A High Performance Mastery Curriculum For Implementation in 2014-15

Nick Wells: April 2014

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Table of Contents

1. What is a Mastery Curriculum? ................................................................................................... 3

2. Essential Requirements for Implementing a Mastery Curriculum .............................................. 3

3. Why Now? Reason 1 .................................................................................................................... 4

4. Why now? Reason 2 .................................................................................................................... 9

5. Swindon Academy Mastery Model …………………………………………………………………………………………9

6. Ten Principles of our Mastery Curriculum ................................................................................. 11

a. High Expectations……………………………………………………………………………………………………………11

b. Curriculum Design ................................................................................................................ 11

c. Planning Lessons ................................................................................................................. 12

d. Classroom Climate .............................................................................................................. 12

e. Challenge .............................................................................................................................. 13

f. Explanations ......................................................................................................................... 13

g. Modelling ............................................................................................................................. 13

h. Deliberate Practice ............................................................................................................... 13

i. Questioning .......................................................................................................................... 14

j. Feedback .............................................................................................................................. 14

7. Planning a Mastery Curriculum ................................................................................................. 15

a. Planning the Overview ......................................................................................................... 15

b. Planning a Module ............................................................................................................... 16

8. Appendix 1: Mastery Planning Guide ........................................................................................ 18

9. Appendix 2: Teachers’ Standards .............................................................................................. 19

10. Appendix 3: Multiple Choice and Hinge Questions .................................................................. 21

11. Appendix 4: Developing Multiple Choice Questions ................................................................. 24

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1. What is a Mastery Curriculum?

1.1 A mastery curriculum can be contrasted with other approaches, such as a spiral curriculum

which requires pupils to move through the curriculum at a pre-determined pace, often changing units after four weeks or half a term because it is time to move on, rather than because the students have understood the content contained within the module.

1.2 A mastery curriculum breaks the key knowledge relating to each subject area into units with clearly specified objectives which are pursued until they are achieved. Learners work through each block of content in a series of sequential steps. Students must demonstrate a high level of success on tests. Typically, about 80% of students are expected to have mastered the threshold concepts before progressing to new content. Retention of this knowledge is then assessed in future testing and gaps which emerge are addressed.

1.3 When using a mastery curriculum, teachers seek to avoid unnecessary repetition across

years by regularly assessing knowledge and skills. Those students who do not reach the required level are provided with additional tuition, peer support, small group discussions, or homework so that they can reach the expected level. Students who arrive at a school with more advanced levels of knowledge or who acquire the knowledge covered within a unit more rapidly are required to apply the relevant knowledge in more challenging tasks which demand higher order thinking skills or work on similar tasks using a broader range of knowledge.

1.4 The mastery curriculum which we will implement for Year 7 and subsequently roll out

through the Academy will not only draw upon these principles, but also on the developments in our understanding of cognitive science and its implications for classroom practice.

2. What are the essential requirements for effective implementation of a

mastery curriculum?

2.1 There are four essential strands to our mastery Curriculum:

Teaching demonstrating high

expectations.

•Teaching sets a high level of challenge

•Explanations, modelling, questioning, feedback and the classroom environmment encourage and generate a high level of challenge.

Underlying Beliefs

•Teachers believe that virtually all and at least 80% of students can learn all important academic knowledge to a level of excellence.

Curriculum Planning

• Working together, teams of teachers define threshold concepts and learning objectives and help all students to achieve them.

Cycle of Teaching and Assessment

•Learning is class paced rather than unit paced.

•Whole class work is carried out initially – teaching the material.

•A first formative test is carried out.

•Learning alternatives/ correctives/ therapies are used to ensure all students achieve a level of excellence.

•Re-testing occurs.

•Any additional steps are taken.

•A summative test is used.

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3. Why are we implementing a Mastery Curriculum Now?

Reason 1: Our knowledge of cognitive science is developing – though

not complete

3.1 A question which is commonly heard in school staffrooms across the country is: ‘Why don’t our students remember what they’ve been taught?1 How come when it comes to the exam, they seem to forget so much?’ We also wonder why our students don’t use and apply the basic rules of spelling, grammar and numeracy we have taught them – especially when they are writing in subjects other than English or using mathematical processes outside of their maths lessons. To understand why this happens, there are two models of memory and the mind which we believe it is important for every teacher to know.

3.2 The first model of the mind is from Daniel Willingham which he discusses at length in his book “Why Don’t Students like School?”

3.3 Willingham identifies that the crucial cognitive structures of the mind are working memory (a system which can become a bottleneck as it is largely fixed, limited and easily overloaded) and long-term memory (a system which is like an almost limitless storehouse).

3.4 To illustrate this, Willingham highlights the processes in carrying out in the following maths problem 18x7. This process can be seen in the diagram on the following page. The blue boxes indicate where you have recalled procedural knowledge, whilst the yellow boxes indicate where factual knowledge has been recalled. In the green boxes, are the procedures carried out in your working memory. Although this is a very simple mathematical problem, there are a wide range of processes being carried out.

1 http://pragmaticreform.wordpress.com/2014/04/05/cogsci/

Just about the simplest model of the mind possible.

