There is no simple formula to teaching well – but there are lots of strong principles that underpin the decision-making processes teachers undertake in any given lesson. Responsive teaching is all about thinking on your feet, using evidence from real-time formative assessment, adjusting instructional inputs and practice activities in response to students’ levels of success and confidence. It can appear and feel very organic but if you deconstruct the range of things a teacher has to do in a successful learning sequence – it’s quite an impressive array of specific definable elements. I think it can be helpful – as many others have done – to consider this is various phases. Obviously caveats abound – it depends on what you’re teaching, the point in the overall learning journey and who the students are.
