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The timely practice app was designed to allow the teacher to far more easily apply research backed , best practice, to make teaching more likely to become the task of
increasing the likelihood that teaching becomes embedded learning for low attaining and under achieving learners.
In the main it isn’t that teachers don’t know what works, its that without a tool like timely practice, best practice is too time consuming for teachers to apply.
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Effective pre assess, finding out what learners "already know" means we can make best use of lesson time. We won't teach learners what they "already know", nor attempt to teach them work for which they don't have sufficiently firm learning foundations; , instead we can teach in the "sweet spot" between. So teaching and learning become more efficient , i.e. we can increase the output (retained learning) per hour (of lesson time).
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Summary: Learners are more likely to be able to build an accurate chunk in long term memory, during the night after the lesson, if we teach them one small bite - a timely practice layer - rather than if we teach them a “too-large-for-the-learner” bite i.e. several layers. Since the teaching and subsequent practice of a layer usually takes between 10 and 25 minutes, there will often be time to teach more than one topic per lesson, so the class can more quickly spiral through the curriculum if we use spare time to teach 1 small bite from 2 topics rather than 2 small bites from the same topic. In each spiral the teacher teaches less on a topic at one time but teaches many topics several times a year. IN In each curriculum spiral most learners learn a small bite more on their firm learning foundations.
Avoiding pitfalls: Learners with smaller working memories are vulnerable to a double whammy
Learners with smaller working memory capacities are less likely to build chunks in long-term memory after the lesson than their peers.
Learners with smaller working memory capacities are more dependent on chunks in long-term memory to process the content of lessons than their peers.
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Every time we help ensure a learner |
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create a chunk in long term memory from the learning of the lesson - when they otherwise would create no chunk or create an imperfect chunk - we are ensuring the learner will make more progress when they otherwise would. |
If you are not convinced about limiting what the amount taught per topic per spiral - why not just give it a go - with a class of learners who you don’t expect to retain most of what you are “expected to teach” and see how it works out? In our development of timely practice and our training of teachers we have found that changing from an annual (depth-first) to a more tightly spiralled (breadth-first) scheme of learning is the hardest of the changes for teachers to take on. We accept that some schools would prefer to use timely practice without doing this - however our experience is that this significantly dilutes learning gain. For these schools we offer trials where they can measure and compare gains in embedded learning.
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The following sections describe in more detail
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(3) learners (not teachers) mark the learners' practise-learn worksheets
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Learners will learn better by doing this self assessment, and will have the opportunity to get help during the lesson, if they make have made mistakes during the lesson.
Teachers should not use their non-contact time assessing the learners' practice questions on the topics of the lesson. That is not a good way to find out if teaching has become learning, although the . The teacher may spot check during the lesson, to check that the learners are self assessing their work.
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end of lesson assessment cannot tell us what we want to know - “has teaching become learning?” - because learning will only be embedded in long term memory in during sleep the night after the lesson,
learners may learn the skills they were taught without fully completing the practise-learn assignment.
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(4) teachers assess (but don’t mark) the timely practice assignments
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The purpose of marking may be thought to be
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Although each outcome of marking may sometimes be effective, the probability that any of these will be effective at embedding learning is low, and the cost to the teacher is high. |
If the learner is not able to teacher finds, when assessing an assignment, that a learner is unable to independently and accurately answer a question, and the teacher needs decides to give feedback the next lesson, then giving this feedback-dialogue in the classroom rather than some form of marking has multiple benefits over marking (These are described in Top Tip 2).
The assessment outcome for each question should be communicated to the learner and the app. The most efficient way to do this is
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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 reset: 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:
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. |
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Learners review the teacher’s assessment of their last lesson’s assignment and
self correct when they can and
get personalised feedback when they need it.
The teacher has far more time to give personalised feedback to learners because
learners are independently engaged in completing their new assignment which
efficiently schedules retrieval practice questions which
embeds all prior learning ever more deeply into long term memory.