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3.5 It is worth bearing in mind that, as Willingham admits himself, this is a highly simplified model. A range of other models have divided the working memory into a set of subsystems. Alan Baddeley,2 for example, has developed a model which includes a phonological loop which deals with spoken and written material and a visuo-spacial sketchpad which deals with visual and spacial information as well as episodes or events (see below). The central executive in this model monitors, evaluates and responds to information from three main sources:

The external environment (sensory information).

The internal environment (body states)

Previous representations of external and internal environments (carried in the pattern of connections in neural networks)3

3.6 These alternative models have implications for the ways in which we differentiate learning experiences for students. We don’t currently have a clear map of the information processing pathways and there is evidence that the feedback and feed-forward pathways are more complex than the diagram below shows, but this is a useful representation for us to think about in terms of teaching and learning.

2 http://www.simplypsychology.org/working%20memory.html#eb

3 http://www.logicalincrementalism.wordpress.com

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3.7 If we overload the working memory with items that are not relevant to the concept being learnt, we are likely to see less learning. If we already have a store of relevant information in our long term memory then we can ‘chunk’ this information together as a single item. For example, if we were to try to remember the sequence XCVTRM then each of the six letters represents a single item that we will need to manipulate in the working memory. However, if we were to try to remember the sequence APPLES then, although this is the same number of letters, we have a concept of ‘apples’ in our long term memory so this sequence represents just one item.4

3.8 For teachers, a key learning point from both of these models is that if nothing has changed

in long-term memory, then nothing has been learned and nothing can be recalled or applied. Our teaching should therefore minimise the chances of overloading students’ working memories and maximise the retention in their long-term memories. Willingham maintains that this requires deliberate, repeated practice.5 The models therefore have implications for curriculum design6, lesson planning, pedagogy and the strategies which students need to develop in order to move towards independence.7

4 http://websofsubstance.wordpress.com/2014/04/18/issues-with-cognitive-load-theory/

5 http://www.aft.org/newspubs/periodicals/ae/spring2004/willingham.cfm 6 http://www.aft.org/newspubs/periodicals/ae/summer2002/willingham.cfm 7 http://www.learningspy.co.uk/featured/great-teaching-happens-in-cycles/

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3.7 The second model of memory we should be aware of stems from Robert Bjork’s8 work on learning and forgetting. Bjork defines the storage strength and retrieval strength of a memory to explain why we remember some things better than others. Storage strength is how well learned something is. Retrieval strength is how accessible it is.9

Low Storage Strength (Not committed to long term memory)

High Storage Strength (Committed to long term memory)

High Retrieval Strength (Highly accessible)

Details of a journey to the address of a new friend.

The tune of the first song you heard when you woke up this morning.

The knowledge which a Y11 class crammed two days before their exams.

Details of your journey to work.

The tune to Happy Birthday.

The knowledge a teacher has been repeatedly testing their Y11 class on again and again for the past few years.

Low Retrieval Strength (Not easily accessible)

A journey you have only made once.

The tune of a song you’ve only heard once.

The knowledge you explained to a Y11 class five minutes ago.

Details of a journey to the house of a childhood friend.

The tune of your favorite song on your thirteenth birthday.

The knowledge which a Y11 class learnt previously for the Y6 SATs exam, but which they have not had to use since.

3.8 David Didau explains some of Bjork’s theories in his blog, “Deliberately difficult – why it’s better to make learning harder.” Bjork maintains that each item we commit to memory has a ‘storage strength’ and a ‘retrieval strength’. Some things, like the details of the journey you’ve been making to work every day for the past few years have both high storage and retrieval strengths as we’re continually using and recalling the information. The details of the journey to the address of a new friend will have low storage strength because we haven’t known it long but its retrieval strength will be quite high as we continually review the address so as not to forget it. Similarly, it is likely that if the tune you heard when you woke up this morning was a catchy one, you will have thought about it again and again over the past few hours. Therefore, its retrieval strength is strong. However, if you were to be asked in a month, a fortnight or even a week’s time what that song was, you would be unlikely to be able to recall the exact tune. Other information, like the address a childhood friend lived at has high storage strength as we’ve known it forever, but low retrieval strength because we don’t think about it very often. This accounts for our frustrating inability to suddenly be unable to recall facts we know we know. And then there’s the information you’ve just taught your Year 11s. That has low storage because they’ve only just heard it and low retrieval strength because they’ve never tried to recall it; the lower the storage strength, the more quickly retrieval strength fades.10

3.9 Making learning easier causes a boost in retrieval strength in the short-term leading to better performance. However, because the deeper processing that encourages the long-term retention is missing, that retrieval strength quickly evaporates. The very weird fact of the matter is that, when you feel you’ve forgotten how to do something because the task you’ve taken on is difficult, you are actually creating the capacity for learning. If you don’t

8 http://bjorklab.psych.ucla.edu/ 9 http://pragmaticreform.wordpress.com/2014/04/05/cogsci/ 10 http://www.learningspy.co.uk/featured/deliberately-difficult-focussing-on-learning-rather-than-progress/

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feel like you’ve forgotten you limit your ability to learn. So we actually want students to feel like they’ve forgotten some of their knowledge. When learning is difficult, students make more mistakes and naturally they infer that what they’re doing must be wrong. In the short-term, difficulties inhibit performance, causing more mistakes to be made and more apparent forgetting. However, it is this “forgetting” that actually benefits students in the long-term - relearning forgotten material takes demonstrably less time with each iteration. This could have the following implications for our curriculum design:

We should space learning sessions on the same topic apart rather than massing them together

We should Interleave topics so that they’re studied together rather than discretely

We should test students on material rather than having them simply restudy it

We ought to have learners generate target material through a puzzle or other kind of active process, rather than simply reading it passively

We should explore ways to make learning challenging so that learning is not easy

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4. Reason 2: Memory, revision and retention is vital for the new

qualifications our students will take in the future.

