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, and this post is MCA7. A full list of the MCAs can be found at the bottom of the blog.

Scenario:

Mr B is gauging class understanding of photosynthesis. He knows that he wants to target an indicator rather than a student with their hand up. One of Mr B’s indicators is called David, so he says

“David, what are the products of photosynthesis”

So far in this series, we have seen a number of common issues when questioning a class. Many of these issues have now been solved by Mr B. We don’t have behaviour issues to do with students calling out, and because Mr B is being thoughtful about his targeting, we know that the assessment information he is gathering will be of a higher quality than if he picked students at random or with their hands up.

However, there is still a problem: there are 30 students in the class. 1 of them is called “David” and 29 of them are “Not David.” If your name is David, Mr B has asked you a good question, and you’re thinking hard about it. If your name is Not David, then you have no reason to think or listen. The second Mr B says “David” you are much less likely to pay attention:

“David, [everybody else stops listening] what are the products of photosynthesis”

The solution to this appears obvious. Rather than call David’s name at the start, you put the name at the end:

“What are the products of photosynthesis…[pause, look around]…David?”

This way, students do not know who is going to be called and the likelihood of them paying attention throughout is increased – we have improved the Ratio in the room.

When it’s put to you like this, it does seem obvious. However, it is worth noting that asking questions like this is surprisingly rare. Out of the hundreds of lessons I see and the thousands of questions I hear, a vanishing minority are asked with the name at the end. I think this is probably because talking like this isn’t normal or natural:

Mr B is with his colleagues Sangita, Paul and Tomo in the pub on Friday after school. Mr B looks around and says “so, what are you doing over the weekend….[pauses, looks around]….PAUL”

This would be a weird thing to do, and I do not advise it. But it’s “weirdness” is precisely why I hear name at end so infrequently. First, it may not have occurred to people, and second, even amongst those to whom it has occurred, it’s a difficult thing to do and a difficult habit to get into. It’s not the kind of thing that drives workload stress or whatever, but it is still difficult because it isn’t normal or natural. It requires constant cognitive effort to get into a good habit with it, and requires maintenance to ensure you aren’t slipping.

There’s no doubt in my mind though that it’s a better way to parse a question. When I go into lessons where the name is not at the end, I wait for Mr B to ask David a question, and quietly ask other students things like
What question did Mr B just ask?
Did David get it right?
What feedback did Mr B give David?

And so on. Ordinarily, the answer is “I don’t know.” In lessons where Mr B places the name at the end, whilst I still get the occasional “I don’t know,” it’s rarer.

Following WHENWHYBY, our MCA is:

When verbally questioning students
Increase Ratio
By putting the name at the end

Technical note: some readers may note similarities between this post and previous posts about the questioning technique called Cold Call. I first read about Cold Call in Lemov’s Teach Like a Champion, and his definition and presentation there is superb, but also much broader than the action steps I am using here. I therefore worry that if I say “Cold Call is [this]” then I will get bogged down in arguments with people about whether Cold Call really is [this] or is [that]. As such, I have not used the term, especially given that the action steps here are clear and direct enough to adequately convey meaning without using the word “Cold Call”. Interested readers are encouraged to go to Teach Like a Champion if they are looking for more on Cold Call as a specific strategy.

This is the seventh post in a series called MCA, which stands for Most Common Actions. The series details the action steps I tend to give most often following observations. The MCAs until this one are listed here:

  1. Step away from the speaker
  2. Filling the silence
  3. Pausing independent practice for feedback
  4. Calling out
  5. Targeting part 1
  6. Targeting part 2 (indicators)

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. In this case, I definitely got the idea from Thanos. It’s a tricky one to communicate, so any errors or misunderstanding there are mine.

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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