Deliberate Practice What it is and what it

Deliberate Practice What it is and what it isn’t T&L Briefing Wednesday 6 th December 2017

Deliberate Practice v ‘Just Practice’ Deliberate Practice: • is extremely targeted • is focused on something that you are almost able to do but not just yet • has to be constantly monitored and adapted to your current level • needs the learning tasks to be designed so that you can take it one step further than your current level • is dependent on huge amounts of internal motivation • needs an experienced/knowledgeable teacher to give the effective feedback to maximise your performance • is focused, targeted improvement…not simply doing what we usually do.

Role of the Learner Deliberate practice requires the learner to: • move out of their comfort zone • put in serious, consistent effort

The Five Principles of Deliberate Practice

A few strategies to consider… • Introduce pivotal concepts and vocabulary at the start of lessons and So. W to give students more time to practise them later on • Use explanations, models, questions, discussions and writing as opportunities to expose students to key concepts more than once • Consider lesson plans in terms of how each task in the lesson will enable the students to practise the same material in a slightly different way, deepening their understanding as they go • Teach less content every lesson to ensure students have the opportunity to rehearse and practise the important ideas • Use HL as an opportunity to drill and practise key concepts again • Never assume that just because a student understands a key concept once that they have retained it forever! • Bear in mind that the wrong ideas and misconceptions are embedded through exactly the same process!!