Chalkface Blog

The best teaching materials in the most practical format.

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Author: Ian Grove-Stephensen

  • 2010 Year in Review

    Milestone reached 100,000 questions in the question bank. We passed this milestone during September. As well as representing a truly humbling commitment from our authors, it is also represents a stunning teaching resource. Consider: 100,000 question is 10,000 per each of 10 main subjects. Across 5 years of secondary school to GCSE, that’s 2,000 questions…

  • Turn quizzes into complete lessons using embeds

    If you fancy extending your authoring skills over the holiday, check out Yacapaca’s list of permitted embeds, which I have just updated. Author Kevin O’Driscoll has produced some great exemplar material combining video with quizzes. Try his course AIMS practice: Strand 1: Number Sense to get

  • We need your help to complete the transition to reporting all test results as grades

    Next time you log into Yacapaca, I’m going to ask you to do a little extra work. It’s worth it, I promise. I’m going to ask you to enter the grade scheme and average grade of each of your student sets. Why? Lots of teachers have told us that getting marks just as percentage is…

  • The best citizenship lesson you will ever teach

    Put this on the whiteboard, snap it to full screen and sit back. The discussion afterwards will tell you what a great lesson you just taught. My favourite bit comes at exactly 14:00 minutes: “…about 50% of the fall in child mortality can be attributed to female education.” Doesn’t that make you proud to be…

  • Testing to the Teach: how to give your students the itch to keep learning despite themselves

    In a traditional test, one does not give feedback at all. This is a result of the limitations of the medium; give feedback on paper and you also give the game away. Working online, you can give extended feedback as soon as the question is answered, but how do you do it for maximum effect?…