Spring week 3

Induction tutor materials

Training session - practice makes perfect

Duration: 60 minutes

Session objectives

Learn that:

• 4.8 Practice is an integral part of effective teaching; ensuring pupils have repeated opportunities to practise, with appropriate guidance and support, increases success.

How to prepare for the session:

The ECT doesn’t have a self-study element this week. Instead, you should use the materials below to help you plan a session with them about this topic.

Session structure

Introduction to the session (5 minutes)

Welcome participants. Explain that they’re going to focus on the ECF statement.

Explain that ECTs will be returning to the idea of practice in later modules.

The purpose of the sessions will be to:

• develop understanding of how practice can consolidate and develop knowledge, within lessons and over time
• recap the roles of memory and schemas in learning and how practice can support both
• consider how they can plan in regular opportunities for practice
• be able to identify a range of approaches that can be used within lessons

Activating prior knowledge (15 minutes)

Ask the ECTs to recite the famous tongue twister ‘she sells seashells’ by Terry Sullivan, written in 1908. You will want to display it on the board.

She sells seashells on the seashore.

The shells she sells are seashells, I’m sure.

For if she sells seashells on the seashore

Then I’m sure she sells seashore shells.

Give ECTs a minute to read it in their head, then recite it out loud with the words still on the board. If they are starting to feel confident, they might look away from the board and try to do it from memory - no longer than 2 to 3 minutes, you will come back to this later in the session.

Take the tongue twister off the screen.

Pose the question: What do you remember from module 2 on memory and cognition linked to how pupils learn?

Draw out some of the key points:

• we have a working memory and a long-term memory
• our working memory is limited in capacity and can become overloaded
• when we have learnt something, it has been transferred to our long-term memory
• in our long-term memory, information is organised into schemata which are interconnected webs of information
• all new learning builds on prior knowledge - the more expert a person is, the more schemata they have to link new ideas or material to
• even if material does enter the long-term memory, it can still be forgotten if it is not used often enough

The importance of practice in supporting learning (5 minutes)

One way that we can support pupils to transfer knowledge to long-term memory is through supporting them to practise.

Share the following with ECTs:

It doesn’t matter what subject you teach, differences in students' performance are affected by how much they engage in deliberate practice. Researchers who have investigated expert and novice performance have uncovered important distinctions between deliberate practice and other activities, such as play or repetition.

Deliberate practice is not the same as rote repetition. Rote repetition - simply repeating a task - will not by itself improve performance. Deliberate practice involves attention, rehearsal and repetition and leads to new knowledge or skills that can later be developed into more complex knowledge and skills.

Although other factors such as intelligence and motivation affect performance, practice is necessary if not sufficient for acquiring expertise (Campitelli and Gobet, 2011).

Define practice:

"Deliberate practice occurs when an individual intentionally repeats an activity in order to improve performance. The claim of the deliberate practice framework is that such behaviour is necessary to achieve high levels of expert performance." (Campitelli and Gobet, 2011, p. 280).

"Deliberate practice consists of activities purposely designed to improve performance." (Gobet and Campitelli, 2007, p. 160).

Using practice as part of your practice (30 minutes)

Facilitate a discussion

When you first started teaching, did everything come naturally, or were there aspects of your craft which you have had to practise and still need to practise?

Point out to the ECTs that they have received a lot of support (hopefully) as they have learned how to teach:

• their mentor and other experienced colleagues have helped them to identify areas they need to practise through observations and mentor sessions
• they have been given explicit ideas of how they could improve in the particular areas, through the ECT resources and from other sources within their school or wider networks
• they have received feedback as they have practised the skill (for example, giving instructions) from observations
• they have continued to practise the new skill through subsequent lessons

This is an example of receiving support and guidance when practising something. Deliberate practice can be broken down into the following stages:

1. Isolate the skill.
2. Develop the skill.
3. Assess the skill.
4. Final performance.
5. Retrieval practice later.

Let’s go back to the tongue twister from earlier. Unless your ECTs are expert tongue twisters or already had it in their long-term memory, they are unlikely to be able to recall the full piece without seeing it again. Point out that this demonstrates the necessity for practice! In pairs now use deliberate practice to improve their use of the tongue twister. Give them about 5 minutes in pairs on this.

1. Isolate - go line by line.
2. Develop - go slowly at first and speed up.
3. Assess - give feedback as they work.
4. Final performance - try now without the words in front of them.
5. Retrieval - try again at the end of the session.

Small group discussion: What ideas do you have for how you could use deliberate practice including support and guidance in the classroom?

Some ideas you could contribute:

• partner pupils up and get them to verbally practise their answers before they commit to writing
• get pupils to practise each step in a new process before moving onto the next step (for example: I teach, you do, repeat)
• use an activation activity to isolate a particular skill which you want pupils to practise (for example: throw the tennis ball up 50 times to practise your throw for serving)
• observe pupils as they practise and give feedback and corrections
• use drafting in written work for pupils to practise before doing their final written assignment - drafts should receive feedback from peers or the teacher so they can improve it

Planning for action (5 minutes)

Following this session, what will you do differently in your practice? What will you put into action in your lessons?

This could be facilitated in a variety of ways, for example: a think, pair, share, sticky notes or if virtually using the chat function.

You might ask if anyone is feeling confident to try the tongue twister as a retrieval practice.