4." This is high expectations in its simplest form. The Slido then appears and the learners rate themselves out of 5 stars where they are against the grade 5 broken down intention. We get a split of ratings, and some questions about what a sector is. (The grade 5 intention was about calculating area of sectors!)

I begin with labelling parts of a circle. Reminding them of correct spelling. English isn't the first language for many learners, for some it's not even their second or third language. This takes some time and is dull. I am worried I am losing them. I planned to do a mini quiz on the parts of the circle and a card sort but the mood in the room is, we have notes, you will out this on Google Classroom so we have your notes too, what time is break? Picking up the pace I jump in with the circle song! You can watch the one I use here. I know there are others but this is my favourite and I encourage them to sing it to themselves in their exam!

Back to the lesson... I can then see joy at the song but confusion at pi. No surprise, who actually knows what pi is? I quickly grab the elastic bands from my photocopying and ask them to measure the diameter whilst a partner holds the band in a circle shape. I then cut the bands and ask them to measure the length of the chopped band. They then tell me that they are measuring the circumference and that is. We record the 2 measurements from each pair on the board and discover that the circumference is about 3 times bigger than the diameter. We then look at where pi is on our calculators. There is the inevitable conversation of borrowing calculators, we can debate high standards and correct equipment vs financial situation vs local demographic vs adult learners another time.

I then come away from the presentation and project some circles onto my board with varying measurements of radius and diameter. I then give the learners the option to go through area first and then circumference. I highlight that in my experience the thing people get wrong in this topic is doing the wrong one in the wrong question. Calculating area when they needed circumference. Or I give the learners the option of my default every time way. They choose my way. Everyone I see a circle I write CARD. We look at this example where we are asked to find the circumference of this circle:

The question gives us 4cm as a radius. We can write into CARD that R is 4cm and D is 8cm. Quickly singing pi r squared sounds like area to me… we can write in that the circumference would be pi x 8 and area would be pi x 4 squared. We then look back to the question and see what it asked us to calculate. In this case it was circumference so we circle that one and work it out. I like this method as it build solid repetition of the skill of recalling and applying the formulae. I also like it as it encourages the learner to reflect and choose is it area or circumference before diving in. 

In my class today the lower level group struggled to start but once CARD had been repeatedly applied they had rapid progression through the tasks. My top end learner decided his way was better and off he went. I always say, I don't care how you get here, just get here if you can. Meaning here is the correct answer! All the learners have access to the answers of all the tasks, they are marking as they go along. Suddenly my top end learner becomes frustrated. He has got most of the work wrong. I take a look and he has done the classic mistake of circumference when it wants area and vice versa. I remind him of CARD he gives it another go and signals to me 5 minutes later that he is being more successful now!

Whilst the learners are working I take 3 of them out one by one for a mini tutorial. They are my 3 at risk learners. I let them know I am putting in interventions for them and say that I believe with hard work they can improve. I am then taken aback realising my peer observers are with me in my final mini tutorial. I am mortified I left my class unattended with peer observers in the room. I apologise and my peers are great and they say, no we think it's brilliant you have taught them well enough to leave them for 5 minutes and these mini tutorials are equally important. I check on the class and they have all done a nice mix of area/circumference including semi circles and compound shapes. I give verbal feedback (should have written more down!) It's almost time for a break but not quite and I am just about to move on when one of the learners makes a safeguarding disclosure to me out of the class so I call a break for 10 minutes while I make notes and report it to my safeguarding lead. I bid farewell to my peers.

I grab 2 minutes to think about what we can do next. I had planned to do angles in parallel lines but I'm concerned that the secure circle knowledge is at risk if I go to angles. My other option is loci or bearings. I decide to go loci. I don't know why I don't teach loci particularly well. Actually it probably ranks as one of my worst lessons. I don't enjoy it and I struggle to visualise the boundaries of areas in the complex questions. Decision has been made now though, I am writing my new learning intentions up on the board before I remember how badly I teach loci!