4.1 Currently, fewer than 60% of our students are achieving a C grade in English, Maths or other

GCSEs at the end of Year 11. This is despite 11 years of formal schooling. It is clear that something needs to be done. Rather than developing mastery, our Year 11 students appear to lack the factual and procedural knowledge and skills to do well in formal examinations.

4.2 In future, with less coursework, and more emphasis on terminal examinations, we will need to ensure that pupils are able to master, learn and remember the knowledge and skills needed for their GCSE and A Level examinations. Training for this will have to start at Key Stage 3. Students will have to be taught how to learn and retain knowledge over a longer period of time so that they are able to pass examinations.

4.3 Our current five year strategic plan ends in 2017. The GCSE results in that year will be those of our current Year 8 students. If we use our current system of target setting, just 63% of students would make expected progress. If we adopt more challenging ‘mastery targets, then 77% of students would make expected progress based on their Key Stage 2 results – that would be outstanding progress. It is only by implementing a Mastery approach to the curriculum that we can expect to achieve these sorts of outcomes.

5. A High Performance, Mastery Learning Model for Swindon Academy

5.1 To ensure the successful implementation of our mastery curriculum, in line with the requirements set out on P2 and the reasoning outlined above, we will need to focus the development of our teaching around the principles highlighted in the diagram on the following page. The diagram is based on a model created by Shaun Allison, Deputy Head at Durrington School in West Sussex, with the support of David Didau, Andy Tharby, Dan Brinton and John Sayers. It ties in with many of the strategies in Teach Like a Champion – as outlined in the tables on P14 onwards as well as the Teacher Standards, which appear in

Appendix 2 on P19.

DFE Expected Progress Targets Academy ‘Mastery’ Targets

English A*-C 71% (80/112) 90% (101/112)

Maths A*-C 68.8% (77/112) 87% (97/112)

English and Maths A*-C 63.4% (71/112) 77.7% (87/112)

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.

Expert Teaching requires that we…

Provide appropriate challenge So that.....

Students have high expectations of what they can achieve

Explain clearly and precisley So that......

Pupils acquire new knowledge and skills

Provide outstanding models So that....

Pupils understand how to replicate this kind of performance

Students engage in deliberate practice

Question effectively So that....

Pupils are made to think with breadth, depth and accuracy

Provide oral and written feedback So that...

Pupils know how they are doing and how to achieve excellence

Assess formatively so that...

Learning interventions, corrections and therapies can be used to ensure all achieve excellence

Assess summatively so that...

We establish how well pupils have mastered the necessary knoweldge, understanding and skills.

Contribute to curriculum design So that....

The threshold concepts and learning to be taught are established for every Scheme of Learning .

Have high expectations of our pupils So that....

We plan for a high level of challenge, believing that virtually all pupils can learn content and skills to a high level of excellence

Develop your classroom climate So that....

Excellent classroom routines are established and embeded and learning proceeds without interruption.

Plan sequences of lessons So that.....

Pupils are able to master the factual and procedural knoweldge required

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6. Achieving High Performance and Mastery: 10 Principles

Low Performance High Performance

1. Have high expectations of your pupils

Label students, in a fixed way as “lower ability” or “E-Grade Students.” Accept that students arrive with mixed ability starting points, but ensure that the curriculum establishes access to mastery learning for all students and that staff believe that virtually all students can learn “all important” academic and vocational content to a level of excellence.

2. Contribute to Curriculum Design

Provide a curriculum model through which students can achieve qualifications with less than full effort from staff and/or students.

Provide a mastery curriculum (www.jhsph.edu/research/centers-and-institutes/johns-hopkins-center-for-prevention-and-early-intervention/Publications/mlm.pdf) which takes into consideration what students need to know and be able to do – the threshold concepts http://www.etl.tla.ed.ac.uk//docs/ETLreport4.pdf - in order to achieve a high level 2 and subsequently a level 3 qualification. Ensure that timely interventions are put in place as a result of assessments so that children do not get left behind.

Provide a curriculum model which caps students’ chances of progressing on to level three qualifications and beyond.

Accept that students will “never have the range of experiences which would give them the factual or procedural knowledge to comprehend the world at a higher level.

Provide students with academic, cultural and social experiences which will not cap their ability to comprehend their studies and/or the world around them and which will enable them to produce outstanding applications for further/higher education and employment with training.

Fail to provide challenges and opportunities which would enable students to produce applications or CVs which would make them stand out from the crowd.

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Low Performance High Performance Teach Like a Champion Strategies

4. Plan sequences of lessons

Provide open ended time limits Define specific, challenging time limits.

25 Wait Time, Work the Clock

Fail to consider the longer term objectives when planning for learning.

Provide students with a clear picture of a sequence of learning so that they can master the factual and procedural knowledge required within a unit, between units and across years.

6: Begin with the End, 7: 4Ms, 8: Post-it 9: Shortest Path, 10: Double Plan, 11: Draw the Map 12: The Hook, 13: Name the Steps, 14: Board = Paper 16:Break it Down

Accept responses to tasks/questions which are mediocre or incomplete

Expect students to pursue excellence and make accelerated progress.

