What you will learn

Instructions

• Look over the statements covered in this Block.
• Watch the video, which introduces what you will learn in this Block and why it is important.
• Take your reflections, and any questions you have, to discuss in your first mentor session.

In this Block, you will learn the following:

Learn that:

• Effective teaching can transform pupils’ knowledge, capabilities and beliefs about learning.
• Effective teachers introduce new material in steps, explicitly linking new ideas to what has been previously studied and learned.
• Modelling helps pupils understand new processes and ideas; good models make abstract ideas concrete and accessible.
• Guides, scaffolds and worked examples can help pupils apply new ideas, but should be gradually removed as pupil expertise increases.
• Explicitly teaching pupils metacognitive strategies linked to subject knowledge, including how to plan, monitor and evaluate, supports independence and academic success.
• Practice is an integral part of effective teaching; ensuring pupils have repeated opportunities to practice, with appropriate guidance and support, increases success.
• Pupils are likely to learn at different rates and to require different levels and types of support from teachers to succeed.
• Seeking to understand pupils’ differences, including their different levels of prior knowledge and potential barriers to learning, is an essential part of teaching.
• Adapting teaching in a responsive way, including by providing targeted support to pupils who are struggling, is likely to increase pupil success.
• Adaptive teaching is less likely to be valuable if it causes the teacher to artificially create distinct tasks for different groups of pupils or to set lower expectations for particular pupils.
• There is a common misconception that pupils have distinct and identifiable learning styles. This is not supported by evidence and attempting to tailor lessons to learning styles is unlikely to be beneficial.

Learn how to plan effective lessons, by:

• Using modelling, explanations and scaffolds, acknowledging that novices need more structure early in a domain.
• Enabling critical thinking and problem solving by first teaching the necessary foundational content knowledge.

Learn how to make good use of expositions, by:

• Starting expositions at the point of current pupil understanding.
• Combining a verbal explanation with a relevant graphical representation of the same concept or process, where appropriate.
• Using concrete representation of abstract ideas (e.g. making use of analogies, metaphors, examples and non-examples).

Learn how to model effectively, by:

• Narrating thought processes when modelling to make explicit how experts think (e.g. asking questions aloud that pupils should consider when working independently and drawing pupils’ attention to links with prior knowledge).
• Making the steps in a process memorable and ensuring pupils can recall them (e.g. naming them, developing mnemonics, or linking to memorable stories).
• Exposing potential pitfalls and explaining how to avoid them.

Learn how to stimulate pupil thinking and check for understanding, by:

• Planning activities around what you want pupils to think hard about.

Learn how to develop an understanding of different pupil needs, by:

• Identifying pupils who need new content further broken down.

Learn how to provide opportunity for all pupils to experience success, by:

• Adapting lessons, whilst maintaining high expectations for all, so that all pupils have the opportunity to meet expectations.
• Balancing input of new content so that pupils master important concepts.