Hand out a card to each student as they walk into the classroom and ask them to write the answer to a question posed on the board. Glance through the students' answers to help decide questions to ask the class, discussions, task to set, or how to seat students.

Use the FAST Kit in the Student Handbook.

Pose MCQ to the whole class. This is mot useful when there is more than one correct answer, or when the answers depend on the assumptions the students make - this can lead to good discussions.

Only let students raise their hands of they have a question to ask. Do not let students call out.

Use a random method of which student answers a question, e.g. using ice-cream sticks with each student's name written on a stick.

Ask all students to vote on a question you put to the class with 2 or more possible answers.

Each student has a mini whiteboard and will write the short answer to a question posed by the teacher. Students hold up their white boards up to show their answers to the teacher, who can guage how well students understand the concept, and whether to continue to teach the concept, or if some students should be moved to sit next to someone who understands.

Sometimes when students are chosen randomly to answer a question, they really do not know the answer, and may feel awkward and embarrassed. It may be useful to allow them to 'phone-a-friend', another student in the class who may be able to help them answer the question.

Use a soft ball/toy and hand to a student to answer a question. The student then pass the ball/toy to another student to see whether the second student agrees with the first. The second student then passes the ball/toy to a third student who comments on why the answer is correct or not. This can continue with questions like How? When? How long? Who else was involved? What else could have happened? depending on the subject.

Each student has a post-it note with their name clearly written on it. The teacher draws a horizontal line on the board with, say, opposing statements at each end and asks students to think about where they would place their post-it on the line to reflect their own view (e.g. caused entirely by humans versus as entirely natural phenomenon -where would you put Global Warming). Several students are then randomly asked to come to the board and place their post-it notes, explaining why they have placed it in that position.

This can also work with a line from 0 to 1 and probabilities of events occurring. The post-its can be used many times over and kept in a corner of the board between lessons. Using 4 colours of notes helps divide the class into 4 groups, so that 'orange' students can be asked to come to the board and place their notes.