RELENTLESS TEACHING AND LEARNING

The Shrinking Vessle

Worst Case Scenario

It's a Minefield

Save the ......

Build it

Create a mobile

This is great fro

Create a newspapser article

Create your own web page

Learning Experiment

Questioning and Key words

Great for stretch and challenge

Great for AFL

Useful for developing questioning.

Picking up pace.

Riddle Me This Riddle Me That...

Riddles are great as a starter activity, but you can also use them to get students to summarise their learning.

In the style of..

This is really helpful to get students to think in the mind-set of someone who has experienced success. This could work in all areas of the curriculum. It can be used for written work, communication and practical work .... Imagine if you were....

Creative statements

Get your students to dream and wonder about the subjects that you are teaching them.

Big Questions

Use these to develop divergent thinking in pairs or groups.

Students Top Tips

Ask Students to write up their top tips and share them with other students who may be struggling.

Help Sheets

Get higher ability students to design help sheets as an extension task.

Jigsaws

Jigsaws are great for getting students to look at particles of their learning, they can also be used to give feedback and targets during lessons.

Pictionary

This can be a great way to sum up learning. It can also be used to get students to draw keywords and get other students to guess the key words.

Cartoons

Getting students to design their own cartoons to illustrate an idea or a summary of what they have learnt in the lesson.

Hot Seats

I use this for class contribution. These are my top performers in class and this is based on effort and personal progress.

Drama

Get the students to role play.

Crystal Ball

Encourage students to predict......

The line of creativity

This is a fantastic tool for getting students to measure their creativity.

Think like....

Get students to think in the mind-set of an influential person. Ask them questions like: "What do you think would have gone through Picasso's mind at this point?" "How might Einstein approach this investigation?"...

Don't be predicatable

Add things into your lesson that are a little unpredictable. Use sound, objects, imagery and drama to make your lessons come alive.

The Forgery

Great for embedding understanding, developing communication skills and supporting weaker students. Questions about the final outcome should focus on progress - why does the image not look like the original? Was the information specific enough to help the artist? What other information would you have given to the artist? etc

Use imagery for critical thinking

Set up an investigation

This can be really exciting for students of all ages. Bring the drama to the classroom. We have used this technique when teaching lessons on health and safety in Art and DT. We have also created archaeological sites for students to dig for Roman artefacts for an art project.

Mystery Objects

Great for developing questioning and curiosity.

Capture their imaginations...

Set the scene, make it believable and link it into their learning.

Drawing

Great for explaining learning journeys.

Abstract thinking

Simplistic shapes - what else could it be?

Team relay races

This is a great idea for getting students to investigate. In this instance the teacher asked Students to take part in relay races in maths to find the probability of different scenarios.

Food colouring

In maths they have used pipettes and food colouring to develop understanding of ratios.

Guess Who?

This is a really fun way to get students to interact with each other, when developing their historical and contextual understanding in any subject.

Thinking Hats Spinner

A great interactive tool that can be used in many classroom scenarios.

Eye Spy

Eye Spy is a great way to get students to research in greater detail. In this instance, I used this as a starter activity to get students looking at the fine details in Tudor portraiture. They had to guess what had been spied with only the first letter of the word to help them. They also had to write down all their guesses, which helped students to develop their own vocabulary list. When students guessed correctly, the spy changed.

Top Trumps in maths

The Questioning Tash

I usually leave a range of different moustaches for groups of students to share. The idea is that they can chose the level of question that they want to ask or they want to answer. The questioning is linked to Blooms Taxonomy and it is a great way to get the students developing their questioning techniques.

Take 'The Artist' Out

This is a great research activity. Students have to devise questions to find out as much information as they can about an artist (this can be adapted really nicely across a range of subjects). They use the information to see if the artist could inspire their work.

The Museum of Bad Art

I found the Museum of Bad Art online and I have used it for lots of different types of literacy based activities. The art works create interesting discussions, which are based around content, skill and comparison.

Dingo Dollar Challenge

Using key words to develop understanding and communication through questioning.

Deal or No Deal

Each student is given a card with the picture of a box on it and a number. Each box will link to a key word. This activity can be used to develop questioning, literacy through the use of key words in appropriate contexts and as an AFL activity.

SCAMPER

This is great for getting students to develop their ideas and to promote independent thinking.

Lingo Bingo

Great to use as a starter, linking to a video or a presentation.

Idea development

Giving students a range of items that they might be able to use in their learning, leads to some creative and independent outcomes. How could you use this in your subject area?

Job Application

This is a nice activity for a 'lively' group. I like to present a range of different roles that the students can apply for, they have to think about their own strengths and weaknesses. This works well as a behaviour technique, but also to create focussed teams when doing group work.

Have you used the key words?

I usually set these up at the start of term, personalising them with a photo of the student and adding in the key words for the term (I change these fortnightly). The idea is that the student collects tally scores each time they use a key word in the correct context. The student with the most points at the end of the term is given a prize.

Make it SMART

Quick smart targets to keep learners on track.

NOA Learning Loyalty Card

This works like a normal loyalty card and links to SMART targets. When students meet all of their SMART targets in a lesson they are able to claim a signature for their card. When the whole card has been claimed they receive a reward.