1: No Opt Out, 2: Right is Right, 3: Stretch it 4: Format Matters, 5: Without Apology

3. Develop your classroom climate

Start late and end early Start and end on time. 28: Entry Routine, 29: Do Now, 30: Tight Transitions, 31: Binder Control, 32: SLANT, 33: On Your Marks, 34: Seat Signals, 39 Do it Again, 40: Sweat the Details, 41: Threshold, Change the Pace, Brighten Lines, All Hands, Every Minute Matters, Look Forward, Work the Clock

Assume classroom routines will take care of themselves.

Introduce, establish and embed classroom routines with precision, conciseness and efficiency.

Allow interruptions/ignore disruptions to learning

Limit interruptions through effective use of B4L.

39:Do it Again, 42: No Warnings, 43: Positive Framing, 44: Precise Praise, 45: Warm/Strict, 46: The J-Factor, 47: Emotional Constancy, 48: Explain Everything

Allow students to be off task Demand that students are on task through B4L.

1 No Opt Out, 15: Circulate, 36: 100 Per Cent, 39: Do it Again, 40: Sweat the Details, 41: Threshold 43: Positive Framing, 44: Precise Praise, 45: Warm/Strict, 46: The J-Factor, 47: Emotional Constancy, 48: Explain Everything, 49: Normalize Error

Provide open ended time limits Specific, challenging time limits. 25 Wait Time, Work the Clock

Fail to consider the longer term objectives when planning for learning.

Provide students with a clear picture of a sequence of learning so that they can master the factual and procedural knowledge required within/between units, and across years.

6: Begin with the End, 7: 4Ms, 8: Post-it 9: Shortest Path, 10: Double Plan, 11: Draw the Map 12: The Hook, 13: Name the Step

Accept responses to tasks/questions which are mediocre or incomplete

Expect students to pursue excellence and make accelerated progress.

1: No Opt Out, 2: Right is Right, 3: Stretch it 4: Format Matters, 5: Without Apology

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Low Performance High Performance Teach Like a Champion Strategies

5.Provide appropriate challenge

Accept/ignore students not being ready to learn.

Challenge students who are not ready to learn and acknowledge where they are meeting expectations.

28: Entry Routine, 29: Do Now, 30: Tight Transitions, 31: Binder Control, 32: SLANT, 33: On Your Marks, 34: Seat Signals, 35: Props

Celebrate and reward mediocrity or worse in terms of behaviour or academic/vocational performance.

Identify, celebrate and reward excellence in terms of behaviour or academic/vocational performance.

43: Positive Framing, 44: Precise Praise, 45: Warm /Strict, 46: The J-Factor, 47: Emotional Constancy, 48: Explain Everything, 49: Normalize Error

6. Explain clearly and precicely

Inaccurate, imprecise or deficient explanations are given as a result of low levels of subject knowledge or insufficient preparation.

Explanations are concise and precise. They demonstrate a high level of teacher subject knowledge in a way that ensures learners make accelerated progress over time.

8: Post It, 9: Shortest Path, 10: Double Plan 11: Draw the Map, 15: Circulate, 16: Break it Down 17: Ratio, 36: 100 Percent, 37: What to Do 38: Strong Voice

Explanations are given, but are too low a level to move the learning of students forward.

Explanations are concise and precise. They demonstrate a high level of teacher subject knowledge in a way that ensures learners make accelerated progress over time.

8: Post It, 9: Shortest Path, 10: Double Plan 11: Draw the Map, 15: Circulate, 16: Break it Down 17: Ratio, 36: 100 Percent, 37: What to Do 38: Strong Voice

Explanations involve too much repetition of concepts which students are familiar with already so that moving on to application and practice is delayed.

7. Provide outstanding models

Students are presented with no models or with poor/lower quality models because “they couldn’t do any better and never will.”

Students are presented with outstanding models and unpick what they need to do with the teacher in order to replicate this kind of performance.

8. Give opportunities for deliberate practice

Students are not given opportunities to apply their knowledge in different situations, resulting in unpreparedness for formal assessment situations and/or life beyond the classroom.

Students regularly practice applying the knowledge they have learnt in challenging tasks.

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Low Performance High Performance Teach Like a Champion Strategies

9. Question effectively

Carry out questioning in an unprepared manner, without considering the purpose of questions, what to do if a student can’t or won’t respond to questions or what to do if a student’s response isn’t at their best.

Use all information available to carefully plan key questions into lessons, in order to develop and craft learning. On posing questions, use strategies which ensure that students do not opt out of answering entirely or attempt to not give their best response.

1: No Opt Out, 2: Right is Right, 3: Stretch it, 4: Format Matters, 5: Without Apology, 17: Ratio, 18: Check for Understanding, 19: At Bats, 20: Exit Ticket, 21: Take a Stand 22: Cold Call, 23: Call and Response, 24: Pepper, 25: Wait Time 26: Everybody Writes, 27: Vegas, 36: 100 Percent

10. Provide oral and written feedback

Accept poor quality spoken and/or written responses to tasks/questions or poorly crafted/performed responses to practical tasks.

Ensure that verbal and written feedback is frequent and timely so that poorly crafted or presented responses or answers to questions are challenged and that students’ performance demonstrates excellence in different subject areas.

