I feel crazy saying this, but after six months of teaching since lockdown, I am fairly confident that I will think of my maths teaching career in two main phases.
BC – Before Computers
AD – After Dr Frost
During lockdown, I started setting much more work on Dr Frost Maths, in order that I could track work from a distance. Upon returning to school, I surveyed the students – nearly all of them wanted to continue working more on DFM. Luckily, my school provides a device for every student and so I decided to trial its use in the classroom, and from September, my department did the same.
Firstly, I should make clear that our use of DFM is not as large a departure from traditional maths teaching as it may seem. We still model solutions, encourage students to question, explain and explore, and set them problems to work on. The only difference is how their answers are checked – by DFM, rather than by peers, a teacher, or not at all.
The key difference is that on completing a question, each student receives (unless the teacher decides otherwise) instant feedback, and a chance to correct any mistakes. This has had a huge positive impact on student motivation – we have never known students work with so much focus and effort as they have been doing. This is not surprising, as educational research consistently shows that feedback is one of the biggest factors influencing learning.
Secondly, we have never had such a clear picture of what our students can and cannot do. We can now see the results of nearly every question our students have ever answered, organised in such a way that we can easily see who needs pushing, who needs extra support, and when is a good time to move on to the next idea.
One element of students’ math that DFM does not check is their written method. However, since using DFM we have found no difference in the quality of written work and it is in line with previous high-attaining students that we have taught. Indeed, in many cases it has improved; the vast majority of students realise that in order to get the questions correct, it’s best to write down your method!
On a personal note, I feel so much more relaxed about my lessons. This comes partly from knowing that I am much less likely to have to battle to get my students to work hard in lessons. But also from feeling much more confident that I am doing a good job, as I am able to assess and differentiate so much more effectively.
It’s a bold claim but I cannot help but feel that in the future, all students will learn maths in this way.