For the start of the new school year, I am writing a blog series on all of the systems I have in place in my A-Level Economics classroom. They definitely aren’t perfect, but when I started teaching A-Level in a brand new Sixth Form, I scoured the web for articles on how to manage the practicalities of an A-Level class. I really benefitted from the wisdom of Matt Smith, Adam Boxer, and Ruth Walker, and over the last few years I have tweaked and built on these ideas to create systems from which I think (hope?!) I think my students benefit from.
I want to start with homework. As well as the standard MCQs and exam questions that I set here and there, I have several standing homework tasks that I set every week. I tend to set these on the same day each week, often scheduled in Microsoft Teams, and have them due on the same day too. These are:
· Quizlet – Each week I give students a Quizlet set with recall facts on what they have leanred that week, which is then tested the week after. Year 13 students also receive a revision set from Year 12
· Indy Hour – an hour of independent, free choice work. I give suggestions as to how students could be using this time each week, with recommendations for articles, podcasts and videos that relate to what we have learned that week.
· Class Read (Y12) – These are activities based on our whole class reading book, ‘Can’t We Just Print More Money?’
· Exam Practice (Y13) – On top of any work set based on current essay topics, I also do weekly timed exam practice, some of which students need to prepare for.
I've already written about the Quizlet routine , so this next post is about Indy Hour. Indy hour is essentially just my way of ensuring students actually remember the requirement to be doing something outside of lesson times.
I make clear to students that Indy Hour is ‘compulsory, but flexible’. Doing the work is not optional, but it’s up to them which work they choose. In order to encourage students to spend time on the sort of activities which will be most valuable to them, I generally advise their priorities should come in this order:
1.Understanding. If they don’t understand everything from lessons, they need to be going through their notes, using videos, the textbooks or other reference sources, and, if they still don’t understand, coming along to a tutorial with me, which I run on Friday after school.
2.Recall. Students are set a separate task requiring them to do at least 30 minutes of recall, but if they need to go over and above this (eg going over older material as part of revision for their mocks), then this is a good time to be doing that.
3.Practice and improvement. I’ll often suggest that students might want to edit and resubmit work or try similar questions, which is also a pretty good use of this time.
4.Independent exploration. This is wider reading/watching/listening
Each week I set a task on Teams that reminds them of these priorities along with my ‘Top picks’ for the week. This is stuff that is either relevant to what they are studying or some nice analysis of current affairs. I usually include a podcast (typically Planet Money), a video (a youtube video or a documentary or question time or something) and an article. I might also include some extra resources on whatever we have been working on that week in case they have found that bit difficult. It's easier for students to do independent work if they aren't having to hunt for it.
Students fill in an electronic form each week that has 2 questions:
How did you spend the hour?
Do you need anything from me? (tutorial? feedback? more resources? advice?)
Adding the second question was useful – it means that students have no ‘get out’ (eg at Parents Evening many years aho, I had a kid say ‘I didn’t have any MCQs to practice’ – no more!). It has also been useful for quieter students to flag if they need help.
I tried unsuccessfully to get my students to do independent work for several years. have noticed that the devil is in the detail, which is a pain because I’m not good at detail. There are a few of the factors that I’ve found essential (ie I noticed that when I haven’t done these so well, things start to fall apart).
Students have to know what they stand to gain
One tactic I’ve found quite effective is talking about what I want to be able to say on their UCAS references and what actions they need to be doing week after week for me to be able to say that. Similarly we talk about what the best UCAS statements say and what they can do now so that by next October they are where they need to be.
Students need to know exactly what is expected of them
We talk about what does and doesn’t count
I’m keen that they are detailed when they report back, partly because the info is useful but also it makes it harder to make it up! We go through this:
Instead of…. | You’ll need to write… |
Did reading | Read article on Hydrogen Cars Read 3 chapters of Economic Naturalist |
Did flashcards | Went back over flashcards on {topic from a while back] Spend an additional 30 mins on this week's quizlet because I was still struggling to remember some |
Read news | As well as checking the headlines daily, I sat and spent an hour reading the Sunday Times |
Watched videos | Watched videos on Public Goods and Externalities from EconPlusDal |
Read notes | Looked through my notes to identify questions ahead of tutorial on Thursday |
Choose content wisely
I try to include at least one thing each week that even my weakest students might be interested in and are able to access – stuff on tech or drugs or crime or human body parts always goes down well!
