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Qwizdom voting pads ISSUE 2 2014 JANUARY

Opinion chains

The Jigsaw Technique PedEx WBGS

I M AG I N E , I M P R O V E , I N S P I R E

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.

What’s the latest? So here it is, the long await-

ed 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 mean-

time, enjoy issue two, and

please do get in touch with

any feedback.

CONTENTS

Page 1

Welcome back to PedEx 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

PedEx WBGS is published twice a term by

WBGS Teaching and Learning Group.

T&L Group meetings coming up…

Monday 3rd Feb

Monday 24th March

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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 spot-

ting 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 start-

er. Get them to identify which words appear most frequently in their essay and ask them if their wordle sug-

gests 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 re-

search 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

Word Play...

The educational benefit of ‘ugly fonts’

Many education researchers and practitioners be-

lieve that reducing extraneous cognitive load is al-

ways 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.

Research has shown however that when students are given a

text to learn something from, their comprehension, pro-

cessing and retention of material is actually improved when

‘harder to read’ fonts are used for the text (i.e. the extrane-

ous 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?

Differentiation:

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

For more ideas on differentiation click the but-

ton below DIFFERENTIATE!!

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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 stu-

dent 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 inter-

ventions can be made. At the end of the session, students can be assessed on what they have learnt.

Source: http://www.jigsaw.org/

3 NEW TEACHING IDEAS…

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, sum-

ming 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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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.

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

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 Learn-

ing folder titled ‘whizzy loop questioning tool’. Edit the

names on each slide so that every boy in one of your clas-

ses 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.

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 corre-

spond 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 les-

son 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 gener-

ator and SIMS projected up on the board!

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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?

The Teaching Times

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, accord-

ing 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 back-

grounds 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.

Homework stays at school so

pupils have time for family life 6 June 2013 (Times) A new secondary school will ban most homework

in order to let pupils spend more time with their

families.

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.

Neil Gaiman: Why our future depends on li-

braries, reading and daydreaming 15 October 2013 (Guardian)

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' inter-

ests, 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 im-

portant 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.

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 inter-

est for people to read, for them to read fiction, for libraries and librari-

ans 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.

To read more, click here.

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SIDE

Brain Teasers

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?

A cowboy rides into

town on Friday,

stays 3 days, and

leaves on Friday.

How is that possi-

ble?

Jokes

Pupil: Sir, would you

punish me for some-

thing I didn't do?

Teacher: Of course

not.

Pupil: Good, because

I didn't do my home-

work.

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?

Coffee Break

Revision Circus…

...Paper Chase…

...and much more.

COMING SOON

GEOGRAPHY CROSSWORD

ARE YOU SMARTER THAN A YEAR 10?