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1
Qwizdom voting pads ISSUE 2 2014 JANUARY
Opinion chains
The Jigsaw Technique PedEx WBGS
I M AG I N E , I M P R O V E , I N S P I R E
Editors—Tu, Cx
Contributors—Cw, Gf, Cj, Mg, Cl, Wm, Wa, Petty, Tu, Cx
Thank you very much to everyone who has contributed to the first
issue. If you would like to contribute in the future please get in
contact with Tu or Cx.
What’s the latest? So here it is, the long await-
ed second issue of PedEx!
We hope you enjoyed the
first magazine and have
been able to try out some of
the ideas in lessons. This
edition is packed full of
tips, techniques, resources
and more to get you and
your students thinking.
We’ve also got the usual
thunks, puzzles and jokes
for a bit of light relief!
Next half term we’re going
to be putting together a
‘Revision Special’ so any
ideas for articles would be
welcomed. In the mean-
time, enjoy issue two, and
please do get in touch with
any feedback.
CONTENTS
Page 1
Welcome back to PedEx Page 2
Wordle
The educational benefit of ‘ugly fonts’
Differentiation—strategies for groups
Page 3
The Jigsaw Technique
Opinion chains
Tic Tac Know Page 4
Whizzy loop questioning tool
Random book check
Qwizdom voting pads Page 5
The Teaching Times—Teaching in the news
Thunks—what are they and how can you use them
Page 6
Coffee break fun—games, puzzles and more
PedEx WBGS is published twice a term by
WBGS Teaching and Learning Group.
T&L Group meetings coming up…
Monday 3rd Feb
Monday 24th March
2
Wordle is a tool for generating “word clouds” from a text that you
provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear
more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds
with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes.
Pupils respond well to the colourful presentation and enjoy spot-
ting the most prominent words which are in a larger font based on
their frequency in the text.
You can use wordle in a variety of ways in your lessons, here are
just a few ideas:
Use wordle to generate key words from your GCSE and AS/A2 exam specifications – ask pupils if they are
regularly using these skills and techniques?
Generate a wordle based on the content of your lesson – can pupils guess what the lesson is going to be about
and help produce some learning outcomes?
You could copy and paste exam class essays into a wordle and use individual wordles for each pupil as a start-
er. Get them to identify which words appear most frequently in their essay and ask them if their wordle sug-
gests they are using the correct language required by the exam board e.g. the language of explanation/
analysis?
Ask pupils to create their own wordle as a homework task – perhaps at the start of a new topic they must re-
search key words and produce a wordle to stick at the front of their books. They can return to it at the end and
see if they have covered all the prominent words that came up in their original research
Word Play...
The educational benefit of ‘ugly fonts’
Many education researchers and practitioners be-
lieve that reducing extraneous cognitive load is al-
ways beneficial for the student. In other words, if a
student has a relatively easy time learning a new
lesson or concept, both the student and teacher are
likely to label the session as successful.
Research has shown however that when students are given a
text to learn something from, their comprehension, pro-
cessing and retention of material is actually improved when
‘harder to read’ fonts are used for the text (i.e. the extrane-
ous cognitive load was actually increased!)
Next time you give your students a passage of text to
learn and or understand… why not use a ‘hard to read’
font?
Differentiation:
Get the basics right:
Meaningful marking adapted to each
pupil
Seating plans with info relevant to
students’ needs
Listen to your students during lessons
and adapt your plans accordingly
For more ideas on differentiation click the but-
ton below DIFFERENTIATE!!
3
The Jigsaw Technique
In a jigsaw classroom, each student is given a unique and vital part of information that
must be put together, like a jigsaw puzzle, for any of the students to understand the
whole story.
The following principles for the jigsaw technique were outlined by Aronson et al.,
(1978). Students should be divided into 5- or 6-person jigsaw groups with the groups
diverse in terms of ability.
One student from each group is chosen as the leader; this person should be the most able
student in the group. The lesson content should be divided into 5-6 segments to match
the groups.
Each student is assigned to complete and learn one segment, making sure students have direct access only to
their own segment. Students read over their segment at least twice and become familiar with it making notes as
required. There is no need for them to memorise it. Temporary "expert groups" are formed by having one stu-
dent from each jigsaw group join other students assigned to the same segment. Expert groups are given time to
discuss the main points of their segment and to rehearse the presentations they will make to their jigsaw
group. The students return to their jigsaw groups and each student presents their segment to the group.
The teacher moves from group to group, observing the process. If any group is having trouble appropriate inter-
ventions can be made. At the end of the session, students can be assessed on what they have learnt.
Source: http://www.jigsaw.org/
3 NEW TEACHING IDEAS…
Opinion Chains Write a discussion question on the board.
Give students a minute to consider their response to the
question, in silence without discussion.
Students write a few sentences at the top of the paper, sum-
ming up their view and backing it up with some evidence.
Students pass the paper to the next person. This person
writes a comment on the statement. Starter sentences to help
students to do this are:
I agree with this interpretation/comment because…
I disagree with this interpretation/ comment because…
I find this interpretation/ comment interesting because…
I would like to add…
The papers are passed again. This time a student can add
their thoughts on either the original statement or any of the
subsequent comments. The papers are passed several times.
Three or four of the opinion chains are read out and used to
start a class discussion or to help students prepare points for
an essay. Pedagogy: • This activity really encourages independent thinking and peer learning.
