Thanks to Alex Fairlamb (@lamb_heart_tea), member of HA Secondary Committee and  coordinator of TMHI, for sharing her work with Lemov’s ideas in the history classroom. You might have come to this post through hearing her on Teachers Talk Radio too! (Apologies – to load Alex’s lovely tables in time, they are screenshoted and the links given underneath – Ed!)

Doug Lemov’s ‘Teaching in the Online Classroom’ (Teaching in the Online Classroom – Teach Like a Champion) has provided many educators with useful principles and strategies for remote learning.  This article tucks into the key takeaways and marries it with history strategies to show how those principles can be translated into practice.

Some of these tips require logging into platforms beyond your own remote learning platform, but I have tried to minimise this as part of a ‘keep to the basics’ approach that I am trying with my students.  I really love a lot of the additional sites and platforms that you can use, but I am focusing on making the lessons similar to how they are in school, to support consistency and familiarity, and to support my SEND and reduced working memory students (avoiding jumping between platforms).  As a result, my blogpost will focus on how you translate existing practice into remote learning contexts, but I also do identify where you can harness technology not usually available in the classroom or when those alternative platforms might be good to use.

Lemov Takeaway 1: Big Picture

• Where in the sequence of learning does this lesson fit?
• Use of big picture/PLC sheets to identify where the learning currently is, how it connects to prior lessons and where the learning is going next
• This provides reassurance and transparency over the learning journey for those students, and helps them to make connections between their lessons.

History strategy, resource or go to:

Lemov Takeaway 2: Retrieve and Recall

• Low stakes
• Self-assessment built in – opportunity to repair to be included
• Cumulative: daily, weekly, monthly

History strategy, resource or go to:

There are lots of digital platforms out there which support fantastic retrieval in remote learning.  I have gone for one digital platform but then other strategies which are more focused on retrieval that is similar to the classroom, as this for me helps to dissolve the screen and keep it familiar for the children.

This can be completed on a GoogleDoc, Whiteboard.fi, Jamboard or OneNote

(Link: How To, MCQ pptx (wordpress.com))

Lemov Takeaway 3: Introducing new content

• Script your response
• Distil your content to the essentials and identify what is ‘desirable’ if the children  progress well through the lesson
• Chunk your explanations – break them down and plan for pause points
• Dual coding – use images to support the introduction of new vocabulary and concepts
• Pupil friendly definitions – for new vocabulary, avoid dictionary definitions and  instead put them into pupil friendly definitions and use strategies like Frayer models

History strategy, resource or go to:

(Links: Folder – Google Drive    How To… Frayer Model (wordpress.com)    Noun Project: Free Icons & Stock Photos for Everything (thenounproject.com))

Lemov Takeaway 4: Guided Practice

• Script your modelling
• Model answer and a success criteria to support tracking their progress and checking if  they have hit the criteria
• I do, we do, you do – narrating throughout (what you’re doing, why)
• Plan how you will identify when they are ready to progress to independent practice – what will this assessment look like? How will you know when they have mastered the  basics?

History strategy, resource or go to:

There are lots of digital platforms out there which support fantastic retrieval in remote learning.  I have gone for one digital platform but then other strategies which are more focused on retrieval that is similar to the classroom, as this for me helps to dissolve the screen and keep it familiar for the children.

This can be completed on a GoogleDoc, Whiteboard.fi, Jamboard or OneNote

Lemov Takeaway 5: Plan for Interaction

• Cold Calling – who are you going to cold call, based upon prior learning and work?
• Chat box for discussion
• Polls and platforms such as Mentimeter
• Digital whiteboards – Jamboard, GoogleDoc that all can edit, whiteboard apps
• Everybody writes – GoogleDoc set to ‘anyone can edit’
• Students can write reflections on paper, which they can then share
• Plan for formative interaction. Students able to share ideas with one another (chat box,  digital whiteboards, breakout rooms)

History strategy, resource or go to:

(Link: Interactive presentation software – Mentimeter)

Lemov Takeaway 6: Assessment

• Implicit – self-assessment
• Lagging – students to submit work to be evaluated later. Summative assessment is more likely to take place this way.
• Real time – in the moment during the time of a recorded lesson (via answering in the chat box etc) or in a live lesson.
• Determine your assessment points during the lesson – how will you check for  understanding? Have you planned in pause points?
• Keep it simple, pithy and to the point – too much will overwhelm
• Keep it familiar – dissolve the screen by using familiar formats to what they would have experienced in the classroom.
• Ensure it’s accessible – rubrics, GoogleQuiz with pre-populated correct answers upon  completion, success criteria which supports implicit assessment

History strategy, resource or go to:

(Links: : Interactive presentation software – Mentimeter   11 Live Polls That Will Increase Interaction in Your Classroom – Slido Blog)

Lemov Takeaway 7: Feedback

• Determine your assessment points during the lesson – how will you check for  understanding? Have you planned in pause points?
• Keep it simple, pithy and to the point – too much will overwhelm
• Keep it familiar – dissolve the screen by using familiar formats to what they would have experienced in the classroom.
• Ensure it’s accessible – rubrics, GoogleQuiz with pre-populated correct answers upon  completion, success criteria which supports implicit assessment
• Opportunities to dissolve the screen – Mote voice notes.

History strategy, resource or go to:

• Opportunities to dissolve the screen – Mote voice notes.

(Link: Marking Crib Sheet & Whole Class Feedback – mrthorntonteach)

I hope that these provide some useful History exemplars of how to apply key takeaways from Lemov’s books and we would love to hear about strategies that you have been using!