I'm a huge proponent of Rosenshine's Principles of Instruction. So much so, that I have been known to say and write that schools do not really need Learning and Teaching Policies - just adopt Rosenshine's 10 Principles. In themselves - if adopted and implemented effectively - they probably reflect the veritable smorgasbord of pedagogical principles, instructional techniques and routines which should make for an exceptionally delectable and unbeatable educational buffet. However, they do come with caveats.
1) They are NOT a 'tick-list';
2: We must guard against telling ourselves that we are 'doing these principles' already, and thus become complacent. Whilst we may be doing aspects of them, we should always review and evaluate our understanding of each principle, the depth with which they are covered in our classrooms and the impact they are having;
3: There is the potential that a misinformed, naive or somewhat delusional senior leadership team may convey the message that all principles should be evident in all lessons. This is an impossibility.
Recently I heard about a school which undertook in-house staff training on Rosenshine. In one particular session (possibly on questioning and recap), teachers were made to throw balls and other teachers endeavoured to catch it in a cup (emulating the activity students would be asked to do in the classroom). They then asked or answered a question whenever it landed successfully in their cup. Presumably this was to make it 'interesting' or 'entertaining' for the students. Now I didn't know Rosenshine personally of course, but I'm pretty sure such activities would have been well down at the very bottom of his 'effective instruction' list. Such activities will never strengthen students' schema in long-term memory, which is one of the purposes of effective questioning and recap - however the students may become a little more skilled in how to catch a ball in a cup! Not surprising that Rosenshine's Principles mention neither balls nor cups, but do mention strategies such as choral repetition, and the likes of cards (or mini whiteboards) for gleaning student responses and responding accordingly in our teaching.
The anecdote reminded me of the maxim in Daniel Willingham's excellent book 'Why don't students like school?' - Memory is the Residue of Thought. Over my 20 years in education, this rings so true to me now. Quite simply, we remember what we think about, and therefore the first and foremost questions we need to be asking ourselves when preparing our lessons are 'What do I need my students to be thinking about in order to develop their declarative and procedural knowledge, and how do I ensure that they are thinking about it the WHOLE lesson?'.
I can't remember the number of the hotel room I stayed in two weeks ago because I haven't thought about it since (even though I stayed there for 3 nights). Similarly, there are times, frequently or otherwise, when we do not see our students for extended periods of time - either due to holidays or the constraints of school timetabling. This makes the importance of spaced / interleaved homework important, but it also emphasises how crucial it is that we get students to think hard about what we want / need them to for the entire time in our lessons. Memory is the residue of thought.
This maxim Memory is the Residue of Thought was not always my guiding principle. It was the late, great Muhammad Ali who said the following: "A man who views the world the same at 50 as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life". Whilst I might not quite be hitting the 50 mark (just yet!), the quote has rung true for me. In fact, it used to be that I would have spent hours and hours in the evenings cutting out cards for matching up, making dominos and other such things in order to endeavour to get students to 'infer' aspects of French or German grammar - in the mistaken belief that it would be more effective and entertaining at the same time. As a good friend of mine @TheRealMcCoyBJA likes to relay in an amusing anecdote he tells, all it probably did was make students more skilled in deciphering the scissor cut lines and matching up according to those - rather like a jigsaw. Real learning probably never took place!
And at times of national fever/fervour, such as a World Cup, I would simply abandon all prescribed lesson plans and spend a series of lessons twisting and turning lesson content superficially in order to 'appeal'. During the World Cup, for example, my room would have been full of football posters, and activities where pupils would be colouring in flags of World Cup countries with the colour in the foreign language as the 'learning content'. What a waste of time. Firstly, it was a real distraction from high-quality learning. Secondly, for every 3 students who liked football, there were probably 3 that didn't. Thirdly, all the students probably learned was the colours of their preferred football country, not the linguistic knowledge they needed to know for success in exams and for the pursuit of fluency in a second language!