• Students are able to form opinions and then support these with evidence.
• Sentence starters promote formal writing.
• You can use this idea to explore any issue or statement.
• You could then explore definitions of: controversial, ambivalent, ambiguous, alternative
interpretations.
4
Get writing… If you’ve got something you want to write about, we want to hear from you. Email Sarah Turner
or Josh Coren with any suggestions.
Random Book Check
One of the key issues in teaching is how
to monitor pupil work during the lesson
if you’re not taking their books in at the
end. It would be very labour intensive to
check all pupil work, particularly when
you have a large class. One way of ‘spot
checking’ pupil work is to use a random
Whizzy Loop Questioning Tool
We all have those classes where it is
the same students putting their
hands up all of the time. There is a
quick way to use a PowerPoint to get
more members of your class involved
in class discussions. You will find a
sample PowerPoint on t drive in the Teaching and Learn-
ing folder titled ‘whizzy loop questioning tool’. Edit the
names on each slide so that every boy in one of your clas-
ses has his own slide. Open the presentation and press ‘s’
to start and stop the whizzy loop at a name at random;
the relevant student can then answer the question or add
a contribution to class discussion.
A variation on this tool is putting key questions or key
words on each slide and going round the class getting
each student to answer a question selected at random.
book check system at the end of a lesson.
Random book check involves using a random number generator
(e.g. random.org) to pick three numbers. These numbers corre-
spond to a pupil on the register, i.e .first on the register will be 1,
second 2 etc. The corresponding pupils will have their classwork
checked and the rest of them will breathe a sigh of relief! By
making the book check public at the beginning or end of the les-
son and making it clear that unfinished work will be completed at
break or lunch time, all pupils are motivated to complete their
classwork. This is particularly effective with KS3, with the gener-
ator and SIMS projected up on the board!
5
To whet your appetite:
● Could a fly cause an aeroplane
to crash?
● Is there more future or past?
● Can you have a friend you
don’t like?
● Would you rather be a brave
fool or a clever coward?
The Teaching Times
Two-year-olds should start school, says Ofsted chief 5 November 2013 (BBC)
Two-year-olds from disadvantaged families should be enrolled in school nurseries to
improve their chances, the chairwoman of Ofsted has suggested.
Many children from poor backgrounds have a "dire" start to their education, accord-
ing to Baroness Sally Morgan.
They can be up to a year and a half behind their better-off classmates by the age of
five, she said.
The Pre-School Learning Alliance described Lady Morgan's suggestion as "beyond
belief".
"Who would disagree with Sally Morgan that children from disadvantaged back-
grounds need considerably more support. However, to suggest that placing two and
three-year-olds in schools is the answer is beyond belief.
"Social inequality needs to addressed in many ways and taking very young children
away from their parents and placing them in formal schooling is not the answer,"
said Alliance chief executive Neil Leitch.
To read more, click here.
Homework stays at school so
pupils have time for family life 6 June 2013 (Times) A new secondary school will ban most homework
in order to let pupils spend more time with their
families.
The Jane Austen Academy, which will open in
September 2014, said that pupils would do
“extended study” at school, which could last until
5pm.
Claire Heald, who will be the head teacher of
the mixed free school for 11-18 year olds when
it opens in Norwich, Norfolk, said the plan had
gone down well with prospective parents.
“Rather than setting homework that students
struggle with at home, and where there may be
limited access to computers, they will do that
as independent study in the day,” she said.
“We are saying that when they go home they
should enjoy quality family time.
Neil Gaiman: Why our future depends on li-
braries, reading and daydreaming 15 October 2013 (Guardian)
It's important for people to tell you what side
they are on and why, and whether they might
be biased. A declaration of members' inter-
ests, of a sort. So, I am going to be talking to
you about reading. I'm going to tell you that
libraries are important. I'm going to suggest
that reading fiction, that reading for pleasure, is one of the most im-
portant things one can do. I'm going to make an impassioned plea for
people to understand what libraries and librarians are, and to preserve
both of these things.
And I am biased, obviously and enormously: I'm an author, often an
author of fiction. I write for children and for adults. For about 30
years I have been earning my living though my words, mostly by
making things up and writing them down. It is obviously in my inter-
est for people to read, for them to read fiction, for libraries and librari-
ans to exist and help foster a love of reading and places in which
reading can occur.
So I'm biased as a writer. But I am much, much more biased as a
reader. And I am even more biased as a British citizen.
To read more, click here.
6
SIDE
Brain Teasers
The person who
buys it doesn't need
it, the person who
makes it doesn't
want it, the person
who uses it doesn't
know it. What is it?
A cowboy rides into
town on Friday,
stays 3 days, and
leaves on Friday.
How is that possi-
ble?
Jokes
Pupil: Sir, would you
punish me for some-
thing I didn't do?
Teacher: Of course
not.
Pupil: Good, because
I didn't do my home-
work.
Teacher: Annie,
what’s the chemical
formula for water?
Pupil: H I J K L M N
O
Teacher: What are
you talking about?
Pupil: Didn’t you say
it’s H to O?
Coffee Break
Revision Circus…
...Paper Chase…
...and much more.
COMING SOON
GEOGRAPHY CROSSWORD
ARE YOU SMARTER THAN A YEAR 10?