Liam Anderson, Head of Design & Technology at Trinity School, Newbury

This is the second of a two-part blogpost on scaffolding and modelling great teaching in design and technology when mentoring student teachers in schools.

In the Part 1 of this two-part blogposts, I discussed how D&T student teachers will come with different knowledge, skills and experience, but will undoubtedly be in the early-stage development in their teaching career and will be novices to D&T teaching. In this second blogpost, I will discuss exactly how mentors can practically support D&T student teachers’ development in their initial teacher training year, through clear scaffolding and modelling of great teaching in D&T. This blogpost will focus on scaffolding and modelling in relation to two areas of mentoring D&T student teachers: lesson planning and feedback.

D&T student teachers will likely cover a lot of content in university taught sessions and wider reading about pedagogy; both general pedagogy such as direct instruction or group work and more D&T specific pedagogies such as product analysis, prototyping or systems thinking (McLain, 2021). D&T student teachers will often come with ideas about what pedagogy to use in the classroom and some idea of how to go about implementing that pedagogy, but often, the effective implementation of this pedagogy in the classroom is much harder than it first appears, with specific patterns and purposes behind D&T pedagogies (McLain, 2021) and we therefore need to support D&T student teachers through explicit scaffolding and modelling when mentoring D&T student teachers as they begin teaching. Going back to my first blog post; at the stage of ‘novice’ or ‘advanced beginner’ (which D&T student teachers will be during their initial teacher training year), lots of external support from mentors and experienced teachers is required to develop effective classroom practice and implementation of pedagogy (Moore, 2019). So, there are two facets to ITT curriculum and pedagogy: (1) knowing what to do (the pedagogy/theory behind it); and (2) knowing how to do it – and effectively (the implementation in practice). The latter is what often many student teachers struggle with, without external support through scaffolding and modelling by a mentor figure.

Beattie et al. (2020), explains how an experienced teacher, when planning, “may describe planning as more spontaneous, juggling aspects of subject knowledge, awareness of pedagogy, knowledge of pupils and a myriad of other considerations”, going on to also say that, “a mentor needs to have stepped away from almost natural and now intuitive approach to planning… the commentary, or ‘thinking out loud’, that ascribes these stages and the rationale behind them will be helpful in the initial discussions… the dialogue will include sharing and modelling how the mentor would plan”. This highlights the need for mentors to be completely explicit about the small details of the process of planning and the thinking behind it, rather than assuming that student teachers will automatically and intuitively know the elements of an effective lesson plan and consider the pedagogical approaches that are most appropriate and effective for the planned lesson.

Figure 1 shows an example of some collaborative planning between me (the mentor) and a D&T student teacher. The planning was done together and focussed on how the student teacher would give feedback on a design specification that a pupil had written.

Through this collaborative planning and conversation, I led the process of how to plan effective feedback to pupils in the next lesson and what pedagogical approaches to use. Through precise modelling and scaffolding, the following was discussed:

• Firstly, what exactly are pupils wanting? The success criteria or what an excellent design specification would look like. Discussing this with the D&T student teacher gave them a better understanding of what they need to be clear about with the pupils, and what pupils need to do to achieve for success.
• Secondly, we looked at the key features we would be looking for and how to identify these in the piece of work – e.g. have they linked their specification points to their research about users needs and wants? Have they justified/explained each of their specification points? Are they specific enough to be useful in guiding and evaluating their design ideas? We discussed a range of examples – good (and less good) examples, to be clear on exactly what we are looking for in pupils’ work and get a clear understanding of where they are at now.
• Thirdly, we then considered what we would do to support pupils to make improvements to their work. We discussed the example of pupils’ work (above) and how we might share what would make an even better specification. We then rehearsed how this might be shared with pupils using of a visualiser and live modelling during the following lesson, considering how to write an excellent specification point. I explicitly discussed with the student teacher how I would show pupils this process and structure, talking about the key requirements and how we would consider different design factors.
• Lastly, we talked together and annotated, in green pen, some of the questions we might ask pupils during the live modelling feedback session in the classroom. Our dialogue was explicit about how the student teacher would do this effectively. We discussed how time should be given to pupils to improve their design specifications, discussing how much time to give and following the approach that would live modelled to students.

This explicit modelling of the process of collaborative planning between the mentor and student teacher, provides appropriate and necessary scaffolding needed at this early stage in their development for effective implementation in the classroom. This approach allowed the student teacher to better understand the process and how to effectively plan pedagogy in practice and implement in the classroom. A high level of scaffolding from a mentor figure is likely to be needed during the initial teacher training year to ensure that the more experienced D&T teacher does not assume a student teacher’s knowledge and capability or rush through the process of effective planning. Davies (2020) suggests that “as a mentor, thinking about these [lesson planning] questions as you model a plan or collaboratively plan, will allow you to articulate a thoughtful commentary for the mentee”, adding, “the speed at which you would ordinarily plan in your head needs to be slowed down for the beginning teacher, so that they can see and hear the process.”

