I think really helping them, yeah, new teachers pinpoint
where misconceptions are in a really granular way to help
build their pedagogy, but obviously to also help the
students are in front of them at that time, physically having a
device, having the space and the time to actually be able to
complete work in a quiet space. It's not a luxury that every
student has. Would have had the time to
tailor all these different groups.
If I wasn't using an online platform like Doctor Frost
Maths, I don't know, I don't think I would have.
So I think I was able to then do this approach because I had the
because the platform gave me the like I had the functionality to
do it. It just gave teachers, like
teachers weren't then thinking of their own homework and then
printing it and then giving it out and then marking it.
It just gives then teachers more time to actually think about,
right? Well, what am I doing?
Welcome to Thinking a Bit about Primary Education, the podcast
that makes time and space think about pedagogy, teaching and
learning, professional development.
Anything of interest to time per but enthusiasm rich primary
teachers. This week I'm joined by Hannah
Hogg to explore Doctor Frost learning and the role of online
platforms in mathematics education in particular.
But before we do that, there's a few things I'd like to
highlight. Obviously in the link in the
description, we have the access to the the thinky DB Primary
Education conference online and on demand.
Now tickets are on sale. They're going to be on sale for
the best part of six months. I think we're probably a month
into that now. You know, we've got lots of
great speakers, like you say, you can watch them at your
leisure wherever you are in the world.
And all the funds go to the Linder Cancer Center.
So if you haven't already got your ticket for that, you know,
then I'd highly recommend doing so.
If you want to add your session to it, then please do reach out
and because, and we're we're accepting videos and we're
updating all the time. And if you're thinking about
sessions, we're going to be announcing the speaker proposals
for a few conferences in the autumn term.
So now, especially if you're a teacher, is the time to be
thinking about, well, what do I want to speak about?
No topic to Niche, no teacher to inexperienced.
We want to hear from practicing teachers, people in the
classroom, but their experiences, but their deep
thinking. Now today's episode is all about
the use of online platforms. And I suppose on some level it
might be bit strange that obviously Alta are operating in
this zone. They're in the same sort of area
as Doctor Frost. But I think there are are two
things to to really be sort of mindful of AI think both the
both the, the sort of the the offering from Alta and the
offering from Doctor Froster, I think sufficiently different
that they give teachers choice. And secondly, that that choice
is the most important thing. You know, I really don't mind
and really don't want people using our resources just because
I've said so, you know, the, the thinking, the thought goes back
goes into curricular decision making is the most important
element. And I think that's why having
these conversations, looking at the research, like I did with
Stewart a couple of weeks ago on the use of digital interventions
with people who have special educational needs and
disabilities and looking at that, you know, the research and
the foreign assessment, it's all tied together because it's all
part of our thought process, because how maths is enacted in
our classrooms will be related to the decision making we make
when it comes to the the tools that we give our teachers.
And so if you're using our resources, you know, you're
adopting a very specific pedagogic model in most
instances, whereas other times, you know, it might be a
different model or perhaps model agnostic, you know, so I think
the thinking that we do, and this time of year, it's really
important. We're, we're almost now
thinking, we're not going to make any change now, but we're
thinking about what's September going to look like lots of our
schools are being on board at now.
And so I think if we, you know, I'm the, the aim is a, you know,
we've got this, this charter organization doing really great
work in mathematics education, spread the word, but also to
encourage deep thought about our curricular decision making,
because that's the most important thing is that we're
thinking deeply about the decisions we make across the
school. You know, so Hannah is a
fantastic guest. You're really going to enjoy
this episode. So without further ado, let's
spend some time thinking deeply about primary education.
So Hannah, it's lovely to see you.
How are you? I'm good.
How are you? Yeah, not too bad.
Can't complain. I mean, we're getting to that
time of the the school year where things are perpetually
busy, aren't we? Very busy.
Very busy, yeah. We're going to explore your work
with and for Doctor Frost Learning, but I thought we'd
begin with a little bit about who you are and how you got here
today. Yeah, that, that'll be great.
So yes, my name's Hannah and I probably took quite a
traditional route in to teaching.
