Games to play instead of playing the worksheet game

Most games involve collaboration, often in the possibly contradictory form of competition. The benefits of playing games stretch beyond the curriculum (in its smaller, National Curriculum sense): pupils can develop strategic thinking, memorising skills, logical reasoning and more.  Pupils will probably engage more enthusiastically with games than with worksheets.  Games allow you to recycle materials: instead of photocopying all those worksheets you could invest in a few reusable resources.  You still need to think about what you want children to achieve in the lesson and decide how the game needs to be adapted.  Here are some suggestions:

Pelmanism.  Infinite variations of the turn-over-two-cards-to-find-a-matching-pair game. Find a pair of adverbs...a pair of prime numbers...a pair of parallelograms...  Some more ideas here: http://edition.tefl.net/ideas/games/32-variations-on-pelmanism/

Consequences.  Pupils collaboratively generate sentences or simple story structures.  Opportunities to practice using speech marks and other punctuation.  The rules are here: http://m.wikihow.com/Play-Consequences

I went to the shop.  Adaptable memory game, with opportunities to develop simple extended sentences and lists; opportunities to practice use of indefinite article.  Child 1: "I went to the shop and bought an apple."  Child 2: "I went to the shop and bought an apple and a banana."  Child 3: "I went to the shop and bought an apple, a banana and a concertina."  Some further suggestions here: http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/language-assistant/games/i-went-shops

Guess Who.  (I've never understood what the question mark is doing there.) Encourages pupils to frame questions ("Does your person have a red beard?" etc.), supports comprehension development, and logical reasoning.  What more could you ask?  For more ideas see: http://www.speech-language-development.com/guess-who.html

Top Trumps.  Develops strategic thinking, interpretation of information texts, retention of facts.  The National Children's Bureau evaluation of the Schools Top Trumps Tournament (2011) concluded that playing Top Trumps had "positive learning outcomes for children in terms of literacy, numeracy and decision-making skills".

Mastermind.  Develop logic skills, design effective experiments, and discuss scientific reasoning in the classroom.  Have a look at Strom and Barolo's paper, "Using the Game of Mastermind to Teach, Practice, and Discuss Scientific Reasoning Skills" (2011).  

9 things you could do instead of using a worksheet

1. Understanding word problems.  Pupils could create their own sets of questions (based on a question/process you've modelled). You may need to provide some word/phrase banks to get them started.  They can swap the questions amongst themselves and respond.  They can evaluate the questions - if they're too easy they can try to work out how to make them harder.  

2.  Understanding sentence construction or parts of speech.  Pupils could collaboratively generate sentences, passing folded pieces of paper around the table (in the style of consequences).  Each child starts the sentence with a name or article + noun ("John" or "The house", for example) then folds the paper to hide the word/phrase and passes the paper to the child to the left who writes a verb ("runs" or "contemplated", for example).  The round continues (you'll have several pieces of paper circulating at once), with at each stop the addition of another part of speech.  The next one could be adverb ("cautiously" or "often", for example).  You decide an end point and then open up the pieces of paper to reveal the sentences: "John runs cautiously."  "The house contemplated often."  You could add further rules: For this round each word must begin with a T.

3.  Articulating knowledge about a subject.  Pupils could create a mind map or a poster or a display or a presentation.

4. Measuring (length, area, perimeter, etc).  Pupils could draw shapes then find the perimeter or area.  Squared paper might be useful.  Pupils could draw shapes with a perimeter of precisely x cm.  How many rectangles can you draw with a perimeter of precisely 12 cm? 

5.  Presenting research.  Pupils could design their own templates for presenting findings (and then use and evaluate them).

6.  Sentence construction.  Provide a stimulus (a picture, for example) and get pupils to describe what they see.  In the distance there is a snow-capped mountain.  Beside the river a small man with a dog is walking.  This should be a speaking and listening activity, at least to start with.  If children can construct sentences through talk they'll have a better chance of being able to write sentences on paper.

7.  Practising mathematical operations.  Give pupils selections of numbers.  They choose which ones to use to practice the operation you've been working on.  They understand the meaning of challenge (because you have high expectations and have ensured that learning is challenging), so if they find practising with a certain set of numbers too easy, they know to look for numbers that present a more demanding challenge.

