New ideas for lackluster lessons

Is your inspiration running dry trying to keep pupils interested?

TES expert Gererd Dixie answers your questions on how to add some creativity at class time

Creativity in mixed ability settings

How can I introduce creativity in a reading class for readers of varying abilities? A typical reading project for my readers, most averse to reading, might be to read Harper Lee's “To Kill A Mockingbird"

Gererd Dixie: One of the things I know works is to use TV soaps to launch such topics as prejudice, bigotry, discrimination using characters that the pupils know well and feel strongly about evokes an emotional response which goes a long way to supporting learning. The limbic brain is the middle part of the brain that deals with our emotions and long-term memory and which asks, "What's in it for me?" If pupils watch soaps they get emotionally involved with the characters and there is real ownership of their behaviour. So if you're dealing with prejudice/racism it's best to start off using characters that pupils care about. The idea then would is to get your pupils to care about the characters in the books that you are studying. Thus evoking a similar emotional tie.

Addressing the needs of girls and boys

I am a trainee English teacher. I wanted to know how to bring creativity in the classroom when I have a class where 90% are boys without leaving the girls out?

Gererd Dixie: It helps to have a knowledge of the neo-cortex, the thinking and processing part of the brain, which is divided into two hemispheres. The left hemisphere focuses on language, logic, analysis and works in sequential manner and builds the whole from parts. Left-brain learners prefer structured tasks, explicit instructions, written information and to work in a logical linear way.

The right hemisphere focuses on visualisation, imagination, rhyme and rhythm and working from the whole picture to individual parts. Most but not all are right brain learners and therefore prefer open ended tasks, self selected tasks, working from intuition and following hunches and guesses. This is why your girls are better at coursework then your boys who generally can't be bothered to go through the whole process when they can answer the question in one sentence verbally in class.

So what can you do to cater for the boys without alienating the girls? One thing you can do is to plan some lessons from a right brain perspective. You could ask the class to provide you with an educated guess or hunch as to the answer to a question you've asked. For example - if I'm teaching about the locational factors involved in siting a reservoir I could use a left-brain approach and take each factor in turn and bore the pants off the pupils.

Or I could simply put a range of photos around the room and ask pupils to stand by the photo which they feel most represents the best site for a reservoir. By doing this I am asking pupils to make hunches or educated guesses to respond to the question being posed. Once more information has been given I then allow pupils to change their position if they change their mind about the location.

This process allows pupils to show their intuition which is often right but even when this is not the case the pupils are hooked into the activity.

The other thing you could do is to present a class with a common learning objective and learning outcomes and provide them with a menu of tasks from which to choose. A nice touch would be to actually use a restaurant menu format to do this.

Thinking outside the box with ICT

I'm training to teach ICT - some units of which are very creative, but others are less so e.g. spreadsheets - any ideas for making the less creative units more so?

Gererd Dixie: How about this - take your class down to the hall and draw out a big filing cabinet using string or rope making sure each filing draw is clearly labelled with a specific category. issue pupils with descriptor cards and get them to go and stand in the appropiate filing draw. No doubt some pupils will get the classification wrong but this will provide ample fodder for discussion.

Do you have any technology tips to help bring out my creativity in history lessons?

Gererd Dixie: One thing that I have seen work really well in lessons is where pupils are provided with an opportunity to vote on issues being discussed in the lesson. Examples of the ‘classroom response/voting sytsem’ are - Activote, activ-expression and ezclickpro. For example if you were voting about who would be the best person to take over the throne from King edward the Confessor you could use such a system. I believe they are expensive but it might be a wise ‘whole-school' purchase which you might be able to book up on occasions.

Subject-specific ideas

Could you point me in the direction of some ideas for cross-curricular PE lessons?

Gererd Dixie: The first thing that comes to mind is the link between sport and politics/history. Eg. Jesse Owen’s famous victory in Munich during Hitler’s time, the boycott of British athletes in the Russian Olympics during the Cold War. The boycott (no pun intended) of the England cricket team playing in South Africa during the Apartheid period, The use of the Olympic platform made by Michael X when giving his Black Power salute. The list is endless.

I would also imagine that there are numerous links between PE and biology - in terms of biorhythms, diet, exercise, health etc but I guess these are the obvious ones. How about getting pupils to plot major sporting teams on to a map. Alternatively you could explore the link between science and sport posing questions about the degree to which it is possible to compare modern day performances with those that took place in the past.

