complete the task.’ This keeps learners focused and provides a challenge. Allowing too much time for tasks breeds boredom and encourages disengagement.
• When you’re ‘teaching from the front’, make sure your pace is appropriate to your learners’ note-taking skills (or lack of them). If they’re noting things down from PowerPoint, avoid clicking through it at the speed of a demented Morse code operator, otherwise your learners will retain very little.
Presentation • Always respond positively to learners who volunteer answers to your questions. You can find ways to praise them for having a go even if their answer is wrong. Discouragement and a sense of failure or embarrassment are detrimental to the retention of learning.
• Arrange the seating in your classroom or workshop in a way that allows you to make eye contact with all the learners. This will enable you to spot if someone is ‘drifting off’ or needs extra help or explanation.
• If this isn’t possible – because of fixed benches, Health and Safety or the caretaker’s rules – make sure you move around the teaching space so that you’re able to observe everyone and they can stop and question you if they need to.
Variety • Incorporate as wide a range as possible of teaching and learning strategies into your lesson planning. Challenge yourself to extend your range if necessary. It’s important that learners don’t switch off because the pattern of your lessons and activities has become predictable and boring. If they do switch off, they’ll retain very little.
• Consider your range of resources. How interesting/varied/appropriate are they?
What if – after all that – the learning hasn’t ‘stuck’? If your formative assessment strategies suggest that there’s a problem with retention of learning, you might find it useful to invite learner feedback as part of your reflection, evaluation and re- planning process. Here, for example, is a simple seven-point list of questions to which learners can respond with a straightforward ‘yes’ or ‘no’. 1. The introduction to the lesson gained and held my attention. Yes/No
2. The introduction told me clearly what the lesson was going to be about. Yes/No
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3. The introduction told me what would be expected of me in the lesson. Yes/No
4. I felt comfortable taking an active part in the lesson. Yes/No
5. The teacher asked questions and responded to answers in a way that made me feel comfortable about answering. Yes/No
6. I found the lesson interesting. Yes/No 7. The lesson provided enough information for me to begin my assignment. Yes/No If you’re collecting ongoing feedback, keep it brief and keep it simple. The last thing you want is for learners to see it as an extra – and possibly punitive – assignment. Learner feedback on what helps them to retain and recall what they’ve learnt, and what does not, will be helpful to you, even if responses turn out more negative than you would have hoped – it may provide useful data upon which you’ll be able to draw as you review and revise your lesson planning. Hopefully the responses you’ll get will not be so disappointing that you’ll want to throw your spaghetti at the wall.
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