A new term...a new beginning

The new term has started and I find myself trying more of the Teaching strategies learnt at the AGQTP sessions.
For example, I met with my Year 11 IT class for the first time and got them thinking about how they might respond to an assignment on Computer Game addiction. This meant a brief introduction to Blooms taxonomy and then selecting part of the assignment and asking how they could respond to show: recall, understanding, application, analysis, evaluation, creativity in their response. This will help them understand why a simple recall response, though factually correct, may not be enough to get the higher scores.
My Year 11 Biology class used a see-saw activity to do some revision. In pairs, the first person was asked to recall as much as possible about the respiratory system for one minute. Then the second person was asked to recall as much as possible about the breathing cycle. Many commented that they felt they could not recall much. This was an opportunity for me to talk about the importance of regularly sustained revision - using whatever format suited them.
I am starting to explore wikis with my Psychology class. At this stage we cannot get on but at least they are interested in trying.