I also include something for students who are planning to study Econ at Uni
Students sometimes need to be guided to make the best use of time
We talk at the start of the year about how their output depends on their input, and that the more challenging material will have a bigger impact on them
We also talk about how ‘something is better than nothing’, so if they have had a rough week, watching a documentary or something will help them more than trying and failing to take in a complicated book
If a student needs to work on something, I’ll sometimes say ‘this would be a good thing to work on during Indy Hour’
If I set compulsory intervention work, I tell students that it can class as their Indy Hour. They can still pick something else to do for Indy Hour if they want, but given that they have to do the intervention task anyway, most just use this as their Indy Hour work.
You need a decent system to log/manage your recommendations
The first year took a while, but now I have a OneNote page with a list of topics and all of my top picks, but a Word document would be fine. I do a quick check for new stuff each week too by looking if I’ve logged anything on my resource log or if EconInbox has anything new.
Students also have access to a page of ‘evergreen’ ideas that aren’t necessarily related to a topic we are doing. I try to choose stuff made for a man-in-the-street audience so student don’t need much prior knowledge. I have a bunch of books, podcasts, MOOCs and documentaries, as well as links to Question Time and relevant Panorama episodes
Previewing content is highly effective
If I mention something in class in advance, I have noticed that far more students opt to engage with it. There are several ways this happens:
“There’s a really cool podcast on how this applies of this in the market for X, I’ll put it into your Indy Hour for next week”
“Ooo that’s a good question, I don’t know the answer but I’ll hunt out some reading to add into your Indy Hour”
“We don’t have time to go through that now, but there’s a video I’d recommend on it, I’ll put a link in the Indy Hour”
Students love an individual recommendation
If students have opted for a bigger project like an actual book or a MOOc or something, it has overwhelmingly been because I’ve recommended something to them individually. I try really hard to listen for clues in general conversation with them, then filing the information away in the back of my head until I have the perfect recommendation. I try to catch them alone and explain why I think they would enjoy it. In many cases, if it’s a book I own, I put an actual copy in their hands.
Following up is important, especially at the start
For the first few weeks I anonymise their responses (easy to do on Microsoft Forms) and discuss responses that were impressive, or where the person wasn’t challenging themselves enough or wasn’t specific enough
Picking students at random and asking them about what they said they’ve done, either in front of the class or when you catch them 1:1 can be helpful
Referring to it in lessons is also weirdly effective, they seem to be really proud when they can contribute (“Who read the article on X? You’ll already know that….” Or even setting it up when you know a student has read something, like “Does anyone know what happened when the Government tried to introduce X?”)
I think part of this is about creating norms, and part is about students seeing that their new knowledge is useful.
Challenges
There are two big challenges to implementing this. The first is accountability. I reckon there isn’t any way of ensuring full compliance without introducing anything meaningless or time consuming. The culture and expectations thing is the most important bit here, but I have noticed that non-compliance comes in 2 forms:
A) Doing something that isn’t very helpful
B) Saying they’ve done something when they haven’t
Generally, requiring students to be super specific about how they have spent their time is an easy way to make it harder to get away with either of these. If they put something specific, it’s easier to define whether it’s helpful or not. It’s also easier to question students on something specific
That said, I sort of think that if I've explained the benefits of doing the work and have made it as easy and attractive to them as possible, and students still choose not to, then that's on them.
The second challenge is much less easy to dismiss. Giving multiple recommendations each week, alongside all those personal recommendations to individuals, requires the teachers to be aware of all of these resources in the first place. If you teach multiple subjects, having all of these recommendations your fingertips is particularly tough. Maintaining a reasonable grasp on current affairs is challenging enough, but listening to podcasts and reading new releases is extremely time consuming. I will say that at least doing so reaps other rewards, the anecdotes and insights make my lessons more interesting, but that still doesn’t create extra hours in the day. While there aren’t any major shortcuts, I’ve found libraries such as EconInTheNews (formerly EconInbox) and to a lesser extent, Econ Media Library, as well as newsletters like Tutor2U and Monday Morning Economist, helpful to skim through. In addition, Blinkist is good for getting the general gist of books, at least enough to get an idea if a student would be interested in it. I try to get it on sale, which happens reasonably often.