4. Introduction
“teaching and engaging teenagers is one of the
most rewarding and exciting experiences within
the teaching profession”
“teenagers can be the most demanding and
critical of audiences, But once motivated , these
young people can provide never ending streams
of creativity and imagination”
– Kidd & Czerniawski (2011)
8. Activity
• Read your starter activity
• Place yourself on the continuum line in order
of
– High Challenge,
– Low Challenge
• Only talk to the person next to you
9.
10. Key Characteristics of Starter Activities
• pace;
• interaction and involvement;
• connecting with prior learning;
• curiosity and intrigue.
11. Resources
• Teaching Teenagers: A Toolbox for Engaging
and Motivating Learners: Amazon.co.uk:
Warren Kidd, Gerry Czerniawski: Books
• The teacher's toolkit: Volume 1: Promoting
variety, engagement and motivation in the
classroom [grades K-12] - Ginnis, Paul, 2005-
• Accelerated learning in the classroom -
Smith, Alistair, 1996
Editor's Notes
Starter Activity Quiz Ball: scrunch up a piece of paper and throw it at a learner – ask them a question related to last week’s session:
Maslow’s Hierarchy Maslow’s (1987) hierarchy of needs (physiological, safety, love, and belonging, self-esteem and self-actualization) is a motivational theory in psychology that provides a useful evaluation framework for teachers when reviewing and planning the efficiency of their lessons.Kidd & Czerniawski (2011)Link this to their notes at the start of the session
Bloom’s TaxonomyIntroduce the taxonomy – get them to have a read through before the next activity. At what level ini the taxonomy was the Quiz ball activity? According to Bloom’s Taxonomy, human thinking skills can be broken down into the following six categories.Knowledge: remembering or recalling appropriate, previously learned information to draw out factual (usually right or wrong) answers. Use words and phrases such as: how many, when, where, list, define, tell, describe, identify, etc., to draw out factual answers, testing students' recall and recognition.Comprehension: grasping or understanding the meaning of informational materials. Use words such as: describe, explain, estimate, predict, identify, differentiate, etc., to encourage students to translate, interpret, and extrapolate.Application: applying previously learned information (or knowledge) to new and unfamiliar situations. Use words such as: demonstrate, apply, illustrate, show, solve, examine, classify, experiment, etc., to encourage students to apply knowledge to situations that are new and unfamiliar.Analysis: breaking down information into parts, or examining (and trying to understand the organizational structure of) information. Use words and phrases such as: what are the differences, analyze, explain, compare, separate, classify, arrange, etc., to encourage students to break information down into parts.Synthesis: applying prior knowledge and skills to combine elements into a pattern not clearly there before. Use words and phrases such as: combine, rearrange, substitute, create, design, invent, what if, etc., to encourage students to combine elements into a pattern that's new.Evaluation: judging or deciding according to some set of criteria, without real right or wrong answers. Use words such as: assess, decide, measure, select, explain, conclude, compare, summarize, etc., to encourage students to make judgements according to a set of criteria.
Activity (Starter activity – continuum line/constructivist)Ask each participant to read carefully the starter activity card that they were given at the start of the session. (may have some cards between 2)Explain to students that their task is to place themselves – and therefore their cards – in such a way as to create a continuum of activities, from High challenge to Low challenge.Ensure that students understand what ‘high challenge’ means. In this case it refers to the extent of ‘high-order’ thinking that is demanded by the starter activity, not the level of challenge to the teacher in actually managing the task.Explain that, at any particular time, students may only talk to those people on either side of them. The idea is to negotiate their position along the line towards either the High challenge end or the Low challenge end. When they have achieved what they consider to be the correct position, they should try to maintain it.
Debrief students on the activity and to emphasise the importance of starter activities.Ask:In creating the continuum of challenge, how did you differentiate between what constituted a ‘high-level’ or ‘low-level’ challenge activity?Refer students to appendix 7.1: Bloom’s taxonomy, and appendix 7.2: National Curriculum thinking skills.Be diagnostic:Have you considered levels of challenge previously?Have you considered previously the high-level thinking skills that design and technology demands?Which starter activities were particularly difficult to position on the continuum?Why?Note:Encourage students to recognise that the level of challenge in many of the activities can be influenced by the way the teachers manage discussion about them. For example, the level of challenge may be raised through the use of questioning which requires pupils to analyse, justify and evaluate. Without knowing the context of the activity within the sequence of learning, it may be difficult to determine whether or not the task requires pupils to recall or build on prior knowledge, or to formulate new thinking.Go on to explain that challenge is not the only characteristic of an effective starter.
Key Characteristics of Starter ActivitiesAsk:Which other key characteristics are present within one or more of the starters described on the cards?Draw out responses such as:pace;interaction and involvement;connecting with prior learning;curiosity and intrigue.Key points: Starters are about purposeful, whole-class, interactive teaching which involves all pupils.
ResourcesAlastair Smith – accelerated learningPaul Ginnis – Teachers ToolkitKidd & Czerniawski (2011) – Teaching Teenagers
