Exam Paper Modelling (1)

Exam Paper Modelling (1)

A key aspect of modelling for me has been how you want students to answer an exam question. This type of modelling relies on students having the correct procedural knowledge of how to ‘beat the task’ and the key vocabulary (factual) knowledge in their long-term memory so that on the exam day they can rely on both of these types of knowledge freeing up the space in their working memory to actually focus on what they have to do; the problem to be solved.

Drilling and practising the procedural steps of how to beat the question on the exam first relies on the teacher’s direction instruction on how to do so.

A while ago, I had a trainee teacher in my lessons and it was only after seeing him complete a past reading paper with the rest of the students that I thought how much more useful it would be for me to complete the paper too as if I were a student, putting myself in their situation at the same time as students doing the task.

This was the expert acting as a novice. This was putting myself into a position where I would treat each question on the exam paper referring to my own knowledge of not just what vocabulary I had taught the class but what vocabulary I knew that each student in the class knew.

Since then, every final exam paper that my students have completed for their GCSEs I have completed as soon as I can after the exam as well, as if I were a student in my own class, measuring what it is that I would and wouldn’t know had I been a student being delivered a diet of my own teaching and learning methods. David Didau in The Secret of Literacy refers to having made it a maxim that when he sets a task for a class, he also completes it.¹ (Didau, 2014:36)   

Looking below. It is a question based on a common type of question on Edexcel’s current Spanish Higher Reading paper. The question is adapted from a past paper.  

The ‘live’ modelling procedure that I would follow (and talk through to the students) when teaching a class how to tackle this question could go something like this:

1) Identify where the Spanish word for ‘coast’ (‘la costa’) is in the text and underline this on the text on the paper & write ‘coast’ underneath.

2) Go backwards in the text so that you are reading the words that come before ‘coast’ and identify the first verb you read (‘vivimos’) and the first time phrase (‘ahora’). Circle both of these words.  

3) Re-read the verb and time phrase that you have just circled and decide what tense these are in.

4) Put a cross in the correct box according to the tense that you think the verb and time phrase is in.

5) Repeat steps 1) to 4) with B, C and D. Note that there may just be the verb and not the time phrase to help.   

Read Susana’s email.

Querida Sarah:

Estamos en Málaga. Antes vivíamos en un piso pero ahora vivimos en una casa cerca de la costa en un pueblo pequeño.

No tengo amigos aquí pero la próxima semana voy a empezar las clases en el instituto y espero conocer a otros estudiantes. Será todo nuevo.

Por suerte este sábado voy a ir de compras donde vivía antes.

Saludos

Susana.  

What happened before, what happens now, what will happen in the future?

Put a cross in the correct box.

	Past	Present	Future
Example: Málaga		X
A     Coast
B     Shopping
C     School
D    Flat

 

The same procedural knowledge of how to tackle exam questions can of course be modelled for any of the questions on any exam paper with most questions having their own distinct procedures to follow in order to ‘beat the task.’ The questionnaire-type tasks commonly found on the AQA higher reading papers in the past few years have been ones which I have a set of planned procedures that I practise with the students and try to ensure that they have embedded these procedures in their long-term memories. It is the same sort of thing as the cognitive modelling of past papers that John Tomsett talks about in his brilliant blog.

 

Willingham refers to successful thinking being reliant on four factors:

‘…information from the environment, facts in long-term memory, procedures in long-term memory, and the amount of space in working memory. If any one of these factors is inadequate, thinking will likely fail.’² (Willingham, 2009:18)

Provided that other areas are accounted for (in this case, knowledge of verb tenses & time phrases) in students’ long-term memories, ensuring that exam-related procedures of how to tackle a question on an exam paper are embedded in students’ long-term memory should go a long way to promoting successful exam-thinking.

Notes

¹Didau, D. The Secret of Literacy: The Secret of Literacy: Making the implicit, explicit, Independent Thinking Press, 2014, p.36.

²Willingham, D.T. Why Don’t Students Like School? San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2009, p. 18.