This episode of the Tips for Teachers podcast is proudly supported by Arc Maths
You can download an mp3 of the podcast here.
Sammy Kempner’s tips:
- Pick the student least likely to know (03:50)
- When doing group work, make clear the group is responsible (21:20)
- Use the same questions, with different numbers (47:36)
- Question, don’t tell (1:04:04)
- Trick your students to test if they really understand (1:14:59)
Links and resources
- Sammy interview with Ollie Lovell is here
- For information about jobs at Sammy’s school, The Totteridge Academy, click here
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Watch the videos of Sammy’s tips
Podcast transcript
Craig Barton 0:00
Hello, my name is Craig Barton and welcome to the tips for teachers podcast. The show that helps you supercharge your teaching one idea at a time. Each episode invited guests from the wonderful world of education to share five tips for teachers to try both inside or maybe even outside of the classroom. With each tip, the challenge is always to ask yourself, what would I have to do or change to make this work for me, my situation and my students, experimentation and frustration may follow, but hopefully something good will come out. Now remember to check out our website tips for teachers dot code at UK where you’ll find all the podcasts as well as the links resources and audio transcription from each episode. But better than that, you’ll also find a selection of video tips, some taken directly from the podcast and others recorded by me. Now these videos can be used to spark discussion between colleagues and a departmental meeting at Twila insight or maybe even a Friday night moving it. Just before we get going a quick word of folks from our lovely sponsor. So this episode of the tips for teachers podcast is proudly supported once again by arc maths I’m so grateful for our for supporting this podcast. Art math is a fantastic app designed to help your students remember all the math content at key stages three and four. It’s built around research into how memory works. Specifically blocks work on the power of retrieval practice and the spacing of facts and showing your students don’t just practice what they’ve just studied, but are regularly exposed to the content they have encountered days, weeks and months before that was great for that retrieval and storage strength of their memories. Now if you want to find out more just search arc maths and mentioned my name, remember that arc with a C knots okay. Okay, back to the show. Let’s get learning with today’s guest the wonderful sunny Kembla. Now a bit of background here at some he may not be quite the household name that some of my other guests are but we need to change that. And I first became aware of some of his work when Adam Boxer was mentioning that he had a wonderful head of maths at his school. And then some of you may have listened to Ali Lovells interview with Sammy, which I’ve been on record as saying at the best podcast out of any podcast I listened to in 2021. I had to get somebody on the show and I’ll tell you why he did not disappoint. So spoiler alert, here are some his five tips. Tip one, pick the student least likely to know. Tip two, when doing group work, make clear the group is responsible. And I’ll tell you what that group discussion is unbelievable. Tip three, use the same questions with different numbers. Tip for question, don’t tell. And Tip five. And I love this one trick your students to test if they really understand. Now if you look at the episode description on your podcast player or visit the episode page on tips for teachers.co.uk. You’ll see I’ve timestamps each of the tips so you can jump straight to anyone you want to listen to first. Or if you revisit this episode, you can go straight to any tip that you want to revisit. Remember, there are video versions of all these tips on tips for teachers dot code at UK that had a bit of spice to it to the tips if you want to listen to them and watch them. But anyway, I’ll shut up now. Enjoy the show.
Okay, he gives me great pleasure to welcome somebody to the tips for teachers podcast. Hello, Sammy. How are you?
Sammy Kempner 3:32
Yeah, I’m very good. Thanks, Craig. How are you? Very, very
Craig Barton 3:34
good. Thank you. Right, sorry. Just let listeners know who you are in a sentence if that’s all right.
Sammy Kempner 3:40
Yeah, teach maths to children in London, between the ages of 11 to 18.
Craig Barton 3:46
Fantastic. All right. So let’s dive straight in. What’s your first tip for us tonight?
Sammy Kempner 3:51
Pick the student least likely to know.
Craig Barton 3:55
Whoa, no, I love like a clickbait headline. That’s a great one. You’ve hooked me straight and tried to
Sammy Kempner 4:00
make them snappy. So tell me more. Now watch me not be snappy when I explain it. So
essentially, like you want to where possible. My tips are broadly themed under root on the theme of accountability. And by that, I mean not letting students get away with not thinking or trying to do it putting strategies in place to try to maximise the amount they’re thinking and trying and the amount that they feel like you’re holding them to that. So it might be that when you’re cold calling, so picking students to answer questions without their hands up. Like you might want to pick you want to pick your lower training students to use it as a gauge to assess like the classes understanding when many whiteboards or whatever whole class data isn’t available. So you pick your lowest attaining student the student least likely to know the answer to see like if they do know the answer then There’s a pretty good chance that everyone will know the answer. It might be when you’re doing group work, and you’ve told this class, you’re going to test them somehow afterwards, you test the group’s by giving them a similar question and you’re going to pick someone to explain it, you pick the student least likely to know in that group, to act as a gauge whether or not the group done a good job. It might be when you’re circulating, if you’ve only got time to like, you’ve got 20 seconds, and you’ve asked them to write something down, you go and target the student least likely to like be doing the right thing. Even check instructions, like you give really simply shortly as amazing how often instructions are not understood or followed or listened to. And you give instructions, and you wanted to make sure just made sure that even though you said it very clearly, and you said it very slowly, they’ve understood the instructions, you pick the one that’s least likely to have understood. So that’s, that’s it in a nutshell, I can talk in more detail about it. And obviously, like, you can’t literally always use this one poor kid. But as a general rule, picking students and your lower 10 students are the ones that are less likely to be focused, really, like forces them to if they know that’s going to happen, it’ll force them to engage and if the class know that anyone could be asked, but if I think that there’s a chance, they won’t know they’re going to be asked, then it’s a very powerful tool.
Craig Barton 6:26
Right? So let’s dive into this. I love it. You, you’ve hooked me in straightaway. So a couple of follow up questions here. So I think there’s a real danger. I’ve fallen into this trap before, where you ask one child and they get it right, and you assume that the whole class understands it. So you just crack on. And it’s your classic kind of argument, why we need to do whole class assessment versus kind of one to one stuff. It almost sounds to me like this is the flip side of that. Where is there a danger, you ask your lowest attaining students, or the one who you suspect is going to get it wrong, they get it wrong, and you kind of make an assumption there that everybody’s going to struggle with their so then you spend kind of 510 minutes doing it with the whole class. Whereas maybe like a quick conversation later on in the lesson may have sold it for that one child.
Sammy Kempner 7:10
Yeah, there’s always that danger. I think what, like, so things that I if I, if I really was expecting everyone to know, and that one student doesn’t, I might do a quick chat, or call and respond to just quickly assess the whole class. And I check really carefully, is everyone saying what I expected them to say? Or like, Does it sound like everyone is and if so, then I know that students issue and therefore that we can, like, I might need to deal with that separately. Or it might be just going to a one of your other least likely students to like who in the class and seeing if they know, and if they do, then you know, it’s just an individual problem. And if they don’t, then then maybe it’s wider than that. And maybe that point, you open up other strategies that you have, like, it might be a group conversation to like fit, like if the knowledge that if you suspect the knowledge to be in the room, or and then you go and cold call those ones that don’t know afterwards. Or it might be you have to do a quick, whole class checking for understanding. But I would suggest though, or I would caveat that with saying, if you can do okay, if understanding, then you should have done. Like that’s always the rule, if you can do whole class, and it’s easily accessible. And the data that you can get from it is easy for you to interpret. The dancers aren’t really long sentences or whatever, they’re just so easy to see, then you should have done that in the first place. And you shouldn’t have been targeting the lowest training student with a question, you should have just been doing that. So maybe that’s not the best way of dealing with that. But I think the first few options that I mentioned, probably do a job.
Craig Barton 8:41
Yeah, it’s really interesting. This, this sounds like a big name drop here someday. But I’ve literally had a conversation with Dylan William earlier today about a similar thing here where there was a good name drop that wasn’t it, about how I can’t see a scenario, where if it, if you have the option to do whole class assessment, you would choose to cold call, if that makes sense. Because to take to take your example here with this lowest attaining student, you could have in mind that you want to check the understanding of a specific student, but you might as well get every other child to either write their answer down on mini whiteboards, or have thought of it and so on, because you’ve still got that option to go to that student. But if you can also see responses from you know, the other 25, you may pick up on something that you wouldn’t have if you’ve only just gone to that one student, is that fair or other scenarios where you would deliberately choose to cold call and only get the response from one student that you’re targeting.
Sammy Kempner 9:37
There probably are situations where it’s good to call. I’m trying to think of them. As a principle I agree with you. I think that if you can get hold of that data easily then you should, I think
say on that have something just gone from my head. What was I gonna say?
No, maybe we’ll come back to it. And but ya know, in principle, I agree with you. I think yeah, remembered, if a student wants, if you’re looking for an explanation, like a really detailed explanation of strategy, whatever it may be, and we place quite, I tried to place quite a lot of emphasis on that. In math lessons, it’s not just what or and how but why. And if you’re if you’re really focusing on that, then it’s actually quite often the mini whiteboards aren’t going to suffice. And so what’s quite nice is when you’re cold calling for an explanation, you pick the many students least likely to know the bottom third of the class, let’s say in terms of attainment or engagement, or whatever it may be. And you start off with so and so maybe your lowest attaining, and you move on to the next one, the one least likely to be engaged. And then you move on the next one and over and you find it also by jumping between them in mid explanation, it forces them to really engage with each other’s answers. So it doesn’t necessarily have to be just one student when you’re doing this, but as a general rule, just focus on the ones that are going to actually be a useful gauge and not the ones that you know, are going to like they’re the ones that you expect to be able to answer.
