More tips from Craig Barton
Video transcript
hello i’m craig barton and welcome to this tips for teachers video now there are loads of routines that are involved in teaching here’s a selection of some of them you may have routines for when your students enter the room or what they do during your do now routines for how students should ask questions in class or work together with a partner routines for choral response routines dream dreamworks examples loads of routines that you want your students to take on board and do time after time why are routines important well quite simply that routines can increase time and attention dedicated to learning the best way to explain this is with a really simple model of memory and if we focus in on working memory we know it’s got a finite capacity students can only think about or attend to a certain amount at any one time well if students are thinking really hard about the routine itself what do i do here what do i do next then that’s going to take up attention that could be dedicated to learning so if we can get those routines automated then we free up attention and students can think much harder about the big idea of our lesson and they’re going to learn and understand much more so the big question is how do we get students to remember the steps in a routine well i think i’ve been making a big mistake about this for many many years i thought the key was just doing a really good explanation so explaining to students this is what you do here this is what you do next and so on but that’s missing out two really important things so the first is something that needs to come before the explanation and that is attention are students paying attention to that explanation and the next is what happens after the explanation are we providing opportunities for students to retrieve those steps of the routine now in this video i’m going to focus on this part of the process attention in another video i’m going to look at the retrieval part of the process so in terms of attention i’ve been very influenced by peps mccrae’s work on this particularly in his wonderful book motivated teaching peps explains that before we start thinking about how to explain things to students we’ve got to make sure they’re actually paying attention so how can we get our students to pay attention to the steps of a routine i think the key is that we need to provide justifications for the steps in that routine so let me show you an example with something that plays a key role in my teaching and that is my use of diagnostic questions i tend to ask at least one if not more diagnostic questions every single lesson and i have a definite routine for how i want my students to answer them now what i want to say to my students if only life worked like this is i want to say look when the diagnostic question’s on the board be quiet think really hard about the answer don’t copy off anybody else and don’t shout out the answer that’s what i want to say but that’s not going to get my students paying attention they’re they’re rules that feel like they’ve been imposed like where do they come from why have i got to be quiet why have i got a nut copy and so on and so forth so i think instead if we can take those same rules but add a justification to them then we start to get our students paying a bit more attention to them and we get that buy-in that we need so here’s how i’ve tweet those things so i say to my students okay when i ask a diagnostic question first i want you to think in silence but then i provide that justification why well so you can fully concentrate then i say to my students okay whilst the diagnostic question is on the board you can do working out if you like why well to help organize your thoughts so every one of these steps has got that justification next one this is a really important one this one i want to think hard about the answer and rehearse how you would explain it why do i need to do that sir well so you’re ready to share with the class that saves so much time in my process for diagnostic questions final two don’t look at anyone else’s working now this feels like a real imposition for students why because i want to know what you think so i can help you if needed everyone needs help sometimes and finally this is the bane of my life this right students know so the answer c the answer is d before anyone else has had a chance to think only show me your answer when i ask why so everyone has a chance to think for themselves so i think those tiny tweaks whenever we’re thinking about a routine that we want to introduce to our students justifying the steps of it can get them to increase that buying and that attention which is the first step along the way to remembering that routine so what do you reckon have you got some routines in your teaching do you justify the the each of the steps in them how might you use this tip if you found it useful i’d be super grateful if you could like the video and subscribe to the tips for teachers youtube channel visit tipsforteachers.com for more of these tips thanks so much for watching