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December
2014
PedEx WBGS IM AGINE, IMPROVE, IN SPIRE
CONTENTS Page 1 Welcome back to PedEx Page 2 E-books Book quiz
Welcome back PedEx! Our teaching and learning group magazine is back up and running for the year ahead, with new and improved ideas! To those of you who haven’t heard of us before, we’re here to fill your heads with brand new ideas to use in the classroom, so take a break from your marking, grab a cup of tea and your new edition of PedEx. The articles in this magazine are a mere snippet of
the innovative ideas which are shared once a term at teaching and learning group, so come and join us at a meeting, to share suggestions of your own, or to listen to what others have to offer. We aim to provide activities which can be used across the board in a variety of different subjects, so let us know how you get on and we look forward to hearing your new ideas!
Next T&L Group Meeting is Thursday 8th January Editors—Hk and Wk Contributors—Anne Petty, Ayan Lowe, Gf, Fa, Hw, Cc, Wk, Hk Thank you very much to everyone who has contributed to this issue. If you would like to se your ideas in the next edition, please get in contact with Hk or Wk. 1
Page 3 Question Wall Ted Talks Page 4 Devious Descriptions Catchphrase Page 5 Websites to use in Form time. Page 6 Coffee break fun—games, puzzles and more
PedEx WBGS is published once a term by WBGS Teaching and Learning Group.
E-books As the nights draw in and the weather gets colder, encourage your students to read using our fantastic new resource in the library, as well as taking the opportunity to browse yourself! Broaden their minds and further their educational desires with the new eBooks! The information on the right explains how the students can find the eBooks online using their phone, tablet or reader and it is available for all staff as well! If you would like your Winter reading to include a few magazines, why not register for the Hertfordshire Libraries Zinio Magazine Collection? You will need to be a member of Hertfordshire Libraries as you require the number to logon and create a password, but it is definitely worth having a browse. There is a huge selection of magazines to choose from, including back issues, to help fill the cold nights over Christmas. Search for Hertfordshire Libraries Zinio Click on –Read Magazines online Click on Zinio
How well read are you? Do you know the answers to the questions below? 1) The Bennet family appear in which Jane Austen novel? 2) Who wrote the ‘Twilight’ series of novels? 3) Who wrote Paradise Lost? 4) How are the sisters Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy described in the title of an 1868 novel? 5) Who wrote the Booker Prize winning novel The Life of Pi? 6) What was the street address of Sherlock Holmes? 7) Amy Dunne is the main character from which popular book, which has been recently turned into a film? 8) Polynesia the parrot teaches animal language to what literary character? 9) Which famous literary character's parents were killed by Lord Voldemort? 10) In what year did Charles Darwin publish ‘On the Origin of Species’? (Answers below) 1) Pride and prejudice 2) Stephenie Meyer 3) John Milton 4) Little Women 5) Yann Martel 6) 221B Baker Street 7) Gone girl 8) Doctor Dolittle 9) Harry Potter 10) 1859
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Question Wall What is it?
The idea is to print and laminate a copy of this to put up in your classroom, encouraging a culture of curiosity and enquiry in lessons, rather than pupils learning passively. It engages students with their learning, giving them the opportunity to think and question what they are learning, as well as clarifying their own thoughts. You could use it easily as a starter/plenary – write some questions they have on Post-it notes at the start of the lesson and by the end of the lesson boys come up, pick a question and try to answer it. If not, could they find out the answer for homework? Using post its means it is also easy for the teacher to group the questions and save some for future lessons.
QUESTION WALL
Why is this useful?
AfL – pupils can demonstrate what they’ve learnt in a lesson or over a couple of lessons by answering questions they had at the start. Behaviour/time management strategy – to prevent disruption to your lesson e.g. Every pupil has some Post-its at the start of the lesson and if they have a question they can write it down. A time period can be set aside at the end of the lesson to answer any questions which haven’t been answered during the course of the lesson already. Revision – questions could be kept until the end of a topic where they could be revisited and answered by other pupils in the class. If the wall is permanently left up in the classroom then Post-its could gather over time and be used later on.
