Auto pre-assess

The school could allocate 10 to 15 minutes of lessons for pre assess (replacing lesson warm up) over a fortnight or longer.

In the rest of these lessons the teacher will teach using the current scheme of learning.

To save outside of lesson assessment time, the teacher could do some of the assessment of the last lesson’s assignments whilst the class is doing their new assignment FYI this ``have 2 assignments on the go for each learner'' strategy is only OK because the teacher doesn’t need the pre assess to be efficient, because the warm up lasts for a fortnight or longer.

This strategy is particularly useful for several weeks revision before a school scheduled end of term/year test.

The teacher will spend 3 lessons doing pre-assess (as revision) and teaching about cognitive strategies which embed learning.

Before the 1st lesson

• The teacher sets the 1st theme they plan to teach as teach-next, and the 2nd theme as teach later.

• The teacher creates a long warmup assignment (perhaps 25 to 30 questions), the app will ask questions from layers from a range of difficulty for 4 important topics within the theme and ask medium difficulty layers on other topics from the theme.

During the 1st lesson

• The teacher tells the class they will be completing a pre-assess assignment so that the class can learn new skills on <1st theme> better. The teacher explains the title ``Already Learned and Remembered?” and that although it will seem like a test, they won’t get a score, they are allowed to write a question mark instead of answer or they can guess an answer and the purpose is the title: to find out what they have already learned and remembered. The teacher is doing this to they can make learning maths easier and more successful for every learner. The teacher explains that any of the paid teachers in the room may act as readers or scribes. At the end of the lesson the teacher will ask the learners to write a code each T beside any questions they haven’t been able to answer because they ran out of time and a question mark beside any questions they missed out because they thought that they couldn’t answer them.

Preparing for the 2nd lesson

• Assess all the assignments, adjust the Pace for Practice for learners who were significantly quicker or slower than their peers. Choose the number of questions that the class should have (the number that most learners completed last lesson) and create the 2nd warmup assignment.

During the 2nd lesson

• Explain, again, that their assignment last lesson wasn’t a test, as tests are about giving them a score to compare themselves with others whereas the assessment is about finding out what they have already learned and remembered. They will notice in today’s new assignment, the second way that assignments are different to tests: if learners got a question correct last lesson, they will get another similar question today - just to be sure they really know the skill, (and any they gave a question mark to, or got wrong or partly wrong won’t be asked again). Instead that they may get easier or harder questions from topics if they found their questions yesterday too hard or too easy. So everybody will find their assignment today a better fit than last lesson Also explain that they will gain another advantage: revision - by answering questions, they will be embedding the maths learning they know more deeply. Explain that this is the last lesson, until they have a schools set test or exam, where they will spend almost all of the lesson answering their timely assessment assignment. At the end of the lesson, take in their completed assignment and give them their assessed assignment. Ask them to spend 5 minutes looking for questions which they got correct and seeing if they can remember answering a similar question in today’s assignment. They could write the letter S beside these questions.

Preparing for the 3rd lesson

• Assess all the assignments, and tweak the Pace for Practice for learners who were still a few minutes quicker or slower than their peers in the number of questions they could answer. Choose the number of questions that the class should have (just over half the number of the questions they had last lesson) and create the 3rd warmup assignment.

During the 3rd lesson

• Explain how teaching becomes learning and how new learning can be made to remain retrievable from long term memory when teaching small bites on firm learning foundations, doing retrieval practice and feedback. Allow 10-15 minutes for this. Tell the learners that they will be doing a shorter third already learned and remembered? assignment and that you want to allow at least 10 minutes at the end of the lesson for another activity - set a timer. When the timer sounds, collect in their completed assignment and give their first and second assignments back. They can look for similar questions in both assignments - which were both assessed tick. Explain that by noticing all the questions they had ticked, they will better revise those skills. See if they can recognise

  • similar but easier questions, which they had today for questions which weren’t assessed tick in their first 2 assignments:write the code E beside these,

  • similar but harder questions, which they had today for questions which were assessed tick in their first 2 assignments:write the code H beside these.

• Finally if time, compare their first assignments with their neighbours - can they find any identical questions? - can they find similar but different questions?Explain that it’s hard to copy, because each learner has their own assignment assessing skills to find their firm learning foundations and the app randomly assigns them a question, so they are very unlikely to be able to copy.

• Tell them they will begin new learning from topic theme 1 tomorrow - based on the firm learning foundations that the app found, when their teacher assessed their first 3 assignments.

Preparation for the 4th lesson.

• The teacher will assess the 3rd assignment and create the 4th warm up assignment - about half the number of questions as the 2nd assignment.

• In the SOL tab change theme 1 from teach next to teach now. Change theme 2 from teach later to teach next. This will mean that the app will stop pre-assessing theme 1 and begin pre assessing theme 2 next lesson. It will also allow the teacher to see the progress on the topics in theme 1 and plan teaching on firm learning foundations.