8.  Articulating knowledge/understanding/opinion derived from an image/map/artefact. Pupils could think and talk about what they see.  Like you would.  Adults don't look at maps, or paintings, or a Ming dynasty jug, or listen to a piece of music and then fill in a worksheet - they think and talk...about how long it might take to drive from San Diego to Yosemite, about what makes Duchamp's Fountain art, about the blue and white dragon handle, about whether Andy Williams is better than Pharrell Williams.  To facilitate this with children you'll need to get them to think about questions.  And you'll need to model ways of talking about images and artefacts.

Fountain (1917) attributed to Marcel Duchamp

Dragon-handled jug Ming dynasty, early 15th century CE

9.  Practising mathematical operations II.  Here's the answer.  What's the question?  How many different ways can you make x?  Or you could add rules to make it into an investigation: How many ways can you make 48 by multiplying two numbers together?  ...Three different numbers together? ...Four different numbers together?  Is there a pattern?  What is it?  Can you work out the formula?

Working with a group - what's your teaching role?

There's been some whole class input, perhaps, and now pupils are working in groups.  You're working with one of these groups.  What should you be doing?

Fundamentally you’re accountable for the pupils’ progress during this activity (TS2).  Note: the important thing isn’t that the pupils complete the activity they’ve been set – there's no Teachers' Standard that requires you to ensure that pupils complete activities.  The significant thing is that pupils make progress: by the end of a successful lesson pupils will have acquired something (a skill, knowledge, understanding) which they didn't have at the start.   If the activity is driven by the learning outcome then completion of the activity and making progress are one and the same thing.  But if the activity is just a filler - an apparently related task that pupils spend 20-25 minutes doing in the middle of the lesson that doesn’t in itself contribute to progress – then you'll need to adjust the activity as you teach it in order to secure progress (and then make sure that subsequent planned activities are intrinsically linked to pupil progress).  If you think your only role is to ensure task completion, you’re thinking of yourself as a task manager.  You’re not a task manager, you’re a teacher.  So teach.

Accurate and productive use of assessment is central to your teaching role (TS6).  Make sure that when you work with a group you have the means to record what you observe, and use this information to monitor progress, set targets, and plan subsequent lessons. 

The further suggestions below assume that the activity is fundamentally of  value, i.e. the activity contributes to pupil progress.  The character of each intervention (left-hand column) will depends on your personal approach, your choice of words, tone, gesture, balance of listening and talking, use of resources, etc. There are, for example, as many ways of making the activity more challenging as there are shades of grey.  The middle column links the intervention to the Teachers' Standards.  The right-hand column suggests a more pupil-centred approach to the intervention with a further asterisked link to the Teachers' Standards.

What if...

All the pupils know what’s required and are doing it or 

one/some/all of the pupils complete the task/activity very quickly?

One/some/all of the pupils don’t know what to do?

One/some/all of the pupils are disengaged?

There's insufficient time for one/some/all pupils to complete the activity?

The activity requires collaboration but the pupils aren’t collaborating?

Learner-centred/teacher-centred - evaluating lessons 3

In other posts I've talked about how you could focus your lesson evaluation on learning and teaching or on inclusivity.  Another evaluative angle to take would be to consider the extent to which the lesson was learner- or teacher-centred.  In a learner-centred lesson, pupils will take a more active, participatory role; in a teacher-centred lesson, pupils will be more passive, with the teacher making most or all of the decisions.   Strictly speaking, there's no right or wrong here: a teacher-centred approach suits certain learning contexts, a learner-centred approach suits others.  (However, from other posts, you'll know that I lean towards a learner-centred model.)   Think about it as a continuum:

You could ask yourself  To what extent did the teacher- or learner-centredness of the lesson support the outcomes I was anticipating?  If, for example, you want pupils to generate ideas, you might have planned an active, participatory lesson in which pupils lead dialogue and devise their own key questions - in this context you as the teacher will have planned to take a back seat, perhaps a facilitating role.