I’m an NQT English teacher. Do you have any tips to help me make my lessons more fun for pupils?

Gererd Dixie: How about designing some ‘dingbats’ for your pupils? These are pictures and words that together help to create a key term or phrase.

If you have seen ‘Catchphrase’ you will know what I mean. For example in my geography lesson I would draw a picture of two cola cans and ask them which rainforest bird this represents – answer Toucan. How bad is that! If you Google ‘dingbats I am sure you will come up with loads of ideas. It would be even better if your pupils could design these themselves. I find this is an excellent way of getting pupils to learn key terms and phrases and have used these in Year 7 classes right the way through to Year 13s where the terminology gets a lot more complicated.

If you want further ideas on creative starters and on how to cater for right brain and left brain learners etc then read Section 12 of the Ultimate Teaching Manual’ available from all good book shops.

One thing you could do is to get your pupils to plan their own starters and to have a go at delivering these in front of an audience – then evaluate the degree they were able to teach and make themselves heard. A bit of empathy never hurt anyone. Hope I have given you a taste of the sorts of things you could do.

Source:http://newteachers.tes.co.uk/news/new-ideas-lackluster-lessons/45845

Brilliant History ideas: tried and tested tips for lessons

Tips from experienced teachers to help you get your pupils excited about history

Tried and tested tips from experienced teachers to help you get your pupils excited about history, including set a date, a drop of action, gene therapy and guess who?

Ages 8 to 11

Set a date

Pupils will love this outdoor, visual and kinaesthetic activity to learn chronology. Give 15 pupils a card with a range of different dates written on each one, ranging from 2000BC to 2007AD. Include key dates such as 0, 1066, 1665, 1939 (and any others that relate to your topic). Take pupils to the playground and ask them to arrange themselves in date order.

Give the more able the BC cards as this can lead to higher order questioning, such as why their numbers go “backwards” and what the 0 represents. Give the rest of the pupils A4 cards with pictures of famous people on and the dates when they lived. You could include Winston Churchill, Florence Nightingale, or people from their current topic. Ask them to position themselves on the human number line where they think their character should be. This can lead to a further discussion of dates and the order things happen in.
Helen Towler teaches at Rye Oak School in London

Turning new ground

Let’s play archaeologists. Here is a timeline activity that will add fun to learning about ancient civilisations and give your pupils a feel for archaeology. Bring some plastic bags, each filled with a smashed clay flower pot (one for each group of three). Ask pupils to reconstruct each pot using drafting tape, so they can take it apart to put in the difficult pieces. An outdoor variation of this activity is to cordon off three or four patches of field (or use sandboxes) and have them excavate the broken pots using simple digging tools such as spades and brushes to gently remove dirt from the pieces.

Once back in the classroom, pupils can proceed with reconstructing the flower pots.
John Skinner is a teacher at St Aubyn’s School in Woodford Green, Essex

Ages 14 to 16

A drop of action

Having given up history to teach science, I could never resist bringing up a company of eclectic, inspirational and bonkers scientists. Newton was a rich source. A devout woman-hater (his mother left him at two), he spawned vast amounts of ground-breaking research and then lost them for years. His feud with Robert Hooke, the self-aggrandising first describer of a “cell”, was legendary. Newton became a Member of Parliament, but said nothing beyond, “Can you close that window?”

Humanising science with past giants brings empathy and context. The tragic tale of how Marie Curie lost her husband and co-worker, Pierre, under the wheels of a Parisian carriage raised a laugh — maybe it was the way I told it. It seems poetic justice that the man who invented CFCs and sent us down the road to global warming was struck down with polio. He invented a mechanised bed that strangled him. Galileo remained my favourite. He was the first scientist to experiment. And despite a row with the Church, which usually saw scientists being crisped at the stake, Galileo held on. It helped that his old school chum had become the Pope. As a lesson in sticking to your principles, it worked for me.
Katy Bloom is professional development leader at the National Science Learning Centre

Gene therapy

Literacy, ICT, science and a bit of history are thrown into this lesson on sex determination.

After teaching determining sex chromosomes, invite the class to write a letter to Henry VIII explaining that it is his fault that he hasn’t had a son and nothing to do with his wives.

