Research School Network: What are they thinking about? How do we ensure our students are thinking? And more than that, how do we get them to think about the right things?


What are they thinking about?

How do we ensure our students are thinking? And more than that, how do we get them to think about the right things?

by Durrington Research School
on the

In Why don’t students like school?’, Daniel Willingham states that people are naturally curious, but we are not naturally good thinkers; unless the cognitive conditions are right, we will avoid thinking.’ And given that we understand that, as a rough rule of thumb, students will learn the things they attend to, the things that they process and that they think carefully about, it is important that we consider: how do we create the right cognitive conditions? How do we ensure our students are thinking? And more than that, how do we get them to think about the right things?

Consider the environment


The first issue in our lessons is the school environment. I’m not sure how many people will remember the talking dog from the film, Up’ but, in many ways, he reminds me of my son who, mid sentence can be distracted by the equivalent of the dog’s, Squirrel’ and be off on a different line of thought, only to drag himself back some minutes later and attempt to complete the sentence he so confidently began, back when I was following.

I assume that, for many of my students, there are aspects of classroom life that are their squirrels. One of my Year 8s got a new jacket that caused quite a stir a week or so ago. Honestly, it was worse than having a bee in the room. So, given that our environment provides a near infinite number of stimuli, how do we work to ensure that students are attending consciously to the learning points in our lessons? Well, the first, and most obvious, is to limit the possible distractors that we can control. This might mean moving clocks to the back of the classroom; it might mean thinking about your seating plan and your classroom organisation in order that students can’t see through the door and into another classroom, for example; it might mean removing bells at the end of lessons; it might mean having a specific process for a student who is entering a lesson late in order that it is done as unobtrusively as possible; it means considering the role of displays and text on the walls; and in our school, it is about ensuring silence when necessary for students to concentrate (and I mean silence, and not quiet’) and having a policy that does not allow for the use of mobile phones at any point in the school day.

Build routines


So, beyond thinking about the physical environment, how else can we free up working memory bandwidth in order to focus it on learning? In a recent tweet, Doug Lemov suggested that there are two kinds of classroom habits, both valuable. (1) ways of doing unimportant things quickly and easily with no load on working memory and no wasted time (2) ways of doing important things in a consistent manner to channel focus and attention onto content/​learning tasks’. So, it is worth considering which elements in our classroom we could build into habits. There are a number of key moments which will take place every lesson which can be automated. Procedural elements such as the quick and calm entry to a classroom, the giving out of resources, the presentation on a page, all of these can be made into consistent routines. But in order to create a routine, we must clearly script it, model and practise it in order to achieve the automaticity that it requires. The payback is that, by creating routines, we free up the working memory to allocate its attention to the learning in the class.

Reduce cognitive load


We know that our students can only attend to a limited amount of information at any one time and, when they become cognitively overloaded, they can become overwhelmed. It becomes difficult for them to think about any of it; it can cause frustration, errors or, in some students, a mental downing of tools. At this point, there is no thinking at all going on. So, as teachers, we need to consider how we can limit this possibility. So, in our explanations, we need to consider our language, removing excess complexity, and redundant information. We need to keep our instructions concise. We need to design our resources to avoid splitting the students’ attention, limiting that terrible habit that so many of us have of leaving large sections of text on display while we are also talking. We need to chunk down our explanations, give thinking and processing time, share models of a process a bit at a time rather than all at once.

Plan for ratio


So, once we have created our optimal environment for learning, reduced cognitive load and limited distractions, how do we know that students are actually thinking? I’m always drawn to Rob Coe’s poor proxies for learning because I think they are traps that we can fall into. When we see busy students who are interested and engaged in a calm and orderly classroom, we believe that thinking and learning is taking place. But, although these might be preconditions for effective learning, they are not evidence of the learning itself. Completing the task, filling in the table, copying down a model, these are all things which look like work, but don’t actually require much thinking. Planning for Ratio in the Teach Like a Champion sense is a good way to frame it. In rough terms, we need to think about how many of our students are thinking and how hard they are thinking.

So, in our classrooms, what is it that allows you to ensure that all students are given the opportunity, in fact, what is it that ensures that all students are expected to think. How do you hold them to account for this?

The first possibility is through our questioning. By really focusing on wait time and using cold call you will support an increase in think ratio. However, in order to really see the benefit of this, you will need to be clear with students that you will be calling on multiple responses, developing student understanding that you will ask them to respond to another’s answer and build on or challenge each others’ ideas.

The second is considering how we allow for processing within our explanations. By chunking down our explanations in order to reduce cognitive load, and adding in pause points, we can visually see the quality of the thinking by using an everybody writes.’ This allows us to check for understanding while we circulate. It also means that we can select the responses we want to share during a cold call. This can: normalise high expectations; share an idea to build on; or even allow for the sharing and correction of a misconception. We can also use a tightly scripted Turn and Talk’ for a similar purpose. For both to work effectively, we need to be completely clear on expectations, with a tightly focused question and clear outcomes. Both of these are techniques which can be built as effective routines thus increasing the thinking and reducing any distraction by freeing up working memory.

Finally, we can consider opportunities for all to respond. This might be through using choral response, or by using Multiple Choice questions (using a countdown and students holding up fingers for their answer), or mini whiteboards to show their thinking. All of these, when well used in line with the learning that is taking place, will hopefully allow us to ensure that all of our students are thinking about what we want them to be thinking about.

And, by considering all of these, we will hopefully remove as many squirrels as possible from all of our classrooms.

Tara McVey

CEM Conference: What makes great teaching? Robert Coe https://www.ibo.org/globalassets/events/aem/conferences/2015/robert-coe.pdf

Dan Willingham Why don’t students like school?’ https://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/periodicals/WILLINGHAM%282%29.pdf

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