A Guide to Teaching Activities

Why?

  • Knowledge is King.
  • Regular retrieval of knowledge from long term memory keeps it there and enables learners to access it when needed.
  • It helps to make the knowledge stick.
  • It will help to solve your frustration of you teaching, they know it in the lesson but cannot retain the knowledge in future lessons.
  • Low stakes testing will not induce anxiety but promote learning.
  • Hinge questions, quizzing and non-examples allow you to address misconceptions and check understanding.

How?

  • Quizzes
  • Multiple choice
  • Use online quizzing systems: Plickers, Kahoot etc.
  • Ask your class to create questions and test each other
  • Creative testing – write down everything they know about a topic as a poem or song.
  • Correction task – give pupils an explanation which they have to correct.
  • Brain dump – “Write down as many facts as you can about…” one mark for each. Or “How many facts about……………… can you fit on a post-it note?”

Non examples:

Non-examples are the opposite of examples. Where examples provide an instance of similarity, non-examples provide an instance of contrast.

 

The teacher can provide the examples and non-examples. The students can create the examples and non-examples. Small groups can develop examples and non-examples.

Hinge Questions