Knowledge Organisers done well

‘Knowledge Organiser’ is the term we use to describe the sheet of paper that teachers give students in their subjects – English, Maths, Science, History etc… – covering the key knowledge for a unit of work. There is usually a Knowledge Organiser per subject for each half term, so in most subjects a student can expect to get 6 of them over the course of a year. Not all of the subject knowledge can be put on a Knowledge Organiser, so teachers select essential knowledge they want students to learn by heart.

We also give students a Knowledge Organiser Book – a plastic folder – in which to keep their Knowledge Organisers, and a Self-Quizzing Book to use when they self-quiz for homework.

What should students do?

Students should self-quiz on a section of the Knowledge Organiser (KO) as part of their weekly homework set by their teacher. They should spend 20 minutes self-quizzing, using the Look/Say/Cover/Write/Check method. ‘Look’ means reading it, at least several times; ‘Say’ means saying it out loud, at least several times; ‘Cover’ means covering the words/sentence they have read and said out loud, so they can’t read them; ‘Write’ means having a go at writing out what they have been trying to learn – for example, if they’re trying to learn the definition of ‘erosion’ they should look at the word erosion itself, but cover its definition and have a go at writing it out; ‘Check’ means uncovering the words/sentence and checking what they have written against what it says in the KO; if they have got it right, they tick to show it is correct; if they have got it wrong, they correct it. We ask students to use a green pen for their ticking and corrections.

Once students have self-quizzed the section of the KO like this once, they should do it again, preferably after a short pause. We think students should be able to Look/Say/Cover/Write/Check twice in 20 minutes of self-quizzing; doing it twice will help the learning to stick, which is the point of the activity.

What teachers will do

In relevant subjects, teachers will provide a KO for each unit of work; this usually means a new KO each half term. They will then set students a section of the KO to learn for homework, giving enough time for them to do it (that means self-quizzing homework shouldn’t be set on a Monday to be done for the next day, Tuesday; there needs to be a reasonable gap of time so that students can manage their workload in the different subjects they do).

Teachers will give students a brief quiz on the self-quizzing homework in the lesson by which they said it should be done; the quiz is designed to check whether students can remember what they should have learned by heart – but the quiz is doing more than that: it acts as a revision activity so it is also promoting learning.

Teachers will follow up with students who have not done their self-quizzing homework. This may mean students coming back at break or lunchtime to catch up with the self-quizzing work, if they just haven’t done it. Where a student has done their self-quizzing homework properly, putting good effort into it, but struggled with the quiz in class, the teacher and student should discuss this – it may be, for example, that the student is not self-quizzing correctly or they need some additional support or advice from their teacher.

How should the Self-Quizzing Book be used?

Self-Quizzing Books should be kept neat. Each time a student sits down to self-quiz they should:

• Write the subject and the date: Geography, 12 October 2021, Science, 14 October 2021 etc… and underline these with a ruler
• Waste no space – don’t use a new page for each self-quizzing homework; just rule off after the last piece of self-quizzing homework
• Do look/say/cover/write/check TWICE – this means they will have tried to write out the section of the KO twice, neatly
• Check what they have written and, using a green pen, tick what is correct and correct what isn’t, each time

Why are we using Knowledge Organisers?

• Knowledge Organisers help teachers to think about the most essential knowledge students need to learn by heart, and organise it in a quizzable form to help students learn it
• KOs make clear to students what the key knowledge is – no need to guess, it’s right there on the KO sheet
• Over time, if students use their KOs properly, they will build up a good stock of key knowledge in the subject – we want students to remember the key subject knowledge for the long-term, ideally forever
• Students who have a good stock of subject knowledge are far more likely to achieve well in exams, for example at GCSE, because exams principally test knowledge and its application

Why are we using Knowledge Organisers for homework?

• Homework should be mainly about consolidating work done in school; the KOs are therefore a way of helping students consolidate key topic knowledge
• Self-quizzing from KOs is an easy-to-understand activity with a clear aim – learn this key knowledge; students should not get stuck on what to do in self-quizzing homework
• Students can learn key knowledge by heart at home, and doing this as a matter of habit will help them do well in the long term; this is not to say that committing things to memory is easy – it isn’t – but it is important and valuable work
• The self-quizzing homework enables teachers to quiz students on their learning, and we know that quizzing – and testing – are amongst the most powerful ways to learn – the quizzing itself promotes learning
• As long as we don’t cheat (by just copying the text, for example), we can’t hide from a quiz or from its older sibling, a test: quizzes and tests show us exactly what we know and what we don’t, and they allow us the opportunity to fill in our knowledge gaps as we go along. If we take those opportunities, they really helps us learn

The biggest pitfall with KOs

The biggest pitfall of the homework self-quizzing system is students not doing their self-quizzing properly. If a student ‘cuts corners’ by not doing the look/say/cover bit of the work, instead just copying out the relevant section of the KO, to make it look like they’ve done the work (they may then even tick what they copied out, to show that it’s correct), they are cheating themselves because the knowledge is far less likely to stick long-term; things sticking long-term is, of course, a great definition of what learning is.

Using Knowledge Organisers well is not easy, but over time they can make a big difference to all students’ learning – and this is what school is about.

Mark Patterson

 

 

 

 

Kind regards,

 

Mark Patterson

 

Principal

 

Hinchingbrooke School

Brampton Road

Huntingdon

Cambs PE29 3BN

mjp@hinchbk.cambs.sch.uk

 

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