How to sell stuff to students
Desk Work
Learners complete an independent task as soon as they enter the classroom. Useful for starting a Monday morning with a recap from last week's lessons.
Examples of tasks can include 3-5 questions about previous topics, or a new 'thunk' - what would you do if... what if this happened... This can be a great way to introduce a new topic. Can be combined with Think-Pair-Share, Self/Peer Assessment or Class Discussions.
Quiz Time
Ask a question, or a set of questions at the start, middle, or end of a lesson to check for understanding. Multiple-choice questions are quick and handy (and also self-marked if you do them electronically). You can also use mini whiteboards or coloured cards to gauge student understanding.
For digital skills try Forms/Polls in Teams, Kahoot (do this at the end of a lesson!), Quizlet, Google Forms, Survey Monkey, Blooket, or Quizziz.
Useful for a quick formative assessment. You can also use AI tools like Chat GPT, TeacherMatic, TeachMate AI or Magic School to create the quiz questions for you.
What was the Question?
Make your quiz or exam more interesting by reversing the questions. Give the students the answers and ask them to make up some suitable questions.
Useful for exam revision and can be carried out as a small group or individual activity.
You can use questions from past exam papers with model answers, you can get AI tools to generate a quiz for you, or you can write a set of questions based on common misconceptions for your topic.
The idea is to allow students to identify their own areas for improvement, or topics/concepts they may need to revise more. This helps students take ownership of their learning.