With another lockdown and schools closed, I made it my mission to ensure my lessons felt as normal as possible and to create activities which actively engage and take pupils away from the screen.

One of my favourite parts of teaching is creating lessons, and the other is actually teaching in a classroom. Therefore, I brainstormed some ideas that I had over the last term about how I could make my lessons as fun as possible. With my L6^th Form Psychologists, we started the topic of Memory, which lends itself to some really fascinating studies and games. We ended up doing a lot of games and testing their memories; for instance Peterson and Peterson’s Experiment and Kim’s Experiment, some with great success. Following this, were two models for Memory, the Multistore model of memory and the Working Memory model. To use the pupils' creative side for this activity, I got the them to use items in their house to make the models. One of my favourites was from Bella (L6^th Form, Priory House) who used her mother’s egg holder for the rehearsal loop, which worked nicely with the analogy that you loop your memory. 

Another favourite lesson I taught over the last few weeks, involved the problems with Eyewitness Testimonies and how unreliable they are. I was able to change my outfit in 2 groups, 8 times in each, with only a number of pupils even realising I had changed. Thus, proving my point that our memories are faulty. (Check out the pictures below for some of my outfits).

Not only have I used pupil’s physical homes to enhance their learning, I have also taken advantage of a wide range of online tools which we normally don’t get to use. From online quizzes, to interactive whiteboards and even interactive lessons with activities built in. I have made use of the cameras this term, getting pupils to make posters and discussing them with the class. I have also got pupils to become the teacher for the lesson to see how it feels on the other side, and to provide evaluation points for the rest of the class.

I have loved the challenge of remote learning and trying new ways of teaching, and I am really looking forward to getting back into the classroom next week.

Kirsty Hoskins - Head of Psychology