I am a trained maths teacher. I did my A levels and maths and
further maths and then went and done a maths degree at my local
university, which was Newcastle and it was a in my second year.
I had a presentation off Teach First that really hit home that
the the school I went to was in. Well, where I live is in a quite
a bit disadvantaged area. And I just think like most
teachers can think back to that one or two teachers that had a
real impact. And when I seen the presentation
of teachers, that's that really hit home with me and wanted to
get into teaching from that like, like so many other
teachers as well. I was placed in a school which
is where Teach 1st works that about 15 minutes away from where
I lived. And I was there for 9 years as a
secondary maths teacher for so teaching on years 11, sorry,
teaching ages 11 to 18. While I was there, I became a
professional tutor working with ECT's and yeah, a real for I
think it was during that time a real focus on really wanted to
support teachers with workload. It was still a time where
depending on where teachers were training, they were either
encouraged to still plan everything from scratch.
Well, that is just not how teachers work in the real like
day-to-day. You can't plan everything from
scratch. And yeah, really started to get
a passion about we need to be doing something to support these
teachers no matter which role they come in from.
And it's a similar sort of time, just a colleague of mine
actually did our masters in looking at fractions and the
knowledge of fractions and how even year, year 11 students
can't like are getting very similar questions and correct to
year six students. And just really hit home that
what, what are we doing for these students in the five years
that the with us? It was, yeah, she did it across
lots of different schools. So it wasn't, you know, it
wasn't a school thing. It's just what are what are
students sitting through that they're not making the progress
in these topics. Really interested in like the
year seven slump where they go from primary school to a certain
level and then drop down. So an opportunity came up to be
head of maths in the middle school, which was a little bit
further from where I live. But yeah, I took that.
I was like successful in that application and yeah, LED maths
at the middle school, which is the a 567 and eight while I was
in both schools or while I was in my first school.
I'd started using the doctor frost maths platform mostly
during COVID, like I'd use the resources for years, but through
COVID it sort of came in. It was own supporting students
and teachers like with online. It sounds, it sounds like a
million miles like years ago now, I think, doesn't it?
But support and teachers and students with that remote
learning and then continue to use it from there.
The platform really, so much of it was done independently by
Jamie Frost, but the team has grown now and has been grown for
a few years and it's now a charity and our aim is to
support every teacher to enjoy maths and every child to have
access to a great maths education.
I'm also leading on a number of partnerships to try and give
extra support to schools serve in high areas of disadvantage,
which is something I feel really passionate about as so many
other people do as well. So yeah, that's just a bit of an
overview of the trajectory that sort of got us here.
And like I said, even even though secondary maths, I think
it's still really pertinent to the to that day listener because
I think the, you know, the distinction is perhaps one that
we enforce. But also, I think, you know,
particularly when you're talking about workload, you know, how
anything we can do to bridge that gap, I think is, you know,
is, is definitely to be, to be explored.
Because like if, if you're a secondary teacher with all that
expertise and, and that subject knowledge and perhaps
pedagogical content knowledge too, and you're thinking
actually, I need to on some level outsource some of the, the
design, then you know, it's, it's definitely going to be true
for primary teachers. You've got 13 subjects, not just
one. I'm always in awe of every
primary teacher. I don't know, yeah, Just having
all of them pleads to juggle and that's, yeah, I'm sure we'll
talk about it later, but providing as much support to
them colleagues is really important for us.
So I mean, let's let's start with a bit of scene setting.
What do you see as the main advantages of online learning
platforms in mathematics education?
Yeah. And it's potentially not going
to be surprised from what I've just said, but I think time
saving for teachers is and we'll we'll probably go into more
detail about how that then impacts the students.
But I think time saving for street teachers are so
important. Being able to have work that is
created depending on how much autonomy you want on that, but
then automatically worked and automatically feedback fed back
on is really important. Suppose, you know, there is,
there is other countries that have different teaching setups
and teachers have a lot more time for planning and
preparation and marking and feeding back.
But that's just not the reality in the UK.
We're Yeah, I think similar to what you've just said it's, you
know, that pedagogical knowledge takes a long time to develop,
even as a secondary teacher who was just teaching maths and that
still took still takes, I'm still learning takes years.
