The room is silent. I slowly draw up the equations on the board. I utter not a word while doing so. And then I turn to my class, still not talking, and I wait for them to tell me what I just did.
So goes a teaching approach that I have been doing for many years but that has apparently fallen out of fashion. I am currently reading Tes Resources maths adviser Craig Barton’s amazing book How I Wish I’d Taught Maths and he suggests that the above strategy used to be all the rage, but has disappeared. We need to bring it back, he says. I would wholeheartedly agree: the “silent teacher” should be used in every maths classroom.
A winning maths formula
The first time I used the silent teacher strategy was when teaching calculating percentages of amounts. I asked the children for silence and explained that I was going to show them a process without any teacher talk and they would then explain in as much detail as possible what I had done.
So I wrote out the process, got them to explain it and I then repeated the process so they could again explain, adding any further details they noticed.
I then went through the modelled example, one step at a time. For example:
- Question: What is 21% of 300?
- 100%= 300
- 10%= 30
- 1%= 3
- 21% of 300 = 30+30+3
- 21% of 300 = 63
Following the detailed child-led discussion and explanation, the children carried out their own peer teaching in pairs with a number of exercises.
Partner A narrated to partner B, telling them exactly what to write to complete the calculation (partner B could only write, interjecting only if they thought a mistake had been made). The roles were then reversed.
The power it has on novice learners gaining “domain-specific knowledge” (Craig’s terminology) and working towards mastery is amazing.
Don’t just take my word for it; if you haven’t already, try it. It’s a winner.
Not only does it tie in with theories on working memory, but it also involves self-explanation, which in itself is a knowledge-building process.
Oh, and it gives your voice some much-earned rest, too.
Kevin O’Brien is a maths co-ordinator, SLT member and Year 6 teacher in Merseyside
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