Create Your Own
With the technique, Create Your Own, students who have achieved a benchmark standard (for example, who have completed all the tasks you have set to a good standard) design thinking tasks for other students to solve. For example, they might create multiple-choice questions or deliberate mistakes exercises.
Why use this technique?
As much as possible, we are trying to minimise learning and achievement gaps in our class by keeping the learning of everyone as close together as possible, but without holding any students’ learning back. No mean feat, but Create Your Own can help with this (as can Become The Teacher). Rather than students moving on to learn new content (creating the sort of gap we are trying to avoid), by ‘creating their own’, they are given an enriching opportunity to apply their learning, consolidating their knowledge and skills. This taps into a cognitive principle called the generation effect - using existing knowledge to do something new with or create something new strengthens this knowledge and develops understanding.
This technique also utilises Dylan Wiliam’s assertion that students who spend an hour writing their own test questions learn more than students who spend the same time answering questions created by someone else (Embedding Formative Assessment, Dylan Wiliam).
Beyond these benefits, we often find that thinking tasks created by students are even better than those we might have created ourselves. Hence, we can use them as teaching resources.
Focused reflection
How well do you currently use this technique?
Is it a technique you will focus on developing?
If so, what are the key features you will focus on (things to do, and not do)?