Turn and Talk

'Turn & talk' is one of the techniques I use most in my classroom - perhaps 20 or more times in any given 50-minute lesson. I recently shared a clip of what this might look like on Twitter (click here). My strategy for explicit instruction involves asking questions in three phases. Phase 1 questions include …

The Three Phases of Questioning

Have you ever delivered a really clear teacher explanation and used lots of checks for listening to ensure your class was paying attention, only to find that when you ask your class a question to check for understanding they respond with: "I'm not sure, sir" or "I think [completely wrong answer], sir" or "Is it …

Set Them Up for Success: Four Whole-School Strategies

Achieving 100% student attention is not easy. But there are lots of things school leaders and teachers can do to make it easier. In the first post in this series, I explained why 100% attention from 100% of students is important. In the second post, I discussed two key strategies for achieving this: 'All hands …

Checks for Listening: 100% Participation

It is natural for students to lose attention during an explanation. In this post, I share two of the highest leverage strategies you can use to secure 100% attention. I explain why this should be our goal in my previous post. Strategy 1: All Hands Up Cold Calling I disagree with the way lots of …

Achieving 100% Student Attention: Why?

At any given moment in a lesson students are either engaged or they are coasting. When they are engaged, students are paying attention, thinking hard and learning. When they are daydreaming, off-task or inattentive, they are not learning. Our job as teachers is to ensure that 100% of students are engaged 100% of the time. …

The Knowledge / Skills Debate: reflections

On Thursday 18th February, I hosted a debate / discussion with Ruth Ashbee, Nimish Lad & Amy Forrester on Clubhouse. This blog is partly a summary of the discussion and partly my added reflections (particularly things I would have said if I had more time). At the end of the post I explain a little …

How to write good questions

Pupils need as much practice as possible to master new ideas; they need Shed Loads of Practice (SLOP). Practice forces pupils to think about content. But their quality of thinking will be determined by the quality of questions teachers write. In this blog, I outline principles for writing good practice. It goes along with a video …

Curricular Narrative

It is tempting for science teachers to dive into each topic as it comes and teach its ideas as discrete lessons. Learning about Punnett squares? Let's just focus on teaching how to draw them for a few lessons and then move onto selective breeding in the following week's lessons, which is the next topic on …

Clear Teacher Explanations 2f: Dual Coding Mistakes

As dual coding becomes more popular, its definition also expands. This post intends to clarify the difference between dual coding and graphic design. The key idea is that aesthetically pleasing diagrams do not necessarily translate into better learning. If teachers invest time adding lots of diagrams to their resources with the mistaken belief that it …

Clear Teacher Explanations: 2e – Visual Models

Analogies & models are excellent tools for delivering clear teacher explanations when used judiciously. Diagrams can prove very useful at explaining the different parts of the analogy and how they map onto the knowledge they represent. Some models act as lenses through which pupils can appreciate the same idea from different perspectives. For example, in …