How to encourage purposeful practice in the run up to exam season.
Our resident Education Expert, Ruth Darvill, draws on her 20+ years in education to share how to best make use of Seneca.
As teachers, you are all too aware of how important it is for your students to perform well in their exams. Not only are you judged by your results, but I’m sure one of your primary drivers for choosing teaching in the first place was to help make a real difference to the outcomes of students. However, student cohorts vary hugely from year to year, and yet you are still expected to improve results each year. This can lead to added stress and inevitably increased workload. So what if there was a way to alleviate some of that stress and workload?
The Seneca platform has been specifically designed to use the latest cognitive science research to produce content that is not only beneficial for students’ learning, but also reduces teacher workload. Many of you will be aware of the work of Carol Dwek and the ideas around ‘Growth Mindset’ in which, through detailed research and observation she concludes that it is effort rather than talent that is what sets people apart, whether that be elite sportsmen and women; concert pianists or high flying academics. In fact, in Matthew Syed’s book ‘Bounce’, which draws on Dwek’s work, he states that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert in any area. I’m sure you are not expecting any of your GCSE or A level students to be experts in their field, but purposeful practice does make a difference to grades.
It is important to make the distinction here between time spent revising and purposeful practice. A student could spend two hours reading their notes, whilst another spends an hour on retrieval questions, focusing on understanding the areas they find most challenging. Unsurprisingly, the second student is the one who will make greater progress, despite spending less time revising. This is because energy was focused and targeted on areas of learning needing the most practice; thus enabling the student to progress more rapidly. So what does Seneca Premium offer that enables students to learn more effectively, whilst still reducing workload?
Firstly, Premium offers courses that are specifically targeted to support or stretch students. You could therefore set hyperlearning courses for those students who struggle with engagement or find reading challenging, whilst then offering your most able students targeted courses with more challenging content to enable them to gain higher grades (7-9 in GCSE or A/A* at A level). This ensures that all students focus on the skills and knowledge specific to their needs, thus enabling them to make the best possible progress and ensure time spent on tasks is purposeful.
Secondly, by regularly interweaving AI-marked exam questions into class or homework assignments, you are providing opportunities for students to gain additional experience answering unscaffolded questions, thus providing them with that important ‘purposeful practice’, which is so important for ultimate success. AI-marked exam questions can also be used as mini-assessments or end-of-topic tests by using the Premium function to set exam questions-only assignments. These assessments not only provide students with increased exposure to exam-style questions, but also provide valuable knowledge and data for you as a teacher to further target your teaching and diagnose misconceptions. This in turn frees up time in class to focus on the knowledge and skills most needed by your current cohort. The data also informs you as to any students who may benefit from early targeted support or stretch, helping them to realise their full potential. All this is possible without increasing workload as the vast majority of exam questions on Seneca are completely AI-marked.
Premium also offers the opportunity for purposeful independent study using the ‘Smart learning’ mode. This learning mode provides students with a bespoke pathway through the course and enables them to focus on the knowledge and skills which they still need to develop, whilst still ensuring they don’t simply cover content once, but regularly revisit it. This functionality, therefore, provides you with another tool to encourage students to revise in a purposeful way.
Seneca Premium is used by many schools both in the UK and Internationally. Schools using Premium have seen for themselves the benefits to both staff and students. Schools find the platform to be an engaging and effective way for pupils to revise and find students like the independent nature of Seneca.
Robert from Parker E-Act Academy said “We liked the individual learning paths for students and the interactive nature of the learning and the fact it provided immediate feedback. It is an excellent learning platform”.
Michael from Rochester college said “It just works! It captures useful information for monitoring work of students and students gain confidence from working through it and seeing their test scores improve”
Want to discuss how Seneca could benefit your students with Ruth, our Education Expert?
Book a call with Ruth to discuss in more depth how you can utilise Seneca at your school, or email ruth@seneca.io
Keen to find out more about Seneca Premium?
Click here to get a quote or find out more, or email amelia@seneca.io