Sticky Teaching and Learning

How to make your students remember what you teach them

Caroline Bentley Davies

• Publisher: Crown House Publishing
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781785835728
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

During her work as a teacher trainer and revision expert, Caroline Bentley-Davies noticed that educators are clamouring for guidance on how to help their students remember the content covered in their lessons.

In this book, Caroline answers that call by identifying the teaching techniques that contribute most effectively to long-term learning. She then sets out how to deliver content in such a way that it stays in pupils' memories for longer and leads to greater independence and better exam performance.

Underpinned by a blend of research and theory, the tried-and-tested approaches are closely tied to classroom realities that will be familiar to all teachers. She delves into the role of planning as an important foundation for achieving long-term retention and improved recall on the part of students, and also shares guidance on how to secure maximum participation - so that there are no passengers sitting on the sidelines of the lesson.

Caroline also shares a toolkit of 50 engaging, tried-and-tested strategies designed to help teachers ensure that their students remember what they teach them - and, throughout the book, she provides thinking points and actions to encourage teachers' reflections upon their own classroom practice.

Suitable for all teachers and senior leaders looking to improve their pupils' learning and attainment.

9

Chapter 1

The Sticky Classroom: Teacher Expectations and Student Mindsets

When we take people … merely as they are, we make them worse; when we treat them as if they were what they should be, we improve them as far as they can be improved.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, tr. Thomas Carlyle,
Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship and Travels

The six areas of sticky teaching

To make learning stick successfully there are six important areas that must work together effectively: teacher expectation and student mindset, planning and reviewing, classroom climate, questioning, feedback (peer and self-assessment) and teaching techniques. The wheel of sticky teaching that follows shows these six key areas.1

The wheel of sticky teaching

The bands within the circle are labelled from 1 to 5, with 5 being the zone of most effective or confident practice and 1 the zone of least proficiency. Use the wheel as a self-reflection tool to evaluate how effectively you feel you are working in each area. For example, in the classroom climate segment, a score of 5 would indicate that this area is operating brilliantly: the students are taking responsibility for developing aspects of their own learning, they 10are skilled at self-reviewing their work and they are effective independent learners. The classroom and the physical environment would also strongly support this. In contrast, a score of 1 would indicate that the students are overly dependent on the teacher and that they might resist being asked to think for themselves. The resources in the classroom to support this area would also underdeveloped.

Have a look at the wheel and think about where you might be currently for each of these areas. Of course, it isn’t the specific number that matters, but the reflection about each area that it encourages. We will be considering each of the six areas in detail, so if you feel one area is less developed than the others, then the specific chapter related to it will help you to find strategies to boost your score. Clearly, the six segments of the wheel are interconnected – learning won’t be successfully sticky if you spend all your energy on one segment to the detriment of the others. This is because they impact on each other, as we shall see when we discuss each segment of the wheel and unpick what success looks like for each individual area.

Teacher expectations for effective sticky learning

As we unpack this a little more, you will see that teacher expectation and student mindset is right at the top of the wheel. This is because both are crucial in making learning stick. Pupils take their lead from the teacher, and there are countless ways that they can tell whether or not you believe in them. Pupils can spot whether you think they will complete a task to the best of their ability – if you think they have the skills to succeed – or whether, if they push back and behave in a resistant way, you might just give in and let them off that learning activity by providing the answers for them or accepting their below par efforts. Pupils often test you. They know that if they are ‘difficult’ or reluctant, you are less likely to force them to complete challenging tasks. They know they can get away with more and this will mean an easier time for them in lessons. 11

As a teacher, the temptation to take the path of least resistance can be quite strong. The urge to just lecture pupils, to tell them what they need to do to pass the examination, can be attractive. There are fewer battles to win because we aren’t making them think for themselves. We might appear to be ‘covering’ the required curriculum much more quickly and making much faster progress across the programme of study. This is very often deceptive. It is only when the learning is reviewed or we consider assessment outcomes that we realise this learning has only been operating at a surface level. It hasn’t really stuck.

We might well have a raft of engaging teaching techniques at our fingertips, but if we don’t have high enough expectations of our pupils then the quality of the learning is doomed. High expectations are essential. Pupils need to know that we anticipate maximum achievement from them: they will be expected to be actively involved in their learning and to revisit and learn from their mistakes. All this really matters in making the quality of the learning good and making it stick.

High expectations are demonstrated by the type of tasks set by the teacher and how they are organised. Are the tasks sufficiently demanding and challenging for all pupils? There can sometimes be a tendency to give tasks with too little challenge to those with more limited ability in that area or who have special educational needs. Tasks must be tailored to the abilities of the pupils; however, all tasks need to push and challenge all pupils appropriately, even those who find the subject area difficult. They still need to be appropriately challenged and taken out of their comfort zone. All learners, regardless of their starting points, should find that the tasks stretch them and move them on with their learning so they make really good progress.

