Topic outline
Topic 1
Encouraging talk in the classroom
The Assessment for Learning LMT group has been looking at ways to encourage student talk in the classroom. A summary of the project can be seen in the powerpoint.
A short summary of the main findings and acitvities is also included, along with a summary of the "no hands up" approach that has been trialed at Neville Lovett school.
Teachers involved in this project were:
Jane Bronk - Wildern School
Sarah Dorey - The Connaught
Jon Eacott - Amery Hill
Jean Rich - Fort Hill
Andrea Willis - Neville Lovett
Rebecca Lambert - Calthorpe Park
Rachel Jones - Brookfield
Nicke Edge - Mountbatten
Phil Sleat - Everest
Georgina Sculthorpe - Cams Hill
Himaly Makewita - Toynbee
Topic 2
Encouraging talk
Starter Activities 1, Starter activities 2, what happens next
Powerpoints made up with various starter activities, all of which have been designed to promote and encourage students discussion
(If you have any other ideas that can be added to this please e-mail them to a.willis@nevillelovett.hants.sch.uk These will then be sent out updated)
Shelter Boxes
Functional skills activity using Kagan structures to help develop talk. notebook is self-explanatory.
Linkedto shelter boxes.
Bowland assessment task developed for use of fractions, decimals and percentages.
(More of these are available on the Bowland website.)
The idea of these are to have a question in the middle, use the first section for students to write down ideas and information needed to solve this. They should discuss this in groups, using a different colour pen each. The outside area is to answer the question.
Matching statements to diagrams. There are a variety of these on the TES website
Statements and diagrams
A table of data is given to the students and they have to do as much Maths as they can. This particular one is on powerpoint with the different diagrams and calculations that can be carried out.
Topic 3
GCSE revision ideas
Encouraging Year 11’s to revise is tough. Revision can be dull. We discussed and brainstormed many ideas to make their vision process engaging and fun as well as effective. Our focus, as with the rest of our work this yea,r has been to encourage talk in the classroom. We have found that if students revise together in a collaborative and structured manner they remember more.
In this section of the moodle you will find some of the resources that we have successfully implemented in our classrooms. Some of the resources in the Encouraging Talk section will also be useful for revision.
Reading Images
With reading images the question or topic for revision is posted in the centre of the page. The first part of the process is to ask the students to brainstorm all that they know about the topic regardless of the specific question. This information can be written in the middle box. The outer box contains the final question to be solved and in this box the students can use information they have included in the other boxes in order to structure their solution.
In the example given you will find a geometry problem where a proof is required that two lines are parallel. Students can write all that they know about angles around parallel lines and then pick and choose which parts of their knowledge help with answering the final question.
Revision Race
Graded Questions
Pupils should work in groups of 3 or 4. Provide sets of questions on cards – 4 questions on each topic (Number, Algebra, Shape,Data) and 4 from each grade (B,C,D,E). Give a copy of the answer sheet and award different numbers of points for each level of difficulty (5 points for grade B, 4 points for grade Cetc).
Lay the cards out at the front of the room – you only need three or four sets of cards.
Pupils should choose questions in any order – but tell them that there will be a time limit and the winners will be the team with the most points. Choose one runner from each group to collect the questions (one at a time!) and answers should be recorded on their team’s sheet.
The Smart Notebook file can be used as a plenary – pupils can mark each other’s work and the teacher can work through questions that the group have found difficult. Answers
The examples on the moodle include questions that have been taken from www.whiteboardmaths.com. You can of course make up any questions that are relevant and differentiated for your revision group.
Speedy Shape and Space
Another way of organizing this activity is to have a single diagram for each team (grade A-A*, grade A-D )and then the questions (Grade A-A*, Grade A-D) taken from the front are related to the diagram. The example we’ve posted requires each team to have a triangle on a set of axes. The questions the pupils answer include transformation, trigonometry and Pythagoras as well as other related shape and space topics. This is a great way of consolidating a whole topic in one lesson.
The teacher provides a single A3 sheet of revision information. The class is put in groups. One pupil from each group goes up to look at the fact sheet and is given a set amount of time to study it.They then have to go back to their group and reproduce what they have seen. Pupils take it in turns to look at the fact sheet and add to the group’s current copy. The process is repeated until each group has as complete a picture as possible.
The winning group’s result will be as close to the original as possible eg. same colours / facts /etc. We have found that using colour appropriately helps knowledge retention.We have also found that if you deliberately introduce mistakes into your factsheets this encourages further discussion.
For further information and additional examples pleasesee http://www.mrbartonmaths.com/collectivememory.htm.
Speed Dating
This is a great way of encouraging pupils to ask and answer many questions in a short period of time. Pupils are organised into two groups and must arrange themselves into two concentric rings – pupils in the outer ring face those in the inner ring.
The pupils in the inner ring have a question (and answer) that they ask their partner. They have one minute to discuss the question and help their partner. By the end of the minute both pupils should understand how to solve the problem. The questions are then passed to the outer ring and the inner ring rotates one place. The process is repeated. A loud buzzer is useful for this activity as it generates a lot of discussion and enthusiasm with the pupils.
We’ve been using the maths revision cards grades A-A*, grades BCD, grades ABC, grades EFG that we’ve uploaded.