Some Ideas about Teaching
Over more than 30 years of teaching I developed a whole boatload of prejudices about how to teach and tricks-that-work in the classroom, and recently I have dared to share them with other History teachers on the History Teachers' Discussion Forum.
All over the country, teachers are having ideas, developing practice, writing position papers, finding solutions ... re-inventing the wheel. And what they do gets lost, because they have hitherto lacked the means, and maybe still lack the confidence, to let others see their ideas. Well here - for what they are worth - are my ideas.
Do I credit them with any great weight? Probably not, I fear. I can't say that there is any deep pedagogical philosophy underlying them. I can't promise that they will work in your school, or impress the Ofsted inspectors. I sincerely hope that when you read them you will feel that you can improve on them, or at least adapt them to your particular situation.
So they are offered - humbly - for you to try out, reject, adapt and challenge at your will:
● Ideas about General Teaching Issues ● Ideas on the Teaching of History ● Teaching History to Special Needs Pupils ● Discipline in the History Classroom ● How to use this website in your teaching
My History Classroom Games
I have played all these games successfully in the classoom, though some are easier than others for the students to grasp: 2. Versailles Negotiation Game 6. Nazi Soviet Pact Game (with ppt.)
Ideas about General Teaching Issues
Issues fundamental to all teaching: 3. Surviving 7. Planning Your Scheme of Work 10. Homework 13. A Checklist for Heads of Department 14. Struggling with Self-Evaluation 15. The Last Word
Ideas on The Teaching of History
In October 2012, I was asked to deliver INSET for South Tyneside schools on 'Making Your GCSE Lessons More Fun'. Unfortunately, it wasn't the start of a lucrative lecture tour, but the teachers on the day seemed to like it! These are the ideas I presented:
In August 2011, I was asked to write the 'Expert blog' for the Hodder History Nest. I chose the theme: 'What sort of history should school history be?' and thought you might be interested to read what I said: 2. The importance of being ... argumentative 3. Mr Gove and the Return of Facts 4. Selecting the facts = choosing the History you want 6. Autism and the Primacy of Analysis 7. How Enid Blyton changed my life 9. Indoctrination and the Pedagogy of the Individual 10. Fraught with danger and pedagogically shallow? 11. A few urgencies about interpretations 12. The misinterpretation of interpretations 13. Working with interpretations 14. Historiographers I: The Whig foundation 15. Historiographers II: The Marxist challenge 16. Historiographers III: The Advent of Postmodernism 17. Historiographers IV: A Postmodernism Glossary 18. Historiographers V: A Postmodernism Glossary continued 19. What postmodernism means for Mr Gove 21. Eyewitness 22. The rise and fall of the 'educated man' 23. The importance of being interesting 24. Historiography, Mr Gove and the new National Curriculum History
And here are some earlier thoughts on planning and delivering History lessons: 1. Teaching Objectives and Lesson Outcomes 3. Starters 4. The 'Blind Walk' - a quality starter 5. Teaching History using Analogy 6. Teaching how to do Sourcework Questions 7. Developing better Written exercises at Key Stage 3 9. Writing Poetry in the History Classroom 10. Using Drama in the History Classroom 11. Teaching Mixed Ability at GCSE 12. GCSE Exam 'Warm-Up' Sessions 13. Publicising History - quotes 14. Publicising History - jobs
Random 'rants' about aspects of 'History-Teaching-as-required': 15. Sources and Interpretations 16. Facts and the Teaching of History
Teaching History to Special Needs Pupils
Articles about various aspects of teaching History to SN pupils: 1. Teaching Special Needs - A Short Foreword 2. Teaching Special Needs Classes 3. Reading for Understanding - 'every which way but' 4. Mr Clare's 'Ten-Minute Write' 6. Helping Dyslexic Pupils Revise 8. Brain Function and Children's Behaviour
Discipline in the History Classroom
Discipline is just a facilitator for the much-harder job of teaching History, but it's an issue that many young teachers worry about, and which crops up regularly on the Forum. These replies all address different perspectives of the problem: 2. Controlling Difficult Classes 3. Quiz - How Much Am I to Blame? 4. Strategies which work with Year 11 5. Two problems about Boys and some possible solutions 6. Starting Off As You Mean To Go On 8. The Key to a Disciplined School
How might I use this website in my teaching?
This website is used primarily by pupils as a revision site for Modern World Studies GCSE History - especially immediately before the GCSE exams!
the site receives more almost 3 million visits a
year (2012). One in ten visitors to the site spends longer than 30
minutes on it, so it is used intensively and actively. 1. Using this website in your lessons |
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