ERRR #106. Lissie Doyle on Test Feedback that Makes Students Think

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Speaker A This podcast was recorded on the lands.

Speaker B Of the Wurundjeri, Woi Wurrung and Boon Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation.

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Speaker B And present and acknowledge that sovereignty was never ceded and the colonisation and dispossession of both ongoing processes. This episode of the E Triple R Podcast is brought to you by the Explicit Mathematics Program the EMP is an all encompassing mathematics program from foundation to Year two built by some of the most prominent mathematical educators in in Australia and based upon the science of learning. With everything from daily reviews to complete teacher lesson plans, student independent practice, and both formative and summative assessments, the EMP has everything you need to run maths in F2 at your school. We have mapped the Explicit Mathematics Program to every curriculum used in Australia, so regardless of where you're based, the EMP has you covered. This is a program written by David Morkunis, Tony Hatton Roberts, Dr. Wendy Taylor, Michael Roberts and yours truly and we've been working really hard on the EMP for over two years applying every principle of effective teaching and learning that we know to the design of this program and now the EMP is ready for you and your students to benefit from. To find out more and even to book in a demo of the program with me Personally, go to www.explicitmathematicsprogram. that's Explicit Mathematics Program.com this episode of the E Triple R podcast is also brought to you by Catalyst, a project pioneered by Catholic Education in the Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn. Catalyst is an evidence based educational project that's working directly in schools and with teachers across the ACT and parts of New South Wales. Catalyst has its genesis in this podcast and is a structured and strategic approach to bring the science of reading and the science of learning to life in in more than a thousand classrooms. It's drawing on both local and international expertise, including several guests from the ERR podcast, to realize the bold vision of transforming students lives through learning by developing excellent teachers and leaders. If you'd like to find out more about opportunities at the Catalyst Project and Catholic Education in Canberra, including the professional development that they're running, the ways that they are engaging Australian and world leaders in evidence based education, and even to explore employment opportunities, just click on the Catalyst logo or follow the link in.

Speaker C The show notes welcome to the Education Reading Room. Your host is my dad Oe Apple and I Madea Enjoy the show. What truly matters is teachers expertise. The most important tip for new teachers is to set out your boundaries 44% of jobs will be automated.

Speaker B It reinforces cycles of disadvantage hello listeners and lovers of learning, and welcome to the Education Research Reading Room, the podcast that brings you into the discussion with inspiring educators and education researchers. I'm Oli Lovell and it's a pleasure to be your host in the E Triple R. In this episode, we're speaking with Lizzie Doyle. Lizzie is Head of Health and Physical Education at Cardenia International College. She has a background in experiential learning as an outdoor educator and has worked in and around schools in Queensland and Victoria in in recent decades. After a brief hiatus from teaching, during which she ran a renewable energy business down in Tasmania, she has returned to teaching at Cardinia for the past eight years, constantly focusing on improving her own practice to maximize the learning of her students. When Lizzie isn't reading about evidence informed teaching, you might find her surfing, mountain biking and enjoying the great outdoors with her family. This is an exciting episode for me because it's the first time that I've had a guest on as a result of them listening to a prior episode of the E Triple R podcast. Back in 2022, Lizzy listened to my discussion with Paul Spenceley on effective Formative assessment and she said it was hugely influential and really changed her practice. Lizzy has since been on a mission to implement and build upon Paul's work since then, and I was lucky enough to visit her school and see her in action a few weeks ago and thought, wow, this is some practice that each listeners could learn a lot from. And so here we are. I'm sure you're going to love this episode. It's always fantastic speaking with practicing teachers and really getting into the weeds around highly specific and effective practice in the classroom. I have no doubt that many of you will want to try Lizzie's test feedback approach, and if you do, Lizzy and I would both love to hear from you and hear how it went. Also, if you're keen for a weekly dose of educational insight, stimulation and resources, you might like my Ed Threads newsletter. Each week I share with subscribers all of the juiciest educational tidbits that I've collected over the week, wrapped up in an easy digest and email message. Join thousands of other educators around the world and stay up to date with the most important ideas in education with this Friday afternoon message. To sign up, go to ollielovel.com subscribe that's ollielovel.com subscribe now. Without further ado, let's jump straight into this episode of the ERR Podcast.

Speaker A Lizzy Doyle, welcome To the Education Research Reading Room.

Speaker C Thank you. It's great to be here.

Speaker A It's wonderful to have you here, Lizzie. I wanted to start first with a pretty open question, which is, how did.

Speaker B We get here today?

Speaker C How we got here today? It's actually Ollie's fault, because, Ollie, when I first listened to your podcast maybe five or six years ago, I was really sort of struggling as a teacher because I just wasn't getting any better. And I was. I was following my gut, and I was finding it really hard to find information that would improve my practice that was actually evidence informed. And I started through a couple of different ways. I started searching around, and then I stumbled upon your podcast and started listening and became a big fan. And that was the sort of start of my undoing, I guess, in terms of evidence informed teaching and trying to just be better for my students in the classroom and now trying to be better to help other teachers in the classroom as well. So. Yeah.

Speaker A Awesome. And tell us about the particular podcast that's really prompted you to change how you do assessment and prompted my visit recently.

Speaker C Yeah, excellent. So you interviewed Paul Spenceley. I think it was episode number 54.

Speaker A Close 64. I checked just before 64.

Speaker C Yeah, excellent. Episode number 64. And it was one of those interviews, I think, that you did that because it was with a classroom teacher. It. First of all, it really, like, perked my interest. It was someone that was practicing in the classroom. And then some of the things that he spoke about, mostly about the improvement of his students over time, I think he would have. He spoke about mini whiteboards, spoke about checking for understanding. But more than anything, he spoke about the concept of marks, which is about giving feedback to his students and how he had such monumental growth in his students. Students. And, you know, I'm a bit competitive, I guess. I am a PE teacher, and I really want my students to be excellent, and I want them to be as excellent as they can be. So my excellence is picking a kid from a D and bringing them up to a C and nurturing them and caring for them and all those sorts of things as well. So listening to that was really inspiring. I think within five minutes of finishing that episode, I bought the book because I just. His book, and I just wanted to know more about what he did. And then I read the book and I saw his graph of improvement, and I just like, I've got to give this a go. I've got to try to make it work in my physical education classroom, in my VCE senior physical education classroom. And that Was the beginning fantastic.

Speaker A So you mentioned marks there. Marks stands for maths, but it's basically a way for students to kind of categorize their areas when it comes to a test or any assessment. And M stands for maths or graphical error. A is application of knowledge, R is not reading the question carefully, C is clarity and precision of answer, K is knowledge not revised or understood, and S is statements per mark. So that was. What was it about the Marks approach that struck you at the outset?

