Videos of classrooms: Teaching as if no-one's watching

Videos of classrooms: Teaching as if no-one's watching.

Yesterday I was shown a video of a Y6 classroom working on some maths, reasoning about fractions to be precise. The extracts from the classroom were interspersed with comment from their teacher.
It was a joy to watch. The relationship between the teacher and the pupils was tangible; the pupils were (dare I use the word) engaged, there was plenty of useful and informative discussion amongst one another, the teacher listened in but didn't overpower and gave children time to work on their ideas. Surprise surprise; children answered in whole sentences (!) and paid attention to the teacher (without 'tracking'), they took responsibility for their task and their learning. There was plenty of teaching. And, shock horror, there was laughter.
It was all a Y6 maths lesson should be; content rich, enjoyable, puzzling, memorable and collaborative: building a community of mathematicians. And Mr Malyn of St Margaret's C of E Primary School taught as if no-one was watching (thank you @EnserMark for this phrase).

Now some of you might know where I am going with this.
(Deep breath) So there are plenty of videos lessons out there, in particular on the NCETM website, purporting to demonstrate 'good' maths lessons. Some of these are of teachers brought over from Singapore as part of the government's push to adopt Chinese teaching methods in mathematics to raise our position in the. PISA and TIMMS league tables. My problem with these videos that I have seen is this. This is a visiting teacher, often encountering this class once and only once. Thus the culture of the classroom and the relationships between the learners and the adult are all missing. This is not unimportant. The reliance on 'from the front' instruction and the underplay (even elimination) of talk, discussion and the role of problems to situate and add context to the learning displays a particular type of lesson. And one I have worked hard to break down over 30 years because research has shown us how ineffective this is for many learners. Importantly, it is the teacher who is doing the maths, rather than the learners. I used to ask myself at the end of a lesson "who did most of the work there?" if the answer was me - well that's not really what should be happening, is it?

My question is this. If it was fairly straightforward for this publisher to find this English Y6 class to film (and in a school that has been in and out of challenging circumstances), how difficult would it be for NCETM to video the expertise and skill around in our UK classrooms? In a situation where a visiting teacher teaches an unknown group of children it is easy to slip into 'instruction' mode (let's leave aside here considerations of cultural differences). I know this as I have taught a fair few lessons in other's classrooms over a number of years.

But I realise what this is about. It is about our current government peddling one particular approach in our primary mathematics classrooms and the NCETM being part of that push.
So let's watch these videos with a critical eye. What has it got to say to us, with what we know about our students' learning? What am I persuaded about? What am I left wondering about?
In short - let's look nearer home and remember what it is we already know about learning maths. And let's all teach like no one's watching.

This video is in the public domain and is part of the package: "No Nonsense Number Facts: Teaching for mastery: Fluency through reasoning with number facts Y1-Y6" Published by Raintree and Babcock https://www.raintree.co.uk/products/9781474749541

My academic paper

I am trying to write an academic paper. 
I have been trying to write an academic paper for two years. 
What's stopping me? (In truth, I am writing at the moment and aim to have it submitted by Christmas.) But what has been stopping me is not the writing, which I like, but the hoops I see me having to fall through to be published in a refereed journal. 
I read this in the TES at the weekend:

 "... most educational research is not written up in a way that is designed to meet teachers' needs. (...) the teacher doesn't want something generalisable. They want something for their context and their pupils." ( TES 11 November 2016, 'TES talks to Philippa Cordingley')

The interview talks about making research 'particularisable' and suggests ways we might do this when using research in CPD sessions (start with the outcomes, then tell the story of the findings and finish with the methods). Philippa Cordingley talks sense. My problem is that in order for my article to be accepted I have to not only write the other way around (method, story, findings) but generalise my language and formalise my style. But I am writing about a small case study that, I am told, is strong on detail and presents a carefully analysed case.

"Your academic writing style is probably perceived to be too informal, writing in the first person can be mis-construed as being subjective."

Hmmm, subjective. Surely in order for any of us to hear and act on anything, it has to be subjectified? I need to hear a voice. If I hear the voice I can reach a decision about what this might mean to me.

For me, a major problem with many research papers I read is that they try too hard to speak generally, and in this I am unable to see my particular; and try too hard to speak 'objectively' (whatever this means), and in this I am unable to hear a voice that might speak to me.

I'll have another go, I guess.
And I wish Philippa Cordingly would contact BERA (many other research organisations are of course available) 

Just because they can does that mean they should?

I sent the following email about the KS2 arithmetic SATs paper to some people and it was suggested I blogged about it. So here it is, as my opener as a novice blogger.

Thank you Justine Greening for calling a temporary halt to the indecent rate of change in primary assessment. However, as I ponder  the fallout from this summers' KS2 tests, I would like to share this small piece of anecdotal evidence from Ben, a Y10 pupil (15 years of age) in the "top set" for maths, reported to be working at "level 8" (?) and on target to achieve A* in maths at GCSE. He last week volunteered to sit this summer's KS2 arithmetic paper for 11 year-olds: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/524052/2016_ks2_mathematics_paper1_arithmetic_PDFA.pdf

This is Ben's feedback.
 
It took him 1 minute off the full allotted half an hour to complete the paper. He thinks he got one question wrong. He started confidently but as the paper went on he felt "quite depressed". At the end he felt "demoralised". He wondered:
1.  What was the point of asking so many questions that tested the same thing: "It's the same stuff over and over, what is the point of that?" The first few pages were particularly depressing he said and he quickly became demoralised.
2.  Why you would even need to do most of the calculations without a calculator: "It's a complete waste of time".

In terms of the Select Committee's inquiry into assessment (deadline this Friday!: https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/education-committee/news-parliament-2015/primary-assessment-launch-16-17/
And Greening's recently announced consultation on assessment in the New Year, I think the following points are pertinent.
The length of the arithmetic paper is unreasonable and contributes nothing to useful assessment. If we must have an arithmetic paper (and the question remains as to why we do, as no evidence-based answer has been put forward to support this) then it should consist of a few, well-chosen questions to assess not simply an arithmetic procedure, or something that is better done with a calculator, but the pupil's ability to reason through an answer. The current paper, by asking a pupil to repeatedly reproduce similar procedures, smacks of trying to catch an 11 year-old out. Currently the KS2 arithmetic paper tests stamina and not mathematics.
Finally, if a high-attaining Y10 pupil, who is successful at maths and intends taking this at A level, is demoralised by this paper, we must ask what it is doing to everyone else.