Qwizdom
voting pads IS SU E 2
The
Jigsaw Technique
Opinion
chains
JANUARY
2014
PedEx WBGS
IM AGINE, IMPROVE, IN SPIRE
CONTENTS Page 1 Welcome back to PedEx
What’s the latest? So here it is, the long awaited second issue of PedEx! We hope you enjoyed the first magazine and have been able to try out some of the ideas in lessons. This edition is packed full of tips, techniques, resources and more to get you and your students thinking. We’ve also got the usual
thunks, puzzles and jokes for a bit of light relief! Next half term we’re going to be putting together a ‘Revision Special’ so any ideas for articles would be welcomed. In the meantime, enjoy issue two, and please do get in touch with any feedback.
Page 2 Wordle The educational benefit of ‘ugly fonts’ Differentiation—strategies for groups Page 3 The Jigsaw Technique Opinion chains Tic Tac Know Page 4 Whizzy loop questioning tool Random book check Qwizdom voting pads Page 5 The Teaching Times—Teaching in the news Thunks—what are they and how can you use them Page 6 Coffee break fun—games, puzzles and more
T&L Group meetings coming up… Monday 3rd Feb Monday 24th March Editors—Tu, Cx Contributors—Cw, Gf, Cj, Mg, Cl, Wm, Wa, Petty, Tu, Cx Thank you very much to everyone who has contributed to the first issue. If you would like to contribute in the future please get in contact with Tu or Cx. 1
PedEx WBGS is published twice a term by WBGS Teaching and Learning Group.
Word Play... Wordle is a tool for generating “word clouds” from a text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. Pupils respond well to the colourful presentation and enjoy spotting the most prominent words which are in a larger font based on their frequency in the text. You can use wordle in a variety of ways in your lessons, here are just a few ideas:
Use wordle to generate key words from your GCSE and AS/A2 exam specifications – ask pupils if they are regularly using these skills and techniques? Generate a wordle based on the content of your lesson – can pupils guess what the lesson is going to be about and help produce some learning outcomes? You could copy and paste exam class essays into a wordle and use individual wordles for each pupil as a starter. Get them to identify which words appear most frequently in their essay and ask them if their wordle suggests they are using the correct language required by the exam board e.g. the language of explanation/ analysis? Ask pupils to create their own wordle as a homework task – perhaps at the start of a new topic they must research key words and produce a wordle to stick at the front of their books. They can return to it at the end and see if they have covered all the prominent words that came up in their original research
Differentiation:
The educational benefit of ‘ugly fonts’
Many education researchers and practitioners believe that reducing extraneous cognitive load is always beneficial for the student. In other words, if a student has a relatively easy time learning a new lesson or concept, both the student and teacher are likely to label the session as successful.
Get the basics right:
Meaningful marking adapted to each pupil
Seating plans with info relevant to students’ needs
Listen to your students during lessons and adapt your plans accordingly
Research has shown however that when students are given a text to learn something from, their comprehension, processing and retention of material is actually improved when ‘harder to read’ fonts are used for the text (i.e. the extraneous cognitive load was actually increased!)
Next time you give your students a passage of text to learn and or understand… why not use a ‘hard to read’ font? 2
For more ideas on differentiation click the button below DIFFERENTIATE!!
3 NEW TEACHING IDEAS… The Jigsaw Technique In a jigsaw classroom, each student is given a unique and vital part of information that must be put together, like a jigsaw puzzle, for any of the students to understand the whole story. The following principles for the jigsaw technique were outlined by Aronson et al., (1978). Students should be divided into 5- or 6-person jigsaw groups with the groups diverse in terms of ability. One student from each group is chosen as the leader; this person should be the most able student in the group. The lesson content should be divided into 5-6 segments to match the groups. Each student is assigned to complete and learn one segment, making sure students have direct access only to their own segment. Students read over their segment at least twice and become familiar with it making notes as required. There is no need for them to memorise it. Temporary "expert groups" are formed by having one student from each jigsaw group join other students assigned to the same segment. Expert groups are given time to discuss the main points of their segment and to rehearse the presentations they will make to their jigsaw group. The students return to their jigsaw groups and each student presents their segment to the group. The teacher moves from group to group, observing the process. If any group is having trouble appropriate interventions can be made. At the end of the session, students can be assessed on what they have learnt. Source: http://www.jigsaw.org/
Opinion Chains Write a discussion question on the board. Give students a minute to consider their response to the question, in silence without discussion. Students write a few sentences at the top of the paper, summing up their view and backing it up with some evidence. Students pass the paper to the next person. This person writes a comment on the statement. Starter sentences to help students to do this are: I agree with this interpretation/comment because… I disagree with this interpretation/ comment because… I find this interpretation/ comment interesting because… I would like to add… The papers are passed again. This time a student can add their thoughts on either the original statement or any of the subsequent comments. The papers are passed several times. Three or four of the opinion chains are read out and used to start a class discussion or to help students prepare points for an essay. Pedagogy: • This activity really encourages independent thinking and peer learning. • Students are able to form opinions and then support these with evidence. • Sentence starters promote formal writing. • You can use this idea to explore any issue or statement. • You could then explore definitions of: controversial, ambivalent, ambiguous, alternative interpretations.