Speaker C So I think what it is is what I kept seeing. So as a year 12 teacher, and then also as an exam marker, I kept seeing that students just. They just didn't understand the questions. So what. What, that they were missing out on marks because they'd read a question and get really confused by what they were supposed to actually answer in the question. And quite often, you know that they'd just put something in that didn't relate to the question at all, or they wouldn't have the detail that I needed. And I wanted to give them a really. A really easy way that they could break down any question they saw, ideally in any subject. But first of all, I was just starting with pe. Any question they saw and make it understandable in their knowledge base so that they knew exactly what they had to do to respond to the question so they could maximize their opportunity of getting the most amount of marks possible. And that's what it was. It took something that's quite complex to a learner like a question, and then actually simplified that question. It also, by default, made me better at writing questions because I think it's very easy to write questions badly, even though your intentions are really strong. And so it made me double check how I was writing the question to ensure that my answer was within that question and the students were going on the right path and they couldn't make an error based on my poor writing. So it was both of those things, helping students and helping teachers.

Speaker A Awesome. Now, you mentioned you teach pe, and obviously Paul's work is in the realm of science. Do you think there's any. Which subjects do you think this kind of a marking approach would apply to?

Speaker C Yeah, great question. So biology. Science is Paul, and a lot of his book was written about that. And because in PE we do a lot of physiology, we do some physics, we do biology. It just. It was like some people would say that PE is a sports science, it is a science. So it was actually really, really transferable. I think, honestly, when I look at. Particularly if I'm just talking about the Victorian Examination system for year 12s. When I have looked through other subjects, I do think that provided the exam is written in a way that has command terms, application of knowledge and knowledge, it probably could be applied to literally any subject. So I've looked at the business VCE exam and I feel like if I was sitting with a business teacher and I had that, the knowledge aspect, we could break it down into. Into my version of Paul's work. The darks alongside biology, definitely. Also alongside. I think anything that has short answer questions, definitely. Hhd, Health and Human Development. I would say any subject I'd like to explore maths and English because I think that would be harder just because of the style of questions that I would imagine get asked. However, I think that there's always a way that you can twist stuff and make it work. Anything that makes the cognitive load on the students easier, particularly in a stressful moment when they're sitting stressful tests, SACs or exams is. Is great. Yeah, basically 100.

Speaker A I agree. I think anything like you said there with short answers. I mean I taught further maths for a long time, which includes a lot of short answers and I think it's completely applicable there. I think English is an interesting one. I think again, short answers probably applicable, but. And particularly for the learning process. But I think maybe when you get onto those longer essays, maybe not as applicable, but I think there's lots of parts of. Parts of what we're actually talking about today and the way you. You do it, that. That would be.

Speaker C Yeah, that's it.

Speaker A Right. So maybe I'll just talk through kind of what I saw when I visited your classroom a couple of weeks ago. Now and then we can kind of unpack what happened behind the scenes to kind of make that happen. So what I saw basically the lesson I was watching was a sack hand back and sack is basically a. It stands for School Assessed Coursework. It's a year 12 assessment that counts towards the student's end of year mark, essentially just. But basically it's a test and you gave students three documents as part of this test handbag process. The first was their own assignment, but crucially it was unmarked. Well, it wasn't unmarked you'd actually mark, but it was unannotated. So it just looked as if they just handed it in themselves. The second thing you gave them was a marking scheme booklet which included fully worked solutions and the kind of key what. What was required to get the marks in each case. But also on that marking scheme sheet there were also in conjunction with every Question. There were two student examples, two examples of student work. Now, you called these student A and student B, but actually they were just photos taken of work from your students in your class. And the third thing you gave them was a sheet, and it was kind of just like a 1, 1A4 sheet. And on it there were three columns. The first was related to student A, the second was related to student B, and the third was related to their own work. And they had to look at the. Look at the student work samples that you'd given them, use the marking scheme to mark that and actually give a mark to student A, student B, and to themselves. And also if they noticed any areas, try to categorize them as per the darks system that you've come up with, which we'll go into in more detail. And so basically, what students are doing, they don't actually receive. It's very different to what a student would usually get. Usually they'll get a mark back test, and they kind of have a look through it and then they're over. Then it's all done here. You're actually giving them the marking scheme and you're saying, apply this to two other examples and then your own work. And only when students had marked the two other examples plus their own work for the whole test, then they would bring it up to you and they'd say, this is what I'd got, I got. And you'd basically say, yeah, you're on. On track. And if they were on track, you would actually give them their mark, as you would. You'd mark them or you'd say, I actually. You need to refine this a little bit more. They'd go back and they'd focus on the marking more and then bring it up. Have I kind of hit the nail on the head with that summary?

Speaker C Yep, yep, that's it. Absolutely.

Speaker A So tell us from your perspective, Lizzy, what the. Tell us a little bit more about this process and what some of the benefits are that you've seen.

Speaker C So a little bit about what I think one of the other catalysts to drive me towards this feedback system is. I recognized that the feedback that I was giving to the students just wasn't good enough. I was writing things on their exams, like, more detail, and I went through it like, do I invent some stamps so that I can stamp each one? Because I also found the time that I was taking to write all the feedback on their sacks, like, there was just so much. And then I'd give the sax back in the back to the students. And because I hadn't written essays to each one on each question, the kids weren't understanding what they were getting wrong or right and why, like most importantly, why they were getting it wrong or right. And then they could get quite upset and they'd be like, why didn't you give me this? And it became quite personal, it became really stressful. And there was one particular class that I was just like, this is just a horrible, horrible process for everyone to be going through because they're just looking at the number and they're not learning from it. And I desperately, I knew very strongly from the work I'd been looking at in terms of feedback, if you don't own the feedback, then you don't care. If you just give the students a mark, then they take that mark and they walk out the door and that's the end of the stage story. And in vce, as you know, we need to prepare the students for the end of the year exam and we do that by in pe, for example, we do six sacks across the year and we have to retrieve that information and then, and then they have to retrieve it all again at the end of the year. So they needed to think deeply about the feedback process in order to learn and grow as students and in order to embed that knowledge in their long term memory. So since using darks with my students, what I've noticed the benefits are there's quite a few. So the benefits, first of all for me as a teacher is that now that we've got the system set up, it's much faster to mark. So as you saw, I've got an Excel spreadsheet. I put one letter in or two letters or three letters. I use darks as opposed to marks, which I think we'll go into in a little bit later. But it's just the process of marking, marking has no emotion involved in it anymore. It's just they either had this information or they didn't. So as a teacher, my workload is less, which every teacher wants. So that's one of the benefits. The other benefit which I just spoke to is definitely that the students have full ownership over their answers and responses. And their. Because they have the ownership, because they've seen those two worked examples on the non example and the example, they very clearly know when they read theirs where they fit. So they don't need me to unpack it or explain it. They can just see it visually in front of them and they can make a note of, I need to do better at this Next time. They also know exactly what part they are missing out on. So early in the year we find that students miss out on marks for data and application. Really common and easy, but also like, I don't want to sound harsh, but also like a bit of an unforgivable mistake because data is just data and data is always in the question. So the data is on the page in front of you in any subject or the source material is always there. So if you're just reading a graph, you just have to put the number from the graph in. So it's about letting them know those mistakes, make them once or twice, but then that's it. We don't want to see data coming up at this time of year. If it is, we know it's just a bit of a brain lapse because we work so hard on. Also makes it really clear how important the knowledge is. So the knowledge part of the darks feedback process is the bit where I get to really dig into teaching students about how their memories work, about their working memory and their long term memory, the importance of retrieval, and yet just how learning works. So I get to say to the student, if you're getting lots of Ks, what are the strategies that you're using? So if you're getting lots of feedback that says your knowledge isn' isn't where it needs to be, what strategies are you using at home? What strategies are you using with mum and dad? And how can we tighten those strategies up? Like are you really putting your phone away when you study? Are you really using cue cards and actually testing yourself? Are you saying it out loud or are you writing it? Because if you're thinking it, then we know that's a bit, that can be a bit lazy. So we want to write it or say it. And so we can really dig into that. And from that becomes excellent conversations at parent teacher interviews. Because despite everyone having gone to school, I really don't think a lot of people know how the learning happens. And so when we have parent teacher interviews, I can say, look, little Johnny has done an incredible job this year, but it's really falling down on their knowledge. And this is my data, I can show you my data that says they lost so many marks for knowledge, so let's talk about the strategies. And so then I'm able to teach parents about how learning happens. And then those parents are then able to support their students and say, are you using your cue cards on the way to soccer training? Can I like test you? Or while we're sitting in the car or get your little brother to do it. And it just, it breaks down that barrier and actually teaches people in general about, you know, what we're doing in classrooms and how it matters. So I think, I mean, I've probably got a whole lot more benefits, but they're probably the main one. So I'm going to teach a workload, students taking ownership of their learning and that, that translation of the learning for parents, I think they're. They're the big ones.

