New ways to engage your more able boys who are underachieving: ensure they strive for the top grades and successfully change their attitudes and work ethic to avoid ‘corner cutting’

Ruth Powley www.lovelearningideas.com

Change attitudes with ‘powerful data’

1. Use standardised scores

2. Use a Tracker to incentivise students...

3... and track completion of revision timetables etc.

4. Focus students on their progress... Each of you is given a colour...

5... ensure that they engage with their performance...

... and engage with their grades...

6. Use war boards

7. Teach students about the illusion of fluency and over-learning Over-learn by 20% to avoid the illusion of fluency

Change work ethic with focus on the actual not the intention

8. Insist on knowledge organisers Students who organise knowledge into a mental model show an advantage in learning Brown et al. Make it Stick

9. Build re-learning into curriculum planning Students should practice until knowledge is correctly recalled once... ...and have three relearning sessions Rawson and Dunlosky Improving Students’ Learning With Effective Learning Techniques: Promising Directions From Cognitive and Educational Psychology

10. Drill students in exam technique

11. Use book polishing and folder checks to insist on high standards of presentation

12. Use targeted progress reports

13. Use Scholarship Forms

14. Use learning contracts

15. Use parental guidance work packs

16. Provide more exam practice with Exam Thursdays

17. Use exam observations

18. Consider summer progress schools

Avoid ‘corner cutting’

19. Insist on high quality oracy Say it better Say it longer https://teacherhead.com/2014/10/24/10-silver-arrows-ideas-to-penetrate-the-armour-of-ingrained-practice/

20. Quotes by Rote

21. Ensure that students understand the cognitive science behind learning

22. Teach them about the Spacing Effect We have known about the Spacing Effect since 1885 and it is one of the most reliable findings in research on human learning

23. Ensure that students know how to plan revision scientifically based on the spacing effect In general, the best spacing gap is 10% - 20% of the test delay For a test in 10 months time, space your revision every 1-2 months

24. Teach them about the Testing Effect

Study versus testing Test-Enhanced Learning: Taking Memory Tests Improves Long-Term Retention, Roediger and Karpicke Study Test

25. Ensure that there learning plan contains plenty of testing: the size of the testing effect increases with the number of tests done When is practice testing most effective? Repeated tests followed by spaced restudy  Feedback on mistakes Retrieval from long-term memory rather than recognition-based tests (e.g. multiple- choice questions) 

26. Plan group retrieval opportunities Re-exposure This re-exposes you to knowledge you might not have remembered yourself Cross-cuing The knowledge that others recall might trigger extra recall for you

27. Don’t let them do what doesn’t work very well...

28. Tackle over-highlighting Highlighting creates the illusion of fluency

29. Tackle re-reading work as revision Re-reading work creates the illusion of fluency. Generating knowledge is more memorable than reading it.

30. Tackle cramming Cramming for just a few days before the exam leads to higher scores on immediate tests... ... but results in faster forgetting than spaced learning. This makes it particularly dangerous for mock exams. Find out more on why cramming doesn’t work