Categories: topic themes contain topics, which contain layers, which contain questions

Scaffolding: internal and traditional

Purpose: pre-assess, teach-learn, practise-learn and retrieval practice

Extra information will be found here.

The app splits questions first into

• topic themes: FDPR, algebra, geometryMeasure, integer, probabilityStatistics, wordProblems

then splits these into

• topics e.g. decimalFraction, sequenceArithmetic, area, factor, discreteGraph and secretADDsign

then splits these into

• layers e.g. decimalFraction(2), sequenceArithmetic(8), area(6), factor(1), discreteGraph(3) and secretADDsign(11)

and finally each layer is made up of a number of

• questions, which are similar to each other but slightly different.

scaffolding: internal and traditional

Whenever possible we prefer to learners to build chunks in long-term memory which provide the learner with “internal scaffolding” to learn harder layers.

Sometimes we use traditional scaffolding: often a representative, sometimes a partially complete question. Once the learner has mastered the layer with the scaffold, then the learner needs to be taught to answer questions without the scaffold. Sometimes this process happens naturally without feedback, sometimes the best feedback is “what diagram can you draw to help you answer this question?”

For each layer there are sets of questions

• available from the customer knowledge base: Learning Resources these are the teach-learn question sets and practise-learn worksheets for each layer

• available via the app: the app uses questions to create pre assess and retrieval practice assignments.

All 3 tabs are used when getting started

1. Classes/learners tab, to create the class and add the learners name and best guess of level

2. Scheme of learning tab - to add at least part of - the scheme of learning

3. The Planning and Preparation tab - to create and download the assignments

Level for Learner - the approximate grade the learner would get if they took the GCSE exam tomorrow. (For primary pupils maybe grade 1 = close to “expected progress”, no grade is below this).

Pace for Practice can be adjusted so that all learners take about the same time to complete their timely practice assignments within the lesson. Most learners will complete their assignments within a minute or two of each other, their pace can be left at the default 100%, adjust the pace for learners who finish their assignments significantly quicker or significantly slower than their peers. The Pace from Practice can be adjusted as frequently as desired.

For subsequent spirals the teacher may want to add more topics to a topic theme. e.g. Once some learners have mastered equivalent fraction skills within fractionINTRO and sufficient skills within givenDIVsign skills and/or prime skills then the teacher may want to begin to teach simplestForm to some learners.

For efficient teaching (teaching which results in a high proportion of embedded learning), learners should only learn new skills for which they have mastered the pre requisite skills. i.e. the teacher and SOL have gentle but relentlessly rising expectations.

The Planning and Preparation tab does the most work. It helps the teacher ensure they are teaching in a manner which most efficiently embeds learning in low attaining or underachieving learners (those who aren’t expected to gain a grade 5 or above at GCSE).

The staircase symbol of the tab represents each learner making a little progress every lesson.

The 3 parts moving forwards symbol, used to create a new planning and preparation session, represents how the teacher is assisted to raise attainment with these 3 activities

• assess prior learning

• plan and resource teaching

• schedule retrieval practice

assess prior learning: assess last lesson’s teaching within Edit Taught and assess prior learning within Assess t.p. (timely practice)

plan and resource teaching: use Plan Teaching in the app and find the teach-learn and practise-learn activities in Learning Resources within the CKB (customer knowledge base)

schedule retrieval practice: within Create t.p and Download t.p. (timely practice).

The sub heading, in each learners PDF assignment Already Learned and Remembered? is what the teacher will think of as pre assess. Over time the app finds out what learners can already independently and accurately recall in all the topics within the apps SOL.

The sub heading, in each learners PDF assignment Retrieval Practice and contains questions to ensure prior learning and new learning becomes ever more deeply embedded in the learner’s long term memory. The app prioritises fragile learning over more deeply embedded learning. The app ensures that the wait between one practice and the next of a layer of similar questions is long enough to promote a stretching of duration the learner can readily recall the learning of the layer for. This timely practice, well timed deliberate practice, means that learning will be rarely be forgotten and (almost) all retrieval practice questions are worthy of feedback. (FYI Occasionally, a recently taught layer may judged as “requiring too much feedback”, and the assessment option best learned later (bell) will ensure the app removes the layer from all of the learner’s future retrieval practice assignments).