1: No Opt Out, 2: Right is Right, 3: Stretch it, 4: Format Matters, 5: Without Apology

Not challenge poor presentation.

Not provide feedback or infrequently provide feedback which will enable students to make progress towards excellence.

Assess formatively

Never provide verbal or written feedback to students.

Verbal and written feedback are both of a consistently high quality, resulting in a clear impact on students’ learning over time.

Hinge questions, multiple choice, short tests.

Assess summatively

Extended writing, tests and exams.

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7. Planning a factual and procedural knowledge based, mastery curriculum11

7.1 Planning a mastery curriculum overview:

7.1.1 Work out the ‘big ideas’

Agree the ‘core concepts’ in your subject discipline which pupils must master for success at the highest grades for KS3, GCSE and Level 3 qualifications and beyond into degree level. Look at the new National Curriculum documents as well as the Assessment Objectives and mark schemes in the most up to date KS4 and 5 specifications for your subject(s).

7.1.2 Decide what concepts matter most and discard any extraneous content

Agree what your students need you to drop and what it is essential that you embed and deepen. This is really important as there will be certain aspects of your subject which you have taught before which have taken up space in your curriculum and which have prevented your students from mastering knowledge that they really need to retain and recall.

7.1.3 Map out how many modules you are going to run during each year in order for students to retain this content most effectively. Base the number of modules on the content rather than the other way around.

7.1.4 Decide on the ordering of the concepts so that the knowledge which is fundamental is taught and retained earliest.

7.1.5 Generate outcomes which match the ‘core and threshold concepts’ Decide which outcomes will best ensure that students learn and retain the core subject knowledge and ‘threshold concepts’ most deeply?

7.1.6 Spend time refining the criteria of each outcome

Develop refined assessment criteria which will best focus students on the essential factual and procedural knowledge of the subject area. In doing this, it would be useful to consider the following questions posed by Michael Tidd:

1. Can the criteria be shared with students? 2. Are they manageable and useful for teachers? 3. Will they identify where students are falling behind soon enough? 4. Will they help or hinder the shaping the curriculum and teaching? 5. Will the system provide information that can be shared with parents? 6. Will it help to track progress across the key stage? 7. Does the system avoid making meaningless sub-divisions?

11 Based on Bruno Reddy’s “Design your own mastery curriculum in maths,” Joe Kirby’s Pragmatic

Education blog “Planning a knowledge unit in English” and Hunting English’s “Moving beyond

National Curriculum Levels.”

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7.2 Planning your modules:

Focus on the following questions and guidance prior to planning.

7.2.1 Question: How should we establish what we want students to remember in a

term’s time; in a year’s time; at the end the Key Stage; to be

successful in their GCSE examination and to start Key Stage 5

studying effectively?

Guidance: Create factual and procedural knowledge rubrics using the module

overview (see Appendix 1)

7.2.2 Question: How and when are we going to assess students’ knowledge?

Guidance: Design multiple choice questions which will genuinely enable us to assess

students’ knowledge and misconceptions. (See Appendices 2-3)

Create extended tasks or essay questions with clear mark schemes and

rubrics.

7.2.3 Question: How will we interleave the students’ learning within and between

units?

Guidance: Re-ask the multiple choice questions from previous tests.

Revisit unmastered content in different ways.

7.2.4 Question: How will we build in recapping of knowledge across units?

Guidance: Ask questions on previous content.

Ask for examples of previously taught content.

Make links by posing comparative questions.

7.2.5 Question: How will we explain and re-explain knowledge and concepts so that

they stick in students’ memories?

Guidance: Consider which of the concepts from “Made to Stick” would be useful in

enhancing your explanation.

Trait of explanation Explanation

Make explanations

simple

Choose the core concepts which students need to

understand and communicate only these – anchor

them to what students already know.

Make them

unexpected

Generate curiosity by highlighting and opening gaps

in their knowledge.

Make them Provide opportunities for students to do something

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concrete that makes the concept real and meaningful.

Make them

credible

Provide opportunities for students to see or

experience something that will make them believe

the concept.

Attach them to

emotions

Make the students “feel” something as a result of

your teaching. For example, empathy, sympathy,

aspiration.

Link them to a

story

Create a narrative around the concept – especially if

it has a human or personal element to it.

7.2.6 Question: How will we build questioning into lessons?

Guidance: Plan each lesson’s core questions

Develop your extension of questions through the use of the Teach Like a

Champion strategies

7.2.7 Question: How will we model procedures and use exemplars?

Guidance: Design model responses which demonstrate performance at expected

progress and exceptional progress for students within year groups.

Share and critique performance, modeling how to improve them.

7.2.8 Question: How will we build in deliberate practice?

Guidance: Ensure that extended practice tasks are sequence so that they become more

complex over time.

Ensure that previously covered content is folded into subsequent tests.

7.2.9 Question: At what points will we provide feedback to maximise retention of

knowledge and development of skills?

Guidance: Ensure feedback is timely, specific, kind and helpful.

Create tasks which link to feedback so that students have opportunities to

develop their knowledge as a result of feedback.

Ensure feedback is broken down using the criteria from the initial rubric

7.2.10 Question: How will we set homework to build on knowledge?

Guidance: Clearly define at the outset of each module the opportunities to build on

and consolidate factual knowledge and apply procedural knowledge from

current and previous units at home.

