I am very lucky in that I get to see a lot of lessons. In this series, I share the “most common actions” (MCAs) that I find myself asking teachers to take as part of my feedback. The series starts with the first MCA here. This particular action probably won’t make sense to you unless you read MCA4 first.

Mr B is about to start a lesson on leaf structure, and wants to recap photosynthesis. He asks “What are the products of photosynthesis?“

David puts his hand up, and Mr B asks him to answer. He says “glucose and oxygen“. Mr B says “Yes that’s correct…today we are going to look at…“

In MCA4 we looked at the issue of students calling out and explained that this was problematic for a number of reasons. The scenario above doesn’t have calling out, but has a student with their hand up being called on. This solves some of the problems to do with calling out, but there are plenty that remain:

  1. SOLVED – Behaviour confrontation: we aren’t going to have to get in an argument with students about calling out later in the lesson
  2. SOLVED – Behaviour nucleation: other students won’t take their cue from calling out and start chatting
  3. NOT SOLVED – Inclusion: the classroom conversation is still dominated by a few students
  4. NOT SOLVED – Ratio: students know they can be inattentive with no repercussions
  5. NOT SOLVED – Assessment – sample size: we are still only asking one student
  6. NOT SOLVED – Assessment – sample selection: the student we are asking is highly likely to know the answer, so we learn nothing and are tricked into thinking the whole class knows it

Before moving on, it is worth noting that in the majority of lessons I see in schools across the country, the dominant method of teacher-student interaction during questioning is either via calling out or taking a student with their hand up. This is a big problem, and in my view one of the most urgent for teachers and school leaders to fix.

In response to these issues, sometimes people suggest using a randomiser (either a digital one or lollipop sticks). To an extent, a randomiser fixes some of the problems. If you use a randomiser, you potentially stop some students dominating the classroom. Provided you ask the question and then use the randomiser to find a name, you are also potentially increasing Ratio as students don’t know who will be picked. You also might be solving your sample selection issue – you might get a student who isn’t highly likely to know the answer and might be more representative of the group. But you might not.

I very rarely see anyone actually using randomisers, but what often happens is this:

Me: thank you so much for having me in the lesson, I really enjoyed it…[various things]…one thing I wanted to ask, is that when you asked David that question about photosynthesis, why did you ask David in particular?

Teacher: ummmm not sure really

Me: cool, no worries. You asked a lot of questions that lesson – in general do you have a rule in your head about which students you ask?

Teacher: not really, no

So here the teacher isn’t using a randomiser, but they are still asking questions to random students. If you don’t have a reason, then it’s at random. This kind of questioning stresses me out a little: I don’t believe we should do anything at random. Learning is messy, complicated, chaotic and unpredictable enough that I don’t want to add more random elements to my lessons.

I think it’s also the case that teachers can do better than random questions by following a few simple rules. For example, one rule I try to keep is that every student in my class gets asked a question at least once every lesson. I respect my students and want to hear their voices, and want to build a classroom where everyone knows their voice is included. So I try to make sure I’ve got everyone by the end of the lesson.

Another rule I have is going back to students who got something wrong earlier. If they get it wrong, I will tell them it’s ok they got it wrong, just to make sure they are paying attention and I will come back to them later. I then follow that up immediately or with a bit of a delay. Sometimes I keep a note of which students to come back to on a miniwhiteboard on my desk, or you could use a clipboard. At Carousel Teaching we call this strategy Looping, and it’s inspired by (but not the same as) Doug Lemov’s No Opt-Out.

Both of these simple rules achieve everything a randomiser does and more. They involve targeting questions to students that need them, and add a level of deliberateness to your lessons. Students know they could be asked at any point, and they know that the classroom is an inclusive place where all voices are heard and respected.

I have a third rule that is even more powerful than these two, and will be the subject of the next MCA (make sure to subscribe at the bottom of the homepage to get a notification). In the meantime, let’s do a couple of straightforward WHENWHYBY steps:

When verbally questioning
Increase inclusion
By targeting students who have not had a chance to speak this lesson

When a student gets something wrong
Ensure their understanding is improved
By
– Warning them you will come back to them
– Targeting them again later

This is the fourth post in a new series called MCA, which stands for Most Common Actions. You can read more about the series in the first instalment here.

The strategies here are heavily influenced by ideas from Teach Like a Champion, Get Better Faster and my boss Thanos Gidaropoulos. Whilst I might not reference every individual thing, assume that if the idea makes sense it is because I got it from one of those sources, and if it doesn’t it’s because I made it up. I strongly advise all teachers to pick up a copy of Teach Like a Champion and all leaders a copy of Get Better Faster.

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