CPD Reflections: Students’ ability to recall key knowledge through ‘Word Maps’

By Will Glydon

Why I chose this topic 

As part of the second ECT2 enquiry, I decided to focus on students’ ability to recall substantive knowledge. This has been present in my mind since the recent B11 experience, with some of the history students unable to simply communicate substantive knowledge from previous weeks and months of learning. Once this was highlighted by B11, I have been trying to quiz my students on core bits of substantive knowledge and have noticed for myself that their ability to recall this knowledge can be sometimes quite weak.

Is providing ‘Keywords’ enough? 

Through this, I started to wonder whether providing ‘Keywords’ for the students to copy into the back of their books is sufficient for the students to really understand the meaning of the words. For example, does writing a definition of ‘Empire’ really provide students enough to truly understand the meaning of the concept of an empire? 

Method 

After considering different methods to increase student's ability to recall knowledge, I settled on ‘Word Maps’. WA staff will be familiar with these, as during Inset 2, The Bell Foundation presented ‘Word Maps’ as a way for EAL students to access content and learn new words. I liked the ‘My Picture’ element of ‘Word Map’, which sets it apart from similar structures, such as ‘Frayer Models’. 

Investigation 

My plan was to use these for 5 weeks, every lesson, with all students across Year 7 in history lessons on the following key concepts:

Feudal System 

Sources

Barons

Monarch 

Magna Carta 

Student Interviews 

After 6 weeks of practising Word Maps , Jaya and I took students out of lessons for a “Ofsted” style interview, attempting to emulate the B11 experience, which the students struggled in. We questioned them about the key substantive concepts, which they had produced ‘Word Maps’ for, asking them questions like: 

• Describe what the Feudal system is

• Who is on top of a feudal system? 

• Can you draw a feudal system?

• Give me an example of a source

• How would you describe what a source is?

• What is a source that you have looked at this term?

• Who had power in Medieval England?

• What does monarchy mean?

• How did the monarch have power in Medieval England? 

Do ‘Word Maps’ work in helping students to recall substantive knowledge?

There were certainly plenty of positives of using Word Maps. Most pleasingly, students' ability to recall knowledge was good on the whole and showed a decent improvement from when they were questioned by B11! 

There are, however, some tricky elements to embedding Words Maps into the lessons, as they can be quite time consuming and present a new routine for students and Year 7s, in particular, can find this difficult. If you choose to use these, be prepared to have some stretch tasks up your sleeve, as student pace can vary massively too!

We, in History, have continued to use ‘Word Maps’, but are still looking for other methods to enable students to recall substantive knowledge at their fingertips! If anyone has any other ideas, please get in touch!