Introduction
High learning gain is possible using these strategies - especially for disadvantaged learners - but “How to apply them effectively in the classroom?” is still a not-well-answered question. What is clear that teaching them in parallel with teaching subject content rather than as thinking skills is more effective.
Of course meta cognition is right up there with generalisation and problem solving - hard for lower attaining learners to do - especially for learners with smaller working memories.
R1: Teachers should acquire the professional understanding and skills to develop their pupils’ metacognitive knowledge
Learners become more motivated with success - and getting over 80 percent of questions correct in every maths lessons - as timely practice learners do, is very motivating. Learning how to answer questions that needed more than one feedback-dialogue helps learners to believe they can overcome learning challenges and feedback-dialogue helps learners build skills and vocabulary to think about their learning.
R2: Explicitly teach pupils metacognitive strategies, including how to plan, monitor, and evaluate their learning
Using “think aloud” to explain how to answer questions and solve problems is important. Equally important is ensuring that learners have mastered the prerequisite skills required. Timely practice helps teachers see what learners in their class already know, using a ladder of layers in the progress on topic, meaning “think aloud” skills are more likely to stick.
R3: Teachers should support pupils to plan, monitor, and evaluate their learning.
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.
Teachers have reported to us examples where learners who started at the end of year 9 below the 20th percentile, being able to problem solve in GCSE practice exams combining Pythagoras and other skills to partially successfully answer a question. 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.
R4: Set an appropriate level of challenge to develop pupils’ self-regulation and metacognition
Challenge very much needs to be at the right level, timely practice encourages a spiral of gently rising expectations. Timely practice gently increases both motivation and attainment.
R5: Promote and develop metacognitive talk in the classroom
Encouraging learners to help and seek help first from their peers, for feedback after errors in their timely practice, is part of our guidance for learners.
However as explained in R7 care needs to be taken, low attaining learners often are only able to generalise and therefore explain their processes after mastery - possibly because there is no spare working memory capacity until then. So gently does it.
R6: Explicitly teach pupils how to organise and effectively manage their learning independently
With timely practice it is easy for teachers to provide carefully targeted
teaching and guided practice - using our teach-learn resources
personal practice - using our practise-learn resources
retrieval practice - using timely practice assignments
R7: Schools should support teachers to develop knowledge of these approaches and expect them to be applied appropriately
This is a school wide responsibility.
Teachers using timely practice will have some skills in talking to learners through feedback on changing their thinking - which requires learners to think about their thinking. The model of timely practice - taking responsibility for review of learning to embed learning - is somewhat at odds with these approaches.
However advice with respect to chunk based theory, says
teach from the simple to the complex … and … [initially] don’t encourage students to carry out their own analysis of well-known problem situations, as they do not possess the key concepts yet.
From Chunking Mechanisms and Learning Gobet, F. & Lane, P. (2012),
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, so start small.