My curriculum doesn’t space the practice as well as, say, Saxon (the best I’ve used for that), so I have to create bespoke practice assignments to achieve that spaced practice. Since our calendar changes subtly each year, you can imagine what I do every summer. If it takes some students 10 weeks to solve a multi-step equation it’s worth my effort.
This is yet another reminder for me that I should get my hands on a Saxon book.
While I'm trying to use less technology, this is one of the things I still find really helpful. I use DeltaMath and while it's not perfect it's a reasonably efficient way to get some quick spaced practice.
I haven't read Kurt's book (its on my list) but I have read a lot of other DI literature and I think I've more or less come to the same conclusions as you. Your post definitely reminded me I need to be more consistent about putting prep work into my practice assignments so kids aren't blindsided by new units.
Do you think you'd advocate for whole school DI knowing what you know now? I go back and forth because not every element of it clicks for me, but as a starting point I think it works better than the current defaults I've seen.
My reservations aside, it's not possible to just snap my fingers and put DI in place. If I went to my admin and suggested DI there is not the slightest chance they would adopt. Even if admin thought it was a good idea tons of teachers would push back on the scripted lessons. I just can't imagine a universe where DI would get widely adopted. In specific schools that make the DI style of teaching part of their mission and filter for teachers who are on board, sure. And in places with strong leadership and a clear vision, sure. And I think it's good that teachers want autonomy in the classroom. Lots of incompetent leaders push dumb ideas on teachers, I think that teachers shouldn't be required to move lockstep through whatever admin decides. There's more harm done in schools by incompetent administrators pushing fidelity to poorly-vetted curriculum than there is from teachers stuck with mediocre curriculum and forced to adapt.
DI programs are also focused on elementary school. If I remember right there's no reading or science beyond 5th grade, and the only middle/high school social studies class is US history. DI has the strongest track record with early elementary reading. I don't teach elementary but that's the one place I would consider it, with Steubenville as a template (https://www.apmreports.org/episode/2025/02/20/sold-a-story-e11-the-outlier). But even there I think it takes really strong leadership to get teachers bought in to the system, and without teacher buy-in I doubt DI would be successful. That's borne out in the data -- even when Project Follow Through found that DI was the most successful program they studied there was a ton of variation from school to school and many school performed poorly.
My 10 mins for Do Now includes going through answers. So I have that working pretty well I think.
The idea to prioritise the practice and do it first is a good one. I might try and change that routine at some stage. Do you get the kids to pick up the whiteboards on entry into classroom along with the do now half sheet? I do loose a bit of time handing out whiteboards mid lesson so this could help
I am at a comprehensive (mixed achievement) school. So some kids work quick and get books out quick and start taking notes in a timely fashion. And others are so slow now matter how consistent I am with my routines. They really slow my class down as I walk around prompting them and repeating what needs to be done. Do you wait for the slow ones in your class or just push forward and push the slow ones along as much as you can?
I have mini whiteboards in stacks on tables, and markers in bins at tables. Takes some effort to make sure they're away when we're not using them because doodling on a mini whiteboard is very fun, but worth the effort to make the routine faster.
I'm at a mixed achievement school as well. I generally keep a very fast pace. I set aside longer chunks of practice for students once a week to create time for individual check-ins. And I have a once a week block I can pull kids for small group tutoring. In general my strategy is to keep a fast pace, some slower-moving students will adapt to the routines and keep up, and I do my best to catch the students who fall through the cracks on an individual basis. I'm not successful with everyone, but I think this approach helps keep the majority of the class moving at a good pace and also getting chances for spiraled practice.
Curious, how long are your lessons? Mine are all 60 mins. By the time I do a 10 min Do Now/Mark roll. Get books out, explicit teach some new stuff, do a bit of mini whiteboard checking for understadning, resettle my class after a few behavioural issues, I barely have time for them to practice the stuff Ive just taught and get around to students who had issues on the whiteboards, let alone have time to shift back to practicing something from a week ago. Add to that a jam packed curriculum where I feel like I am always running behind schedule, there feels like little space for consolidating lessons. What tips do you have for a beginning teacher to gently introduce some spaced practice on older material in the midst of all the choas :-)
My lessons are 49 minutes. This isn't an easy answer to execute, but I get it done with speedy routines.
I aim for a three minute Do Now. Can't always pull it off but that's the goal. Then we go over it, and ar most we discuss one problem in detail - if lots of students are struggling with more than one problem the Do Now was too hard and I need to scale back.
Working on a choral response adds efficiency. If the questions are short and the answers are concise I can do some quick review through choral response in two minutes.
I do some quick mini whiteboard work every day after the Do Now. Same routine every day so students know what to expect, and the questions are mostly review relevant to the days lesson. I can get 6-ish questions done in four minutes.
All that takes practice and effort to build, but once the routines work well it leaves plenty of time for everything else. I also recommend building in mixed review earlier in the lesson so it's not something that gets forgotten at the end.