So a way to support non subject specialists and new teachers
being able to see all the bits that need to feed in for a child
to do a certain topic. I was thinking of trying to
trying to think of an example before, but and I thought of,
you know, adding fractions with different denominators.
If you have some data and obviously you don't know what
data you're with me, but if you can access the data and say this
child could do add infractions with the same denominator, you
know that that's not the issue. I think really helping them.
Yeah, new teachers pinpoint where misconceptions are in a
really granular way to help build their pedagogy.
But obviously they also help the students are in front of them at
that time. I mean that, yeah, I think all
of them. That and feeds into the student
progress side of it. But I think time saving for
teachers is a big one for me. Yeah.
So almost some of the administration tasks that
perhaps take a lot of time, is that the kind of thing that
we're saving time on? Yes, I saw, you know, Qlas
again, some schools love them, some schools not so much.
I think it depends what you're doing with them.
The way that our platform works is skills are based to really
granular sub skills. So any Qlas that are created or
really, you know, it's not going to say adding fractions, it's
going to say adding fractions where one fraction is a multiple
of the other that that granularity is really important.
I think Morgan is really like a big time.
I think it's yeah, Mark, because it's how much benefit does just
giving ticks and cross the end that that could be a whole of
that conversation, couldn't it? But I think just automatically
things being marked and getting that data for the teacher is
really important, but also for the child to just know, yeah, I
got that right or I didn't get that right is important and all.
There's different ways we're going to do that in the
classroom. But I think it's just, yeah, the
way that different online things and then the insights that
teachers can get from this data is, is the main advantages.
Where do you think the limitations or risks of online
platforms begin to emerge, particularly for younger
students? I think motivation and, and I
thought I'm going to lead on in a little bit and, and go on a
couple of different areas for this.
But because it could be that could be actually a positive
that students are getting instant feedback that things can
be really personalized to them, could be really motivational.
But on the other side of that, if a student's potentially
working independently and not getting the answers correct or
not not progressing as the one, maths I think is very unique in
that things can the, you know, you can always find positives.
I'm sure you can always find positives, but potentially when
an online platform, things are correct or incorrect, that could
be demotivating for students, especially if they've not built
up that resilience. I think that's like what we
really like as the autonomy on our platform, that student, that
teachers can set really specific things so that they can remove
that potential. You know, they can set things
that they're expecting the students to get right.
There's always links to work example videos as well.
So there is ways around that, but I think especially for
students who are potentially beginning to develop some
independence and and starting to work independently, we don't
want to, we don't want to scare them off.
We want to support them. And that that could be an issue.
And I think again, potentially looking at like more
disadvantaged the school serve and disadvantaged students, that
balance might be more one way than the other.
You know, we don't. We don't want to, yeah.
We don't want to increase any gaps.
We don't want we're more high attaining students.
We do want the high attaining students to keep making
progress, but we don't want that to then be an issue when we're
teaching in the classroom. Is that in terms of like access
for those peoples who already do well at maths, want to do the
platform more and then we'll and we'll have access to a tablet,
that kind of thing or is that what you're thinking?
I think there's, there's lots of different parts of that.
So yes, access is really important.
And that's that's sort of a lot to do with what I'm doing in my
work now. It's access physically having a
device, having the space and the time to actually be able to
complete work in a quiet space. It's not a luxury that every
student has. Again, just being having that
motivation that like already having that resilience built up
to think, yes, I want to keep working at this.
That's sort of another area of it.
And I think, yeah, it's just, I think there's definitely, yeah,
there's some schools doing amazing, amazing work via our
platform. And I think being able to really
know what students are doing and prepare them for that works
really well. But I mean, yeah, we all know
that there's a disadvantage gap as soon as students start
school. And at the minute that is just
why you didn't as students go through the years.
So I think it's just it's a responsible, it's to be
responsible to think about that and think how we are supporting
to close that gap as opposed to extend it.