Craig Barton 11:12
Can you give us an example summary of the kind of question where you choose to do that one of these ones that’s perhaps suited to mini whiteboards?
Sammy Kempner 11:20
So we do it and it’s a question came up today, in actually a little off topic test, and I’m going to review it tomorrow, it was quite a complicated, shaded area shaped by the way, the shape was like an L compound shape. But then within it, there was a triangle, a funny angle, which was attached to the sides, and you were given the perimeter, and you had to find the area of the shaded section. Anyway, like, it’s quite likely that in the review of that, like the students were able to say the answer, they might be able to say, the calculations they needed to do to get there. But it’s all about understanding that if you’re given the perimeter and two of the side lengths of the L shape, and you can find the other two sides and the missing side length interferometer. And you have to think about the shaded area being the total minus the shaded area. And so all these kind of descriptive elements to the strategy that don’t mention numbers are really good things to cold call students about rather than getting whole class data on many whiteboards, because that’s just not going to explain that you’re not going to know whether or not they’ve understood it from that. Yeah, so
Craig Barton 12:29
just just again, just to dig really deep into so I’m fascinated about this notion of jumping from student to student maybe mid explanation. So how would that start? Well be a kind of question.
Sammy Kempner 12:39
Okay, so why is this question difficult, please? Muhammad, it’ll say, hopefully, that’s a few nouns are correctly, he’ll say, Okay, fair enough. So it’s because we’ve got the perimeter, we don’t know any parts of the area. We’ve got to somehow figure out from the sidings before we then find the area. What’s the first I’m going to do in order to do this, please, Oscar, Oscar is going to say, well, you need to find the total area and then you’re going to find need, find the unshaded area and you’re going to have to subtract the undertaker from the total. Okay, Okay, nice. What about this? Edie? What do we think about this, I want anyone you just bounce from one to the next. And they’ve got to be really listening. Because they know at any point you might cut them off and bring someone else into it. Sometimes it’s actually made really really jarringly probably effective mid sentence, because I know that they understand and they’re confident, and they’re about to say the right thing. And it can be partly, to check for understanding, but it can also be partly just to, like, hold attention, just stopping them in the meet in that moment and saying you pick up exactly where they were going from where they were, where they were going. And obviously, you know, you can you can you can go from there. Does that. Does that make it clear? Yeah,
Craig Barton 13:53
it does. And is this still your kind of bottom third, in terms of kind of attainers? And the ones that you suspect aren’t engaged? Are you checking this out? To everybody?
Sammy Kempner 14:04
So like the, in general, the proportion of questions of my questions that are aimed at the bottom third is massive, are the questions I asked. But I do see a zoo. So you can just obviously tailor the questions to challenge the highest attainers. And that is equally important. It just doesn’t need to be as frequent, I think, because they’re more likely to be listening and focused. And I did well, maybe that’s me as a value judgement. Maybe that’s my that’s my sort of other day, socialist roots coming through. I care more about bringing up the bottom. No, I it’s right. You have to charge the highest pain is all the time has to be at the forefront of your mind, but I just think it’s in your bread and butter of lessons. The way that you run your models and your questioning. It’s more important to make sure that everyone is listening and then when it’s appropriate you cold call Then move amongst the highest attainers with some really challenging questions. So it’s so important, and I still do it. But it’s definitely the case that the lowest attaining students receive a greater proportion of my questions to answer.
Craig Barton 15:13
That makes perfect sense. Because again, the worst question in the world that I could ask here is, you could well imagine you’ve got a couple of high teens in there, you just think, Oh, he’s not going to ask me this. So I’ll just I’ll just kind of sit off a little bit. But I guess that’s more about the kind of culture that you create in the class, and so on and so forth, you’re pretty confident that that’s not a major, major problem.
Sammy Kempner 15:32
Yeah. And yeah, you’re absolutely right. You have to assess it, as you see it, and part of it is God, and you just kind of and obviously, you can always just check, you can always keep asking the question because your classroom and if your lesson, you can do it how you want. But also, yeah, just to like, just to emphasise the questioning is the most, like most obvious way in which this applies. But it definitely does also apply to just as a general that we’ve got phrases our school, which is Don’t lie to yourself, and we tell the kids that all the time. But it also is words to live by, as an adult. And just in my normal life, I just walk around thinking they lie to myself, if I do anything, but if you really so when I before I did cold calling for the first couple years of my teaching, I don’t I didn’t do this. And I definitely didn’t ask the load the people least likely to know, because if I had, it would actually ruin my lesson. Yeah, because we get stuck, we get stuck every time. From the first minute it’s over. And I think, I think, like these doing doing this, it can. It’s an ultimate, don’t lie to yourself, and you’re teaching because it’s very easy to convince yourself that, like, you’ve done a really good explanation, they’ve all been looking at you you’ve insisted on pens down, there’s no way that they can’t follow this. And so you pick, you know, pick students that ew best students, but you pick, you know, just just just normal students in the class, I think you’ve got to be really honest with yourself, if you’re using questioning as a gauge for understanding of the class, because many whiteboards on appropriate whatever reason, then it’s, yeah, it’s a really good strategy for don’t lie to yourself
Craig Barton 17:13
a lot that don’t lie to yourself. Somebody reminds me never forget, one of my early observation when I was observed, right at the start of my career, I did exactly this, I asked the question, and I picked a kid who I knew was gonna get it right. So I was mid flow, and so on, as I was getting was coming towards the end of the lesson, this was the almost like the big climax. And that’s been observed and so on. And the the teacher observing me, and then congratulated me. So good choice of students to ask that question, too. And I was like, Yeah, but like, it’s the worst thing. You’re absolutely right. It’s the worst thing. But it’s so tempting, isn’t it? Because you know, like you say, you want to think I’m doing a good job here and so on. I’m interesting. Just just on this one, whilst we’re chatting about this. I know from your whole conversation with Olli, that group work is something that plays a really big, big part in in your teaching. Now, we may be talking about this later on. I don’t know. But it just wanted to pick up on that you said, you kind of ask the person in the group who you thought perhaps had not been listening to the instructions to kind of explain and so on, I wonder if you could just talk a little bit more about that. Because that that interests me there? Is that more of kind of a behaviour and an attention kind of thing?
Sammy Kempner 18:21
No, it’s definitely for accountability within the group. If the group knows that, I mean, sometimes people say this, this could be quite harsh, and is, again, context specific. In my, in my classes, we have a very honest culture and policy and like, if consumers have got stuff wrong, and they’re talking about in groups, then they know that I’m going to pick the ones that got it wrong to explain, and that’s fine, because mistakes, learn from them. And it’s all part of that little chat that we do. And like, it’s all part of the era culture is really important for learning and it’s about being honest with each other and but the but knowing if they know the groups know that you’re going to pick the person leaves it to know because they got it wrong. It massively massively alters their, their own expect their own kind of attitude to the task, and their own objectives within the task. They’re not so bothered about making sure they’ve understood all their stuff, they’re thinking themselves, I need to make sure my partners know all their mistakes. Because it’s possible that circuit ask us about any of the ones that they’ve got wrong, and they’re going to ask that person specifically. So make it a new communicating that to them before they do the task, because it’s really important. And then actually doing it afterwards. Again, even though it can be painful, because you might have and it’s not it’s not a bit like occasionally it might be a behavioural thing. And you might sort of, you might notice a group has not been on task and you save you say you save your any kind of disciplining or whatever, until after you’ve stopped all the groups and you pick, you pick the person you’d like to know and they can’t do it. And you say, Well, you know, I was watching. I was watching I was listening and this didn’t happen like That’s quite nice. It’s a good thing to do. But it’s not. It’s not the same accountability that I’m talking about now, isn’t it? It’s a good thing to do. I’m talking about the way that picking the one on the fighter know, the impact that AI has on the ones trying to do the right thing. I think it incentivizes them in the right way to focus on the things that you want to focus on, which is fixing mistakes.
Craig Barton 20:23
It’s brilliant. That summit, I think, again, just to go back to your conversation with Ollie, and what you’ve said there, the thing, the thing that’s made me reluctant is probably the wrong word. But but certainly not to use group work to the extent of the user. I do a lot of hardware, but but not kind of, you know, groups of three and four, is I never get the incentives or the accountability, right? There’s always it’s always too easy to kind of free ride within the group. It’s always too easy for one keen kid to dominate in the group. But it sounds to me that this this strategy in this tip that you’re talking about here, that seems to kind of target that that seems to be the key to getting this, right.
Sammy Kempner 21:01
Yeah, I think it has a really, really big impact. My second tip is specifically to do group work, and it comes it ties in really nicely with this. So I think
Craig Barton 21:15
that’s a good teaser. Why should we dive into it now? Then somebody? Should we go for it now? All right, what’s your second tip for us?
