Exam time can be stressful for students, often leading to a deterioration in the expected levels of behaviour in the classroom.
It is no surprise that emotions are often heightened due to the pressure, with many students finding it difficult to express their feelings. Teachers can make a real difference if they introduce some simple strategies to minimise low-level disruption.
Active learning is about far more than just getting pupils to be physically active in the classroom. Lots of research suggests that regular active learning activities can have huge benefits to the effectiveness of student’s learning but the strategy only has a significant impact if the learners are given the opportunity to actively engage with material so that they retain the learning.
Three primary schools that took part in the annual National School Sport Week run by the Youth Sport Trust found that using active learning helped students to develop specific skills and explore concepts in a different way.
Here are 5 ideas for introducing active learning:
Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, all of us have been forced to somehow juggle work and life in lockdown alongside our mental and physical health. But one thing’s for certain; regular exercise is of the utmost importance, especially for young people.
The research supports this. Schools that enable children to participate in physical activity have a track record of providing opportunities for students to find their niche and develop skills beyond the classroom.
A recent study by Silah et al from the University of California has looked into the relationship between test anxiety and metacognition. The researchers’ main aim was to assess “how the quantity and relative weight of assessments contribute to the effects of test anxiety on performance and metacognitive accuracy.”
In other words, do tests with high and low stakes affect student performance when it comes to increasing or reducing anxiety and the ability to recall information?
In 1988, Australian educational psychologist and academic John Sweller, published the piece Cognitive Load During Problem Solving: Effects on Learning. Thirty years later and it’s the go-to resource for teachers wanting to know more about retrieval practice, how memory is shaped and of course, cognitive load theory.
In the opening page of his paper, Sweller writes, “that contrary to current practice and many cognitive theories, some forms of problem-solving interfere with learning.”
The coronavirus pandemic has had a huge impact on the way we live, work, socialise and learn. Even though it’s been a challenge for many people, others have welcomed the flexibility and freedom that comes with ‘remote life’.
But what about the world of education? It goes without saying that teachers, parents and students have struggled more than most during lockdown. So how can we learn from what they’ve gone through and make their lives better moving forward?
It has been approximately one year since the coronavirus pandemic changed the way in which we live, work and socialise. But how well are teachers coping with their remote education environment?
For many, it has been a constant struggle of trying to stay on top of increasing workloads alongside the challenges that come with permanently being online. As a result, this has led to a disconnect between the teacher and the student.
For teachers up and down the country, 2020 has been an interesting year to say the least. The coronavirus pandemic and its subsequent lockdown threw our education system into disarray, with millions of parents forced to tackle the challenge of home-schooling.
During this time, teachers themselves became key workers and had to provide pupils with schemes of work that could be delivered remotely. But now teachers must overcome a new obstacle – helping students catch up on work missed during the six-month stretch of school closures.
In order to help schools, colleges and education leaders prepare for teaching in the coming months, the OECD and the Global Education Innovation Initiative at Harvard University have collaborated on a new paper.
Schooling disrupted, schooling rethought – How the COVID-19 pandemic is changing education has collected data and analysed information on the education conditions faced in 59 countries.
Getting your class passionate about creative writing is no mean feat, especially when you consider the amount of research, planning, teaching and marking involved to perform this activity in the first place.
But what if you could instil a love of creative writing among your pupils in just one day? It might sound impossible, but where there’s a will, there’s a way…