This document provides various revision ideas, tips, and techniques for use in humanities lessons. It suggests using mind mapping to organize information and posting key words and phrases around the school. Other ideas include collecting exemplar student work, peer assessment activities, and games like fill-in-the-blank exercises and quiz competitions to engage students in active revision. The document stresses using a variety of approaches to accommodate different learning styles and building opportunities for success into every lesson.

1. GCSE Revision Ideas, tips and techniques for use in the Humanities Learning Area David Drake Humanities AST Wiltshire

2. Use the whole learning environment - Classrooms & around the school Write important words and phrases on sticky notes or A4 sheets that can be stuck where students see them every day. On your walls or doors... anywhere will do. It works! Why not get students to make them and place them around the school! (Canteen, Learning Centre, Toilets?)

3. Techniques Mind Mapping is a powerful technique that allows you to make the best use of your brain power. The Mind Mapping technique harnesses the full range of your cortical skills, making you more productive and creative. Resources: http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~rwilliams/teaching.htm

10. Lesson ideas Exemplar material Collect the best answers from students Photocopy the work and give to students who have to identify why they are good answers by underlining in one colour RE vocabulary, in another colour underlining connectives, in another circle examples used etc. Don’t just read it – do something with it! Build up an exemplar student booklet which can be distributed within and between classes

11. Lesson ideas Fill in the gaps Give students a written answer which has chunks of text missing Students fill in the gaps to make an A*-C grade answer, clues dotted around the room on the walls, only allowed to get up and look once though! Allows everyone to be successful . “Look, you’ve just created a C grade answer – you see, you CAN do it! (SEAL)

12. Lesson ideas Grade it and feedback activity Students answer a written question Answers swapped and peer assessment takes place Verbal feedback to be given by student to their partner Opportunity to rewrite using the feedback they have been given

13. Lesson ideas Consequences game Supply a question Students create an introduction on the top the paper and fold over Pass to next student who writes next stage (describe the location), then fold over Pass to next student who writes an explanation, fold over Pass to the next who writes a positive impact on the environment, fold and pass on. Game continues until the requirements of the question have been met. Final person unfolds the answer and reads. Examples read to class and students decide if a good answer and why/why not

14. Lesson ideas Pub quiz Create questions for homework Create teams of 5 Have a round per lesson and record scores on a leader board Successive rounds lead to a grand final between highest scoring teams

15. Lesson ideas The student as teacher Create a new seating plan where students of different abilities are sat next to each other. Reading each others work regularly to feedback. Get the students to do the teaching!

16. Lesson ideas Using previous exam papers Only use exam papers when success will result. Avoid lessons which involve student just answering questions. They will just keep making the same mistakes or continuing to fail. There needs to be the opportunity for success in every activity . Less able students need small achievable targets (SEAL)

17. Lesson ideas Game-show Geography/History/RE Students to create a game-show format as a vehicle to deliver revision questions Could be done as whole class, but best within groups Process of making the format and questions is as important as the final game

18. Lesson ideas Steps to success Create ‘steps to success’ templates or ‘success ladders’ to show students what they have to do in stages when answering a question Model the requirements through question and answer starters and pleneries Describing locations.doc

19. Lesson ideas Building an answer as a team Set a question Each student can only contribute one word each time to the answer Go around the room building an answer. The teacher intervenes as appropriate points to provide structure through the use of sentence starters and connectives

20. Other basic ideas Copying out key points from notes onto small revision cards. Make use of diagrams. Draw diagrams so that students can remember ideas, words and concepts better. Use mnemonics to help remember certain patterns or sequences. A mnemonic is a way of helping you remember information using abbreviations, words or phrases. For example, to remember the colours of the rainbow, you could use the mnemonic: Richard of York Gave Battle In Vain, using the first letters of each word to remember the colours Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet. Simple!

21. Other basic ideas Create a blog for students to access online revision materials For example: http://abbeyfieldhumanities.blogspot.com/2009/01/gcse-geography-unit-revision.html

22. Remember We all learn in different ways (visual, kinesthetc etc) Create lessons which offer a variety of approaches Avoid “read this for homework” or “learn this” as most student won’t, you might not like it but accept it! Students will be revising in all lessons not just yours. If you have already had 5 lessons that day answering practise papers, would you want to do it for another 50 minutes? Make your lesson memorable !

23. Remember Some lesson won’t work for all students, but if you use a variety of techniques , there should be something for everyone. Build achievable goals and chance of success into every lesson (SEAL), Otherwise, why would they bother to behave and try hard if they think they will fail – would you? Build the students up, establish self-belief. Ask the students!