Teach Secondary Issue 14.7

The A to Z of GETTING AN A Start early, engage in self-reflection, monitor your progress and don’t forget to socialise – Jose Sala Diaz presents his alphabetised guide to making revision work... A ctive’ is the first word that comes to mind when teachers ask me about revision. Here, I’ll explain what’active revision’ means to me, and how it canmake learning… B etter. Revision is a very important tool – perhaps more important than the learning itself – and intrinsically connected to behaviour and independence. There has been a big push of late to teach self-regulating techniques – from those based onmetacognition, to others like self- determination theory (autonomy, competence and relatedness) – since they’re seen as being closely linked to effective learning. And yet, as a teacher, I feel that students’ biggest problem during revision is when they’re not being… ‘Challenged’ to… ‘Gerry?’ C hallenged enough. Instead, our students are more typically spoon-fed guidance on how and when to revise. Some will go on to make beautiful colour-coded mind-maps that lack depth. Others, overwhelmed by the volume of resources available, will find a comfortable space where they can get by with repeating the same questions, or doing the bare minimum. I believe that learners should stop revising what they already know, and instead identify ‘productive struggles’. Because if anything, active revision should be… D ifficult. Unfortunately, we can’t pretend that learning is easy. After all, that’s essentially the main reason why education settings exist – to pay attention to things that are difficult but necessary. Resilience doesn’t mean removing stress, but rather learning to face it, in order to become more… E fficient. To do this, I believe learners should be continuously engaging with previous content at the same time that they’re being introduced to new material. We need to focus less onmaking amendments to the learning (‘ Uh oh – everyone did very badly in the mocks, let’s revise what went wrong… ’), and far more on the processes that take us there. We need to cultivate students’ attention with regular routines that will help themmaintain their… F ocus, since a lack of real and efficient engagement will only make our students needier than ever – as once explained to me by one of my Y11 students, G erry: “ No one has ever told me how to revise, sir – therefore, I’m not going to revise. It’s too hard .” Please – help your students fare better than Gerry. Ideally, without spending endless… ‘Hours’ to‘Knowledge’ H ours on completing homework. Students should accept that they will, indeed, spend a significant amount of their time revising outside school. Though the question of exactly howmuch revision homework your students need is ultimately one that only you, their teacher, can answer honestly. That said, youmight be able to offer some better… I deas. Everyone has differing opinions on how best to revise (‘ The Pomodoro technique is the new black! ’), but at the end of the day, teachers need to hold students accountable for the decisions that they make. Which brings us to… J ournals, and other similar tools that enable students to reflect daily on the progress they’re making, or which will encourage them to undergo an honest, self-regulating process. Some might use Google Calendar. Others might deploy Post-it notes – but please, be sure to prioritise... K nowledge, and be careful in your use of ‘quizzing apps’ and other such products that make great claims about how productive they are for learning. Let’s just briefly acknowledge themhere and move on. Because on the whole, ‘gamification’ won’t prompt students to revise what they need to, but rather what entertains them . Which will inevitably pull them away from… ‘Learning’ to‘Passive’ L earning. There shouldn’t be any division between ‘revision time’ and ‘teaching time’; both ought to combined within the same lessons. If anything, revision should start on students’ first day at secondary, and eventually form part of a long-term learning process in which their... M otivation is intrinsic (‘ Why I am doing this?’; ‘What is it that I want to achieve? ’) rather than extrinsic and reliant on rewards and points systems. The former is considerably harder to cultivate in students, but will take them much further. You want them to be satisfied with the idea of ‘productive struggle’, and to feel good about themselves enjoying said struggle – which is easy to say, I know. At the same time, we must also remember that… “Revision shouldbe embedded not at the endofY10,but fromthe start ofKS3” 34 teachwire.net/secondary