Speaker A That's awesome, Lizzy. And I saw, I mean, I couldn't see the change in the workload, but I saw the other benefits in the classroom when I visited. And I actually was privy to an interesting interaction between you and a student where it was like, oh, you. I can't remember what the numbers were, but you were getting 60 today. You got 80. What's changed? Yeah, they were just like, I started using the flashcards like you told me. It's like, great. It actually works. Yeah, it really worked. So that was, that was really good to see what you do. Another interesting thing, Lizzie, is what you do is very similar to how I used to do test hand back as well. I used, but a few slight differences. So I wanted essentially the same outcome that you're going for, which is students actually thinking about their own tests and really studying the marking scheme carefully. So what I would do is actually snip the staple off their assessment. I'd photocopy them before I marked it, then I'd staple them back together. I would mark one version, and on test handback day, I would actually give them their test back and I would go through the answers and they would mark their own assessment, their own unmarked assessment while I went through the. Went through the answers. Now, I think this had kind of the same benefit in that students were thinking hard about. About the marking scheme. But it did have some drawbacks, one of which was I would kind of move the class forwards in lockstep. So that kind of created some issues when, you know, some students need more time to process or, you know, your students who had most of the answer right are just kind of sitting there ticking, or even like, students are going, oh, what about my question? What about my question? And raising their hands. You're having to try to, like, answer at the spot or just say, oh, it's okay, I'll get to you. You know, I'll come and have a chat to you about that later. So I think there's a lot of benefits to your approach, but I think the commonality and what I really saw in your classroom was just students thinking really hard about the market scheme and actually learning a lot from it, which is, which is fantastic. I want us to kind of. I'm hoping that at this point teachers interest is piqued enough that they're really interested to have a bit of a go. I actually ran a PD session on my approach which, like I said, I don't think it's as good as yours and I think yours is definitely an upgrade of. But a few years ago at a maths conference and I've still got teachers who email me every now and then and say, I'm still doing that, you know, that approach that you do of snipping the staple off and blah, blah, blah. So I think it is a really powerful. I really encourage people to have a go. So what I want us to do is kind of dive into the, the detail of exactly what you do and exactly how you market and how you feed it back and how you prepare it, just so teachers who are keen to have a go are well prepared to do so. So the first thing I'm interested in is when you're mark what you take their tests and you mark it in a spreadsheet, do you find. And this is what I would be worried about because you're not actually annotating anything.

Speaker B Are you worried that you're going to.

Speaker A Forget why you gave them the mark they. You gave them? Or like, if they come to you and say, you know, why don't I have XYZ mark for this question? It's going to take you too long to kind of go back or is that an issue? Or.

Speaker B It's just.

Speaker A It's not, it's not an issue.

Speaker C It's. It's actually not an issue. And the reason it's not an issue is when we mark, when we create the sax, when we create the tests for each, the answer guide is set up in such a way that it's got the darks there. So rather than like most answer guides just have one mark for this, one mark for that, whereas I'll actually have D1 mark. And then what I expect to hear from that, what I expect to see, sorry, written from that mark. Sometimes on my mark guide I'll have the word or. So I probably won't be able to think of an example off the top of my head. But whereas there's a. If there's a question that a student could apply their knowledge and use slightly different terms. So an example for us in PE is working at a higher intensity aerobically or working more efficiently aerobically or running faster with an increase from their aerobic energy system. So when there could be multiple ways that a student can respond to a question, I'll use a big or. So when the student's going through the marking guide, it's just really, really explicit. And I think that with most questions there's some really key words that we need to kind of nail. Like if you use efficiency, then probably you're more likely to get that answer correct than if you haven't used the word efficiency. So over the course of the year, we've taught students about the importance of speaking like a sports scientist or writing like a sports scientist and using the language of the sport science. Yeah. Classroom. So the mark guide is very, very explicit. And so it's got the D, the A, the C, the K and the S in there when it's appropriate and what each of those things are worth. And you'll also sometimes find that a three mark question students may still lose a mark because the marks will be allocated for data, for example, application and knowledge. But perhaps they've only really written two sentences so they're not going to get the statements per mark. They might have like skirted around two of those. Application and knowledge might be like the sort of question you want to give a half mark to. But we're not allowed to give half marks. So because it's not quite a half mark, I'd say you haven't given. Rather than saying use more detail, which is really fluffy and doesn't mean anything, I would say there's not enough statements per mark. You need to make that one sentence into two sentences and that would make it clearer. So the mark guide is really, it's really important that the questions are well written and then it's very important that the mark guide is correct. And as we're marking sacks, I am also really conscious that we can make mistakes as teachers. So if I see a common, if I see that, you know, 20 of my 35 students telling me the same thing, then I'll quite often go back to my marking guide and go, have I like, have I asked the question explicitly enough? Have I been unclear? And if I have been, I might change my marking guide. Obviously not if it's the knowledge is wrong, but if it's like a tweak to it, then I'll respond in that way because I don't want to be unfair. I want to reward students with marks. So it doesn't happen that often that we change the marking guide. But sometimes we will. So we're quite flexible in the approach and I would say very, very excited, explicit as to what the mark is worth. So to answer your question, coming back to when the students like not knowing. So when a student comes to me and they say, why did I get this wrong? Then I go to my spreadsheet and I see that they have an A. And straight away I know that it's application, which means I know that the student hasn't said anything about running faster aerobically. Running at a higher intensity aerobically. So they might have said working at a higher intensity aerobically, but the question was about a running race. So therefore they have to say the word run. So it just doesn't take. Yeah, it's just within that DARKS acronym. The answer is always there. So. Yeah.

Speaker A So the fact that you've actually annotated in your spreadsheet which of the. Which of the letters from DAX was at fault here means that you can very quickly kind of remember what you were thinking. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker C Yeah. And because the answer guides. Got it as well, so I go, oh, they were supposed to say running. Yeah, it's there. I can always double check it.

