Monday 25 June 2012
Saturday 9 June 2012
Setting Spooky Questions
As the exam season hits it's peak we are starting to see more and more students attending the revision session we have been offering all year. Although not desirable but still totally understandable, as time has gone on and students have sat exams their priorities switch to the next exam with short sharp revision in-between and revision session offered by school and subject teachers become a lifeline for the students.
However, how should we as teachers be using these revision sessions?? With the importance getting ever greater as we get closer and closer towards the exams. We tend to go through a cycle of revision activities so those students that come every session get something different but will still provide a "snapshot" revision for those that may only come to one session.
The Teacher Led Revision Session
Within these sessions, the work and emphasis is placed on the teacher and there is a high expectation of content delivery. These sessions work well when students need a "refresher" of the whole topic with extended links between different sections after an extended period of time away from the subject or exam based material. Within these style of sessions students are required to listen and make their own notes and are encouraged to ask clarifying questions when necessary.
The Student Centred Revision Sessions
These sessions have a larger shift of emphasis on to the students. This type of session gets more and more important as the time before the exam gets shorter and shorter. There may be many types of activities based in these sessions. The teacher may act as a point of reference to help support the students lines of enquiry and thoughts or particular areas of weakness. At times students can become disenchanted with this type of revision as it is similar to work they are doing at home and may from time to time be off task. The activities that spring to mind may include students creating their own placecards of casestudies or mindmaps of specific areas they decide.
Working Together
Sessions that prove to be most successful are the ones where the teacher and the students work together to go through material. However, for these to be most successful there will be a reduction in the content that can be discussed in a session. The playoff is that the content will be discussed at a greater depth and should enhance the learning. Activities will involve many questions or designed tasks that students will need to use their knowledge to answer. These style of sessions are useful over a longer period of time and benefit those students that are likely to turn up week after week.
Last Minute Spooky Questions
This year I have been working with utilising the last minute revision sessions that we offer at school. Sometimes these take part during breakfast or lunchtime immediately before the exam. At this point the ways mentioned above may not be appropriate so I have started to implement a very simple idea that I call "Spooky Questions" to the students. These are the questions that straight away students read and 'shut off' or worse, leave the answer section completely blank because they feel they don't know an answer. Basically this is improving exam technique within the students but also making them understand how even though they may not think straight-away they will be able to formulate an answer! So these sessions support those students that are completely ready for their exam and have secured excellent knowledge but also offers a chance for those who need some last minute revision of content too.
A question was simply placed up on the board and students had to explain back to me how they would answer the question and what case studies they would include. So with my year 12s this year immediately prior to their exam we looked at different ways questions could be worded and the different vocabulary that may come up. It is staggering to see students occasionally stumped by the term "opportunities and challenges" rather than "positives and negatives" or to take this year as an example after talking about supply and demand all year a few students were still stumped by the term 'supply and consumption'. What I did the night before was to construe the most difficult questions or terms I could think of and showed these to the students. Initially some of them had that fear of "I don't know this" but when they actually stopped and worked out what the question was asking they could confidently construct an answer.... students left the session feeling very confident about facing the exam.
What we must remember however is that the purpose of revision is to support our students and ensure they are prepared to enter the exam and do the best they can do. By offering these optional revision sessions that don't always follow the same pattern we are hoping that despite what the students do they can be totally prepared for the exam as they walk into the exam hall!
Thursday 7 June 2012
An Inspection Trip to Iceland
As part of the services provided by Discover the World Schools, I attended a teacher inspection trip to Iceland ahead of our trip in just over 7 months time to check out the quality (and safety!!) of the activities and the accommodation that our student will be using whilst out there.
The first task was to get to London Heathrow and meet the other 21 teachers that are also using the same company as us. Those teachers were there for the exact same reasons as me and it was great to see how we all had different ideas, activities and itineraries planned that were being tailored to our own students.
I met the representatives from the Tour company after the short 2hr 30mins flight in which I was pleasantly surprised to find a TV in the seat infront and a selection of films. TV shows and Icelandic documentaries our first stop was the world famous Blue Lagoon.
This is our first planned stop on our trip in February and I am so glad that we have selected to do this. What a perfect way to shake off the "flight hangover" that is so easier to get even on a short flight. Students will thoroughly enjoy this first stop, but even picking up a few tips will make our journey run much smoother. Students will need to back their swimming kit and towel in their hand luggage to make life easier when we arrive.