And I think, I think your concerns about like the almost
the lack of flexibility that's inherent in a, in a, in a
virtual or online platform is, is, you know, it's certainly not
specific to anyone platform. You know, it's like most that I
explore and test item and stuff. What, you know, it's not quite a
teacher. And any claims of being a
teacher, you know, I think normally the ones, the trust are
the ones who actually know that actually this is not going to be
as effective as your your teacher.
You know, and we've seen things like the can Academy thing.
Actually, no, they're not They're not investing any more
money because it was actually, no, yeah, but a waste of time.
Yeah. So I think, yeah, I think you're
absolutely spot on. With that in mind, are there any
particular aspects of mathematics that online
platforms support especially well?
And perhaps are there any others you know inversely that they
they struggle to support? We're going to talk about how I
used it later on in the questions.
But I think really for consolidation, for retrieval of
things that students have already shown they can do in the
classroom, potentially independently, potentially with
a bit of scaffolding, but like a way to make sure that students
are seeing questions, retrieving them at appropriate times, space
times. I think an online platform can
work really, really well for that.
But as, as you know, as students go on, we'll want them to
increase in independence potentially.
So this, you know, potentially not for the listeners of this
podcast, but we'll want to get a place where students are
thinking, oh, I didn't get that. I want to watch this video, but
I don't think that's above a lot of definitely year five and six
students, you know, thinking that, oh, I didn't get that.
OK, well, I'm just going to there's a video here.
I'm going to watch that and I'm going to try and improve my
knowledge. And, you know, if that still
doesn't work, yeah, I know my teacher is going to look at this
and they're going to help us anyways.
But I think by the time we get then, you know, getting these
habits of self motivation, self improvement earlier on can only
do good things. And so then when students get
into secondary school or they get into ear levels, they've got
them skills and all that. Actually, if I can't do that,
that's OK because there's, there's things there that I can
do to help myself before I go and seek help from my teacher.
I think that's really general. I would say, you know, in terms
of things that, you know, we're definitely not at a place
technology wise. I supported some really
practical things that are really important earlier on in maths
understanding. A lot of times it's been sent
out our platform with Desmos for like measuring angles and, and
plotting straight line graphs. But it's still really important,
you know, I can't, I mean, you know, maybe in 50 years time
there might be a way around. But you know, it's really
important that a student has time like holding a cube, saying
what a cube is, feeling that what that cube's a cube and
seeing how long a metre is as opposed to a 30 centimetre
ruler. Like these physical things are
not things that technologies out of place to to change.
And you're not manipulators. There's some online
manipulators, but still it's in my opinion really important that
students feel the years that have time working with these
things, younger students and older students.
And yeah, we're we're not at a place where technology's
replacing them things. No, I'm definitely not.
And there's also a question, but like even if virtual reality say
we're up to, they could do that, would we really want that
instead of real world like pouring water?
Yeah. Like using different beakers and
that kind of thing, you know, I mean, like you say, even just
playing with shapes and, and their properties, you know, do
you know, I think there's an argument to say actually, we
don't really want to, you know, we wouldn't want to digitize
that, would we? No, definitely not.
And, and that human element is, you know, so important in
teaching in especially, especially with younger students
and. And even, as you know, we're
we're we want human interaction, don't I?
So I can't, I can't see a time when that that that human
element would ever be replaced. It is just, yeah, like I said
before, really supporting them key skills retrieval and
consolidation of things that have definitely a prime level
already been taught by the teacher, already had that direct
instruction. And then students, the online
side of it really just helps to consolidate and keep students
remembering them things. Yeah.
So it's almost as if I think these online tools are really
good at the the not necessarily just the encoding element, but
the sort of supporting pupils in transferring things into long
term memory because we can, we can apply that space.
And you know, because as a human it's really difficult to
remember when, when's the last time we did that.
But actually the is it SRS and sort of algorithms, they help us
to remember how long ago it was that we last tried to remember
something. So yes, I think well, but the
broader things get and the more open, you know, like I know like
a level and further maths and core maths, I think it's
particularly tricky to capture some of the, the mathematics.
I don't know, you mean you're the expert in this.
But certainly talking to people like Stuart, he'll say that
whenever he thinks about those things on that level, it's
always more difficult than it would be say with the, with the,
the, the primary curriculum as is.
