Innovating your homework planner to engage students
We've had the pleasure of working on some really exciting planner projects over the years and recently we've seen some fantastic ideas to get students engaged with their planner and encouraging them to get the most use and benefit from it.
Some ideas are too good not to share so we will be blogging about some of our favourites, starting with...
#1 Tweet the Task
Tweet the Task is a fun addition the planner but is also an effective way to reinforce what has been learnt in the lesson. Challenging your students to summarise a fact they have learnt in a 140 character snippet just like on Twitter, with hashtags and all!
If you have a great idea or want to practice - we’d love to hear from you!
#2 Life Lessons
How often do you think students ask themselves “How does what I am learning apply to the real world?”
If we had a pound for every student that said “I don’t need to learn simultaneous equations, I don’t want to be a Mathematician! ” or “When am I ever going to use that theory?!” I'm sure we would all be very rich!
However, the key transferable skills gained through school education are there to prepare students for the real world and so encouraging them to identify these situations can be beneficial by both reinforcing the topic they are learning and motivating hard work, as they can see the reasoning behind learning and how they will use this knowledge in the future.
Providing an area where students can take a lesson from that day/week and explain how this would assist them in a real life situation is the perfect way to put learning into real life context.
#3 Add Technology
Students are growing up in the digital age and most of them spend a large proportion of their free time on their phone, tablet or laptop. Linking your planner with the modern world is therefore a great way to engage students as you are “speaking their language” so to speak.
If you are looking for a quirky addition to your planner, augmented reality (AR) technology could be an (extremely) affordable and effective option. AR will allow students, staff and parents to scan the planner cover (or specific pages) with their phone or tablet using a free app to immediately access a whole host of useful information. Whether you want your planner cover to take you to your website, schools updates and events or your online planning system, anything is possible! Click here to find out more and watch a demo video.
We've got many more ideas where these came from so follow us on Facebook and Twitter or check back in to our blog soon! Alternatively if you would like to find out more about any of the above please do not hesitate to give our team a call on 0121 454 9441 or email info@wave-ed.co.uk
*UPDATE* Click here for more planner engagement ideas!
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