It was lunchtime but I didn’t mind. Neither did my German teacher.
I ran upstairs and entered her room. She was free – success! I pulled out my listening exam script: a set of learned responses to verbal questions that could come up in my GCSE exam.
I’m sure she was hungry and I’m sure she wanted lunch. I didn’t think about that when I was 16 years old. I probably should have.
She sat with me and helped me with my responses. Her dedication lunchtime after lunchtime was a major factor in the grade ‘A’ I achieved in the final exams. She went on to praise me publicly for my efforts and nominate me for a prestigious school award, which I won.
What makes some teachers go beyond the call of duty?
Not every teacher was like my German teacher, and understandably so. As teachers we work long hours and often give up parts of our weekends and school holidays for planning, marking and perfecting our work.
If I could write one phrase to describe my German teacher it would be this: She really cared.
That’s not to say that my other teachers didn’t care – they did. But my German teacher really cared.
The desire and drive within her to help one of her students had a profound effect on me – so much so that it acts as a huge reminder to me of the duty of care I have to my students today: almost two decades later.
How does ‘authenticity’ manifest itself?
I’ve been fortunate to receive wholehearted care from a number of great teachers in my life. I think their authenticity can be summed up in these main ways:
They don’t just teach their subject:My best teachers tried to help me out with problems I was having in life, not just in my studies. When I broke up with my girlfriend, my Biology teacher gave me some great advice and told me not to let it bother me. “It’s her loss”, he said. When I came into school looking exhausted because I’d had no sleep the night before, a number of teachers expressed concern for me and asked how I was and recommended that I get some sleep. When I was pelted with snowballs and came into my Head of Year’s office crying, he put his hands on my ears to warm them up and helped me to calm down.
They take their duty as ‘role models’ seriously: “There’s no such thing as an off-duty teacher” – words spoken to me when I was an NQT. I think those words are true. I never saw any of my teachers drunk or smoking, and even on my graduation evening when some teachers came out for a drink at a local restaurant with the students, they acted responsibly.
They remember you after you leave:At high school reunions and when bumping into each other in the street, authentic teachers and former students talk with each other like it was yesterday. “How are you getting along, Richard”. “I’m doing fine”, I said. “I always knew you would be a success, you were always a very dedicated student”, my old physics teacher responded in 2006. That felt great. It was a reminder of who I was at my core, and a motivator to keep me on track for the future.
They leave no student behind:I was in Year 10 when me and my classmates took a ‘formulae of ions’ test in Chemistry. About half of the class, including me, failed the test. To this day I still don’t know why that happened, but my Chemistry teacher just couldn’t let it go. She pulled aside all of us as a group, had a talk with us and made us resit the test the following week. On the second attempt, we all got above 80% (and it was an equally difficult test). Afterwards she said “Can you now see that the concept was really simple”. We all agreed.
They give up some of their free time:I already know that this is not going to be a popular one with some of my readers, but it is true. Authentic teachers care so much about their students that they are happy to run classes or tutoring after school or at break and lunch times to help students out. They know that this dedication will pay dividends in terms of the rapport they are building and the results the students will get in the final exams. These payoffs are more valuable to them than their free time, which is very admirable.
What are the effects of ‘authenticity’?
Authentic teachers literally change their students’ lives. They realise that their influence doesn’t just last a day, or an academic year. They know that they are part of a mission to mold their learners into happy, responsible, good adults of the future.
There’s a saying that was used in a Teacher recruitment campaign in the UK in the early 2000s – No One Forgets a Good Teacher.
I would say that no one forgets an authentic teacher, because only authentic teachers can be good teachers.
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World Book Day has always been one of my favorite school events — and even as we move into 2025 and beyond, its magic hasn’t faded. In fact, it’s become even more important as we work to rekindle students’ love for physical books in an age dominated by screens. Here’s my latest reflection on costumes, command terms, and creative teaching ideas for keeping the joy of books alive.
A short story
He waddled his way through the corridor like a happy duckling. Amid the giggles and cries of small children he looked liked a giant orange with tentacles as he waded through the masses on his way to the library. Mr Jones was dressed as ‘Mr Tickle’ from the ‘Mr Men’ series of books.
The outfit must have taken an astronomical amount of time to create. With orange fur and controllable arms it was clear who was going to win the ‘Best Dressed Teacher’ competition.
I, on the other hand, tend to be a little too lazy with my outfit on World Book Day. This year was no exception. Can you guess who I am?:
If you said ‘James Bond’ then well done: you’re right! It’s a quick (and a little too lazy) conversion for me: change my tie to a bow, add a dinner shirt and a white pocket square and I’m ready to serve on Her Majesty’s Secret Service!
“Who have you come as?” one of my friends says to me as I walk into the staff room on Friday (we held our World Book Day a day later because Thursday coincided with a religious holiday here in Thailand — something that happens most years) “I’m James Bond — a classic literary icon who’s been thrilling readers and moviegoers alike for over 70 years” I say (rather upset that I wasn’t instantly recognizable). “Is that even a book” he says. “It’s a whole series of books, written by Ian Fleming”
“Wow. I had no idea”
Costume Capers
World Book Day is great for getting people to ask good questions. Often, the characters we dress up as are in fact movie stars which we never knew existed in books. This can really get kids inspired to read more as they gradually realize that good books are often the basis for their favorite movies or TV shows. Good examples include:
Harry Potter– The all-time legendary series of fantasy books written by J.K. Rowling. These books have formed the basis for 8 beloved movies, with new adaptations and spin-offs continuing to keep the magic alive.
The Hunger Games– These action packed dystopian novels featuring stoic and passionate heroine: Katniss Everdeen, have been transformed into five excellent films.
Twilight– Popular with teenagers and young adults: these fantasy/romance novels were brilliantly conceived and written by legendary author Stephenie Meyer
What message does all of this send to kids when they are fully aware of the facts? That’s simple:Books are cool! Books are inspirational. Books change lives. Read books!
It’s a shame that World Book Day is only once per year. In reality, every day should be a World Book Day as we should encourage our kids to read books and enjoy learning English on a daily basis.
As a teacher at an International School in Bangkok, I have the unique privilege and pleasure of working with classes where, in many cases, more than 90% of the students are working with English as an additional/second language. One of my unique missions every day is to help my students to see why English is a beautiful language. To help them notice patterns and sounds. To ensure that they use the correct language in their answers to exam-style questions.
Examination language
Even in 2025 and beyond, the importance of command terms isn’t going away. In fact, with exams becoming more language-focused across international curriculums, knowing how to decode these terms is becoming even more essential.
Try putting up a ‘command-terms’ display in your classroom (like the one below):
A command terms hierarchy display that follows Bloom’s Taxonomy
I use this display on a daily basis to teach my students how to phrase their answers. I like to turn the command terms into kid-friendly language when going through exam-style and past-paper questions. For instance:
Describe: Tell me ‘what’
Explain: Tell me ‘why and how’
Deduce: Work out the answer and show every step in your work
Eventually, the students can build up a long list of command terms in their Learning Journals or notebooks, coupled with their ‘kid-friendly’ descriptions. The display also follows Bloom’s Taxonomy, with command terms demanding more sophistication in written responses as you go up the pyramid.
The result: Students learn good English vocabulary and score better on exams. What could be better than that!
Command terms are so important, in fact, that many textbooks are now emphasizing them as students work through the chapters. Take this extract from a book my students were using in one of our Science tutoring sessions this week:
Command terms emboldened in a Science textbook
As I was helping these students, I found that explaining the command term first, before tackling the question, really helped in getting a suitable answer. The two girls who I was tutoring would say “Ah, I get it now” when the command term was made clear.
Do you think that students will use these command terms in their daily and future lives? Absolutely! Command terms come up in a range of contexts when operating through the medium of English. For example: “How can we justify this business decision?”, “On the basis of the previous two-years sales, can you predict likely sales for the first quarter of this year?”, “How can we determine who is the best candidate for this role?”, and on we could go ad infinitum.