• only ever teach on firm learning foundations,

• teach one layer (a small bite) per learner, per topic, per curriculum spiral (and usually return to teach several spirals per academic year),

• use scaffolding and most importantly fade the scaffolding,

• use retrieval practice to ensure that the teaching of the lesson becomes deeply embedded in long term memory,

• the well timed retrieval practice also facilitates effective feedback when necessary.

• target teaching. When teaching new skills - a specific layer from a topic - the teacher can use the assessment for learning data: which learners have which pre requisite skills and which learners need to learn each of the layers the teacher will teach during the lesson. This knowledge encourages teachers to explain how to add the new learning on to the existing learning. Rather than use a “random - no hands up questioning” the teacher can target specific learners with “no hands up questioning” and carefully observe these specific learners' mini-whiteboard answers. As the teacher moves on to teach another specific layer the focus of the teachers questioning will change. The teacher can still keep all learners “on their toes” and ask questions to encourage generalisation in learners who have already mastered the skill and make use of test potentiated learning in learners who have not yet mastered the skill.

• a “think aloud” asks the teacher to share “why they do what they do” and “how they were primed to do this” along with teaching what to do. Our experience is that teaching a number of smaller discrete skills - a number of layers - to groups within the class rather than a larger lump of skills to the whole class, means the teacher feels less time pressure. The teacher needn’t worry if the higher attaining learners “already get it” (the teacher knows they will get their turn at learning the layer they need to in a few minutes time) nor that the low attaining learners “don’t get” a layer that they are not scheduled to learn this lesson (the teacher knows they will be much more likely to be able to embed the layer in a term or two because of the work they will do in the current lesson and in subsequent lessons through retrieval practice).

• metacognitive strategies (learners thinking about their thinking). Having to identify which skills to apply to each retrieval practice question develops learners triggers to their chunks/schema in their long term memory. When the learner can’t answer a retrieval practice question independently and accurately, the teacher will engage in personalised feedback-dialogue (and has time to do so). These feedback-dialogue conversations are often unexpectedly sophisticated - especially given the level of attainment of the learner - and usually lead to embedded learning.

During the warm up process timely practice finds sufficient learning foundations so that future teaching is very likely to become retained learning and hence firm learning foundations for the next teaching of each topic.

When the teacher finds each learners firm learning foundations on a topic and uses that data to decide where to start teaching that topic - see (5) - the teacher can be confident that the learners will retain new teaching because

• the teacher is teaching on firm learning foundations,

• the app schedules a retrieval practice programme for each bite (layer) of new learning and

• that when feedback needs to be given, it has the best chance of success, because the teacher and learner are entering into a feedback-dialogue and the app adjusts (reduces) the retrieval practice schedule, so that the learner is most likely to remember and apply the recent feedback.

It’s easy to teach too much and/or too hard and if we do

• the learners will forget the new teaching and will inevitably become progressively more despondent about their ability to learn

• the retrieval practice system that timely practice uses would require more feedback capacity than the teacher has available and so only learning that the learner requires no feedback for would be retained

It takes a little longer, perhaps 4 lessons, before timely practice can show the teacher firm foundations for the first few topics. The app in effect holds the teacher back from teaching too much and/or too hard, meaning

• the learners generally retain their learning until the next lesson, and when this happens regularly learners become progressively more motivated,

• very little feedback is required to ensure the retrieval practice system that timely practice uses ensures learners retain new learning for the long term

Of course teacher’s don’t need to use timely practice to plan teaching, but if the teacher wants to use the power of the timely practice app to

• ensure they only ever teach on firm learning foundations and

• automatically schedule personalised retrieval practice on the learning of the lesson and

• have the app adjust the schedule of retrieval practice when a learner has made an error and had feedback;

then the teacher must wait until the app has finished pre assessing the topic. (There is nothing stopping a teacher teaching a layer to a learner whose pre assess on the topic is incomplete, but the app won’t schedule retrieval practice and the teacher may not be teaching on firm learning foundations.)

