Thoughts on what keeps pupils learning through a lesson, and why this might be difficult for the robot teachers of the future A few years ago, I wrote something about engagement, suggesting that saying pupils are ‘invested’ rather than just ‘engaged’ implies that they are more than just on task. The question ‘How will you... Continue Reading →
Classroom strategies for the explicit teaching of spoken expression When we think about how to develop pupils’ talk in the classroom, it is natural to focus on the ‘opportunities’ we're providing for pupils to practise speaking. We also know that developing vocabulary and subject knowledge, the raw material for talk, is key. These are essential,... Continue Reading →
A notoriously unhelpful piece of lesson observation feedback is that there was insufficient ‘pace’. Of course, in discussion this might be teased out and made sense of, but sometimes it is left unclear, or (worse) it can reflect a misunderstanding of what the teacher was doing, or of how a subject works. The difficulty, of... Continue Reading →
Some thoughts on task-setting and assessment in English, especially at Key Stage 3 In a well-planned Key Stage 3 course on Of Mice and Men, pupils will be gripped by and immersed in Steinbeck’s novel, will enter imaginatively into the world of the story, will explore its context and significance, will investigate ways in which... Continue Reading →
One of the main ways in which teachers ‘give’ feedback to pupils is through follow-up questioning. This is sometimes the case in written feedback, but is particularly the case in oral feedback, as part of dynamic classroom teaching, in which feedback is folded into learning and is indistinguishable from the discussion and exploration of ideas. It... Continue Reading →
It is always risky to discuss something as complex as teaching and learning in terms of any sort of ‘model’. It is always reductive and probably wrong. However, at the moment I am finding it useful to think of classroom teaching working like this. (Click to enlarge) Based on well-rehearsed principles, this schematic might be... Continue Reading →
Number #4 in an occasional series of short posts about feedback, appearing in no particular order. In many schools, there is a literacy ‘marking code’ by which all teachers are meant to abide. Typically, spelling errors are marked with an ‘S’, punctuation errors with a ‘P’ and so on. Some of these codes are highly... Continue Reading →
Number #3 in an occasional series of short posts about feedback, appearing in no particular order. When I was 11 or 12, I did this piece of creative writing for homework. It's called ‘An Angry Traffic Warden’. This was the written feedback which I received: There was clearly a process here: the mark had... Continue Reading →
Number #2 in an occasional series of short posts on feedback, appearing in no particular order
Number #1 in an occasional series of short posts on feedback, appearing in no particular order
James Durran 