Ideas about learning, ICT and pedagogy

Assessment for Learning made engaging and purposeful

Visual Assessment
Using Active Learning techniques benefit students greatly as discussed in the introduction to this chapter, and creating opportunities for using this method with assessment really does produce excellent results. Students who work with assessments on this level eventually gain a concrete understanding about:
•    the various components of an answer;
•    how to build an ideal [...]

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The Big Idea: Make it sticky!

Extract from Exam Class Toolkit – how to create engaging lessons that ensure progression and results (Watkin & Ahrenfelt)

Sticky = understandable, memorable and effective in changing thought or behaviour.
Two big questions needs to be addressed by teachers each lesson:

What’s the point of the lesson?
Why should it matter – will it matter to the students?

It may [...]

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The Presentation of students’ work is not important (?)

I was once told that we should never judge a students’ presentation of work only the work itself.  So in a History homework for example I would only focus on the actual writing: the argument, analysis, evaluation and how effectively the student has reached a reasoned conclusion etc. These issues are the norm and should [...]

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IPods in the Classroom

Alex: It works because you have to really think about the topic as a whole, not only goof-around, but actually plan and consider all your key points. Because we talked about how to structure the podcast and about, like, pitfalls, we knew that we had to make it ‘visual’ and tell a story so people [...]

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Great educational websites to use with your exam classes

Fantastic websites to use with students from starters to main activities, check it out:
KartOO I really like this site as it give students a visual of how search term link together and which sites link to a particular word or phrase. Here’s an example.
Visuwords: This website allows you to look up words to find their [...]

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