A learner’s column in the Plan Teaching topic dashboard

• which has some mid grey and darker blue-grey squares - indicates that pre assess is not complete;

• which only shows light grey squares - indicates that the app does not intend to pre assess the topic (judging all the layers either too easy or too hard);

• which shows a mix of white and light grey squares - indicates the app thinks the learner could learn layers from the topic, but has not learned any yet;

• the (often fuzzy) line between the shades of blue (perhaps mixed with light grey) in the lower part of the column and the white (usually mixed in with light grey) in the upper part of the column is the (often fuzzy) “goldilocks” point where teaching should begin.

https://timelypractice.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/CKB/pages/3110699106/Best+practice+with+timely+practice#(9)-plan-the-teaching-and-learning-activities-of-the-lesson---so-each-learner-is-learning-on-firm-learning-foundations

Not all topics are traditionally named e.g.

• rounding is split between correctTOnearest (within integer) and correctDP (within FDPR)

• substitute is called valueAlgebra - named because questions asks learners to “find/write down the value of” a variable - the word substitute isn’t mentioned

• writeAlgebra is writing expressions and formulae

• base10add is skills for adding on 10 using place value e.g. continue the sequence 34, 44, 54

• base10skills is using place value to multiply e.g work out 20 x 700

• place100value9999 - standing for place value between 100 and 9999 - it covers completing/understanding the value of digits in a place value grid

There are plenty of topics to fill gaps in numeracy skills - which often aren’t included in many paid for SOL + text books - ignoring these gaps make learning new maths that much harder for “our cohort”, whereas finding and filling these learning gaps makes new maths learning more successful and feel more successful.

timely practice wants to find and fill these numeracy gaps - most of which are found within the topic theme integer.

Along with creating all the questions, we’ve created ladders to mastery, so we’ve tried to choose topic names which describe these paths.

• 10 bond e.g. 7 + … = 10 or 7 + … = 40

• base10add e.g. count on in 10s e.g. complete the next number in the sequence 36, 46, 56

• base10skills e.g. work out 2 x 80

• orderInteger e.g. order mix of 2 and 3 digit numbers

• place100value9999 e.g. write 567 in place value grid and state the value of 6

• sequenceMultiple e.g. write down the next 3 multiples of 5 after 40

We also have

• givenADDsign which starts with work out e.g. 5 + 7 (given pictures) and moves on to e.g. 34 + 49 (given 3 different scaffold options and then without scaffold)

• givenSUBsign which starts with work out e.g. 7 - 5 (given pictures) and moves on to e.g. 74 - 46 and also 74 - 6 (given 3 different scaffold options and then without scaffold)

• givenXsign which starts with work out e.g. 5 x 7 (given pictures) and moves on to e.g. 34 x 249 (with Gelosia or long multiplication scaffold and then without)

• givenDIVsign which starts with work out e.g. 14 ÷ 2 (given pictures) and moves on to e.g. 581 ÷ 7 and 2132 ÷ 52 (with and without scaffold)

and their corresponding word problem versions

• secretADDsign, secretSUBsign, secretXsign and secretDIVsign (each word problems - at different levels of difficulty which requires only addition, subtraction, multiplication or division, as their title implies)

In a class where there is a wide spread of attainment this is very likely. e.g. a low attaining learner may only “already know” fewer than 30 layers whereas a learner at about GCSE grade 4 is likely to “already know” well over 100 layers. The learner who knows more will need to answer questions on far more layers in order for the app to find the “goldilocks” place to begin teaching in each topic.

So once some learners no longer have pre assess questions to answer, the teacher should make good use of lesson time for the lowest attaining learners. Consider creating slightly longer timely practice assignments so that:

• learners who haven’t finished pre assess yet, will finish more quickly;

• there will be time to teach learners who have finished pre assess an extra topic, whilst their peers answer further pre assess questions.

