Tips for Teachers newsletter #12

Call and response, cover lessons & Kate Jones

Hello, and welcome to the Tips for Teachers newsletter. For over 400 ideas to try out the very next time you step into the classroom, check out my Tips for Teacher book.

💡 A quick tip to try in class this week 💡

A popular means of participation is Call and response. This is where the teacher says the first part of a statement, and the students chant the end of the statement back in unison. For example:

Teacher: The interior angles in a triangle add up to...

Students: ...180 degrees

Teacher: Prime numbers...

Students: ...have exactly two factors

This is a quick and engaging check for understanding, and can help increase the automaticity of key information.

A good way to introduce Call and response to colleagues and students alike is to pick an upcoming topic, and as a department plan three relevant Call and response statements. All teachers agree that they are going to use these three statements with one class. After the topic has been taught, reflect as a department what worked and what didn't, and if successful consider rolling this out with more classes and more topics. The three Call and response statements can be added to your scheme of work and built into knowledge organisers.

• What would you need to change to make this tip work for you?

• When could you try it for the first time?

• View all the Tips for Teachers shared so far

📺 A video to discuss with a colleague 📺

Behaviour expert, Tom Bennett, explains why it is important students know how to behave in cover lessons.

If the video doesn't play when you click on it, click here

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👂 A podcast episode to listen to on your way home 👂

Retrieval expert, Kate Jones, shares her five tips:

1. Sometimes it is better to review than retrieve

2. Make use of the Encoding Specificity Principle

3. Take a low effort, high impact approach to task and question design

4. How to make the best use of technology for retrieval practice

5. How to design good multiple choice questions 

Listen to the podcast here.

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😎 Final bits and bobs 😎

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