The letters need to be tactful if the pupils are to avoid being beheaded. I usually give the openings of a number of sentences to start them off, such as: “While I must acknowledge the superiority of your royal genes...” Computers allow pupils to use old-fashioned fonts. Then, get them to age the paper with old tea bags for homework.
Judith Green is a science AST at The Robert Smyth School in Market Harborough, Leicestershire

Ages 11 to 16

Compete with pupils

Pupils love competition, and nothing beats competing with their teacher. I used this for a review session of the Black Death with Year 7s. I displayed and read a prepared paragraph about the causes and consequences of the Black Death. This included 10 deliberate mistakes.

Pupils were provided with a grid sheet on A4 paper and the paragraph on another. They wrote the mistakes on one side, and the correct information on the other. They spotted my mistakes and produced a corrected version.
David Alford teaches at Ysgol Uwchradd Tywyn in Gywnedd, Wales

Guess who?

A great way to introduce a new topic and to break the ice for pupils who don’t know each other very well is to hold a cocktail party. Allocate each pupil a person they will be learning about in the new topic — for example, Alexander Fleming and Florence Nightingale. Have each pupil research that character for homework and encourage them to find props/simple costumes that link to their characters.

The next lesson is the party. As each character arrives at the party, give them a chart that they must complete as they meet other party guests. For each guest they must find out their name, date of birth, family background, what they contributed to the history of medicine and links they may have to other characters at the party.

Acting as the waiter, the teacher circulates the room, ensuring everyone is on task and finding out information.
Helen Towler teaches at Rye Oak School in London

Source: http://newteachers.tes.co.uk/news/brilliant-history-ideas-tried-and-tested-tips-lessons/45546

How long does it take to win over a class?

It's the $64,000 question - how long will it take before your pupils are on-side? Tom Bennett helps you set your expectations

Let me just get my ball of string out and measure a piece. There are too many variables here to give you anything the data junkies from the DfE would be satisfied with.

You can start off in one school and find that the kids are pretty much onside the day you walk in the class; this usually occurs when they have been pre-groomed by their feeder schools, the existing school behaviour expectations are tight and tightly enforced, or the parental demographic is highly supportive. There are many schools like this.

Or you might walk into the school from Hades, and be battling them metre by metre, minute by minute, as I was in my first placement.

Some rules of thumb

So how many and for how long? Here are some good rules of thumb, bearing in mind that they are as flexible as a sixth former’s idea of what constitutes a deadline:

Honeymoon period

If you go in hard with a new class, they will probably give you a honeymoon period, where they’re checking you out. For all they know, you might be the Arnold Schwarzenegger of teaching. They are cautious, and sniff you out to see if you carry out your threats. This is a dreadful period, where some teachers get lulled into an appalling sense of false security. A week or two, probably.

Set sanctions...

Then they show you what they’re really like. This is the start of the war of attrition. By now they should know what you expect. By now you should be setting sanctions consistently and fairly.

If you turn up for detentions, or call home when they don’t turn up, and you’re escalating sanctions up the ladder (one hour: hour and a half; Headteacher’s Detention, etc.) then you will enter the real heart of darkness.

...and keep applying them!

After about a term of this you should have seen the easy kids give in quickly as soon as they see you mean business. The tough nuts will remain tough nuts for a while. They’ve got more stomach for a fight. If you’ve started in September, by Christmas you might see this.

Once you come back from the Christmas break they will realize that you haven’t quit, and that they are going to have to put up with you. This will be your first benchmark. How are they behaving? Keep applying sanctions.

The toughest of nuts

By the end of term two you should only be seriously battling the major hard nuts, and having minor (although probably constant) skirmishes with the pests.

By the end of the year, you should be battling the toughest of the nuts.

I’ve said ‘should’ a lot. There is no ‘should’. You are neither a failure if it takes longer, nor a success if you walk into total compliance. It will vary on a lot of things: Are you fair? Are you consistent? Do you have a personality that gels with them? Do you scream at them? Do you tell them you hate them? Do you mark their homework? Are your lessons planned well? I emphasize: a well-planned lesson does not guarantee good behaviour, but a disorganized one can contribute to bad behaviour.

A work in progress

A year of teaching will be your real first hurdle. The process then continues. Kids resent change and at first, no matter how lovely you are, they will probably show you varying degrees of resentment because you’re not the ‘real’ teacher (by which they mean their old one, or some imagined Platonic ideal). Ignore them; this is entirely natural. You never really reach a destination with good behaviour; it can always improve. Even if they’re all sitting quietly and behaving, you will want them to get more proactive, more enthusiastic and more independent.

Behaviour management is a process, not a target. It is never achieved.

