Mentor materials
Dealing with challenge
Intended outcomes
The intended outcomes of this topic are for Early Career Teachers to:
Learn how to increase likelihood of material being retained, by:
- Designing practice, generation and retrieval tasks that provide just enough support so that pupils experience a high success rate when attempting challenging work
- Increasing challenge with practice and retrieval as knowledge becomes more secure (e.g. by removing scaffolding, lengthening spacing or introducing interacting elements).
Activities
Reflecting on learning (10 minutes)
Ask the ECT whether they have used any of the activities that were discussed in the last topic (repetition, practice, retrieval).
- How did it go?
- What worked well?
- What will they do differently next time?
Activating the key idea (5 minute)
Pose the question: Why do we want pupils to experience success with challenging work?
The aim is of course that eventually pupils will complete challenging tasks independently but they are still novices and so they may not be able to yet. If pupils failed every time they did challenging work, their levels of motivation would drop. This might mean that they give up and do not want to try again. By experiencing success with challenging work, pupils are able to know what the ‘best’ looks like and what they are striving towards. This can be motivating.
Designing practice, generation and retrieval tasks with enough support so pupils experience a high success rate with challenging work (20 minutes)
Ask the ECT to share the challenging work that they would like pupils to be able to complete. Explain to the ECT that there are different ways that they could build up to the challenging task so that when pupils do it, they will have a high success rate. Some of the ways are by the activation tasks that you do prior to introducing the challenging work.
Practice tasks:
Ask the ECT to identify what the key skills are that the pupils need to be able to do in the challenging task. How could pupils practise this skill, with support?
Some ideas could be:
- An activity for pupils to practise the skill first, which includes a worked example
- An opportunity to practise the skill after the teacher has modelled how to do it on the board
- Partially completed answers, which pupils have to fill in
- Think-pair-share for pupils to practise the information or knowledge they will need.
Generation tasks:
Ask the ECT to identify what new ideas or solutions the pupils will need to generate to be successful in the challenging task. How could pupils practise generating similar ideas or solutions, with support?
Some ideas could include:
- Handing out a partially completed mind map with ideas on it
- Providing a set of prompt questions such as ‘What else could work here?’, ‘What are the benefits of each idea?’
- Giving pupils a time limit to generate as many ideas as possible individually and then share them with a small group so they build up a bank of great ideas on their table
- Doing a round robin in the class by asking each pupil to add a new idea onto the list you are collectively generating, keep going until no-one can think of anything new.
Retrieval tasks:
Ask the ECT to identify which prior learning pupils will need to be able to retrieve in order to complete the challenging task. How could pupils retrieve this information in advance of the challenging task?
Some ideas could include:
- An activity at the start of the lesson to write everything they know about the topic onto one page – they could do this individually or in pairs. Compare sheets with the rest of the class to fill any gaps.
- Share resources, such as textbooks or websites, which pupils can use during the challenging task to retrieve information that they need
- Use flashcards to activate prior knowledge so pupils have to retrieve it from their memory
- Use class discussion, questioning pupils on important aspects of the knowledge they will need.
Increasing challenge with practice and retrieval as knowledge becomes more secure (e.g. by removing scaffolding, lengthening spacing or introducing interacting elements (15 minutes)
Ask the ECT how they would adapt each of the above activities to increase the level of challenge as pupils’ knowledge becomes more secure.
Planning for action
Agree which of the above activities they will use with the challenging task and whether they need any resources to make it work.
Agree that the mentor will come and observe a short portion of the lesson when the ECT is teaching this, and will give feedback on the support they gave so pupils could experience success during a challenging task.
In the next topic the mentor and the ECT will either observe another colleague or interview another colleague together about how they help make learning stick. Agree now who to ask and whether the mentor or the ECT will approach them to set up a suitable time for this.