It follows that the role of talk and the talker is central to both the teacher- and learner-centred models:

Mercer notes that “the history of educational practice shows that talk amongst students has rarely been incorporated into the process of classroom education… The reasonable explanation for the traditional discouragement of pupil-pupil talk is that…it is disruptive and subversive… So while the experience of everyday life supports the value of collaborative learning, educational practice has implicitly argued against it.” He was writing in 1995 - it would be good to think that we'd moved on.

 

Group mentality: thinking about 'group work'

Group work means working as a group.  It's something we understand and appreciate: many hands make light work, two brains are better than one.  (Too many cooks spoil the broth - there's always a counter argument.)  "Group work" implies collaboration.   Collaboration underpins learning and teaching.  Remember Vygotsky? ..."problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers”?

So when you think about group work, are you thinking about purposeful activities which pupils can complete collaboratively?  You may have planned an activity requiring pupils to contribute to a single outcome (a presentation, a solution, or a method).  Or the activity might be intrinsically collaborative (a game, or a challenge that involves combining a range of skills).  Or it might involve peer support or evaluation with pupils providing positive, constructive or critical feedback to each other (solid Assessment for Learning practice) in order to fulfil the requirements of the activity.  That's group work.

This kind of group activity doesn't just work.  You'll have to model it, perhaps give it some structure (hand out roles: scribe, spokesperson, manager, etc), set clear expectations, train pupils to collaborate effectively.  Once you've got this established, group work - collaborative group work - will pay dividends.

But if "group work" means "sitting at a table with five other pupils, each pupil working on an individual task", then it's individual work.  "Group work" used in this context is an organisational euphemism for the way pupils are distributed around the classroom.  It's to do with management rather than learning. That's fine, and it often makes sense for pupils to work without the explicit support of others.  But it's not group work.

What does play mean and how can you have play in your Key Stage 2 classroom?

Play is at the heart of what happens in the Early Years. The government agrees: “Play is essential for children’s development, building their confidence as they learn to explore, to think about problems, and relate to others. Children learn by leading their own play, and by taking part in play which is guided by adults” (DfE, 2014, p9).

Lindon (2002) suggests that play describes “the activities of children from babyhood until the early teenage years” and identifies some common characteristics:

•   Activities are chosen by the child
•    They can be done alone, but are often done with others
•    Play absorbs participants
•   There can be disagreements within play “about how the play should progress”

So how does play work in Key Stage 2 classrooms? It’s a rhetorical question – I’m making a point: play doesn’t happen in Key Stage 2 classrooms (nor in lots of Key Stage 1 classrooms).  It seems contradictory that in schools we are comfortable encouraging children aged 3-5 to lead, choose, collaborate (and sometimes disagree) and consequently be absorbed, but uncomfortable about allowing children aged 5-11 this kind of ownership (leadership, choice, opportunities to invite collaboration and to disagree with those they collaborate with).  Perhaps play is not seen as a legitimate use of time.  But these play characteristics are life skills.  Isn’t it the responsibility of teachers to foster these skills?

How could you start to introduce play into your key stage 2 (or Key Stage 1) classroom? * 

Provide opportunities for children to take the lead.  Children might

a.     generate sets of activities in response to specific learning objectives

b.      identify key questions to answer

c.      develop criteria for assessment

d.     make assessment decisions

e.     evaluate the success of activities

Provide opportunities for choice.  Children might choose

a.     from a selection of activities each of which enables them to demonstrate understanding/progress (see 1a)

b.     the order in which they complete a set of activities

c.      how to record an activity (by devising a chart or using a camera or a voice recorder)

d.     how they want to report back on an activity (through spoken word or PowerPoint or poster)

Provide opportunities for children to organise.  Children might

a.     devise rules which govern how activities are carried out (and go through a process of disagreement and discussion)

b.     distribute roles

c.      invite participation/collaboration

* These approaches require adult guidance initially (modelling, moderation, evaluation, feedback).  Children don’t automatically know how to do these things, but I would argue that activities such as these develop the types of play activities with which children in the Early Years are encouraged to engage.