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Whizzy Loop Questioning Tool We all have those classes where it is the same students putting their hands up all of the time. There is a quick way to use a PowerPoint to get more members of your class involved in class discussions. You will find a sample PowerPoint on t drive in the Teaching and Learning folder titled ‘whizzy loop questioning tool’. Edit the names on each slide so that every boy in one of your classes has his own slide. Open the presentation and press ‘s’ to start and stop the whizzy loop at a name at random; the relevant student can then answer the question or add a contribution to class discussion. A variation on this tool is putting key questions or key words on each slide and going round the class getting each student to answer a question selected at random.
Random Book Check One of the key issues in teaching is how to monitor pupil work during the lesson if you’re not taking their books in at the end. It would be very labour intensive to check all pupil work, particularly when you have a large class. One way of ‘spot checking’ pupil work is to use a random book check system at the end of a lesson. Random book check involves using a random number generator (e.g. random.org) to pick three numbers. These numbers correspond to a pupil on the register, i.e .first on the register will be 1, second 2 etc. The corresponding pupils will have their classwork checked and the rest of them will breathe a sigh of relief! By making the book check public at the beginning or end of the lesson and making it clear that unfinished work will be completed at break or lunch time, all pupils are motivated to complete their classwork. This is particularly effective with KS3, with the generator and SIMS projected up on the board!
Get writing… If you’ve got something you want to write about, we want to hear from you. Email Sarah Turner or Josh Coren with any suggestions.
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The Teaching Times Neil Gaiman: Why our future depends on libraries, reading and daydreaming
Homework stays at school so pupils have time for family life
15 October 2013 (Guardian)
6 June 2013 (Times)
It's important for people to tell you what side they are on and why, and whether they might be biased. A declaration of members' interests, of a sort. So, I am going to be talking to you about reading. I'm going to tell you that libraries are important. I'm going to suggest that reading fiction, that reading for pleasure, is one of the most important things one can do. I'm going to make an impassioned plea for people to understand what libraries and librarians are, and to preserve both of these things.
A new secondary school will ban most homework in order to let pupils spend more time with their families.
And I am biased, obviously and enormously: I'm an author, often an author of fiction. I write for children and for adults. For about 30 years I have been earning my living though my words, mostly by making things up and writing them down. It is obviously in my interest for people to read, for them to read fiction, for libraries and librarians to exist and help foster a love of reading and places in which reading can occur. So I'm biased as a writer. But I am much, much more biased as a reader. And I am even more biased as a British citizen.
The Jane Austen Academy, which will open in September 2014, said that pupils would do “extended study” at school, which could last until 5pm. Claire Heald, who will be the head teacher of the mixed free school for 11-18 year olds when it opens in Norwich, Norfolk, said the plan had gone down well with prospective parents. “Rather than setting homework that students struggle with at home, and where there may be limited access to computers, they will do that as independent study in the day,” she said. “We are saying that when they go home they should enjoy quality family time.
To read more, click here.
Two-year-olds should start school, says Ofsted chief 5 November 2013 (BBC)
Two-year-olds from disadvantaged families should be enrolled in school nurseries to improve their chances, the chairwoman of Ofsted has suggested. Many children from poor backgrounds have a "dire" start to their education, according to Baroness Sally Morgan. They can be up to a year and a half behind their better-off classmates by the age of five, she said. The Pre-School Learning Alliance described Lady Morgan's suggestion as "beyond belief". "Who would disagree with Sally Morgan that children from disadvantaged backgrounds need considerably more support. However, to suggest that placing two and three-year-olds in schools is the answer is beyond belief. "Social inequality needs to addressed in many ways and taking very young children away from their parents and placing them in formal schooling is not the answer," said Alliance chief executive Neil Leitch. To read more, click here.
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To whet your appetite: ● Could a fly cause an aeroplane to crash? ● Is there more future or past? ● Can you have a friend you don’t like? ● Would you rather be a brave fool or a clever coward?
Coffee Break Brain Teasers
Jokes
The person who buys it doesn't need it, the person who makes it doesn't want it, the person who uses it doesn't know it. What is it?
Pupil: Sir, would you punish me for something I didn't do? Teacher: Of course not. Pupil: Good, because I didn't do my homework.
A cowboy rides into town on Friday, stays 3 days, and leaves on Friday. How is that possible?
Teacher: Annie, what’s the chemical formula for water? Pupil: H I J K L M N O Teacher: What are you talking about? Pupil: Didn’t you say it’s H to O?
SIDE
COMING SOON Revision Circus…
GEOGRAPHY CROSSWORD ARE YOU SMARTER THAN A YEAR 10?
...Paper Chase…
...and much more. 6