What Am I Trying To Achieve?

The last five blogs have led to this one, and I think the main question that anyone should be asking when they do anything is 'What am I trying to achieve?'. A task without a goal, a purpose, feels a little pointless.

What am I trying to achieve when I'm feeding back assessments to my classes? Well, that's a big one.

Ultimately, I want them to be proud of what they've achieved and to be spurred on to greater things, or I want them to take away an impetus to improve in some way. Dylan Wiliam says that 'feedback should improve the learner', so I don't simply want an exam script that looks more like a rainbow and has a larger number on it than it did when I gave it back to them. I want pupils to have a moment of realisation. It could be as small as a mistake that they made is corrected (not just once, but for the rest of time) or it could be the understanding that if they begin to apply themselves more, and give more time to practicing maths, they can be better at it.

My Year 10s - the class that I'm going to trial this with - sat the first paper of their mock exams, and as it stands I have marked the papers, but haven't yet analysed them for individual areas for improvement, or whole-group areas for improvement. My plan is to sort this tomorrow, identifying areas of need for individuals/small groups, and identifying areas that the whole class need corrective instruction with.

In terms of what to do with the individuals, this tweet gave me some inspiration:

Get them to identify if it is a minor mistake or something they have to work on. Watch a video on DrFrost Maths or the model answer for the older ones which we make ourselves. Then they need to practice the skills on DrFrost Maths as our scheme of work/courses are linked on it

— Mrs Hudson (@MrsHuds43995523) January 8, 2023

We have included Mathswatch clip numbers on pupils' printouts from the QLA spreadsheet but it's always been self-directed. It's felt like a tick-box exercise, and it hasn't done much to improve the learner, their responsibility, or them as a mathematician. I'm tempted to record some example-problem pairs for key topics and share these with pupils, or provide backward-faded worked examples with further problems to be completed independently.
If I record videos I can post these on Google Classroom and use a computer room, whereas the backward-faded activities can be used in the classroom. I also have a couple of days that need cover setting coming up, and these two could be completed with cover teachers.

Pick 4 or 5 questions where the majority made silly mistakes. Go through them and then do shadow questions. They then compare the marks to see how many extra they would have got. It's superficial but it boosts their confidence for how they are going to move forward..

— Laura Jacobs (@Miss_L_Jacobs) January 9, 2023

I think I can set the videos/BFM tasks where pupils have made daft errors or have taken a wrong turn somewhere, and set the problem (in the example-problem pairs) as the shadow question. Or maybe I can write the problem part and they'll complete the shadow questions at a later date. This should allow me to discern performance from learning and they can re-do them in conditions akin to an exam hall for 20 minutes or so.

I have a couple of weeks until we can share the results with the pupils, and I'll formulate a plan between now and then. The next blog is likely to be the one which outlines my plans.