Please find this week’s top teaching tip resource.

How it works:

this is another activity that can either be used for consolidation or retrieval depending on what stage of the teaching and learning process is taking place also if there is support provided or not. The spotlight is on a subject specific keyword and all the tasks on the sheet relate to that term. This can promote discussion in class with students sharing their definitions, examples, questions and other relevant keywords.

The PPT attached is editable and relevant for faculty areas.

Dear all please see this week’s teaching tip PPT resource called Vocabulary Chase  another retrieval activity geared at revision and this example is from D&T.

I have put the explanation of how to use it on the first slide.

This coincides well for the PPEs and I have sent parents and students this week on how Flashcards could support their learning

Here are some of the many varieties of flashcards in use.

The bookmark attached aims to keep students focussed on using retrieval revision strategies outside of school. You can personalise it to make it subject specific. 

This reflection ticket helps students to reflect on the areas of strength by writing their areas of strength and gaps in knowledge. What could they recall with ease and confidence? Which topics did they struggle to recall? Where are the gaps in their knowledge? This can be useful to refer to later to check if those gaps have been closed.

This week’s idea is Misconceptions retrieval this example is a historical one but could easily be adapted to other subjects. 

How it works the teacher will write a collection of misconceptions these can be general misconceptions based on previous classroom experiences or from classwork. The misconceptions would often be points that students can find confusing, get wrong or aren't necessarily true. The students have to then rewrite, correct or improve the original statement.

I have provided a PPT template for this week’s activity Expand and Elaborate

How it works:

The teacher provides a series of facts or statements linked to previous content taught. The students then have to expand on that statement using their own knowledge from memory. The statements acts as a prompt, but the students are encouraged to elaborate and include as much detail as they can. This activity has the potential to be adapted to use with quotations, explain the meaning or context of the quote and key dates. Ask students to explain what happened in that year or with key individuals and so on.

Top tips it can be a good idea to select examples to read aloud or perhaps show an example or statement and you're coming retrieval statement to model the students what expected of them in the terms of literary detail and explanation. This can be used in MFL to develop and combine writing skills and retrieval practise. The number of statements provided depends on how much time we want to allocate on this at the start of lesson, 3 or 4 statements works well allowing time for discussion sharing and reflection. If you want students to  go beyond a sentence and right sentences or paragraph then reduce the number of statements to one or two

Attached is a thinking and linking grid. The example is from Spanish but can easily be amended to any subject

Students work in pairs, roll the dice and if te first set of numbers are 3 and 4 the students explain how they link. Students roll again and then have to try to link the first factor

Try to encourage students to share their connections with others in the class.

https://classroomscreen.com/blog/the-ultimate-getting-started-guide A great digital tool We provide a variety of tools such as timers, a randomizer, and a noise level meter, that can be displayed on a digital screen to support teaching and learning. We call these tools widgets, and now have 25 different ones to assist you.

Dear all please find this week’s resources based on maximising the use of the many knowledge organisers we have created to further support student learning. Also a massive thank you to John who has created a progress check mountain climber page to act as a motivational tool. Just input your data into the spreadsheet and students will then see them selves climbing up the mountain.

I have also sent year 11 and parents information on healthy lifestyles and relaxation as this week’s revision build up support.

Mountain climbing progress display thing. Instructions on how to use it are at the bottom of the webpage.

How can I use my Knowledge Organiser?

The Knowledge Organisers will help you learn a wide range of knowledge to prepare you for your lessons as well your GCSEs that you will sit in the future when used appropriately, consistently and in structured time.

To get the most out of your Knowledge Organiser, you should be learning sections and then testing yourself. Below will give you some tips on how you can successfully use them.

Key vocabulary:

 Highlight key terms for a subject – not sure on a definition? Research them.

 Use key terms highlighted in your Knowledge Organiser in an extended written task

 Read a section for home learning

Quizzes/questions:

 Write 5 questions based on the information read

 Test friends and family

 Parents to ask you questions

 Create exam style questions and then try to answer them in class or at home or swap with a friend

Reflection:

 Before a topic – rank order your confidence and then revisit at the end of the topic, rank again and consider where you have improved

 Redesign the Knowledge Organiser and include what you have learnt in class for that half term

 Add more detail to the Knowledge Organiser after you have been taught that content – annotate in another colour

 Traffic light (red, amber, green) each box

 Create 2-3 flashcards each week based on each box

 Create a mind map showing the key information from the Knowledge Organiser

 Read ahead to develop skills, knowledge and understanding so you feel more confident before lessons

General use:

 Using a blank copy of a Knowledge Organiser

o Try to fill in as much as possible from memory

o After ten minutes look at a friend’s; use a different coloured pen (green) to add in information they have missed

 Hot seat each box – you are in the hot seat – your friends ask you questions

 Beat the teacher

 50 words, 30 words, 10 words – summarise the information on the Knowledge Organiser from 50 words to 30 words to 10 words etc.

 Pictionary – learn the definitions then draw it for your friends/family to guess

 Elevator pitch – summarise the information in a box/whole Knowledge Organiser for a 30 second presentation

 Generation game – like the famous conveyor belt – look at the Knowledge Organiser and then try to remember as many items as possible

 Key term stories – write a short story using 6 key words that are found on the Knowledge Organiser or on the box

 Flipped learning – prior reading of a topic before the lesson

 Can you spot the links? – can you make links between the boxes

 Read through and highlight – summarise in 20 words what you have read – compare with a friend – is it the same? What was different? Why?