This is an excerpt from Tom Bennett’s book Not Quite a Teacher, published by Continuum. The book is a practical teacher training manual, interspersed with funny stories from Tom's own teacher training experiences.  

How to encourage structured speaking and listening

Mike Gershon shares his tips for enhancing students’ thinking skills by working on speaking and listening

Recently, a friend of mine came to me with a problem.

We sat down over a drink and talked about it.

He spoke and I listened. Then I asked some questions and he spoke a little more. After half an hour or so he said that he felt better and could see what he needed to do. Although I had not offered a specific suggestion or solution to his problem, I had given him the opportunity to discuss what was troubling him.

Language allows us to organise our thoughts and communicate them. By engaging in this conversational process we achieve many things. First, we give ourselves a better sense of what we are thinking, feeling or attempting to say. Second, we give voice to our thoughts, which makes them real and gives us the opportunity to analyse them more clearly. The process of speaking and listening moves the problem from the interior realm and makes it something concrete in the exterior world.

Speaking and listening is integral to our lives. It is also integral to the process of learning and, by extension, a vital part of any lesson.

The Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky noted the importance of this when observing the behaviour of children; and we, as teachers, can observe it by watching our students progress by using discussion and the questioning techniques we teach them.

Here we will look at effective ways of structuring activities so that students do not get distracted from the topic.

Activities for any subject

“Interviewing” is a fantastic activity for almost any class and in almost any subject. Present students with a topic you want them to research something their peers can answer questions about. Invite students to come up with between five and 10 questions for their peers.

Encourage them to use a mixture of open and closed questions. Then ask them to interview between three and 10 people in the class, making notes as they go. Finally, ask them to write up their results and share these with a partner.

The next activity is “speed debating” one of my favourites. Divide the class in half. Present a proposition connected to the topic, such as “Macbeth was not solely responsible for his actions”. Get half the class to argue for the proposition and half against it. Split the halves into even smaller groups and give 10 minutes for preparation. During this time, students should come up with reasons, evidence and examples to make their case.

Next, invite the students who are “for” the proposition to sit in a line. The students who are “against” should sit opposite them, so that members of the opposing sides are paired.

Give the students who are “for” one and a half minutes to argue their case while their partners listen. When the time is up, reverse the roles. Finally, have a one-minute free-for-all in which both sides can argue.

After the first debate, ask half of the class to stand up and find a new partner. The activity then runs again with the new groups. Repeat this one more time before wrapping things up, perhaps seguing into a piece of extended writing centred on the proposition.

The final activity is “paired talk”. Whenever you ask your class a question, present them with a task or provide a piece of stimulus material and encourage them to discuss it with the person next to them. Help students to stay on track by modelling what good discussion looks like. This activity encourages students to express their immediate responses and thoughts, refine their existing ideas and supplement their thoughts with those of others, helping them to extend their thinking further.

Encourage high-quality speaking 

In considering paired talk we touched briefly on the importance of facilitating speaking and listening. Here are some specific techniques to do this.

A key here is to wait after asking a question. Giving students time to think and respond is an important part of encouraging high-

quality speaking and ensuring their responses are of a better standard.

Second, is the issue of structure which underpins each of the activities above and ensures that students’ speech is focused and relevant; that it combines content and skills without overemphasising or neglecting either.

Third, there is questioning. Adroit use of questions will help the teacher to draw thoughtful answers and developed ideas from students. Use open questions ones that ask for clarification or to explain their reasoning.

For example, instead of asking “What is democracy?” try asking “What might democracy be?”

You can further raise standards by teaching your students how to ask good questions themselves. Modelling is a part of this, but so too is setting up activities which encourage them to ask certain types of questions.

For example, you could ask students to focus solely on asking open questions and follow this with a discussion in which different sorts of questions are analysed and students assess their strengths and weaknesses.

Listening activities

We will now look at three activities that concentrate on listening.

A “lecturette” is a miniature lecture. During the course of their lives students will frequently need to listen carefully for an extended period of time. Lecturettes are a way of helping them to develop those skills.

Provide students with a listening frame, a series of subtitles or relevant keywords and ask them to make notes while you talk on the topic for about 20 minutes. Then invite them to share, compare and contrast their notes with three of their peers. They should add to their notes where appropriate.

The next activity is “hot-seating”, where you divide the class into groups of four and appoint a hot-seater in each. These students will be told they will be taking on a role or character associated with the topic under discussion. You might give them a sheet with background information about the character.

