Tips for Teachers: 400+ ideas to improve your teaching

Teaching is complex. But there are simple ideas we can enact to help our teaching be more effective. This book contains over 400 such ideas.

The ideas come from two sources. First, from the wonderful guests on my Tips for Teachers podcast - education heavyweights such as Dylan Wiliam, Daisy Christodoulou and Tom Sherrington, as well as talented teachers who are not household names but have so much wisdom to share. Then there's what I have learned from working with amazing teachers and students in hundreds of schools around the world.

Inside you will find 22 ideas to enhance mini-whiteboard use, 15 ideas to improve the start of your lesson, 14 ideas to help make Silent Teacher effective, seven ways to respond if a student says they don't know, and lots, lots more.

Each idea can be implemented the very next time you step into a classroom. So, whatever your level of experience, subject or phase, there are plenty of ideas in this book to help take your teaching to the next level.

Book contents

Chapter 1: How to use this book

Tip 1. How to use this book to improve your teaching

Tip 2. How to give yourself the best chance of making a lasting change

Chapter 2: Habits and routines

Why are habits and routines important?

Tip 3. Eight ideas to help introduce a routine

Tip 4. Beware of the Valley of Latent Potential

Tip 5. Two ideas to help a routine stick

Tip 6. Develop a set of high-value activity structures

Tip 7. Six ideas to help establish positive norms in your classroom

Tip 8. Four types of words to consider removing from your teaching vocabulary

Chapter 3: The means of participation

A challenge

Tip 9. Front-load the means of participation

Tip 10. Ten ideas to improve Cold Call

Tip 11. Eight reasons to strive for mass participation more frequently

Tip 12. Twenty-two ideas to improve the use of mini-whiteboards

Tip 13. Five ideas to improve the use of voting systems

Tip 14. Nine ideas to improve Call and Response

Tip 15. Fifteen ideas to improve Partner Talk

Tip 16. Six ideas to improve group work

Tip 17. Use the means of participation holy trinity

Tip 18. Never rely on a mental note

Tip 19. The best tool for the long term might not be the best tool for now

Chapter 4: Checking for understanding

Tip 20. Think of questions as a check for misunderstanding

Tip 21. Use the temptation to ask for self-report as a cue to ask a better question

Tip 22. Lengthen wait times after asking a question

Tip 23. Lengthen wait times after an answer

Tip 24. Ten types of questions to ask when checking for understanding

Tip 25. Try these three frameworks for learner-generated examples

Tip 26. Three ways to use diagnostic questions to check for understanding

Tip 27. Provide scaffolds for verbal responses

Tip 28. Six key times to check for understanding

Tip 29. Ten ideas to improve Exit Tickets

Tip 30. Pick the student least likely to know

Tip 31. Start with whoever got 8 out of 10

Tip 32. Ten ideas to help create a culture of error

Tip 33. Three ideas to encourage students to ask questions

Chapter 5: Responsive teaching

Tip 34. Trick your students to test if they really understand

Tip 35. Never round-up

Tip 36. Six ideas if a student says 'I don't know'

Tip 37. What to do when some students understand and some don't

Tip 38. What to do when some students still don't understand

Tip 39. How students can own and record classroom discussions

Tip 40. Share students' work with the rest of the class

Chapter 6: Planning

Tip 41. Seven ideas to improve a scheme of work

Tip 42. Six ideas to help start the planning process

Tip 43. Plan to do less, but better

Tip 44. Ask yourself: 'What are my students likely to be thinking about?'

Tip 45. Write out ideal student responses

Tip 46. Four ideas to help you plan for and respond to errors

Tip 47. Two ideas to help teachers engage in Deep Work

Tip 48. Aim to close the loop when sending an email

Chapter 7: Prior knowledge

Tip 49. Plan relevant prior knowledge

Tip 50. Prioritise relevant prior knowledge

Tip 51. Assess relevant prior knowledge

Tip 52. Respond to prior knowledge assessment

Tip 53. Assess relevant prior knowledge for each idea, not for the whole sequence

Chapter 8: Explanations, modelling and worked examples

Tip 54. Five ideas to show students why what we are learning today matters

Tip 55. Use related examples and non-examples to explain technical language

Tip 56. Fourteen ideas to improve the explanation of a concept

Tip 57. Teach decision making separately

Tip 58. Five ideas to improve our choice of examples

Tip 59. Model techniques live

Tip 60. Use a teacher worked-examples book

Tip 61. Use student worked-examples books

Tip 62. Make use of the power of Example-Problem Pairs

Tip 63. Fourteen ideas to improve Silent Teacher

Tip 64. Use self-explanation prompts to help develop your students' understanding

Tip 65. Six ideas to improve 'copy down the worked example'

Tip 66. Vary the means of participation for the We Do

Tip 67. Three errors to avoid with the Your Turn questions

Tip 68. Reflect after a worked example

Tip 69. Beware of seductive details

Chapter 9: Student practice

Tip 70. Eight ideas to improve student practice time

Tip 71. How to harness the hidden power of interleaving

Tip 72. Consider using Intelligent Practice

Tip 73. Consider using 'no-number' questions

Tip 74. Nine ideas to help you observe student work with a purpose

Tip 75. Occasionally let students do work in someone else's book

Chapter 10: Memory and retrieval

Retrieval opportunities

Tip 76. Show your students the Forgetting Curve

Tip 77. Show your students the path to high storage and retrieval strength

Tip 78. Show your students the limits of working memory

Tip 79. Show your students how long-term memory helps thinking

Tip 80. Show your students that being familiar with something is not the same as knowing it

Tip 81. Ensure you provide retrieval opportunities for all content

Tip 82. When designing retrieval opportunities, aim for 80%

Tip 83. Vary the types of retrieval questions you ask

Tip 84. Consider providing prompts and cues during retrieval opportunities

Tip 85. Get your students to assign confidence scores to their answers

Tip 86. Make corrections quizzable

Tip 87. Twenty-one ideas to improve your Low-Stakes Quizzes

Tip 88. Fifteen ideas to improve the Do Now

Tip 89. Consider using Trello to help organise the disorganised

Chapter 11: Homework, marking and feedback

Tip 90. Make homework feed into lessons

Tip 91. Eight ideas to improve homework

Tip 92. Two things to check if homework or test scores are a surprise

Tip 93. Be careful how you respond to 'silly' mistakes

Tip 94. Turn feedback into detective work

Tip 95. Consider recording verbal feedback

Tip 96. Twelve ideas to improve whole-class feedback

Chapter 12: Improving as a teacher

Tip 97. Find the expertise within your team

Tip 98. Five different people to learn from

Tip 99. Revisit education books and podcast episodes

Tip 100. Four things to consider when trying something new

Tip 101. Five ideas to help tackle the negativity radio

Tip 102. Consider slowing down your career

Tip 103. Sixteen ideas to improve the delivery of CPD

Tip 104. Micro tips

Tip 105. If you want more tips...