Sammy Kempner 21:21
Okay, so it’s equally snappy. When degree work made clear, the group is responsible, not the individual.
Craig Barton 21:30
I like it, right? Tell me more about this
Sammy Kempner 21:31
stuff. So essentially, if you’ve like in keeping with, I’m going to ask the student least likely to know if the student gets it wrong following group or a task is the group that’s getting blamed, you don’t even mention the individual who’s got it wrong. You like sometimes physics don’t even don’t actively avoid looking at them. And I’ll tell my body to face the other three members of the group. And like, they might sometimes they might even be like, oh, sorry, I meant to say it. I was like, no, no, don’t worry, can you just turn to me say, this is not about you, you’ve done your best, like, these guys just haven’t helped you properly. And you sort of stare like you really like dramatise it all. It’s, it’s a big pantomime. But obviously, equally, if the, if the person gets it, right. You don’t praise them at all. You massively just use it as a taboo, what an amazing job. They’ve understood that so clearly, and so they’ve explained every single bit of it, and I’ve questioned you have questioned them, you’ve done a stretch of questioning and you’ve, you’ve really made sure you’ve got maybe given them a different question that similar. And they’ve got it and you say figure it, this is amazing, superb work. And these two things go hand in hand just for the group responsibility. If the Yeah, it’s transformative, the first time I ever did it. So it was a teacher, we were talking about how to how to review tests. And we were talking about like, I used to give students models solutions, and like, tell them how to do it and think I think I’ve done a quite a good job of explaining really clearly, which is part of it. But they then like this, and I said, How do you know they’ve understood? And I was like, Oh, good question. And maybe maybe a retest sometimes if I have time. Anyway, so they were like we do group, I do group work at the end I project. So I send photos of their mistakes, I’ve taken mass marking on the board. And that person has to explain, like how to do that question. And if they can’t, then I blame the group and if they can appraise the group, but the first time I did this is an amazing tip from this guy that I work with. And then I’ve I physically like did this like whole turning away from the kindergarten role and like looked at told that like, so it’s a great what’s going on, you can see their minds be rewired? Like they were like, I’ve never even considered this before. Wow. Sorry. So it was apologetic. They, like they tried, but they just never had this kind of accountability before. And it was yeah, like, since then, since I can I can literally picture the moment in room 26 or whatever it was. It just, yeah, it’s a really great thing to do.
Craig Barton 24:08
Right. So I mean, we’ve got to dive into this. You you’ve blown my mind here with this one. Firstly, just a practical question. I always love the idea of getting kids work up onto the board kind of as quickly as possible. You’re taking photos just talk us through that warden? What app are you using? What tech are we WhatsApp? Can you talk any? Yeah, so
Sammy Kempner 24:25
I use CamScanner which is just a photo to PDF Converter. But like just as I’m marking if I see a really good mistake, take a photo. I write on my sort of like work solutions that I just got just for myself so that before I start marking, I write their name that student’s name on that question on the on my test. And I do this maybe like three or four times for different students mistakes that are like nice mistakes that are common misconceptions or, you know, things that we’ve talked about during the unit and yet there should have made that mistake, whatever it may be. And then I set like to use this CamScanner app. And it kind of does like a nice kind of like editing things and the colours and brighter and clearer and then usually emailed yourself and I’d open up the email. And then at the end of the review, you before the review, say that I’m going to project mistakes on the board that people may be ready to answer could be anyone, anyone at all, and it really could be anyone and so like, I quite often target Pupil Premium students and like low attaining students, but like, just because I think that’s a generally good rule to follow for things if you’re not in if you’re in two minds. But more important is the like the mistake has been made, if it’s a really nice mistake. Anyway, after the after that when the when the review, part of an agreement has finished, and it’s just like one mistake at a time, this MSA cares. And you can sometimes see the kid who’s mistake it is or the group who’s you really know they’ve got it when the group are like, right, here we go. And then you say right, use your turn, talk, talk us through it. And then if they do it, then obviously you praise the group. And if they don’t, you blame the group to varying degrees of like severity of consequence, like it might be just say, they don’t understand it or like sometimes, it’s quite hard to like they explain it. But then you kind of stretch it a bit, you ask them some more questions and questions, and they get a bit stumped. And like, you’re I would do that for if if the group members that helped them were really high attainers. And I was just trying to like, challenge them even more be like, look, look at the questions that I’ve asked, Did you ask these questions? And they’ll be like, No. And I know that because this person is not able to answer these questions. This is what you’ve got to be doing. So it might be like that quite measured, and like really, really high expectations of what I want them to do in their groups. But it might also be this is quite basic mistake. There’s no way you should have not got this wrong. So you’re not it’s not a detention because you’re not misbehaved. But you’re going to stay behind until this person can explain it. It happened today, my year 11 lesson actually, like they do a paper homework of like mixed exam questions from their most recent, like prep tests that they’re doing. Actually, this is this is another teaser for later on. But anyway, they come they do this every after each lesson they come in. And they immediately that the answers on the board, they immediately started doing group work review. Because I’ve told them for like four and a half years now they’ve done a lot of group work and they’re quiet. They’re all right. And then, but at the end of the 20 minutes, they have to do this, I then like pick someone and the student who I picked was a student who’s actually missed that lesson and hadn’t heard the explanation. But like, it’s crunch time, he has to know what to do for these questions. So I just said like this, this class for this group last day, and then at the end, they had to stay for 20 minutes, 20 out of like 35 minute lunch, which was annoying for me, and then my lunch, but they just he wasn’t getting it. And they made they had to do it. And they didn’t complain because they know how it works and that they do want him to understand. But yeah, that’s the other end of the severity.
Craig Barton 28:10
God saw me so many questions on this. Let me just make sure I’ve definitely got my head around this, this comes come out, you’re taking the photo X converts it to a PDF, you’ll send you’re just emailing to yourself straight away. And you can just go to your kind of tower at the front or whatever, crack open the email, and it’s on the board is that is what they love it. Right groups. So first question about this. I’m intrigued by the type of tasks that you’re setting for your group. Because whenever I’ve used group work in the past, it’s been the more kind of investigative, open ended less structured things. I’m getting the sense that you’re using it for a kind of a broader range of activities. Can you just describe some of the things that you may get your kids working in groups to do? Yeah, so
Sammy Kempner 28:52
there’s before, like, before we start group work is good, you have to know the reason that you’re doing it. And in my mind, there’s three good reasons, those generating ideas, just just entering ideas doesn’t apply so much in maths. Occasionally it does but not not loads, processing or practising something. So you might think of as the we do part of the lesson, but it’s not necessarily teacher led. So usually we do as a teacher, obviously guiding students through questioning and whatever. But it might be that the knowledge is in the room, but it’s not. It’s not like it’s not consolidated yet. And it would be beneficial for them to have the opportunity to kind of explain rehearse, just questioning each other a little bit to like test out a little different sections, because some of them will notice on them won’t. And that one, by the way is a bit risky because if they do have misconceptions, then obviously those can get perpetuated. So you’ve got to be really careful with that. And the third one is when you know the knowledge is in the room, because you’ve tested them somehow it might be mini whiteboards. It might be a topic test, it might be a big, big assessment, and you’ve marked their work or you told them who’s right and who’s wrong, and you’re expecting them to teach you You have to? So those are the three reasons that I will use group work by pretty much. Not at all for investigation. Yeah, probably because I think with investigations I I’m not, I’m not saying there’s never a time in place for it at all, because I like often lessons can take all kinds of forms. And sometimes it’s just good to have something really exciting, which actually isn’t going to help them necessarily do really well in the exam. But if it’s exciting and worthwhile, and maybe relevant, and whatever, then there’s definitely like, I’m all for it. But I think, with investigations at once someone’s realised, and then they just tell the group that the investigation is not a thing anymore for those people. So if I’m ever trying to get into spot patterns, or whatever, it’s more, I’ll be like looking at this board, can you see a pattern here, give them real time, like Silent time when they put their hand up, if they think there’s quite a pattern, and then I’ll get a gauge the room at least to see if they think they’ve understood, which is very different to this, they have understood. But I think that that has to be done silently. And actually, a lot of things need to be done silently, things where once you’re told, then there’s no more thinking. Like, think of an example, done badly. Some, some some questions really lend themselves to group work, regardless of how good the students are a group work. So trying to find the area of compound shape just because like, or the area of a shaded section, I think even if they’re not very good at questioning and stuff, without much subtlety, they can help students get to the answer without just telling them. Whereas by contrast, like let’s say factorising, quadratic expressions, I know this is math specific. But if you’re not very, very, very good at helping people, you might just tell them what goes in the bracket, and then that then there’s no worth to the group work. And so that kind of thing needs to be done silently individually, because they need to get used to thinking in the right way. So you have to be really careful about your when, like when you’re when is a good time to use group work. And it can vary from topic a topic and it can vary from lesson to lesson and subject to subject
Craig Barton 32:11
is fast. problem here somebody’s everything you say? And then write down three more questions of things to ask you. So I mean, treat here. Well, just a very quick question on this. We grew work, would you say majority of lessons would involve some form of group work for you? That’d be fun. Yeah,
Sammy Kempner 32:25
very light, as I say that quite rarely generating ideas. But usually, like, even if it’s just mini whiteboards, if they’re if let’s say two thirds of the class was got it right and a third haven’t, or even less, actually, half and half. And it’s fairly evenly spread throughout the room. With the students trained at welling group work, I think it’s the most productive way to deal with mistakes once they know who’s right. If you just explain it from the front half of them, it’s irrelevant to and if you, you can’t move on, because there’s not enough of them in the classroom. Who knows. So I can’t really imagine teaching without that as my fallback option, because not only does it provide the support for those who got it wrong, but the ones who got it right. Like I really believe it’s really powerful for them, to challenge them to get them to think deeply about it to help somebody doesn’t
Craig Barton 33:14
understand just on that semi, so I have the exact same strategy, but I don’t have the group accountability at the end. So it never works as well. Right? Because it’s the thing there is the the kids who’ve got it right. Sure. I’m saying to them explain to you know, your partner is struggling, blah, blah, blah. But if they do they do if they don’t, doesn’t matter. But then if, if if I’m holding them account, if their partner can’t explain it, well, then they the incentives and stakes are there. So right I’m, I’m on to that one. Here’s my question for you something What does paired work play a role here at all? Is it is it either independent silent work and group work or is there is a room for paired work,
Sammy Kempner 33:52
I bracket paired work, pre it’s principles applied as they do degree work, the same principles. The only thing is, if you’re using pairs, rather than groups, the best thing like the lowest number of people, if you got a group in the class figures or for let’s say, you need eight students in the room. So I’ve understood something properly for the group work to work if you have pairs, you 16 And so it makes it harder to do the teaching and to do the processing becomes a little bit more risky, the teaching is harder. It’s just a little bit harder. I think that what sometimes happens when they’re doing group work because they might naturally just fall into a group of two and two, and like if they’re having different conversations, but I really emphasise it and that’s okay, but they have to be checking each other’s pair as well. Like you have to the people on your table you’re responsible for even if you’ve been talking individually with something because it’s worked out you’re going to fix that while someone else fixes that you still need to grab that test look at their purple pen No. And I’m if they get it wrong, and I asked them later on, I’m still going to be like looking at you To say what happened?
