Induction tutor materials
Training session - adapting your teaching
Duration: 60 minutes
Session objectives
Learn that:
- 5.1. Pupils are likely to learn at different rates and to require different levels and types of support from teachers to succeed.
- 5.2. Seeking to understand pupils’ differences, including their different levels of prior knowledge and potential barriers to learning, is an essential part of teaching.
- 5.3. Adapting teaching in a responsive way, including by providing targeted support to pupils who are struggling, is likely to increase pupil success.
- 5.4. 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.
Learn how to develop an understanding of different pupil needs by:
- 5a. Identifying pupils who need new content further broken down.
Learn how to provide opportunity for all pupils to experience success by:
- 5e. Adapt lessons, whilst maintaining high expectations for all, so that all pupils have the opportunity to meet expectations.
How to prepare for the session
Read the ECT’s self-study materials for this topic
Session structure
Introduction to the session (5 minutes)
Welcome participants. Explain that they’re going to focus on the 6 ECF statements.
Explain that ECTs will be returning to the concept of adapting teaching in module 9.
The purpose of the sessions will be to:
- understand how to effectively monitor or assess pupils progress in lessons
- know when to intervene or to adapt lessons ‘in the moment’, whilst maintaining high expectations, so that all pupils make progress
- know approaches for scaffolding learning for pupils who make slower progress or struggle to engage
You can’t correct what you didn’t detect! (10 minutes)
Facilitator to share the following:
“You can probably recall from your school days, the teacher sat at the desk while you worked in rows. Even now, as beginner teachers, you might feel safest being near your board or your laptop to move to the next slide. However, if you are going to adapt your teaching in real-time, then you need to detect when your pupils are going wrong, and this means circulating the classroom.”
Think, pair, share. What is the advantage of adapting lessons in real time?
- ECTs think on their own for 30 seconds
- ECTs share with a partner or with a group for a minute or two
- Facilitator takes feedback
Answer - rather than wait to take pupils' books in and mark them to find out if they got things right or wrong, finding out there and then allows us to intervene in a much more meaningful way.
Assertive monitoring (10 minutes)
Assertive monitoring is something you have come across within your mentor sessions and the self-study materials. It is similar to live marking but is more systematic. The core ideas of assertive monitoring are that you:
- systematically check pupils’ work during a lesson which allows you to see there and then what has and has not been understood
- are able to respond ‘in the moment’ when pupils have got things wrong (you might do this by working with a pupil individually or for a number of pupils)
- are intentionally gathering pupil feedback and acting on it
- do not need to make different tasks for different pupils
- maintain high expectations of all pupils and what they can achieve
You could show the video from the self-study materials. Alternatively, you can read the video transcript.
Assertive monitoring video transcript
The teacher starts by giving an explanation of the task that the pupils are going to do. All pupils have the same task. It is not obvious from the video what the range of ability is within the classroom. The teacher lets the class know how many minutes they have to complete the task.
She then sets the class off on the task.
Immediately she begins to circulate (doing laps) of the pupils. She checks on individual pupils by looking over their shoulder at what they are doing. She offers short prompts and interventions where necessary. She narrates out loud what she is doing to the pupils.
“I am coming round now checking on… I will tick it if correct, I’ll put a dot if it’s not.”
Teacher circulates the class and goes to one table at the front:
“Is everyone happy with the task? Any questions?” No. Teacher ticks or dots their work.
To the whole class:
“I am now coming round checking X part of your work.”
Teacher approaches an individual pupil and reads their work.
Teacher says quietly “This is excellent Rahim, just fix this part.”
Effective ingredients of assertive monitoring
Share with ECTs the effective ingredients of assertive monitoring (which they may have covered in their mentor sessions as well).
Decide what ‘good work looks like’:
- in advance of the lesson, make sure you know what you are expecting in terms of ‘good work’
Plan your laps:
- what will you be looking for in each round of monitoring?
- name your laps as you circulate - ‘now I will be looking for’
Plan a monitoring pathway:
- create a seating chart
- monitor the fastest workers first, then those needing more support
Pen in hand - mark pupils’ work:
- give feedback (tick, star, circle, code) Cue pupils to revise answers with minimal intervention (name the error, ask them to ‘fix it’, tell them how you’ll follow up.
Record monitoring feedback:
- check pupils’ work
- track right and wrong answers or trends in the class as you circulate
Assertive monitoring (25 minutes)
The assertive monitoring video clip observed and discussed relates to classroom tasks where pupils are carrying out independent written work.
Using the same principles how might the approach be adjusted for:
- group work activities?
- activities for younger pupils who are not yet able to write?
- marking work outside lessons?
Ask ECTs to work in small groups (ideally subject or phase) to plan how they would use the principles of assertive monitoring for one or more of the above.
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 virtually if using the chat function.