Developing Students' Revision Strategies

 A while ago, I came across a tweet from @Lucyjc1612 regarding 'cheat sheets', liked it and had a glance over it before forgetting about it.

It had been doing some distance in the back of my mind, because I then tweeted a poll on Tuesday night which got a decent number of interactions, many of whom were interested in the idea having not tried it. I've collated the responses to deliver to our department at some point soon, so thought I'd share my thought process in a blog for the 400+ people who haven't used the strategy but are interested in where it might go.

From the poll, 139 people said they had use the strategy of 'cheat sheets', with 88.5% of people who have suggesting positive outcomes. By comparison, 57 people dismissed the idea with or without evidence, so I think this might be worth looking into.

I have my own concerns about the use of 'cheat sheets in exams', and I'll share those as well as the positives.

Positives

- Students' motivation to keep neat/coherent notes in their exercise improves as they'll be used later to create their 'cheat sheets'. (@MissNorledge, @MathematicalH, @gkgmaths)
- Students engage with content, deciding which are the most important aspects for them to write on their sheet. Students are even discussing what the most important skills are. (@cushlat)
- Revision strategies can be developed over time through feedback and evaluation of students' 'cheat sheets'. (@MrChapmanMaths, @CantabKitty)
- Students who experience a 'wobble'/anxiety in the build up to assessments are calmed. (@unclekirk)
- The process of creating the 'cheat sheet' develops student understanding. (@UnaCumiskey)
- A dramatic shift in the atmosphere in assessments with problem classes. (@floralmaths)

Concerns

- Students can spend too long creating them. (@MrChapmanMaths, @UnaComiskey)
This is a great concern of mine too. I'll go on for far too long, with anyone who'll listen, about how inappropriate 'Make a poster' tasks and homeworks are for conscientious students. I wouldn't want students working on these until late or night, or for extended periods of time.
- It goes against the profession-wide focus on memory. (@mansbridgemaths)
Again, a big concern that I have, but is there an opportunity to develop some success and motivation in the short term that can lead to longer term success?
- Students may attribute short-term success to their 'cheat sheet'. (@mansbridgemaths)
Another concern, and one that would need to be well managed for students to feel that their success is down to their understanding rather than their reliance on a piece of paper.
- A limited amount of time is spent by students working on 'problem solving' questions in their revision, as their time is taken up creating their 'cheat sheet'. (@brendonrjones)
My response would be that this should be part of a number of activities aimed at revising for their assessments and shouldn't be the sole revision technique that students are using.

Notes

- Students should identify which questions they've used their 'cheat sheet' to help with, so they can see their success with and without their sheet. It will also help to identify areas where students lack confidence (not necessarily the understanding, but they have needed to refer to their sheet)
- More able students might refuse the 'cheat sheet', or more conscientious students might want to know where they are without the use of one.
- "I'm going to let you use a 'cheat sheet'" could be misconstrued as "I don't think you can pass this test without the use of a 'cheat sheet'", which can be a dangerous and toxic message for your classroom relationship.
- @MsEScott shared that her school had the best GCSE results ever for the two years this was in use, before the strategy was lost in a change of leadership.

My Proposal

I'm suggesting that we implement the use of an 'assessment aid'. I'm not a fan of the term 'cheat sheet', as it implies that this is 'cheating' and cheating is negative. This is a strategy that we'd be utilising to develop the revision strategies of our students from Year 7 to Year 10.

We'll start using the 'assessment aid' from our first assessment in Year 7, introducing the idea in a full 50-minute lesson, sharing good examples to get them started on a single sheet of A4 paper. Students can complete this for homework and bring it in for use in their assessment.
The structure of my assessment lessons will change. I typically give about 20 minutes of last-minute practice, run through it, and then students work on their assessments. I'll start to give 10 minutes of quick practice, have students complete their assessment, and then have students evaluate their own 'assessment aid'. Students are to list What Went Well with their 'assessment aid' and Even Better Ifs for next time on sticky notes. I'll collect these following the assessment, provide my own feedback alongside their assessment results and store these until their next assessment - so they can act upon my feedback and their own evaluation with their next 'assessment aid'.

This will be repeated for their assessments throughout Year 7 and Year 8, but in Year 8 we will move to an A5 piece of paper to make sure that students are considering which information will have the greatest impact on their own performance.

As we move into Year 9, the 'assessment aid' will still be set as a homework, collected before their assessment and not used in their assessment. Following the assessment, we'll hand time over to evaluating their revision to continually improve their revision techniques. The idea is that students are becoming more proficient in revising over time. In place of the 'assessment aid', we'll offer students the opportunity to make small improvements to their assessments where they've made silly errors.