Isn’t this what language-learning is all about? Getting students to learn key words, then to enjoy using those words and then to apply them to a range of contexts?
In my honest opinion, command terms offer the ultimate key in cross-curricular learning and should be explored by curriculum leaders as a way to really ‘gel’ their subjects together. The result of this: deep learning and an added sense of importance attached to each subject as students see how they link together.
Learning Journals
I have a system set up where students in Year 11, 12 and 13 (ages 15-18, or Grades 10-12 in American/International schools) bring me a journal filled with revision notes, key words, past-paper questions and answers every Monday. It’s such an effective way to boost confidence and performance, but it does require a bit of organisation and leadership from the teacher.
If you have identified students who could use such a journal to focus specifically on learning key words and command terms, then here are the steps to take:
Step 1: Tell the students to get a special notebook. It doesn’t need to be fancy. Just a cheap spiral bound one will do just fine. Some students have even started keeping their Learning Journals digitally using apps like OneNote, Notion, or GoodNotes — which works great as long as they stay organized.
Step 2:The students should divide the first page into three columns:
Key word
Meaning
Pronunciation
For example: Moment, The force applied to a lever multiplied by the distance from the pivot, mo-men-t
For an EAL student you can include a fourth column:
Translation
In this column, the student can write the word in his/her native language.
Step 3: The students should write down the key words they learn every week into this journal, along with all of the other information.
Step 4:CRUCIAL! The key words and information must be CHECKED every week. Check the words, the meaning and the pronunciation (you can even get the students to say the words to you – this reinforces their memory of the terminology).
Don’t forget to reward students for good work too: use your school’s points/merits system, write nice comments on their work and even think of special rewards: a ‘star of the week’ for example, where you display the student’s work on the class noticeboard.
Use voice inflections
Science is great for teaching kids new words. When we, as teachers, genuinely love to pronounce and say key words then our kids will love doing that too.
I have quite a funny little system I use in class. When a key word comes up, I’ll give it a rank:
“Precipitate. Precipitate. Such a beau-ti-ful word. Say “Pre-ci-pi-tate”
Class:Precipitate
“Excellent! Precipitate is number 3 on my ‘Favorite Words in Science’ list”
Student:“What’s number one”
“That’s a secret! One day you’ll find out! A prize to first person to e-mail me my number one Science word when they hear it!”
Of course, my number one word will come at the end of the academic year when the suspense and excitement has been building up for two terms.
Use vocabulary jokes
I’ve recently started experimenting with this and it’s working like a treat! It does take some planning and skill though, and is best described through some examples:
Vocabulary Joke 1: ‘Formal Charge’
I recently used this joke with my Year 13 students to reinforce the term ‘Formal Charge’ – a concept in Organic Chemistry.
“I was walking to the coffee shop yesterday and Mr Davies asked me “Mr Rogers, what is your favorite F.C.? Is it Liverpool F.C.?’ And guess what?”
Class:“What?!!!”
“I said ‘No. My favorite F.C. is ‘Formal Charge'”
Class: (laughing)
I then laugh and say “This is the life of a Chemistry Teacher. Hashtag #chemistrylife”
Class: (giggles and laughter)
This has long-term effects outside of the classroom too. Effects which fully embed the phrases. For example: when I was actually walking to the coffee shop one of my Year 13 students passed me and I said “What is your favorite F.C.?” and she said “Formal Charge”.
Vocabulary Joke 2: ‘Alkali’
An alkali is the opposite of an acid, having a pH higher than 7 (think of soap, for example). I used this joke recently with my Year 10 students:
“A student of mine in Year 9 asked me: ‘Mr Rogers, do you like my homework?’, and guess what happened!'”
Class:“What?!!” (they know that a joke is coming!)
“I said I more than like your work, I ‘alkalike‘ your homework”
Class:(laughing)
I then laugh and say “This is the life of a Chemistry Teacher. Hashtag ChemistryLife — still trending strong in 2025!”
Class:(giggles and laughter)
Clean and fun jokes can like this can be very powerful. The kids will say them to their parents and friends, and if you refer to them outside of the classroom (e.g. John, do you like my new notebook? John: I ‘alkalike’ it), then you can really embed these key terms. The result:Kids will love English, will repeat the words you say and will eventually use these key terms frequently in their written responses.
Vocabulary jokes like these are especially powerful in 2025, when AI translation tools make communication easier — but understanding the why behind words still requires real human teaching.
Other strategies
There are many more strategies you can use to get your learners to enjoy learning the English language. Check out my blog posts on Learning Journals and Vocabulary Values for more tips.
Conclusion
Our aim must be to get our students to LOVE English – speaking it, reading it, listening to it and writing it. Encourage good language learning by:
Taking part fully in English-themed events such as World Book Day (or your school’s equivalent celebration if you’re reading this outside the UK)
Using and embedding command terms
Creating a Learning Journals system
Pronouncing key words in a funny way and getting students to repeat them out loud (elocution)
Making full use of powerful ‘Vocabulary Jokes’
Using other strategies, such as vocabulary games, which you can find on my blog posts here and here.
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I was 16 years old and had just gotten my GCSE results. The admissions tutor at Deeside College (now Coleg Cambria) was impressed with my grades and readily led me through the registration process. I had chosen to study ‘A’ – Levels (The British equivalent of the American SATs) in Biology, Chemistry and Mathematics.
Studying at an F.E. college had an extra advantage over studying at school: I could enroll on night classes in the early evening after regular classes had finished. I decided to take the Open College Network class ‘Introduction to Basic Counseling Skills’, as I knew even back then that I wanted to be a teacher and I knew that this class would give me valuable tools that I could use with my future students.
The counseling skills I learnt on the course were amazing. I still make use of the ‘detached objectivity’, ‘active listening’ and ’empowerment’ tools from that night class in my daily practice as a teacher. However, something even more powerful and useful than I could possibly imagine,like a diamond of knowledge, was passed on to me in the most unpredictable of ways.
Out of all of the classes I did at Deeside College, this was the only course in which I had to fill out a ‘Reflection Journal’ every two weeks. My teacher would ask me to write down all of my thoughts and reflections on what was learnt in class into this big book that she gave me, and every two weeks she would write comments in there to inspire and encourage me. It really was very effective, and made the learning process exciting and productive.
Memory is the residue of thought
Daniel Willingham wrote those iconic words in his famous book: ‘Why Don’t Students Like School?’. I am utterly convinced that the Reflection Journal I had to fill out for the night class caused me to think deeply about my learning, which left it’s residue in my mind in the form of memory: memory of skills and knowledge which I still use to this day!
That’s powerful. That’s life-changing.
The Thailand Experiment
Shortly after getting my PGCE and completing my NQT year in the U.K., I came to Thailand to work as a Chemistry Teacher at an international school in Bangkok. I was lucky enough to have been given a very able and hard-working class of Year 10 students to teach. In fact, the illustrator of this blog and my books:Pop Sutthiya Lertyongphati, was in that class.
I decided to try learning journals with these IGCSE Chemistry students. The idea was that they were to buy a special notebook (not their normal class book) and fill it with revision summaries, mind-maps, key words and anything learnt in class each week. I wanted it to be a ‘living journal’, and not just simply a replica of the students’ class notes.
The students mainly took to it verywell. Extracts from Pop’s beautiful learning journal are shown below:
Highly-motivated students like Pop would always hand in beautiful notes, every single week. In fact, CfBT inspectors came to that school that year and they said that Pop’s notes were the best they had ever seen!
Wow! That’s quite a statement.
However, some students didn’t take to it that well and I found out why: I wasn’t giving feedback regularly enough. Some weeks I would be too busy with other school things, so I would sometimes (to my shame) collect in the journals and simply give them back the next day with some simple verbal feedback only.
I discovered that when students were given some written feedback on a weekly basis, however small, they was a marked improvement in the quality of the journals I received each week.