We do a quick Slido to check our rating now on circles. Everyone has improved. We review the grade 3 and grade 5 learning intentions on loci and constructions and do another Slido, the class has no idea about the language of the topic. No one rates themselves higher than a 1. With a feeling of dread that this has been a poor decision we begin by drawing line and angle bisectors on blank pieces of paper. I demo them in my Slides presentation. (Someone years ago shared a nice demo where the compass moves and the arc appears, I would never have the time to make such a beautiful presentation so I am very grateful to still have it!) Cue difficulties with expanding compass widths in between arcs. Some are unable to keep their pencil in the compass. Some can't use the compass. I get round everyone improving their techniques I see no harm in spinning the paper rather than the compass if the learner struggles. We then take a look at some exam questions. They progress into not explicitly stating it is a line or an angle bisectors but a more worded question. All can do the explicit ones, most can do the more challenging ones. Progress is through skill repetition practise here.

I then put an x on the board (I have been rummaging in my bag for post it notes whilst they were working) and I ask each of them to put a post it note 20cm away from my x. They chat amongst themselves. Some want to do a line, someone twigs it would be a circle, then there's a competition on who can be accurate and exactly 20cm away. I am observing this active learning loving the conversation. I then demo a dog tied to a post would have a circle locus. Then a dog tied to a bar would have a running track shaped locus. (Handily there's a bar outside my window to help visualise) all are keen to get going and for some unknown reason I then decide to demo one of the complex garden planning questions. I draw a rectangle ABCD and ask them where I could put my path that is an equal distance from AB and CD. I start to get clammy I am about to jump in and answer my own question when one of the weaker learners contributes "would it be a line dissector?" We will skip over the incorrect language for now. I check the room and all are thinking the same. Another learner says "yeah this is fine but more than 5m away from the tree for the fountain that isn't any bisect or anything so what do we do there?" I am over joyed. The long phase about the path was because they had twigged that it was a line bisector and were struggling with the next part of the question. I demo an arc 5m from the tree and all are itching to get going. We do a quick Slido and no one rates themselves below a 4!

I circulate the room giving feedback. All have the answers so can tick and flick. I see little merit in me ticking and flicking their work. My role is to shape their learning journey and I do this through feedback not ticks and flicks. I can't believe it, everyone can do it! The lower level ones have some beautiful running track shaped around lines and even a running track around an L shape. The higher level ones are shading the correct regions in the town planning questions. One learner even attempts a create a shipping path question involving 5 elements. I look at the clock and 3.5 hours has gone! I pull them back for a final Slido, it stays the same. I recap our learning intentions and ask them to reflect in their fake iMessage sheets. See my blog post on feedback for these. They all thank me for a brilliant lesson.

I grab a cuppa and sit down to respond to their feedback iMessage sheets. Here are some of the responses:

"Why has no one shown me CARD before? Changed it all now"

"I will forget loci but I won't forget the lesson"

"Thank you it was epic, I learnt more than the last 4 years of studying for my GCSE"

I honestly think this was my best lesson ever. Yes I had pre planned presentations and my photocopying was ready but I made responsive decisions throughout and reflected on learner points. I don't think I did anything special, I certainly would never do anything special for a peer obs, and it all came good in the end. The peer observer emailed me a few weeks later and said she was trying Slido and some other bits she had seen me do, that is why I have an open door policy!

Hegarty Maths and active dialogue

I have to admit when I was told that we were getting Hegarty Maths and we all had to do it, I was a little resistant. Initial thoughts were, not another thing I have to do! I already do so much! I will also fight tooth and nail to protect my learners from additional work too. I was not on board with this new Hegarty Maths! After speaking to Mr Hegarty himself, I began to see the benefit for the learner and for me. This blog post is about Hegarty but it can be about any platform that marks student work, you will see! 

When I started teaching we set all student homework on My Maths. It was great they did a little online worksheet, it told me who got the highest so that I could give them a good comment on SIMS, and who didn’t do it on time so that I could give them a bad comment on SIMS, and those that didn’t do very well on it. These learners would either have taken less than 2 mintues to complete or they were genuinely struggling and you could pick this up with them in class. It was great, no books to mark on the weekend at home! Perfect!

Hegarty Maths can be used in a similar way. Learners log in, see the tasks that I have set them, watch a video to explain the topic to them and attempt a quiz on the topic. It gives them a mark, I can view the class as a whole, see who has done it, who hasn’t, how long they spent doing it and so on. I still don’t have any books to mark at home! Perfect!