Ted Talks It does what it says on the tin! A website full of fantastic ideas to be shared, discussed and argued. They have daily coverage of the world of ideas, blogs from their global community, short books to feed your craving for ideas and probably the most useful tool – TED talks. Great videos on a whole plethora of different topics which can be used during form time to promote discussion, in lesson time to engage with new ideas and phenomena and for homework to further the students’ knowledge of global issues and ideas. Some of the following are the hot videos of the moment: TED under 20: Talks from scientists, musicians, innovators -- all in So follow the link below their teens. and get the discussions How Christmas lights helped guerrillas put down their guns rolling! How autism freed me to be myself http://www.ted.com/ The coming crisis in antibiotics
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Devious descriptions This can be done in pairs or by getting boys to come up to the front and describe to the whole class. The boys need to describe a key word to their partner by saying as many things as they can before their partner guesses what the word is (everything that they say needs to be correct). The boy describing can then be given points for how many correct things they say before their partner guesses what they are describing. This activity works better than normal articulate (where the person needs to describe a word or phrase, to be guessed as quickly as possible) as much more information about the topic is given. It encourages boys to link in abstract ideas, remember the finer details and get down to the nitty gritty of what they are trying to explain. For example if describing deforestation boys could talk about the fact that it is increased with an increasing population, the removal of carbon sinks, affects the carbon cycle, increases leeching, reduces biodiversity etc instead of just saying ‘cutting down trees’.
Catchphrase Exactly what you think it is! The aim is to have the answers to various questions in boxes, which cover up a catchphrase underneath. When boys answer the questions correctly, the boxes are removed and they can begin to guess the catchphrase! The catchphrases can be changed to any of your choice – they could be completely irrelevant to the topic questions being asked, to add an additional fun aspect to the lesson and test their catchphrase skills, or there could be pictures/phrases etc related to your topic! A template for this can be found here: T:\Teaching and Learning Group\teaching and learning ideas\Autumn 2014 Some ways to use this:
Here is the grid before you start – with lots of answers in boxes covering the catchphrase.
As questions are answered correctly, boxes begin to reveal the catchphrase – can you guess what it is yet?
Ask all boys to show answers on mini whiteboards and then select one to click the square and have a guess. Split class into teams and pick a boy from each team to answer the question. First boy to answer correctly reveals the square. Disadvantage is the other boys won’t be doing anything apart from shouting and giving you a headache! Ask boys to think about the answer in their head and then pick one randomly to answer. Checks who has been listening!
Finally, the catchphrase can be revealed! Did you get it? Hand in hand!
Enjoy!
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Websites to use in Form Time. http://formtimeideas.com/
Sporcle— mentally stimulating diversions. This website has loads of interactive quizzes that can be completed as a forms or in teams. Quizzes include: naming the countries of the different continents, naming the movies from their posters and naming the companies from their corporate logos.
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Coffee Break Cryptic Underground stations. Can you guess the name of the underground station from the clues below? Answers below. 1. Alpine Dwelling 2. Its falling down 3. The longest reign 4. Irate monarch 5. Where the money is 6. Weapon store 7. Nobleman captured 8. Heavenly messenger 9. Where blackboard materials are grown 10. You won’t find acrobats at this university
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Dingbats—try to figure out the object, famous phrases or sayings. More can be found at: http://www.quizmasters.biz/DB/Pic/Dingbats/ Dingbats.html Excellent to use in form time as well.
Get writing… If you’ve got something you want to write about, we want to hear from you. Email Olivia Hockin or Katie Watson with any suggestions.
Cryptic underground answers: 1. Swiss cottage, 2. London Bridge, 3. Victoria, 4. Kings Cross, 5. Bank, 6. Arsenal, 7. Earls Court, 8. Angel, 9. Chalk farm, 10. Oxford Circus. Dingbat answers: Potatoes, postman, too little too late, foreign language, ping pong.
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