Reducing teacher talk and allowing more time in lessons for students to be

active participants in their learning, is an important aspect of developing

outstanding teaching and learning.
In order to begin to build up a bank of strategies that can be used to develop this
aspect of teaching, I asked twitter. As always it yielded some great results.
I have grouped them under 3 main learning phases,
Learning Input
1. Have an engaging picture on the screen with a question for students to
discuss as they enter the room.
2. Show students the learning objectives and get them to come up with and
share the success criteria.
3. Students recap what they learnt last lesson and what bits they got stuck
on. Other students are then invited to help them with the stuck bits.
4. Students begin the lesson by talking about any prior knowledge regarding
the learning objectives.
5. Flipped learning set the learning task the lesson before and get students
to present the learning at the start of the lesson. Different groups can focus
on different aspects.
Learning development
1. If a student asks a question, instead of answering it yourself, ask another
student.
2. If a student makes a great contribution to a class discussion, dont be
tempted to add to it yourself, ask another student to.
3. Student groups present their work, which is then critiqued by the rest of the
class. Give direction to the critique though e.g. each group focuses on a
different aspect of the presentation and all students have to give feedback
that is kind, specific and helpful.
4. Hidden resource working in pairs/small groups, one student has a picture
that is relevant to the learning, that they do not share with the other
students. The other students then have to question them to find out what it
is.
5. Snowballing pose a question, then give students thinking time
(individually) to come up with an answer. Discuss their answers in pairs and
come up with an agreed answer. Then in fours then each four shares with
the class.

6. Phone a friend if students get stuck they can phone a friend literally by
mimicking a phone with their hand, and a ringtone! Other students can
answer (again mimicking a phone with their hand) and offer support with
their question.
7. Use visual symbols for anchors. 1 stick man = work alone, 2 = pairs, 3 =
group, house = HW, open book = read quietly, pen=writing.
8. Give yourself a ration say 10 mins in a lesson. Let one student time and
call stop when time is up. Even q&a sessions count.
9. Write a series of questions on post its. Students write their name and
answer on it and stick on the board. Students then look at all of the post its
and discuss the answers.
10. Think, pair, share pose questions, give students thinking time to answer
the questions, discuss it in a pair and then share their agreed answer.
11. Diamond 9 students have to discuss the relative importance of
9 statements (on card) and then agree their ranking by placing them in
a diamond shape (1,2,3,2,1).
12. The perfect answer have a number of exam questions around the room on
A3 paper. Groups of students then answer a question each. They then
rotate, look at the previous answer and improve it. They keep doing this
until all groups have contributed to all questions and you end up with..the
perfect answer!
Learning review
1. Student led plenary ask a student/ group of students to come up to the
board to discuss the learning.
2. Ask students to plan the learning for the next lesson, based on what they
have learned/ struggled with that lesson.
3. The panel presents show students a series of powerpoint slides with
pictures and no writing, that relates to the learning in the lesson. In groups,
students then have to use the slides to give a presentation on what they have
learnt.
4. Construct a class mind map everyone has to contribute and discuss one
link.