Using timely practice

This topic is necessary for teachers. Read this after having studied the topic best practice for timely practice.

(1) Introduction: questions

(2) Create 1st PA (pre assess) assignment

Learner’s Tab	Scheme of Learning Tab	Planning and Preparation Tab

Learner’s Tab	Scheme of Learning Tab	Planning and Preparation Tab
Open	Open

Add class + learners

LESLEY still to add this

Add (at least some of the) SOL

Create 1st PA assignment (mp4)

Use instructions for Learners and Teaching Assistants during the warm up process

FYI the 3 tabs (mp4)

(3) Assess PA (pre assess) only assignments

assess 1st PA only assignment (mp4)

The 3 pre assess assessment options in pre assess are tick, bell and reset

• tick is for a fully independent and accurate answer

• bell, stands for best learned later. It is used for an almost (but not fully correct answer) or for a one part correct answer or for a question not answered (but the teacher assumes that the learner has had a chance to read and try to answer the question).

• reset is for when the teacher assumes the learner hasn’t had a chance to answer the question e.g. the last few questions of the assignment are all left blank (the learner seems to have run out of time) or e.g. a blank answer line, when a short question is sandwiched between longer questions (the teacher thinks that the learner may not have seen the question). This assessment option can also be used if the teacher can’t quite read the learners answer e.g. a 3 has been changed to a 5 (the pre assess process is not a test, the purpose is to find out what the learner already knows, later the teacher can train the learner in good exam skills).

(4) Warm up

What is it?

The warm up process is several (usually 3 to 6) create PA (pre assess) only, complete PA only, assess PA only assignments. The app is responsive, so setting 4 PA only assignments at one time will NOT give us enough data.

Create more PA (pre assess) only assignments

Use instructions for Learners and Teaching Assistants during the warm up process

Assess more PA (pre assess) only assignments

When can one start teaching with timely practice?

When a topic is fully pre assessed, the learner’s column will contain blue, white and pale grey squares

When a topic is NOT yet fully pre assessed it will contain shades of darker grey, white and pale grey squares

Here is an mp4 showing the process for one learner in one topic.

Read about the process, rather than watch the mp4s

After every lesson where learners completed a PA (pre assess) only assignment,

1. Create a P&P (planning and preparation) session for the date of the lesson when timely practice pre assess will happen (usually the next lesson)

2. Open that P&P session and tap the Update Taught Layers button (there are no layers taught with timely practice) and tap Continue

3. Assess each question of the learners' completed/partially completed assignment using

   • tick = fully correct

   • bell (best learned later) = almost any other attempt e.g. partially correct, incorrect, missed out, written a ? etc

   • reset = learner ran out of time, you think the learner didn’t see the question (e.g, small question sandwiched between larger questions, you just can’t read the learners handwriting e.g. they orginally wrote 5 they’ve overwritten with 3, or was it the other way around?)

   • once all the questions in a learners assignment are assessed, tap the floppy disk symbol and assess the next learner’s assignment

4. Once all completed/partially completed assignments have been assessed, make a note of who has an outstanding assignment (and check you have the paper copy) and tap the Continue button

5. Change any learners Pace for Practice, if you need to (this will ensure most students complete their assignment within a minute or two of each other)

6. Change the nominal number of questions if you want a longer or shorter assignment, and tap to un tick the names of the learners who have an existing assignment.

7. Leave both retrieval practice and pre assess assignments ticked (this is good practice for 2 reasons which are explained later)

8. Tap the Create button, tap Continue

9. When all the assignments are created, each will have a green arrow. Choose how you want to download and print them, one by one or merge them and print them in one go. Click the appropriate green arrow(s).

10. The assignments will be found in your downloads folder.

Key to colour coding used in Plan Teaching

(5) Teaching with timely practice

Here is the Learning Resources link.

Key to colour coding used in Plan Teaching

(6) Assess assignments with retrieval practice (and pre assess)

MP4 needs to be added her

Planning the order and manner of teaching the layers of a topic is more of an art than a science. As the teacher gets to know how the learners within the class learn, the teacher will become more skilled at this.

The preparation and planning time required is from 3-5 minutes (for 1 topic in a lesson) and 7-10 minutes (for 2 topics per lesson) plus 1 minute per learner.

The 3 pre assess and 5 retrieval practice assessment options

Frequently asked Questions

Measuring learning progress within a trial

Extension for the teacher/manager who will supervise a comparative trial

Whether the school/department/teacher is using timely practice to find out

• how effective their current SOL with one class and how effective a timely practice SOL is with another class

• or to compare a year where some teaching is done using the current SOL and some using a timely practice SOL

they will need to decide what the lead time needs to be - when sufficient pre assess is likely to have been done - so they can measure embedded learning at the start of a trial. We are happy to give advice about this.