Yeah, I think, I mean, I think yeah, space retrieval I think
yeah, you're right. There's more and more topics,
but I think as then topics increase like maths is
hierarchical, it's going to recall them pre skills in
different areas. So it's not as yeah, I mean it,
it's harder in terms of space retrieval and all that.
You know, you've students have only got a certain amount of
time, but I suppose as the increase in in age and when they
get a maths and further maths, they're going to or a level,
they're going to spend a lot more time on just them.
So actually, you know, the time that they have in primary and K
stage 3 and K stage 4, they've actually got a lot more time to
be retrieving them things. But it's it's a balance and I
suppose that it leads in what I said before about it's about
students being a bit more independent and actually certain
students won't need to practice some things as much and other
students will need to practice other topics.
And I think that's where online can really help students.
It doesn't have to be that we're all going to do this today.
Students can do the topics that they need, they need to work on,
that they need to retrieve, that they need to practice, and other
students can work on others. I I think like Doctor Frost,
most secondary teachers. Maybe I'm just living in a
bubble. We're fairly aware of of of what
Doctor Frost is of Jamie in particular.
And but I'm not I'm not sure how far the message has gotten
across the primary. I mean do you think to what high
probe do you think platforms like Doctor Frost Learning are
for key states to two age students for instance?
Yeah, I I would completely agree.
It's very rare that I speak to a teacher from secondary who
hasn't used Doctor Frost resources or hasn't even used
the platform themselves. But I think that's very
different when I have spoke to primary colleagues that often
that often don't know a lot about the platform or resources.
And we do have a lot of resources now that go into key
stage 2. A lot of time was spent on these
full topic resources. And I do think they are really
useful just to say sort of where the matters potentially lead and
as well. So some of that I worked on were
like, they're not. So the full topic resources
aren't just like week 4, lesson 2, you're going to teach this.
They're not split up like that. The ones I worked worked on, one
of them was year 4 or year 9. So it helps.
I think talking about the non specialist and yeah, non subject
specialist teachers, just seeing where things are going to lead
can be really useful. I think.
Let let us you know, I alluded to it in my introduction that
actually a lot of the maths that key stage 2 students are doing,
key Stage 4 students are still struggling with.
So in terms of the skills and what they need to practice, it
is the same for so many students or from, you know, the way that
our the way that our platform is.
Then granular skills will have the year.
We'll have year three question generate as what from key stage,
the beginning of key Stage 2 that actually was year 10
students still practicing them. You have 11 students, I'm sure
as well. So in terms of the content, it's
really, really aimed as well at K Stage 2 students.
I think the added bonus of using a platform, there's other ones.
I know there's, there's plenty of other ones out there, but
using a platform like ours that is going to keep with students
as opposed to just really supporting them at that precise
time is that we can then hopefully get parents on board.
And parents, I know this is they'll be primary, you know,
primary teachers listening to this.
And I'm sure, I think, oh, you know, it's a struggle to get
parents on board depending on context, context, whatever the
age, but I think there's more likelihood of getting parents on
board as like the younger. We're going to introduce these
platforms. And but my hope is that if a
student was using this in Year 5 or year 6, that's true, that
parents would be aware of it. And hopefully they would say
that, oh, so actually you can cut, you know, even if the goat
was secondary school that didn't use the platform and they'll
know that that contents there. And if they ever need some
support, even if it's just as a free student account, then know
that it's there. We'll have courses, over 200
courses built on the website that can, you know, help parents
see where the children are going.
And I suppose the other side way when parents want to give that,
that higher level of support, the platform does that really
well. It can really, it really shows
parents and teachers, but parents are talking about the
minute like, what is it that your child needs to needs to
work on? So I do think that's potentially
particularly what's really useful for lower for K Stage 2
students. So how did you use Doctor Frost
Learning in your own context, and what did it look like in
practice? Yeah, So in the middle school I
was in we like I generally used it for retrieval.
I used it on like previous years topics or knowledge that
students should have done last year or not should have that
should have learnt last year. Just because they learnt it last
year doesn't mean they remember it.
