Thursday, 31 March 2016

Weekly Teaching and Learning Email - Questioning and Engagement Strategies

Dear Colleagues,

Your group challenge was to solve the problem of 15% of students not answering a question in lessons.  Thank you for making this an easy email to write as these are all your ideas and suggestions.

Using a ball or cuddly toy or nominate
The teacher can pass a ball/toy to a student after posing a question.  After the teacher is satisfied that the question has been answered the student can then pass the ball/toy or nominate the next student.  This could be linked to snowballing as described by Mr Ashley allowing the next student to build on the first response.

Name Pencils/Lollipops/Random Name Generator
Very similar to the deck of cards idea described by Mr Ashley.  Each of these allows for each student to be asked a question during the lesson.  After a student has answered a question their name could be returned to the box or they can be put down to one side.  I would caution against putting them to one side as the student may think they no longer have to answer a question and as a result ‘switch off’.
I’ve also included a link to an example of a Class Tools random name generator:

Use of external rewards
Students could be provided with an incentive such as a Dojo Point, free homework pass (which they can redeem at any point), a Magnum ice cream or any other reward to encourage them to engage and attempt to answer the question.

Use of entry/exit tickets
There is some more information on the blog about exit tickets which you can read by clicking on the link below.  They are an excellent resource and can really help planning for the next lesson as each student must complete the exit ticket before leaving.

Use of eldest to youngest
A good way to involve all the students.

Thank you for your excellent suggestions, I hope these strategies will encourage greater student involvement and learning from our lessons.

Best regards,
Neil

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