Making the best use of pre-teaching and assigning competence. Aim: This workshop will provide participants with an opportunity to explore understanding of pre teaching and assigning competence in a practical way, including using detailed collaborative lesson proposals to plan pre-teaching episodes. An understanding of some of the key principles underpinning successful use of pre-teaching and assigning competence and experience of planning pre-teaching sessions linked to lessons.

So much time is wasted at the beginning of a lesson if a child starts behind. When other children have a better understanding of a concept, they immediately start making progress. One child spoke of feeling muddled while everyone else knew what they were doing. It strikes me that the gap is widened at the very beginning of lessons… Class Teacher

Widening the gap in every lesson Some students come to the tasks with higher status than others; these students talk more and, as a result, learn more…Students who lack traditional academic skills or proficiency in the language of instruction or who are social isolates, are often perceived as low-status students. They barely participate, are often ignored, and frequently are not given a share of the materials or a turn at the activity. Students who are expected to be good at school or are popular talk more, have greater access to materials, and are more influential in group discussions. Complex Instruction: Equity in Cooperative Learning Classrooms Cohen, Lotan, Scarloss and Arellano 1998

Assigning Competence “Cohen (1994)…recommends that if student feedback is to address status issues, it must be public, intellectual, specific and relevant to the group task. The public dimension is important, as other students learn that the student offered the idea; the intellectual dimension ensures that the feedback is an aspect of mathematical work; and the specific dimension means that students know exactly what the teacher is praising.” Mathematical Mindsets Boaler 2016

Findings Pre-teach sessions must be run by the class teacher Pre-teaching and assigning competence maximises learning in lessons Pre-teaching and assigning competence have a positive impact on children’s confidence in themselves as mathematical thinkers Pre-teaching can have different structures and focus on different things Assigning competence is a powerful tool but can be more challenging for teachers to use effectively These are the main findings – the first of these is the most important in terms of it being successful Play video clip one (1 minute 30 seconds) and explain

Collaborative lesson research design Identify what pupils already know Identify the key points – the new knowledge Identify the difficult parts Step by step approach – journey through the mathematics Anticipate the mistakes pupils might make Questions to challenge thinking Develop reasoning and understanding – consider contexts and representations Support talk and discussion Identify what your team know (develop subject knowledge across the school) The new knowledge what are you hoping they will be learning by the end of the lesson – journey through the mathematics Consider misconceptions that children might have the key learning points along the conceptual journey the key potential difficulty points or misconceptions a range of representations (including concrete, pictorial and abstract) to support deep conceptual understanding careful choice of examples and use of variation including what it is (both standard and non-standard) and what it is not key language and possible stem sentences opportunities for making connections and going deeper opportunities for exploration and problem solving

The pre-teach The pre-teach is there to address the barriers the children might have in accessing the mathematics in the lesson, not to avoid them struggling in the lesson. The assumption is that all the children could struggle with the mathematics in the lesson and we are considering the additional barriers that these children might have in accessing this struggle. Often this is about hearing the whistle, being ready to start

Possible pre-teach focus Introducing new mathematics, new contexts and new contextual resources Explaining how the lesson is going to start Rehearsing prior learning Rehearsing language Allowing confusion to happen Using misconceptions Using images/resources … Talk about when and how long here the aim is to help the children to be active and influential, not to run pre-teach sessions and assign competence. That is, the focus is on the learners learning rather than the teachers doing!

Strategies explored for assigning competence: Prime them to respond to questions, use stem sentences in the lesson already rehearsed in the pre-teach Display and name children’s strategies/methods, explanations and reasoning including exploratory questions such as ‘I wonder if….’ on the working wall. Orchestrate opportunities for the focus children to work with children they perceive as better than them at maths. Support other children to publicly state how they have been helped by a class member. Video the children being influential and play it back to them. Support them to plan and teach younger children how to do something. Video them modelling using a resource or explaining a calculation strategy that gets uploaded to the school website. don’t over question in class. Assigning competence needs to be an organic process -Simply explain to the children that they are able to take part and offer ideas/explanations at any point during the main session. Provide opportunities for them to contribute but don’t signpost to specific children in an overt or clunky wayPraise for real and meaningful reasons which have mathematical backing rather than just praising effort –name a child’s strategy, get others to try it out..I think he’s onto something, that’s an interesting idea,… Mary Kay Steins move from show and tell… What have you been finding as most successful

Bloom, B 1968 Learning for Mastery Boaler, J 2016 Mathematical Mindsets Jossey-Bass Cohen, Lotan, Scarloss and Arellano 1998 Complex Instruction: Equity in Cooperative Learning Classrooms Minkel 2015 Why I Prefer Pre-Teaching to Remediation for Struggling Students Takahashi, and McDougal 2016 Collaborative lesson research: maximizing the impact of lesson study Trundley et al 2016Teaching for mastery in mathematics in mixed-age classes: final report Supporting children through effective use of assigning competence and pre-teaching http://www.babcockeducation.co.uk/ldp/primarymaths