Creative Teaching Quick fixes and things to ponder

Creative Teaching – Quick fixes and things to ponder. Oakham School Festival of Learning 4 June 2019 Susanna Boyd (SMB)

Quick Fixes – Starters and Plenaries 1. Controversial statements or questions ‘The world has enough resources for everyone – the problem is that everyone is selfish’. ‘Trigonometry is the most important thing you will ever learn in your life’ ‘Those who do not learn from History are doomed to repeat it’ 2. Pause for thought ‘How could we calculate the value of human life? ’ ‘What would the ultimate ecologically friendly building material be like? ‘Is democracy really the best of all possible systems? ’

Quick Fixes – Starters and Plenaries 2. Pause for thought ‘How could we calculate the value of human life? ’ ‘What would the ultimate ecologically friendly building material be like? ‘Is democracy really the best of all possible systems? ’

Quick Fixes – Starters and Plenaries 4. What is this concept most like? e. g. ‘The experience of evacuees in WW 2 was most like…? Because…? ’

Longer Activities 2. Sound it out, act it out

Longer Activities 3. Hot Seat or 20 questions Respiration

Longer Activities 5. Human timeline

Whole lesson ideas 1. Mysteries

Whole lesson ideas 2. Marooned

Whole lesson ideas 3. Working it out for yourself Today we need to revise Ecosystems for the test on Friday. How can we do this? How do we find out what is on the test? Where do we find the knowledge? How do we apply it to the test? What is the best way to revise?

Whole lesson ideas 4. De Bono’s hats Different philosophical perspectives e. g. Utilitarian, Marxist Different cross-curricular considerations needed to solve a task e. g. mathematical calculations, inference skills, understanding of system behaviour Different attitudes to learning e. g. Organisation, Metacognition, Technical skills, Use of key words Different sections of a piece of written work e. g. introduction, analytical focus, evidence from sources

Whole lesson ideas 5. Student teaching Put students in groups or pairs and give them a particular topic to teach. They could: 1. Produce summary notes with key pages/resource references 2. Produce activities and a powerpoint 3. Create a test and a mark scheme Warning! This could be better as a revision exercise for some students as at least you can hope the material was taught properly the first time! Teachers will also need to carefully monitor progress, so a series of preps to get to the end point might be wise.

Over to you! Choose one of the activities from the list and discuss with a partner how you might embed this in your teaching.

• https: //www. britishcouncil. org/voices-magazine/eight-steps -becoming-more-creative-teacher • http: //www. teachingenglish. org. uk/sites/teacheng/files/Cre ativity. pdf • http: //www. sec-ed. co. uk/best-practice/creative-learningcreative-teaching/ • https: //www. steveslearning. com/Teacher%20 Training%20 resources/cremin. pdf • http: //www. celt. iastate. edu/teaching-format/14 creative-ways-to-engage-students/