Craig Barton 35:01
I like it. I like it. Right. final few just questions, logistic questions on great work. And then if there’s anything else you want to add that we haven’t covered, please do something. So where to start your size of groups would tend to be false? Or will that will that depend?
Sammy Kempner 35:17
Yeah, so three, so two to four, works, five is hard. Like, because then it’s harder to ensure that you’re not getting people doing nothing. And it’s harder for the kids to notice when people aren’t doing anything as well. And what you often find is a five turns into a three and a two. And then it’s harder to hold them to account as a group, when the one on the one from the two is on one end of the like death, and the one from the three on the other end. Like it’s quite hard for them to hold, it feels like look after each other. But it’s still I mean, in all honesty, like I’ve got quite big classes for my age and nines, and we do often have five and it does work. It’s just a little bit harder.
Craig Barton 35:58
Got it. Choice of kids in the group, are you grouping them in any specific way?
Sammy Kempner 36:03
I like to have it let’s see what age groups highest, attaining second highest saying 13/4 all the way down to eight, and then I will take the ninth highest staining, put them on the table with the aid, and then go backwards the other way. And then I’ll go again. And then again. Obviously, all of this relies heavily on behaviour and personality clashes and so like, and honestly, we’re my year elevens there’s so many personalities in their entire isn’t suddenly entirely about personality, pretty much like I’ve made sure there’s a there’s a high attainment on each group. But beyond that, it’s about who’s gonna work well with who and not get distracted. But with my eight, it’s pretty much exactly by the book that
Craig Barton 36:48
and basing it on. Is it static? Because that was gonna be my follow up question. What? What data? Are you kind of judging this on?
Sammy Kempner 36:56
Yeah, so it’s obviously informed by summative assessment data. But summative assessment, data’s always limited. And I feel like so we’ve I’m fortunate enough to have taught my classes there. I’ve been there seven all of them. So I know them really well. And so I wouldn’t I my gut. And what they understand is much better than the summative data. But it also, I think what summative assessment data is really, really useful for flagging up students to know less than you realise. But I think there are students that know loads that might do badly in a test in a big test. And so I wouldn’t, it’s obviously it’s worth seeing, it’s like it’s very useful data because something’s gone wrong for them. But I’d be much more willing to say, that’s a bad day for them, compared to a student who’s done really, really bad really badly, and is like bottom of the class. I’m like, after major alarm, alarm bells.
Craig Barton 37:52
I would would agree. Would you change the group’s a fair bit then?
Sammy Kempner 37:55
So after? So I bet based on new summative data,
Craig Barton 38:00
yeah, or just any, just anything? How long would a group kind of stay in place before there’s a shuffle?
Sammy Kempner 38:05
It’s a great question, which I’ve been thinking about recently, because I realised with my ace, it’s been pretty much static since the start of this year. So that’s what, seven months. And the advantages of this is that they start to, they start to understand their own, like weaknesses in the groups. And they can start to really work towards that and fill those gaps, which is amazing. And they also they also over time, start to really care. And like there’s, when we do tests, sometimes I’m well, if a group, occasionally a whole group, I say the whole group gets 100%, or something like that. You can say to the class, you know, obviously, it’s great when a kid gets 100%. But if you say the class, this group here, has looked after each other so much in the last few weeks in the topic that we’ve been doing whatever the every single one of them’s got 100%. And they look at each other. And you can see they’re really proud of each other. And it’s just a class. And yeah, that’s so. So that’s not stopping me moving around. Yeah. Because then then equally, when they, as discussed with you 11 Night, sometimes they become very familiar with each other, and it just takes, it can mean that they get overly comfortable. And then obviously, you put the accountability measures to stop that happening, but sometimes just changing it up gives them a fresh impetus, and they’re not familiar, they’re not so familiar. So they’re a bit more professional about it. And yeah, this is all like I definitely don’t have an answer to that I should have probably started with by saying I don’t have an answer to that question. It’s just this is one I’ve been going around in my head recently as I think about it, because it’s been now seven months and Serbia and they haven’t had it hasn’t been much movement. I think if it’s working then keep it I think is a simple solution. And if you have a feeling that it might not be or you have a feeling it could be better than the truck then just change it up. Which I guess the place a lot of things if not everything. So
Craig Barton 39:57
this is great. So the last two questions for me on On great work, I could speak to all night long groups, and I’m intrigued by your room layouts. Well, how do you have your desks?
Sammy Kempner 40:07
So I’ve got it. So let’s say rectangular room. And there’s a teacher’s desk in the corner. Where so if you’re facing the board, and the front teach desk is to the right, and it’s kind of, it’s, I’ve tried this for the first time this year, I’ve never liked being horizontal or while perpendicular or parallel to the board or the board. So I’ve tried just moving it quite grotesquely 45 degrees, which is strange, but like it’s working for me, I’m liking it. Because there’s all kinds of reasons you might want to do that. But I like the fact that I can see the board teach from the front of my laptop, if I’m sat down, I’m modelling but I can also see the class at the same time. So it’s a good combination. But then in front of me. So if we’re still facing the front of the room with the board at the front of the desk to the far right corner, there’s in front of dirt in front of me, there’s, there’s a group of four, and a group of four behind that. So bottom right now. And so the and then there’s two more rows of groups. The middle row has three groups of four, and the left row with the same columns, the left column has three more groups of four as well.
Craig Barton 41:27
Got it? And is it the kids, I assume that when you’re modelling or whatever, it’s quite easy for them to all be facing the front. This was the reason I’m saying this. This is always one of my big arguments in my internal arguments. Why I think no. And I always prefer rows just because the kids are facing the front.
Sammy Kempner 41:42
Yeah, it’s a good it’s a really good question. I like, again, grotesquely have tilted the desks, 45 degrees, and the one that was the one on the side of the room that tilted 45 degrees, so that the ones who would otherwise be kind of having to turn around, see the board only have to sort of tilt the head a little bit. That’s all desks. If you look at the if you look at plan view of the room, would be facing towards the board, some sort of angle so that to minimise the amount they have to turn?
Craig Barton 42:15
Got it? Got it. Perfect. And last question. And it’s the worst question, Sammy, I would love to get kids to the stage where they can do this work in groups like you can, how long do you reckon it takes? And what are some of the things what are some of the things that you’ve learned that are essential to put into place in those early kind of lessons where they’re getting to grips with this?
Sammy Kempner 42:39
I think, genuinely the difference when I started just blaming the group, which is what I guess this tip is all about, and praising the group. That was like an overnight clear difference. Which is, like ridiculous, because these things never worked like that.
Craig Barton 42:55
Yeah.
