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Increasing challenge and engagement
I'll take your C and raise you 4 Cs
Competition, Choice, Collaboration or Crutch?
COMPETITION
'The healthiest competition occurs when average people win by putting in above average effort.'
- When returning student work I display a power point slide with 2-3 stars and students names in each. These students have impressed me with their work and deserve a worthy mention and acknowledgement from their peers (leading others in the class to question why they aren't in a star and hopefully working towards being in one next lesson).
- Following on from this, and when time allows, I display a second slide with an exemplar of student work (taken so swiftly and easily by my IPad and transferred to my PC via dropbox, email or whatever method you most prefer). How can we expect students to be right if they don't know what right looks like?
- John introduced a competitive grid with his Year 13 Economics class, which I have since followed suit with. Every time a student makes a valuable contribution or goes above and beyond in lessons they receive a point and then at the end of term the winner can be rewarded/celebrated or just bask in the glory of knowing that he/she has outdone his/her peers.
- Oh and what student does not delight in seeing a sticker on his/her work!!! My Year 13s have proved to me you are never too old to receive stickers.
Collaboration
'Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much'
- Pre-planning groups
- Role cards
- Number/Colour cards
Planning your groups
To ensure all students are engaged, assign role cards or even better double up and place roles on the back of your number cards so stronger students can have more challenging roles etc..
The ideal collaborator
Choice
It is only when you exercise your right to choose that you can also exercise your right to change.
In presenting learning outcomes Zoe disregards the importance of 'what' we are learning, believing 'why' and 'how' we are learning this to be more important. Now when presenting learning outcomes I ask students why they think we are learning this, will it be important in future life, does it relate to anything else they have learnt etc and once they understand and agree on why it is being learnt, we discuss what would be the best way to learn it (how?).
I believe there is always more than one way to present work and so by providing students with the tools to make choices about how their work will be presented and how they will achieve the learning outcome(s), they become more motivated and engaged. They aren't 'forced' to learn one way, they have been involved in the decision making process and they are learning how to make the best decisions to suit their learning styles.
In addition to this, I have tried to add choice by amending how learning outcomes are presented, allowing students to decide what level they will work out and have a plethora of template sheets in my classroom that students can select from to present their work (another brilliant idea introduced to the department by John).