Back then, when I realised this at 26 years of age, I would write multiple comments on every page in a student’s journal. This almost killed me when I had 20 journals to mark. I soon gave that up and came up with a better way.
Oh, but did the journals work? Well…that class went on to get 100% A*-C in their Chemistry IGCSEs.
Did the journals help them achieve this? I believe so.
My updated (better) journaling system
I’ve set up a Learning Journal system with my Year 11 IGCSE and Year 12 and 13 IBDP classes. Every Monday they must bring their journals to my room and place them in the right place, as shown below:
Then, after school every Monday I write one and only one post-it note of feedback for each student; which I stick in their journals. This keeps my feedback focused on the essentials and increases my productivity.
An example of what this feedback might look like is given in this reconstruction below:
Students pick up their journals (with post-it note feedback inside) every Tuesday, meaning that they are getting recurring, weekly feedback as well as regular, meaningful homework.
So far the system is working really well. The student-sign register system allows me to quickly see who hasn’t completed a journal and the fact that I force myself to get all of the post-it-notes filled in on Monday evening means that I can chase up late journals very quickly.
The system allows me to give regular feedback to my students, and it seems to be showing in the progress they are making in tests and assessments.
Conclusion
Journaling is a powerful tool when used correctly
It can be applied to any subject area
It’s great for exam-level classes doing revision
Recurring feedback and meaningful homework come as part of the package
The students can be creative and present their journals in any way they choose (online is an option too)
The feedback process allows the teacher to get to know their students’ strengths and weaknesses very quickly
The Learning Journal is a permanent record that the students can treasure and be proud of
Journaling is not used enough in the teaching profession. I aim to change this.
Teachers can have journals too!
In this short video I explain how deciding to keep a professional journal was a life-changing moment for me. I show you how to keep a simple daily journal that will immediately transform your teaching and effectiveness at school.
Digitizing the process [Update for 2021]
With the advent of the coronavirus pandemic, many schools have been forced to close due to lockdown restrictions. Not to worry, however – learning journals can be completed and assessed online very easily these days.
Google Sites, or blogs like WordPress/Blogger are an excellent way to digitize the system. Every student creates a site/blog. All the teacher needs are the URLs for all the sites (e.g. as a list on a Google Sheet).
The students update their sites each week. The teacher can either write weekly feedback on each website (this is easily done if it’s a Google Site that’s been ‘shared’ with the teacher), post a comment in a spreadsheet set up for each student each week, share verbal feedback through video conferencing, or even e-mail feedback to each student. If you’re using a VLE/LMS (e.g. Moodle, Firefly, Google Classroom, Class Dojo, etc.), then you can write a short comment on the assignment for each student within the system.
It is also possible to use Google Slides or Docs in place of website for each student. Please see this blog post on using Google apps in teaching for more information.
Recommended further reading/investigation:
Click on the image to take you to the Amazon purchase page.
Lakeshore Learning Materials: Lakeshore Draw and Write Journal
Perfect for children aged 5-7
Gets young learners used to the journaling process from a very early age
Large, clear format
A staple and an essential for all primary teachers (in my personal opinion)
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There’s no doubt about it – getting students involved in their own assessment and marking has a wide-variety of benefits.
Take this greatsummaryby Rosario Hernandez at University College Dublin for example, which explains that peer-assessment benefits students in four key ways:
Promotes high quality learning
Contributes to skills development
Furthers personal development
Increases students’ confidence, reduces stress and improves student motivation
That’s quite a convincing list!
Not surprisingly, similar things can be said of self-assessment. This greatoverviewby the University of Sydney advocates for the wide-use of self-assessment with students for the following key reasons:
It encourages student involvement and participation, so it’s great for students who normally find group activities or active class tasks a little uncomfortable
When used in conjunction with group work it can be a great way to assess one’s personal role and contribution in the group experience and learning process
Academic appraisals aside, I’ve found from my personal experience that both self and peer-assessment are absolutely invaluable to the modern practitioner. They save you oodles of time as a teacher and students learn so much from each process.
But how should we use self and peer-assessment?
There are a number of different ways that self and peer-assessment can be used in the classroom. My experience has taught me (the hard way!) that the following tasks work really well:
Making corrections to tests and assessments:When any important test or assessment comes up, I don’t think it is appropriate to have students marking these themselves. They’ll get it wrong, even with a mark scheme to use, and will be overly generous on themselves and their peers (unless they’ve been trained for a period of time – more on that next). However, a great activity is to mark the tests yourself, then give the tests back to the students along with the a printed or online mark scheme. The students could then use a coloured pen to make full and detailed corrections to their test papers. You could turn this into an AfL exercise, with students writing down the question numbers they got wrong on the whiteboard, or on an anonymous piece of paper. You could then go through these questions afterwards to clear up common misconceptions. If you run a regular learning journals system (as I currently do), then students could write down the questions and the model answers in their learning journals. This causes very deep-learning to take place and is great for building long-term memory!
Assessing homework, classwork and regular assignments:A great time-saver for teachers. Just make sure the kids have access to the model answers. Don’t forget to collect the work in too – you need to know that the kids actually did the work you asked them to do.
Past-papers:Exam-level students really need to become familiar with the official mark schemes provided by exam boards. They need to become comfortable with key vocabulary, language and command terms. Provide exam-level students with regular past-papers to do as homework. Provide mark schemes too, so that they can self and peer-assess their work in class later. For older students (e.g. ‘AS’ – Level, SAT and IBDP learners) I’ll sometimes give them past papers and mark schemes to take home. Their task is to complete the past-papers under timed conditions and mark them using the mark schemes. The student then hands me the papers completed and marked (this is essential – I need to know that they have completed the assignment). I then check the papers for common misconceptions and target those in class.
Technological means:There a number of ways in which technology can assist in the peer and self-assessment process.Google formsare great; as are online quizzes provided by trusted third parties(e.g.BBC BitesizeandMyiMaths) and online quizzes that teachers can build by themselves (e.g.Quizlets). Make use of these and others (e.g.Kahoot– great for getting kids to use their mobile devices), as they are really interactive and can offer a nice break from traditional methods.
Training students to assess themselves
This is a gradual process and basically involves exposing students to exam-style questions and past-papers; along with their mark schemes, over a prolonged period of time. The process is straightforward but can be monotonous: provide past-papers as homework, classwork, projects and even through a special past-paper ECA club (which I’m currently doing with my IGCSE and IBDP students – it’s very effective).
There are a number of creative ways to train students up in proper exam-technique:
Cut up the questions and answers to past-papers and hand them to students one-at-a-time. They can only come and get the next question when they’ve effectively answered and marked the previous one.
Give students the answers to questions and get them to write the questions! Use the same method as the previous bullet-point above, or set up a large display and get students to put their answers on post-it notes which they can stick to the display.
Get a big container filled with cut-up exam questions. Students have to pick out questions from the container in pairs or threes, and work on them. No two groups should have the same question.
Students can make revision videos, websites and even stop-motion animations that contain exam-style questions and answers. Get students to record the process through a learning journal system.
Challenges when using self and peer-assessment
There are a few challenges, but these are greatly outweighed by the the benefits. I’ll offer some notes from my own personal experience and some solutions.
Some students won’t want to swap during peer-assessment.This can be an issue in some classes. Some students can find themselves isolated and excluded by social groups, and may not be able to find someone to wants to swap their work with them. Whilst this kind of social exclusion is totally unacceptable, and must be dealt with through the appropriate school channels, there is a way to mitigate it in the first instance: collect in every piece of work and hand them out again randomly to different students. That way, they should all have someone else’s work to mark.
Different ability levels:There will be some students in the class who have such a limited knowledge of the subject that they won’t be able to effectively mark the work in front of them, even if they have access to the mark scheme. You could offer a ‘clinic-style’ system, where you sit at a special desk in the room and offer ‘consultation’: where students walk to see you to clear up misconceptions if they don’t understand the work or the mark scheme. You can also walk around the classroom and sit with individuals to have one-to-one discussions.