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8. Appendix 1: A Knowledge Based Module Overview Pro-Forma:

Factual knowledge to be taught and assessed (including new subject specific vocabulary):

Driving/Hinge questions: First formative test: Timing: Lesson # Assessment type: Multiple choice test/GCSE style question/Extended written response Feedback method: Mark scheme created: Yes/No Model responses created: Yes/No

Residual knowledge from previous modules to be assessed during this module and how it will be assessed:

Second formative test: Timing: Lesson # Assessment type: Multiple choice test/GCSE style question/Extended written response Feedback method: Mark scheme created: Yes/No Model responses created: Yes/No

Procedural knowledge to be taught and assessed:

Third formative test: Timing: Lesson # Assessment type: Multiple choice test/GCSE style question/Extended written response Feedback method: Mark scheme created: Yes/No Model responses created: Yes/No

Key written or spoken genre(s): Termly grammar focus:

Summative test: Timing: Lesson # Assessment type: Multiple choice test/GCSE style question/Extended written response Feedback method: Mark scheme created: Yes/No Model responses created: Yes/No

Links to future modules through teaching and assessment:

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9. Appendix 2: Teachers’ Standards

Teachers’ Standards 2014-15

Set high expectations which inspire, motivate and challenge pupils 1(a) establish a safe and stimulating environment for pupils, rooted in mutual respect 1(b) set goals that stretch and challenge pupils of all backgrounds, abilities and dispositions 1(c) demonstrate consistently the positive attitudes, values and behaviour which are expected of pupils

Promote good progress and outcomes by pupils 2(a) be accountable for pupils’ attainment, progress and outcomes 2(b) be aware of pupils’ capabilities and their prior knowledge, and plan teaching to build on these 2(c) guide pupils to reflect on the progress they have made and their emerging needs 2(d) demonstrate knowledge and understanding of how pupils learn and how this impacts on teaching 2(e) encourage pupils to take a responsible and conscientious attitude to their own work and study

Demonstrate good subject and curriculum knowledge 3(a) have a secure knowledge of the relevant subject(s) and curriculum areas, foster and maintain pupils’ interest in the subject, and address misunderstandings 3(b) demonstrate a critical understanding of developments in the subject and curriculum areas, and promote the value of scholarship 3(c) demonstrate an understanding of and take responsibility for promoting high standards of literacy, articulacy and the correct use of standard English, whatever the teacher’s specialist subject 3(d) if teaching early reading, demonstrate a clear understanding of systematic synthetic phonics 3(e) if teaching early mathematics, demonstrate a clear understanding of appropriate teaching strategies

Plan and teach well-structured lessons 4(a) impart knowledge and develop understanding through effective use of lesson time 4(b) promote a love of learning and children’s intellectual curiosity 4(c) set homework and plan other out-of-class activities to consolidate and extend the knowledge and understanding pupils have acquired 4(d) reflect systematically on the effectiveness of lessons and approaches to teaching 4(e) contribute to the design and provision of an engaging curriculum within the relevant subject area(s).

Adapt teaching to respond to the strengths and needs of all pupils 5(a) know when and how to differentiate appropriately, using approaches which enable pupils to be taught effectively 5(b) have a secure understanding of how a range of factors can inhibit pupils’ ability to learn, and how best to overcome these 5(c) demonstrate an awareness of the physical, social and intellectual development of children, and know how to adapt teaching to support pupils’ education at different stages of development 5(d) have a clear understanding of the needs of all pupils, including those with special educational needs; those of high ability; those with English as an additional language; those with disabilities; and be able to use

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and evaluate distinctive teaching approaches to engage and support them.

Make accurate and productive use of assessment 6(a) know and understand how to assess the relevant subject and curriculum areas, including statutory assessment requirements 6(b) make use of formative and summative assessment to secure pupils’ progress 6(c) use relevant data to monitor progress, set targets, and plan subsequent lessons 6(d) give pupils regular feedback, both orally and through accurate marking, and encourage pupils to respond to the feedback

Manage behaviour effectively to ensure a good and safe learning environment 7(a) have clear rules and routines for behaviour in classrooms, and take responsibility for promoting good and courteous behaviour both in classrooms and around the school, in accordance with the school’s behaviour policy 7(b) have high expectations of behaviour, and establish a framework for discipline with a range of strategies, using praise, sanctions and rewards consistently and fairly 7(c) manage classes effectively, using approaches which are appropriate to pupils’ needs in order to involve and motivate them 7(d) maintain good relationships with pupils, exercise appropriate authority, and act decisively when necessary

Fulfil wider professional responsibilities 8(a) make a positive contribution to the wider life and ethos of the school 8(b) develop effective professional relationships with colleagues, knowing how and when to draw on advice and specialist support 8(c) deploy support staff effectively 8(d) take responsibility for improving teaching through appropriate professional development, responding to advice and feedback from colleagues 8(e) communicate effectively with parents with regard to pupils’ achievements and well-being

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10. Appendix 3: Why are multiple choice and hinge questions an effective teaching and learning strategy?12

10.1 When you walk into a lesson where the teacher is talking and you immediately think, ‘Yes, this is a

great lesson’, what is happening? It is this: the teacher is asking probing questions. There is intensity to it: solid classroom management is securing complete attention from everyone….eyes front, listening intently… and the teacher is probing. The skill of holding exchanges like this with individuals or a whole class is a key feature of excellent teaching. At a whole-class level, the dialogue is conducted with energy and passion, the teacher moves their focus from student to student, bringing the students from the back and the corners into the fray. There is discipline; everyone listens to everyone else as the probing continues. There are often repeated exchanges and dialogues develop as deeper and deeper answers are sought. Many of the Teach Like a Champion strategies support the development of this kind of classroom dialogue. Skilful questioning is the basis of this kind of classroom talk.

