#TLAB14 – my workshop on Creative GCSE Geography & Literacy

Here is the slideshow from my workshop at the #TLAB14 conference yesterday. Although aimed at Geography teachers, it might be useful to others for generic revision games and literacy support.

Here’s a vague commentary for the slides:

Slide 3-5. Messy rivers. In groups, students have a bagful of river sediment, piece of A3 paper and some keywords. They have to create a river cross-section from upper to lower course by putting sediment and keywords into the correct location.

Slide 6: River stories. After the messy bit (or just as another activity instead), get students to produce a written story describing the journey down river having to describe the changes & use key terms but in a creative writing sense (moving from the birth of a juvenile energetic river to sluggish middle age to the very end in old age).

Slide 7-9. Bunting! Not my own idea I confess but I love it. Put topics into a hat, then each student draws one or two out and has to produce a piece of revision bunting to be shared. Gives them ownership & remind them of corporate responsibility. I was surprised at how much the kids got into this last time, they really enjoyed it and produced quality summaries.

Slide 10-13. Cake modelling! Every good geographer has at some point come across the wave cut platform cake model from Tony Cassidy. The only addition here was that I had taught basic wave cut platform theory, then I just gave students some resources and as a group they had to produce a demonstration of how the landform is created. They had: mini whiteboards, paper, pens, mini cakes, sweets. Then they presented to each other and peer assessed. Then we eat cake (new cake, not played with!)

Slide 15-17. Jenga! You can use Jenga (or non brand specific) in lots of ways. For example: 1)Keyword / fact jenga – label pieces and then play the game. Teacher / student reads out a definition, player has to retract the piece that matches the definition. Competition to build tallest tower if played in groups. 2)Use coloured dots / coloured jenga and each colour corresponds to a different theme. Students are given a topic e.g. Hurricane Katrina. When they take out a piece, whatever colour they take they must give an appropriate response. E.g. Red correlates to fact, green correlates to causes, yellow corresponds to impacts, blue corresponds to responses, etc,.

Slide 18-21. Twister! Alternative versions, e.g. 1)Play the game in small groups. Within each group you have a quizmaster. Each time a player moves to a new spot, they have to correctly answer a question (e.g. define a word, recall a key fact, etc,.). If incorrect then spin the spinner again and have to move to a new spot and keep answering Qs until correct. 2)Assign points to different spots. Have differentiated questions worth different points. Students play the game and accumulate points depending on how hard the question is that they answer. Highest points win. Once back in the classroom for whatever option, I always get them to do exam case study questions timed to formalise it – and have been so impressed with how much better their responses have been.

Slide 22-24. Balloons? Various uses. E.g. 1)one student writes a question on the balloon, then throws to someone else who then answers the question and passes on. 2)Get students to draw a world map around the balloon to get across the idea of sphericity / world layout. 3)Create concept maps with lots of interlinking by drawing around the balloon to encourage links right round.

Slide 25-26. Musical chairs. Different options: 1) as the music plays move around and have to read key facts / study a stimulus image…when the music stops they have to answer an exam question. 2) have exam Qs stuck to the back of the chairs (no peeking), keep cycling through and when music stops have to answer the exam Q on whiteboards, etc,.

Slide 27-29. Paper planes. Two versions I’ve used. 1) Students write a question on a piece of paper, fold into a plane, throw at another student, who has to answer. 2) AfL. Fold up an example case study answer (either a model one or one the kids have just written). Throw around room to three different students who then highlight one per go with different colours for use of key terms, developed points, place specific fact. Throw to one final student who gives the question an overall score and final comment.

Slide 32-34. Creative writing & song. Dear John letters to develop explanations and literacy, but with Bingo for keywords. Can be about any topic. Similar for songs, e.g. writing a song to describe tectonic plate movement.

Slide 36. VCOP. Support and guide with literacy. Especially good for lower ability and for structuring extended writing.

Slide 38. PEEL flowcharts. Modelling how to write a 3 developed point answer (like for case study 9 mark questions) through a flow chart built around the PEEL structure.

Slide 41. Learning grids. Students roll two dice to get a coordinate, this then randomly selects what information to include in a piece of extended writing. Repeat as many times as you like (I usually do 3-4 times) and then they must include that criteria in their writing. Also good to use in reverse for AfL: get students to mark on the grid which criteria they think they have met and then when you mark the work you can highlight whether they have actually met this criteria or not, then use in your feedback.

Slide 43-44. SOLO structured thinking. The idea of SOLO being a move from simplistic basic responses and understanding to being more complex with interlinks. I tend to rename the different stages to: 1)Unclear  2) One idea  3) Many ideas  4) Interlinking many ideas  5) Analysing and interpreting these many ideas in different ways. This structure can be used to structure notes / plan essays or for AfL

Slide 45-47. SOLO hexagons. Hexagons allow you to tessellate in 6 directions to demonstrate multiple links. e.g. in this example as a group we had blue statements that were the impacts of difficult environments and in red the causes of these difficulties. Then they have to tessellate to make multiple links in preparation for extended writing.

Model the idea of essay structuring to class. Students to write down as much as possible as they can about a case study on each hexagon. Those aiming for B+ should be making multiple connections between these facts / statements. Then use these hexagons to structure an extended writing piece. Remind to use connectives between.

Slide 48. Sentence escalator. Sentence escalation. Kind of like ‘Chinese whispers’ to start then turning into written sentences.

Slide 49. Story cubes. Laminated dice allow you to swap in and out different images / words / facts. Students throw the dice and have to respond to whatever they see.

Slide 50-51. Revision cube. Students roll the dice and have to revise & produce a resource on whatever it lands on. Can make template online here


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