Students being too generous:This is a common problem, especially for exam-level students who are new to past-papers and the peer/self-assessment process. At first, you might want to project the answers on the whiteboard and go through each question one at a time, but you’ll find that this takes ages (unless it’s an MCQ test) as students will have lots of questions to ask along the way, and you’ll have to answer verbally to the whole audience (which isn’t ideal in every case). Even better – you could collect in the assignments afterwards and double-check them. Speak to students who have lost marks after you’ve double-checked the papers and really make sure they understand the mark scheme and where they went wrong.
Poor handwriting:This can be an issue for some students. It’s really important that examiners can actually read a student’s work. Students with poor handwriting need to be identified quickly and intervention measures put in place (e.g. special classes). You don’t want anyone to lose marks just because the examiner couldn’t read what the student wrote!
Conclusion
The benefits of peer and self-assessment are numerous and incontrovertible. However, students must have access to official mark schemes and model answers for the process to work properly, and they must be involved in actually correcting their work (not just ‘ticking’ and ‘crossing’ and working out a score/percentage).
Students need to be trained in proper peer-assessment. Do not tolerate over-generosity: collect the work in afterwards and double-check that it was marked properly.
Watch out for common misconceptions – these crop up a lot in a peer-assessment. See this as a good thing: you can use this information to inform your teaching.
Use a wide-variety of technological means in the peer and self-assessment process. This will keep students on task and provide exposure to vital Information and Communication Technology: building skills that will be essential in the future.
Be on the lookout for students who refuse to swap their work (or accept another student’s work to mark) and address this issue promptly. No student should feel excluded by a peer group at school – this is tantamount to bullying and must be addressed appropriately.
Be aware that some students will not have the ability to peer and self-assess effectively, even when they have access to the model answers. Provide one-to-one assistance in these cases, either by walking around the room and helping out or having students walk to you for help.
Recommended further reading
Click on the images to go to the Amazon page for the book.
Peer Feedback in the Classroomby Starr Sackstein.Great for gaining a deep understanding of what meaningful feedback looks like. Highly recommended!
The Perfect Assessment SystembyRick Stiggins. Great for all educators and those involved in education management. Really puts assessment into a whole-school context and is a great read for anyone who wants to up their game and empower their students through effective feedback.
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This article follows on from last week’s popular ‘Marking: Why, What and How?‘ blog post: A highly recommended read!
Week 2: What and How?
The long, dark journey of my PGCE was long over. Gone were the constant lesson observations, full-page lesson plans and intense work-scrutiny from my university tutors and in-school mentors. Now I had autonomy. Now I was trusted.
With the onset of my first year as a qualified teacher came the intense sense of duty that one acquires when realizing that this is your chance to ‘sink or swim’.
And swim I did: as hard as I could with the tools I had at the time. But it wasn’t enough.
At about this time of the year in 2006 I was entering my February half-term holiday with an absolute ton of marking to complete. I took inventory of my week’s stock of coffee-inducing baggage and found that it contained:
Classwork
Homework
Tests
Online work
Journals (which I’d just started after receiving the idea from a friend)
Classwork/homework in the form of loose bits of paper and worksheets
Coursework for GCSE Science
The data entry that would come with recording all of this stuff
It was quite a sight to see and I remember Friday drinks with my colleagues that week in which I brought a huge sports bag into the pub. “What’s in the bag, Richard” some said; to which I replied “Marking”. The place erupted with laughter as my friends saw the gritty and not-so-pleased look on my face!
I’m sure they sympathized with me deep-down inside as they were merrily propping-up the bar.
Get a Marking Timetable in Place!
Back then I didn’t have a marking schedule in place and that was a bad idea! Work would just come to me as and when I set the deadlines and I would let it accumulate until I had some semblance of free time in which I would mark, say; four notebooks!
It just wasn’t sustainable.
Nowadays, I follow a very strict marking timetable so that I spread out my marking evenly across a recurring two-week period. I’m happy because I’m getting things done, my students are happy because they are receiving acknowledgement and feedback and parents are happy because they can see measurable steps of improvement due to the way that I mark (more on that later).
I know, for example, that on Tuesday Week 2 I am marking Year 10 IGCSE books. I see them that day so I can easily collect their books. I also know that I’m marking Year 13 IB Diploma books on Friday Week 1; so I’d best get those done on Friday otherwise I’ll have two loads to do the following Monday.
Get a marking timetable in place if you don’t already have one. It’s a self-discipline tool that will set you apart as an organized teacher who actually cares about the everyday work that your students do.
Prioritizing
Some types of marking must take priority over others.
Take Year 11 GCSE coursework, for example. Now if you had a choice between marking that on-time or marking Year 7 notebooks, then you’re definitely going to go for the coursework. It’s a greater priority.
As teachers we are messing up our schedules and creating added stress because we do not ruthlessly prioritize enough. It’s absolutely essential.
All marking is important: every student must receive feedback and acknowledgement for their efforts. However, you may have to give your exam-preparation classes more detailed feedback than your younger classes at certain points in the year. You may also have to give it back in a more swift and timely manner too (e.g. when you’ve just finished the mock exams, or when you’ve had an end-of-unit test).
Learn to prioritize. I’ve known some teachers in their first year who were desperately trying to cover every single scrap of work with ‘two stars and wish’, ‘targets’ and literacy/numeracy feedback. This level of dedication is admirable, but it does not accurately reflect the differing needs of different classes. It may also cause long-term health problems for the teacher!
The Students Should be Doing More Work Than The Teachers!
Lazy teachers are the best teachers because they get the students to do all of the work
These words spoken to me in 2008 by a former colleague got me wondering about my workload as a teacher. Was I spoon-feeding my students too much? Was I giving them too much guidance without giving them the chance to think for themselves?
After a difficult self-appraisal, I took a rough-guess that I was somewhere in the middle.
It was at this point that I started to write questions on students’ work. “What is this part called” on a diagram, for example, or simply a “?” next to something that wasn’t clear.
Have you spotted the question I wrote in this IBDP Biology homework?
Make sure to check that students have actually improved their work! You can set ‘work-improvement’ as a short homework or classwork task.
Use Marking as a Means of Encouragement and Motivation!
We all love positive feedback: especially when it’s sincere.
Make your feedback useful and sincere by writing (or saying) “Well done for….” from time to time. It will help the student to store the concept in their long-term memory and will prop-up their confidence so that they enjoy your subject more and more in the future.
Be aware that this must be constantly reinforced. Once or twice won’t be enough – we should be praising the positive attributes of our students’ work on a regular basis for maximum effect.
You should definitely use your school’s reward system for this. If your school doesn’t have one, then create one (stickers, class points, the chance to win chocolate at the end of the month, etc.)
Showcasing
Placing students’ work on display is an excellent way to take the motivation and inspiration element a step-further.
In my current school we have a weekly ‘Science Stars’ noticeboard where every teacher pins up an excellent piece of work for that week. Students regularly stop by to see their friends’ work, and it offers a great sense of achievement for those students who have been selected to be ‘Stars’.
Showcasing provides a benchmark for other students to aspire too. It shows examples of work considered to be detailed, presentable and accurate, and should aim to teach about the importance ofeffort in achieving the desired outcome.
Showcasing doesn’t have to be done on a weekly noticeboard. It can be done electronically on a VLE or school website or blog, and can even be as simple a task as standing in the middle of the class and showing the students an excellent notebook.
Showcasing also adds an extra level of effectiveness that day-to-day marking doesn’t always reach – it shows that the teacher is noticing things! It makes it really clear what stands out and what does not, and raises the bar for all students to aspire too (when done regularly).
