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  • Support for early career teachers
  • Education Development Trust
  • Year 2: Second half-term: how pupils learn - making it stick
    • Autumn week 2

    Mentor materials

    Setting the scene, and planning regular practice and reviews of material

    Intended outcomes

    The intended outcomes of this topic are for Early Career Teachers to:

    Learn that:

    • Learning involves a lasting change in pupils’ capabilities or understanding
    • An important factor in learning is memory, which can be thought of as comprising two elements: working memory and long-term memory
    • Regular purposeful practice of what has previously been taught can help consolidate material and help pupils remember what they have learned
    • Requiring pupils to retrieve information from memory, and spacing practice so that pupils revisit ideas after a gap are also likely to strengthen recall

    Learn how to increase likelihood of material being retained, by:

    • Planning regular review and practice of key ideas and concepts over time.

    Activities

    Introducing module 8: Increasing the likelihood that material will be retained over time (20 minutes)

    Guidance to mentors:

    The first part of this topic will be a chance to look back at the progress the ECT made in this area in module 2. The mentor should support the ECT to articulate what successes they have had as well as areas they still feel need work. If they were the mentor last year, it may be relevant/appropriate for them to offer their opinion on successes and ongoing areas for development.

    Suggested dialogue for mentors:

    Welcome to module 8. We will be looking again at how pupils learn, with a greater focus on how we can increase the likelihood that pupils will retain material over time. As you know, this module builds on your learning from Year 1 in module 2. In Year 1, you looked at how the memory works and how we as teachers can introduce material in a way that reduces the cognitive burden.

    Some questions for discussion:

    • Since you learnt about how pupils learn last year (such as how to avoid overwhelming the working memory by introducing material in small steps, linking to prior knowledge etc), how has your practice developed?

    • Do you have any examples where you have designed a learning experience or sequence of learning experiences that drew on the research of cognitive load, and pupils learnt successfully as a result?

    • What areas do you still feel like you need to work on related to this?

    Understanding the evidence (20 minutes)

    Guidance to mentors:

    The ECT should have read the ‘Understanding the evidence’ section of the self-directed study materials ahead of the topic. The mentor should also read them to familiarise themselves with the content.

    In this portion of the mentor topic, the mentor will be asking questions to check the ECT’s understanding of what they have read.

    Suggested dialogue for mentors:

    You completed Activity 8.2 of the self-directed study materials ‘Understanding the evidence’ in relation to helping pupils to retain the learning over time. Let’s discuss your response to the questions to check your understanding of that material.

    Why is it important that pupils remember what they have learnt?

    • If pupils forget everything they learn, they will never have learnt anything!
    • Learning happens when the new content or material has moved to their long-term memory.
    • Once in the long-term memory it can be remembered or called upon when it is needed. This will be useful when learning new content, so pupils can build on prior knowledge.

    What is practice testing and what impact does it have?

    • Practice testing is all the things you can do to practise material or test yourself on it which is not a formal assessment.
    • It might include using flashcards or doing practice questions.
    • It has a significant impact on pupil’s being able to recall information for a longer period.

    Why is feedback during practice important?

    • Feedback increases the effectiveness of practice.
    • It ensures that pupils are not practising material that is incorrect.
    • It helps pupils to know where they are and what they need to practise more of.

    What makes retrieval practice so effective in helping pupils to remember over time?

    • Retrieval practice is active and requires an effort from the pupil.
    • Active practice requires the pupil to do something, such as retrieving information from their memory.
    • It is important because passive practice has been shown to be less effective.

    Reflecting on your own learning – planning regular review and practice of key ideas and concepts over time (10 minutes)

    The self-directed study materials focused on the importance of planning regular opportunities for pupils to practise and review material over time.

    Ask the ECT:

    • How well do you think you do this already in your planning?
    • Can you give an example of when you have done this with a key idea or concept?
    • How did it go?
    • When did you check whether pupils had retained the information?

    Planning for action

    The next topic will be on how to deal with challenging work.

    Ask the ECT to bring an example of challenging work that they will be asking pupils to do in future lesson. The mentor may need to clarify that by challenging it should not be something their pupils can do already.

    Ask the ECT whether there is anything in particular they did not understand from the evidence, which they would like to explore in more depth during future mentor topics. Try to take this into consideration when inviting other colleagues or deciding which examples to use.