Teaching Hacks – A Sneak Peak (Dave Tushingham)

Writing is hard! Public writing is scary! As a trained secondary maths teacher, I have gone through the ‘discovery learning’ process for learning how to write and I’m very aware of the shortcomings of the work I share. For example, in the chapter I talk about teaching metacognitive processes explicitly; what I actually mean is that I teach processes such as self-quizzing explicitly where metacognitive thinking is easier to model and practice. As Mary Myatt once said to us prior to Rhiannon Rainbow and I publishing The Edu-Book Club, it is the responsibility of the writer to convey the intended message as succinctly as possible, doing the ‘heavy lifting’ for the reader. In Tom Bennett’s Running the Room he talks about the quality of a good script being “As short as possible (but no shorter)” (Bennett, 2020). There’s a long way to go until I’ll be truly happy with the chapter, in truth, I probably never will be! 

So why have I written this piece? A wise person once taught me that we all have something to learn and something to teach. I take this thinking into every conversation and piece of work I do. The ambition of the chapter is two-fold. By writing this chapter, I want to learn. I hope that people warmly feedback alternative ways of thinking. The more examples (and non-examples) I understand, the more likely I am to successfully put together atomised knowledge on the topic of metacognition. I hope that, by writing this chapter, my thinking is refined, meaning that the students I serve have a better chance of success. But I also believe that, by sharing the chapter, others will learn something too. I offer examples for how to support our students’ metacognitive thinking. Readers might find something to take away and try in their own classrooms. They may disagree with them and it may offer thoughts on what not to do. It might simply encourage readers to further explore pedagogical ideas.

The piece is a topical one, post COVID, thinking about how we support those who we are teaching online. The core message of the chapter is simple; although some of the practices may look different, the underlying science of learning remains constant. It looks at how you might adapt the explicit teaching of metacognitive practices for an online classroom. Revision techniques such as self quizzing lend themselves nicely to modelling the metacognitive thoughts we want our students to have. By teaching these revision techniques explicitly at first, narrating within them our metacognitive thinking, and then teaching how to use the revision techniques within the subjects they study, we help strengthen our students’ metacognitive processes.  I consider revision techniques, such as self-quizzing, and how we might teach these techniques explicitly (Howell, 2022). How we reduce scaffolding over time so that our students become experts in the self-quizzing technique. The pedagogical techniques I use online to teach these revision strategies are largely the same as what I use in the classroom. I model a process using an I do, We do, You do model. I use colour to make links between concepts. I narrate misconceptions. But there are differences too. I Cold Call (Lemov, 2015). But there are differences too. For example, students need to be taught the processes and expectations when unmuting. Good habits need building. The culture needs to be right for success. Using the power of non-examples, I talk about what metacognition is not. Most importantly, it is not a fad. And it doesn’t look exactly the same in every subject either. The process of self-quizzing is taught explicitly in a tutor programme before being retaught and used subject specifically. Over time students become experts in the skill and are able to self-quiz independently across subjects. 

By writing my thoughts down and sharing them, by reflecting so deeply, I believe that I have become a better practitioner (and a slightly better writer), and I am truly grateful for the opportunities. For anyone thinking of writing their reflections down on paper, I say go for it! Connect, learn and grow with amazing thinkers like Nathan! I am looking forward to learning from the other writers in the book, I can’t wait to read it. There’s so much more to learn and we’re all learning together!