Lotus diagram templates for essay planning Overview I’m grateful to Shani Hartley for introducing me to Lotus Diagrams. These are graphic organisers that help students break down a question into key factors or arguments and then methodically summarise the essential knowledge that can be used to substantiate each one of these. In some respects Lotus Diagrams are similar…
Category: Revision
Rise and rule of authoritarian states: IB History Paper 2 sample question generator
Rise and rule of authoritarian states: IB History Paper 2 sample question generator This tool is designed to help teachers and students prepare for the IB Paper 2 exam by generating possible questions to practice and discuss. It is based on the command terms and syllabus bullet points provided in the IB syllabus. Use this…
Cold War – Random Essay Question Generator!
Cold War – Random Essay Question Generator! This tool is desiged to help teachers and students prepare for the IB Paper 2 exam by generating possible questions to practice and discuss. It is based on the command terms and syllabus bullet points provided in the IB syllabus. Use this tool to generate a random question…
“Linkage Bingo” to summarise and connect key factors
This whole-class game is a great way firstly to summarise issues of cause or effect, and then (most importantly and most challengingly) to link them together in a meaningful way prior to students producing a written essay. The class will be divided into 5 teams and one piece of scrap paper to jot down ideas….
Answer Buzzers for Revision Quizzes
A quick search for “Answer Buzzers” on Amazon will provide you with a link to something like this. They are a great way of adding a bit of fun to team revision quizzes with the teacher in the hotseat as the quizmaster! Taking it further In team quizzes, I usually nominate one person in…
Create a “Fakebook” Profile for a key character
When researching a key character, students could frame and present their findings by creating a fake “Facebook” profile using the Fakebook application at ClassTools. Using this tool, students can create a timeline of a person’s life, written in the first person and in the present tense (to help prevent ‘cut and paste’ syndrome). They can…
Creative Acronyms for Topic Revision/Introductions
For revision purposes, creating memory words, with each letter representing the first letter of another key word, is an effective way of getting students to reflect on factual information and construct an effective way of recalling a larger amount of information. At the start of a topic too, it can also be used as a…
“Create a Google Doodle to represent our topic”
At the close of a topic or as a revision exercise, ask students to design their own ‘Google Doodle’ to represent the essence of the subject. What symbols, colours, terms could they use? This is an idea from @littlestobbsy on Twitter.
“Only Connect!”
I have coded this brand new quiz generator based on the popular BBC Quiz game! Provide students with 16 subject-specific terms in a 4X4 grid. Teams have to re-arrange the grid into four horizontal lines of connected terms. They then have to explain the connection between the 4 terms in a fifth column in each row. Taking it…
“Guess What”
Great idea here from @PaulRoWilson. “It’s not guess who its guess what. Flexible topic revision with the facts coming from the student.”
Design a children’s storybook
After studying a complex topic, challenge students to turn it into an illustrated storybook that can be understood by primary school students. Spend time in class talking through the main concepts, events and personalities that should be covered in a brief story. Consider too which images could be used to bring the subject to life….
“Design a DVD Inlay”
As a way of consolidating or revising knowledge and understanding of a study unit, students have to design a DVD inlay for a fictional documentary film / biopic. They should give careful thought to the images to include, the cast list, the reviews, the ‘blurb’ at the back, and so on – using real DVD…
“Leaderboard Challenge” for ‘Fling the Teacher’
During revision time I start every lesson with a ‘Fling the Teacher’ quiz on the topic to be covered in that lesson. Prior to the lesson, I warn students what the topic will be so they can revise. At the start of the lesson, I outline the main task for the lesson so they know…
Challenge Grid
A simple twist on a factual test. Colour code different questions in a grid by difficulty. Students choose which questions to answer in the time available and get scored accordingly. An idea originally shared by @MsLiddell.
Speech-bubble PostIts onto paintings / photos / cartoons
Overview: Provide students with a photograph of a particular moment in history, then ask them to write speech-bubble PostIt notes to imagine what the characters might have been saying to each other. Taking it further: For cartoons, students have to provide a caption. This works even better if the cartoon has an original caption that it can…
“Keyword Challenge” revision game
Overview: This is a simple game which is a great way of rounding off a unit and revising important dates, concepts and people. It is particularly effective just before students have to produce some written work making effective use of key terms. Instructions Put students into teams of 4 or 5. The first member of the…
Tic Tac Know
Great idea by @sallyluane: ‘Tic Tac Know’: Write a grid of keywords. Each student gets a point for each sentence they construct using all the words in a particular horizontal / vertical / diagonal line. Taking it further: Get the students to decide upon the words. If more than one student opts for the same…
