Getting a handle on hinge points

Recently, I was asked to talk to a roomful of science teachers about hinge points. Making a classic dad joke, I opened with a photo of a hinge and then zoomed out to show my 13 year-old son pushing open a door with a single finger, while I pushed back with both hands. Although he is pushing with much less force, the mechanical advantage my son gains by being further from the hinge increases his momentum – the turning force – and the door swings open. This simple question gave an easily relatable context for my talk, and it’s a key hinge point for learners. 

A hinge point happens in a lesson, or a series of lessons, when a teacher formatively assesses student knowledge and alters their teaching in response. Some concepts (and skills) are so important that, unless students have grasped them, they will struggle with subsequent topics.

Although you should ask hinge questions frequently, they’re not appropriate in every lesson. Not every piece of knowledge that we teach is a hinge point. You can use hinge point questions before, during or after teaching.

Recently, I was supporting a chemistry subject lead, co-teaching a physics class of 14 and 15 year-olds. We were told they had good knowledge of atomic structure, and we had a one-hour lesson to introduce alpha, beta and gamma radiation.

I handed out coloured bottle tops to represent protons, neutrons and electrons to pairs of students. We asked them to build .

Not one pair was successful, and this became a hinge point. We discarded the planned lesson and started with a new one on the spot. We did some additional teaching, and students built a whole heap of atoms and annotated their models. If we had ploughed on with the expected lesson, it would have failed miserably.

You’ll know your hinge point question is good when you can fomatively assess it using low-stakes questions. It should be an essential point for learners who do not know or have forgotten this knowledge, and it should also not be patronising for those that remember. 

A good hinge question will also bring the idea into short-term memory. This reduces the cognitive demand for everyone as you move onto the main body of your lesson.

We can use a hinge point question to teach, rather than assess. In demonstrations and practical work, we can increase engagement by getting students to predict, observe and explain what is happening.

A useful practical example  is to ask students to predict what happens to the mass when you burn magnesium. Because students are likely to have seen wood and paper disappear when it burns, many will expect it to get lighter – and the result should be memorable. With further questions after the experiment, learners can also verify for themselves that the formula of the product is MgO.

Picking something that is conceptually simple and familiar builds confidence and understanding before moving on to more complex examples.

Finally, you can use a hinge point question to check pupils have learned a concept or skill. For example, after teaching balancing chemical equations, I like to give learners this unbalanced equation for the combustion of ethane and ask them to fill out a table showing how many of each atom is present before and after the reaction. Then ask them if the equation is balanced. You can do this in the same lesson, or in any future lesson after you’ve taught it. 

If your learners can’t answer this, you know you need to try the lesson again. This is a hinge point question that I developed from a BEST resource.