Teaching Experiment #1: Revision Wide Awake

So I was sitting in this meeting a couple of weeks ago and was struggling so hard with actually keeping my eyes opened and attending to the desperately important information that the speaker was mercilessly droning on about. One of my colleagues muttered drily, "Now I know how the kids feel in my class."

It was kind of a revelation. And also a bit of a sinking feeling that -I- could possibly induce such a heavy stupor in my class when all I wanted to do was to do my job and make them learn.

Anyway, with revision week and the dreary task of making tons of revision powerpoint slides and facing 39 bored faces looming ahead, I decided to do a little research into Revision strategies and experiment with them.

One very interesting game I found was 'Sink or Swim'. I adapted it and it worked MIRACLES in my class. The whole class was actually engaged in the game, not a single person was trying to sneakily read/sleep/scheme to make mischief. When I gave them a topical assessment, the kids performed much better. Here's how 'Sink or Swim' works:

SINK OR SWIM

1. Divide the class into groups of 4/5, depending on your class size. Get them to number themselves (1 to 4 or 1 to 5.)
2. Give each group a mini whiteboard and a marker and something to clean the board with. 
3. The whole class starts off by standing up and 'swimming'. (This is already a plus point, it effectively ensures NO ONE is in a conducive physical position to sleep.)
4. Flash your revision question on the board and start with getting all the Number 1s in the room to write their answer on the mini whiteboard. Walk around the class to check answers. 
- IMPORTANT: Tell the other numbers in the group that they are not allowed to help the answerer or the group will get disqualified from the round. This allows independent thinking for the answerer and prevents free loading. 
5. After about a minute, announce 'GROUP CHECK'. This enables the rest of the group members to check Number 1's answer and teach/correct if necessary. (This facilitates peer teaching and learning.)
6. After 30 seconds, count down "5..4..3..2..1, FREEZE. " At this point, all writing should stop and all boards should be up for the teacher to check the answer. 
7. Those who get the answer correct get to continue 'swimming' while those who don't have to sink (sit back in their seat). Subsequent correct answers get awarded with the option to save your sunk groupmate. 
8. Repeat with the other numbers. 


It was one of the more awesome revision lessons I had with my kids. I've uploaded the PDF version of my lesson plan for those who want to use it.(Science Lesson Plan) I'll be talking more about mini whiteboards and Lesson closures in my next blog posts. I will also share some of my kids' reflections on their learning, which really amazed me.

Do comment if you have any thoughts on this. Do share if you have other fun revision strategies, or if you're planning on trying out Sink or Swim!

In closure, try to minimize 'low-grade clerical work' (I love this quote from Ken Robinson) and learning will naturally take place.