I observed a teacher who was known to achieve exceptional outcomes for pupils of all abilities. In her lessons I noticed how the language she used communicated these expectations. She urged her pupils to ‘think like geographers’. There was an almost tangible air of high expectation and excitement about what they were learning. When they were organising 12their work, she encouraged them to plan out carefully which geographical terms they would use (checking them carefully), so they were ‘writing like geographers’. Initially, I thought this was an extremely high ability class, particularly as the exemplar work she showed them was very accomplished. However, the exemplar was used to help them deconstruct and understand what was successful about it. They were encouraged to think about how to take their work to the best level possible.

This was a class with many pupils who were not of high ability and who struggled to make progress or remain motivated in other lessons. However, here they were motivated by their learning because of the teacher’s evident belief in them, combined with how carefully she set up the learning to support and challenge them. Of course, it is no good just telling students to ‘think like geographers’ if you don’t demonstrate what this would look like in practice and actually support them to help them work towards it. Their eventual outcomes were so much higher than their results in other subjects because of this approach of high expectations coupled with effective guidance and support.

It is interesting to compare this successful approach to the attitude of a maths teacher who made a telling throwaway comment to a class of borderline 4/5 GCSE pupils. Discussing the intricacies of a topic, he made a very telling remark to the class, stating: ‘Most of you should have the intelligence to get this …’ Ouch. No wonder many of these pupils were lacking in motivation and doubted their abilities. It is obvious to pupils which of their teachers believe they will be successful learners, and teach them accordingly, and which ones don’t. Pupils’ efforts and behaviour reflect and magnify the expectations of their teachers. This is borne out by the phenomenon of the Pygmalion effect: when researchers Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson told teachers that some of their pupils were very high achievers and would make incredible progress over the year, this is what happened, even though the specific pupils had in fact been selected at random.2 The combined effect of the teacher’s positive response and 13expectation of great achievement and the attention they focused on helping those ‘gifted’ pupils to achieve success was that they thrived and made exceptional progress.3 Unfortunately, the reverse is also true: if a previous class teacher tells you that a particular pupil is poorly behaved or puts in minimum effort, it is likely that you will be watching out for evidence that confirms this information. This is called the Golem effect. Starting the year and the lesson afresh and telling the class that you have high expectations of them all is a positive and practical way to set up a good learning atmosphere.

How are high expectations signalled to pupils?

As the previous examples illustrate, the language you use as a teacher is key in signalling your high expectations to pupils. Explaining that something is a ‘challenge’ but that they have the skills to master it is vastly different from telling them that they might find something ‘too hard’. The success of our communication is also deeply influenced by our tone of voice and body language. Do we sound excited and upbeat about the learning? Do we present tasks in a firm, clear and no-nonsense way so that pupils know we are purposeful and mean business? Are we crystal clear about the success criteria so pupils know what they are aiming for? By combining these areas skilfully we communicate our high expectations for our pupils.

14Student mindset: securing sticky learning

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.

Calvin Coolidge

The student mindset is equally as important as that of the teacher. It is the student who needs to master the material and become a successful learner. Of course, for students to maximise their potential and develop their skills to the highest level, it is crucial that they have the right attitude or mindset. When we talk about the need for learning to be sticky, there is an inherent challenge in it. Some students are much better at learning, regardless of the quality of the teaching. However, all students will find some aspects of a subject hard to master. For the student who does not find a subject easy or does not enjoy a topic, getting the learning to stick in their memory is a big ask, which is why the mindset of our learners is so significant.

The idea of the student mindset incorporates many of the important messages from the research into growth mindset pioneered by US academic Carol Dweck in her book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. Essentially, for students to grow and develop their skills they need to be willing to adopt a growth mindset towards their learning and interactions with others. Dweck studied different children’s responses to being faced with a difficult challenge. Those who had a growth mindset were not daunted or put off when success did not come easily. Instead, when they found something particularly hard or got things wrong, they saw this as a learning opportunity and a chance to grow and develop further. The children who thrived when they were given a challenging task to complete had a specific attitude. Rather than believing that these tasks were beyond their grasp, they rose to the challenge and, what is more, foun...

Table of contents

• Praise
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• Contents
• Introduction: What Is Sticky Teaching and Learning and Why Does It Matter?
• Chapter 1: The Sticky Classroom: Teacher Expectations and Student Mindsets
• Chapter 2: The Classroom Climate for Sticky Learning: Increasing Pupil Independence
• Chapter 3: Sticky Stages in Teaching and Learning: Sticky Planning
• Chapter 4: Planning for Reviewing Learning
• Chapter 5: A Sticky Lesson in Action
• Chapter 6: Questioning for Learning and Feedback
• Chapter 7: The Importance of Engaging with Getting Things Wrong
• Chapter 8: Feedback That Makes Learning Stick
• Chapter 9: Peer and Self-Assessment: Why It Matters
• The Toolkit: 50 Strategies to Help Your Students Remember What You Teach Them
• Chapter 10: Sticky Teaching in Practice: Active Classroom Strategies
• Chapter 11: Sticky Teaching in Practice: Plenaries
• Bibliography
• About the Author
• Copyright