Sammy Kempner 42:57
But then the, the, if they never arrive, we never arrived, we never know, we’re never gonna get to the point where we’re perfect at anything, but we aspire to get better and better. And it’s the same for the group work, I think the trajectory will go up and down a little bit, and then up a bit more and down a little bit more. But ultimately, there’ll be a positive trend if you keep practising. And you can kind of start adding new things like like, with my year, I’ve got tops a nine at the moment, who I’ve had since year seven. And midway through year seven, I started you had to build up the accountability just in them understanding what how it was working, but then maybe after a few months, you can then start to like doing it regularly in a lot of lessons and doing all the all the consequences and whatever it may be. Starting to teach them to question each other. Which adds a completely new layer to it. And honestly, like some of that questioning is ridiculous. They’re teach me a thing or two, the way they scaffold and guide through questioning and like, but then once you open that up, then you hit a another huge increase in like, productivity. Yeah. And so anyway, like, I think it was just practising for a few months will, you’ll start to notice a difference. But overnight transformation to suddenly blaming and praising the group will like it is really good. Sometimes I should probably like, I feel like I should say, just make sure that you’re judging the situation well, because I can just imagine, like a slightly spicier group of kids suddenly being like, what I’m getting blamed for this, like, this kid hasn’t been listening and like, and you have to really make sure that you’re separating bad behaviour. Like if one of the kids isn’t engaging, like that’s a different thing to group accountability. And I don’t want people to suddenly find themselves getting those fights with kids. Because they’ve like, you know, held them to account with group work in a way they’ve never thought about before. But the principle is there
Craig Barton 44:59
that’s Great. I said last question, somebody just thought of one more. So do apologise. I’m intrigued by what you’re doing as a teacher, whilst the kids are working in their groups on two levels here, one, because you mentioned a potential problem with group work is that the kids can be practising the wrong things, misconceptions can be going around. So I’m intrigued how you keeping on top of that. But also, I mean, I’m intrigued by a point I first heard Colin foster make that as teachers, sometimes we can really get in the way of kids thinking like the kids will be having a great discussion. And we’ll be hovering at the back. And all of a sudden, either the discussion shuts down, or the kids feel they need to perform or it just becomes stilted. So what are you doing as a teacher while she kids, kids are doing the great work?
Sammy Kempner 45:43
Yeah, great question. Trying not to get as not to get involved as much as possible, and trying to keep every group in view as much as possible. So I stand in the corner. So I only have to turn a quarter turn to see the whole room. And I try my best to zone into conversations as much as I can. So that I can figure out whether misconceptions are being perpetuated or but also just like, figure out if they’re on task, in a really basic level, if I have a suspicion that they are off task, try really hard to listen to that conversation and try and read body language. But also, if it’s not working, subtly, try and move to that part of the room, also look at the rest of the classroom view. And then you can maybe do that thing I was talking about where you let them play out. And then you pick someone and you’d be like, right, I was listening, you might have not fully exhausted on the other side of the room. But I was listening. And I can tell, it might have been that. What that’s like, if you most the time, you’ll have to do that. I think that’s a good thing to do. What I’ve started doing with this, you and I in class is when they’re doing their group work, because their behaviour is excellent. And it’s very, very rare that I’ve noticed them being off task. I go around with a mini whiteboard and basically just listen. And it’s like I’m observing a trainee teacher or whatever, just I’m just writing down what was and even bearish in terms of their their help. And then every so often, I’ll just stop the class and give a few individuals feedback publicly. So it might be modelling a bad conversation, it might be modelling really nice line of questioning, which took their partner to the right answer. But just like basically just giving them feedback as I would a teacher. And that’s it. That’s you have to model what good conversations look like. And that is one way of doing it.
Craig Barton 47:31
It’s great. Sami, I want to completely change how it chill it. Listen to this. It’s brilliant stuff. Right? Tip number three, Sammy, what are we going for you?
Sammy Kempner 47:41
you the same question with different numbers.
Craig Barton 47:45
Nothing great. You’ve really thought these through Hello. I like the snappy title.
Sammy Kempner 47:49
Yeah, as I said, as I said, that’s the only sappy part of the rest is just for me just going on tangents. But right. Tell
Craig Barton 47:57
me more about this one, Sammy.
Sammy Kempner 48:00
So, again, now in the theme of accountability, you let’s say you introduce a question. So constantly saying to students, like most important thing for learning is to ask questions, you have to ask questions, you have to ask questions. And so you model something. Questions, questions, questions? No. Okay, fine. We’re doing the same question with different numbers. And you can literally rub out the numbers and say, if you understood it, then this is actually no problem because it is the same question. And so it might be for many whiteboards. It might be with like a do now let’s say you give them a difficulty now and then you say we’re doing this same do now tomorrow with different numbers. So you ask questions. Now, you write down your purple pen notes now, so that you can look back at them tomorrow. Because tomorrow I’m expecting every single person down to every single one of these problems. It might be a rare, so a nice, nice thing to do, which I’ve done a lot of is with my irrelevance particularly just retests. I used to literally use tip X to tip X out of the numbers and just write new numbers on. But now we’ve got like these nice laptops from my school and we can just like, get a PDF up and just like cover them in white and black and rewrite the numbers on but principle is tip X copy style retests. And you say that might wait a bit before you start the review. Just so we’re going to review in the usual way. It’s group work. And I’m going to stop you every so often. And I ask people to explain things I got wrong. But on top of all that, at the end of the review period, we’re going to do a retest is going to be the questions that the class did badly on. And it’s going to be the same questions, but just different numbers. And anyone who doesn’t do well on this, I’ll know you just didn’t do this review properly. So yeah, pretty much that like there’s all kinds of different things like it might be We try not ever to get kids to write just copy stuff down on the board. So when we want a nice example in books, there’ll be like that situation will model one then we’ll run out the numbers and be like right now you do this when your books nicely and obviously if they get it wrong, they have to write a purple pen No. Because always you want them to be thinking so anything as much as possible. So
Craig Barton 50:04
you’ve checked a couple of things in here that we need to follow up on this. This is great. So the first thing is the first time I heard something similar to the change numbers thing for for low stakes quizzes was when Danny Quinn and former head of maths at Mikayla was on my podcast years years ago. And she described the process where the kids would be given a low stakes quiz. And then they wouldn’t be judged on how they did on that they do it very low stakes, they do it in class, maybe answers are up on the board, teacher goes through it, blah, blah, blah. But then the teacher says to them, okay, your homework over the weekend is to prepare for the follow up quiz, where you’re going to get the exact same questions, but the numbers are going to change. And I’ve never heard of this before. But the point that he made, and I’m assuming it’s a similar point that you’re making here is that how the kids do on that first iteration, that’s maybe down to either ability, achievement, knowledge, and so on and so forth. But how they do when the numbers change, that’s almost all down to efforts. They’ve no reason they can’t do that, as long as they have given time and opportunity to figure out whether it’s from the group or from the teacher. So it’s a real good way to hold them to account because there’s there’s no excuse and Danny was saying how parents would for because I think Danny was, this was where I got the NSPCC contacts, and he was all kicking off. Because Danny was with them, I think maybe put them in detention or something like that they did bad on the follow up test. And, and everyone was you can imagine people kicking off but her point that got lost was they have every opportunity to do well on that follow up test because they knew what the questions were going to be just the numbers were going to change. Is that is that a similar kind of kind of philosophy, if that makes sense?
Sammy Kempner 51:38
Mail nerd. Absolutely. I’m all for that detention there to be honest.
Craig Barton 51:42
They’ll be on so you saw me? No wonder you.
Sammy Kempner 51:48
Yeah, as long as you set them up for success fairly, like you’ve given them, you’ve made sure you’ve had space for questions. You’ve gone. You’ve modelled it really cleanly. You You have to like hold yourself to account as well and be like, Have you actually done a good enough job? They’re given them time to talk or in groups, maybe like, maybe even in another question there and then check and be like, if you if you check in, let’s say they do have to do now. They don’t get it right. You reteach one of the questions. They do a mini Bible question. Everyone gets it right. And you say to them tomorrow, that look, everyone’s got it right. Every single person, this is coming up tomorrow, and I’m giving I’m just hitting the numbers. If you don’t get it right, I’m going to keep you afterwards because something like you. Because because I am you say to them tomorrow, because like fair enough, if they can’t remember, I think like if they’re struggling to remember, that’s understandable. But if you let them look back in their books, or the purple pen notes that they’ve made in their strategy, there is absolutely it’s completely justified to say to them, you must be 100% in this, because I you either you weren’t asking questions, or you copied someone when you doing the whiteboard, which is not okay. Or you were lazy when it came to on purpose, a note and therefore when it comes back to like you’ve forgotten, which isn’t your fault. But when when you get the chance to help yourself, because I’ve not made that test. I’ve said you can look at your notes, whatever notes you made. If you can’t, if they don’t help you, then you obviously did it badly. And that’s when you
Craig Barton 53:15
go back like that. And the second thing and that you chucked in towards the end there. And this is something I’ve been thinking about some work I’ve been doing with the school at the moment you mentioned about the copying down. Now this is a massive thing, because I would say 99% 95% of maths lessons that I’m lucky enough to watch that involve a worked example. Invariably, the kids are asked at some point to copy down that worked example. And there’s a number of issues with this. But the biggest is and I’ve suffered from this myself, I call it this the illusion of copying down that there’s this almost this belief that something magical happens from the process of a child copying something down on the board that all of a sudden they understand it more or they learn it more or something like that. And the other issue I have with this is I’m not convinced that kids use their exercise books effectively for revision. It’s not as if you know, you’re looking back through because books sometimes scruffy disorganised bla bla bla bla bla, and this works example. Yeah. Anyway. So I’m really intrigued what you do there. So let me see if I’ve got this right. So you’re modelling one kind of version of the worst example however, you you model it, but then you’re the kids aren’t writing that down in books. But then the version that they get down in books is essentially kind of like a your turn it’s it’s it’s the worst example, but with the numbers change, and that becomes their model example. Is that right? So me? Yeah, so yeah, yeah. So okay, so just to tell me a little bit about this. So I like the rationale that you always want the kids thinking that that’s I’m completely on board with that. How do you I guess the big question, how do you want what your kids using that word for example, I you have the belief and what are the kids going to be kind of referring back to what’s the purpose of it?