The learners who have finished pre-assess can learn a layer from one topic with the class and an additional layer from one or even two other topics per lesson, whilst the learners who are still doing pre assess do longer assignments. The teacher should make good use of the time when the majority of learners are doing long pre-assess assignments, which don’t require feedback-dialogue, to spend time with the lowest attaining learners - this time, well spent - will increase the motivation of the lowest attaining learners and be a chance to fix some fundamental gaps, which will make it easier to teach the whole class in the future.

The topics the learners who have already finished pre-assess can be drawn from all topic theme, but the teachers would be advised

• to teach 10bond, base10add and sequenceMultiple if necessary;

• to avoid teaching extra layers on a topic within 6 weeks of when the topic is scheduled to be taught to the whole class (so that the extra layer will be well embedded, before the teacher comes to teach the topic to the whole class);

• to begin to teach multiply by 10 etc and at least 3 of the 4 operations (multiply or divide may be missed out);

• to fill in fundamental learning gaps such coordinate, fractionINTRO, sequenceArithmetic, orderFDP, fractionOF, scaleInterpret and proportionalGraph;

• to use the early layers of some topics to fix other topics e.g. stemLeaf, correctTOnearest and decimalFraction to improve place value, inequality to improve understanding of negative number;

• to teach some layers, such as simplifySD (sum/difference), simplifyPQ (product/quotient) and solvingReady, which may help learners to overcome any fear of algebra that they might have and also to enable the lowest attaining learners to shine when the whole class begins to learn the topic together (It can be a really good “sales technique” for retrieval practice, when the lowest attaining learners can do more than their peers because “we learned it last half term with timely practice”) - especially when it is clear that these learners can learn also easily learn the another slightly harder layer on their firm learning foundations).

If the teacher hasn’t tapped the floppy disc, then just tap the correct assessment outcome.

If the teacher has tapped the floppy disc (and the assessment has been saved), the teacher need not do anything, the app will self adjust the retrieval practice interval over time.

This helps the app decide on the urgency for adding questions on layers into the next retrieval practice section of the timely practice assignment. The option feedback-on-blank is considered more urgent than feedback-on-attempt. However feedback-on-blank may be an indication that the teacher should select best learn later - because the teacher and learner might be better off putting their limited feedback time to better use.

The teacher should not give feedback on pre assess questions because

• we want pre assess to be fast and accurately find each learner's firm learning foundations;

• each learner’s retrieval practice pool should only contain layers which the learner already knows or has recently be taught (adding almost correct layers into the retrieval practice pool will mean that the teacher needs to give feedback before they have taught the timely practice layer - this will usually be a poor use of the teacher’s time - so please don’t do this);

• throughout the time when learners are only or mainly doing pre assess, the teacher can concentrate on getting this message across: the pre assess section, headed Already Learned and Remembered? is to help the teacher teach all learners in the class better in the future. Everybody will have some too easy and some too hard questions. Over time the timely practice app will get better at finding out what each learner can do - unlike a test - meaning that once the teacher begins teaching using timely practice, the learners will find learning and remembering learning easier.

Almost all teachers, by their very nature, will find selecting bell when an answer is almost correct hard to do. The teacher can remind themselves, that they are selecting bell because they can see the learner hasn’t fully mastered all of the topic, but has mastered some of the topic and it is the timely practice app’s job to find learning strengths and gaps within the topic. Once the teacher starts teaching the topic, the teacher will be able to give feedback on the layer which the learner is likely to be able to learn easily, rather than a random layer - which may be much harder to learn - that the trial and improvement process stumbled across. Any feedback, if feedback is even needed after teaching the layer, will then be on the learner’s firm learning foundations and therefore is likely to stick.

Our experience is that low attaining learners don’t close the learning gap with their peers no matter

• how high the quality of teaching is,

• how high the teachers expectations are,

• how hard the learners work,

• how many questions the learners practise at the point of teaching

… unless we address forgetting. Of the two most effective ways to improve retention of learning, we have found that personalised retrieval practice is more effective and efficient than practice tests.

Our experience is that end of lesson assessment is a waste of time! What we need desperately to know is

Can the learner still remember (at least some of) what they learned in their previous lesson in the next lesson?