And I used it to then help plan my lessons that were upcoming.
So I was using a lot of like the like set and prerequisite stuff
topics so that I knew when students got onto.
We've used fractions. I feel like fractions is a
really key one in primary, and yet, you know, there's no point
in jumping in in yeah, 6 teaching mixed numbers if they
can't add fractions with the same denominator.
So by given that as homework in the weeks before teaching them
topics, I was able to get that data.
It was a large middle school. It was 7 form entry, so we did
set formats, which I know is going to be different in other
like most primary schools, but you will have them groups that
need more support. And I think just having that
awareness of where your cohort is and where different groups
are, I found I might just sound really useful.
I used it as well just to increase try and increase
motivation. So setting the same topics for a
period of time. So students are trying to reward
that effort and them just being that little bit self
self-directed with improvement. So it might be that they only
got, you know, 12 out of 20 week 1, but actually, as long as they
got 30 and out of 20 the next week, we're, we're really trying
to focus on raising the effort, which, you know, which I'm sure
like lots, which all teachers are doing as opposed to the
outcome and just reminding them about watching the work example
videos. And I did well, we did use it a
lot. So we've got all the Sats.
We'll do it. Well, I'm seeing this in
probably the wrong week. We did have all the Sats papers
up the up to the current time. We will have up to 2025 and we
will have 2026 very soon. And just to give students them
the exposure leading into Sats. You know, why never?
It's the balance. Sats are important, the key
skills a lot. You know, we could, we could do
a full of other debate about what should be on Sats and what
shouldn't be. But the the fact of it is that
that students sit these and we want to prepare them as much as
possible and just allowing them to see what's going to come up,
you know, giving them that exposure of lots of papers, but
without taking away loads of teacher time worked really well,
you know, and it was automatically marked.
It wasn't that because I know some schools use the platform
and especially primary schools might use the platform in
lessons or in school time. So no, maybe it's not going to
save time in the lesson, but actually the marking of them and
going through it that way is going to save teacher time if
they're doing them online. And then it also aggregates that
data rope. So just because a student
couldn't do a question once, they might have just made a
mistake. But actually, if they can't do
that same topic three weeks in a row, well, actually, you know,
you need to do some. We need to hopefully do
something about it. Same as a cohort.
If there's certain areas that are weaker than others, it
really helps to pinpoint that when they've done things for a
few weeks. I also used it all to really
think about the cohorts of students we've got.
So there's no, the, the full SAT papers are there and we lead an
up to SAT. I was given the vast majority of
students full SAT papers to look at, but there was them students
that I wasn't doing that with and I was able to look at the
year 3 year, 4 Year 5 curriculum standards and get them to focus
on them questions. The questions that are, you
know, typically at the beginning of the SAT papers and really
build their confidence in that part of the paper which was
really useful just being able to.
Yeah, give them the. Work that was appropriate for
them at that time. Nice.
And so in. Like in terms of the chicken and
the egg, was Doctor Frost's learning giving you the
approach, or was it your approach on top of the, I'm
talking about Doctor Frostnard, if that makes sense.
So would you have behaved in the same way, but just with
different resources, or did the resources determine how you
behaved in the in the classroom and your your approach, your
pedagogy, your practice? Yeah, good.
Question. I suppose there was nothing that
I did that you couldn't have done with other resources.
It's the time, it's like, you know, the time to go through and
make purpose made year 3 and year 4 fraction questions that
are SAT that are just SAT questions and actually, you
know, being able to give it a that cohort.
But actually are they doing well?
So now I'm going to add them to the cohort that's getting the
full topic of them not having to then print like, you know, I
think we're underestimate how long printing can really take.
And sometimes and if we're given different groups, really
personalized assessments, I would have, you know, times
really valuable and teacher time especially and would have had
the time to tailor all these different groups.
If I wasn't using an online platform like Doctor Frost
maths, I don't know, I don't think I would have.
So I think I was able to then do this approach because I had the
because the platform gave me that like had the functionality
to do it. And so I mean.
It's not, it's not meant to be a trick question.