These “jobs” ensure that the new learning done in the remainder of the each lesson becomes firm foundations for future learning, rather than soon forgotten.
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The primary task is embedding learning and the secondary task is giving feedback. |
To do a “timely practice assignment” episode in a lesson the teacher will:
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The teacher may want to display the following on the whiteboard/a poster for
the learners and
to share with teaching assistants and other adults visiting the classroom.
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Discourage learners from working out a score for their assessed assignment (its not written in the poster above, because that might be counterproductive!). It is better to concentrate on feedback, and judge oneself on progress. We know that when a learner gets only feedback they pay better attention to the feedback than when they get a score and feedback.
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to the feedback than when they get a score and feedback.
(6) get the most from feedback by remembering it's better called feedback-dialogue
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Every time we help a learner fix a chunk in long term memory - when they otherwise would be left having learned no chunk or an imperfect chunk - we are ensuring the learner will make more progress when they otherwise would. |
Feedback should be done after some teaching has become embedded learning, so sometimes reteaching - especially after a long gap between lessons - will be more efficient than giving feedback. If the long gap between lessons can be foreseen, consider planning a cooldown.
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and the answer to this question depends more on the learning context (see the Top Tips below)
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Mainly because it would take too long and it would be too traumatic for many learners - who have low self esteem in terms of their maths learning. We ask questions on a few key layers of a topic - which gives us a broad brush stroke picture of the learner’s skills and learning gaps - which are at an appropriate level for the learner. We know that quite often asking one question on a layer is insufficient to find if a layer is secure or not, so we always ask a second question if the learner seems to know the first. The assessment of the key layers is then used to gather more assessment for learning data in finer detail. See auto pre assess for more detailed information |
(9) … then plan the teaching and learning activities of the lesson
Rather than aim for “rapid progress” every lesson what we need is to aim for “sustained progress” every lesson.
Without ensuring that new learning is durably embedded in long term memory “lots of learning” quickly becomes “lots of forgetting”. The timely practice assignment episode does this job, so it should be part of every lesson.
A lesson might be made up of e.g.
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Usually the teacher’s best use of the timely practice assignment episode is giving feedback rather than teaching (as described in https://timelypractice.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/CKB/pages/3110699106/Best+practice#(5)-schedule-a-%E2%80%9Ctimely-practice-assignment%E2%80%9D-episode-every-lesson). However the teacher can interleave timely practice with teaching e.g. if only one learner must learn layer 6 and all the other learners layer 2 or 3, the teacher might teach layer 6 to the learner, whilst the rest of the class “for the next 3 minutes: begin your (silent) do now: look at your assessed assignment and begin your new assignment”.
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The teach-learn part of most lessons rarely holds low prior attainment learners back, but trying to practise too much or too hard in the practise-learn part of the lesson or failing to make efforts to embed new learning regularly does. In whole class teaching, learners with low prior attainment can often answer questions from harder layers, but
See https://timelypractice.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/CKB/pages/3110699106/Best+practice#(1)-teach-on-firm-learning-foundations and remember the subsequent layer isn’t on firm learning foundations. The teachers task with a timely practice scheme of learning is to so that new learning quickly embeds. There is usually sufficient time within an academic year to spiral through most of the topics within the scheme of learning several times. Getting practise-learn and retrieval practice “more right” will lead to large learning gains, without the more sophisticated options suggested below. |
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It’s essential that learners follow up the teach-learn on a layer with independently answering the questions within the correct practise-learn worksheet (or a similar alternative). However sometimes the practise-learn worksheet questions from the second topic may be need to be deferred until the next lesson, in which case defer adding the layer as taught (via Edit Teaching) until the next lesson too. So sometimes a lesson might be made up of
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To help get the class together again e.g. in order to move on to teach a second topic - , have some activities which can fill up to 5 minutes, but which won’t move the learner on in learning the topics that are being taught in the lesson.
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The teacher can also reserve, topics to teach just prior to a slightly shorter cool down period:
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