Flow: Waiting is Wastage

The department went through a 3D review the other week, focusing on Differentiation. We had the opportunity to go on a learning walk and visit each other's classes - something I have grown to like very quickly, especially now that formal observations have bit the dust.

The colleague I visited had a great activity running. It was an introduction to Partial Fractions for Core 4, and involved triangular diagrams that asked students to add and split algebraic fractions apart (without actually going through the partial fraction procedure). The activity itself was well-scaffolded and challenged the stronger students, as well as being accessible to the weaker students - perfect differentiation, everyone was involved.

But although this activity was excellent, and one I'll be borrowing (stealing) for next year, this wasn't the part I found the most interesting when reflecting on my own teaching style. That part came next.

After a brief discussion that involved going through an example of using Partial Fractions, another example was written on the board so that the students could have a go themselves.

This is where I would have paused to 'work the room' to make sure everyone was on the right path, to field any questions, to make sure everyone was at the same point, before getting them started on a few textbook questions.

The problem is the pause, because during that pause there will definitely be one or two or perhaps more students that will have to wait before they know what the next activity is, and waiting is wastage.

My colleague, however, was prepared.

Projected onto the interactive whiteboard was a flow chart that described what the students should do next, depending on their confidence, starting them all at the same point for a couple of textbook Qs before it branched out. The teacher could still 'work the room' in exactly the same way that I would have done, but no student would be left waiting if they finished quickly, wondering what they should do next.

It's a tiny thing I know I'm guilty of, and it may seem obvious, and all I need to do is click one slide ahead and I would be setting them very similar exercises (not in a flow chart, I'll admit, but colour coded RAG), but until I observed it I wasn't really aware that I was doing it. I believe it's a case of letting go and letting the students get on with it, something I've always thought I was strong at doing.

I expect my colleague believed it was the success of the initial exercise that I would be most interested in, but it was actually the structured flow of the lesson that impressed me the most.