Most of the time working through carefully structured exercises can deliver the appropriate content. But at times this just is not enough, some in-depth explanation is needed … the connections, the reasons for working this way, some of the motivation for the ideas, emphasis on the how and why of aspects of some exercises. If there was a culture of actually reading and thinking about a section of the textbook given as homework then this could help, but there is not, it is not done. There will be many who gain nothing from that so you cannot assume any of it was looked at, it is worse than worthless as a prep to base a lesson on. Most students just wait till it is given in class, and will be completely lost unless you bore and annoy those who did what you asked by spending most of the class catching the lazy ones up. They very quickly learn that doing such homework is a recipe for suffering through a really boring repetition the next day. Some might eventually go there just before the topic test in a couple of weeks, many will not even then. Teacher led discussion seems the only option.
But the pattern of working through ideas on the board, with open questions asking them to think about and propose steps, hoping for some kind of engagement, is actually a lot less fruitful than the written worksheet was … most students snooze till there are a few lines to copy, as copying is the standard measure of doing ones duty in these phases of a class (assessment is always “show me your work” … i.e. show me that you have copied everything from the board … and assessment does define what “work” is) perhaps transfer of the board to their workbooks is achieved, then they snooze again. The fruitful dialogue is with the 3 or 4 who actually can be bothered to think about it rather than snooze till the next line. You can shut them down and pick on the inattentive … you do get the occasional blush of embarrassment as someone struggles to rouse themselves from a state of snooze and find the background to the question, or you will find that some have enough understanding and half an ear open so can throw up something resembling a sensible response. Most are simply waiting (more, or less, politely … depending on personality) for the packaged answer to copy dutifully … avoiding anything so annoying as actually thinking (or learning). Little penetrates beyond the eye to hand path involved in blind copying, and that fact is very very clear if you are so foolish as to ask the same idea a couple of minutes later, or the next lesson … the same 3 or 4 still know, the rest still know nothing about it. In my novice hands it is a very very slow and painful way to transfer written notes from teacher to workbook. Almost everybody is just waiting 80% of the time for the next copy-able lines to appear on the board, or worse they are entertaining themselves by refusing to participate at all without threats of staying back over lunch to do the 10 mins copying and show it finished … material that took 50 long mins of haranguing students to copy it to deliver in the first place.
I, at this stage anyway, cannot get sustained attention to anything teacher-driven for more than a few minutes without much more effective harangues than I have used so far. Evidence of dutiful copying can be demanded as evidence of attention (or perhaps obedience) and this could force all but the most recalcitrant to provide it. But what does that achieve, apart from another version of the notes already available alongside plenty of practice exercises in the textbook?
Success has only come from scaffolded worksheets. Yet there are definitely some students who get the longer explanations better than tackling a challenge without such ideas delivered first, and some also do listen. Must I abandon them in favour of the majority? At least these same will ask and I can spend time individually explaining, so I guess that is the way most of the time.
Somehow I have to find some balance here, I am feeling reasonably effective those times I set longish challenging tasks on paper … tough enough to engage all for a decent period of time if they can be at all bothered … and I am able to work with small groups during that time, helping them over their particular hurdles … they will pay attention to their own problems but have zero tolerance for listening to class wide explanations of something someone else has a problem with … perhaps a question they have not yet wrestled with so do not care a jot about … or perhaps something they happen to get … or perhaps something a bit too challenging for them yet, but of interest to half the class.
But perhaps this is all a rant after a much too teacher-centred lesson which tried to explain some new and difficult ideas that had not been reached by the previous lesson’s exercises. I’ve another worksheet on the boil for tomorrow, maybe more luck there?