THE BUZZ - Judy Sayers' practical classroom tips

The young swimmer struggles. She wants to swim the 100 metres more quickly...

The coach wants to help. She ties a rope around the swimmer and uses all her strength to tow her through the water. The coach is exhausted; the young swimmer is happy ...

For me this analogy, from Guy Claxton, captured how I felt about some of what I was doing in the classroom. If we wish to create independent learners, and surely we all do, we must hand over responsibility for leaning to young people. We all begin with an overpowering desire and ability to learn about everything in the world. What happens to the “Buzz?” I hope some of the ideas which follow might help in recapturing that Buzz. They have for me.

Mallet’s Mallet: Quick fire word-association game. One pupil says a word and the other then has to reply immediately with a word that is in some way inherently linked e.g: one may say ‘Islam’, the next may say ‘Mosque’, and so on. Only to be done in pairs.

Memorise: They look at a picture for 90 seconds. They then turn it over and they write a bullet point list of everything they saw in the picture.

Odd One Out : Give them four pictures and they have to say which is the odd one out (like ‘Have I got news for you?’)

Pass the Buck: Paired work drafting answer to situation with large paper and colours (5 minutes) – swap and carry on with another pairs work redrafting their answer – papers passed on and back to original authors. Open ended scenarios best.

Postcard summary: Summarise your learning to send by postcard to your friend – image on the front depicting the subject. Rwanda– ‘glad you are not here’ card. Abortion – ‘be glad I’m here’ card written by the foetus. Euthanasia – ‘wish I wasn’t here’ card. ‘Wish you were here’ for marriage.

Quotes Galore: Fill your classroom with all kinds of life quotes from the religious leaders, business gurus, celebrities etc. Place them on the ceiling, windows, all over the room. Particularly relevant ones for the GCSE course. Could a couple of decoy quotes that mean nothing. At certain points get class to search and find a relevant quote for the subject material.

Shout Out: Eg Topic on Buddhism. I read facts out – pupils shout out "Rubbish!" whenever they hear me mention anything that they think is untrue. The louder, the more foolish.

Spot the …: Can the pupils spot things in pictures. Alternatively – put numbers over pictures and ask the pupils what ‘number 3’ is etc.

Thumbometer: Arm out, fist clenched, thumb up for personal responses. Calling out Thumbs out’. To check instructions, test knowledge, gauge feelings, gather opinions. Could close their eyes if strong peer pressure.

Verbal Football: 2 teams and training (research) period. 3 correct answers (passes) and it’s a goal. Referee uses yellow and red cards.

Verbal Tennis: Students face each other in pairs and play word association with tennis scoring. Good lesson starter or informal test.

Back-to-Back: Students (A+B) sit back-to-back. A describes visual material and B draws it. Compare to original and swap roles.

Bingo: Pupils draw 9 square bingo grid. Choose from 12 topic keyterms. ‘Eyes down’ – call out definitions in random order. Pupils call out Bingo when they have one line, two lines and full house. Good for many technical terms. Variation – 16 Sq – 25 terms.

Chit-Chat: Can you talk for one minute on what you have learnt without stopping?

Co-operative Learning - TBo

Co-operative Learning is an approach to teaching which foregrounds students working in pairs and groups, high levels of engagement, participation and, erm, co-operation. It has been comprehensively branded by Dr Spencer Kagan, the US professor who first articulated the method, and who has presumably made stacks of cash from its global success; as a result, much of the literature and web-presence is a bit cheesy and commercial, which can be off-putting. However, its success cannot be denied, and those of us who have begun to experiment with Co-op have developed strong enthusiasm for the success, energy and fun it can bring to lessons.

Learning to use co-op will furnish your teaching with a range of student-centred structures and activities which are easy to use and which stick to a simple set of principles about learning. Kagan refers to these as the PIES principles, which state that activities which work well should promote:

· Positive interdependence (students need to work together to achieve a set goal or complete a task)

· Individual accountability (students have to play their role and are accountable to their group – without their input, the task can’t be completed)

· Equal participation (each student is expected to make an approximately equal contribution to the tasks)

· Simultaneous interaction (lots of students are active at any one time; lessons dominated by teacher-talk from the front are not encouraged!)

So in practice, what does it look like? To begin with a very simple structure, the teacher might replace traditional teacher-led Q and A with an activity such as Think, Pair, Share. In this structure, a question is posed, think time is given, then Student A is asked to explain their thoughts to Student B. Following this, Student B may be asked to explain A’s thinking to the rest of the class. That’s it – not rocket science, but very effective at creating an active buzz in the room, and avoiding the domination of the start of lessons by teacher-talk.

A slightly more complex structure could be Numbered Heads Together, where teams of 4 students are set an open ended, multiple answer question to investigate (could be anything: ‘why is this an effective piece of writing?’, ‘why are we here?’, ‘how can Science save the world’, ‘School uniform: good or bad?’, ‘which teacher has the worst dress sense?’. Students number up from 1 – 4, take think time, then stand up and huddle together – literally put their heads together – before each contributing their thoughts in turn. From here, they discuss their views until they agree on a team answer (a process which will involve some negotiation and compromise!). When they are agreed, they sit down, knowing that the teacher could call on any number to contribute, so they all need to be sure they understand their group’s view.

Of course, sometimes it works well, and sometimes it doesn’t work at all! Running co-op successfully certainly takes some practice, and a structure like Numbered Heads is likely to take a few goes before it runs smoothly. Learning to co-op has been compared to learning to drive; it’s a bit wobbly and anxiety-provoking at first, but you are soon whizzing along enjoying the ride. When it goes well, co-op lessons are brilliant – much more fun, much less tiring, much more productive and, when allied to the principles of Agile Teaching, there can be a real sense that the studentsare learning and making progress.