Reducing teacher talk and allowing more time in lessons for students to be

active participants in their learning, is an important aspect of developing

outstanding teaching and learning.

In order to begin to build up a bank of strategies that can be used to develop this

aspect of teaching, I asked twitter. As always it yielded some great results.

I have grouped them under 3 main learning ‘phases’, 

 Learning Input  

1.  Have an engaging picture on the screen with a question for students to

discuss as they enter the room.

2.  Show students the learning objectives and get them to come up with and

share the success criteria.

3.  Students recap what they learnt last lesson – and what bits they got stuck

on. Other students are then invited to help them with the ‘stuck’ bits. 

4.  Students begin the lesson by talking about any prior knowledge regarding

the learning objectives.

5.  Flipped learning – set the learning task the lesson before and get students

to present the learning at the start of the lesson. Different groups can focus

on different aspects.

 Learning development  

1.  If a student asks a question, instead of answering it yourself, ask another

student.

2.  If a student makes a great contribution to a class discussion, don’t be

tempted to add to it yourself, ask another student to.

3.  Student groups present their work, which is then critiqued by the rest of the

class. Give direction to the critique though e.g. each group focuses on a

different aspect of the presentation and all students have to give feedback

that is kind, specific and helpful.

4.  Hidden resource – working in pairs/small groups, one student has a picture

that is relevant to the learning, that they do not share with the other

students. The other students then have to question them to find out what it

is.

5.  Snowballing – pose a question, then give students thinking time

(individually) to come up with an answer. Discuss their answers in pairs and

come up with an agreed answer. Then in fours – then each four shares with

the class.

 

6.  Phone a friend – if students get stuck they can ‘phone a friend’ – literally by

mimicking a phone with their hand, and a ringtone! Other students can

‘answer’ (again mimicking a phone with their hand) and offer support with

their question.

7.  Use visual symbols for anchors. 1 stick man = work alone, 2 = pairs, 3 =

group, house = HW, open book = read quietly, pen=writing.

8.  Give yourself a ration – say 10 mins in a lesson. Let one student time and

call stop when time is up. Even q&a sessions count.

9.   Write a series of questions on post its. Students write their name and

answer on it and stick on the board. Students then look at all of the post its

and discuss the answers.

10. Think, pair, share – pose questions, give students thinking time to answer

the questions, discuss it in a pair and then share their agreed answer.

11. Diamond 9 – students have to discuss the relative importance of

9 statements (on card) and then agree their ranking by placing them in

a diamond shape (1,2,3,2,1).

12. The perfect answer – have a number of exam questions around the room on

 A3 paper. Groups of students then answer a question each. They then

rotate, look at the previous answer and improve it. They keep doing this

until all groups have contributed to all questions and you end up with…..the

perfect answer!

 Learning review 

1.  Student led plenary – ask a student/ group of students to come up to the

 board to discuss the learning.

2.   Ask students to plan the learning for the next lesson, based on what they

have learned/ struggled with that lesson.

3.  The panel presents – show students a series of powerpoint slides with

pictures and no writing, that relates to the learning in the lesson. In groups,

students then have to use the slides to give a presentation on what they have

learnt.

4.  Construct a class mind map – everyone has to contribute and discuss one

‘link’.