Don’t get me wrong. I love a good table. Structured columns
and rows, what’s not to like? But in the absence of sufficient knowledge and
skills to convey the complexity of my thinking, I have been guilty of some
table misuse it appears.
The Spark
I wonder if you also saw the Twitter discussion about Louise
Cass’s (@louisecass) beautiful halogens graphic organiser? Louise posted her
carefully crafted and colourful graphic, and attracted praise and compliments
from many for her design. The post also ignited a lively debate* about the
merits of using a graphic organiser versus a table.
The benefits of the organiser were apparent, but the table
had advantages also. Tempted as I was to dive in to this discussion, I decided to
abstain. I am a blatant novice on the subject matter (!), but also felt on
reflection that both approaches in this case were likely to be effective in the
classroom in the skilful and enthusiastic hands of their proponents.
Light Bulb Moment
Roll forward. I am mid-flow in telling a detailed and finely
crafted story about Supernanny Jo Frost’s ‘naughty step’ discipline system.
This story is the tool I use to help my Year 13 economics students understand contestable
markets theory.
Understanding that my eldest child’s behaviour was improved
simply by the threat of the naughty step (because she didn’t want a spell
there) without actually (hardly) ever having to put her on the naughty step,
correlates to understanding the behaviour of firms in contestable markets. Lower
entry barriers (a threat to existing firms as new firms could enter the market)
can simply be enough to change firms’ behaviour and prompt them towards ‘good’
behaviour such a lowering prices and avoiding making excessive profits that
might attract new entrants.
I develop the story further with the rather less compliant
approach of my youngest, for whom the mention of the naughty step is frequently
not enough of a threat to prompt behaviour improvement and for whom the ‘one
minute per years of age’ sitting sanction is required! This correlates to the
firms that fail to change their behaviour on lowering of entry barriers to a
market. They continue to make excessive profits and then experience the
eventual punishment of new firms entering the market (attracted by the profits)
to compete the excessive profit away.
Then bam. It hits me. This is a story. With steps, a plot, a
flow. Why on Earth do I have this displayed in a table? Tables do a great job
of storing and displaying content. They can also be useful in comparing
content. But for display of a process, a sequence of events? I immediately
realised this was not the right approach. Thankfully this topic is planned
across two lessons, and I was not going to hit presentation of the table until
lesson 2, so I put my thoughts to one side and finished the class.
The Incriminating
Evidence
In the interests of full disclosure, I include the table
here…
It’s not even a good table is it?! Sheesh. I have learned a vast amount from the design master Oliver Caviglioli since reading ‘Dual Coding with Teachers’ last autumn. But let’s be honest, a year is not enough time to overhaul 15 years of badly designed teaching resources (trust me, work is in progress!). This is though, your honour, what I was going to display.
I understood my story and schema very clearly. I have been
telling this story for years and it is effective in itself. Initially I
delivered the topic with some slides of prose notes; the table was a more
recent addition to the lesson delivery as I felt it was important that students
understood the logical progression from the change in the structure of the
market, to the impact on the behaviour of the firm, to the resulting
performance of the market. Oddly I often even used to draw arrows over it on a
whiteboard to show the progression from one column to another!! I sincerely thought
the table was the most useful way to convey the various options firms might
take and I do still believe it was better than the prose alone.
But it was now obvious to me that I could do better.
Inspiration had struck so I felt compelled to act!
Organising and
Displaying My Thinking
So, I knew I needed to aim instead for a flow diagram, or
something similar, that would display and convey the plot of the story. Taking
the key words from the table, I began looking more closely at the specific
steps and order of events. I tried to place one event into each box and to reduce
the words used to explain each step. Whilst all the words in the table are correct
and important (I will say them aloud in my verbal explanation and I will ensure
students understand and use them in their writing), the inclusion of every detail
of all of the steps and concepts was not needed to convey the message.
I moved the boxes around. I thought about how I would tell
the story and what I would need to ensure the graphic conveyed the order, logic
and totality of my thoughts. I aligned the boxes and played around with font,
colour, size and line thickness until I was happy with the aesthetics. I ended
up with a finished diagram that worked for me and matched my thinking.
