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Every lesson learners must, when answering their timely practice questions, search in their long term memory for the skills they have to help them answer each question. They cannot rely on “just copying what the teacher did today” this helps them build good triggers for their chunks in long term memory as they build, refine and strengthen their chunks.
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Teachers have reported to us examples where learners who started using timely practice at the end of year 9 with attainment below the 20th percentile, |
who by the time of their GCSE mock exams in year 11 were able to combining Pythagoras and other skills to score almost |
full marks. Not even we at timely practice, who have faith in timely practice to raise attainment would have dreamed this was possible. |
Over the two year course some learners developed the ability to problem solve and generalise, but not all did. Learners in a timely practice class are “not counted out” by their attainment from building their problem solving skills, but neither should they be expected to develop these to be able to achieve in mathematics.
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The teach-learn and practise-learn activities of the lesson, where new learning is taught ready learners to begin independent practice the next lesson (is not the end of the story. It's the next lesson and all the subsequent lessons where learners begin and revisit independent practice on that bite of learning, within their timely practice assignment), where the difference is made.
We strongly believe that teaching has not become learning (by which we mean learning that has stuck i.e. embedded learning) unless the learner can independently answer questions on that learning.
Further we We don’t think practice can be counted as independent, if it only occurs within the lesson where the new learning occurs. Practice questions which merely require the learner to apply the skill/procedure(s) taught within the lesson don’t shouldn’t count as independent practice. If all/almost all of each lesson is only used only to teach learners new skills and practise only those skills, we are not giving learners enough independent practice. Lessons like these where the only skills practised are the skills taught are like teaching a child to ride a bike with stabilisers.
We believe that independent practice requires the learner can to independently recognise what skills or procedures are required to answer a question and the measure of success is that the learner can independently and accurately apply the skills/procedures to answer similar questions. To enable learners to do their independent practice within +deliberate+retrieval practice, that is answer the questions in their timely practice assignmentsassignment, learners will some times learners will need help and feedback. The way we organise retrieval practice means there is enough time in the lesson for the teacher to give feedback and feedback is usually effective.
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In our opinion learners with smaller working memories will not have capacity to think about their learning at the same time as apply their learning , until they have built larger chunks in long term memory. Most topics in timely practice only expect learners to answer questions on what they have already learned - not genuine problem solving. As learners make progress they will begin to encounter more genuine problem solving.
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