Recurring Work (Very Powerful)
I use journals a lot in my teaching. It’s a shame they are not used more in the profession as a whole (I write about the amazing effectiveness of student journaling in an earlier blog post here)
Every Monday my Year 11, 12 and 13 Chemists bring me a journal filled with:
Revision notes
Answers to exam style questions and test corrections done in class
Mind maps and memory joggers, such as acronyms and mnemonics
A summary of what they’ve learnt that week
Journals used in this way are designed to instill self-discipline in students as they require one to regularly review work done in class. They are also a very excellent way for me to see and address weaknesses quickly, and I can provide feedback on a weekly basis, which helps a lot with focus and improvement.
The students bring their journals to class on Monday and sign their names on the big sheet on the wall. I then read through every book and write one sticky note of feedback in each (this keeps my feedback focused on the essentials, reduces my marking time and ensures that students get a rapid response).
Every Tuesday my students collect their journals from my room, read my feedback and hand them in again the following Monday.
The kind of regular, recurring feedback is great for me and my students. Common misconceptions become clear very quickly (allowing me to address those issues) and my students feel that their teacher cares deeply about their learning (which he does).
Conclusion
I’ve found that consistency is key; no matter what methods of marking I use. My students need to know that I care about the work they produce. Often, this sense of ‘someone actually gives two hoots about the work I do’ is the majorfactor in a student’s success at school.
I think John Hattie summarizes the importance of feedback as a tool for improving performance much better than I can:
The aim is to get the students actively involved in seeking this evidence: their role is not simply to do tasks as decided by teachers, but to actively manage and understand their learning gains. This includes evaluating their own progress, being more responsible for their learning, and being involved with peers in learning together about gains in learning. If students are to become active evaluators of their own progress, teachers must provide the students with appropriate feedback so that they can engage in this task.
Recommended books for further reading (click on the book images to go to their Amazon pages):
Visible Learning for Teachersby John Hattie. Includes excellent strategies for using feedback to dramatically enhance learning.
Formative Assessment by Margaret Heritage. Great for new and experienced teachers alike as it really shows how assessment can be used inform teaching in a practical and easy-to-understand way.
NEXT WEEK:Peer-assessment vs. Self-assessment – The Best Methods to Use
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For many of us the next few weeks will be very eventful. Christmas is just around the corner and we’re all looking forward to spending time with our families and enjoying the festivities.
For our final year students, however, the festive period will be very busy. They’ll be preparing for mock examinations in IGCSE’s, GCSE’s, ‘A’ – Levels, IBDP subjects and others. Many, unbeknownst to us, will also be topping up their revision time with private tuition and extra classes.
The pressure is on: as it should be.
My view point has always been that if students are going to give up a whole Christmas break revising and studying in this way, then they need to be doing it properly.
As teachers, I feel we have a duty to train and monitor our students thoroughly as they get ready for the most difficult exams they’ve ever taken.
In many schools, students are simply told that they have mock exams coming up in January and that they’d better revise or else! But is this really fair?
We sometimes assume that our students are old enough to take responsibility for their own learning. Sometimes we are content to take a back seat and let the students take ownership of their own revision.
I believe that standpoint neglects the true needs of our learners in terms of guidance and assurance. By adopting the idea that we can leave these kids to their own devices over the Christmas vacation, we are essentially being negligent in our duties.
So how do we make sure that our students are really making the best use of their time? What can we do to truly help them achieve success in the mock exams?
#1: Provide Past-Papers
We must not assume that our students can, or will, find past-papers online.
We must not assume that our students can, or will, find mark schemes and model answers online.
Consider doing the following:
Print out booklets filled with past papers and mark schemes. Give these to your students just before they set off for the Christmas vacation. Perhaps set the papers as a homework? Between 10 and 15 past-papers usually suffices.
If you’re conscious of the cost and/or environmental impact of printing so many past-paper booklets, then simply share the pdfs with your students. You can publish these online via your school’s VLE or even set up a padlet or bulk e-mail.
Encourage your students to complete the past-papers under timed conditions: this will train them to answer efficiently without leaving blank spaces.
Provide the examiner’s reports for each exam paper: these offer rich information which the official mark schemes don’t offer. Show your students how to use these.
Just prior to the mock exams (i.e. just after or just before the Christmas break), consider holding some past-paper ‘clinics’. These can be run after-school if class time is taken up with whole-school exams. Use these clinics to go through the mark schemes to specific papers. Whilst you’ll be sacrificing some of your time, the pay off is that you’ll be helping your students immeasurably and at exactly the right moment for maximum impact.
#2: Teach your students how to revise
Just recently I held a very active Year 11 revision class. It was a summary session on polymers and plastics.
Providing material for revision: such as websites and printed summaries, I gave the students a menu of options from which to complete their topic overviews:
Mind-mapping
Flash cards/revision cards
Writing bullet points
Recording notes on their phone (spoken verbally)
Creating a website summary
A Google slides presentation
Build a game or quiz
Past-paper question hunt
Anything else they could think of
Sessions like this encourage the students to find out what their preferred methods of revision are. They also show students new methods they may never have thought of before.
Try to increase the frequency of revision sessions like this as the terminal exams approach. Use tried-and-tested methods you already know about, and draw upon the ideas of your students for new creative inspiration.
#3: Do your students know when to revise?
Have you done the research yourself? How many hours per night should students be revising? Are morning sessions better than afternoon sessions? How many breaks should they have? When should they have breaks? What should they eat? When should they eat? When should they sleep, and for how long?
Surprisingly, the vast majority of educators do not know the answers to these questions. As a consequence, our students are often misguided and left to figure all this out by themselves.
Whilst research in the area of effective revision and knowledge retention can be conflicting, there are many startling consistencies. I’ve summarised this research in my ‘Mock Exams Preparation!’ infographic below. Please feel free to share this with your students, colleagues and parents. They need to know this information!
#4: Monitor their revision over the school vacation
Yes, I know that we’re on holiday too.
Yes, I know that we deserve a break too.
What I’m suggesting is not massively time-consuming, but it will have a MASSIVE impact on the success of your students.
Set up some kind of online journal, where the students can record a few sentences each day describing what they revised. Consider the following ideas:
Make the journal open for all students to see, maybe by creating a Google doc that every student has access to. This will provide other students with ideas as the vacation progresses and they see what their peers are revising. It also adds a thin layer of accountability, as it’s easy to see who hasn’t added to the class journal. Use your judgement of your students to see if this is appropriate. Maybe ask them for their opinion about it before you set it up.
Make the journal closed, perhaps by setting up a Google doc for each student that you can check each day. Maybe an e-mail system works better for you: where students e-mail you a few sentences each day.
Market the idea as a ‘help tool’: an online journal where students can record what revision techniques worked well for them that day, and ask any questions they have. The other students in the group can then answer those questions, comment on the suggestions and the teacher can even offer written guidance too. This ‘collaborative’ form of journaling can have an amazing motivational effect, and can even raise students’ enjoyment of your subject.
There’s one experience in my sixth-form schooling that I’ll never forget as long as I live. It shows the impact that a dedicated teacher can have on his or her students.
It was Christmas 2001. I was 17 and getting ready for my mock exams, but I was slacking off. One week into the holiday and I hadn’t done any ‘AS’ – Level Physics revision.
Then, the telephone rang. I picked it up and to my shock and embarrassment it was my Physics teacher.
“How’s the revision going, Richard?”
“Err, err, it’s going okay, sir”
“Do you have any questions so far?”
“Err, no I think I’m good”
“Okay then. Don’t forget that the exam is only 10 days away”
“Okay. Thank you, sir, bye”
“Bye Richard”
If ever there was a wake-up call in my life, that was it. I was embarrassed to have to lie to my teacher. The revision wasn’t going well – I hadn’t done any.
That day I pulled up my socks and went at my studies like a steam train. It was the phone call that did it – a call from someone who cared. Someone I respected.
Sometimes a little bit of pain does a lot of good. Left to my own devices I would have crammed my Physics revision into the last few days of the holiday.
Summary
Provide plenty of past-papers, mark schemes and examiner’s reports. Crucially: go through the papers when the students have completed them.
