Following on from the cross college staff development day that took place on the 9th of October 2025 and the teaching and learning conference earlier in the year; the plumbing department have been working on how to demonstrate recall of knowledge and skills across all levels of learning. This has been trialled in the level 3 full time plumbing groups to ascertain what impact it is having.
Development and thought process
The process was initially developed to try and allow the students to think, recall and retrieve information. Especially for the level 3 class as we have been working on in the first term command verbs and how they appear in written examinations with loaded questions.
Command verbs, what are they?
Where are they used?
Examples of the command verbs
We have been working hard to expand the vocabulary and the thinking of ‘What, Why, When and How’.
What are you talking about? explain how it works, describe it to me, summarise it’s use and so on.
Why is this component or appliance used? explain how it works, describe it to me, summarise it’s use and so on.
When is the required component or device required? explain how it works, describe it to me, summarise it’s use and so on.
How is the component appliance installed and what are the benefits and requirements? explain how it works, describe it to me, summarise it’s use and so on.
To enable this process to begin the sessions had to be engaging, memorable and full of content that really breaks up the topics and then the students can begin to formulate their memory recall with all areas of the session. To begin with a session was delivered in a few ways; firstly looking at pre existing knowledge from levels already studied and what have they brought with them to the higher course level.
The delivery of the level 3 content followed this and some example images from the delivery methodology can be seen below.
We have been using exit tickets to gauge knowledge and skills from each session since September. Image below for AM and PM.
With this in place and now second nature to the students not only are they retrieving knowledge/skills from the sessions but they are writing sentences and paragraphs to evidence what they are taking away from each session. This is working well and is impacting on the students retention of knowledge and skills.
To add to this further we have recently introduced a beginning of the session retrieval from that checks how they have retained knowledge and skills from past sessions in the week and not just immediately after the session. See below for the for image.
From the answers on the retrieval form the tutor then looks and answers back with guidance and support to reinforce the recollection of knowledge and skills. Examples of this can be seen below.
All of the above is having an impact on the breadth and depth of knowledge and skills of the students. More to be done to maintain this however, the initial findings are very positive and we will continue to develop this strategy to allow the students to share their knowledge and skills base.
HallEdu 
Leave a comment