10.2 In these situations, open questions are often, wrongly, seen as being superior to closed questions. That is to say that it is often seen as being better to ask pupils questions that have lengthy answers and many possible answers rather than those that only have one straightforward right answer. One of the reasons for this is that open questions are seen as being effective promoters of higher-order thinking. For example, asking a question like ‘Why was there a war in Europe in 1914?’ is likely to lead to higher quality thinking than ‘When did Britain and France sign the Entente Cordiale?’ In many situations, you would want to ask these kinds of questions – particularly to stretch students once they know enough to answer them.

10.3 However, it is true that closed questions are very effective at testing facts and knowledge. Higher

order thinking,’ such as analysing, evaluating and synthesising, is in fact made up of the application of ‘lower order’ facts and knowledge. To know why the First World War happened you have to have a very good knowledge of chronology and knowing when the Entente Cordiale was signed is an important, if small, part of that wider question. Indeed, the question ‘Why was there a war in Europe in 1914?’ requires a lot of facts to be able to answer successfully, and one of the things that allows you to be able to analyse a deep, open question like this successfully is how many facts you have and how well you know them. This is as true of the academic level as the classroom level. In the introduction to Christopher Clark’s book on just this question, he notes that one of the problems with this topic is just how many facts have to be understood and marshalled, and that they are all in so many languages. One of the things which makes Clark’s book so brilliant is that he has spent several decades mastering very many of these facts. There is no way that a 20-year-old could write a book like this, however innately smart and innately good at analysing they were. Clark’s superb and revisionist analysis of the causes of the First World War springs from his detailed mastery of the facts. His excellent analysis is a function of his wide and deep knowledge. If we want our students to go on to be academic and/or vocational experts, then we need to ensure that they have a firm grounding in factual and procedural knowledge.

10.4 A second benefit of closed questions is that they can, in fact, be extremely good at testing analysis and evaluation – they can actually often be more efficient and effective than open questions. For proof of this, in her blog, “Closed questions and higher order thinking,” Daisy Christodoulou, who is Research and Development Manager at ARK Schools has analysed the

12

Based on Dylan Wiliam’s “Embedded Formative Assessment,” Daisy Christodoulou’s “Closed questions and higher order thinking” and “Multiple Choice Questions, Part Two,” Joe Kirby’s “Why Use Multiple-Choice Questions?” Harry Fletcher-Wood’s “Do they understand this well enough to move on? Introducing Hinge Questions” and Alex Quigley’s “Inclusive Questioning.”

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British Columbia leaving exam. The BC leaving exam in history asks pupils to write essays, but it also asks them to answer multiple choice questions.

10.5 Here’s a typical example:

15. How did the Soviet totalitarian system under Stalin differ from those of Hitler and Mussolini?

A. It built up armed forces.

B. It took away human rights.

C. It made trade unions illegal.

D. It abolished private land ownership.

This question very definitely asks for higher order thinking. It tests a finer gradation of understanding. Everyone “knows” the Nazis and Soviets were evil, and because they were evil, it is easy for pupils to just think that both regimes were the same. Of course the regimes were very similar. However, they were different in interesting ways too, and this question probes the students’ knowledge of those differences. A pupil who got this question right would have understood something important. A pupil who didn’t would have misunderstood something quite important.

10.6 It isn’t just this question. Christodoulou went through all of the literature and history multiple choice questions on the paper and all of them made her think hard about deep issues. She maintains that she couldn’t have rote learned or memorised the answers to any of them. Closed questions can therefore be very effective at promoting higher order thinking. Christodoulou doesn’t suggest only having these types of questions – but instead a judicious mix of these and essay questions.

10.7 Joe Kirby maintains that this line of argument fits with Professor Rob Coe’s simple theory of learning: learning happens when you have to think hard about subject content. He identifies three reasons why he thinks multiple choice questions can benefit teaching:

1. They make assessment more reliable 2. They make marking far less labour-intensive 3. They make pupil understanding more visible to teachers 4. They allow the full range of factual knowledge within a course to be tested

1. They make assessment more reliable

Reliability is best understood with a weighing scale analogy: if you joined Weight Watchers and had not changed weight between weigh-ins, you would want the weighing scale to tell you the same weight at your second weigh-in. Similarly, you would want different assessors or examiners to give the same answer the same score.

Extended essays are easy to set but hard to assess reliably. Anyone who has been in an English or humanities moderation meeting, with different teachers giving the same essay different scores on the same rubric, will know that. Increasingly, this is also the case with longer answer questions in science.

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Multiple-choice questions are hard to set but are always reliable to assess. The issue therefore is not with setting them in the first place, but how they are phrased (see Appendix 4 for suggestions about how to do this).