Speaker A Yeah, great. Maybe now's a good time to unpack the acronym DARKS for us, Lizzy.

Speaker C Yeah, yeah. So it's like Paul's, but obviously I needed to change it a bit for the VCE context. So for us, one of the biggest mistakes that we see, and we see this as VCE examiners every year when we unpack the exam, exam students are missing marks for data. So data or referencing data is so important and like I said earlier, such an easy thing to get correct for students. So I really wanted to make sure data was in there. And the meth, I think Paul used M for method. Is that right? I can't remember now.

Speaker A Mathematical or graphical error?

Speaker C Yeah, there we go. So I just wanted to put it into simpler language, which I guess it's the same. It's a graphical or it's a data error for us. So D for data.

Speaker A So students, when you say data, and he kind of alluded to this before, it's basically like if you have a graph of heart rate and the student has to talk about how heart rate went to max or some percentage of max or something like that, they need to actually state that was 180 beats per minute. Like, they didn't just say it went high, it went high. 180 bpm, something like that. That's what you mean by data.

Speaker C Yeah, 100%. So, and I always say with data for us in PE, we have to have. I'd expect to see two different numbers. So it went from 160 to 180. And that's to make sure that we know that it's increased or decreased or whatever it's done. So those two data points. So data is generally that. Sometimes data might be referring to a picture. So it might be a picture of an athlete doing something. And so it could be. Could be that you might say with reference to the picture. So in that case, I'd sort of stretch that to call that data as well. So data and then application. Application is another one where it can be a very hard mark to get. It can also be a very easy mark to get. So application for us in PE is generally talking about the sport that's referenced in the stem of the question. So, yeah, soccer or footy or they're the easiest sort of examples, or the intensity that the athlete is working at or just some way of bringing it back to the question. And the question's always got an application in it because it's PE or not always. Sorry, the question may have application in it, depending on the command term.

Speaker A I still don't fully get application. So you said it relates to the sport. Does that just mean they need to reference the sport in the same way as they reference the data? Could you give us a concrete example? Maybe?

Speaker C Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, it does seem ridiculously easy. So if the question asks, how does increasing impulse cause a shot putter to put the shot further? And so if a student was responding to that, I would expect them to talk about the shot put going further. So that's the application.

Speaker A So it's not like it goes further.

Speaker C Exactly, yeah.

Speaker A Then the shot put goes further.

Speaker C Yeah. So they need to make it a whole, whole response. And I think, I mean, this is where, like, I wish I had an exam of business management or media or something in front of me, but I think in all subjects we have that. Where you can't just. Unless it's an identifier list or depending on the command term you generally like, if it's a define and explain, a describe or justify, you have to contextualize it. So I guess maybe application is providing the context around the question. So, yeah, in pe, we students won't be able to access a mark potentially if they don't have that. So I always. Yeah, always say that.

Speaker A And that's also. I mean, that's relevant in all the subjects. I've taught as well, because, yeah, basically what the examiners are checking is that you're not just repeating something you've seen in a textbook or something off your formula sheet, if you have that.

Speaker C Because.

Speaker A And you're actually interpreting that principle in the context of the current question. So, yeah, to me, yeah, application or context is probably another. Another good one there, but not such a nice acronym. Yeah, yeah, okay. That. That helps.

Speaker C Yeah, yeah, cool. So data application R is rereading the question, which is the same as Paul's. So that reread is. Look, you know when a student just answers and it's not got anything to do with the question or the easy one for PE is they talk about cricket and it should be soccer. So that one you don't see very often, but when you do see it, you generally know it's not always, but it might be from a student that gets a bit heightened during sax and tests and stuff. And so then you talk to them about strategies of calming down. Reread it. Check your answers with rereading. I do talk about reread the question and then reread your response to it as well. So it's two. Two forms of rereading to make sure that it's. That it's all correct.

Speaker A So this is an acronym that you're expecting students to kind of have in their mind as they answer every question. So at the end of every question, they're like, okay, have I got data? Have I referred to the actual context of the question? Have I. Let me read the question. Okay, cool.

Speaker C Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So to the point that I actually give, for every single sector in the year, they get one mark if they write ducks onto at least one question. So I just give a bonus mark. So the sacs out of. Out of 41 rather than 40, like, whatever. And then they. And to be honest, at the start of the year, we actually, during reading time, I let them annotate as many questions as they can with daqs, because I want them to have that habit by the end of the year to look for it. And they start to get a bit clever with how they shorthand that onto the. Onto the questions. But I want to encourage them to use that because for all my learners, this is important. I don't want my top learners making silly mistakes, and I want my lower learners to access as many marks as they can. And if that is just by talking about the application or the data, then, like, we're all winning. So, yeah, I actually reward them all year for using the darks for showing me that they've used it.

Speaker A I like that. That's great.

Speaker C Yeah, yeah. So what are we? Data application. Reread the question. A command term. So I don't know. I don't know if command term is quite unique to Victoria or Australia. I think it's potentially like, not so common in the ib. I'm not an IB teacher, but we do teach IB at our school. And I understand, I think there's command, but maybe without the emphasis. So this would be an interesting one to discuss with the internationals and the people from out of state. You might be able to tell me, but the command term is incredibly important in our vce. So command term I'm referring to identify, list, explain, demonstrate, justify, evaluate, all those kind of words that tell us how to answer the question. So the command term is one that we see lots of mistakes or more mistakes at the beginning of the year and hopefully less by the end of the year because we explicitly teach what we expect when we see the command term for identify. For example, identify, I would expect a one word response to that. So identify the muscle that's found in the lower leg or one of the muscles that's found in the lower leg, or identifying the equation for. An equation for impulse or whatever it is. So just a really small statement for explain. I always say to my students, explain. I want you to use the words for example. So explain should probably be two sentences. Explain would normally be worth about two marks, two or three. And I would expect someone to explain the concept. Explain impulse, for example. And the example would then apply to the stem of the question. And so that might be worth 2 marks. Something like evaluate or critique. In VCEPE, we're very specific about evaluating critique. So we would be looking for positive, negative, improvement and overall. So I really drill my students using like the mini whiteboards or whatever about if I ask you a critique question, what must you make sure you include what are the four words? And they would write plus, minus, overall, and an arrow showing improvement. And we really drill that because again, as the year goes on, I don't want them to Ms. Marks for misinterpreting a command term question. So that's a really core one for them to understand. And that's also something that we should be building for vce. We should be building that from year seven. So we're really strong at our school and trying to implement those command terms really early so that it's not new information in year 12. So we've got more, more time to teach the knowledge yeah. So next one is knowledge. So knowledge is. Knowledge is the hard bit. This is the bit that, that is the hardest. And it's the thing that the teacher can't do for the students. So as well, I can help the students with the knowledge by hopefully explicitly teaching it and giving them the support that they need to retrieve and create long term memories of what that knowledge is. But I can't force them to practice that knowledge at home. So this is the one that is always across the year. We just, we just always have big numbers of Ks. But I'm really okay with that because I know, I know the strategies that I've given and like I said earlier, the strategies that we've talked to parents about. And it's just the nuts and bolts. It's knowing what the definitions are, it's knowing that the language, it's knowing that if we're talking about open or closed environments, we want to be using the words predictable. Yeah. So I just have to make sure that I'm teaching it really explicitly and that's probably like a whole nother hour. And then that they're able to access resources or create the resources to practice that themselves. So that's the hardest one, the most frustrating one for them and the one that they should be spending all their time on, as far as I'm concerned. And then finally, the last one is statements per mark. Now, statements per mark is the guide. I say with my students that statements per mark is about the sorts of punctuation. So it could be a comma or a full stop. But if a question is worth four marks, then I would expect to see approximately four pieces of punctuation within their work. So maybe four sentences or maybe three sentences with a comma in one of them. And that way they're more likely. Again, it's like a probabilistic thing. If you've got those sentences, you're more likely to be able to access more marks, hopefully. So that's the statements per mark.

