5 reasons hands go up at the start of independent practice... and what to do about it
Addressing the all too familiar shaky start to independent practice
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Here is something I see all the time when I observe lessons. The teacher sets their students off on independent work, and immediately, several hands shoot into the air.
There are five reasons this happens:
Students were not listening during the I Do
The explanation during the I Do was unclear
The teacher did not adequately check for understanding during the We Do
The activity does not match the content of the We Do
Students have not listened to the instructions
Once you have diagnosed the issue, each of these is solvable. Let’s take them in turn.
Students were not listening during the I Do
The solution here is to check for listening during the I Do. Doing so does two things: it gives you data on which students are paying attention and which are not, and because you are actively checking for listening and holding those students who are not listening to account, more students will be listening. You can read about checking for listening here.
The explanation during the I Do was unclear
Often, the first time teachers have thought about how they will explain something is when they are live in the classroom with 30 expectant faces looking at them. Little wonder what comes out of their mouths is not optimal. The solution is to plan your explanation to ensure it is clear and concise. I offer some research-backed guidance here about things to avoid in your explanations.
The teacher did not adequately check for understanding during the We Do
If we ask for volunteers or rely on a few Cold Calls to check for understanding during the We Do, we risk making assumptions about the class’ understanding based on the responses of one or two students. The solution is to use mini-whiteboards during the We Do to elicit responses from all students, giving us a more reliable check for understanding. I recommend the Step-by-Step approach that I discuss here to increase the likelihood of diagnosing any issues
The activity does not match the content of the We Do
Students may be able to get the We Do question correct, but when they look at Question 1 of the activity, their confidence evaporates as it looks nothing like what they have just done. There are two solutions here. The first is to be more careful in your choice of tasks - I write about some of my favourite Consolidation activities here. The second solution is to ask not one, but a sequence of We Dos to gather as much data as possible, and prepare students to tackle a wider variety of questions. I write about asking sequences of We Dos here.
Students have not listened to the instructions
The first four issues concern a lack of student knowledge. The final one concerns students not paying attention when we are describing the activity we want them to complete. To fix this, we can improve how we give instructions to our students, using strategies such as ensuring we are not doing anything else simultaneously, checking for listening and - my favourite - using the “instruction sandwich”. I write about giving instructions here.
Doing these things should reduce the number of hands raised as soon as you assign your students an independent practice task.
Is this a problem you regularly encounter?
What do you agree with, and what have I missed?
Let me know in the comments below!
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Thanks so much for reading and have a great week!
Craig