When working with a D&T student teacher, consider the following when providing scaffolding and modelling to ensure that pedagogy is explicit in how to implement effectively during lesson planning: 

• Lots of classroom observation to see specific pedagogies in practice – student teachers need to see clearly and explicitly how experienced teachers implement strategies and techniques effectively, whether in practical and non-practical lessons.
• Modelling effective practice with student teachers’ and breaking down building blocks to implementing in the classroom – e.g. giving effective demonstrations of using a piece of equipment. 
• Collaborative planning (co-planning) with meaningful conversations about thought processes when designing a lesson, choosing pedagogies, etc. – narrating the process to the student teacher.
• Lots of examples of effective practices – e.g. examples of planning/resources/pupils’ work – but used alongside conversations of how this was done. 

Teaching WalkThrus (Sherrington & Caviglioli, 2020) is an excellent book for teachers on instructional coaching, with visual models of how different pedagogies might be implemented in the classroom. Figure 2 shows an example of ‘Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction’, where it is clear to see how the process is broken down into building blocks with narration of how each step would be effectively implemented.

Scaffolding and modelling for D&T student teachers in lesson feedback:

In the process of giving feedback to D&T student teachers, after teaching a lesson, it is important to provide clear and specific actions for next steps and areas for development, using modelling and scaffolding to support them to act on your advice. Simply saying to a D&T student teacher to work on “improving clarity of demonstrations for using equipment, so that all pupils understand what to do”, will be vague and difficult to act on for the novice D&T teacher. A more effective approach is for the mentor to model how this might look in the classroom. Winson (2020) comments on how, “vague, abstract targets such as ‘you need to give clear instructions’… is difficult for the beginning teacher, especially a trainee teacher, to unravel. Sometimes they will not understand or have developed enough experience to know how to achieve this”. Davies (2020) adds to this saying, “it is through conversations, with experienced teachers, about classroom practice that the expert teacher can help the novice teacher to see the complexity and dynamic nature of the decisions a teacher makes within the process of teaching and learning”.

When working with a D&T student teacher, consider the following when giving feedback to ensure areas for development are precise and explicit through modelling and scaffolding:

• Lots of focus on the how – providing specific and actionable areas for development.

• This then links back to the planning stages of how developments will be made in the following sequence of lessons and focuses back on: (a) observation to clearly and explicitly see teaching in practice; (b) modelling with student teachers the building blocks of effective pedagogy in the classroom; (c) collaborative planning and discussion; and (d) lots of examples of and discussion on how it is done.

Reflection task for new mentors

Consider an aspect of teaching in design and technology that you are familiar with as an experienced teacher. This could be (for example) showing pupils how to draw basic shapes in 3D using perspective to help communicate their design ideas effectively; or, showing pupils how to use a vacuum former to help them understand different ways of forming plastic materials for manufacture.

Plan out the explicit steps/building blocks, you would need to consider if teaching it to pupils in your classroom and consider how you might model and scaffold this process with a D&T student teacher. Ask yourself:

• What pedagogical approach(es) might you use in the lesson? Is it a D&T signature pedagogy, or a more general one?
• Why have you chosen that pedagogy? And why is it effective for this particular content?
• What are the key building blocks that pupils need to know / be able to do to achieve success? How will you share/communicate what success looks like to the pupils?
• How would you narrate the process of guiding pupils through this learning?

References

McLain, M. (2021). Key pedagogies in design and technology. In A. Hardy (Ed.), Learning to Teach Design and Technology in the Secondary School (4th Edition). Abingdon, UK: Routledge. ISBN: 9780367336813.

Moore, R. (2019). Novices to experts – 10 things every teacher educator should know. Teach First [online blog] 3 November 2019. Available at: https://www.teachfirst.org.uk/blog/novices-experts-10-things-every-teacher-educator-should-know [Accessed 23/08/2022].

Beattie, L. et al. (2020). Helping D&T teachers plan, deliver and evaluate lessons. In S. Lawson & S. Wood-Griffiths (Eds.), Mentoring Design and Technology Teachers in the Secondary School (1st Edition). Abingdon, UK: Routledge. ISBN: 9781138541108.

Winson, A. (2020). Supporting the beginning teacher through professional conversations. In S. Lawson & S. Wood-Griffiths (Eds.), Mentoring Design and Technology Teachers in the Secondary School (1st Edition). Abingdon, UK: Routledge. ISBN: 9781138541108.

Davies, S. (2020). Observing design and technology teachers’ lessons: tools for observation and analysis. In S. Lawson & S. Wood-Griffiths (Eds.), Mentoring Design and Technology Teachers in the Secondary School (1st Edition). Abingdon, UK: Routledge. ISBN: 9781138541108.

Sherrington, T. & Caviglioli, O. (2020). Teaching Walkthrus: five-step guides to instructional coaching (1^st Edition). John Catt Publications. ISBN: 9781912906765.