Big Picture
Compare the learners' learning progress when teaching:
the school’s existing units within the scheme of learning for 3 to 6 weeks (the control) with
the same learners' progress using timely practice for the same time period.
Comparing is a little complicated because …
We are comparing 2 quite different ways of teaching and embedding learning
School’s existing SOL (control) | timely practice method (experiment) | |
|---|---|---|
Teaching of a topic | Teach everything everything that will be taught on a topic during the year within a few days. | Teach a small bite on a topic within a lesson. |
Teaching in a 2-3 week block | Teach a few topics. | Teach all the topics from a topic theme e.g. algebra |
Spiral of curriculum | Once per year | Several times a year |
Embedding of learning | Often self directed revision. 20-60 minute test on the topics in the 2-3 week block | Integrated into each lesson. 10-15 minutes each lesson on any topics |
control unit(s)
How we measure attainment
The teacher will use timely practice to assess the learners in 10 minutes per lesson for 5 consecutive maths lessons. We will calculate the number of timely practice bites of learning (layers) each learner already knows (i.e. is able to answer 2 questions correctly) from each of the topics in the trial.
How we measure the progress of the control units
We will re assess the increase in number of layers each learner knows 6 weeks after the end of the control unit. We ask that the 6 weeks is calculated from after any end-of-unit tests. This is because one of the reason learners become low attaining is that they more readily forget the learning of each lesson than their peers. We will then calculate
the difference between the total number of layers each learner “now knows” (6 weeks after teaching) and the total number of layers each learner “already knew” (before teaching).
How the SOL for a timely practice trial will differ
With a timely practice scheme of learning teachers will teach one layer per learner per topic and typically 1 to 2 topics per lesson. Knowing the number of maths lessons within the trial, will help the school to decide how many topics will need to be taught in the trial.
The time required to pre assess the learners on the topics in the timely practice half of the trial, will take longer, as there will be more topics. The teacher may begin the pre assess of the timely practice topics in 5 to 10 minutes of the control lessons (replacing a start of lesson warm up) or in another unit not part of the trial. The teacher needs to make sure that topics are fully pre assessed before teaching.
How we measure the progress of the timely practice teaching
The teacher must continue to create and assess a timely practice assignment for 2 to 6 weeks after the timely practice teaching. Normally, 2 weeks after teaching a topic, all the layers which will be embedded in long term memory, will be seen to be embedded or the teacher will have decided they are “best learned later”. So after 2 to 6 weeks (as suits the school) we will be able to calculate
the difference between the total number of layers each learner “now knows” (2 to 6 weeks after teaching) and the total number of layers each learner “already knew” (before teaching).