Speaker B Dear listeners, if you're finding this discussion stimulating and you'd like to be able to easily refer back to and remember some of the most valuable takeaways from our discussion, why not consider becoming a patron of the Etrubla podcast? Patrons are listeners who contribute a monthly donation to support the ongoing production of the show, and in return receive a summary each month of the key takeaways for the episode. Patrons also receive access to an interactive transcript of each episode, meaning that if you'd like to listen back to a specific part of the episode, you can simply do a word search for a key term, then be taken directly to that spot within the podcast and listen back at the convenience it click of a button. In this month's summary, I'll share a step by step overview of Lizzie's test feedback approach, supporting resources to help you to be successful in implementing this powerful approach, as well as further reflections and thoughts following both my chat with Lizzie and my visit to her classroom at Higher Tiers. Each supporters also have access to a members only podcast with special insights and episodes that go beyond the standard E triple R. This often includes my bonus content from the Tools and Tips for Teachers podcast with Craig Barton, and it's the only place that you can hear Craig and I discuss more personal and private topics in terms of career development, challenges, highlights and tactics and techniques that we have both used and continue to use both in education and in our personal lives. Patrons at Higher Tiers can also make clip requests for their favorite episode segments and even have the opportunity to personally connect with me to discuss teaching and learning. So if you'd like an actionable summary of this episode of the E2 Blood podcast and to explore additional benefits such as the members only podcast, or if you just like to support the ongoing production of the show, Simply go to patreon.com err and sign up to support the show for as little as the price of a cup of coffee per month. That's patreon.com err to support the show and help to keep it sustainable for the long term. Now let's jump straight back into this.

Speaker A Episode of the podcast. Great. Love it. Lizzy. So so that's darks. And so let's go back to the process. So you let students well, first of all, you're going to write a write a test and create a marketing scheme. Do you fully create the marking scheme before you actually start marking it? Or is that do you sometimes edit the market scene as you mark as well?

Speaker C I definitely do edit it a bit, but not always. I try to make sure like if my questions are really explicit and really clear, then my marking scheme should be really clear. And having said that, like I'm not perfect. So sometimes I write dodgy questions unfortunately, and I just hate it. But yeah, generally it's all done beforehand because I know what I've taught and I know what I need to teach for according to the study design and obviously the exam. So it's pretty much all done. It's great having friends that look over your sacks for you though, and give you feedback. That's like, it's really hard to write them. Like, it's. It's a real skill.

Speaker A Oh, yeah, the real skill. Great PD as well, to try to go through that process.

Speaker C Yeah.

Speaker A Okay, so you click the test, you mark them in your spreadsheet, you annotate with darks, depending upon what students, what errors you see students make. Another key thing you do is you take photos of key examples of student work to constitute that student A and student B on the. On the marking sheet that you hand back to students. Talk us through the process of how you choose which student examples, like, even down to, like, how you save them or like, you know, do you take a photo and send it to your computer straight away, or do you store them in different folders and then select at the end? Tell us how you actually do that because I'm really curious how you manage that.

Speaker C Yeah, great question. And I'll be so interested if there's anyone out there that's got a better system that I'd love to hear it. So for me, as I'm marking, I've got the sheets in front of me. I always just mark one question at a time just so that I'm really. I want to be really consistent in my marking and because I need to have ranked my students by the end of the year. And so the consistency is like the most important thing to have. So I mark one question at a time. When I get to an answer that I'm like, oh, my God, that student has nailed it. That is as perfect as it could be. And you always have. You always have a couple of those. I'll just take a photo on my phone straight away. So it's a little bit annoying because it does pause my process of marking. It kind of interrupts it, which is a bit annoying. But it's even more annoying for me to then leaf back through and try to figure out where that was. Or I'd have to pause to put a sticky note or something in there anyway, which I've done in the past. And I'd just rather take the photo straight away. I email it to myself straight away and I just say, student number 23, question 1. Four out of five D. They lost a mark for data, so it just goes straight to my inbox and then I deal with it later. Then I, as I'm marking, I'm also looking at what are the common misconceptions. So what is something that many of my students are making mistake with? And like I said, early in the year, it's data, for example. So I say I try to find like my wrong answer or the non example. I should say the non example. I try to make always like a fairly good mark. So if it's out of four, I want it to be a three or a two. I definitely would never shame any student. And I want it to be like really close, but not quite. And then ideally the not quite will be something that the same mistake that many students have made. And at this stage, like, I'm pretty confident that, you know, early in the year it's data and then as the year goes on, it's a command term and I get pretty like, sort of used to the mistakes I make for those. For the questions. So again, I'll just take a photo of that and say three out of four or whatever it was and send it to myself. So my first example should have been five out of five. So I always have a full mark example and I always have a not Quite there example. 11 after the other and mix up that order a little bit. I used to use the one we use OneNote at our school. I used to use a OneNote app and send it straight to the OneNote. But I just, it caused me too many headaches and not so syncing and that sort of thing. And I've just gone back to the. To taking the photo and emailing it. I just don't like it because it interrupts my. My thought process and my flow, I guess. And then the marking takes that little bit longer. But then I can justify that by saying, well, I'm not writing essays on their papers anymore. I'm literally just banging the numbers in the, in the spreadsheet as we go. So. And it's doing all the maths for me. So it's. It's not that big a deal. And sometimes I maybe end up taking, oh, my God, this answer is actually better than that first one. I also. We're also. We also try not perfect, but we try to be really mindful about celebrating students. So definitely wouldn't have, you know, let's say number 21 is a whiz. Wouldn't have number 21. As every single response, I try to share it out, particularly when I see more of a struggle student. If they just nail a response. And I will delete everything and use that response because, like, they're like shoulders back. That's exciting. And that and that. And we want that. We want that in class. We want that success. So and equally very careful about how we use the non examples as well. So.

Speaker A Yeah, okay, cool. So you email it to. You'll often end up with multiple kind of more than two examples. For any one question, will you. Or do you skip two?