2. They make marking far less labour-intensive

For a start, they can be digitized and marked automatically by computer or through the use of a voting pad system. You can give a 50 question quiz to 30 pupils and the 1500 answers are marked instantaneously. This is not true of extended, open questions at all: marking 30 paragraphs takes not 30 seconds but 30-60 minutes; marking 30 essays takes 120+. What’s more, instead of every teacher in the department, and every new teacher, slogging away marking the same assessment each year, the multiple choice quiz can be created with an upfront workload, shared between a few subject experts, then used for years to come. Essay questions will still be important. But they can be combined with multiple-choice questions. Once created, MCQs save huge amounts of teacher time downstream.

3. They make pupil understanding more visible to teachers

The granularity of those 50 questions gives precise visibility into who understands what, and which pupils lack understanding. It’s a very precise diagnosis. If Jay gets 20 out of 50, it’s crystal clear that 40% isn’t as good as Izzy, who got 45 out of 50, and 90%. You can target support to Jay based on what he still hasn’t understood, instead of trying to reteach the lot. And if there were 5 questions that everyone got wrong, even Izzy, then you can reteach and revisit those in lessons. Multiple-choice questions are a formidably powerful diagnostic and formative tool for teaching.

4. They allow the full range of a factual knowledge within a course to be tested.

An essay tests depth of understanding focused on a narrow selection of content; multiple choice questions test breadth of understanding across a much wider range of content. Both are important. But the middle option of open questions without options would ratchet up the labour-intensity for teachers, and not realise the benefits of multiple choice on reliability either.

All this challenges assumptions that are easy to make about such questions: that they aren’t rigorous or valid measures of learning. Rigour and validity depend on the design of questions.

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11. Appendix 4: Developing Multiple Choice Questions13

11.1 In his book, “Embedded Formative Assessment,” Dylan William argues that there are two good reasons to ask questions in classrooms:

1. To cause thinking 2. To provide the teacher with information that assists instructional decision making

It’s easy to evaluate the first of these.

“For the second, a key requirement…is that students with the right idea about whatever it is we want them to know, understand or be able to do should get different answers from students who do not have the right idea.

A second requirement is that the incorrect answers should be interpretable. That is, if students choose a particular incorrect response, the teacher knows (or at least has a pretty good guess) why they have done so. A multiple-choice question for which the incorrect responses relate to well-known naive conception is useful as these misconceptions can be addressed.”

11.2 Producing effective multiple choice questions can save a lot of marking time for teachers and

provide effective information about students’ misconceptions which can inform future planning. However, it is therefore vitally important that the questions are set effectively.

So, what are the key ingredients of effective multiple choice questions?

Paul Bambrick Santoyo makes the following case:

In an open-ended essay style question, the assessment rubric defines the rigour In a multiple choice question, the options and the question define the rigour

11.3 With this in mind, Joe Kirby has identified eight principles for devising effective multiple

choice questions:

1. Clearly, the question itself determines the rigour:

‘80 is what percentage of 200?’ is much easier than ‘79 is what percentage of 316?’

2. The proximity of options also increases the rigour of the question For instance, for the question “In what year was the battle of Hastings?” the options 1065, 1066, 1067, 1068 or 1069 are more rigorous than options 1066, 1166, 1266, 1366 or 1466.

3. The number of incorrect options increases the rigour Three options gives pupils a 33% chance of guessing the correct answer; five options reduces the chances of guessing to 20%. A ‘don’t know’ option can limit the chances of pupils blindly guessing, allowing them to flag up questions they’re unsure about rather than getting lucky with a correct guess.

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Based on Joe Kirby’s blog http://pragmaticreform.wordpress.com/2014/04/12/mcqdesign/

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4. Incorrect options should be plausible but unambiguously wrong If options are too implausible, this reduces rigour as pupils can too quickly dismiss them. For instance, in the question: what do Charles Dickens and Oliver Twist have in common, an implausible option would be that they were both bank robbers. However, if answers are too ambiguously similar, this creates problems. For instance, in the question, ‘What happens in the plot of Oliver Twist?’, these options are too ambiguous:

a) A young boy runs away to London

b) An orphan falls in with a street gang of street urchins

c) A poor orphan is adopted by a wealthy gentleman

d) A criminal murders a young woman and is pursued by a mob

e) A gang of pickpockets abduct a young boy

5. Incorrect options should be frequent misconceptions where possible For example, if you know pupils often confuse how autobiographical ‘Oliver Twist’ is, create options as common confusions. These distractors flag up what pupils are thinking if they select an incorrect option:

a) Both were born in a workhouse

b) Both were separated from their parents and family

c) Both were put in prison for debt

d) Both had families who were put in prison for debt

e) Both were orphans

6. Multiple correct options make a question more rigorous. Not stating how many correct options there are makes pupils think harder. For example:

Which characteristics of “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” can be seen as Romantic?

A. It celebrates the supernatural.

B. It is written in iambic pentameter.

C. It emphasises emotion over reason.

D. It deals with the lives of common people.

E. It aspires to nature and the sublime.

7. The occasional negative question encourages students to read the questions more carefully. Once they get a question like ‘Which of these is NOT a cause of World War 1?‘ wrong, and realise why, they’ll work out they need to read questions again to double-check on what it is they’re asking.

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8. Stretch questions can be created with comparisons or connections between topics. What was common to both the USA and Germany during the Great Depression?

a) Jewish immigration increased

b) Membership of Ku Klux Klan increased

c) Public works projects were implemented

d) Government social programs were reduced