And just because I think whenever I talk to people about
this, some people want a resource because of the model
that it's provides. And so like this is, this is the
pedagogical approach that we're going to take.
And here are the tools that are very specific designed that.
But there are other instances where people want to take their
model and apply it and map it onto the resources.
Do you know? So obviously, like, I mean, the
inclusion of working examples suggests that there's a
particular type of, umm, pedagogical approach, certainly
close to Doctor Frost if not built into it.
And so I'm trying to understand if if I'm a leader making the
decision, am I bringing my pedagogy or am I taking
pedagogy? You know, like I said, it's not
a trick question. There's no right or wrong
answer, I don't think. But from a leader's perspective,
those are the choices. I think that's the thing in some
people's mind is, eh, is it going to follow my scope and
sequence and B, what's the impact going to be on teaching
and learning? So from your experience, was it
which? Which of those was?
Which direction was it pulling? Yeah, I would.
I would say the last. I'm honest that that that
there's a high amount of teacher autonomy developed in other
websites. So I touched on the courses
before, but the like all them granular skills can be ordered
in any way that a school once we have 200 made courses, but
schools, leaders, teachers can order them and make custom
courses however they want. So that in terms of sequencing,
that's going to come up. Then the way that the the worked
example, there's work examples videos that generally go on one
way, but the some questions with model solutions might have more
than one method. This is yeah, it is.
It's tricky to them to give something one-size-fits-all,
isn't it? I would say that the platform
just offers that autonomy for teachers to implement it in a
way that they want to. And it might be that, you know,
for some really deep think and questions, I think, you know, in
terms of like open, you know, open answer questions platforms
like Doctor Fosmass and other platform, you know, we want
students thinking and well, of course we want students
thinking, but we want students, you know, being able to answer
more open-ended things and ask questions.
Like they aren't the things that are being addressed with an
online platform. I think they are definitely more
practicing the key skills that is question general, we'll call
them question generators, but our courses, our granular skills
where it's then I'm just, I did one this morning with someone
and it was on factors and multiples and then it went on
using factors and multiples in context.
And so there's definitely questions there and like that
use lots of problem solve them. We've got your older UKMT papers
and primary versions on as well. So there is them questions that
are more than problem solving and and interesting questions.
Umm, but I would say it's yeah, it was.
It can be the systems adapted to how the teachers or the leaders
want to use it. Did the did using the platform
change anything about your teaching homework, assessment,
pupil independence, where there was any impact on any of those
things in your in your classes? Yeah, so I would.
Say I sort of alluded to it, but like no one prerequisite, no one
my students are with the prerequisites of upcoming topics
just really allowed me to focus the time that we've got with
students where it needs to be. So, you know, I did, yeah,
ideally we're going to a point where students are watching them
worked example videos. But actually, when we're talking
potentially, you know, particularly with key stage 2
students, it's more just a diagnostic tool for me to say
where they are and getting the most out of the limited time
we've got with them. It also as a leader as a head of
department helps say all right well we're not spending enough
time on this topic because students aren't then getting
where I need them to be or you know times just so precious with
for teachers and with with students.
I think that's probably the biggest impact in terms of
knowing where they are and yeah then being able to deliver the
teaching that they need. I did use it as well when staff
and sickness was quite high. That was really useful for end
of term. It's sorry, end of topic
assessments just so then you know, realistically, so I wasn't
Morgan seven classes of assessments.
Just being able to get that data straight away was a really
practical a practical thing when I was a head of the apartment.
And I think all of these things, because then the way that we
worked, it's sometimes they've had a little bit, but that there
was centrally set homework for different cohorts and different
teachers would take responsibility.
But like different year groups potentially it just give
teachers like teachers weren't then thinking of their own
homework and then printing it and then giving it out and then
marking it. It just give then teachers more
time to actually think about right.
Well, what am I doing with the students when they're in my,
when I've got them, when it's maths time as a, as opposed to
having a plan and prep that outside of maths learning, Yeah,
which is ultimately. What we want for our teachers
rather than to focus on the things that matter, don't we
rather the things that we've managed to put in their way that
don't really make much difference in the in the
classroom or the school. So how do you how do you think
teachers should think about the balance between technology,
teacher explanation, direct interaction and mathematics
learning? What's what's that balance look
like and what do you think would be useful for teachers to think
consider? Yeah, I would, I mean, yeah,
sort of just set up, I would say seeing technology as a
diagnostic tool to get the most out of our time with students.