We made our way to the Youth Hostel that many of the schools stop at when in Reykjavik, which was pleasant and totally appropriate for the wet weather that students will face in Iceland. However we have already selected to stay in the Hotel Cabin which is of a much higher standard.
The two pictures here show a typical twin room with private en-suite facilities which all of our students will have. We had breakfast here and was very satisfactory, however it will be worth pointing our to students that a cold continental breakfast similar to other countries of Northern Europe. Another great plus for us staying here is that next to the hotel their is a small supermarket so students can get anything extra they need.
Our planned evening activity on Day One is to go on a tour to the countryside and try and see the Northern Lights, however as there are only active in the Winter months this activity wasn't available, so instead we all had a relatively early night after being up early to catch the plane from Heathrow.
Day two was great and we managed to do and see lots of the activities and sites we are going to do and see so I don't want to spoil anything too much here but the glacier walk was truly amazing. Although it will be so important that students are aware that this is natural, there are no natural paths and very real big holes. Students will have to be fully aware of their surroundings as they make there way across the glacier!
The rest of Day Two was spent seeing some fantastic waterfalls but you will have to wait to see pictures of those! The evening accommodation was in a different hotel which was very similar to those that we will be staying in. One thing that became very obvious to me was that we will be living out of our suitcases and so to pack sensibly!
Day three took us off to see more of the incredible sights that Iceland has to offer, with a particular highlight being Geysir and the other hot springs. Again, don't want to give away too much of the magic here so Going to stop here!
The final day was again action packed and we had some time in Reykjavik centre. There were a few shops and places to eat but students may be unimpressed to hear that the only McDonald's to ever close due to lack of custom was in Reykjavik!! However, the Icelandic favourite of HotDogs were very easy to find!
The four days away were absolutely brilliant and really insightful. We are looking into making a few tweaks to our schedule but on the whole I am delighted at what we have planned such an interesting trip which the students will remember for many years to come.
The company we are using can be found on twitter @DTW_Schools or their schools webpage http://www.schools-discover.co.uk/ if you want any further details!
The first task was to get to London Heathrow and meet the other 21 teachers that are also using the same company as us. Those teachers were there for the exact same reasons as me and it was great to see how we all had different ideas, activities and itineraries planned that were being tailored to our own students.
I met the representatives from the Tour company after the short 2hr 30mins flight in which I was pleasantly surprised to find a TV in the seat infront and a selection of films. TV shows and Icelandic documentaries our first stop was the world famous Blue Lagoon.
We made our way to the Youth Hostel that many of the schools stop at when in Reykjavik, which was pleasant and totally appropriate for the wet weather that students will face in Iceland. However we have already selected to stay in the Hotel Cabin which is of a much higher standard.
The two pictures here show a typical twin room with private en-suite facilities which all of our students will have. We had breakfast here and was very satisfactory, however it will be worth pointing our to students that a cold continental breakfast similar to other countries of Northern Europe. Another great plus for us staying here is that next to the hotel their is a small supermarket so students can get anything extra they need.
Our planned evening activity on Day One is to go on a tour to the countryside and try and see the Northern Lights, however as there are only active in the Winter months this activity wasn't available, so instead we all had a relatively early night after being up early to catch the plane from Heathrow.
Day two was great and we managed to do and see lots of the activities and sites we are going to do and see so I don't want to spoil anything too much here but the glacier walk was truly amazing. Although it will be so important that students are aware that this is natural, there are no natural paths and very real big holes. Students will have to be fully aware of their surroundings as they make there way across the glacier!
The rest of Day Two was spent seeing some fantastic waterfalls but you will have to wait to see pictures of those! The evening accommodation was in a different hotel which was very similar to those that we will be staying in. One thing that became very obvious to me was that we will be living out of our suitcases and so to pack sensibly!
Day three took us off to see more of the incredible sights that Iceland has to offer, with a particular highlight being Geysir and the other hot springs. Again, don't want to give away too much of the magic here so Going to stop here!
The final day was again action packed and we had some time in Reykjavik centre. There were a few shops and places to eat but students may be unimpressed to hear that the only McDonald's to ever close due to lack of custom was in Reykjavik!! However, the Icelandic favourite of HotDogs were very easy to find!
The four days away were absolutely brilliant and really insightful. We are looking into making a few tweaks to our schedule but on the whole I am delighted at what we have planned such an interesting trip which the students will remember for many years to come.
The company we are using can be found on twitter @DTW_Schools or their schools webpage http://www.schools-discover.co.uk/ if you want any further details!
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