My working definition of responsive teaching is that it is:
- Setting clear goals and planning learning carefully
- Identifying what students have understood and where they are struggling
- Responding, adapting our teaching to support students to do better.
Responsive teaching is a set of principles addressing six problems which are intrinsic to teaching. Below, I’ve collected the posts I wrote on the way to writing the book. The most recent posts are nearest the top under each sub-heading.
Problem 1: How can we plan a unit, when we want students to learn so much, and have so little time?
Using knowledge organisers and medium-term plans to organise the knowledge we need to teach
Writing unit plans detailing what we want students to know
Problem 2: How can we plan a lesson, when we want students to learn so much, and have so little time?
Planning lessons using cognitive load theory
What is the place of teaching for character, confidence and creativity in teaching?
Of what will it make students think (an example of the kind of thinking around planning which seems to make a difference).
Problem 3: How can we show students what success looks like?
Why sharing learning objectives doesn’t show students what success looks like
Why sharing models is the best way to show what success looks like – and two examples
Experiments helping my students write better essays,
Problem 4: How can we tell what students learned in the lesson?
The power of exit tickets in assessment and planning; encapsulating tasks and their effect on retention (2019 update)
What happened when I tried to mark every book, every lesson
Problem 5: How can we tell what students are thinking?
Do students understand this well enough to move on? Introducing hinge questions
Using hinge questions in history
Refining my construction of a hinge question
I’ve also collected examples of hinge questions from different subjects, and how they can be used here.
Problem 6: How can we help every student improve?
Choosing the ‘level’ of feedback we are offering: what kind of feedback moves students on?
When can I delay or avoid giving feedback: a decision tree based on the evidence
What alternatives are there to giving feedback?
Ensuring students respond to feedback (2019 update)
Moving from marking to feedback
If you’ve used or developed any of these ideas further, please get in touch: @hfletcherwood.
The book
The book which grew from these ideas is Responsive Teaching: Cognitive Science and Formative Assessment in Practice. It’s available from Amazon.
It’s also available in Czech (Responzivní výuka), Spanish (Enseñanza Receptiva) and Swedish (Responsiv Undervisning).
Resources
I get asked to do more professional development sessions than I have time and capacity to do. So I’ve developed a series of video sessions which capture the key principles and practices of responsive teaching.
Videos are:
- 30 minutes long
- Summarise key ideas from the evidence
- Offer practical guidance on applying the evidence
Each video comes with suggested reading, an implementation checklist and possible follow-up activities.
Videos are available on a year’s licence for schools, allowing flexibility to use them in departments, Inset days and for independent study, and for trainees and early-career teachers.
You can find out more, and login as a subscriber, here.