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Learning at Lanyon High
B Davies
Groups
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Previously students were seated around the
classroom and were not participating well in the
lesson. The structure of the class now makes all
students accountable for the lesson and promotes
positive relationships.
This method helps build relationships within the group
and develops communication skills.
All students are benefiting from the working in this
group situation. Even students who don’t feel
comfortable discussing their work are becoming more
involved and confident.
Students who are not confident are participating, and
as a teacher I can help promote and develop stronger
and more positive communication skills.
• Most classes benefit from some group work.
However, the small size of this class and
having two teachers has made the task
easier.
Peer tutoring
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Previously shy students with low confidence have the
opportunity to help others in the room.
The purpose of this learning is to develop student
confidence and relationships in the classroom. Peer
tutoring increases the mentors ability to articulate problems
and answers to their peers.
Usually students with high levels of self confidence and
extraverted personalities work well in this situation.
However, we have managed to involve some of the less
confident students with good results.
The strengths of this method are the development of
relationships, confidence and communication skills.
This works best when you have an established class where
the students are comfortable with each other and know the
different personalities in the room.
Practical
• Keeping learning active and diverse also helps keep it
interesting. I try to make my lessons practical where
possible so students can apply their knowledge to everyday
situations.
• With this learning I aim to keep students engaged by
giving them practical applications for their work.
• Most learners achieve good results in this situation. It
does require students to be motivated as the work is mostly
in groups and is self paced.
• This method helps students see the relevance of the
learning they do in the class room which also improves
attitudes and behaviour in the lessons.
•Change is good for the teacher and students. Working
practically with units of work gives the students opportunities
to discover, apply knowledge and learn for themselves.
Placemat
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I find the placemat activity good for introductions to
units. Individuals provide ideas around a individually.
Then the group shares the ideas and writes a group
definition or list in the middle. This summarises the best
points from each group.
The aim for this learning to use individual ideas to create
the best result for the group. Everyone has a say and
the ideas are communicated to produce an agreed
outcome.
This form of learning makes everyone accountable for
the work. Each student can work to their potential
contributing as little or as much as they like.
Strengths for this activity include providing all students
with the ability to contribute. Everyone has the
opportunity to give their thoughts and opinions on a topic
and be heard.
I like to use placemats when introducing a subject to see
what students already know about the topic.
Individual
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Students are working individually on percentages. Prior
to this we have discussed mental computation strategies
to calculate 1% and 10%. This time provides students
with the opportunity to visualise and practice calculating
percentages.
This unit of work is based around the practical skills of
finding percentages. We want the students to be able to
calculate percentages around finance to help them in real
world situations.
Most of the students in the room have low level
mathematics skills. For this reason it is important that we
continually ask students to share their answers with a
partner and with the class otherwise they might not
participate. We also like to get written explanations of
how they do their work.
Individual work with this class is effective for 15 – 20 min
a lesson maximum. Because of their low level numeracy
skills they tent to have short attention spans and can only
focus on an activity for short period of time.