Stick Pick

The second of our lunchtime presentations on Magic Monday 4, was by Nicola Roberts, Curriculum Team Leader of our PE department, who has been experimenting with the Stick Pick app. Here, Nicola shares how she has been using it as a questioning tool in her lessons.

• “Do I ask all my students questions?”
• “Do I differentiate these questions?”
• “Do I track my students’ knowledge and understanding?”
• “Is there a resource or tool out there to help?”

These were some of the key questions I was starting to ask following the first Magic Monday. Was there more I could do for the benefit of my students? I turned to twitter and PE Geeks came to the rescue in a blog where the Stick Pick app was mentioned.

How does it work?

The first step is set up the classes which can be a little time-consuming as there is currently no feature to direct import this from a CSV file as in some other assessment apps. You then have to do a bit of work to set up the best type of question for each student but after that you are good to go.

The app creates a virtual lolly stick for each student in the class. When you want to build in some question time the can is shaken and a lolly stick is picked. Students can be asked a question using the question stem on the screen which is then answered by the student. Sometimes the answer may not be known, in this case a strategy like Pose, Pause, Pounce, Bounce could be used to send the question to another student either at the same level or for whom this would be an extension of the type of question you usually ask them. The student who shook the can could also devise the question, which works well for revision. When they answer the question they are prompted to assess the answer given. This will vary depending on which question mode you select at the set up stage.

Features

When you have used the app for a while you might want to review students’ progress and use this for feedback. You can look at a student in detail on the profile and send this to an email address, so you can use this data with greater ease. To avoid asking the same person, you can mark a stick as used which means that they stay out of the can for any subsequent questions.

In summary, Stick Pick is a handy app to question at levels appropriate to each student, as well as tracking their progress and the clarity of their responses. All in all, it’s a useful questioning tool that is a reasonable price for £2.00.

Corners

We were delighted to kick off our 4th Magic Monday with a Pedagogy Picnic presentation by one of our student teachers, Amanda Spenceley.  Here, Amanda shares how she has used “Corners” as a simple recap activity at the start of her lessons.

Corners is a game that works particularly well with smaller groups.  I have, however, played this game with my larger classes and overall it has been a huge success and all students are engaged throughout.

The game requires students to recall information that is already stored in their long-term memory and bring it forward to their working memory. It is for this reason that the game is a useful starter activity if you are planning on expanding upon information that the students were first introduced to 4-5 lessons ago, as it will refresh their memories of what they learned previously.

 How to play

1. Choose four volunteers to stand at each corner of the room.
2. Ask all four students your question. Whoever puts their hand up first is selected.
3. If they answer incorrectly, choose the pupil who put their hand up second. If they answer correctly, they move in a clockwise direction to the next corner of the room, knocking out the student whose place they are taking.
4. Choose another student from the middle of the classroom to fill the empty space. A good tip is to ask those sat in the middle a question and the first person to answer correctly receives the opportunity to come up and fill the empty space. This ensures that everyone is involved.
5. Repeat the above steps. The first person to travel around all four corners to arrive back in their original corner wins!