IGCSE Booklets Part 3: How I Use Them

In Part 1 I looked at why I have started to use Booklets in my teaching. In Part 2 I looked at how I go about making a booklet for a unit. In this part I want to have a look at how I use the booklet, once it is made. There are two parts to this: how I use the booklet to plan the actual lessons; and how I use the booklet in class.

In planning
With a completed booklet (either from a previous year, or just done for an upcoming unit), I will set aside two copies for myself. The first is used in planning the lessons.

The first thing I do is complete the booklet how I would expect a student to have theirs completed at the end of the unit. This includes doing each of the examples and your turns, writing out the notes, completing some of the exercises (depending on the skill I will do more or less of these based on how difficult they are), and the practice activities. There are three benefits to going through this process:

1. I can see any mistakes that might have managed to slip past me (the occasional copy and paste for a your turn where I forgot to change something);
2. I get a clearer idea of the progression through the skill, and what students will be thinking about at each stage;
3. When the lesson comes around, I have everything worked out already, so do not have to 'live perform' reducing my cognitive load to focus on other things in class.

This first stage is completed in red pen throughout.

Alongside completing the booklet, I also add notes to myself, usually in green pen. These might be things like:

• Show a diagnostic question here;
• More details of explanations;
• Breaking down the steps for a worked example to make it clear to me in lesson what to do.

These notes are there to help me do the important thinking before class, and once again, help me focus on other things during class.

Finally, in a blue pen, I add extra questions that I want to ask along the way. This could be as part of a worked example to draw attention to a particular part, or they could just be oral questions that I don't want to include in the booklet itself.

This is a process I have worked up to over the last couple of years, and I find that all three stages of the planning process with the booklet help dramatically reduce my cognitive overload during class. This allows me to give my attention to other things, such as focusing on checking for understanding and dealing with misconceptions and being more aware of behaviour issues and acting promptly. The next stage for me is to start thinking about who I am going to ask the questions to. 

This post from Doug Lemov explores a lesson preparation process he observed that follows a similar outline.

In lesson
When the lesson comes around, I am well prepared to get going. I now teach using a visualiser/document camera, and make use of the second booklet that I put aside. 

For the notes section of the booklet, I started by writing notes on my blank copy and getting students to copy this down, but more recently I have moved away from this. Now I go through my explanation (penned in green on my copy), and will then direct students to fill in the notes. 

For example, when looking at the magnitude of a vector (one of the notes examples in Part 2), I would explain with a semi-script: "A vector is a quantity with both direction and magnitude. The direction is given by where the vector points. The magnitude is the size of the vector. It is the length of the line segment that represents the vector. If the vector has a direction parallel to the x or y axis, then the magnitude is easy to count. For other vectors, we can draw a right angled triangle where the vector is the hypotenuse and so we can use Pythagoras' Theorem to calculate the magnitude of the vector. If the vector is given in component form, then we can either draw a diagram to help us, or use the formula |a| = sqrt(x^2 + y^2) for a = (x,y)."

Then I would direct students to the page in the booklet, and ask them to fill in the notes based on what was just said. This acts as an immediate form of retrieval practice for students, and gives them a second exposure to the idea. Whilst students write it down, I will circulate and check what they are writing over their shoulder. After time to do this, I will cold call on a student to read out their notes, and ask all students to check theirs against this. This gives students a third exposure to the notes in a short period of time.

I also use the visualiser for doing the examples. I will ask all students to put their pens down, and look at the board. I will then go through the example completely, using silent teacher as described by Craig Barton. I will then ask students some elaboration questions to get them to explain what I did at each stage, and why. If I think there is a step that the class will not know why it is there, I will narrate it instead. Then I will give students time to copy the example down (exactly as I wrote it), and they can move on to the Your Turn. As they do this, again I circulate the classroom, with my complete booklet, looking at their work and checking it against mine. If it is a very short question that requires little work, I would probably not do this. Then I will cold call a student to give their solution, talking through the whole solution, not just giving the answer. At the end I will ask the rest of the class if they agree. The student I cold call may have given an excellent answer or made a misconception (that I picked up on when circulating).

The other way I use the booklet is when students are doing practice on the big whiteboards. I have found that having students hold their booklet as they do this just gets in the way, so I will project the activity on the board for them to refer to.

As I go through the lesson I will also make further notes in my completed copy (with black pen) as to any issues that arise with the booklet, or anything I want to change for the next year. Perhaps a note to add more examples, or remove some, or how to make the explanation clearer, etc

One thing I have not been doing, but am planning to start doing, is to also take notes of students who struggle with a particular part (I guess a purple pen for that!). This would give me something to refer back to when assessments and quizzes come up. 

After the unit
After the unit is complete, I scan the 'live' copy of the booklet (the one I worked on under the visualiser) and upload it to the class website. This acts as an aid to those who missed any lessons as they can see some bits of notes and also all the examples. This is the reason I don't write the your turns in this booklet, so that students can download a new copy to do the your turns again if they wish, whilst having the examples.

Do you use booklets in your teaching? How do you use them effectively to plan for lessons? How do you use them in class? ​