These students are then quizzed by their fellow group members who will be trying to discover as much as possible about the character the hot-seater is playing. They need to listen carefully and ask a range of questions to discover the “identity” of the hot-seater.

The final listening activity is “read-aloud peer-assessment”, which is most effective after students have completed an extended piece of written work.

There are two ways to structure it. In the first, the teacher chooses one student’s piece of work and reads it to the class. The students listen carefully and peer-assess what they have heard. The teacher can provide categories for this peer-assessment success criteria or leave it open for students to make their own decisions. When the reading has finished, the students discuss their thoughts.

The second approach has the class divided into groups of four. In each group, one student reads out a piece of their work while the rest of the group listens. They then discuss their thoughts. If you have time, repeat the activity until every student has had their work peer-assessed.

Support high-quality listening

To conclude, let us consider ways to help students listen effectively. 

Here are three potential approaches:

First, provide students with a sheet of A4 paper divided into four. In each quadrant write a question students can answer by listening to what is said later. Second, give students a list of keywords to write down, leaving space under each one. As the students are listening, they should note anything that is relevant to the keywords. Third, provide students with an outline of what they are going to hear (from a lecturette, an audio clip, a video or a speaker). They can then add to this as they go along.

Modelling is something teachers do all the time. Things are no different when it comes to listening. When you are listening in class, think carefully about what you are modelling for your students. Everything you do should be setting a great example for your students. Feel free to talk to them about this and talk about your choices and actions and why they are effective.

Encourage students to ask questions; particularly to demand further facts or clarification. These help us to understand precisely what the speaker is trying to say and show that we have not only listened but want to know more. Questions of clarification include: “What do you mean by that?”; “Could you explain that in more detail?”; and “I’m not quite clear; could you go over that again?” They will all help students to become better listeners.

Conclusion

So there you have it, a brief collection of strategies and techniques to help ensure that excellent speaking and listening takes place.

Hopefully we can show students that by using these skills they will be likely to make much greater progress. And, of course, it is our greatest hope that they will enjoy themselves at the same time.

For the sake of clarity

When asking for further detail, use these questions:

• What do you mean by that?
• Could you explain that in more detail?
• Could you go over that again?
• Do you mean …?
• How might you explain that in another way?

So to speak

The benefits of structuring speaking and listening:

• It channels students’ energy in the direction you want it to go.
• It creates a sense of purpose that motivates students.
• It gives the activity a clear sense of progression, which is good for students, teachers and any observers.
• It allows you to support learners who may otherwise struggle.
• It gives you the means of keeping students on track.

Why is speaking and listening important?

• It forms the bedrock of our culture.
• It helps to develop our thoughts.
• It is an excellent precursor to writing.
• It gives us an insight into what other people think and feel.
• It allows us to analyse and interrogate different ideas.

Mike Gershon is an author and sociology teacher at King Edward VI School in Bury St Edmunds. 

Based on an article first published in TESS on 12 April, 2013

Mike Gershon's resources for speaking and listening

Discussion Toolkit
The toolkit guides you through a variety of activities you can use to structure and encourage discussion in the classroom.

Challenge Toolkit
The Challenge Toolkit provides 50 different activities to stretch and extend students' thinking. The activities are generic and can be used across Key Stages and in different subjects.

The Whole Class Feedback Guide
Included are 25 different strategies for eliciting feedback from an entire class of students. All the strategies are generic and can be used across the Key Stages and the curriculum.

Peer and Self-Assessment Guide
A straightforward guide to peer and self-assessment. Includes a step-by-step guide explaining how to embed it in your practice.

Find all of Mike's teaching resources here: www.tesconnect.com/mikegershon and find his books on Amazon here.

Further resources for speaking and listening

Speed Debating
Requires pupils to find evidence in a text and explain how this supports their point.

Debating lesson
Lesson detailing rules and strategies for a class debate - includes co-operative learning strategies.

Developing empathy
This lesson plans get students to develop empathy and consider the impact of their actions on other people’s feelings through script work or hot seating.

Peer Assessment - personal writing
Helps to encourage pupils to peer assess personal writing. Pupils are encouraged to highlight evidence of thoughts and feelings.

James Bond - Listening Skills
A fun activity that demonstrates to your class just how much information goes in when a teacher is "just talking". 

Zoo-themed speaking and listening lessons
Group work and pair work to improve students' speaking and listening skills. 

source: http://newteachers.tes.co.uk/content/how-encourage-structured-speaking-and-listening