Speaker C No, normally I've just got two. Yep, normally I've got two. If I find a better example, as I'm going like I normally just go, yep, that's a great example. I'll use that. If I find a better one, I might just say use this in my, in the subject line and I just end up with, you know, on the day that I'm marking sax, I'll just end up with 20 emails to myself that I just delete. And then once I get that email, because I'm working with a colleague, they're doing the same process. So I might be marking questions 1 to 5 and my colleagues choose marking questions 6 to 10. We drop them into a shared file. Like for us that we just use a onenote, a teachers only space. So we've got that all there ready to go for us. So it just gets dropped in there so that when students come to us with questions, we can see that example A lost a mark for D and they got three out of four for it. So it's, it's all sort of in that one transparent sheet that we can see. So we kind of get all that together. I think like, I think that there's, I think there's, there's a few, you know, lethal mutations. And I think for me, the thing that I get most scared about is that teachers wouldn't use the best example because we want to show like models are so powerful and we want to show students what the best example looks like. So if we, we need to make sure that the models we're using is not just like the random, oh, they got four out of four. Because sometimes a four out of four can be. They just got the four out of four. They just had enough. But it wasn't the best, best possible response. So if there was one thing I could say is use the best possible response. And if that means you have to take two or three photos and delete the earlier ones and I think it's worth the time for the students.

Speaker A Something I was wondering is if it's necessary to have that best example because you have the marking scheme. So the marking scheme already tells them what they need to do to have, would it not be more valuable, would it be more valuable to have two non examples that are slightly wrong in slightly different ways to cover more of the issues that students actually face to get that full mark?

Speaker C That's A good, that's a really good question. I think why the feedback where you just give the marking scheme like the old fashioned way where you just give an exemplar that's typed up and the marking scheme. I think that the students. I don't really know this but my gut feel is that the students aren't as engaged in that because it's not their work. And I think there's no. Yeah, yes. I think there's something really exciting about a student seeing their work and that their work got four out of four. So. And they look for that. They want to know. So as soon as they see their writing they're like, you hear them, oh my God, which one am I going to be? And so you've got that sort of thing that drives them. So I think, think, yeah, I think that having the, yeah. Having that top example and having many, many students within the class be that top example means that everyone, or not everyone, but many of them are feeling really good about themselves, which is what we want in our classroom. We want students to feel good about learning because they're going to try harder. So yeah, I think it is important.

Speaker A I didn't think about that motivational piece. Do you have a, a sheet on your spreadsheet that tracks which students you're using as the examples and the non examples for each question to make sure you have that coverage?

Speaker C No. Well, I've sort of. I'm just really conscious of like I'd do it if it was just me marking by myself. But I'm also really conscious of working with other people who like, who are brilliant, love them but might not have that same drive as me. So what I've started doing is. And what I was going to mention to my colleague is maybe putting just on the tabs down the bottom all the, where all the student numbers are just making the ones that get the four out of four photos, making them green and the ones that get the three out of four photos maybe giving them a blue color. So that way we can just watch the spread and see if a student's already been used. I think that would probably be like. I've started doing that a little bit. I just haven't broken that news to my colleague yet because yeah, I think it's important. I don't. We haven't ever had feedback from students about, you know, like favoring. Not favoring but having too much emphasis on one student and not having the spread. So I'm fairly confident that we know our learners well enough to have the spread But I think if you had 200 students, that would be a really important thing to do so that you could spread it as much as you could. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A Okay. I guess one limitation of using the coloring the tabs approach is you might like to use a student for an example and a non example in the same assessment. Potentially. Yeah, yeah. Two colors for the tab.

Speaker C Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A Interesting. I do a similar thing on the ccl. You know, we give shout out each week. I track.

Speaker C Yeah.

Speaker A Track who gets them and how many each person.

Speaker C Yeah.

Speaker A There's some people you're like, I want to shout at this person every week. Be like, I better not do that. Yeah, cool. So you meant. You also mentioned how you mark, you might mark questions 1 to 6 and your colleague might do 7 to 12. Talk us to us a little bit about that.

Speaker C Yeah. So in Victoria, it's really important that by the end of the year that we've got our students ranked from highest performing students to lowest performing student and that that ranking is like that we're really confident in that ranking. I don't like that. I don't actually. You probably know more than me. I don't really understand how that is then interpreted and put against their exam results and all the rest of it. But all I know is that if the ranking is right, then our students have more opportunity to perform really, really highly as a cohort, as a group. So the stronger we are as a group, the more correct the ranking is, the better it is for everyone. Everyone. So what we have done is we, we have done a couple of things. We've taken names off our tests, so we only use numbers because we're really conscious that we could have that unconscious bias towards. Or I'm really conscious that I could have unconscious bias towards students. And so, and this, I think the students really appreciate that, that they come into our class and it's a clean slate. So we do that and then we split it. So we make sure that where the experts in questions one to five and then we have that consistency. So it kind of doesn't. I mean it always matters if you mark something well or not well, but as long as you are consistent in it, then the ranking will be consistent and more likely to be correct. So it's really important that we have that consistency over those questions. In the past when we had I marked my class and another teacher marked their class, that they're just like, there's just not consistency. No matter how many times we, you know, moderate or whatever. I just don't believe you've got strong enough consistency which is where you get into problems with your ranking. And then like you can't, I mean maybe it's teach thing but you kind of want the top student to be from your class, you know. And so like that's not, like that's not how it should be. So that's why we just see all our students are our students. They belong to both of us. We've got buy in to both classes because we mark all our students work and we don't necessarily know their names but we, we know their numbers by the end of the year. We're fairly familiar with their handwriting to be honest. But yeah, it just takes that away from it. And then the question that people ask me was then how do you give that individual feedback to a student to how they could improve? And the easy answer is I use a darks feedback. So I look through each student's individual spreadsheet and I can see very clearly how they're going and what their strengths are and what they need to improve on. And I'm sort of starting to use Python and some other things to draw all that data down from the six sacks across the year into one thing and shows me on average what they're doing really well at and what they need to improve at. So I actually believe that with these. How many little letters is it? Six little letters. It actually allows me to know, allows us to know our learners really, really well, which is kind of surprising, but really cool.

Speaker A Yeah, that's fantastic. With the numbering, do you number all the students in the cohort from 1 to like 53 or 1 to 75 or something? Okay, cool. I think your class started with one, so I was wondering if every class one but you, you go all the way through. That makes sense.

Speaker C Yeah. Go all the way through. Yeah, we just, I don't know, we change it up. We do it for different reasons. We try to keep it simple like not surnames but maybe first names and. Yeah, because we don't want to get confused. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A Okay. Have a master sheet with all the students and their numbers.

Speaker B Yeah, cool.

Speaker A So what is, is there anything else that needs to be done? We've. You've marked it and kind of recorded what was, what the, the error was in your spreadsheet. You've taken photos and you've compiled them into a sheet, some under A, some under B. That's pretty much it. You're pretty much ready to hand it back to students, is that right?

Speaker C Yeah, yeah. So then it's just a case of Getting the photos from the OneNote and popping them into the mark guide. So popping it into the, the thing that we've already used to do the markings, we just put the two photos in, label them A and B and yeah, print that off and then print off the, the student sheet that they have to then use to do their marking on. So that. Yeah, that's about it. And it sounds like a lot and it is like anything when you, when you learn, when you're trying to get a new habit, it is a lot. Maybe the first two or three times. But then the, the teachers that I've. I've asked to come along on the ride with me will say it's actually reduces the workload enormously. So it's that long like sort of short term pain for this really good long term gain.