 Match the keyword with the definition

 Practice spellings – learn the correct spellings

 Take the information in a box and turn into flow chart/diagram

 Scavenger hunt – read through the Knowledge Organiser with a friend/family member and see who can find specific information/facts first

 Look at the Knowledge Organiser – research further and create a poster/letter/story/picture

 Glossaries – make a list with definitions of the keywords (you could include images to help)

 Highlight key words/terms

 Create bookmarks using the different sections

 Design a quiz on a box or page

 Create exam style questions which can be swapped with a friend or family member

 Read, cover, check – read the box, write out what you can remember, check what you have missed (then add in purple pen)

 Using your exercise books – add extra information/annotate in lessons

 Research information from a weekly box and produce a related piece of work

This year we are going to focus on ideas to support recall of information based on retrieval practice or revision technique.

Go for gold is an activity that encourages students to recall information and include subject specific vocabulary in their answers.

Top tip, ensure all the terms in the bronze section are accessible for all, this will provide support retrieval success and boost of confidence for all learners. Aim to include very specific and more challenging terms for silver and gold. More or fewer words can be added depending on how long you wish to spend on the task and how long the answer is expected to be, from a sentence to a paragraph or essay.

Dear all, 

I have added to video links on Chat gtp each with a5 bullet point summary.

The first is a beginners guide to lesson planning using the AI site and the second different ideas of how to use it to support Teaching and learning

CHAT gtp for teachers a beginners tutorial

·  Teachers' Usage and Benefits: Teachers are using ChatGPT more than students, primarily for its potential to save time on tasks like writing unit plans or creating assignment instructions.

·  Getting Started with ChatGPT: Signing up for a free ChatGPT account is straightforward. The free version offers access to GPT-3.5, while upgrading to GPT-4 costs $20 a month and includes additional features like faster responses and plugin support.

·  Effective Prompt Engineering: For the best results, prompts should be specific and detailed. Including keywords and jargon can significantly enhance the quality and relevance of the responses generated by ChatGPT.

·  Regeneration and Feedback: Users can regenerate responses to get different variations and use features like copying responses and providing feedback to improve future outputs. Maintaining organized chat threads for different topics enhances productivity.

·  Privacy and Data Management: Users can manage their chat history and training data to enhance privacy. It's advised not to use real names or sensitive information while interacting with ChatGPT.

12 Ways to Use Chat GPT in the Classroom [ 100 ChatGPT Prompts for Teachers ]

·  Lesson Planning and Classroom Activities: ChatGPT can assist with lesson planning by researching relevant content, generating detailed lesson plans, creating discussion prompts, worksheets, and exercises, and even converting these into interactive PowerPoint slides with VBA code.

·  Research and Brainstorming: It can help teachers brainstorm ideas, offer guidance on research methodologies, create hypothetical scenarios for concept exploration, and generate mind maps using tools like MindMeister or MindNode.

·  Classroom Support and Personalized Learning: ChatGPT can answer student questions, explain complex concepts in simple terms, recommend reading lists, assist with personalized learning paths, and support students with special needs.

·  Gamification and Interactive Learning: The tool can be used to create quizzes, interactive games, simulations, and role-playing scenarios, as well as gamify the classroom with point systems, quests, missions, and leaderboards using tools like ClassPoint.

·  Review, Assessment, and Presentation: It provides detailed feedback, creates grading rubrics, designs assessment questions, and detects plagiarism. Additionally, ChatGPT can help with speech writing, enhance presentation skills, and generate slide content and design ideas.

Dear all, 

Please find 5 ideas that further support retrieval practice. 

Dear all, 

Two great posters the first from the teacher toolkit looking at effective ways to maximise the use of time the second that could support memory recall and making connections using visuals and words (duel coding).

Dear all, 

Please find attached some more great editable resources on retrieval.

Also a link again to magic school AI which has a vast array of AI resources for staff including rubric and assessment creators. 

 https://app.magicschool.ai/tools

Dear all this week’s resource is Diffit https://web.diffit.me/

Diffit is an AI-powered tool that helps teachers to reading age appropriate activities in the classroom. It allows the teachers to convert any content to any reading level easily. Benefits. Adapt any text or article for any reading level. Generates relevant resources for any topic and video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6YL_lL1yg4&list=PLgfBx6z3u4JBREc4VRde4dxiuckdbiJlv&index=10

Above is a link to short video showing how it can be used and I have attached 2 documents it created there are numerous templates that create slides, docs, pdfs, ppt and word really professionally

Dear all,

Dear all please find both the PPT and google slide version of this great resource that gets students to link their thinking to a historical character or sportsperson, scientist etc the possibilities are numerous.

Thinking skills are evoked by designing a wallpaper song title and message sent with the reasoning behind the students choice.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1MBGeagUEwRCyx8XXlxLABz6UjqzQHAnj8eNi0VUCmyc/edit?usp=sharing

Two ideas to further support teaching and learning

Building on from last week’s cold calling questioning strategy is this 5 steps to questioning.

1 Focus on learning

2 Plan a set of questions

3 Create and model answers

4 Engage everybody

5 Adapt your teaching

I have also attached a pdf on how to model writing extended answers through for example live modelling talking through what you would be doing, modelling to the class or small groups with interactivity.

Showing examples or both exemplar and non-exemplar work. Students working collaboratively together