Teach Secondary - Issue 13.2

they’re used as punishments . Framing can therefore be our enemy, but it can also be our friend. It will operate regardless, but we canmake it either work for us or against us. The economist and Nobel Laureate, Richard Thaler, and Harvard Law School professor, Cass Sunstein, were the originators of Nudge Theory – the idea that by shaping an environment, you can influence the choices people will make. Not via heavy-handed, oppressive control, but rather by ‘nudging’ people in the direction you want them to go, through themanipulation of ‘choice architecture’. Make it really, really easy for people to do the thing you want them to do, and make it really, really difficult for them to do the thing you don’t want them to do. And then let them choose. Subtlewording Framing can be very subtle, to the point where students may not even notice you’re doing it. Even another teacher observing your lessonmay be none the wiser. What you’re doing is using framing to shape the school environment and nudge your students towards ultimately positive, as opposed to negative outcomes. For example – you cold-call a student with a question, and they reply with “ Dunno. ” Do we frame this as them simply not knowing and then move on? Or do we instead verbally imply that they’re not ready yet to give us an answer, and will thus return to them shortly for another chance, once they’ve had a little more thinking time? Someone hasn’t completed some homework. We could frame this as, ‘ That means you have to come back here at break time and do it. ’ Or, we could go with ‘ I’m going to help you catch that up here with me at break today. ’ The wording is subtly different, so much so that it’s barely noticeable, but alterations like this, repeated across the thousands of typically brief interactions teachers have with their students each day, can determine the framing for your own specific culture of ‘ The way we do things round here ’. Helping ourselves Framing can also be a way to address attitudes, as well as behaviours. What’s the opposite of someone who loves maths? The obvious answer might be ‘someone who hates maths’ – but how can we frame this differently?What about, ‘Someone who doesn’t yet love maths’, or ‘Someone who needs to help to see why maths could become a subject they love’? These framings both assume some degree of malleability, rather than fixedness, in attitudes that will leave room for growth. Different framings can even help us teachers to do better ourselves. Someone once advised me of what to do when you forget a student’s name. The natural thing is to say, “ Sorry, I’ve forgotten your name... ” but that’s something of a dead end. The student tells you their name again, and you try once more to remember it. The better advice is to instead say, “ Sorry, I’m trying to remember your name. ” It’s surprising how often just this little switch, and the extra time it provides, can genuinely help me to remember the name, when I’mnot telling myself that it’s irretrievably ‘forgotten’. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Colin Foster (@colinfoster77) is a Reader in Mathematics Education in the Department of Mathematics Education at Loughborough University, and has written many books and articles for teachers; find out more at foster77.co.uk 53 teachwire.net/secondary P E D A G O G Y