teaching.mrbelshaw.co.uk

WARNING! This website is no longer actively maintained. It is an archive of 2 years work by Doug Belshaw who now blogs at dougbelshaw.com...

I’m not saying all my lessons are perfect or by following this your lessons will be, but here’s 5 things which others have specifically commented on as being good practice when observing my lessons:

1. Student involvement

Get them doing things which you’d usually do. For example, ask two volunteers to write down what’s being brainstormed by the whole class on the whiteboard. If you give them different colour pens they could be responsible for different categories/branches of ideas. This leaves you free to be facing the class for the majority of the time.

2. Timings

I time everything after it was suggested to me by my PGCE tutor at Durham that pupils respond well to unusual timings. Telling someone they’ve ‘five minutes’ to do something doesn’t really mean anything as ‘five minutes’ is an everyday term which, in practice, just means ‘a relatively short amount of time’. Saying they have ‘four and a half minutes’ to do something, on the other hand, actually means something. Used in conjunction with the Excel-based countdown clock and a projector this can be very effective. Oh, and make sure you put the Countdown theme on for the last 30 seconds…

3. Referring to ways to improve work

I’ve got a Bloom’s Taxonomy/NC Levels mash-up on my wall which is available here. I tend refer to this at the start of a lesson when I’m going through the aims/objectives of a lesson (especially when being observed!). Along with the use of must/should/could, this usually leads to pupils striving to achieve the higher level that you’ve indicated.

4. Giving pupils options

We all know that pupils learn in a multitude of different ways, some having strong preferences for one learning style over another. Although it can mean extra work (although less so if we share), if you’ve an outcome you want pupils to achieve, why not give them the option of how to get there? This is differentiation by choice rather than ability and you may be surprised for which method certain pupils opt. For example, some pupils may enjoy comprehension questions followed by a mini-essay, whereas others may enjoy a more problem-based approach.

5. Can you improve on that answer?

A frequently-cited study showed that teachers, on average, give pupils less than a second to respond to a question. Thinking time is essential for cognitive development. This is one way of doing it:

i. Make sure all pupils in the class get to answer questions - this could be done by putting all the names in a hat and drawing one out when you have a question to ask.

ii. Ask a question and then tell them they’ve got 30 seconds to think about it or talk about it to their partner and then you will choose someone (talking about it with someone else before answering relieves the pressure of getting it ‘wrong’).

iii. Ask the question in the most open-ended way possible. Once they’ve finished, give them time to improve on the answer.

iv. ‘Open it up to the floor’ and ask the rest of the class if they can improve on the answer.

v. A pupil could be writing the elements of everyone’s ideas on the board whilst these questions are being asked - they could be the ’scribe’ for the lesson.

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