Sammy Kempner 54:53
So the best way of revising math is to do math. Like I’m definitely on board with what you’ve said there. I completely agree. I wouldn’t Well, my kids reading through their notes and stuff. When it comes to revising, however, a lot of like, I’ve never really been bothered that much about books. I’ve never, yeah, I’ve just never really like cared that much to be honest. But kids do sit like, somehow, maybe just because we make a big deal out of purple pen and how to reflect on the stakes and stuff. And so we do that for First of all, so they that to force them to engage mistakes, and they can write down feedback, so they understand. So they like know what the right thing to do is a strategy maybe, but also, the better, like kind of higher level thinking is, they’re reflecting on their own mistakes, articulating where they went wrong and writing down what they need to do next time is a really hard skill. Like we again, we never arrived, there’s definitely there’s always room for improvement. But it’s something we aspire to. I keep saying we like I’m talking about my school, like, but I think so because we’ve made since we give a purple pen students tend they seem to care about their books, and they seem to care about the notes that they’re making more than probably I do. And a lot of a lot of them do find it useful to refer back to them. Especially if I’m doing something like that do now. And I’m saying I write down the notes, because I’m giving the same questions, and you can look back at them tomorrow. So I don’t really care. But students seem to buy by virtue of all the other things in place that we’re trying to do to make them learn. And I think also like, like, you know, someone has a maths teacher now, who’s Alright, in maths when I was at school, I didn’t really need to look back at my book, because I just remembered stuff. Whereas a lot of the kids you teach actually do need that. And it’s helpful if they can do that. And also, we do a lot of champs, we do a chamfer, pretty much every topic. I recall and response for pretty much every topic. And that’s the sort of thing that they write down in purple pen. And if that’s written down in their book, we’re next to that silence, that kind of question, it is helpful for them to refer back to it. So the answer is, I and also for sorry, for the same reason. That’s also why we get them to have one clean example, at least one clean example in their book. So if they want to, they can refer back to it, when they’re doing independent practice that lesson or later on that week, or whatever it may be, if they come to revise. And they really can’t remember, and they don’t think to ask a friend or they don’t think to come to their teacher, at least or something they can do to help themselves before giving up. So that’s the extent to which I like I care about neat examples, and books. Does that question?
Craig Barton 57:33
Yeah, it makes perfect sense. If I’m just check, I’ve got this this round. I’m always interested in the logistics of this. So you are you’re modelling a worked example on the board. The kids aren’t writing anything down? Or would they be possibly bringing stuff down on mini whiteboards throughout? Or is it just just watching?
Sammy Kempner 57:49
Just watching, watching? I think I will. In my school, everyone’s got slightly different ways it but as a general rule, I think if you’re modelling something from the start, and everyone focused completely,
Craig Barton 58:00
yeah. And then you’re then so then you’ve gone through it. And then you’re you’re changing the numbers, and they’re having a go, but they’re writing it in their books. So just two questions on that. How are you? How are you assessing whether they’ve understood that that bit? Yeah.
Sammy Kempner 58:15
So sometimes I save the work to them writing their books until I know they can do it. So sometimes I’ll model it. And we’ll do some mini whiteboard questions. And the final mini whiteboard question will rub out the numbers and say, right, right, you’re gonna do this one in your books as your example. So it might be then it might also be if this all works better for higher attending classes. And if you have lower 10 classes, what a lot of teachers our school do is guide the students through a worked example. But then because if their knowledge, the student teacher hasn’t told the students what’s going on, the students says they’ve worked through as a class, they then write that down, because it’s something that they’ve done is like, arguably is copying. But I also think because the students have worked through it themselves, rather than been told it’s a bit better than that. However, it was there was something really illuminating. That was mentioned by a colleague of mine in a math meeting recently. And she’d been wishing teachers a the bottom set. Maybe your seventh class, we have a class. And she was watching them write down a word example that like like that, where they’ve gone through it as a class, she got the information from them, and then show right now write this down as your as your new example. And she’d watched them copy down, and they copied it down from the bottom right of the example. They had, they hadn’t copied it like left to right. And in the order of the thinking and the writing that we’ve done it, they just copy it down to there’s a picture. And it was like it was mind blowing. And like, there’s obviously there’s so much to unpack there. But essentially, like what I’ve taken from that is just really again, copying down is so not helpful.
Craig Barton 59:58
Wow, Sammy, thank you Get Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But is that classic sign of almost kind of just a, just a passive proselyte? You say just copying a picture down? Right. Yeah, that is incredible. And final question on this summary. Just purple pen just just just clear up for me. What role does that play in this worked example? Part of the process? Yeah. So
Sammy Kempner 1:00:18
if, let’s say, so we’re doing it the way that I mentioned first, where you do a question about the numbers, they then new numbers they do in the books, if it’s like, so I will certainly, to get a sense I circulate targeting the students at least like to know, and then if, like, and then and then I’ll go through the answer. And then I’ll say, if you’ve got anything wrong, need a purple pen. And so like that might be a sentence, it might be with the words with the perfect example, like doing it properly, the bit they did wrong in purple pen and explaining what they did wrong. So the slight issue with that is their neat example, might not end up being neat. Sure, but I think it’s still it’s still better than copying.
Craig Barton 1:01:02
Yeah, for me, it’s the it’s the ownership thing. They’re like, I’m also, even if they do copy the example from the board, if they’ve got some in their own words that are personalised to them, whether it’s annotations, or whatever, that for me starts the meanings there. And it’s a bit more more active. That’s,
Sammy Kempner 1:01:18
I could also say like, just to be really honest about it. Like I’ve done a lot of learning walks, I focused on purple pen notes and stuff. And the range of quality is really incredible. And obviously, there’s there’s some really bad purple pen nose where students have actually like, made an even bigger mid line mistake with a purple pen, or said some nonsense, but I think the principle is something to work towards, where they reflect your mistakes is worthwhile is really important. And you in the purple pen simply for corrections and teacher top tips and chants is still really good. And in some ways, it’s training them to reach that stage where they are taking ownership of it and doing their own thing. So it’s still worthwhile, but I would, I don’t want to, I don’t wanna give off the wrong impression here that like all of our all of our students are writing ridiculously good, like metacognitive comments and whatever. Like, it’s just not the case. But they are do a lot of them do it well. And some of them do incredibly well. And some of them don’t. But it’s still a worthwhile thing.
Craig Barton 1:02:19
That’s great. Sorry, just before we move on to tip number four, you keep mentioning Chomsky give us a couple of these chumps, get a couple of examples.
Sammy Kempner 1:02:27
Adding and subtracting fractions, find the LCM. Perimeter is the distance around a 2d shape. There’s a really good one, which is one of my favourites, you say right angled triangle Pythagoras or trig. Side, side, side, pi side, pi side, labelled longer side, side, angle, side. So curve toe, label those two sides, cover up the one you want and use the formula. So like, you know, you can question the pedagogy in some of those things like you know, using the former triangle for so the toe, whatever. But in terms of like, it’s quite powerful, because you teach that with you teach a mind map, if you see a triangle, are you finding area yes or no? If no, is it a rival triangle and you go through that whole chain process? If if it’s not, then you go through two angles, two sides, sign will sign will write the one you want on top, if not three sides, one angle cosine, you’re gonna go and you teach it as this mind map, but then the chance reflect it and they take them through the thinking. And it’s really, it’s also because that one’s that one’s good. It’s got quite good bees. Yeah. You have to Yeah, you have to really like embrace, you have to buy into it. And so I think, you know, it’s ridiculous and the kids know, is ridiculous. But if you’re just unashamedly into it, and you just, even if they don’t want to do it, if you keep doing it and pushing them into it, then like, No, we’re not gonna move on until you’re gonna do the same level of enthusiasm. be doing seven, then by year 11. They’re just, they’re just bought in and it’s just a normal part of life. So
Craig Barton 1:04:02
that’s great. That’s brilliant. Okay, tip number four, please.
Sammy Kempner 1:04:08
This is really stuff that is one question. Don’t tell.
Craig Barton 1:04:13
We treat in question. Don’t tell. Okay, tell me more.
