Page Comparison

1. Mastery learning: ensuring that learners can use and apply pre-requisite skills to a high standard before learning new work. Mastery Learning is associated with an additional five months’ progress over the course of a school year compared to traditional approaches.

2. Chunk-based learning: this branch of theory came about from studying how experts practise and structure their learning. We are all limited to 4 ± 1 slots in our working memory. However if we can form a process into a chunk in long term memory, we reduce the number of slots required in working memory. The chunk replaces some of the working memory requirements. The chunk makes it easier to decide which process to use, remember the order of the steps of the process and makes it easier to apply the process. The power of chunks is that we can create chunks of chunks etc. Chunk-based theory strongly recommends a number of teaching-learning strategies including a spiral-curriculum and deliberate practice.

3. Cumulative practice: for what we consider higher order skills, such as generalising and problem solving, research suggests, that when learners are using two different pieces of knowledge/skills/methods to learn a third, the learners are most successful if both the two existing pieces of knowledge/skills/methods are more strongly embedded before the third is learned. 

... taken together imply that it is better, for the low attaining learner, to come back to topics more frequently, but learn less new work each time.  

timely practice doesn't use either of the standard ways to solve the mastery learning problem - what to do when some learners in the class have learned and some have not yet learned - instead we use timely practice to help the learner build a chunk or add to an existing chunk in long term memory, so each learner can learn a little more from a topic, spiral by spiral.

The timely practice app ensures that the practice done within timely practice assignments is deliberate practice. timely practice enables learners to improve their skills by practice and the teacher to use feedback and scaffolding to help the learner when required.

_{The only exception to this rule, is for example, if the learner makes an error in a complex multistage word problem, the teacher might want to write down the numerical answer (on the learner's page, or on the teacher’s lesson plan page) to save the teacher having to work out the answer to check the learners correction.}

If the assessment outcome is a tick or best learned later or run-out-of-time: there is no need for feedback in the next lesson.

If the assessment outcome is feedback on attempt or feedback on blank: then we expect the learner to try and self correct or get peer to peer help or initiate a feedback-dialogue with the teacher, within the rules of the classroom.

By assessing and where necessary, engaging in personalised feedback dialogue in the lesson, we gain multiple advantages:

1. The teacher is replacing the time and effort they would spend on marking, non-directed time, with only the possibility that they may need to spend directed time, inside of lesson time, on feedback. The teacher need not feel guilty, as not marking + giving feedback in the lesson (if necessary), helps the learner learn better.

2. The non-directed time spent by the teacher will be less - today - because this kind of assessment is far quicker than marking, and will be less - in the future - because feedback is far more likely to be successful and so similar questions will be asked less frequently and answered more accurately.

3. The learner has a chance to self correct or self reflect or get peer-to-peer help: so the teacher may not need to spend lesson time giving feedback or failing that, the learner has time to read the question again and will be primed to adjust their chunk or mental schema (Kornell et al 2009) during the feedback-dialogue;

4. With in-lesson feedback-dialogue the learner is far more likely to engage with the teacher than they are likely to engage with the teacher's marking.

5. Without marking by the teacher, the teacher and learner can start the feedback-dialogue from a common place.

6. With in lesson feedback-dialogue the teacher has a chance to learn about learner's past thinking and/or influence the learner's future thinking, more effectively than with marking.

7. Feedback-dialogue makes excellent, non threatening, feedback for the teacher on fine detail ways to improve future teaching. It allows the teacher to gain decades worth of high quality teaching experience within a much shorter span of time.

8. Feedback-dialogue provides an opportunity for the teacher to help the learner to better deal with the emotions brought up by errors e.g. to move on from self-criticism or making excuses or blaming others and to help the learner reflect about their question reading or process or problem solving skills i.e. help the learner grow a growth mindset.

9. Feedback-dialogue is likely to increase the learner's motivation whereas marking is likely to decrease it.

10. Sometimes during feedback-dialogue the teacher and/or learner will realise that the layer is best learned later - and this is also a productive use of the teachers and learners time - because now they can stop putting their time and effort into making this layer stick and instead put their efforts in to embedding other layers which are far more likely to stick. After all we can’t expect to go from a place where most teaching is forgotten to a place where absolutely all teaching becomes embedded learning. Surely a process where almost all teaching becomes embedded learning should satisfy us - there is no shortage of other layers to teach - before returning, to see if this layer will stick in a few months time.

The main disadvantage (such as it is) is that there is very little in the way of an easy to follow paper trail of the efforts the teacher has put in. There is the record that feedback dialogue has been requested, and possibly the corrected workings by the learner. In future assignments we usually see the learner being able to answer correctly similar questions and there is the record of the subsequent progress on the layer within the timely practice app. If the teacher must be checked up on, then the “checker-upper” must do the work to find out if the teaching is successful or not. This counterposes with a marking trail - where the teacher is doing the work of demonstrating that they have tried - but cannot possibly demonstrate that they have been successful - in embedding the learning.