No one where students are so that we can tailor that direct
instruction to get the most out of them.
No one if they know the prerequisites also that we can
plan more explanations, we can plan how we're going to deliver
that learning. It's all it's still going to
happen that we'll go to plan a lesson and actually students
didn't know one part of it and things like that derailed and we
need to go backwards. But actually by having this day
and aggregate in it all the time, we'll want to reduce that
as much as possible because we want to want especially for when
you are teachers, when on subject specialists, we want
them to be able to deliver lessons that they've planned,
that they've thought about the instruction and the tasks that
then come from that. And I think, I think that's
where the balance is like seeing technology as as as an
instrument, as a, as a way to as a tool to allow teachers to get
the best use of time with, to make the best use of time with
the students is how I would say it.
Yeah. Which which I.
I totally agree with you know, there's lots of the discussion
about especially but large language models and what the
impact of quote UN quote artificial intelligence.
You know, it seems like the eel is wagging the dog and you know,
I'm not I'm not you probably tell about my attitude.
I'm not I'm not completely sold on its place.
No and I. Completely agree.
I can't imagine a tie. It's just not, you know, I think
if we knew exactly how, if, if everything went to perfectly and
we got exactly students were exactly the same on the start in
reception and when you were delivered something, they'd
learn it. And then, yeah, we'd have to
retrieve it. But then the next lesson they're
going to learn this and that's going to happen every year.
Everyone would leave school with grade 9 maths and we wouldn't be
talking about this now because it would be solved like that's.
That's not the reality of. Of teaching, it's not the
reality of students, even students who are in, you know,
other other, like you just don't know what's happened in their
day already. You don't know if they've had
breakfast. You don't know how well they're
going to learn something. There's so many factors that fit
into things. And yeah, potentially if every
student was predictable, then we would, we could just sit them in
front of, you know, potentially a computer 5 hours a day and
they would learn everything. But that's just not, that's not
what the reality of, of where we are.
And I can't imagine a time we ever are, but yeah.
Like you said that that human interaction, that social element
of school and even mathematics to an extent, you know, because,
yeah, because it's so much of mathematics is cultural, you
know, and you know, well, you need to have people for it to be
cultural, you know, can't just be computers.
Yeah. So.
But that is another conversation for another, another day.
So I mean, some people are interested and they're thinking,
OK, this sounds, you know, I want to, I want to find out more
where they where they going to? What's the best thing?
Yeah. Umm, they can go to the website.
We give free trials, 60 day free trials currently.
Umm, they can e-mail me if they want some really primary
specific, if they want someone to talk to really primary
specific. So my name's Hannah dot Hogg at,
well, not me, name me. Name's not this, sorry, but me
e-mail address is hannah.hogg@doctorfrost.org.
And yeah, would really welcome a conversation really that, you
know, that is my job to see how it could work in your context
and would really welcome people to trial it out potentially at
this time of year where there might be a little bit more time,
but maybe not. And yeah, there's, there's
things on the website there's about I can point people in the
right direction if they'd like to get in touch.
Now is the time to be. Thinking about what, what might
we do? You know, there's no change
going to be made now, but certainly space for thinking,
you know, like despite sports day, etcetera, you know, phonic
screening checks and the like. So it's, it's been absolutely
lovely chatting with you, Hannah.
And I'm sure people have been really interested in your, a,
your experience and B, also your expertise in this particular
area, because I think it's something we, you know, as
skeptical as I am, it's something that we need to deal
with. We can't, you know, we can't
just put our head. I can't put my head in the sand
and hope that, you know, people will just get over it
eventually. And so, yeah, So I think it
would be really. So all I said to just say thank
you very much for joining me. It's an absolute pleasure.
Yeah. Thank you very much for.
Having me, it's been a pleasure and thank you and everyone at
home. Until next time, thanks for
listening.