Teach your students the science of good revision. Feel free to share my infographic with them!
Monitor revision over the Christmas vacation (very powerful!). Set up some kind of online journaling system that suits your students. Ask for their input on it before you set it up.
Don’t miss the Christmas Giveaway for 2017!From 25th – 29th December,Richard’s book will be free to download on the Amazon Kindle store globally.Merry Christmas and enjoy (and tell your friends)!
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The ability to learn independently is a key aspirational skill of all of our students; or at least it should be.
Not only do our top students need to learn how to study independantly when they get to university, but all of our students need to be prepared for careers that may not yet exist.
Empower students through marking
When you first meet your advanced learners, or when they are starting out on their ‘independent learning training’, empower them with encouraging comments on their work.
Take this recent example of mine for instance:
“Excellent advice!”
This work is from a final year IBDP student. She’s done a good job of finding and filtering relevant information by herself. I’ve praised the things she’s done well, and offered tips on how to extend her research.
Over time, the amount of written comments I give on this kind of project work/research will definitely decrease. This is only needed in the initial stages.
For her next piece of work, peer assessment and some verbal feedback from me may be all that she needs to be encouraged to keep on track and continue to improve.
Design project work with a creative outcome in mind
Here are some ideas for group and individual projects:
Create an infographic about a particular topic, to be displayed on the classroom wall
Create a class presentation, perhaps on Google slides, to be presented to the class at some future date
Create a website summary of a topic
Build a model or a demo to show the class
Create a dramatized play/news report about a topic
Create a song/rap
Create a stop-motion animation of a process
Create a spatial Learning activity (kids might need some training for this one: see my blog post here for help)
Create a leaflet or brochure, to be distributed to another class or Year group (cooperate with other teachers on this one – perhaps a leaflet exchange is a good idea)
Can you think of more to add to the list?
Use Imaginative Evaluation
When people think of an ‘evaluation’ they’re often drawn to their early memories of their Science lessons at school.
In those kinds of evaluations students have to decide what worked well, what didn’t work well and what changes could be made to methods and equipment to make the experiment better next time.
With Imaginative Evaluation, students use their ingenuity to think of what they could do better if there were no limitations in terms of equipment, time, resources and technology.
In an attempt to create the innovators of tomorrow, Imaginative Evaluation aims to get kids thinking about what technology, currently not available, that they would invent to solve the problem they’re facing.
This excerpt from my book shows a planning and evaluation form that can be used with any assignment, in any subject, to encourage Imaginative Evaluation:
Build things
Get your students to build what they are learning in some way. You don’t need fancy equipment: straws, bottle caps, crumpled paper, cardboard, paints and even plastic bottles can all be mashed and mangled together by students to create amazing models.
I’ve used this technique across my teaching in Science to get students to create everything from atomic models (a recent example is given below) to makeshift ‘eco gardens’.
Can you think of times where you could use this technique in your curriculum area?
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It was a cold October morning in North Wales. I was a fresh, Newly Qualified Teacher at Denbigh High School.
Young and inexperienced with rose-tinted goggles: I was mindful of my responsibilities as a new Science teacher. Expectations were high.
When the Deputy Head of the school suddenly asked to observe one of my Year 9 Physics lessons I knew I had to perform well. As a thriving school with a great reputation, Denbigh definitely set the bar high.
My Year 9 kids were typical 13 and 14-year-olds. Some days they were great and some days they’d just had enough. Keeping them on-task was a challenge for an unskilled teacher like me.
Frantically thinking of ideas for this major lesson observation that was coming up, I thought about how to keep the kids interested whilst maintaining challenge at the same time. I was going to be teaching a lesson about series and parallel circuits, but I’d made the mistake of not ordering circuitry and equipment from my Science technician. A class practical was simply out of the question at such short notice, and the circuitry was booked by a number of other teachers that day anyway. I could only order enough equipment for a class demo.
What on Earth was I going to do?
“An AMAZING book! 5 stars!”
Simulations and online learning was out of the question – this was 2006 and kids didn’t have the right mobile devices and they didn’t carry laptops. Online resources were also limited.
I felt uneasy about taking the kids to the computer lab, even though it was available. My Deputy Head wanted to see me teach, not watch the kids work on computers for 40 minutes (or so I assumed).
In a moment of despair and perplexity I was suddenly given a flash of inspiration: what if I could turn the lab into a giant circuit? The kids could become ‘model electrons’ and could walk around the classroom holding up little signs, pretending to be flowing around a circuit. I could even hold up a sign saying ‘cell’, and a few kids could be model ‘switches’ and ‘bulbs’. Hell, it might just work!
The day comes
I frantically printed a class set of A4 signs – just simple sheets which said ‘electron’, ‘switch’ and ‘bulb’ in big letters.
‘This crazy idea might save my day after all’, I thought!
The kids came in and sat down. Back then I hadn’t mastered the art of giving students something quick to do as soon as they enter the door (see my three A’s in my book). I got right into this activity as a starter (which turned into a semi-main body of the lesson).
I lined all the kids up and gave them each a sign. Most of them would pretend to be electrons and a few would be switches and bulbs (‘switch on’, ‘switch off’, ‘bulb on’ and ‘bulb off’ signs were given to these pupils).
The desks were arranged in rows, so I started with a series circuit. I explained the route the kids had to take and they started walking, holding up their signs. They smiled and giggled along the way. When the ‘electrons’ passed the ‘bulb’ it ‘lit up’, and when the ‘switch off’ student held up his sign, the ‘electrons’ stopped moving and the ‘bulb off’ sign was held up, proudly.
To my astonishment, the kids absolutely loved it. More importantly: they understood the concepts of the lesson brilliantly. They completed a short worksheet after the ‘circuit walk’ (which they all could answer with ease) and then I gave my short circuit demo with actual wires and bulbs and switches.
Feedback
My deputy head was very impressed. She praised my creativity and said that the ‘circuit walk’ was very effective.
Not bad for a freshy who prepared in rush!
That day I became a hardcore Spatial Learning fan. Fast forward to today and all of my students will tell you that I use spatial learning in almost every lesson I teach. It’s effectiveness speaks for itself.
But what is Spatial Learning?
There are many definitions and interpretations of spatial learning on the web and in various books. Some of this pedagogical mumbo-jumbo can be really confusing, but I believe I’ve nailed it down to one sentence:
Spatial Learning is when students use bodily movements to express themselves, solve problems and model situations.
Spatial Learning has both general and specific applications. I’ll now go through some great examples that illustrate the power of this excellent teaching tool.
Here’s a quick video I made about Spatial Learning:
A human graph and true or false?
Do you want to know the opinions of your students on a subject matter? Maybe you’re taking a survey (e.g. which day is the best for canteen food). Maybe you have a list of multiple choice questions and you want a fun way to get the kids through them.
A human graph might be the right tool for you!
What if you just want to quickly check your students’ conceptual understandings (e.g. as a plenary)? You could ask some true/false questions and get the kids to raise their hands, or you could use a way cooler (and more fun) method!
Choose one wall to be the ‘True’ wall and one to be the ‘False’ wall. Once you’ve asked the question, get the kids to walk to the correct wall. It’s that simple! Just make sure that the kids walk back to the middle of the classroom before each question.
This great illustration from Pop shows you the steps to take for each of these activities:
Body numbers
Do your kids need to express numerical answers sometimes? Maybe they need to work out a percentage or a fraction, or translate numbers from one language into another. Maybe they need to express something in Binary Code. Well it’s time to put pen and paper down and get your kids moving!
Turn your students into ‘human numbers’ by following Pop’s beautifully illustrated instructions:
For double and triple-digit numbers you can put students into groups for added fun!
Modelling
The vast majority of the Spatial Learning I do involves modelling a situation, concept or solution. Like the example I gave earlier about the electrons travelling around the circuit, the students actually become the things that you’re teaching about.
Ifind that almost everything I teach can be modelled spatially in one form or another.