Speaker A Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean the fact that you're just not. Because the thing is when you start writing with a marking with a pen and like annotating things, temptation is just to add an additional comment. Writing the same thing 10 times to 10 different kids, it's just so inefficient. And then the kids don't even read it. Think about it.

Speaker C Exactly, that's it. So there's no point.

Speaker A Yeah, fantastic. When other people try to replicate this, what are some of the kind of issues they have or mistakes they might make?

Speaker C Yeah, that's a great question because I just found out about one from my year 11 teachers the other day. They were asking me about how do you like if kid change classes, how do you then it was just a really. It took me a very long time to understand the question. I won't go into it but what I discovered is that when there's three year 11 teachers and when they're marking they actually have to swap. They have to do the old exchange the class sets of sacks. And I was like oh, so you don't separate it? And they're like what? And I was like what? And so basically what we do is when I print the sack, I print it. Question one to five is on in one booklet and question six to 10 or six to 15 is in another booklet and they're two separate booklets. So at the end of the class I just collect in two booklets and each of them have got the extra writing space and then Stu gets his and I get mine and we market as fast or as slowly as we need to in our sort of two week marking period. So that was like a really interesting aha moment. I was like oh, we've Got to do something about that because, you know, they're trying to swap over papers three times. I'm like, that's just inefficient. You're waiting on other people and it doesn't work. And I never even thought that that would be an issue, but it was.

Speaker A That's actually a really clever approach in terms of printing it off in parts. A variation on that, which some people might. Might like to try also. And what I've generally done with teams that I've worked with for marking is we would just mark, like, you know, say you've got a team of four teachers, four classes, and there's four sacks over the year. We just mark one sack each or. Or if there's, you know, five. Five people in three sacks, some people might do more writing and others do more marking. So that's another. Another option that you can use where you don't have to print off kind of different booklets. I don't know if you've ever done it that way as well.

Speaker C Yeah, I feel like if I was doing it that way, I'd be worried about that feedback process. And when these kids ask me questions that I wouldn't be, like, connected enough to. I mean, I know I'm only connected to half the sack, but I'm deeply connected to half the sack, which gives me a little bit more insight into the other half. So that would be my concern if. If it was just one. And I just. I don't think I could mark 75 on my own.

Speaker A It makes for one, like, one very large marking block. But, like, you. You get to totally chill out for the other ones.

Speaker C Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker A So I think you're going to point out a different potential issue or mistake.

Speaker C I think. I think I already spoke about the photos. I think the photos are super, super important. I'm trying to think. Yeah, probably another mistake would be to just go straight into darks so the students see it for the first time when you're doing the feedback process. So the darks needs to be introduced from as early as possible. So we are now doing it in our year 10 sports science class, which gives us time back in year 12, because we don't have to teach it to them anymore. They already know it. So I think that it needs to be part of every single lesson that you teach, because every lesson you teach should be about dissecting questions and answering questions as part of the process of learning. And so constantly reminding the kids to annotate the questions with darks is super, super important. So it should not. Darks shouldn't be a surprise to them. It should be something that they're taught along with the key knowledge right from the very, very start. Start. Yeah.

Speaker A Love it. Is it.

Speaker B Is there anything that you're not happy.

Speaker A About in relation to this process or any parts of it that you're like, oh, I feel like I haven't quite nailed this, or there's still this niggling feeling that this part of it isn't. Isn't as optimized. Could be.

Speaker C I think the. The photo thing, I'd like it to be better, but I don't want to scan. Yeah, I mean, maybe I did think the other day if someone could scan them all and I marked them on the computer and then I could scan. Snip them, that would be faster and just snip them straight in. But then I'd have to organize someone to scan them into the computer and it kind of ends. So I don't know if that actually makes it easier or harder. So that was. That's one thing. No, I actually. So we've been doing it for five years now and I am pretty happy with where we're at at it. Of course, I'm always happy to refine. I'm. I'm never like quite done. I think what I would like to do more with it is utilize the end data a bit better. So looking, I was thinking the other night about going back through all our sacs and finding the questions that the cohort did the most incorrectly, like they got the most, had the biggest misconceptions about across the year and compiling them into a test, or not into a test, but compiling them into a working document. Document for the first week of term four when we're doing revision. So I haven't done that sort of thing. I haven't actually utilized that data to reteach later in the year really well. So I think that could be some. That that's probably something that I'll be doing on school holidays now, now that I've said it out loud.

Speaker A What do you think about this process?

Speaker C I love it. I love the fact that the students love it. So it's really funny. The first time I did it, I remember I had two students and they were so, so dirty on me. They're like, you're not going to give us your marks. They're our marks. And I was like, no, deal with it. Like, you have to do this process. You have to go. And they were so angry. And I felt like they were kind of really Angry for the first three or four times. But, you know, the irony is by the last one, it's a bit like, eat your vegetables. By the last one, they're. They were like, it's actually really good. We really like this process because we very clearly understand what we've done wrong. And so since then, like, I've done. Because this kind of started as a project through this course I was doing. And so I interviewed students that first year and. And through the process, what I find, we get a lot of year 11 students in PE. Like, maybe I don't actually know percentage, but I want to say 40% of year 11 students doing it early. And. And they always say they take it into other subjects. And I was like, good, take it into other subjects. Spread the word. Tell all the teachers, like, tell them how useful it is to have like a formula or schema. I don't know what the correct word is for breaking down questions and making questions accessible. So, yeah, the fact that it's in HHD has come from the students asking for it to be in hhd. And so I, like, I'd like to think that we'll just slowly infiltrate out, but it's. So the students love it. So all students from all different abilities have. Have found it really, really useful. So. And I think that's. Yeah. And I think, like, if the students are using it and if the students themselves are taking it unprompted into other classes and like, that's the win, isn't it? Like, yeah, yeah.

Speaker A I chatted to some of the students and asked them what they thought about in your class, and they were. Yeah, that was super keen on it. And it's obvious when you. When you watch that feedback session how much the students are thinking compared to what traditionally happens. It's really quite striking. Lizzy, what are you currently most excited about?

Speaker C I am. Oh, well, I mean, I probably have to say I'm most excited about Steph Lab. I'm really excited about instruction coaching. I am really excited about being a better coach. I'm definitely got my learner plates on because I haven't ever been instructionally coached. So I don't know what it is like to be the. To be sort of taught in that space. So I'm doing a lot of. Doing an awful lot of learning in the process. So, yeah, I'm really excited about that instructional coaching, and I think I'm just so excited about it because it's made my teaching, it's made my practice. It's like a gazillion Times better. I can't even, yeah, I can't even imagine what it would be like to watch videos of me teach last year even compared to this year and my checking for understanding, my warm but firm guidance to the students and yeah, I just think it has. Watching the exposure to all the, all the models that we get to see and then searching out my own models has just. Yeah, it's just taken me from like a fairly confident teacher to like, I think I'm like, yeah, I don't. I sound really arrogant but I like, I just feel really good about what's going on in my classroom as a result of all the beautiful models that we're seeing. So yeah, I think that instructional coaching. But I'm going to say another thing that I'm still like excited about, but I'm really struggling with is in. And it's not to do with the dark stuff and I'm interested to know how other PE teachers deal with this is the tension between explicit teaching and the beautiful things that happen as a result of explicit teaching and like where and how that translate into physical education practical space when we're doing Game Sense and oh, the words escape me when we're getting CPEP classes where the students are self running classes. And it's kind of. Yeah, it's just there's this tension between the two models and I'm sure there's always like, there's always a happy place, but I haven't quite figured out how we do that in the practical classroom and in the respectful relationship and the health based classrooms for the junior levels. So I'm sort of trying to do a lot of reading around that to be better at that for us students. It's like an interesting one. Yeah.

