Marvellous Monday 30.6.14

I attended a conference on Teaching and Learning on Friday 27th June which looked at changes to curriculum and assessment. The middle session of the day however was simply about fun and engaging teaching techniques which help youngsters 'get it' and become 'hooked'! Some of these were familiar and it was good to be reminded of them and some were brand new. It was brilliant to share these and I hope they can be of use in your subject area;

1) Freeze frame. Get students into groups and give them five minutes to form a freeze frame showing either a part of a story, a stage in an experiment etc. To assess their progress pick on each individual and get them to explain what they are feeling/what they are doing and more importantly - why!
2) Verbal Boxing - Ban all normal hands up/hands down rules and select the two most opinionated students to have a discussion at the start of the lesson. Hopefully they will inspire the rest of the class.
3) Hot seat. Prepare an information sheet on a key character or two. At the start of lesson (or as HW) give a student (or two) these role sheets to read. Meanwhile have a planned starter for the rest of the class. Invite the students back into the lesson and get the class to question them. Hats and props really help. The teacher can take on the character role if that is more appropriate.
4) Use PPT or your interactive whiteboard to set up a picture reveal. Expose parts of the picture at staged times asking students what they think it is and why?
5) Mystery object. This can be an object in a sealed box with just a hole to put a hand in or even an object under a piece of material. Can the youngsters guess what it is and how it links to the lesson?
6) Picture on the wall. Have a picture on the wall outside the classroom. In teams students must re-create it. However only one student is allowed out of the room at a time to look. They must develop team work and observation skills. Great if analysing images is important in your exam.
7) PE idea! Give every student a green sash. As they become more confident in the skills they are learning they should go to the side and swap it for an amber and then a red to show they are 'hot' at this topic/skill. They can then become the student leaders. Great for showing progress.
8) Music at the start of a lesson. Can students link it to the topic being studied?
9) Props!! For example placing glitter in a water bottle and swishing it is a great way to demonstrate a tornado or use lego to show population pyramids.
10) Mini whiteboards - all students then reflect on the learning.

I shall be trying 6 and 10 in my lesson this week. I hope some of these are of use to you too!

Marvellous Monday - 23.6.13

I am going to be completing Class Charters with each of my classes at the beginning of this academic year.  The Class Charter consists of the rules, that the pupils have come up with themselves, about behaviour and conduct in the lesson.  They have real ownership of these rules.   I begin the lesson with the pupils, in the back of their books, writing in rough some ideas for class rules in silence.  Then they get into small groups to discuss their ideas.  Following on from this, they create a list of 2 or 3 rules that their group has decided are the most important.  Finally, we come back together as a class and join all the ideas together and write a class charter of their rules.  The pupils write these in the first page of their new books and sign it.

Any questions please ask - Miss Manning.

Inspiring and promoting Able and Talented students.

Inspiring and promoting Able and Talented students. - by Wanda Barnes

Play writing; developing independent learning skills through critical thinking and creative project work.

In this unit the year 8s were given the task of researching, planning and writing a whole play based on the themes identified in Dickens’ Oliver Twist: child labour, child abuses within society.

Aims: to develop group skills, independent learning, creative writing, project management, working to deadlines, evaluation.

The structure of unit:

·         Mind-mapping class ideas

·         Skills audit-pupil strengths

·         Research-child labour and prostitution (Victorian and current)

·         Character profiles

·         Group work-script writing

·         Precision-script layout and punctuation-student led teaching

·         Group work-staging, costume, script writing, project management

·         Re-drafting

·         Completion

·         Evaluation

Although set up for project work took careful planning and direction initially, once students were clear on their responsibilities and independent focus within the group, my role became facilitator.

Not only were students leading their sessions but they also deferred to peers for clarification and direction where needed.  Several students showed initiative and took on assisting peers, re-drafting, re-directing support when needed. The ‘project managers’ (2 students nominated) were responsible for updating the folder and monitoring progress throughout, reporting to me where a problem existed.

The process was very rewarding and I enjoyed the creativity and energy displayed. The enthusiasm of the whole group led to achieving a great deal in a short time. I also learnt more about setting up successful project work.

Students designed their own feedback forms and this included feedback for me!

The final product is a play about child enslavement set in a nail bar in Portsmouth called,

Polished to Perfection.

Some of the reflective comments from students included:

“I have learnt to work in a team, take responsibility to get things done. I have also learnt about different types of staging and techniques and how to accurately plan the staging of a scene.”

Joe

“I have developed my English skills because I am now better at proofreading, improving work, script-writng…I know how to use different pieces of punctuation and my vocabulary has expanded.

Izzie

“I have worked on my team working skills as I am usually very bad at collaborating with others.”

Cameron

“I have learnt that making a play is harder than I thought! If people don’t fulfil their roles others can’t carry on their work. Also all the parts and scenes had to be completed by a certain time so we had to work extra hard to get it completed on time.”

India

“I have ambitions to be a teacher, so when I teach others it will be as useful to them as it was to me.”