I’ll provide some examples to show just how easy it is, with just a little creativity, to turn any monotonous textbook paragraph into a living, breathing, exciting and stimulating task.
Modelling example one: Diffusion
Textbook definition:Diffusion is the passive movement of liquid or gas particles from a region of high particle concentration to a region of low particle concentration. The speed of diffusion of any given particle is dependent on its molecular mass. This means that a particle of ammonia, for example, will diffuse faster than a particle of hydrogen chloride as ammonia is the lighter of the two particles.
Modelling activity:As you can see, the textbook definition is rather hard to swallow.So, to jazz things up a little, you can turn the students into ammonia and hydrogen chloride particles and tell them to diffuse! In this activity, the students simply walk across the classroom at different speeds, depending on which molecule they are. Quick, easy to do and a nice break from writing, reading and listening to a lecture. More importantly: it’s really useful as a tool to help kids understand this concept.
See this illustration I drew below (my art work is dire compared to Pop’s, so I hope it’s understandable!):
Modelling example two: A Typical Home Network
In an attempt to show you just how pliable spatial learning is, I’ve designed a task for a subject area I don’t specialise in: ICT
Concept:A typical home network may be wired, wireless or a combination of both. Hardware components process and convey the data message from from part of the network to another.
Spatial learning task:For this task you need moving and stationary students. The stationary students stand at predetermined positions in the classroom (you can put signs on desks or on walls to help). These students represent the hardware. The rest of the students are the ‘data message’, and they move from one component to another. I hope the illustration below helps you to see just how easy this is to implement and how much fun it can be. Students should shout out the name of the hardware component they reach at each stage as they walk around the room.
Can you think think of ways to use modelling in your subject area?
Further reading
Mydebut bookis filled with great spatial learning and active engagement tips. After the enormous success of that book I’ve decided to work on a new book that will be released mid-2018 which goes into even greater depth and breadth about the range of classroom management tactics available to teachers. Also, if you’re looking for a great book to build up spatial learning skills in small children, then I strongly recommend Julie Dillemuth’sLucy in the City:
“Feedback functions formatively only if the information fed back to the learner is used by the learner in improving performance.” Dylan Wiliam, Embedded Formative Assessment
A half-term has ended and so much has happened already! New students, new classes, new systems, new parents and maybe even a new school.
If you’re like me: following a British/American academic year, then you’ve probably given your older kids some mid-term exams. In my case, I’ve already had a parent’s consultation evening in which I could discuss the results.
This time of the academic year is a great opportunity to assess your students in some way. It allows you to identify problems early on, so that you can ‘nip them in the bud’, so to speak.
“An AMAZING book! 5 stars!”
One key problem area for many students is their use of subject-specific language in examinations. Mark Schemes for external exams, such as iGCSEs, GCSEs, ‘A’ – Levels, the IB Diploma and many others, are often very rigorous with no room for compromise when it comes to key words.
In short, if students don’t use the correct subject-specific terminology, then they perform poorly in examinations. This is a problem that native English speakers often face, as well as students with English as an Additional Language (EAL).
What follows next are my top three strategies for helping students learn key words. I hope you find them useful, and if you have any strategies that you really like then please do comment using the form at the bottom of the page.
#1: Vocabulary Journals
I already have a number of students who I’ve identified as needing one of these. It’s such an effective way to boost confidence and performance, but it does require a bit of organisation and leadership from the teacher. Here are the steps:
Step 1:Tell the students to get a special notebook. It doesn’t need to be fancy. Just a cheap spiral bound one will do just fine.
Step 2:The students should divide the first page into three columns:
Key word
Meaning
Pronunciation
For example: Moment, The force applied to a lever multiplied by the distance from the pivot, mo-men-t
For an EAL student you can include a fourth column:
Translation
In this column, the student can write the word in his/her native language.
Step 3:The students should write down the key words they learn every week into this journal, along with all of the other information.
Step 4:CRUCIAL! The key words and information must be CHECKED every week. Check the words, the meaning and the pronunciation (you can even get the students to say the words to you – this reinforces their memory of the terminology).
For native translations you may have to simply trust the students with that one. You could possibly spot check these every so often with an MfL teacher, but that’s not always possible (e.g. if the native language of the student is Japanese, but the school doesn’t have a Japanese teacher).
To save you time, you could get small groups of students to check each others’ journals. This would also work well with groups of EAL students who all speak the same native language.
JOUNALING IS SUCH A POWERFUL TEACHING TOOL, BUT IT IS SELDOM USED BY TEACHERS! Make use of it!
#2: Play Vocabulary Games
I’m a HUGE advocate of these. They are so much fun, and can be used by students of almost any age! Here are may favorites:
Splat
This quick game is so easy: all you need is a whiteboard, whiteboard markers and class of kids. It’s a great game for consolidating key vocabulary, and is perfect for E.A.L. learners.
Here’s a short video showing a quick clip of me playing ‘Splat’ with my students (I will include some more lengthy clips soon, but this is a good start):
Mystery Word
Another easy game. This time, students randomly pick out written words from a hat (or cup, beaker, container, etc.), and then they have to explain their word to the class (without saying the word). The students who are listening have to guess what the word is.
Who am I?
A very simple game. All you need are post-it notes and a class full of energized students! Great fun. Perfect for reinforcing key vocabulary and concepts.
There are some more games that you can play with too (no pun intended). Details can be found at my blog post here. Also, if you’re looking for a great book filled with practical and easy-to-implement vocabulary games, then check out this great book (one of my favourites): Vocabulary Games for the Classroom by Lindsay Carleton and Robert J. Marzano.
#3: Highlight key words in your marking
There’s a number of ways that this can be done:
Refer to key words by writing questions on the piece of work (e.g. what’s the name of this part?)
You could highlight less technical terminology and get the students to make it more technical (e.g. ‘movement energy’ becomes ‘kinetic energy’)
You could circle key words that are spelt incorrectly and get the kids to look them up online or in a dictionary, and change the spelling
You could do some peer assessment and get all the kids to write down words spelt or written incorrectly on little bits of paper. These words can then be your ‘feeder vocabulary’ for the games given above.
Your school may have it’s own strategy for key words, so check that first!
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Illustrated by Pop Sutthiya Lertyongphati (a former student of mine, and a key illustrator in mybook). You can e-mail her at popslittlespace@gmail.com if you’d like her to do some beautiful illustration work for you!
The start of a new academic year at any school is usually very hectic, especially if you’re starting somewhere new. With fresh classes, new systems, new students, new workload demands and a new timetable, it’s easy to become overwhelmed.
Falling behind on your teaching schedule (i.e. the topics you’re supposed to cover and when), is easily done. Sometimes it’s unavoidable, like when the floods hit Bangkok in 2011 and schools were closed for two weeks, or when you have to go on a residential or field trip. Sometimes it’s a symptom of getting used to life at school, and adapting to new changes.
Don’t feel guilty
Falling behind schedule happens to every teacher at some, or multiple points, in our careers. Don’t beat yourself up – accept what’s happened and use the prevention and cure strategies in this article to solve the issue quickly and easily.
Fundamentals: The Curriculum Map
In order to know whether you’re behind schedule in the first place, you’ll need curriculum maps set up for each of your classes.
A curriculum map is basically a long-term plan for each class for the whole academic year. It doesn’t have to be fancy – even a table drawn on paper is enough. However, a good curriculum map should show the topics you intend to teach each month, or week, of the academic year. These topics should be linked to the textbook you are using in class or the syllabus you are following or both.
A curriculum map doesn’t need to be complicated
Once your curriculum maps are set up, and you know what you should be teaching and when, you can start using these prevention strategies which will enable you to keep on schedule for the rest of the year.
Prevention Strategies
These can be used at any point in the year, as you may be behind, or ahead of schedule (a topic for another blog post?), at multiple points during the academic year.
Set time aside each week to plan ahead
When I first qualified as a teacher I used to plan my lessons day-by-day. This was not a good strategy, as I found it hard to gain a long-term focus for my planning, which sometimes caused me to fall behind.