In Year 10, the 'assessment aid' will be removed as a scaffold, with the intention being that revision skills have been developed over the previous 3 years. Time will be spent evaluating the amount of revision they've completed, but students won't be offered the opportunity to make small improvements as they move towards their GCSE exams.

Year 9 Trial

I teach a group of low-to-middle attaining Year 9 students who I'm developing a decent relationship with. I explained the idea to them today, and they were keen to try it out - giddy, even, to be the test group and told each other not to tell anybody else that they're the only ones doing this in the school. 
I shared my experience of school and revision with them, offering strategies to get the best out of their A4 piece of paper and they've gone away with it to complete before they're assessed on Wednesday.
In Wednesday's lesson, we'll review how theirs helped them and the things they could've done to improve it, before we use an A5 piece of paper in the next assessment following the feedback I share.

I'm looking forward to seeing what they create.

Implementing our Scheme of Learning

"They're a clever group, but my word teaching Pythagoras today was hard!"
"Why was that mate?"
"They couldn't square numbers... they're able, but they couldn't square numbers and find square roots!"
"Any ideas why?"
"..."

I checked the Scheme of Learning. Topic 4: The Pythagorean Theorem, Topic 7: Squares and Squares Roots.

We'd just started our journey to using a new assessment strategy. Objectives were split across four pathways - Foundation, Developing, Secure and Mastery - with additional pathways available for data collections (Below at the bottom end, Exceeding at the top). We'd write six assessments of 20 marks, using objectives assigned at each pathway level, and create four different assessments at BFD, FDS, DSM and SME by joining three parts together. If they score 15 or more, they've achieved the objectives for that pathway and 'qualified' for the next level up in terms of data collection.

It was going down well - a little confusing, but once explained well to the students, they saw the benefits in identifying areas that were holding them back, and they enjoyed the challenged offered with the increasing difficulty.

"We have to do something about the SOL. Topics are in the wrong order. Could we do something like the assessments?"
"Probably. Give me some time."

I wanted a curriculum that took students on a journey, in the belief that every student can achieve a grade 9 at GCSE, but their GCSE attainment is ultimately limited by time. Some students will do this at 16, but others might need the extra time until they're 18, 23, 28, 35 or 40 - the only issue being that after 16 they won't continue their GCSE study.

I went with Increasingly Difficult objectives across year groups. Year 7 Developing objectives would become Year 8 Foundation and Year 9 Below, and so on... It finished with 7B, 7F8B, 7D8F9B, 7S8D9F10B, 7M8S9D10F, 7E8M9S10D, 8E9M10S, 9E10M, 10E. 9 units, where Unit 5's objectives cover Mastery students in Year 7, Secure students in Year 8, Developing students in Year 9 and Foundation students in Year 10. Then, it was time to decide what went where.

Using the DfE's web site to identify the Year 3-6 curriculum, AQA's Level 2 Further Maths objectives, along with the curriculum from Complete Maths, I went about separating the objectives into topics, collecting these into groups, and creating 5 modules with a similar number of objectives and a broad range of topics.

Module A became Place Value (to develop understanding of number), Symmetry and Transformations and Averages.
Module B became Calculations (to build on Place Value), Angles and Sequences.
Module C became Fractions, Algebraic Manipulation, Charts and Shapes.
Module D became Decimals, Equations, Units and Properties of Numbers.
Module E became Percentages, Graphs, Probability, Perimeter, Area & Volume and Ratio.

Having separated them into the modules, we used long scrolls of paper split into 9 parts, with Year 3 objectives in Unit 1 and Year 6 objectives in Unit 3, meaning that our lowest attaining students are being taught at a level closer to their current level of understanding and our Developing students can revisit the Year 6 SOL, as students with a SS of 90-99 haven't succeeded with the Year 6 curriculum.

As a department, we worked hard to check that pre-requisites were taught before objectives within their modules, but also across modules and following that process I went ahead putting the SOL documents and Modular assessments together. Once completed, they went back out to the department for checking and when amendments came back, they were implemented and sent back out to start from September 2018.

The objectives themselves have been shared here (https://www.dropbox.com/s/y2d3povgoh4amgp/Curriculum%20Journey.jpg?dl=0) with much detail removed from our SOL documents, but the idea is there.

The positives among teachers are that they're improving their subject knowledge by teaching the same topics to all classes at the same time, shortening their planning time when classes are at similar starting points in terms of their prior attainment and enjoying more discussions around their practice and sharing expertise and resources.

From the students, they're experiencing more success, they're more motivated, they're enjoying their lessons more and they're being challenged more (whilst also being supported more). Students making 'good' progress (progressing one unit between each year for each module) are celebrated on a roll of honour after each assessment and postcards are sent home.

