To encourage students to connect factors together in a ‘chain of causation’, consider adopting a ‘Paper People’ approach. This [...]
29th November 2015
Connecting Factors with ‘Paper People’ display projects
Create an engaging starter/plenary text in the form of scrolling movie credits
This new ClassTools.net Movie Text Generator scrolls your text into the infinity of space! Ideas for using it in the classroom: Provide students with an [...]
22nd October 2015
Sketch-noting and beyond: let your students choose their own note-taking strategy!
Overview Effective note-taking is a vital skill for students, but by no means a simple one to teach or to learn. From my experience, students have to be [...]
22nd October 2015
Using Wikis to create a collaborative “Choose your own adventure” game
Overview Instead of getting students to deliver presentations to the class about key aspects of a new topic, consider instead getting the class to work [...]
5th October 2015
Balloon Debates: Templates and Tips!
3rd October 2015
“Hands up if you DON’T know!”: reverse the question, increase engagement!
The most common, and maybe the very worst, teaching technique is to say to students “Hands up if you can answer this question”. This is [...]
26th September 2015
Spiced-up “Fill the Gaps”(Cloze) Exercises
Overview “Fill the Gaps” (“Cloze”) exercises are a very simple but very effective strategy for helping students build up vocabulary [...]
19th September 2015
10 Creative Strategies for Teaching Chronological Narratives
Overview At the start of a new topic in a subject like history, it’s often necessary to familiarise students with an essential chronology of events [...]
19th September 2015
Stimulating Enquiry-Based Learning through a “Mysteries” approach
Overview What is the “Mysteries” approach? “Mysteries” lessons are designed as stand-alone projects which each last 3-4 hours. [...]
31st August 2015
Use Google autocomplete to formulate research questions
Whenever you start typing a search query into Google, it will try to anticipate what you are looking for with an autocomplete function. This can be a [...]
23rd July 2015
Use Continuum Lines to arrange a scale of opinion
Overview Continuum lines are a simple but effective technique for providing a sophisticated breakdown of a complex question. For example, when considering [...]
9th July 2015
Use Matrix grids to judge two issues simultaneously
Overview In subjects such as history, it is often necessary to form a judgement on two separate but related issues. For example, “How successfully [...]
9th July 2015
Miming, Freeze-Framing, Body Sculptures
With younger students especially, thinking about how to represent what has been studied can be a useful learning experience. The following techniques are [...]
8th July 2015
Using ‘Boxing Match Debates’ in the classroom
Overview Boxing Match debates are designed to help students to think more deeply apart different points of view on a key issue (e.g. “Napoleon betrayed the [...]
8th July 2015
Getting students to TEACH, not to PRESENT!
Overview Getting students to research and then present their findings to the class can be done in a number of ways. However, consider ditching the word [...]
26th June 2015
Make ‘Prejudice Maps’ to chart the cartography of ignorance!
Overview Get students thinking about the attitudes of people towards their world by constructing an ‘Atlas of Prejudice‘ as per the wonderful [...]
26th June 2015
Create a “Bio-Poem” to capture the essence of the study topic
A “Biopoem” can be used to help students to focus on the essential characteristics of something – for example, a fictional or literary [...]
8th June 2015
Maintain a “Currently being studied…” display to promote your subject
Consider maintaining a ‘currently being studied…’ area outside the classroom, with separate A3 laminated posters (consisting simply of the key enquiry [...]
5th June 2015
“Half a Source”, or “How will this story end?”: The perfect question to promote engagement with sources
The increasingly accessible nature of online video and textual sources means that it is now easier than ever to watch short clips from films and video [...]
1st June 2015
“Bounce the Detention!” – demanding silent work with a lighthearted touch
This is a simple strategy that I have used for many years when students need to work silently for a period of time. All that’s needed is a prop which [...]
1st June 2015
Design a “Breaking News!” Screenshot
In order to get students thinking about the essence of a topic, ask them to produce a “Breaking News!” screenshot using the ClassTools Breaking [...]
15th May 2015
Sock Puppets in the secondary classroom
Role play is a great way to get students talking through the key issues relating to a topic, especially if they can take rival viewpoints. In order to get [...]
5th May 2015
“Secret Agent” – a great peer-assessment strategy!
I learned of this idea from Lottie in the English department at Bradford Grammar School a couple of weeks ago, where I was lucky enough to spend a couple [...]
4th May 2015