Yet as I have progressed through my career I have realised that these platforms have the opportunity to provide so much more! The benefit for the learner is that instant gratification from getting it correct. The opportunity for them to further research the topic by going to the video before or after to either re-cover the basics or extend their knowledge. A bank of videos for all topics so if they want to pre-teach themselves something they think they may struggle with is a great tool as well.

The benefit to me is that I don’t have lots of marking, but I do have lots of opportunities for feedback! For me, my purpose is to have an active dialogue with my learners, to engage and enthuse them. See my post on feedback. Hegarty Maths is great for promoting an active dialogue. Learners can leave me comments as they progress through tasks. One student left me 57 comments one week. I read every single one. I will give you a small flavour of what she wrote:

“Don’t get this”

“I tried to put 5 but it wouldn’t let me”

“I see I should have times it first”

“Think I know where I went wrong”

“Nope not getting it”

I like this as an example because as a teacher I can see what she went on during the task. She had to overcome that initial frustration at the task, then she followed some of it, still getting it wrong. Then she lost it again.  I can respond to each of these comments individually or as an overall feedback. Ultimately what I want to say to her is well done for getting stuck in, it must have been hard. I want to say well done for keeping going even though she was getting it wrong. I want to spend some time with her going over it again to show her where she went wrong. I want to set her the previous topic as a refresher before she comes back in and we go over this task again together in class. This was my reply:

“Wow! What a journey you went on, well done for sticking with it! I think we need to take another look at this together to make sure we have it solidly in our memory bank. Can you take a look at task 87 (I have set it for you now) then bring your notes in for this and task 87 and we can go back over it together. Thank you for giving 100% to this”

Yes it is brilliant that Hegarty Maths and other online platforms take away the tick and flick element for me but time saving they are not. Nor should they be, it is our job to educate and converse with learners and help shape their learning together through an active dialogue.

Google Forms

In my quest to be better at giving feedback I am willing to give anything a try! I make no apologies I am a Google Certified Trainer so Google is my thing. You can recreate this in Microsoft Forms I am sure but Google is what I know. I wanted my learners to go over what they had done wrong in an exam independently. I had a class of 30 with 3 papers to go through and a variety of questions answered incorrectly across the board. I decided to go down the route of Google Forms to get feedback and next steps all done in one lesson. 

I chose 3 key questions from each paper, 9 in total. I marked the papers at home, entered them into my analysis grid and chose my 9 questions that were fairly red on the analysis grid. I had in my mind a choose your own ending scenario, like the Goosebumps books from my childhood! The form starts with instructions, assumptions are the enemy of a teacher. The instructions ask the learner to have the 3 papers, some paper to make notes, headphones etc. Question 1 asks “Did you achieve 5 marks for question 14 on paper 1?” The options are yes or no. The question was 5 marks for drawing a pie chart and a comparison between a pie chart and a bar chart. If the student answers no on the Google Form it takes them to a video on You Tube (Corbett maths) covering drawing pie charts. This is achieved with the After This Section Move to (‘After section’) part of Google Forms. If a student did get 5 marks on the question the form would take them to another section with a video on interpreting pie charts. After those videos the learner is given a question on what they have watched on the video, the question self marks as it is written as a multiple choice. The learners are then reunited on the Google Form and it asks again about another of my 9 questions, again with a yes or a no route. 

There are a few things I learnt through this process. First 9 questions was too much and too long. The next time I used a Google Form for feedback I only chose 3 questions and it ran smoother. Second thing that I learnt was that learners will sit quite happily watching videos about the topics. I wanted a way to harness this and assess them more robustly during their peak engagement with the videos. I discovered EdPuzzle, you can read more about it my experiences with EdPuzzle in my next blog. Third thing that I learnt is learners enjoyed the experience and that they could go back over things at their own pace.

I am never a fan of doing something for the sake of it. At the time of writing this Esports is everywhere and I am yet to see the benefit to my learners so I am not on board, for now! A while back QR codes were everywhere, Every worksheet, poster, display and staircase, yes staircase! I was a little late to the QR code game, it took me a while to find a place that was meaningful for me and my learners! A really nice way I found was to use it in a feedback sheet. I took the idea that students liked watching videos and were willing to work at their own pace via this medium. I created a table with the 9 questions and added 2 QR codes. One linking the learner to the video drawing pie charts and the other QR code linking learners to the video on interpreting pie charts. The point of Google Forms and the QR code sheet is to engage the learner with taking next steps or guiding them to recover topics they need to look back over. Both ways were successful in this aim. Successful in students making progress?, I have no clear answer but we try these things and build on them, I am still building!

