Flip Chart Questions
Description
Flip chart questions allow students to ask questions to fellow students. This way, students can hear the things they find difficult explained in a different way.
How it works
- Students write their question about homework or a test (before the test or after students have received their marked tests) on a flip chart.
- Students who know the answer prepare it in writing. That gives you time to check their answers yourself in advance.
- Students who know the answer get time to explain this to the students who posed the question(s). This can be done in a plenary session or in small groups.
Tips
- Leave out the second phase if your students are familiar with the methodology.
- Let the students who received an answer to their question rate how well they liked the explanation given by their fellow student(s).
- Use online tools (Padlet or Edmodo) with which students can ask questions about homework or tests when at home. This way, the students can also answer each other's questions outside the classroom.
- You can link this technique to the 'SOS corner'. That way, the students who have no questions can work independently.
Examples
Use digital tools:
Padlet is a digital bulletin board on which anyone with an internet connection can post written text, photos, videos, etc. Padlet can be used to share questions and answers, but also to collect opinions or ideas.
Edmodo is an online community where you let the students work in a closed group. You can communicate with your students via Edmodo, prepare assignments, create quizzes or polls and facilitate collaboration.
Peer Paper
Description
By using peer paper you evaluate whether your students remembered or understood certain facts, terms or concepts. They correct each other’s answers, so they gain better understanding in the solution themselves.
How it works
- Make different groups of four to five students.
- Write down different questions or problems on paper and make sure every student of the group has a question.
- Each student gives an answer to the question in front of them and passes this question to the student seated on their right. Students give new answers on the question and give feedback on the answers that other students have written down.
- If students cannot find the answers themselves, they can use a correction key.
Tips
- Choose between designing questions yourself or having your students design them themselves. These questions can be on difficulties that they might still have at the end of a lesson component.
- Prepare enough time so students can read the answers to their questions and ask for clarification to classmates if necessary.
- Encourage students to correct not only the answer but spelling mistakes and grammar as well.
- Avoid copying behaviour by covering/folding away the answer and only comparing answers at the end.
Possible variations in organisation:
- Choose for an informal set-up: students walk around the classroom and react to questions or problems of their choice.
- Choose for a formal set-up: students are seated in groups and go systematically through all questions.
- Choose for the placemat method: the question is placed in the inner rectangle. Four students write down their answer on their side of the paper
Examples
Exercise as a lesson on the tenses:
- Select as many short newspaper articles (one paragraph) in the target language as there are students in a group.
- Leave one or multiple verbs out of the text. Pick forms that are open to discussion. Giving the correct infinitives is an option.
- Each student completes their article with one or multiple conjugated verb per ‘gap’ and writes down why they think that form is fitting in the text.
- Each student passes on their article and receives a new article from a classmate that the student can now give feedback on.
Example peer paper English year 13 ASO, Modern languages (Dutch)
Peer Feedback
Description
By peer feedback we mean all activities in which the students give feedback on each other's process or final product.
We know that this form of assessment is applied quite fairly and accurately by students. They see their classmates at work while learning and therefore sometimes obtain more detailed knowledge about the work of others than the teacher. This way, peer feedback can be seen as part of self-evaluation, because a particular student is given information for their self-assessment.
How it works
- Start gradually: first use peer feedback on a small scale until you as a teacher have confidence in this type of evaluation.
- Practise: let students practise giving each other oral and/or written feedback. Also give students enough time to get used to the idea and the procedure. Make room for students’ positive or negative reactions to this method.
- Keep everyone informed: make it clear to your students and colleagues why you think peer feedback is important, for example to give the students more responsibility or, as a teacher, to gain a broader view of commitment in the classroom.
- Make clear agreements on the basis of criteria: draw up concrete and unambiguous criteria to be used in the evaluation.
Tips
- For peer feedback you can use a point scale (quantitative feedback) or verbal feedback.
- Keep taking control of evaluation, it will benefit the quality of the evaluations. This can be done by providing assessment scales or 'rubrics', by giving students time to practise using these, by showing good examples of feedback, etc.
- Have students practise: the more students practise with peer feedback, the closer the results will resemble the teacher's evaluation.
Examples
Peer feedback during a speaking exercise
In preparation for the speaking exam, the students must record a video message as homework and upload it on the school’s LMS. In the next lesson, they evaluate a fellow student's video using open-ended questions that they cannot answer with yes or no, such as:
'Copy two well-developed sentences.'
'What mistakes do you hear? What do not you understand?'
'Name one important point of attention and name one quality.'
In the second part of the lesson the best sentences and the most common mistakes are compiled so that the students can make a flying start for their exam.
On this website you will find other methods that stimulate peer feedback: 'peer paper', 'SOS corner', 'flip chart questions', 'the Voice'.
SOS Corner
Description
An SOS corner is aimed at giving students a chance to ask questions to peer coaches when they get stuck or have questions whilst working independently. Peer coaches are students that have successfully mastered the learning content that is covered as independent work.
How it works
- Explain the principle of an SOS corner and specify who will be the peer coaches (one or two students most of the time).
- When your students start with their independent work, you explain to the peer coaches the assignments the other students will be working on and you discuss possible questions they might have.
- Give a signal that the peer coaches are informed and ready to answer questions.
Tips
- Variation:
- loud option: students ask questions out loud.
- silent option: students communicate in writing.
- Have the peer coaches go through the independent work in advance as an alternative assignment, homework or in class as an extra assignment when they have finished their exercises faster than their classmates.
- Take your time to evaluate the peer coaches and the way they work. This can be done with an anonymous feedback form on the quality of the interventions, but also by monitoring them in a class discussion.
The Voice
Description
Just like in the television programme The Voice, students can show their appreciation for the performance of their peers by turning around in their seats.
How it works
- Students give presentations individually or in groups.
- 'The jury' (four classmates) sit with their backs to the 'participants' (the students presenting at the front). The rest of the class is the audience.
- As soon as a presentation starts, the judges mark the goals that participants attain on a list of criteria. Agree beforehand how many criteria the participants should attain before a seat can be turned.
- Discuss the criteria with the entire class once the presentation is over.
Tips
- Let students sit backwards on their chairs so that they can easily turn to face the board again.
- Make an overview of judges beforehand so that any jury changes go smoothly.
- This works well if students are already familiar with assessing each other.
- Do not try this out in a class where the atmosphere is negative or there is a chance that the students will make it personal. If there is a good atmosphere, you can have the entire class play the jury.
Examples
- For English: pupils present their advertisement for a specific product.
Possible criteria (one or two per pupil in the jury, if possible linked to their expertise):
Do they speak loud enough?
Are they using the tenses correctly?
Are they using the vocabulary we learned on advertisements?
When you have heard 3 arguments to buy the product, turn around.
When you are convinced to buy the product, turn around.
- A speaking exercise about personal descriptions.
The students know the vocabulary to describe people. They are given time to look up a photo and write a description (appearance and character traits) of a person.
There is a jury of three students. A photo is projected and the student at the front presents the picture. They try to convince the judges, by describing character traits and external features, to go on a date with this person. The judges turn around if they are persuaded to do so.
The class has an assessment form for each presenter. Examples of criteria: at least three adjectives used to describe personality, three adjectives related to appearance, good pronunciation and grammatically correct sentences. After each speaker, the class discusses the performance measured against these criteria.