Teach Secondary Issue 13.4

for performing any one-to-one teaching. But the benefit of looking for deeper, underlying difficulties is that you’ll generally come across far fewer of them. On the surface, it can seem as if every student has their hand up in relation to a different specific issue. Looked at from a different perspective, however, you may well find that really, there are only two or three different fundamental misunderstandings buried beneath the surface, serving as the root cause of almost all these problems. If the teacher finds the time to identify what these common difficulties might be, and then addresses them in small groups, or perhaps with the whole class, then considerably more progress might be made. Smarter, not harder Teachers can often be found rushing round their classrooms, travelling from ‘hand up’ to hand up’, overwhelmed with the sheer number of requests for help; desperately trying to manage behaviour, while also attending to students’ innumerable questions. This can be exhausting and stressful for everyone. The teacher wishes they had another pair of hands to help them, or even that they could speak more quickly, so that they could assist more students in the same time. It can feel like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic while the ship is going down, instead of doing something about that iceberg. So instead, let’s start asking what lies behind those questions that are being asked. What do these questions seem to have in common? In what ways are these seemingly different questions in some sense the same? If there were some underlying factor responsible for 90% of these questions being asked, what might it be? Maybe a crucially important, yet missing piece of knowledge? A connection between two things that hasn’t been made sufficiently explicit? Or perhaps a fundamental misunderstanding that’s caused students to get the wrong end of the stick? Or, might it have something to do with students’ approach to studying – such as failing to ‘Ask three (peers) before you ask me’?Whatever it may be, focusing on those deeper issues will be much more efficient than dealing with numerous immediate and salient questions as they present themselves. 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 then, there’s a good chance that all the tutor ends up doing is diagnosing and ‘fixing’ the same superficial issues, rather than daring to dig deeper. Common difficulties How can a busy teacher with 30 students in their classroom painstakingly address 30 different sets of difficulties? Is this approach not, to state the obvious, completely unfeasible? Indeed, in a typical classroom the teacher will have extremely limited time DIVE DEEPER Embark on your own journey below the the surface of your students’ questions with these 6 practical strategies... Avoid feeling that you must immediately answer the question posed. Pause and consider whether there might be a ‘question behind the question’. Attempt a quick ‘root cause analysis’ on the student’s question.What might cause a student to be asking that question at this moment? Look for commonalities across superficially different questions that students are asking.What do these questions have in common? Consider addressing these common issues in groups or with the whole class, rather than individually. Develop a culture whereby students check in books and with peers before asking you. Turn common or similar questions into whole- class activities for all students to think about. 69 teachwire.net/secondary P E D A G O G Y