Another use of Google Forms I have used in maths is as mini assessments. I was tasked with reducing the marking workload of the maths teachers for a LARGE number maths learners. The team wanted a 30 minute assessment on the topics covered to far that was robust and akin to GCSE. I cut and paste images from Exam Wizard and Exam Pro (both exam boards were used so I ended up making 2 assessments!) I would then make 4 choices on a multiple choice question. I was fascinated by Mr Barton’s Diagnostic Questions and the idea that you can diagnose a misconception. An example would be an averages question asking for the median of a data set. Option 1 would be correct, option 2 would be the mode, option 3 would be the mean, option 4 would be the median but using unordered data. The aim being that if the learner chose the mode or the mean you can assume the learner doesn’t know the difference between the 4 types of averages. The learner who chooses option 4 knows the median is the middle value but forgot to order the data. They need teaching differently to the learner who can calculate averages correctly. One needs practise on the language of the question, the other needs to practise median. This is a very crude example but I hope I make my point.

In my 30 minute assessment using Google Forms I made all the questions multiple choice. I enjoyed finding misconceptions. Using the incorrect trigonometry ratio, listing a highest common factor when we were looking for a lowest common multiple, it was great fun! Once the responses are in the Google Form you can direct them to a Google Sheets. From here we can mark them correct or incorrect using IF formulas. We can then RAG rate the student’s work. Staff appreciated the reduced marking, but challenged the use of multiple choices. Ideally free text would have been better but I couldn’t see a way to mark it automatically this way. If the answer was vertically opposite angles are equal learners could have made spelling mistakes that would have been marked correct if the spelling was logical. In a later blog I will talk about Equatio, a potential solution to this.

The advantages of using Google Forms in this way was that we could batch upload student results to our student data system. When it came to assessment time again 6 weeks later we could see progress within the areas assessed. Problems arose when staff got ahead or fell behind the scheme of work. Students felt under prepared. Nothing will ever be perfect but we are making strides in the right direction. If this has peaked your interest and you want to know more about my use of Google Forms, please get in touch. My plan is to write an ebook at some point about them in great detail...

Analysis Grids

I make no apologies I LOVE an analysis grid! I love it per question, I love it per topic, I love it conditional formatted.  Love it RAG rated. I love it all. 

This is a snapshot of a number assessment for one of my groups. I can instantly see I need to go over dividing fractions for a few of them and maybe adding fractions as a starter as well. We have been using these in departments since I began teaching. The revelation of Google Sheets and that everyone can be on the same document together avoiding the need for you to wait for Miss Haans to input her results before she sends the Excel sheet to you has been transformational. I encourage all of my student teachers to use an analysis grid regularly, it easily informs your teaching at a glance. If you are looking for a start activity, check out your most recent analysis grid and it will tell you an amber topic for most that may need recovering. Likewise if someone comes to see you teach, and they ask how do you know what they need to cover the analysis grid shows them.

Great, we as teachers have a lovely coloured sheet that informs our teaching. Sorted! What about our learners? Is it just for us? Is it a secret? I give my learners their analysis grids too! They can quickly see where they need to put their revision efforts. Obviously I don’t share the whole class grid with individuals. I will add in some QR codes to Corbett maths videos as well so that learners can watch a video on a topic that they need to work on. Learners can see their grid, see their amber areas and search the topic on Hegarty Maths and give it a go. 

One of the biggest challenges I face around revision time is helping learners understand what the topic is called. They see it as a tiling the wall problem whereas we know it as a percentage discount and area with money problem. Do we expect them to know that? Do we tell them that is what they would look up if they wanted to revise it? The analysis grid does. Especially the ones made by the exam board. It gives them the complicated long name that we are very used to as staff. It gets learners used to seeing what we are looking for in their answers. 

An analysis grid is not the only opportunity for this. I like to (like is a bit strong, I do it because I believe it benefits my learners, I don’t like doing it!) cut and paste the title of the topic from the analysis grid into a text box in the exam paper so that as the learner completes the exam paper they can see what the topic is that they are being assessed on and research it if necessary. This takes a long time, especially with a question with parts a,b,c,d,e and f! But I think it genuinely benefits learners by allowing them to be a bit more independent in their revision and think about what topics they want to learn more about.

