EVERY vs FIFA — a fight no more
Today, Gethyn gave his #ChatPhysicsLive talk about using the FIFA method to support students in calculations and it got me thinking. Me and Gethyn often glare at each other over the internet and if it wasn’t for lockdown, we’d be scrapping in a car park to settle this EVERY vs FIFA debate once and for all. But maybe there’s a better way…
In case you didn’t know, both EVERY and FIFA are scaffolds to support students in performing specific steps when doing a calculation in physics (Equation, Value, Enter values, Result, Yoonits for EVERY and Formula, Insert values, Fiddle, Answer for FIFA). They aren’t scaffolds in the typical sense of the word though, as we don’t slowly remove the scaffold over time (although we might remove the mnemonic from down the side of the page), we want students to perform all of the steps all of the time (I managed to resist using the word EVERY in that sentence). Both have big benefits in getting students to have a consistent layout (Standardise the Format from TLAC) and allowing students to pick up marks in exams.
Here are the benefits that are unique to each method though (ignoring the pedantic debate about the word Equation and the word Formula).
EVERY:
- The ‘Values’ step gives students an explicit space in which to convert units if this is needed in the question
- The ‘Yoonits’ step gives an explicit prompt not to forget final units
- You can weave it into sentences such as “You need to do this EVERY time you do a calculation”. This is objectively hilarious and the students give me a standing ovation EVERY time I do this and have never once rolled their eyes and said “He’s doing it again”
FIFA
- The ‘Fiddle’ step gives a bit of freedom and reminds students that there is often a bit of mathematical manipulation to be done that might not be one line of work before you get to your final answer.
Now rather than brawling with Gethyn, I got to thinking about Adam Boxer’s talk for CogSciSci about Embedding Equations Into The Curriculum. Adam’s suggestion of structuring KS3 and KS4 so that each of the component parts of ‘doing a complex calculation’ appears slowly over time is excellent. Rather than trying to do all of the steps from day one of year seven, we should space out these ideas through a well-planned curriculum and get students to slowly master them all.
My suggestion is that EVERY, given its unique benefits, is a really good method with which to start KS3 when we shouldn’t yet be doing complex rearrangement (or too much ‘Fiddling’ in Gethyn’s terminology). Explicitly getting students to think about their units in the ‘Values’ and ‘Yoonits’ steps is key and gives you scope to point out how the units tell you exactly what a quantity is. “I know 4kg is talking about mass because the units are kg”. The “you need to do this EVERY time” prompt also lands much nicer with younger students (a small reduction in eye rolls).
But when we get to late KS3/early KS4 and our curriculum includes more challenging calculation questions that require more mathematical manipulation, the FIFA method comes into its own (and there’s always the FIFA-one-two for multi-step calculations as well). By this point, the EVERY method should have students well-versed using and converting units and we are, in a way, removing some of the scaffolding by giving students a slightly less rigid framework with fewer steps and the flexibility of the ‘Fiddle’ stage.
There are other methods out there too, not just EVERY and FIFA, but I think the consideration of “which is the right scaffold for this stage in the curriculum?” is an important one to think about regardless of what your preferred method is. One system doesn’t need to be used throughout the entirety of school, and maybe me and Gethyn could even work in peace and harmony together.
