Teaching can be really overwhelming at times, especially in a subject that has a large amount of content. We have all felt that panic to get content covered and leave time to support students in revision and, post-pandemic, there is even more confusion than ever as to what content was covered in enough depth and what needs revisiting.
Science is a subject whereby the content and national curriculum is heavy. With three complex subjects rolled into one, we work on a rotation between topics, teaching new knowledge whilst trying to ensure previous learning is retrieved and consolidated, as well as trying to make links to strengthen understanding.
As part of my PED team focus for this year, I have been looking at ways in which students can be supported in their learning through sequencing and distributed practice.
As part of the EEF ‘Improving Secondary Science’ report, one of the key recommendations was linked to memory and supporting students to retain and retrieve knowledge. This is applicable to all our subjects and the content we are teaching students, preparing them to sit the exam but also to leave us with a solid knowledge and understanding of the world around them – we want them to remember. Through our CPL input and collaboration, we understand the important of both working memory and long-term memory in learning. We need our students to ‘think’ but we also need them to ‘store’, all without becoming overwhelmed and experiencing cognitive overload. (EEF, 27.10.21)
When teaching large amounts of content, supporting students to recall and remember can be supported by structuring tasks and carefully selecting new information delivered in one go. We can also consider opportunities to continue to revisit knowledge and build on student’s long-term memory which can be achieved through regular, routine retrieval practice and revisiting knowledge. We can also encourage students to elaborate on their learning.
The EEF report summarises key research and there were some really interesting points which made me consider carefully some of the ways we can support their learning in Science:
Split Attention
Split attention arises when students have to refer to multiple sources to complete a task. A common example in Science would be labelling diagrams whereby we may label structures with letters and then provide a key which gives the structure name next to each letter. In order to access this, students have to continually move their attention from the key to the diagram whilst trying to link the structure and its name. (Torrance Jenkins, 2017)
Spaced Review and Retrieval Practice
Distributing content and ensuring students have opportunities to revisit a topic which can include planned time to review learning. This can vary from revisiting last lesson but also pausing to review learning each half term or each term. (Karpicke, 2008)
Elaborate on Learning
Providing students with opportunities to describe and explain in detail what they have learnt. We can do this through questioning and prompting ‘why’ and ‘how’ and encouraging students to come up with the answers themselves as oppose to just being given the answers or told them. (Bennett, 2010)
In Science, I am looking at some ways we can incorporate these strategies, starting with the spaced review and retrieval practice. In the longer term, we are exploring what we can do with the way we sequence content to better support the learning but this would be something we would need more time to consider and implement.
In the short term, we have introduced retrieval practice homeworks in Year 10 and Year 11 which are focused on exam question practice. These are set weekly, by the same teacher, on the same day and collected the following week. Students mark these questions with their teacher and the topics chosen draw on topics taught more recently or a long time ago. We ensure to cover all three subjects and a range of topics. Feedback from some recent student voice has shown that this approach to homework has increased student confidence and they actually like it. Homework was a very effective way of bringing in distributed practice and retrieval and the time was taken by homework, not class teaching time. We have also found that it has supported students in their independent study and modelled to them how they can use exam practice to retrieve knowledge as part of the revision they do at home. Students have reported feeling more confident in their understanding of how to revise effectively at home.
In subjects with so much content, it can be really tricky to navigate the challenges of getting everything covered without compromising the learning. It is something we all probably know a lot more about how to manage then we give ourselves credit for, but the implementation and planning involved in approaching it can seem daunting. It is worth exploring some of the ways in which we can help students manage content that won’t necessarily be anything revolutionary and we may be surprised by the impact they can have.
Jess Gillespie, Science
Heathfield Teach Share Blog 