Sammy Kempner 1:04:17
So, again, like this, we we’ve had some slight disagreement, not disagreeing. But I think the way that different departments in our school do this is different. And like, I know, Adam, Adam is the king of modelling and like the way that he models is ridiculous. But in maths, we try always, even when we’re modelling from the front and model through questioning, because I think the idea is, and Adam has been doing some CPD our school like talking about how to go from familiar to unfamiliar, or maybe concrete or abstract or whatever it may be, but the familiar unfamiliar, fade, if you want is that as I found maths teaching works, you take some prior knowledge Is that is needed that they should know, make sure they’ve got it and then you add a little bit to it based on logic. And so if you do that, well, then you can do it through questioning, because it’s only building on stuff that they’ve already known. Like, there are exceptions. Like when I’m first teaching algebraic proportion to the year 10 class or something, I think it’s just quite helpful to say this is general formula, a specific formula, you model like direct portion like this. And in this portion I this because this is all just a bit of a leap. Sometimes, it’s just better just to say like, this is what’s going on. But as a general rule, if you’re teaching something for the first time, or money from the front question, then don’t tell when you’re helping a child once a one. Like question, always try, like if you’re, if you tell them, you’ve got no idea if they’ve understood when they’re when students are working in groups, try and get them to question each other then rather than telling each other. And I think the best way that I can demonstrate why this is so important is everyone has had it, where you’re you’ve explained something, you’ve explained it really well. And to someone who’s not understood it before, and you’re saying in Spanish, when you reach point where that person you’re speaking to goes. I until I started teaching, I would just I just assumed that meant they understood. But it turns out, it’s not true. Like people make that noise all the time, because it’s become so like, it’s become socially awkward for them to go a long without understanding it. And honestly, I’m asking, I asked him do this kids all the time you say, and they go, oh, yeah, oh, I’ve got to stop there. Because you’ve just made that noise, which means that you think you understand or you’d like, want to communicate, you understand. But it’s, it’s amazing. It’s amazing how often they still don’t understand. And that comes about because you told them rather than question them. Because you’re telling someone something they like right now it can be happening, you can just be zoned off right now. I’ve got no idea. Actually, I’m not asking any questions. I’m just talking. And so yeah, like, it’s once I find I do that all the time. As soon as something is not immediately interesting. There’s a chance there’s a danger that I’m my mind might wander a little bit, and I have to bring myself back. And I’m I tried to be self disciplined about it. So hopefully, I don’t miss out on too much. But, you know, like, it gets easier with children, you are very self disciplined, then there’s no chance that they’re going to bring themselves back, even if they’re looking you in the eye. And even if your estimation is amazing, which is why in our department we try to question always
Craig Barton 1:07:38
guys fascinating the summary. So I can, I can certainly see it. Well, I don’t I don’t do it enough. But I can certainly see how this is 100% a good idea. If you if you kind of work in one to one with a child and you’re trying to get help them through something and you want to get a sense of where the kind of gap is in their knowledge where it’s going wrong. So you build up and so on. The modelling is the thing that intrigues me here. Now I’m interested with the kind of big leap things that that certainly seems to be the place where you want the kind of crystal clear explanation and so on because it’s too big a jump, and it’s going to take too long for the kids to get there. Potentially misconceptions bombing around left, right and centre and so on. Can you give me an example of an idea or a new idea where you could get all the way with with with questioning? Or, you know, most of the way?
Sammy Kempner 1:08:26
Yeah, so let’s say if you’re teaching, dividing fractions for the first time. So you talked off by saying like, I’ve got eight pieces of chocolate here. And if I have half of them, half of those pieces of chocolate, how many do I have? When you say like, we’ve got for your question. And this is a question how many chocolate pizza? Yeah, and so you then say, price if I write that down half of eight equals four. And what was another way of saying that? How, like, if I if I if I divided the chocolate into piles, like what would I have divided by divide eight by to make my four divided by two? Okay, so divided by two, and we get four. So let’s look at these next to each other. I said, I’ve written down a half of a literature that and we’ve taught them that already that of in math means times. Okay, so I’ve got half times eight. And so when you’re multiplying things, does it matter what order you multiply them in? No. Okay. So if I write eight times a half, that’s the same as a half times eight. Yeah. Okay. So eight times a half is the same as eight divided by one, two, and two is the same as two over one. And so what do you notice about dividing a by something and timing eight by something? What’s the relationship here? Well, dividing by some fraction is the same as timesing by its reciprocal, and so like you’re getting them to almost fill the gaps in the log and their reasons the logic of way of where you’ve gone with
Craig Barton 1:09:56
it. God this is interesting. So let me just get on the lid. just sticks is that a lot of mini whiteboard stuff in response to
Sammy Kempner 1:10:03
you? This is another situation where yes, me labels could do a job I think the admin of getting a whole class to do anyway was properly you’re covering your answers the hovering when you’re ready, you’re showing the same time. And really, the questions are so constantly there, that it’s too, it’s too late. There’s too much for many whiteboards. So it’s a situation where it’s good to call call. But sometimes I’ll do like a whole class, like, back and forth, because a lot of those questions the whole class could have said, and if I’m, it keeps them engaged, I think it holds their attention and hold them to account for for being involved in listening to your model. Whereas if you don’t do that, if you don’t, if you don’t sometimes just stop and I look at them expectedly. Like, that’s the next thing, I’m gonna say, Well, you really fall in what because if you were following what I was saying, then you should know the next thing because it’s nothing that we haven’t done before. By all these things, they increases the likelihood they’re going to be listening.
Craig Barton 1:10:58
This is interesting this summer, I would imagine the difference between how me and you will do this. And I already think it added the wrong campaign straightaway, is I think I do a lot of the explaining ads, make sure I’ve got the attention sign out of really thought through maybe even gone so far as to scripts or rehearse what I was going to say. Real crystal clear explanation, at least in my head anyway. And then once I’ve gone through that explanation, that’s when the kind of assessment would would start, you know, I’d imagine by the time I’ve asked my first question of the kid, geez, maybe I kind of asked five or six. Possibly, I got there quicker. But maybe you’ve on Earth, more potential problems that the kids could have? Uh, maybe your kids are more focused on it? I don’t know. But I’d imagine that sort of diff our difference.
Sammy Kempner 1:11:51
So, first of all, I it’s not a good assessment for learning, as we talked about, because you’re only asking one kid and you don’t know. But it is a good, you know, the part is the participation ratio, participation ratio is a better like, I think the participation ratio will be higher, if they know that any point they could be involved in the model. I also just want to like really make clear. I’m not saying yes, sometimes, or often. Or even always, it might be a good thing to do to do a really like a really clear model with no student involvement, and then immediately start questioning with the next one. Do the guided practice, I find you’re still I think it’s still at that point, you’re seeking the principle of question, don’t tell, once you’ve done given them the knowledge they have. But if they have the knowledge to answer the question, then you should be asking the question. I think that’s my point.
Craig Barton 1:12:41
That’s intro, would you if we just double back on tip number one, because this is where it could really be derailed, right? So you’re, you’re trying to picture the scene here, somebody you’re trying to do dividing fractions, you want to get to the you know, get to the point where they’ve got this new idea. You’re purposely asking the kids or you suspect might be getting this wrong that so you can just imagine that kind of worked example, going off the rails a little bit here, he’s still sticking to that principle.
Sammy Kempner 1:13:07
You, again, call it based on the situation, your class and the topic you’re teaching, if you think it’s doable, and if it’s prerequisite knowledge that everyone should have, if you’re questioning is so clear that and the way you’ve guided them through, it is so clear that they should be able to answer it, things like have in maths means times and two is the same as two over one. Those are so they should be so fluent in that that anyone can answer it. Yeah, then it won’t cause an obstacle. But you have you do you have to think really carefully. But when you’re first introducing an idea, you have to be so careful with that, like, obviously, and if there is a danger, that they’re not going to get it and you think it’s gonna cause more harm than actually like assault, like helps deal with and don’t do it. But I think the time when it’s most contentious to say question don’t tell is when you’re introducing, like new information. And then from that, so I still think it can be done in the way that I described with the dividing fractions often. But like, let’s say, let’s assume it can’t be done. And you have to give one clean, clear, concise model. From that moment on, there’s only questioning, it’s really only questioning, don’t do any of the heavy lifting or even the light lifting for them. Constantly question. And one. I honestly think one question done really well, that takes 20 minutes, actually 20 minutes, where you’re, you know, every single person is with you, because you’ve been checking the whiteboards and you’ve been tagged in the ones you’d like to know. And you really made them explain every single part of it and you’d be jumping from student to student a student all the time. Like, that is way more worthwhile and doing 30 questions where, you know, maybe they can do it, but they can’t explain why or they, you know, that’s interesting.
Craig Barton 1:14:56
That’s interesting, Sally. All right. Take no Number five, what have you got for us?
Sammy Kempner 1:15:02
So we have a trick your students to test if they really understand
Craig Barton 1:15:11
another good one trick your students. Okay, go on, tell us about this one.
