3-Read Friday #35

Testing, prior knowledge, and mini-whiteboards

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Here are three blog posts that I found interesting this week.

1. A proposal for saving five million hours per year (one day per teacher) of workload, without harming pupil achievement by Sam Simms

If your Senior Leadership Team has not read Sam’s latest post, print a copy and anonymously drop it on their desk. It is a rallying cry against the common practice of regular student testing which aims to track pupil progress and then target interventions. Sam demonstrates why this is largely a waste of teachers’ time.

2. Why don’t teachers check prior knowledge more often? by Adam Robbins

Like Adam, I regularly watch lessons where relevant prior knowledge is mentioned but not explicitly assessed. Often, this leads to problems when the teacher introduces a new idea built upon these foundations. Adam suggests four reasons why this happens and suggests strategies for ensuring the assessment of prior knowledge plays a central role in our lessons.

3. My England Travelogue Part 3: A Really Wonderful CFU Workshop in London by Doug Lemov

Doug makes his second appearance in two weeks! But I had to include this post as it discusses some potential drawbacks of overusing mini-whiteboards. And that is something that a mini-whiteboard evangelist like myself needs to read once in a while.

If you found this edition of 3-Read Friday useful, feel free to share it with colleagues. You can also check out all the back issues of my Eedi newsletter and Tips for Teachers newsletter here. But most importantly, have a great weekend.

Craig