Why Do Now?
Due to the effects of the Covid -19 pandemic and the negative effect it has had on students’ retention of knowledge we at Barnsley Academy (BA) decided to focus upon this for the first half-term. During my first two years of teaching, I found "starter" activities to be quite difficult as I had no set formula. I tried to create flashy teaching & learning starters which I saw other teachers doing on twitter. I also tried to recap quizzes but again I had no set formula and struggled for consistency. With my GCSE y10 class last year I started to produce a multi-choice worksheet which students completed upon entry. While this was helpful, it did cause students to opt-out or to write the answers in as we went through them as a class. An example can be seen below.
Clearly the issue was consistency so the new approach of Do Now works much better. A Do Now is where I provide the students which six knowledge questions on the board. The students then on whiteboards write their answers. A Do Now is meant to be quick and snappy. It should take no longer than 5 minutes to complete in silence after students enter the classroom and I complete the register. This means no definitions as I want specific answers with no wiggle room.
How are Do Nows designed?
First of all, let's talk about how they look. At BA the maths department have for a number of years used a successful retrieval starter which was a grid of six with six questions. The students know these well and upon entering the classroom they just do them. I wanted to steal this familiarity the students have with it to reduce extraneous cognitive load of a new starter activity and increase intrinsic cognitive load of the students answering the questions. Therefore, upon entering a history classroom the students divide a whiteboard into a grid of six and answer six questions. Below the image of the left is a maths grid (thank you Miss Emery for letting me steal it) and on the right is how we structure them in history.
Questions are key!
Finally, we have reached the most important part, questions. After gaining my first Head of Department (more info is in the about section) we reviewed the strengths and weaknesses of the department, and we were able to highlight a lack of specific knowledge being a gapping need for our students. This led us to conclude that specific knowledge would need to be improved. At KS4 and KS3 our questions are aimed at developing SFD (Specific Factual Detail). There are three question types we use: specific answers, multiple choice and true or false. We use a range of these questions in each Do Now depending on the circumstances of the lesson. At the start of the unit, I will use an early lesson from the unit on the English Civil War as an example and the questions are either true or false. This is to not overwhelm the student’s working memory with overly difficult knowledge and to recap and stop the forgetting curve with core knowledge from previous units.
Then later in a unit the questions go from true or false to more specific. This is because we as a department are focusing three core knowledge non-negotiables the students should know at the end of each lesson. These core knowledge non-negotiables are the answers that the students are asked to answer. However, even in lessons later in a unit I still ask questions related to core knowledge from previous units so that this becomes long-term memory, and the students can access it at a fingertip. Examples of this can be seen below.
The examples I have used so far for questions are primarily KS3. For KS4 history I focus upon less True or False due to the size of each unit and more upon specific answers. This is because I have a set two group for year 11 who I am aiming for every student to receive a level 4 or above this year. Therefore, the questions are more specific knowledge and multi-choice. The image below is a from a lesson I completed on Friday (12/22/21). The lesson before we had covered Reichstag Fire and Enabling Act. For anyone who has taught Weimar and Nazi Germany by Edexcel at GCSE you know these are some of the most important lessons for students to master the knowledge due to them being so significant in understanding and mastering the course. We can see from this example all of the questions are related to the previous lesson on the Reichstag Fire and Enabling Act because I want to defeat the forgetting curve and for this to become mastered long-term knowledge for my students.
However, from an earlier lesson I have not just used knowledge from the Weimar and Nazi Germany course but also dropped in some core knowledge from previous units on Medicine Through Time and also Early Elizabethan England. This is because this knowledge should be core knowledge and I wanted to observe if the students had mastered it and if it was a fingertip away.
Where do I want to take Do Nows in the future?
So far, the Do Nows have been incredibly successful at BA. However, there are two areas which I wish to improve on and will write a further blog post on in the future. Firstly, I wish to use more multi-choice questioning and lastly, I wish to sign post what knowledge is used. After a recent CPD session at BA and conversations with our Teaching & Learning lead I realised that in my Do Nows I have been avoiding using multi-choice questions. This is odd because I used them so much last year. I have been going from true or false straight to specific knowledge and some students seem to be finding this jump particularly daunting. Multi-choice questions will be a great way to enable these students to provide a specific answer. The example of the lesson after the Reichstag Fire and Enabling Act came after this chat hence the introduction of a multi-choice question. Finally, I want to signpost on each question where the question comes from. By this I mean I want to use different colours for each box which will say: last lesson, last week, last unit, last year etc. This will reduce the extraneous cognitive load on the students trying to figure out what topic the question is from. I have provided a quick example of what I mean below.
Thank you for taking the time to read this! This is my first ever blog post and hope to add to it in the future.