successful+activities+to+share

the something of something

The attached file provided a nice introduction to graphs of rates of change and allowed me to determine what the students already knew about this topic. They found the questions both unusual and challenging. Merryn

a better wiki/ blog page than this one to play around with is wordpress.com. The dashboard is more user friendly and has heaps of options. Hoping that after a term of trialling this wiki I will feel confident enough to set our wiki up on the wordpress system though it is limited if we want to keep it private from the WWW it only handles up to 30 members. (APA)

I have attached a file below with a simple idea for formative assessment - helpful for both teacher and student feedback. Essentially you just prepare a little sheet like the attached one, with about six questions related to relevant material you have already covered. The idea is that the students work in pairs or small groups on the questions you have set. If they reach consensus about the answer, and are confident, they circle the smiley face. If there is dispute within the group which is not resolved, they circle the frowney face, then they submit the sheet at the end.

It is a very simple idea that gets the students justifying their viewpoints, asking questions, reviewing prior learning and ultimately checking their own understanding and passing valuable information back to their teacher, all in one simple task. Christine

=Quick on the Draw - From //Teacher's Toolkit// by Paul Ginnis= Quick on the Draw (QOTD) is a great way of giving real-time feedback to groups of students on their responses to a range of questions.

Before class

 * 1) Use the above template to produce sets of questions with up to 10 questions
 * 2) Create comprehension questions for a large slab of text
 * 3) Create mathematical/scientific problems of increasing difficulty
 * 4) Create 'wondering' questions that ask students to hypothesise/predict and support their answers with evidence
 * 5) Spell check and read through the logical progression of your questions. You may have chopped and changed your questions, and redoing them wastes time!
 * 6) Double-side print 8-10 times onto card stock or laminate. Cut to size with guillotine. Label groups A, B, C, or use different coloured card for each groups so you know who hasn't returned their cards at the end of the lesson.
 * 7) Order the cards into groups and sequence.
 * 8) Work out who is in each group
 * 9) OPTIONAL: Have an additional task ready for down-time when group members are waiting for their answers to be checked

In class

 * 1) Move your desk to a central place which allows students to line up on one side and still afford you a view of the class
 * 2) Arrange your 8 - 10 groups on your table in front. You will be able to see which question each group is on, and they can collect them with ease
 * 3) Arrange students into groups, with their writing books, pen and any stimulus material required (text, image, object, experiment, etc)
 * 4) Begin activity (following The Rules, below)
 * 5) End class with enough time to go through the answers and pick up on tricky concepts (essentially, do 5 - 10 minutes of 'teaching')
 * 6) Pack up. Groups who have rearranged chairs and returned all questions in sequential order (and stimulus if appropriate) can be dismissed.

The Rules

 * The group must take turns in writing and presenting answers - no passengers!
 * Your group must have each answer checked and passed by the teacher before getting the next question
 * You must work as a group to find and correct any mistakes
 * If you have a question, you must queue
 * Group members waiting for an answer should continue to examine the stimulus material to anticipate the next question
 * The teacher can call groups over and give helpful hints or suggestions if necessary

OPTIONAL:

 * Answers must be 100% correct, including grammar, punctuation and spelling
 * Groups have 'lives' or 'points', and can lose/gain them for their effort, behaviour, group work or responses.
 * Treats, prizes, goodies