Feedback and Marking

This is a hard post to write as I feel that this is one of the weakest areas of my teaching. I have to be honest, I struggle! I am well read on types of feedback and marking but I often find it a challenge to apply to maths when the answer is either right or wrong and it is SO natural to tick and flick. I hate ticking and flicking I also hate writing “great” or “well done” I despair when I see it in other books when I am observing. But what is the answer? I’m not sure I have one!

We did a lot of work around growth mindset, Carol Dweck being the expert. One of the things that came out of it was providing learners with a help zone. The idea of the help zone is that at any point in the lesson learners could go and seek further information to help them overcome what they are stuck on. This was universal to all subjects and it is something I really ran with. I always have a help zone, I have a travel pack for when I am in between rooms! It contains:

• Chromebook - learners can look online for answers

• Revision Guide - learners can research the topic

• Templates/grids - prompts that learners may need, e.g. lattice method grids pre-printed

• Equipment - if tracing paper will help with a rotation or loci question, why not use it?

• Dictionary - English one to help with definitions, overseas language to English if I have a few learners from the same country in class too

• Answers - to all the questions/worksheets/tasks of the class

Why do some teachers make the answers a secret, it was the same when I was at school. I vividly remember by teacher telling me that she would give me the answers after I had done the first exercises. Interestingly she recently interviewed me for a post, I didn’t recognise her, it’s funny how the mind builds up images of people over time! If the students have the answers they can mark their work and move on to an appropriate task when they are ready. Sometimes it is easier to unpick where you have gone wrong when you see the answer. I am a firm believer that as hard as understanding is to teach if you can articulate how, where any why an answer exists incorrect or correct you are on your way to developing understanding. 

If you are sat in my class and you can’t go forward because you haven’t got a clue how to tackle the first question. I would like to think I would spot you and be able to help. However with adults they can be very good and acting like a swan and mis-lead the teacher into being OK when they aren’t (this happens weekly with a student of mine who rattled through work happily but all of it incorrect!) If you are stuck and you don’t want to ask for help, how do you get help? Yes students should be comfortable asking for help, that is the purpose of staff being there! But sometimes it is a lot more than that, take my student with severe anxiety in public. For her to turn up is an achievement. Yet when she is stuck, how does she alert me, how do I know? I actually keep a close eye on her but what she likes best is that she has the answers and she can work out where she went wrong once she sees the answer and then move on. Take my confident student who likes to regularly tell me I have written something wrong on the board. She wants to know that she has got everything right and get to the harder work before I have even typed it out! She needs the answers so she can pick and choose a few of the easier ones to do, check she has got it and move on. Take my student who is a doctor in her home country. She needs the answers because she knows the maths but is unfamiliar with the language of the GCSE exam. She wants to read a few questions and answers before moving on to the harder work. 

If my learners have the answers, what am I doing I hear you ask? I have my trusty coloured pen in my hair. It can be red, green, purple or rainbow coloured depending on the department I am working in. I wander around the room giving feedback and asking students, why did you put that? Can you tell me how you got that answer? What would happen if we did this? I am helping those who are really struggling, offering alternative explanations. I am having conversations with my learners about their homework, or lack of it. I am asking them to move up a level in the tasks they are completing. I am spending time with them. I think that is a better use of my time than me standing at the front reading the answers out so that they can tick and flick.

So how do I record feedback? This is another challenge. They have got everything right, they have answered a more challenging set of work. We are collectively at the end of the topic now, where do I take them? How do I feedback? Like I said I am not an expert but I take this opportunity to ask them to find my error in some incorrect work that I have done or for them to write a cheat sheet of their workings out, I challenge them! See my post on Challenge for all

To record feedback is hard, most of it is verbal, or notes over corrections. I have tried the old, “verbal feedback given” stamp and they have to copy down what you said. I like this idea, it allows them time to reflect on what you said and by writing it down it may stick a little more than if they just heard it. However it takes time, it slows them down, pace is crucial in maths. I also have the challenge of adults who don’t really want to talk things through with me or admit that they are struggling freely, I mean who does! So I hit upon a fake imessage idea. It is a printed template, it has a blank fake messaging conversation

that looks like this,

We use this during the lesson to capture verbal feedback. I am the green, they are the white. Sometimes I will write in the green myself for speed. The white is what is important to them, their misconception. I then developed it to include a progress line on the top as well. This then meant that learners naturally wrote in the white part how they felt in my progress checks in my lesson. Say we were mid way through translations and we were just finishing translations with words before we looked at column vectors the lesson naturally has a progress check in, learners will record their thoughts in the white message bubbles at that point. “This is easy” “ I need to remember that I pick a corner first” and so on. 

