Why Should Teachers Complete Tasks Before Pupils Do?

One of the things I advocate for when training teachers on planning is that teachers should have a go at the work they are going to be asking the pupils to complete.

There are several reasons for this:

So that they understand the potential difficulties that children might encounter

The 'curse of knowledge' strikes when you know a lot about something but find it difficult to imagine how hard it might be for someone less knowledgable to understand it. Usually we don't eveb realise we are under the curse.

As teachers, it is a Bad Thing. We are trying to teach children things which we can already do - that's why we are teachers. But that inherently hinders us in our mission.

By having a go at the task we are expecting pupils to do, we are putting ourselves in their shoes, and whilst we still might find it easy to complete, it opens our eyes that little bit more to what the children might experience. This in turn can help us to plan to teach the idea or concept in a more friendly way.

So that they can break teaching into small steps

Often, our own thorough understanding of something can mean that we overestimate what pupils can cope with at one time: the curse of knowledge strikes again.

By having a go at the task, teachers will be more likely to gain an understanding of the necessary steps involved. It will highlight which prior knowledge you are drawing on and what the process is. This will help teachers to plan those small steps that we know help pupils as they go on their learning journey.

It might feel like completing the task yourself is very time-consuming, but doing it and making planning notes as you go could be all that is necessary to plan a lesson or sequence of lessons.

So that they can adjust the task if needed

Sometimes, in our quest for high expectations we can aim too high. Carrying out the expected task can allow us to adjust our expectations to a more realistic level - if even you find it difficult to do, what would it be like for the children? And what would it be like for you to have to try to help 30 struggling children?

Pitching the work just right is key - it shouldn't be too easy and it shouldn't be too hard. Carrying out the task yourself will help you to pitch the work correctly (remembering that different pupils may need different levels of support).

So that they can create a useful success criteria

Once you've got small steps for teaching there's a very good chance you've also developed a list of criteria which will help pupils to complete their own piece of work. Although you may not want to present pupils with this criteria, it will help you to ensure you are modelling the correct aspects of the piece of work. A co-created success criteria is probably more useful to pupils, and this can be created by picking apart an example, but creating a success criteria yourself prior to this is an essential step.

A success criteria can be used to assess an example, and an example can be used to develop a success criteria - let's look more at that:

So that they have an example of what a good one looks like

A list of criteria alone isn't enough, but coupled with an example, or more than one example (this is your sign to start saving examples from pupils), they can become very useful in helping pupils to complete the task and to self- or peer-assess it.

Having a good example is great for formative action (or assessment for learning): showing pupils an example helps them to understand the quality that is expected of them, and, as we've said, allows them to self- and peer- assess.

Carrying out the task yourself also means you have an example of the process as well as the outcome: you could film it, or create a worked example which shows the different stages.

Talking about examples, and comparing them, identifying key characteristics that make them a good example can feed into the co-creation of a success criteria (see above).

p.s. a non-example, or a WABOLL (What A Bad One Looks Like) is a good way to begin to compare two outcomes... it is easier to make relative judgements (you could try using AI to create these)