Activities for more able

Memorise Emphasise context and purpose Memorise Emphasise context and purpose. Ask yourself why students are being asked to memorize these facts in the first place. If students can readily answer that question and if they can picture future situations in which they will use the information, they will be better primed to remember it. Break down new vocabulary words, especially those that are more than two syllables long. Allow time to rehearse and remember the first couple of syllables before tacking on later ones. Also keep in mind that this process will be easier for some students than others due to wide variation in phonological loop capacity; you may want to design in a “mastery learning” or other individualized approach for vocabulary so that students can move through at their own pace. Visualise information. For most people, imagery is highly memorable, perhaps because so much of the brain is devoted to visual processing. Memory champions, such as the ones populating the best seller Moonwalking with Einstein, use elaborate visualization strategies to achieve incredible feats of memorization. Similarly, strategies such as the keyword mnemonic work by linking word sounds to images (such as using an image of a cowboy on a horse to remember the Spanish word “caballo,” which sounds a bit like “cowboy”).

Activity 1 – Group Activity 1. Pupils are put into groups of 2- 4 2 Activity 1 – Group Activity 1. Pupils are put into groups of 2- 4 2.One pupil from each group comes up to middle to memorise as much as they can from the diagram for 2 minutes. The rest of the group will attempt to fill in their worksheet as fully as they can. 3. The pupil will then go back to their group, discuss their answers and complete the worksheet to include the information they memorised in their two minutes. 4. This process can be carried out 2- 3 times to ensure each student has had a chance to memorise the information and go back to their teams and complete the worksheet. 5. Mark worksheets.

Activity 2 – Pair Activity 1 Activity 2 – Pair Activity 1. Pupil 1 and pupil 2 read the article for 4 minutes. 2. Pupil 2 explains to pupil 1 everything they have picked up in the article for 2 minutes. Pupil 1 then explains to pupil 2 for 2 minutes. 3. Finally pupils now answer the questions on the worksheet together for 4 minutes.

How does this help the more able? Each pupil will approach the activity as per their ability. You would expect a more able pupil to consider the complex issues. Each activity can be differentiated as per pupils ability.

Activities for more able Engaging Learners: Understanding ‘Stretch and Challenge’ (Mr R Wilson) Puzzlement (Ms K Hoang) 7 Lines (Ms K Hoang) Snowballing (Mr R Wilson) Tic-Tac-Toe (Ms L James) Tarsia (Ms Y Oladejo) De Bono’s Six Thinking Ties (Mr R Wilson) Using Student Designed Rubrics (Mr P Barber) The Post-it Essay (Ms K Ling) Effective peer and self-marking (Mr R Wilson) Using homework to encourage ‘stretch and challenge’ (Ms F Morgan) Using ’Flipped Learning’ (Mr R Wilson)

Review Which topics in your subject can you use these techniques in the classroom? Can your activities be differentiated to challenge the more able? Any other ideas on how you can challenge the more able?