I then duplicated the diagram and began to delete back out
the steps in reverse order of my story to create a series of diagrams that I
could display to gradually reveal my thinking in manageable and understandable
steps. I ordered these to create my story and here are my results:
The Trial and the
Path
I will return next lesson to the class and present my
graphic. This is what I shall instruct students to record as core notes and I
will build the story visually in a step-by-step fashion.
I will move on to apply the theory in a case study context
and to encourage students to use the graphic to support their applied writing.
I will delete further content from the graphic and use the blank version for
retrieval practice to ensure students can recall the content from memory over
time.
I will ultimately set written case study questions where
students will recall the content from memory, apply it to a context and write
out their thinking in full.
The journey is long, but the pathway is clear.
Beyond Tables
I do not feel that I was failing in my previous approach.
The combination of the verbal story, and the table (annotated with arrows!) did
a reasonable job. But it wasn’t an optimal approach. I feel this new approach
is stronger. And I have learnt an important lesson about the appropriate use of
tables.
They can, of course, be extremely useful. I would not have
been able to bring my students to the point of delivering this lesson without
heavy prior use of a table containing and comparing the features of each of
four different types of market structure. I will be holding closely to the
continued use of that table because it is appropriate for the thinking it conveys.
It enables me to display and explain features, to compare features and to help
students retrieve features. It could potentially be usefully replaced by a mind
map, a Venn diagram or some other type of graphic organiser. This would do no
harm, it may serve some benefit, but the marginal gain of the switch would
likely be lower in that case.
I will however be taking a very careful look at every other
table I typically use from now on. Some will retain their place. They will be
suitable and appropriate. Others may need to be replaced. But I can tell you
with certainty though, that if they are to stay, they will have to earn their
place and if there is an easier and better graphical approach, I will be
seeking that out as an alternative.
Key Conclusions
It is really important to consider the type of information
that you are trying to convey when opting for a graphical approach. Some
options will be more suitable than others. You could be more effective by
choosing a different approach on some occasions.
It is also really important for teachers to seek knowledge
and training about the use of graphic approaches. I would not have made these
realisations or developments in my practice without the very useful work of Mr
Caviglioli and also the lively debate between eduTwitter community participants
over the table or organiser approaches. ITT and CPD programmes should look to
include specific training in the types, use and creation of graphic organisers.
Teachers should be encouraged to engage widely in healthy debate about differing
graphical approaches as part of their CPD in order to promote deeper thinking
about their practice.
So, I hope I have got you thinking and inspired. There are
good ways to do things. But sometimes there are also even better ways to do
things.
Don’t stay where you are; push forward. Be better. Go beyond.
Sources/References/Credit/Resources
Caviglioli, O. (2019). Dual Coding with Teachers.
Oliver Caviglioli (@olicav) has also produced an excellent
poster on graphic organisers which ‘organises the organisers’ in order to help
users select ones that are most appropriate. Available here: https://www.olicav.com/#/posters/
He and David Rodger-Goodwin (@MrGoodwin23) are currently
writing a book on graphic organisers which I fully expect to be incredibly
useful for teachers in the development of knowledge and skills in this domain.
Coming soon!
Thanks for your generous sharing and lively Twitter
discussion: @louisecass @MrGoodwin23 @MrARobbins @GeographyJake @adamboxer1
Note on software: I used diagrams.net (@drawio) to create my
graphic organiser series and then exported into a PDF for lesson use.
Note on Supernanny: I’m not a big fan of the ‘naughty step’
name. I did use the time out concept with my own children, but chose a
different name for the safe time out space we used in our house. The use of the
‘naughty step’ language and word ‘threat’ in the story is simply for dramatic
effect and to amplify student understanding of the correlation to implications
for the behaviour of firms of an increased threat of competition in a market.
Note on profits for economics specialists: By ‘excessive
profits’ I mean supernormal or abnormal profits. The choice of the word
excessive here is to facilitate access to and understanding of the topic for
the non-specialist reader.
*Turns out Tweets are more reactive than fluorine…
Actually, not a lot is more reactive than flourine...!
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