Revision techniques

Some ideas for use with students in lead up to exams

David DrakeAdvanced Skills Teacher

http://humanitiesastwiltshire.blogspot.com

Use the whole learning environment

Write important words, diagrams and phrases on sticky notes or A4

sheets that can be stuck where students see them every day.

On your walls or doors... anywhere will

do.

Mind Mapping

• This is a powerful technique that allows you to make the best use of your brain power.

• The Mind Mapping technique harnesses the full range of your cortical skills, making you more productive and creative.

Resources:How to make a mind maphttp://www.mind-mapping.co.uk/make-mind-map.htm

Video tutorial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLWV0XN7K1g

Exemplar material

• Photocopy the work and give to students who have to identify why they are good answers by underlining in one colour key vocabulary, in another colour underlining connectives, in another etc. Don’t just read it – do something with it!

• Build up an exemplar student booklet which can be distributed within and between classes

Video the learning

Make a video of the learning to summarise points and record the learning

Use the RSA animate style and a whiteboard or large sheet of paper:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZvpF6gaGH4

The Henry distillery

• Make notes from original notes• Make notes from notes etc• Each time, make notes on smaller piece of paper

• Emphasis on the process of summarising the information, rather than the notes themselves

• Reduce to main points

Not enough to make notes and leave (repeat, repeat, repeat) - making notes does not mean copying out the book

• Reduce topic to a tweet!

Fill in the gaps

• Give students a written answer which has chunks of text missing

• Students fill in the gaps to make an A*-C grade answer

• Clues dotted around the room on the walls, only allowed to get up and look once though!

• Allows everyone to be successful. “Look, you’ve just created a C grade answer – you see, you CAN do it! (SEAL)

Ivor N.O. Idea

• Give students an exam answer(s) that has been written by ficticious student – Ivor N.O. Idea

• Paper has a variety of mistakes on it or is badly written

• Get students to identify the mistakes and make corrections – be the teacher

Building the answer

Take basic answer

Students to add detail to an answer or use connectives to elaborate a response

Grade it and feedback activity

• Students answer a written question

• Answers swapped and peer assessment takes place

• Verbal feedback to be given by student to their partner

• Key element - Opportunity to rewrite using the feedback they have been given

Consequences game

• Supply a question• Students create an introduction on the top the paper and

fold over• Pass to next student who writes next stage - then fold

over• Pass to next student who adds next stage, fold over• Game continues until the requirements of the question

have been met.• Final person unfolds the answer and reads. Examples

read to class and students decide if a good answer and why/why not

Pub quiz

• Create questions for homework

• Create teams of 5

• Have a round per lesson and record scores on a leader board

• Successive rounds lead to a grand final between highest scoring teams

The student as teacher

• Create a new seating plan where students of different abilities are sat next to each other. Reading each others work regularly to feedback. Get the students to do the teaching!

• More able students can also be tasked with creating the plenary for a designated lesson or revision session

• Place more able boy with less able girl? – Study shows the boy will then help the girl and learn by teaching

Game-show

• Students to create a game-show format as a vehicle to deliver revision questions

• Could be done as whole class, but best within groups

• Process of making the format and questions is as important as the final game

Steps to success

• Create ‘steps to success’ templates or ‘success ladders’ to show students what they have to do in stages when answering a question

• Model the requirements through question and answer starters and pleneries

• Students to create their own ‘steps to success’ ladder for another question

Building an answer as a team

• Set a question

• Each student can only contribute one word each time to the answer

• Go around the room building an answer. The teacher intervenes as appropriate points to provide structure through the use of sentence starters and connectives

Mnemonics

• Use mnemonics to help remember certain patterns or sequences.

• A mnemonic is a way of helping you remember information using abbreviations, words or phrases. For example, to remember the colours of the rainbow, you could use the mnemonic: Richard of York Gave Battle In Vain, using the first letters of each word to remember the colours Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet.

Learning journey

Pick a journey or story that you know well – route to school?

Associate an image with places along the route in order to remember key information.

Picture it

Revision through images

Working in teams to draw a key word where others guess (Pictionary)

Key terms

Associate terms, images and definitions – create a crib sheet to use in future (cut and paste)

Repeating the process important

Do on computer?

Repeat and aim to get faster each time

Revision techniques

Some ideas for use with students in lead up to exams

David DrakeAdvanced Skills Teacher

http://humanitiesastwiltshire.blogspot.com