• The teacher will need to create a tpTeach P&P session for next lesson’s date. In Plan Teaching, the teacher should look at the first few topics assessed and see which topic they will teach. (A topic that is as fully pre-assessed - only blue, white and pale grey squares and no darker bluey/grey squares- for as many learners as possible). For learners who aren’t fully pre assessed, just choose the best fit layer to teach.

• For this lesson only don’t create an assignment in the P&P session, just select one learner to create a 1 question retrieval practice assignment - which should show a red crossed out rectangle - in other words won’t create an assignment, as their won’t be any retrieval practice questions yet. (FYI every P&P sessions expects to create an assignment, however in lesson 4, the teacher wants to do one more round of theme 1 pre assess).

• Gather the teaching and learning resources for the chosen topic and

In the 4th to the 7th-ish lessons the teacher will

• Teach one of the chosen topics  from <theme 1>. A few learners won’t have retrieval practice added after teaching, because they haven’t done enough pre-assess because they were absent: however the teacher will still be teaching on firmer learning foundations than usual. By the 5th lesson a few more learners may have more complete data for theme 1 topics.

• Give each learner a retrieval practice + pre assess assignment to complete (the retrieval practice will come from theme 1, and the pre-assess from theme 2 or 3), use the timely practice lesson time to give feedback (only on retrieval practice questions).

• Explain about retrieval practice every lesson e.g. display a teach-learn question from one of the last few lessons, and ask who has a retrieval practice question like it in their assignment. Also that the app will gradually stretch the durability of their recall-ability of what they learn in class. Apologise to learners who don’t have retrieval practice questions, because they missed some of the first 4 lessons, and assure them that for <theme 2> they will have retrieval practice questions.

• During this time, learners are likely to see, in their Retrieval Practice part of their assignment, questions from theme 1, from layers they Already Learned and Remembered but which they haven’t been taught in this unit. This is the app working to keep all their learning fresh.

Preparation for teaching theme 2 topics

• In the SOL tab change theme 2 from teach next to teach now. Change theme 3 from teach later to teach next. This will mean that the app will stop pre-assessing theme 2 and begin pre assessing theme 3 or 4 next lesson. It will also allow the teacher to see the progress on the topics in theme 2 and plan teaching on firm learning foundations.

• Create a tpTeach P&P session for the next lesson.

• Follow the steps EditTaught, Assess tp, Plan teaching, Create tp, Download tp

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 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.

The auto pre assess facility:

• works to find the sweet spot (between too easy and too hard) where teaching should begin.

• works to pre assess as much as possible on a topic theme A, whilst topic theme A isn’t being taught, and then moves on to pre-assess topic theme B, when topic theme A begins to be taught (and so forth).

• is depth first in the 4 priority topics of a theme, meaning the teacher can quickly begin to teach most learners with the benefits of tpTeach quickly and

• more responsive for the remaining topics in the theme, meaning fewer too hard and/or too easy questions are asked and

• always avoids pre-assess of what has been taught within the last 4 weeks, meaning that pre-assess for learners who work more slowly/have more absence than their peers is still just as accurate.

1. Round 1 We ask one question on a few key layers from each topic - if the learner doesn't get the first question correct on the layer, they are not asked a second one from the layer, as we are looking for firm learning foundations. However if the learner gets one key layer correct, they are automatically asked a second, verify question, because we want our assessment for learning data to be accurate. Once all the key layers from round 1 on the topic have been asked the app moves on to ask questions from round 2 key topics.

2. Round 2 The app will decide if it needs to ask questions from more key layers on the topic responsively** - i.e. using assessment for learning data on the first key layers - to decide whether to ask questions from some harder or easier key layers. Again a verify question will be asked after a correctly answered first question.

Before round 3 the app will decide which scaffolding layers

• needn’t have a question asked - because the learner seems to have mastered certain key layers - questions from layers scaffolding these mastered key layers needn’t be asked.

• need to be have a question asked - because certain key layers haven’t been mastered - a question from layers that scaffold these un-mastered key layers will provide a fuller picture,

3. Round 3 the app asks the scaffolded layers it feels - the app is homing in on finding the learners sweet spot between too easy and too hard for the topic. Again a verify question will be asked after a correctly answered first question.

We do all we can to ensure the data we collect is accurate:

• each learner is randomly assigned their first pre assess question - so the chance the learner can copy one of their peers is dramatically reduced;

• answering a question on an assignment is much less stressful than answering a question in a class, where some learners will feel they will be “shown up” so teachers are less likely to see a false negative,

• we ask at least 2 questions from a layer before we decide the learner has probably mastered the questions in that layer - so the chance of a lucky question distorting our assessment is reduced.

• stores partially complete assessment for learning data from topic themes when they begin to be taught (e.g. for slow working/often absent learners) and will return to complete pre-assess in advance of the next teaching of the topic theme (except when this just isn’t possible for learners with extremely poor attendance).

** For the 4 priority topics, round 2 is generally not needed, so - for option B style pre-assess - the teacher can begin tpTeach after 3 pre-assess sessions.