And it didn't stop there, many times I trooped the students to the computer room to do Powerpoints or posters. Did this encourage my students to focus more intently on the core subject knowledge I needed them to acquire? You guessed it. No. They were much more intent on putting 'cool font' into their presentation (usually through letters which had large, leaping flames emanating from them!) and much more concerned with the colour of their background. Moreover, the temptation to sneak 'off-piste' when 'researching' online is simply too great for many young minds. Peps McCrea, in his excellent book Memorable Teaching, compares it to sticking multiple screens on the ceiling and expecting them not to look. Not only are they not thinking about what they need to in such lessons, they are also experiencing cognitive overload.
And the phenomenon is not limited to Modern Languages. Some years ago, I interviewed candidates in my school for a Home Economics position. They had to teach a lesson on bacteria. A significant number of the teachers (well into double figures) used animated clip art on their slides, including a highly irritating animation of a fly buzzing around the screen. I watched with dismay as the sample class of students (or unfortunate conscripts) almost became dizzy as they followed this fly around! Learning was out the window, but not the fly unfortunately. Again, as Peps McCrea discussed, perhaps it is time to purge ClipArt as a potential unnecessary and very unhelpful distraction - if memory really is the residue of thought.
In our Curriculum teachers are often encouraged to be 'facilitators' of learning. Lessons which are perceived to be 'too teacher-led' are frowned upon by our Inspectorate in Northern Ireland. Children are encouraged to 'think like scientists' and 'think like historians' through all sorts of active and collaborative learning activities with their peers, even though they are pure novices in the discipline and have nowhere near enough subject knowledge. No matter how structured and well designed such group / collaborative activities are, it is hard not to assume that a small number of children may drift off task momentarily or otherwise - the 'social loafers' in the group in the back corner - taking the opportunity which presents itself when the teacher's attention is divided amongst 5 or 6 groups to discuss how Manchester City beat Watford in the FA Cup or the latest goings-on in Hollyoaks. Experience has also taught me that, typically, a few in the group tend to carry the weight for others who lack the intrinsic motivation to see the group task through with equal attention and care. Perhaps worse, I remember once getting feedback from a so-called experienced observer on a lesson which took place in the school where I was Head. It was a class of all boys in Year 10 - GCSE English. The feedback was that - because they were boys - they should have been doing walking debates (presumably because it is somehow 'kinaesthetic' and this is meant to 'work' for boys). It is astonishing that this mentality still exists. If we want the performance of boys to improve, asking them to make a judgement about where to stand in a room based on where the majority of their friends go (becuase that is what will happen) is hardly the way to do it. Again, it hardly reflects the maxim that memory is the residue of thought.
This latter point ties in somewhat with an excellent blog post by Tom Sherrington @teacherhead entitled the #1 problem . weakness in teaching and how to address it. He talks about the danger of estimating success based on the responses (and by extension participation) of a few in the class as opposed to the whole. Whilst there may be evidence that those few answering and responding in the lesson are thinking hard, where is the evidence that all the students are? Activities as outlined in my previous paragraph which are sadly too heavily espoused in the curriculum can often make the search for this evidence much harder. Sherrington also makes a good point that we must ensure that when we provide scaffolds and learning frames (perhaps what Peps McCrea would sometimes call outsourcing memory), we must ensure that they do not lower or even make redundant the thinking process.
I am now convinced - alongside strong approaches to recap and retrieval - that one of the best things we can do for our students in school is to ensure that they are always - unfailingly - focusing on that which they should be. For me this means, quite simpy, the following:
1: harnessing working memory by eliminating distractions, including annoying animations, clipart and even clocks, and by focusing on techniques such as Dual Coding for exposition;
2: sending computer room use (for research during lessons / Powerpoints / posters / etc etc), portable technology, Google, scissors, glue, paper mache and all other kinds of cut-outs to Room 101 - other suggestions gratefully received!;
3: prioritising explicit instruction in the classroom, especially due to the fact that our students are novices, not experts. Explicit instruction involves the teacher as 'sage on the stage', not as 'guide on the side', and involves high quality modelling of brilliance, effective questioning, deliberate practice, low-stakes retrieval and responsive teaching. It also includes rote learning, drill and rehearsal, and we don't shy away from that or apologise for that;
4: ensuring that when we out-source long-term memory and use scaffolds in the classroom, it does not lower the bar, but instead gets students to think harder.
So after 20 years in the classroom I am convinced that the maxim Memory is the Residue of Thought should mould and shape our whole approach. Now, where did I leave those car keys?
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