Have my pupils 'got' it?
Well hello there, and welcome to update #101!
In my post ‘I might have taught it, but have they got it?’ I argued that the fact I have taught something doesn’t necessarily mean that my pupils have learnt it.
This was particularly brought home to me when I was chatting to a pupil about what she was learning in her English lessons. We were going through some of her work and she was telling me what she was particularly pleased with.
I noticed that she had been learning about homophones a few lessons earlier.
I assumed she had learnt about them, because she had completed a worksheet which had been ticked off, with a smiley face and stuck into her book, no doubt having turned some spreadsheet green for that objective.
‘Ooh homophones’, I said, ‘those are interesting! Is there anything you’d like to tell me about homophones?’
She couldn’t tell me anything. Even though she was a high attaining pupil.
Why was this?
Well, it was because the completion of the task was more important that whether she had really learnt about homophones.
We can shift this very quickly.
In stead of saying ‘Have you finished? we might say ‘Tell me what you’ve learnt.’
It’s irrelevant whether an exercise has been completed, it only matters if the child has learnt something.
Until next time
Mary
PS I’ve done a series of short recordings on Myatt & Co on helping pupils to learn the curriculum (£/free trial) You can check them out here.
Very important point - it’s the kind of skill that we need to come back to again to solidify it.
I will say that, in my (much more limited than yours) experience, questions like ‘what can you tell me about xyz’ tend to draw poor responses a lot of the time. I wonder whether the broad openness of it means children don’t know where to start and they’re too overwhelmed to say anything. I observed an Ofsted inspector ask our students ‘tell me about the Ancient Greeks’ and they all froze. I knew they had at least some information but they couldn’t say a thing, until he reworded the question and asked about a specific element of it, at which point I breathed a sigh of relief.
Important point - this is anecdotal evidence and in no way reflective of the bigger picture of questioning and I am fully aware of that. I’m also willing to hear any other reason anyone can present as to what might hold children back from recalling information effectively or whether I’ve missed something in my point.
Love your work as always Mary!
So true! I have seen objectives be colour-coded on tracking grids and I have questioned whether green meant 'taught' or 'understood'. Two very different things.