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!