When I think about my aim when providing feedback, it isn’t to say “great”. It is to develop the learner, that is why I am there. They can watch videos on you tube and learn translations without me. They can also find exam questions on translations and mark schemes and tick and flick them without me. The purpose of me being there is to help them overcome misconceptions. I am there to guide them on next steps. I am there to provide alternative explanations. I am there to praise them. I am there to support them. All of this needs an active dialogue between me and my learners. I need a one to one with them during class, after class, mid week when they tackle their homework and before they come into class to check on their actions from the last one to one. This isn’t possible! But if we have an active dialogue we can achieve many of these things. This messaging print out allows me to do this. Remember the old red card on the desk to alert you that a student was struggling. These do the same thing, they can write down they are unsure and you can see it as you go round the room. I take them in at the end of the lesson, provide detailed summary feedback from my point of view after the lesson. I set next steps or challenge work and we have 5 minutes reflection on what i have written at the start of next lesson. 

Now I know what I do isn’t perfect, nor is it ground breaking but it works for me and I may provide someone with a structure that may help them, so if you are struggling to avoid writing “great” it may be worth a try?

Exam Top Tips

The pressure of the exam can cause so much distress that learners automatically forget how brilliant they are. I am a huge fan of doing everything possible to settle and calm nerves before exams. I remember in the opening year of a small school I was in buying pan au chocolat, cereal bars and hot chocolate for the 12 year 11 learners on the day of their exams. It is always something I have done, maybe it is the areas I work in but breakfast seems to be a meal we, as education providers, often supply. No more so on exam day. 

I began thinking about ways to embed the exam throughout the year in an effort to reduce some of the stress of the actual event. Every lesson includes and exam question, printed from the exam so it looks and feels like the real thing. After a couple of years of this I asked one of my repeat repeaters what was happening when he got into the exam and he said there’s just so much stuff to remember he kept making mistakes on the easy parts.

I then began building a bank of hints and tips that I could embed into my lessons that I called save the space. The idea is to give learners more space to remember the stuff that they find hard. Here are a few examples:

Number line

I am a big fan of a -10 to +10 number line somewhere on the exam booklet. Once it’s down it can be referred to and the learner can jump from one to another hopefully doing addition and subtraction of negative numbers a little easier. Even if the numbers are more sophisticated the number line may remind them of the concept of whether a number gets larger or smaller.

Get out of jail 2,3,5,7,11

I teach prime factor decomposition with the first 5 primes written all over the place. I call them the get out of jail free numbers and say one branch on the decomposition must be one of the top 5 primes! I then use the first 5 primes again in simplifying fractions. It is essentially divisibility checks but in my experience if you mention the word division panic sets in for many learners so giving them the divisibility checks as a helpful hint overcomes that panic. 

360o protractors.

Every year around February I will ask the head of department I am in what equipment they have for the exam. I understand in the outside world if you turn up to your job without the correct equipment it is your responsibility and no one will help you out. Maybe it is the area I work in or my empathy for the learners going through the exam again not for the first time. Whatever the reason I always provide equipment. I always encourage the department to buy 360o protractors. Again it just helps ease learners stress in the exam when working with bearings

Faces Edges and Vertices

There is so much for students to remember in exams. In my private tutoring work I always say my job is to get you ready for your exam, your teacher is teaching you. When I am the teacher in front of a group of resitters it is both my job to get them ready for the exam and teach them! So a little thing I like to do is to teach faces, edges and vertices using your hand, forearm and elbow. Put your hand in front of your face, this is a face! Your forearm is the edge and your elbow is the vertex. The hope is that students will re-enact this in the exam on the low grade 3D shape property questions and save some valuable brain space for the more challenging topics. Plus it provides the invigilator some entertainment in the exam!