I’ve been asked to give some CPD to a science department within our Trust. The focus is on using booklets as the department are somewhat unsure on how to use them. The four main concerns that were outlined to me by the director of science are:
- we can only do what the book says
- literacy is so low that we should not follow booklet route at all
- students will not remember content from earlier topics so interleaving cannot work
- it encourages teachers to be lazy or removes them from the planning cycle
Let’s address them one by one:
- we can only do what the book says
If you had a textbook that you were using to aid your teaching, would you stick solely to that? I hope the answer is no. You would use your wider knowledge and understanding to further educate your students. You would use models and examples to help contextualise and consolidate the learning. You would discuss and question the content to support, assess and challenge your students. The booklet should be no different.
Booklets are useful for many reasons, as I’ll write in a different post. However, one of these benefits is consistency throughout the department and providing “a minimum guarantee” – a term used in this blog. The key word here is “minimum”. If you have ways to add value to the lesson, use them.
2. literacy is so low that we should not follow booklet route at all
If you weren’t very good at something and wanted to get better, would you do less of it? Again, hopefully the answer is no. If I wanted to get better at football, I can guarantee that I wouldn’t get better by not playing football. The same is true for reading. If students’ literacy is low, the worst thing to do is to remove opportunities for them to practice reading. This is not to say that you should give them complicated texts and expect them to read and understand it all. Support the reading. Read with them following the text. Ask them to read sections aloud. Define new words. Help them pronounce complicated words. Break words down to explain meaning.
Reading is the more important skill students can learn. Teaching students content without the ability to read must be difficult and is almost setting them up to fail. In the exams (and I know education is far more than just passing exams), the students will be expected to read questions before applying their knowledge and understanding. If they cannot read and understand the question, they won’t be able to show off all that they know.
3. students will not remember content from earlier topics so interleaving cannot work
If you’re taking this attitude towards what you are teaching, you may want to question what the point is. Thinking again about exams, the GCSEs are not purely examining the last topic you taught. They are potentially examining all of the content and skills dictated by the specification.
Yes, interleaving from previous topics may be more difficult for others, but it is necessary. Like with practicing reading, interleaving takes practice. If you teach something at the start of KS4 (whether that is Year 9 or 10) and don’t return to it, would you expect the students to be able to remember it come May or June of Year 11? I certainly know that if I don’t use things that I learn regularly, they fall from my memory very quickly. However, the more I use them, the more I remember them. The more I remember them, the more I can apply them. The more apply them, the more confident I get with using them.
A small brag now… I can tie my own shoelaces with my eyes closed. I know what you’re thinking – why aren’t I using this skill to make my millions? I’d rather spent my time passing on this skill to others. The skill I’m talking about isn’t tying my laces blind. The skill is to stick at something and to practice lots. I didn’t learn to tie my laces as a child and then not do it ever again. I’ve tied them thousands of times.
By returning to content previously taught, you’re helping your students to stop compartmentalising content. It’s easy to fall into the trap of learning something, completing an end of topic test and then moving onto a new topic. I’ve been there and done it. However, as explained above, that doesn’t help with exams. It also doesn’t help with future learning. A lot of content is applicable across topics. For example, energy is a common theme in Physics. Yes, there is a topic called “Energy” but energy as a concept comes up in Electricity, Particles, Waves, Forces, etc. It comes up time and time again. This is perhaps an easy example, but I’m sure the same is true for other topics and other subjects.
4. it encourages teachers to be lazy or removes them from the planning cycle
Who doesn’t want to work less for the same or better results?
I’ve found that using booklets makes my planning time more efficient. I will write another post on how I plan my lessons when using booklets, but to summarise, using booklets helps me plan questioning, pre-empt misconceptions, think about useful examples and so on. Planning still needs to be done, but more of my focus is on the teaching of a good lesson than searching online for questions or creating PowerPoint presentations.
I’m sure these four concerns are not the only concerns people have about using booklets, so there may be future blogs to address additional issues. Using booklets is not a panacea. I’ve found using booklets useful, but they are not perfect. More on this in another blog.
Dan Griffiths - Teacher 