Category: Starters
‘Quick wins’ #12 – Quick & simple student voice.
Why? The class is quiet. Students are getting on with work. But how do they feel about the lesson? Are they learning? Are they enjoying their learning? School is an extremely busy place the opportunity to reflect on this sometimes passes us by. I needed a quick way to answer these questions as it’s not always obvious to see. Paper surveys collected the information but were to time consuming to analyse. I needed something that required almost no prior planning and yielded immediate results.
Possible solution. A simple scatter graph. Label the axis however you see fit and invite small groups of students to plot their response.
Resources. This can be easily adapted to measure almost anything.
Quick feedback from students. Simple to set up and easy to analyse.
Outcome. I was able to gage student responses quickly and use that as a basis to ask more probing questions. Obviously this is just a snap shot, but valuable none the less in future planning and empowering students through student voice.
Post submitted by:
@Artedu_KHeath & @MrOCallaghanEDU
#neverstoplearning
Feedback. Please let us know how ‘Quick & simple student voice’ worked for you. Leave a comment on this post or tweet us at @nslhub.
‘Quick wins’ #2 – Engaging starters
Why? The start of a lesson is extremely important for engaging students and getting them ‘hooked’ on the learning that is about to take place. It’s tough to do on a consistent basis. It needs lots of creativity from the teacher when planning the lesson and requires the teacher to know their students.
Below is a summary of a #UKEdChat hosted on Twitter earlier this year with contributions by teachers from around the UK.
Date of UKEdChat: Thursday 5th September 2013
Host: Jon Tait @TeamTait
Topics discussed:
What is your number 1 starter activity for engaging students as soon as they walk through your door?
What is the 1 routine in your classroom that you couldn’t live without?
Which top tip from tonight’s discussion are you going to use tomorrow?
Notable Tweets:
@teachertonytips Engaging question on a slip of paper given to kids in the queue outside classroom.
@gceyre A Mystery – keep the students guessing and wanting to find out more.
@with_ict Must work harder after assembly. Kids hold it together during and are often in need of an active exciting task afterwards.
@with_ict After lunch register, response is giving a number out of 10 to show mood/feeling. It gives a good indication of playground drama.
@georgeEblack After lunch, sympathise with them (who isn’t sleepy after lunch) have shorter tasks prepared, plan accordingly, build in down time.
Tweet of the Week:
@ReachPsychology Be mindful that some Friday afternoon non-engagement behaviours are not about your lesson. Not every pupil loves the weekend!
Resource:
Engaging starter tweets – Archive supplied by @ukedchat. Contains lots of ideas for engaging starters!!
Post submitted by:
#neverstoplearning
Feedback. Please let us know how any of these engaging starters worked for you and your students. Leave a comment on this post or tweet us at @nslhub.
Never Stop Learning 