Preparing for interview: 10 tips

Frankly this doesn't explicitly articulate a philosophy.  But you may find it useful (and the suggestions are driven by a clear set of principles.)  The link should open a Prezi - you can install Prezi on Windows, Mac, iPhone, or iPad for free.  Preparing for interview: 10 tips

9 reasons why worksheets don’t work

It depends, of course, on what you mean by “work”.  If you want something that you can put together (or download) without thinking too hard, that might keep a few pupils in your classroom occupied for a few minutes, that might (if you provide different worksheets for different groups) provide some uncritical evidence of differentiation, then worksheets might do the job.  But if your classroom is about learning and progress and celebrating difference then forget worksheets.  Below I've listed nine reasons why I think this. Throughout, ask yourself why you wanted to become a teacher.

1. Worksheets make lessons task-oriented rather than learning-oriented.  In a worksheet-dependent lesson, the objective for the lesson becomes be able to complete the worksheet rather than understand how to… or be able to explain the reasons for… or I can evaluate a range of… Planning can be difficult, but reaching for a default worksheet to slot into a lesson will pull you away from thinking about what you want pupils to learn, away from thinking about what you want pupils to understand or be able to do at the end of your lesson that they couldn’t do at the start.
2. They emphasise quantity rather than quality as a measure of success.  How many have you done? becomes the key question rather than How well do you understand this? Worksheets encourage superficiality. 
3. Worksheets are intrinsically unchallenging.  Pupils either can or can’t do the tasks required to complete the worksheet.  If pupils can, they’ll finish quickly or be unchallenged or both.  If they can’t, they can’t: they’ll spend the allotted time completing the tasks incorrectly or they will disengage.   Perhaps you’ve created a worksheet in which the task is more open-ended, or encourages a collaborative approach (see Reason 6) to complete set tasks – that’s great, but ask yourself if you really need a worksheet to do this.
4. Worksheets create glass ceilings.  Once the worksheet is complete, that’s it: the pupil can go no further.  This is true for your most and your least able pupil: the tasks on a worksheet are finite.  You might have included extension activities, but these too are finite.  Perhaps you’ve created a worksheet in which the task is more open-ended or which invites pupils to devise their own extension activities – that’s great, but ask yourself if you couldn’t build this sense of pupil ownership into the culture of your classroom. 
5. They invite uniformity. If you want to create a generation of robotic clones, then stick to worksheets.  But if you became a teacher because you wanted to inspire creativity, celebrate difference, foster independence, then bin the worksheets.  Or recycle them (see Reason 9).  Teachers’ Standard 2 requires you to “encourage pupils to take a responsible and conscientious attitude to their own work”.  I can see how a pupil might conscientiously complete a worksheet, but does a worksheet really invite a pupil to take responsibility?
6. Worksheets discourage collaboration.  Six pupils, each with a worksheet, sitting at the same table are unlikely to collaborate – they may even have been told not to.  Teachers often refer to this gathering of pupils as a “group”, but when they’ve each got a worksheet this is a group only in a mathematical sense, grouped together like so many apples or bananas.  The challenges and opportunities of working as a group will hardly come into it: they don’t need to deal with group dynamics (there aren’t any), to devise a way to pool their resources (they’re often told not to), to motivate or engage one another or take responsibility for anything other than the completion of the worksheet in front of them.  (Is this really what you want Teachers’ Standard 2 to be about?)  And what happened to social constructivism?  All that stuff that Vygotsky spouted about “problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers”?  Perhaps you’ve created a worksheet that has collaborative activity built in (perhaps a single sheet which a group share) – that’s great, in fact I’d suggest that’s no longer a worksheet but something different (a challenge, a task, a problem).
7. They prevent pupils from devising their own ways of recording their understanding or for presenting their findings.  Worksheets are often about filling in boxes: the teacher provides the question or the grid or the table, the pupil writes the answer or fills in the box.  This prepares pupils to complete questionnaires and respond to surveys. Get pupils to devise their own ways to present their understanding – this will reveal lots about what they understand – and if you’re concerned that pupils won’t be able to devise ways by themselves, that’s what modeling is for.  After all, if you don’t give them a chance to devise their own methods, how are they going to become independent, problem-solving communicators?
8. They create more work for teachers.  You have to design, print, photocopy, and distribute worksheets.  Then you have to collect them in and stick them in pupils’ books – unless you’ve got the pupils to stick them into their books as part of the lesson (Learning objective: I can stick a worksheet into my book). 
9. Worksheets waste paper.  Why photocopy something which pupils then stick to another sheet?