Sammy Kempner 1:15:16
So it’s kind of sad. Basically, it might be just, you know, once, once you I’m not saying treatment at the beginning, they have to know what they have to you have to at least like have a model to work from. But when you are guiding practice in the front, let’s say a student makes a mistake, you’ve asked them a question, because you’re doing all together. And you ask them one of them a question and tell you the wrong thing. Let it hang there. Let let them wait, let it go and see if the class have noticed. And if they haven’t noticed, and you hold them to account, what’s going on here, why have you not like this is a mistake. And no one has never got a handle. So do you not understand or you’re just not listening. And so letting it letting it sit there is really nice, but sometimes maybe in one of the few times that I go directly into like, when we’re doing a guided guided example, and I do a little bit for them. And I just kind of try and like rush to do a few little steps. I want to get to the whatever the next part the lesson is, and then I’ll put it at mistake, I’ll throw in a mistake there and let it sit there for a bit. And I’m hoping and expecting immediately is a whole sea of hands going up and being like, you know what? That’s a mistake. If they don’t, then again, you weren’t listening. We don’t understand the You should have asked a question. But something’s gone wrong.
Craig Barton 1:16:30
I like this. I like this, because it feels high risk. That’s what I like I like
Sammy Kempner 1:16:36
yeah, like it’s worst. I mean, like it’s most harsh. A kid will give a good, good explanation, like an explanation. There’s not perfect, like in the sense that they’ve omitted detail, don’t say anything wrong. And so rather than doing a stretch, a question to test, you just kind of stare at them. Like this, like, do you? Are you actually saying that the answer? Do you really think that? Sometimes you can actually say that you’d like so that you go in with three as the final answer. And then it like, you know, if they really understand, then they’ll be like, Yeah, I do. And obviously, also the culture in the room. If you build this up over time, and they come to expect sometimes you’re going to try to trick them, and they’ll stick to their guns a little bit. But if they’re if they’re not convinced, even with the culture in the room, they know that sometimes I’ll do this. In that moment, they’re so unsure of themselves, because they don’t understand fully. They’ll say, oh, no, actually, that’s not mine. I always just thought that that was that was wrong. Let me have another go. And then. So just just sort of like staring at them or repeating their answer, I think is a really powerful tool, because you see if they really if they really, really competent in what they’re talking about.
Craig Barton 1:17:48
This is fascinating. So a couple of things on this. I am intrigued, just generally about the role that mistakes play, kind of students identifying and explaining mistakes in learning and so on. And my limited. My limited reading on it and from research and I’ve spoken to Michael Persian about this is that obviously, common sense says it’s really important for kids to be able to articulate why something’s wrong, as much as it is just to be able to regurgitate right things all the time. But as you said at the start, they’ve got to attain, have attained some kind of understanding or fluency of the right way to do it before we start introducing the kind of the wrong ways and getting them to comment. But what I love about what you do there, and I genuinely do love this is what I tend to see in lessons and I’ve done this myself many times, is the only time I’ll ever ask a question like that is when there is a mistake. So like a kid, I’ll make a mistake. And I’ll say, oh, okay, is this right? Everybody? Do we think? And the only time I say that is when there is a mistake. So the kids like, oh, no, it’s a mistake. So they suddenly start switching on? I’ve never once thought to flip it and say is this right when it actually is right? But that is like you say, because then they’re really on their toes, right? Because then they’ve got to be thinking, well, he’s done this to me before. I don’t know which way this is going to go. And I imagine as you’ve said that this all comes down to the culture if this is something you’re doing regularly, it’s that the kids are just they must just be on their toes all the time with you something that’s what I that’s what I’m getting from this. Yeah.
Sammy Kempner 1:19:13
Yeah, they I mean, that maybe, you know, I’ll put a lot of evidence to suggest otherwise but I think yeah, I it’s a it’s a simple thing, you know, like, there are probably more important there are there are Amish I’m certain there are way more important tips that people will hear. But it’s just nice to have in your kind of in your pocket as an option with no planning needed, just to test just to test the reliability. And I think yeah, that’s why I like it because it’s just, it’s a good it’s actually a good check of confidence because when it when it comes down to when they get scared and they realise like, oh my god do I actually think this the only thing they can fall back on is their logic and like the reasoning Scotland to there. So if they, if they really understand the logic And then they should say, Yes, that is my answer. Yes. And if they don’t, then they don’t understand the rest of it enough. And so that and that’s fine. And it’s not, it’s not one of those moments where you tell them off or anything like that. But it’s a signal to you that the they saw and understood it well enough. And if the class haven’t picked up on it, you can start, sometimes the class, you know, where the cost of understood, because you can see them sign to like smirk or whatever, like just to themselves. It’s quite a funny moment. But if the rest of class is just like, honestly, they don’t realise that the answer is, as I say, it’s not. It’s not as foolproof, you’re not checking for understanding, but it is testing reliability. Other students in that situation,
Craig Barton 1:20:40
I love it. So me just one question on this. And I have a bit of a thing at the moment, and it is the most obvious thing in the world. But if you’re asking a really good question, then you don’t just want one kid to do the hard thing and you want you want everybody to benefit from that question. And this applies to lots of different things. But it seems to me that this is a real powerful thing that you want every child to be benefiting from so okay, one child has said that the answer is three. And you’ve then said to that gentleman, are you sure? Is it? Is it really three? Are you going with that? How do you ensure that the rest of the class also benefit from that thinking? And it’s not just a moment that’s just happening between you and the child? Yeah, it’s
Sammy Kempner 1:21:18
a really good question. I think a lot of I mean, always, when you specifically ask one student, there’s a danger of this happening. And it’s about how you like sometimes it can be physically just turning to the rest of the class, like just looking lightly make eye contact with them and just seem like, when you make eye contact with them, you’re implicitly saying, What do you think about this? And so, but it might also be like, sometimes if it’s, if it’s, if you’re generally not sure about whether or not they they followed it, my brother, I talked about this in your groups kind of thing. But I think you don’t need to it doesn’t need to drag out they’ll fight they’ll be engaged enough by the moment that just just because it’s not par for the course, it’s not a normal lesson, suddenly, the future suddenly soso in the show about that, that’s gonna that’s that’s anything different to the norm in a lesson is more likely to grab their attention, I think. Yeah, the transformation in their kids faces like, you can almost physically see it, even though you can’t you get when you start telling them a story about something. They say like it’s like something like jolt, like I’m so interested. And it’s a kind of similar thing to that. It’s not there’s not rigorous scientific research and whatever. But it’s, I think it’s still it’s still like, it’s fine. And it’s a handy tip.
Craig Barton 1:22:39
So having some brilliant tips. So just to clarify, sometimes, may you formalise that and it may be a case of right everybody ever think on your own just sit down on your whiteboards discuss. But more often than not, you get the sense that that local and the moment itself or B.
Sammy Kempner 1:22:53
Yeah, I mean, with the one with the one way that I could kind of dramatised this is the way you look at the short like that, in that Yeah, but if there’s the mistake that a student is left on the like, you’ve just written down their mistake on the board, and you’ve tried to play it really cool, not change anything about yourself. And like, if only a few hands go up, after a while, sometimes you go well beyond with it, and the like, I’ve got to stop here because no one’s for the hand up. Yes. And I’m asking myself what we’re doing here, you turn into a big learning point you go like, right, there’s a mistake on the board, put your hand up when you spotted the mistake. And you know, in a similar you know, this is a really good one you know, and I was saying them if you’re doing like try and get in spot a pattern, you don’t want someone to tell them. Same for spotting a mistake. I think if mistakes on the board are really nice thing to do is just in silence look at the board. And when you think about them, say put your hand up and then you get engaged in the class who thinks there’s find a mistake, but then also they’ve got the space to think about it and process it. And if and if if some of them are the hands up away, you can be like write it down and put down what you think this mistake is, or whatever right don’t ride on it, you know? So I think that in those moments, you can really turn it into a big event in the lesson. So the less pantomime moments like that then then you can
Craig Barton 1:24:09
is brilliant some of those brilliant well they are five absolutely fantastic tips and I’ll hand over to you you were saying off Mike before we recorded you don’t have a book out or anything like that. Do you have anything to plug here Sammy? What’s your listeners check out if you want to want to either learn more about you or the school or is there anything else you want to direct anybody to check out?
Sammy Kempner 1:24:30
Yeah, not not loads to be honest. I mean, you mentioned it out like there was a podcast I did with them Ollie which like I wasn’t I wasn’t gonna say it’s just a bit embarrassing really just like saying like, go and listen to this thing that I was in but if you actually like, if you like to hear me just talk about like, like, rambling on about stuff that I do in my lessons. I did that podcast with Ollie, which is the our podcast, which is pretty much I think you invited me on this and And so like, apart from that, no. Obviously loads of people know loads more stuff about all like all teaching than I do. And I know that half of them have been guests on your show so or will be so. Yeah. Not really
Craig Barton 1:25:16
well, I’ll tell you what Sunday as I sent you off Mike and I put on Twitter it was that that conversation was all Lee was the best podcast I heard in 2021. And all I do in my life is listen to podcasts. So it was absolutely brilliant. And this again, will be so well received. It’s just been jam packed full of absolute gold. So I’m sorry. It’s been an absolute pleasure speaking to you. Thank you so much. Cheers. Cheers.
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