Could less be more?

It seems obvious to state that the aim of teaching is that students will learn, but this statement is deceptively simple. What is learning? Is it different in different contexts (e.g. phases, subjects)? How do we know learning has happened? My aim in this blog is not to answer these questions, but to explore something of what they might mean and their implications in the context of the education system in which we operate. I’m thinking and writing as a science teacher in England. I’m sure others (science specialists or otherwise) may come to different conclusions. If so, I’d love to know what you think as this is very much an exploration of ideas I’m thinking about.

What do I mean by our educational context? Multiple things influence what we do in schools, but I feel there are two drivers which particularly influence our practice at present. I do not comment on these to make judgements about them per se – they are what they are. But to consider how they might be influencing decisions about what goes on in classrooms, and whether these are really the decisions we want to be taking:

1. A national culture of high-stakes accountability means that the decisions we make are frequently coloured by what we believe will enable students to achieve the best exam results, primarily because this is what they need to open doors in their futures, but also because it’s what we need, as schools, held accountable for our success, or otherwise.
2. Evidence informed practice. Something which was not mentioned when I trained 10 years ago, but which is now a central theme in much of what we do. Things like Cognitive Load Theory, the importance of retrieval practice, the rise of the knowledge rich curriculum.

Both of these have shaped my own practice. The first, throughout my career, the second, more recently (the last 3-4 years). Even more recently, I’ve started to question whether they have led to unintended consequences in my own classroom, even when my intentions have been good.

I begin by asking a question which I have often asked. What do we want students to know or be able to do? This was the question I asked when starting to revamp the KS3 curriculum in my department. It’s a good starting point. I have frequently seen this answered, and answered it myself, by setting out a list of questions which I want students to be able to answer.

I use, and will continue to use, such lists in my teaching. I think they’re a really useful way of setting out basic knowledge to share with students. They can support students in learning, parents can help students at home, through quizzing. But recalling these is not sufficient. I don’t know of anyone who would say that it is. But I wonder if we can sometimes act as though that’s what we think, or give our students that impression. Do we ever start to think that because we’ve set out this knowledge, and planned a sequence for teaching, then our curriculum is automatically ‘knowledge rich’? Or that the ability of students to produce correct answers to these questions is the goal of learning, and becomes a measure of the success of teaching? Has this type of thinking led to an over emphasis on retrieval for the sake of retrieval? – see Jo Castelino’s excellent blog which explores how to do retrieval thoughtfully. In setting out knowledge so precisely, we can lose sight of the bigger picture, the true goal of teaching in science (I think) – for students to understand scientific concepts and phenomena, to appreciate the scientific method, and to be able to relate their understanding of these to situations they might encounter in the real world, or to solving problems they have not come across before. I’ve never really thought that recall and recitation is the same as learning, but I think I have sometimes fallen into the trap of behaving as though it is.

This emphasis on understanding is what I worry may be being sidelined as we try to implement some of these ‘evidence informed’ practices. We can forget that they may only be effective if carefully planned, and used in specific contexts, or at particular times.

How does this tie into the high stakes accountability culture? In science, I worry that this is pushing us towards this, perhaps unintended, emphasis on rote learning. The knowledge specified in the national curriculum and exam specifications – the knowledge we are obliged to teach our students – is so broad that we get into the habit of talking about needing to “cover the content”, or “finish the course material”, as though getting through it all is the goal. Content coverage, and students being able to recall certain facts or examples, becomes our measure of success. We all know what it is to move on despite knowing that half the class have not understood something, because we still have x, y, and x, to fit in. There simply isn’t time for students to develop a deep understanding of many concepts, let alone for us to carefully check their understanding, and consolidate their learning. I would also suggest that it’s possible to achieve a good GCSE grade without having a deep understanding of many aspects of science, which serves to exacerbate the problem, and emphasise content coverage over depth of understanding.

So, if we have to cover so much, and developing deep understanding is what I think the goal should be. Is there anything we can do about this? I think there is. How often have you taught a GCSE class, only to find they do not have secure knowledge of a KS3 concept? I find this all the time. Why? Could it be because we’ve got so ingrained in this KS4 mindset of content coverage, knowledge retrieval, and preparing students for exam questions, that it seeps down into KS3? Are we actually forgetting to ever properly check whether our students understand? Do we check they have a secure grasp of the relevant prior KS2 knowledge? Or do we just assume those foundations have been laid before, and remembered? Would it, perhaps, be better if we sought to teach less, but teach it better at KS3? Teach less, but check it has really been understood? Teach less, but keep coming back to it, and checking that it has been remembered? Would teaching less, but teaching it really well, actually lay better foundations for KS4? I think it would. Would it enable us to make better use of the evidence informed practices with fidelity to the underlying research base? I think it would. Would our students end up with richer, more powerful knowledge? I think they would.

But I might be wrong, and I’d love to know what you think too.

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What made me think about this? 

In case you were wondering what got me thinking about this, I’ve been studying for a masters module on assessment and responsive teaching in which I was focussing on how I check for understanding. It has made me think a lot about whether what I was taking as evidence for understanding (correct answers to questions I asked in lessons) really was, and whether I was actually checking up on prior knowledge effectively. I kept coming back to this thought: I don’t have time to do this properly and cover all the content I need to. But perhaps I do, if I cover less content better, earlier on? I’ll try to write more about the specifics of what I’ve been doing in my classroom in future posts.

Image: Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels