I want to tell you a story

Friday, November 06, 2009

This is a great activity for revision and developing skills of application and analysis.

Every so often, I play a game with my eldest daughter which involves her picking up 5 or 6 random objects from around the house and then making up a story with all the items included. She loves it (developing thinking skills from the start I am).

Anyway, how do I integrate this brilliant game into my teaching? Easy.

After I finished the first part of AQA BUSS1 (the non finance section), I had 18 key words on the board (1 for each member of the class). Totally random they were, things like entrepreneur, sole trader, gap in the market, market research, sampling, adding value. You get the idea.

Then, I got the class to tell me a story using all the key words. I started off with the student at the front and each student took it in turns to add the next part of the story using a different key word. The results were amazing. All students were involved and all the key terms got used.

What I like about this is that it forces the students to find links with the different elements of the entire specification, bringing in different concepts. I love it. Going to do it again when I have finished BUSS1, using all the finance stuff as well.

I also did it with my Year 11’s prior to their mock exams.

You could also make it even more interactive. Get the students to come up with the words. Each one has to come up and write 1 key word on the board. Once they have finished, the story begins, and everyone loves a good story......