Speaker A Cool. Maybe we can jump on a call another time to explore that and make it a Patreon only podcast or something like that.

Speaker C Yeah, yeah. I don't have any answers, but I'm looking.

Speaker A I'm, I am keen if you're willing to take this opportunity. Something I'm really excited about is our certificate in coaching leadership and it's awesome we have have you on it this year and we have just opened applications for next year as well. So I was wondering if you'd be happy to share anything about your experience on the, on the ccl, what it's been like for you and things like that.

Speaker C Yeah, I feel it's been so good. If you could see the smile. I can. Beaming. It's, it's like I said, it's just been so good for My practice. I think if you were already involved in coaching it would be incredible as well because you're going in with, with a basis and a better understanding than what I had, for example, and the growth that you would get the. But even not if you're like me and you're sort of a complete beginner and you're trying to understand how it works and where it sits like just the, the provocations of all the, all the readings that you get. It just makes you think so deeply about your practice and it makes you really reflect and it makes you be really vulnerable as well because you're watching yourself on videos and you're just thinking so deeply about the, I don't want to say nuts and bolts of teaching of what makes teaching so hard so unique and so special and so complex and so I can't say enough good things about it. But the cognitive load support of the actual Step Load program is also what I love. So I have loved the learning and the growth that I've had as an individual and a teacher and also definitely as a leader. I have learned a lot as a leader as well. But I also love the. The thing about the program is that it is step by step. So it really supports you when you're really grappling with how to, how to diagnose or praising and prompting and the data, it's all kind of all the information you need is there and it steps you through it in a really logical, low maintenance manner which is yeah, fantastic. So go Step one, bring it.

Speaker A Make sure you put some links in the show notes as well. For anyone interested in joining our third cohort of the Certificate of Coaching Leadership here in Australia, which starts in February, early February next year. Three book recommendations Lizzie.

Speaker C Book recommendations. So I actually do a lot of my reading on substack and LinkedIn. I have to say I really like. I really. I don't know if it's good for my brain because then I read a lot in short periods. But like I love Peps McCrae's posts. Like I just, I just find them. He did a great one on the 12 most influential papers and so I just love reading that and Sarah Cottinghatt and all those but the books that I've got, I bought. Someone recommended that I. That we read James Mannion so Making Change Stick. So I went out and bought. I listened to a bit of a podcast about that one and went and bought that. That was great. I've also really let into the Doug lemoff stuff Teach like a champion I like the videos that come when you buy his books. I like that you can access that information. And then I'm also going to say this is a bit left field. It's not so education, but I think it's really interesting. I listened to a really great podcast the other day by a guy called Dr. Chatterjee and what is it? Live More, Feel better or something like that. And he interviewed Esther Perel around how to feel more connected and respected at work and then obviously at home. And it was just so insightful about how we feel about our workplaces and our sense of self in workplaces and how that's evolved and changed and. Yeah, that sort of thing. So that's a really, that's a really great podcast. He talks about nutrition and food and all sorts of things, but that one was just. Yeah. About the workplace and relationships there, which is super, super important.

Speaker A Fantastic, Lizzy. I'll look forward to checking out that podcast in particular, any calls to action things you like listeners to go away.

Speaker C Today and do reach out. Definitely reach out. If you, if you want to know more, if you've got any ideas about how it could be, it could be better. But I think, I mean, the big one is like making that feedback stick means that you're going to get student growth. So lots of people hear this and then they think, well, where do I even start with this? And so I think what I would start with is, if nothing else, start sharing students work examples in your classroom. So share and celebrate mistakes. Like, I've got a big picture in my classroom of the learning pit. Share that it's okay to make mistakes and, you know, use a visualizer or whatever to get students work up on the board and like ask for permission. Is it okay if I show that you've missed the data and then put it up there and go, can anyone see the misconception here or the mistake here? And like, I don't, you know, this is awesome. How many of you are not going to miss that next time? So if we can just get students to model it to each other, great work. Then that's, that's like the first step. And then you can complicate it like I did.

Speaker A Lizzie Doyle, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. This was a really exciting one because I think this is potentially the first time that we've got like someone who has listened to an E Triple R podcast, done some cool stuff in their classroom, and then come on the E Triple R podcast to talk about it. So I think that's A really nice kind of full circle piece there. So thanks, yeah, thanks for coming up to me at one of our CCL in person days as well and saying, hey, Ollie, I think there's some cool stuff going on in my classroom. Do you want to come and check it out? I was super keen to check it out. It was really inspiring seeing it in action in your classroom. I mean, anytime I go into a classroom and see students really taking charge of their own learning and thinking hard is just a really beautiful thing. And that's exactly, exactly the kind of teaching that I'm inspired to try to emulate myself, both in education for young people and also education for adults. And I think I also really love these types of podcasts where we actually just pick one thing that, like, basically every teacher has to do. Every teacher has to hand back tests pretty much and think about how we can do it better in a way that makes. Makes students think and support them to learn more. I think the refinements you've made are fantastic. I think that this is a very, very emulatable process, if that's a word. And I also think that, like, it's an absolute winner because like you said, it does have that potential to reduce workload, and that's something that teachers are always looking to do. So thank you for your generous sharing, both in person when I came to visit and in today's pod. And yeah, really looking forward to continuing these conversations with you as you continue to refine this and other processes in your teaching.

Speaker C Yeah, thank you, Ollie. It's absolute honor to be here. And thanks for all the inspiration. Thanks to all your guests as well, that say yes, because, yeah, you just never know who's listening and who might take what you say and try it out and the difference it makes to hopefully more than one student in that class for their life. It's really powerful what we do. So go us. But thank you.

Speaker B Hey all, it's Oli again. One more thing before you take off. And that thing is, would you enjoy a short email every Friday that provides a little fun, a little mental stimulation before the weekend ahead? My weekly free newsletter is super short, easy to sign up, easy to cancel, and is basically a half page every Friday that shares all of the coolest ideas and teaching tips that I've come across that week. It's kind of like my diary of teaching and learning that you can get access to for free. I often link to recent papers that have come out, tweets and Twitter threads, important reports, new books, blog articles, and even other important podcasts that have been sent to me by leaders in education, including many guests from this show and that I've discovered from scouring the Internet. I filter these ideas and resources so that you don't have to, and only pass on the very best ones to you. So if that sounds like fun, if you'd like a little bit of goodness before you head off each weekend in a concise, quick to read format, just go to ollielovel.com subscribe to get end threads. Stop what you're doing right now and sign up before you forget. That's ollielovel.com subscribe thanks for your time in listening today. Have a wonderful week and until next time, keep learning.

ERRR #106. Lissie Doyle on Test Feedback that Makes Students Think

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