Tips for Teachers by Craig Barton

Welcome to Tips for Teachers by Craig Barton

Over the last few years, I have been fortunate to observe thousands of maths lessons in schools across the UK and beyond. This website is my attempt to give back – to share what I have learned so that any teacher or department can take steps to improve their students’ outcomes.

I have recorded a free online workshop where I share 25 tips from the website. I really hope you find it useful.

Making the most of this website

  1. How to prioritise ideas

Habits and routines

  1. Supporting teacher change: How I observe a lesson and give feedback
  2. The power of an imaginary coach
  3. Supporting student change: Embedding habits and routines

Means of participation

  1. Participation ratio
  2. Front-load the means of participation
  3. Cold Call
  4. Mini-whiteboards
  5. Call and Respond
  6. Turn and Talk

Checking for understanding and responsive teaching

  1. Checking for listening
  2. Checking for understanding
  3. A model for responsive teaching
  4. Plan follow-up questions in advance
  5. Don’t round up
  6. Diagnostic questions
  7. Learner-Generated Examples

Phases of a Learning Episode

  1. Planning a Learning Episode
  2. Do Now
  3. Purpose
  4. Atomisation
  5. I Do
  6. We Do
  7. Maximising the participation ratio during independent practice
  8. Consolidation
  9. Purposeful Practice
  10. Problem-solving

Memory and retrieval

  1. Desirable difficulties and four key retrieval opportunities
  2. Getting students on board with retrieval
  3. The role of confidence in learning
  4. Low-Stakes Quiz
  5. Homework
  6. Whole-class feedback
  7. Walking-Talking mock exams

Things for heads of department and senior leaders to think about

  1. How prescriptive should a Head of Department be?
  2. Lesson planning
  3. Premortem: The key to ensuring to change sticks?
  4. The myth of copying things down
  5. Correcting in green pen does not work
  6. I’d also recommend listening to this conversation with two experienced Heads of Maths, and this conversation with Jo Morgan

Messing about with AI

  1. Can AI chatbots anticipate student misconceptions?
  2. Can AI chatbots write a good multiple-choice diagnostic question?
  3. Can AI chatbots plan a maths lesson?
  4. Using AI to help convey purpose
  5. NotebookLM: My favourite AI tool
  6. I heartily recommend signing up to Neil Almond’s free teacher-focussed AI newsletter. Each week, he compiles the latest AI developments and also shares a prompt you can use right away that might save you time, help you do your job better, or maybe both!