Now I set aside time every Sunday afternoon to plan all of my lessons for the week ahead. However, I don’t just simply scribble activities into each and every box in my planner. I ask myself these five questions for every class:
Let’s take a look at the curriculum map. Am I on schedule?
Where are the kids up to now?
Where do they need to be by the end of the week?
Has anyone missed any lessons (including me?). How can we catch up?
Which new activities or games should I use this week, which I haven’t used for a while? (Great ideas for learning games and differentiation tips can be found here, here and here).
Going through these five steps allows me to not only plan lessons which are enjoyable, tailor-made and meaningful, but also allows me to keep up with the pace of the curriculum.
I addition to this, some extra strategies are sometimes needed to fully answer to above five questions. Let’s take a look at those strategies now.
Set up a marking timetable
I know this is probably not a popular way to phrase a sub-heading, but please stay with me and you’ll see the immense benefits that this strategy has.
For this current academic year, I am teaching 8 different classes. Obviously, I see those classes at different points during a typical week, so I spread out my marking as follows:
Year 11 on Monday
Year 9 and 10 class 1 and 2 on Tuesday
Year 13 on Wednesday
Year 7 and Year 10 class 3 on Thursday
Year 12 on Friday
Okay, so you get the idea of what a marking timetable looks like. How does this help you to keep your teaching on schedule?
You’re constantly checking the students’ books to see if they have covered exactly what you think they’ve covered. Sometimes it can be easy to lose track of where your kids are at, especially if you have multiple classes to teach. Sometimes planner or VLE (Virtual Learning Environment) records are not enough – you need to check if the kids have actually UNDERSTOOD what you taught them.
It doesn’t take long to do if you do it each day and spread it out. A quick glance may be all you need to see where the kids are at.
My grandad was a very keen and competent gardener. He lived by theLittle And Often Principle: “I do a little bit of gardening, every day, so that I don’t have a load of weeding and pruning to do every Sunday”is what he used to say.
I like that idea.
Make sure that your marking timetable fits in well with your school’s homework timetable (if they have one) and your free-time.
Other benefits of having a marking timetable are as follows:
You’ll get to know the writing, presentation and artistic styles of your new students really quickly.
Checking through the students’ books and homework yourself is one way to quickly memorise new names
It allows opportunity to provide written and verbal praise, which helps you to build rapport
Set meaningful and robust cover work
Whether you’re out on a school trip, ill with the cold or attending PD overseas, your cover work should aim to minimise re-teaching when you come back.
Some teachers fall into the common trap of setting work that keeps students occupied or entertained, rather than work that challenges the students or covers new material.
It is understandable why some teachers are reluctant to give new content as cover work – if you’re a subject specialist who’s away from school, then it’s likely that your class will be supervised by a non-specialist.
But does that mean you should make your cover work easy?
If you want to avoid being behind schedule, then set cover work that covers some of the syllabus that the kids would normally learn if you were at school.
For example, I was just recently away for three days on an Outdoor Expedition trip. I asked my Year 12 class to complete the End of Chapter questions on Atomic Structure – a challenging task since they haven’t quite learnt everything about successive ionization energies yet. When I go back to school tomorrow, I’ll check their books to see how far they got and to see if they could do the successive ionization energies question.
If they could all do it, then congrats – the kids have taught themselves some new knowledge whilst I was away. I can quickly go through that question and move on.
If some couldn’t do it, then I’ll take those individuals aside during a class activity and go through it with them.
If they all couldn’t do it, then I know that my cover work was too challenging (or the kids chose to slack off whilst I was there). However, now that I know the kids really well, I can gauge that my cover work wasn’t too challenging (a skill that takes experience to master). If all of the kids couldn’t do it, then I’ll have to spend time to teach that topic to them again.
Bottom line – Cover work should aim to teach, not just to entertain.
Keep spares
A basic one this, and more for individual kids who have missed classes.
If you’ve handed out worksheets or paper-based homework in class, then keep the same sheets in some kind of filing cabinet or folder. When the kid comes back, you can hand him or her the work that he or she needs to catch up on.
Even better – put everything on a VLE. Good systems include Google Classroom® (which is virtually free of charge), Firefly® and Moodle®.
Stick to the syllabus
We all want to enrich our lessons with real-life examples, practical work, field-trips, case-studies and projects (which are all great and all have their place in teaching). However, it can be easy to get carried away a bit.
I made the mistake of doing this in my NQT (Newly Qualified Teacher) year – my first year of teaching. I was going through genetic diseases with a Year 11 Biology class, and I decided to teach them about Huntington’s Chorea when it wasn’t on the syllabus.
“An AMAZING Book!”
Whilst it was nice for these kids to have another example of a genetic disease in their toolkit, and they found it interesting too, they weren’t going to be examined on it. I basically wasted a lesson teaching them this.
The odd lesson here or there of additional material isn’t usually a major problem, but large periods of time need to be considered more carefully. Do your kids really need one week to complete a recycling project, or will one lesson give them enough material for their test or exam?
Plan your enrichment material carefully. Make sure it fits into your curriculum map without disrupting the flow of the main syllabus content. Ideally, enrichment activities should embed and enhance the curriculum, not digress from it.
Use focussed resources
Have you ever produced a worksheet or resource that was designed for a slightly different course, but you had little time so you set it anyway? I’ve done this in the past, especially when I was just starting out as a teacher, and it usually has one or more consequences:
There will be a question or two that the kids can’t do, and you’ll need to spend extra time explaining the theory behind those questions
The kids may spend too long on the worksheet or activity, eating into valuable teaching time
The kids will get confused about what they actually need to know, and what they should revise for their test or exam
There is a flip-side to this though – some resources designed for the same topic but other exam boards can be used as extension material – stretching you’re best learners to excel in the lesson. Just be sure to specify though – “Everyone should do questions 1-5 in 10 minutes. Questions 6 and 7 are bonus questions if you finish early”
Behind Schedule Cures
But what if you’re already behind schedule (whether or not it is your fault)? How do you get back on track?
Play accelerated learning games
There are some activities you can do in class which speeds up the amount of content learnt per lesson. My two favourites aremarketplace activities, and the Poster Game (given below).
Possibly the most fun and competitive game I’ve ever invented for teaching new content. You’ll need space for the kids to walk/run, and the game does take some prep. However, once you (and your students) become used to playing this game you’ll find that it’s a doddle to set up in no time at all.
Set homework
Can some of the simpler stuff be given as homework? If you’re behind schedule with your teaching, then this could prove to be a useful tactic. Just be sure to check the work quickly to make sure that no-one is left behind.
Sharing a class? Speak to your partner!
If you share a class with another teacher, then be open and honest and tell them that you are behind schedule. Two heads are better than one, and together you may be able to find a creative solution to the problem (e.g. the other teacher might be able to cover the missed material, while you progress to the next topic).
Assign extra time
This might be your only option if you are far behind and exams are approaching. Sometimes this happens through no fault of our own, and sometimes we’ve just gone too slow (which could be the result of multiple causes, some of which may be beyond our control).
You may need to find out when all of your kids are free, and give them some extra sessions. After school, lunchtimes, school holidays and weekends can often be used.
The last resort, but still an option.
Speak with your head of department
If you are really struggling to keep up and are finding that the pace of your lessons is not adequate to meet the demands of the curriculum map (despite trying the tactics I’ve mentioned), then speak with your line manager as soon as possible.
You’ll be seen as more mature, focussed and trustworthy by owning up to the problem than trying to sweep it under the carpet. What’s worse – a discussion with your HoD at the beginning, or multiple problems towards the end the academic year?
Your HoD should sympathize with you and offer a suite of solutions, some of which you may never have thought about. You may be going too slow because behavior management is taking up too much time, or maybe your kids just find learning a challenge in general.
Speak up and don’t be afraid. You’ll be respected for doing so.
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