Hannah

If anyone has any questions about this or would like to see the original resources please contact Wanda Barnes via her school email.

Some example slides used in the lesson

Monday's Marvelous Idea - Maths Trail

The Maths Trail is a way of developing numeracy across curriculum areas. It also can be amended to form a recap or revision activity which is kinaesthetic, engaging and more subject specific.

The teacher creates a range of resources/posters which are placed around the room (see example below). On each poster is a question and also an answer to a question posed on another sheet. Students can work individually or in groups and start with a poster of their choice. They record the answer and then have to find the poster with that answer on and complete that question set and so on. This can develop numeracy in any subject where statistics or data is used. It can also be used to create subject specific questions and answers and makes a great revision activity.

For more information or an electronic copy of the below please email Simon Ralph

Making HW work!

Making HW valuable!

I recently read a book called 'Unhomework' by Mark Creasy which really has changed the way I set HW and increased the number of high quality completions I receive in lesson.

The book suggests that longer length, more creative HW inspires students and gets them to engage more in the learning at home process. The ultimate theory is that if students take ownership of the HW process then they want to complete it. Tired of setting short, meaningless tasks which he then had to chase up and set sanctions for, the author has instead re-evaluated the purpose of HW and how to make it valuable. The book suggests some radical ideas which I must admit I have not tried yet but hope in the new school year to train up students to develop this. These include getting the students to set their own HW projects each term. However some of the more simple and easy ideas I have used include;

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      Giving students an option from a range of HWs. I love this HW chart which I have stolen from a great teacher online at teachertoolkit (http://iteach101.wordpress.com/)

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-          Making HW a big deal! If you set a HW over a number of weeks then you can keep referring to it and building up your excitement of the approaching deadline. HW policy is non-negotiable and students have to do it or receive a sanction but if it is simply collected in by a teacher without a glance, smile or thank you then why would the student bother next time? If however the teacher makes a big song and dance, seems excited by the HW set and is enthusiastic to receive it then the student feels valued and will be keen to impress in future.

-          Giving students a mark scheme. This could be created in lesson by the students once you set the task. However to start with it might be useful to create them in advance. The mark scheme means you can ask students to peer assess themselves or bring in HW for AfL and then extend the final deadline by a week to amend and make any improvements.

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-          Display the HW. If possible reward the student by hanging up work on the wall, decorating a table or even taking a picture of all the class’s HW printing off and getting students to stick in their book as a celebration (this is especially useful for 3D and larger projects which cannot be stuck in books).

-          and finally - Reward!

Some of these ideas are very simple but by taking the time to re-evaluate the HW process and also my teaching I have noticed an improvement in the quality of HW received. Here are a couple of examples to share with you;

The Hunger Games: A Cross-Curricular Project

Since being involved in resilience I hear many varied excerpts of books aimed at our pupils. One of the things that surprised me about this was just how few of these popular books I had read. Last Easter I decided to read The Hunger Games, as I had seen a trailer for the first film and my interest was piqued. Throughout the novel I kept making references to real world situations and couldn't escape some of the geographical themes that were explored in the book.

I decided to investigate the possibility of a cross-curricular project and was pleased when colleagues in the English Department shared my enthusiasm. Following several planning meetings with Amy Dare, we had roughed out areas that each subject could cover and identified themes that complimented both the Geography and English curriculums.

The dystopian style of the novel was a particular point of interest as so much of the geography that pupils pick up from current affairs is focussed on natural disaster and conflict. During the lessons pupils were able to draw on references to Syria, the Ukraine and Hurricane Katrina. It was pleasing to see that both the boys and girls were keen to read more about the story behind our scheme of work, a number of the Year Eight pupils even showed me their copies of the book they had selected for reading in resilience sessions.

The assessment element of this scheme of work was significant in proving, learning linked to popular fiction is an excellent way to make the geography relevant to pupils. In the lead up to the assessment we had studied natural and built environments that felt "dystopian" as places had been abandoned or ravaged by natural disasters. Pupils understood that dystopian novels combined difficult elements such as political problems and a lack or resources. To make the assessment as accessible as possible I decided to give pupils the choice between writing their assessment or debating it. Year Eight pupils have experience of using "talk" as a vehicle for assessment as the Geography department uses this in Year Seven and Year Eight topics the pupils had already studied. Many pupils chose to talk, whilst a smaller proportion were seated at the edge of the classroom at tables with paper. I am always impressed at the mature approach pupils adopt when debating. Very few behaviour sanctions were needed as pupils were engaged in listening to one another and looking for their opportunity to add to the debate.

For colleagues interested in trialling a talk assessment, I would recommend creating a tick column criteria sheet as this helps with recording how well the pupils perform and is essential to provide individual written feedback. I have generated a few short hand codes, that used along with some key words helps me to assess and level the pupils. Finally, if you are considering this type of activity but are uncertain of how pupils will respond, I would say that so long as pupils are given preparation time to script their ideas, on the whole each of my classes thoroughly enjoyed this change of activity.