GCSE Maths - #MathsConfOnline Five strategies to help you track student understanding

Oct 20, 2026

GCSE Maths presentation for AQA’s #MathsConfOnline (Summer 2022) explaining five practical strategies teachers can use to check and track student understanding. It outlines techniques such as summarising progress, think aloud prompts, agreeing/disagreeing checks, using multiple-choice questions with structured pacing (Pose, Pause, Pounce, Bounce), and repeating instructions. The session links checks to formative assessment, sources evidence of learning, and demonstrates classroom interactions and examples to adapt teaching based on pupils’ progress and difficulties.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryExam

FormatPPTX

Pages30

Reading Time1 h 16 min

AccessFree to download

Welcome

5 Ways to check for understanding

The black box

Teaching and learning are interactive

5 Ways to check for understanding: Maths

Reminder of the purpose of checking for understanding

Non examples

Summarise what has happened so far

Does that make sense? Any questions?

Examples and classroom activities

GCSE Maths: #MathsConfOnlineFive strategies to help you track student understanding Ceri Ward Jones Summer 2022 Welcome Copyright © 2022 AQA and its licensors. All rights reserved. 2 Exampro Copyright © 2022 AQA and its licensors. All rights reserved. AQA’s Exampro question banks prepare students for their first public exams. Explore thousands of past questions with their associated mark schemes and examiner comments to create compilations suiting your students’ needs. Embed questions in: homework, to familiarise students with exam materials class teaching, for greater understanding of what’s being asked differentiated, targeted assessments, to check learning of content and skills revision resources, for the best preparation. AQA’s MERiT offers high-quality feedback from mock exams. See the strengths and weaknesses of your class to identify teaching focus; share performance data with SLT; and view student reports to support individual progress. 3 5 Ways to check for understanding Copyright © 2022 AQA and its licensors. All rights reserved. Today’s Session: A reminder of what the evidence suggests is good practice: 5 ways to check for understanding. summarise what has happened so far think aloud agree or disagree? using multiple choice questions for Pose, Pause, Pounce Bounce repeat the instructions 2. An opportunity for colleagues to share resources 4 The black box Copyright © 2022 AQA and its licensors. All rights reserved. 5 Teaching and learning are interactive Teachers need to know about: Pupils’ progress Pupils’ difficulties with learning individual varied sometimes unpredictable We get this information from: Observation Discussion Written work We use this feedback to adapt our teaching to meet the pupils’ needs. “Opportunities for pupils to express their understanding should be designed into any piece of teaching, for this will initiate the interaction whereby formative assessment aids learning.” Black P, Wiliam D. Inside the Black Box: Raising Standards through Classroom Assessment. Phi Delta Kappan. 2010;92(1):81-90. doi:10.1177/003172171009200119 5 Ways to check for understanding: Maths Copyright © 2022 AQA and its licensors. All rights reserved. 6 Reminder of the purpose of checking for understanding Copyright © 2022 AQA and its licensors. All rights reserved. 7 Rosenshine 6 Credit: © iStocK.com/ graphic-bee Non examples Copyright © 2022 AQA and its licensors. All rights reserved. 8 Does that make sense? Any questions? Do you understand? Everyone got that? Ok? Credit: © iStock.com/SolStock “Summarise what has happened so far” Copyright © 2022 AQA and its licensors. All rights reserved. 9 Copyright © 2022 AQA and its licensors. All rights reserved. Students should be able to: Mark points on a diagram given the bearing from another point Draw a bearing between points on a map or scale drawing 10 ‘Summarise what has happened so far’ © iStock.com/Shansche © iStock.com/cristianl © iStock.com/wzfs1s Copyright © 2022 AQA and its licensors. All rights reserved. Q) The bearing of C from A is 130º. The actual distance from A to C is 359 metres. Mark the point C on the diagram. 11 ‘Summarise what has happened so far’ © corbettmaths.com Copyright © 2022 AQA and its licensors. All rights reserved. Solving equations with a variable on both sides. 12 ‘Summarise what has happened so far’ 3b + 1 = 2b + 7 Think aloud Copyright © 2022 AQA and its licensors. All rights reserved. 13 Think aloud Copyright © 2022 AQA and its licensors. All rights reserved. Topic: Functions 14 Example Student’s attempt Given ƒ(x) =2x g(x) = x + 1 Find ƒg(2) Given ƒ(x) =2x g(x) = x + 1 find fg gf Based on an activity from Variation Theory Think aloud Copyright © 2022 AQA and its licensors. All rights reserved. Other sentence starters to facilitate thinking aloud: How did you begin to solve this problem? Can you break it down? What would the first part be? What do you need to do next? Can you share your method for solving… Can you reword the question into sim

FAQs

What are the five strategies to check student understanding in this session?

The session lists five approaches: summarise what has happened so far, think aloud, agree or disagree, use multiple-choice questions with Pose, Pause, Pounce, Bounce, and repeat the instructions.

How does AQA describe the purpose of checking for understanding?

Checking for understanding is positioned as formative evidence that helps teachers identify strengths and weaknesses, adapt teaching, and support individual progress.

Where does the information teachers use to adapt their teaching come from?

The presentation states that teachers gather information from observation, discussion, and written work, then use feedback to adapt teaching to pupils’ needs.

Oct 20, 2026

Uploaded by Lucas Martin