We have revision guides available at all levels (KS2 at the bottom end, L2FM at the top, KS3 at different levels in the middle), with a 'Home Learning Centre' now in place with links to CorbettMaths videos and CIMT exercises, organised by units and objectives.

Even in the difficult position that we find ourselves in with COVID19, we're going well!

#MathsConf22 - The Right Stuff

This year, I decided to start pushing myself and believing in my thoughts and my work a little more in the wider community than just my house. COVID-19 tried to put an end to that, but having present at the local Subject Leaders Developing Meeting, I took my presentation to MathsConf22 today and presented at my first national conference.
It was a delightful experience and the nerves I've felt for weeks were totally unfounded as it appears that I do know what I'm talking about a little bit, and other people aren't going to boo when they disagree.

The other sessions that I attended today were @naveenfrisvi's 'Interleaving', @mathsjem's 'Surds in Depth', @garyl82's 'Mastering Mastery' and @studymaths' 'Behaving Mathematically'. All gave me lots of food for thought to take back to school and extended my to-do list (as these events undoubtedly do!).



I presented on Doing the Right Stuff, with a focus on student confidence and ability levels - you can find my presentation here.

I shared three main ideas - the first of which is my award-winning (*cough*) Increasingly Difficult Questions. These have been around for quite some time (I think I last updated the web site three years ago due to parental responsibility - sorry!), but I've never really shared them on a wider scale or taken much responsibility for them.
I took this opportunity to give people a go at creating some and to ask for people's suggestions on their best uses. Here's what we got:

As a diagnostic tool - to ascertain a starting point for the class to save time on teaching stuff they're already fluent with.

As an end of unit assessment.

As a mid-topic assessment - where do we go next? how do we differentiate for the rest of the time on this topic?

To build up fluency before segueing into problem solving.

To discuss the differences between questions to deepen understanding - why is this question more difficult than the last? what is the same/what is different?

To identify specific areas of difficulty for students - make up similar questions to check understanding before moving on.

For easy differentiation - not just grouped by lower/middle/higher, as students have strengths and areas for development in different topics.

Haven't used Increasingly Difficult Questions before? You should! They are...

Easy to use.

Low printing costs.

Inspirational for students with high levels of challenge.

Not repetitive.

Easy differentiation.

A diagnostic tool.

Develop depth of understanding.

Purposeful practice.

Before I was afflicted with a small child, I began work on a spreadsheet to randomise questions so that a set of questions can be set for students to work through, answers given and questions taken, before setting another set of questions that students can continue working from. You can access that here.

I then went on to share my more recent work after moving into middle leadership, specifically around our scheme of learning and ensuring that students are doing the right stuff. The conveyor belt model of educating is damaging our students' chances of success and I'm determined to not let this be an issue at my school. After hours and hours of work, we have a modular scheme of learning spanning 5 modules. Each module is designed to span 9 units, with students starting on 1, 2, 3 or 4 in Year 7 before progressing through the spiral at their own pace, learning at a level just beyond their current level of understanding - some students may stagnate, and that's OK, because learning is non-linear, and some might smash it one year and show that they're ready for a higher level of challenge.

I've shared the journey that students take here and I think it's important to note that the inner-most ring is aligned with the Year 3 and 4 programmes of study and the third ring with the Year 6 programme of study, to maximise students chances. The scheme of learning has AQA's Level 2 Further Mathematics qualification written in to ensure that our best and brightest and challenged and that students are aware that maths exists beyond GCSE.

There is so much more to this than I have the time to share here, but if you have any questions don't hesitate to ask. CompleteMaths has been invaluable in putting this together.

My last thought was that around growth mindsets. This marries up so tightly with our SOL and was inspired by past students who have had difficulty in developing a growth mindset (and so they should...) after scoring poorly on assessments. Having had them complete the AQA Entry Level qualification and completing the assessments (scoring almost full marks every time), they're different students who want to be in your classroom and who have developed greater confidence in their abilities as mathematicians.

I believe that this cycle is what we're all striving for in class:

Growth Mindset lessons and posters try to motivate, but the (hard?) work is undone when students don't encounter the success to spur them on. I think we need to manufacture the success such that students become more intrinsically motivated (as seen in @garyl82's session too), so our assessments start at the level students had success with last year to give them a confidence boost as they're assessed at the level beyond that, and then beyond that.

More pertinent questions to other establishments might be 'Why are they doing a Higher mock at the end of Year 10 when they're not expected to get a six or higher yet? Couldn't they just sit a Foundation paper?' or 'How can we expect all students (spanning 7 years of maths abilities) to achieve success on two tiered assessments?'.

As @EmathsUK said when the day started, these ideas are not a party line and are my interpretation of things I've experienced, heard and read. I certainly don't have all the answers, but I'll be happy to share my thoughts with you if you want to get in touch.