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I get to observe a lot of lessons. Last year I think I observed around 300 lessons in different schools all across the country, and it’s a tremendous privilege for three reasons. First, because I get to see great practice which I can then copy and implement in my own classroom. Second, because I get to give teachers feedback on their lessons, and join in the process of getting better at classroom teaching. Third, because it lets me spot trends and patterns and things that happen in lots of lessons, to lots of teachers, and in lots of schools.

This, in turn, is useful for a further two reasons. First, it makes it easier to communicate issues and improvements in teaching to people who I haven’t observed. For example, if I notice in lots of lessons that students aren’t listening, I can assume that it would apply to lots of other teachers and I can write a blog about it that lots of people will find helpful. Secondly, it makes it easier for me to observe the next lesson. Whenever I go into a room, it could be at any point in the lesson – it could be during a Do Now, or an explanation, or some mini-whiteboard work, or independent practice or anything.

At first, this was pretty overwhelming. I like to focus on really specific techniques and strategies and those will vary depending on the phase of the lesson, so quickly trying to identify issues and successful strategies was hard. As time went on, I got better at it because of the patterns that I saw, and found that in specific lesson phases there were certain things which were almost always going to “come up.” This made it a lot easier for me, because I now just have short lists in my head for all these different phases – “oh, the teacher’s explaining something, I need to look at x, y and z.” I then try and investigate x, y and z intensively, using the hypothesis model to try and figure out if my abstract list meets the concrete reality of this particular lesson.

When it comes to sixth form lessons, there are some things which are so ubiquitous that I can almost guarantee they will occur. I call them “Sixth Form Mistakes”, and I’ve listed a few below:

Mistake #1: All the notes

What happens: A teacher puts a slide up and starts talking. The students start copying the notes from the slides.

Why it makes me worried: copying from a board involves extremely limited amounts of active cognitive processing. It also stops students from listening to whatever the teacher is saying, which is often going beyond (and sometimes contradicts) information that is on the board.

How I confirm my worries:

  • I go and ask a student who has copied three sentences from the board what the paragraph they are writing is about. They often cannot tell me what it is about at all, and when they can tell me about it in a general sense, cannot give me the detail of sentences they just wrote.
  • I wait for the teacher to say something important that isn’t on the slide, and go to a student and ask them what the teacher just said. They normally don’t know.
  • I ask students if they ever actually use their notes later. Some do, but the majority say they don’t and have revision guides which they use instead.

How to avoid the mistake:

  • As a rule of thumb, students should not be copying from the board
  • You will almost definitely need to actively stop them from doing this at first
  • If you want students to write notes, try an approach that involves manipulating information like Cornell Notes
  • You only have a certain amount of time. So instead of using that time to write notes, it’s often a better use of time to just give them the notes, and have them answer lots of questions on those notes instead.

Mistake #2: Assuming positive routines and habits

What happens: teachers assume that students are in good habits and don’t check them or insist upon them as they might lower down in the school. Two examples:

  1. Teachers assume that students are more motivated in sixth form, and therefore take their homework and out-of-the-classroom learning more seriously.
  2. Teachers assume that students are in good learning habits in the classroom, like correcting and improving their work following class review.

Why it makes me worried: students might be more motivated and might have experienced good habits lower down the school, but a) they are still very young, b) humans generally are not great at working hard when it isn’t enjoyable, and c) habits die hard, and they die fast.

How I confirm my worries:

  • For example 1, I have a look at work students have done at home and see if it has been completed or marked. Very often I see huge swathes of it left blank, or where it is completed the marking is cursory.
  • For example 1, where work has been completed and marked, I ask students basic questions about it or directly from it. Very often they cannot answer the questions, despite having answered them “correctly” at home or having received feedback about them.
  • For example 2, I just have a look in notes/work and see how much of it has been self assessed (this is ordinarily a stated expectation of T&L policies – “self assessment to be completed in green” or whatever. I always check that the teacher is expecting them to do this, and they always say they are). Often, large chunks are not.
  • For example 2, I wait and see in a lesson if students are adequately reflecting on their work by looking at what they are doing or asking questions. Often, they just sit there listening and not doing anything. A small minority will correct their work in their normal pen, and a small minority will correct it as the teacher is expecting them to.
  • For example 2, I wait and see if a student gets something wrong and if there is corrective feedback to the class from the teacher. I then ask the student if they got it right or wrong, and they very often say they got it right.

How to avoid the mistake:

For example 1 above: if you have set students work at home, make sure not just to check if it is done, but if students have learnt from it. For example, often teachers might give students more work to do than the teacher can plausibly mark in detail, so might provide a mark scheme. There is then a worry that students will copy the mark scheme, or do it in a cursory way that doesn’t lead to proper learning. To counter this, tell students that you will be choosing a small section from the homework for them to complete in class in exam conditions, and if they do well in that then you know they’ve done the homework properly, and if not then you know they haven’t, even if it is “done” in a technical sense.

For example 2 above: insist explicitly that students meet your expectations in the same way that you would further down the school. Ask them to get their green pens out, check them, circulate and check their self assessment etc.

Mistake #3: Waffling

What happens: a teacher’s explanation goes on for an extremely long time, with limited student activity or interaction

Why it makes me worried: this happens because teachers assume that students by sixth form are more interested, and therefore more alert and attentive. But interest is only one contributing factor to attention, and people’s attention will naturally fall off over time.

How I confirm my worries: I wait till we are a good way into the explanation, then go and ask students what the teacher just said, or basic questions about what the teacher has said. Very often, they don’t know.

How to avoid the mistake:

  • Punctuate your explanations with short and sharp questions (checks for listening)
  • If your explanation is very lengthy, consider chunking it up, and doing a proper check for understanding in-between the chunks

Mistake #4: Not checking for understanding

What happens: a teacher explains something, and then does not check whether students understand what they have just said, assuming that they have “got it”

Why it makes me worried: just because students are in sixth form, doesn’t mean they can magically understand everything that’s been said, and teachers are flying blind if they don’t check.

How I confirm my worries: by going to different students and asking them questions to check their understanding. Inevitably, some have an ok understanding, but many have a really poor understanding. Ordinarily, the ones with a poor understanding are the ones who globally need the most support, and thereby end up falling further behind.

How to avoid the mistake:

  • Check for understanding

Mistake #5: Inconsistent workload

What happens: sixth form students have fewer subjects, but spread between multiple teachers, each of whom gives different amounts of work

Why it makes me worried: partly because it means students are going to be unequally distributing their work leading to unequal long-term outcomes. Additionally, because it could make them frustrated and annoyed, either at the teacher who sets them lots of work (“nobody else does it I don’t get whey they do it”) or at the teacher who doesn’t set them lots of work (“I feel like I don’t learn as much and don’t know what to do”)

How I confirm my worries:

  • I tend not to get involved in long-term outcomes because I am normally only “in” for a short visit and don’t think I could confirm worries about outcomes without a lengthy investigation.
  • I ask students how they feel about their work and what the teachers set, and they almost always express frustration and annoyance.

How to avoid the mistake:

  • Collaborate as a team/department on shared expectations around work that the students should complete.

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