My curriculum doesn’t space the practice as well as, say, Saxon (the best I’ve used for that), so I have to create bespoke practice assignments to achieve that spaced practice. Since our calendar changes subtly each year, you can imagine what I do every summer. If it takes some students 10 weeks to solve a multi-step equation it’s worth my effort.
This is yet another reminder for me that I should get my hands on a Saxon book.
While I'm trying to use less technology, this is one of the things I still find really helpful. I use DeltaMath and while it's not perfect it's a reasonably efficient way to get some quick spaced practice.
I haven't read Kurt's book (its on my list) but I have read a lot of other DI literature and I think I've more or less come to the same conclusions as you. Your post definitely reminded me I need to be more consistent about putting prep work into my practice assignments so kids aren't blindsided by new units.
Do you think you'd advocate for whole school DI knowing what you know now? I go back and forth because not every element of it clicks for me, but as a starting point I think it works better than the current defaults I've seen.
My reservations aside, it's not possible to just snap my fingers and put DI in place. If I went to my admin and suggested DI there is not the slightest chance they would adopt. Even if admin thought it was a good idea tons of teachers would push back on the scripted lessons. I just can't imagine a universe where DI would get widely adopted. In specific schools that make the DI style of teaching part of their mission and filter for teachers who are on board, sure. And in places with strong leadership and a clear vision, sure. And I think it's good that teachers want autonomy in the classroom. Lots of incompetent leaders push dumb ideas on teachers, I think that teachers shouldn't be required to move lockstep through whatever admin decides. There's more harm done in schools by incompetent administrators pushing fidelity to poorly-vetted curriculum than there is from teachers stuck with mediocre curriculum and forced to adapt.
DI programs are also focused on elementary school. If I remember right there's no reading or science beyond 5th grade, and the only middle/high school social studies class is US history. DI has the strongest track record with early elementary reading. I don't teach elementary but that's the one place I would consider it, with Steubenville as a template (https://www.apmreports.org/episode/2025/02/20/sold-a-story-e11-the-outlier). But even there I think it takes really strong leadership to get teachers bought in to the system, and without teacher buy-in I doubt DI would be successful. That's borne out in the data -- even when Project Follow Through found that DI was the most successful program they studied there was a ton of variation from school to school and many school performed poorly.
Ok thanks
I’ll give all that some thought!
Your lessons are shorter than mine!
My 10 mins for Do Now includes going through answers. So I have that working pretty well I think.
The idea to prioritise the practice and do it first is a good one. I might try and change that routine at some stage. Do you get the kids to pick up the whiteboards on entry into classroom along with the do now half sheet? I do loose a bit of time handing out whiteboards mid lesson so this could help
I am at a comprehensive (mixed achievement) school. So some kids work quick and get books out quick and start taking notes in a timely fashion. And others are so slow now matter how consistent I am with my routines. They really slow my class down as I walk around prompting them and repeating what needs to be done. Do you wait for the slow ones in your class or just push forward and push the slow ones along as much as you can?
Thanks
I have mini whiteboards in stacks on tables, and markers in bins at tables. Takes some effort to make sure they're away when we're not using them because doodling on a mini whiteboard is very fun, but worth the effort to make the routine faster.
I'm at a mixed achievement school as well. I generally keep a very fast pace. I set aside longer chunks of practice for students once a week to create time for individual check-ins. And I have a once a week block I can pull kids for small group tutoring. In general my strategy is to keep a fast pace, some slower-moving students will adapt to the routines and keep up, and I do my best to catch the students who fall through the cracks on an individual basis. I'm not successful with everyone, but I think this approach helps keep the majority of the class moving at a good pace and also getting chances for spiraled practice.
Curious, how long are your lessons? Mine are all 60 mins. By the time I do a 10 min Do Now/Mark roll. Get books out, explicit teach some new stuff, do a bit of mini whiteboard checking for understadning, resettle my class after a few behavioural issues, I barely have time for them to practice the stuff Ive just taught and get around to students who had issues on the whiteboards, let alone have time to shift back to practicing something from a week ago. Add to that a jam packed curriculum where I feel like I am always running behind schedule, there feels like little space for consolidating lessons. What tips do you have for a beginning teacher to gently introduce some spaced practice on older material in the midst of all the choas :-)
My lessons are 49 minutes. This isn't an easy answer to execute, but I get it done with speedy routines.
I aim for a three minute Do Now. Can't always pull it off but that's the goal. Then we go over it, and ar most we discuss one problem in detail - if lots of students are struggling with more than one problem the Do Now was too hard and I need to scale back.
Working on a choral response adds efficiency. If the questions are short and the answers are concise I can do some quick review through choral response in two minutes.
I do some quick mini whiteboard work every day after the Do Now. Same routine every day so students know what to expect, and the questions are mostly review relevant to the days lesson. I can get 6-ish questions done in four minutes.
All that takes practice and effort to build, but once the routines work well it leaves plenty of time for everything else. I also recommend building in mixed review earlier in the lesson so it's not something that gets forgotten at the end.