• If the learner can remember how to answer questions on the layer they learned last lesson, then the retrieval practice scheduled by timely practice can begin to work at embedding this learning more and more deeply and accurately in the learners long term memory.

• If the learner can only partially answer questions on the layer they learned last lesson, then feedback can be used to fix the missing or incorrect parts.

• If the learner can’t remember anything from the last lesson, then reteaching or best learned later will be needed. However disappointing this is for the teacher, the teacher needs to know that the teaching and learning activities of the lesson “haven’t worked” for some/most learners. Perhaps it's due to poorly spaced lessons or a long weekend, perhaps it's due to teaching a too hard layer e.g. teaching layer 1 of correctDP before sufficient correctTOnearest has been mastered. If the teacher finds that teaching of the lesson can’t be remembered in the next lesson, the teacher has the possibility of doing something different. The teacher should congratulate themselves, they have found and have the opportunity to fix, learning which would otherwise have been forgotten. If the teacher didn’t find out until the next end of unit/term/year test (as with traditional teaching) they would’t be able to do anything other than reteach. Whereas, with timely practice, the teacher and learner have time to engage in a series of feedback-dialogue sessions to fix these gaps in learning, up until the point where the teacher and/or learner decide that the feedback-dialogue isn’t working, at the moment and then the teacher can bell the layer next time they assess a similar question.

See below for suggestion on poor lesson spacing and https://timelypractice.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/CKB/pages/3110699106/Best+practice+with+timely+practice#(10)-schedule-a-cool-down-before-each-holiday

It is likely, with poorly spaced lessons e.g. a lesson on Thursday and then not another until Tuesday that many learners will have forgotten enough of their learning of the Thursday lesson to warrant a whole class approach. The teacher may decide to move to the next lesson the layers found within Edit Teaching, (tap and tap again for the blue forward arrow) after the Thursday lesson. Instead the teacher can start or end Tuesday’s lesson with a few recap questions or ask the learners to repeat their practise-learn worksheet on what they learned on Thursday, and the teacher will see these layers in Taught Edited, as well as the layers taught in the Tuesday lesson.

For some very low attaining learners, where the school decides more input is required for them, the school can add in an extra 5 minute timely practice session between poorly spaced lessons in school time: e.g. additional time with a learning support teacher or in registration with the support of the form tutor or with family-buy-in for homework. Thereby increasing the likelihood that the learner can recall learning between one lesson and the next.

The app will let the teacher know, if the learner has retained the learning from the previous lesson, when the teacher assesses the next timely practice assignment.

What we expect teachers will find is that:

• some learners who look like they aren’t learning - prove to have actually been learning,

• some learners who do everything that is asked of them and appear to be learning - prove to not have learned, yet, the layer. However feedback-dialogue between the teacher and the learner will usually fix this. Sometimes enough learners will have forgotten the learning of the lesson, to warrant a whole class review. The teacher should congratulate themselves, they have found and have the opportunity to fix, learning which would otherwise have been forgotten.

Absolutely not. We have worked hard to reduce peer-to-peer copying, because copying is the enemy of pre assess and retrieval practice. Each learner begins with a randomly assigned question, which significantly reduces peer-to-peer copying. Most layers have 6 to 20 questions so the chance of two learners sitting adjacent to each other having the same question is very low. Once learners realise they have different questions, they rarely even try to copy.

Many teachers like to start their lesson with timely practice in lieu of a lesson warm up, and some teachers like to designate the first 5 minutes of each lesson as a “silent, do now”, meaning the teacher can focus on settling the class and not get side-tracked by feedback.

Of course in the future we would like to automate this - and auto prepare a “lesson plan page” for the teacher to print out, but for now

• the Absent learners list helps the teacher not duplicate their effort within Edit Teaching and helps retrieval practice be done efficiently within Create t.p.

• the list of learners who will learn each layer from a topic list, helps the teacher plan efficiently without overloading the teachers working memory;

• the order of teaching list, helps the teacher plan efficient teaching of the lesson in the planning and preparation session - and recall their plan within the lesson.

Traditionally the teacher only teaches each topic once per year, so in the subsequent year it will be a waste of time for the teacher to wonder “why doesn’t this learner know this layer already?” The reasons: absent, forgot, was taught too much etc, won’t help the teacher teach better in the future.

