When I first started teaching, I was privileged to job share with an incredible teacher called Mrs McCulloch. A teacher with a wealth of experience, having taught for over 30 years. The students she taught consistently achieved very strong outcomes. Before anyone had ever heard of a Do Now, this was what she was doing. At the start of every lesson, she would give her students approximately 10 questions to answer, based on prior learning. She taught me to same, so it is something I have been doing with my classes for a very long time. Now it is something that is done by teachers in the majority of schools, across the country.
In this blog I am not going to explain why do now’s are so useful but rather explain how a small tweak to an existing practice can make such a big difference.
As I have mentioned in previous blogs, we have Teaching Guidance Cards (Teaching PIPs- Teaching Principles in Practice). This year we are focusing on making sure they are enacted on with fidelity, so this year individual guidance cards will be a whole school focus throughout the year.
Somewhat to my surprise, our Assistant Head for Teaching and Learning Mrs Temple (Steph) made Do Now’s our first whole school focus. At Durrington High as in most schools, these are completed at the start of every lesson and have been for a number of years. It is a pretty firmly embedded practise within our school, and on the surface something that felt was done well across the school.
So why was that our first whole school focus?
As Steph explained during our first INSET, whilst every teacher had Do Now’s activities at the start of their lessons it was something we needed to sharpen up on. A big drive for the focus was making sure there was consistency in how it was done across departments, as all students thrive on consistency.
There was variability across the school in terms of:
- The quality of the questions used
- Student completion/participation
- Students understanding why they were completing the tasks and how they needed to be completed
How to overcome these potential issues
The quality of the questions used
In some instances, the Do Now was seen as a settler activity and was not being used purposefully for retrieval. While Do Now tasks do have a role in creating a calm and settled start to lessons they can, and should, be so much more than this. To support this in all departments all questions are either written by individual staff and discussed deeply by teams during our Subject Pedagogy sessions.
The questions chosen should go over content that teachers have identified students need more practise with. This will be something from the previous couple of lessons and also prior topics. Including questions linked to prior knowledge will be useful for students to refresh their memories and help them make links. It is important that not all of the questions relate to one lesson, as if a student missed that they will not be able to answer any of the questions.
In science we include questions on how science works and maths so that students have frequent exposure to them. In business there is often a question on a key word or a maths question. The types of questions included are subject dependent.
It is also important to make sure that the level of challenge is appropriate. It is important to start with a low level of demand and gradually increase it. If the first couple of questions are too difficult it will deter students, and reduce participation – however the do now should still challenge students to think hard!
The level of completions by students
Most students completed every question, however, there were a persistent few that did not complete all of the work and this was not always addressed. To overcome this there are a couple of useful strategies that can be used. One of these is explaining to students, why we do them and why they are so useful, I will address this later in the blog.
It important to have a manageable number of questions for students to complete. If there are 15 questions and students routinely only have time to complete 5, we are telling them they don’t need to do all the work we set. Instead, have approximately 5 questions and tell students that they all need to be completed within a set timeframe, 10 minutes? Use pastors perch to check students are settled and then praise those that have made a good start. Then live mark as many answers as possible to check the level of completion and see common areas students have struggled on, to inform your formative feedback.
Hold students to account if they have not completed all the questions. That means they are answering them all even if is only one word they feel confident with. They do not need to write the question out as otherwise that is all they will do and will not have answered anything. Also, consider not giving them the title until after the do now so that they focus solely on your questions, rather than attempting to “be seen” writing by studiously copying down the title.
Students understanding why they were completing the tasks and how they needed to be completed
In our department meetings we discussed consistent language to explain to students why they complete Do Now’s and how they need to complete them. This common language has really helped with student buy-in and has helped build their resilience to they are more confident to tackle questions they are unsure of. All students complete the questions in complete silence, at the back of their books with no looking back.
My own do now’s
As I said at the start I have been giving my students questions at the start of the lesson since before the terms ‘Starters’ or ‘Do Now’s’ were coined. Despite this I have still made some adjustments to my own practise following the whole school focus on it.
On reflection, I realised I often used to same questions when teaching a particular topic each year. This meant I was not tailoring it to the needs of my class that year, what they had struggled with and needed more time to embed. Now I plan my questions from scratch for every class and base it on their needs. That’s not to say there won’t be overlap between classes but I make sure it is specific for that class. I am also making sure to include more questions that link to prior knowledge, as that improves their understanding of the lesson.
After the Do Now I discuss with the students which questions I think they are confident in and which still need more practice and they tell me if they agree. Those they need more practice with I put into to the next lesson and the others I leave out for a little while before revisiting.
Jody Chan – Deputy Director Durrington Research School
Class Teaching 