We have been on a long (ish) journey of planning for next year. We have been thinking about how to move things online. I love Puentedura's SAMR model as a starting point. I like where we are, the posts I am seeing on Twitter, I like the buzz. Things are looking good. But there are still some things that we cannot replicate. That thing where only a pen and paper will do...oh yes writing answers to maths questions. Well writing answers to any questions. Until exams move away from being a paper based exercise we need to practise the skills required regularly. And actually if I am honest when I am planning I like a pen and paper first, sure a Jamboard, a Padlet, a Wakelet all help but initially I like a scrap of paper and a pen. Recently I have been doing some design thinking as part of my Google Innovator programme. This got me thinking about the importance of sketching out initial ideas. Design thinking is a process and whilst it isn't appropriate to adapt it as a one size fits all, there are some elements that I would love to pop into my teaching in this new normal.
The power of creating a visual representation of your idea is huge and the introduction piece explains the science behind it. Ultimately your brain likes it better when you draw out your ideas as a picture. My brain likes lots of things as a picture, I am not a 'visual' learner (we can debate the relevance and significance of these theories another time!) I don't sketchnote. I am terrible at drawing. This isn't the point. The point is my brain accesses an image quicker, retains it easier. Your brain may be different but I look at my kids and I see they like a picture too.
I am forever at a loss as to how to best support learners with answering those open ended problem solving question in maths. For those of you who are not maths people I apologise for any traumatic flashbacks you may now be having about two trains leaving and travelling at different speeds and having to calculate which will arrive first. But these questions are in a lot of subjects. In Science the 6 mark questions that require a structured planned answer to access all the marks. In English the paper 1 question 4 that needs a planned structured response. In functional skills maths the planning a day timetable questions. These are just the subjects that came to mind as I was writing this. I am sure there are more. The scenario I am talking about here is the question that requires a well thought out structured answer and there is no obvious start point for students to grab on to.
In maths these are called problem solving questions. They are scattered all over the place, low grades ones, high grades ones, calculator and non-calculator. Students very often plough straight in and muddle their way through. In my experience often on the wrong track and if they had taken a moment to pause they could have done better. If you recognise this in your teaching and your subject, phew I am glad I am not the only one! Years ago I was on a learning differences course from the Friday Institute MOOC and came across SLED, which I have blogged about here on WhatTheTrig. Looking at the new normal and how we are going to approach this digitally I began playing about and came up with SHED.
Sketch
Highlight
Estimate
Discuss
Imagine you don't know where to start with an answer to a question, can you sketch out a quick picture of what the question is asking? Can you sketch a quick plan of what is needed? Can you draw the people involved to connect with them?
Can you highlight the key information in the text? Can you extract key points?
Can you estimate an answer? Roughly speaking what is the answer they are looking for? What would be a good guess?
Can you discuss with your peer and see what they thought and maybe through collaboration finalise your answer?
This draws on a few pedagogical bits for me. The power of collaboration is HUGE. I like this as a piece on collaboration. More importantly than listening to me, all we need do is look across the pond to teachers in the USA who have been preparing students with 21st century digital skills for some time and collaboration is one of the C's. The 4Cs are huge. We have 6 where we work, some places have 5, but the core 4 never change. At Driving Digital we are huge fans of these skills. We have a new course coming on them soon, an intro here.
The 4Cs are not going away, they have been around for ages and they will be relevant for some time to come. I have blogged the need for teachers to model them before delivering them here before. Let's take a moment though, who wouldn't want a learner who could communicate well, be creative, collaborate with others and critically think through problems. Believe them to be gimicky or not but they are skills that I am happy to help my learners develop.
So SHED then, sketch = creativity, highlight = critically think and reflect, estimate = communicate, discuss = collaborate. I think it is a nice easy way to embed these skills to be delivered in my GCSE maths classroom. Take this question:
Typical GCSE problem solving question. I can sketch some money bags and some coins, I can highlight the different and same and twice. I can roughly guess an answer and then I can talk to my partner. Except I am remote learning and I am sat at my kitchen table on my own. So I played a bit more and moved the SHED (enjoying the imagery too much, apologies!) into Google Slides. For clarity I am a Google Innovator and Certified Trainer so Google is what I know, if you can apply this to your preferred platform, brilliant and thank you!
I am hoping that by sketching out the plan, students will travel along a path and realise if they are on the right or wrong one and change course if needed. If they are on the wrong track I am hopeful that through discussion and collaboration they can regroup. And the power of estimation is huge. Roughly what is the answer, does your idea, plan or method lead towards that rough estimate? No then you maybe need to look again. I am hoping to develop those critical thinking skills that encourage reflection, adaptation and change. Which should lead students to a stronger, more secure answer than just diving straight in.
Here is a little look at it in action:
I have made a variety of subjects available as templates here maths, English, Science and I will add more as we go on. You are welcome to use them. If they are of use please let us know on twitter, we love to see things in the classroom being used. We do this because we love helping teachers adapt to the new way of working. Looking at the SAMR model, SHED moves from that substitution to modification, you may even be able to look at SHED and augment your tasks, the possibilities are endless! SJ