With timely practice, the teacher might want to look back at their teaching within the first/previous curriculum spiral of the year and find “pride in a job well done”.

Additionally where the teacher uses a SOL in which the teacher spirals through the curriculum and teaches many topics a few times a year, then the question “why doesn’t this learner know this layer already?” may help the teacher teach the current class better:

• e.g. the teacher could focus on a learner in the lesson (particularly with questioning within the teach-learn part of the lesson) because they have already been taught, but have not learned the layer.

• e.g. the teacher needn’t give particular focus to learners who were absent last time the topic was taught. However the teacher might ensure that the topic gets priority when there is only time to teach the learner one topic in a lesson (when 2 have been planned) or the class the topic when there is not time to spiral through all the topics in the last curriculum spiral of the year.

The pre assess of the existing SOL should match the existing SOL. With most traditional schemes of learning, a block or unit is made up of only part of a topic theme e.g. algebraic tinkering in kangaroomaths.com contains the algebra topics simplifySD (sum difference), simplifyPQ (product quotient), expandLinear, factorise and valueAlgebra but not the other algebra topics algebraGraphs, inequality, sequenceArithmetic, sequenceOther, solvingReady, solve and writeAlgebra.

With timely practice, we strongly recommend a scheme of learning which cycles through most topics more than once a year - we call this a breadth first scheme of learning.

So pre assess all the topics that any learner may already know, or may be taught.

• It will take up to 4 create + do PDF assignment + assess (but give no dialogue-feedback) sessions, to pre assess a topic. However several topics will be pre assessed in parallel.

• Low attaining learners (e.g. <grade 2) will need to pre assess up to 15 integer, 7 FDPR, 4 word problem, 9 algebra, 11 G+M and 8 P+S topics

• Higher attaining learners (e.g. ≥ grade 4) will need to pre assess 14 integer, 14 FDPR, 9 word problem, 12 algebra, 14 G+M and 10 P+S topics

How long the pre assess takes will depend on the attainment of the class and the intensity at which the school wants to do the pre assess process.

Here are some suggestions for the way pre assess can be done

1. The school could allocate 10 to 15 minutes of lessons for pre assess (replacing lesson warm up) and the rest of each lesson used for teaching as normal.

2. The school could allocate the majority of 4 lessons for pre assess (with longer assignments). Part of the first lesson could be allocated to explaining the pre assess process + for the other 3 lessons - adjust the Pace for Practice and have filler activities for learners to do if they finish early.

3. The school could allocate 1 complete lesson for doing 2. (see above), and then 10 to 15 minutes of subsequent lessons for pre assess, replacing lesson warm up, (as in 1. above).

4. A small group preparing for intervention tutoring could be pre assessed in 1 lesson: with the first 8 question assignment created prior to the lesson, and then 3 episodes of assess + but no feedback + create next + do next PDF assignment, within the lesson. Provided the group is small e.g. 3 learners and the teacher/tutor has access to a tablet device and printing facilities, the teacher should be able to assess, create, print and supervise the learners.

Pre assess will feel less threatening than traditional tests as the learners will become aware of

• questions they can do returning, and

• questions they couldn’t do being dropped.

When trying to calculate how much time pre assess will require in advance of teaching

• For option 1. and 3. allow at least 6 maths lessons in advance of the trial (to allow for some learners being absent on occasional days).

• Option 4. will only take 1 lesson - if one of the tutees is absent, they can do the pre assess the next lesson whilst the tutor is teaching the other tutees.

• Option 2. will feel the most traumatic, but if it is replacing a block of revision + 3 GCSE practice papers it will be less traumatic than the GCSE papers (and the data collected will be far more useful for future teaching).

Carefully add the SOL into the app, making sure it is not pre assessing

• what has been taught within the last 4 weeks -

• what will be taught during the pre assess process.

as otherwise what is intended as pre assess will be post assess and too much learning, which is about to be forgotten will be found. This in turns means that the teacher will be unlikely to be teaching on firm learning foundations for all topics.