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starters

How to start a lesson

2017-07-29T10:58:51+01:00July 29th, 2017|Featured|

Starters are, as the name suggests, meant to start off your lesson and engage students in some sort of learning related activity the moment they shuffle though your classroom door. I’ve seen (and been responsible for) countless starter activities either projected (or written in the old days) on the board or scattered over desks. This ensures the keen beans who arrive early don’t have to lose precious learning time while they wait for the cool cohort who will cut it is fine as you allow ’em to. Back in 2002 I moved to a new school and was given as a welcome present 101 [...]

Learning Journeys

2011-09-21T22:00:27+01:00September 21st, 2011|learning|

Last month I wrote a post asking whether there was a point to starters. Luckily for me, Darren Mead got in touch to tell me about what he has termed Learning Journeys. Ever since I've been absolutely smitten. The idea is incredibly simple: at the beginning of the lesson, provide students with a visual representation of the learning which will take place during the lesson. That's it. A visual learning objective. Geoff Petty in his book Evidence Based Teaching shows that using this strategy along with a traditional learning objective plus an activity which links to students' prior learning has an effect [...]

Is the starter finished?

2011-09-03T22:15:56+01:00September 3rd, 2011|Featured|

For as long as I've been teaching (12 years) the received wisdom on the 'right' way to teach is to deliver a three, then four (or even five) part lesson: starter, guided bit where teacher is allowed to talk, main course and pudding. Sorry, too juvenile to resist. Last of the four, but in no way the least, is of course the plenary. There's lots I could say about the efficacy of this structure, but broadly speaking I'm not too concerned: yes it may have been a shot across the bows of the professionalism of teachers, but it's certainly helped to [...]

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