I often get my students to teach each other, but today I had added a twist. I was looking for a fun activity to challenge my technical English students, and came across one when recently watching a QI episode hosted by Stephen Fry. I always find the end of the QI series very intriguing as it takes me back to my secondary school physics lessons.
If you are a teacher or even a curious viewer watch the following video below from 39 minutes in without the sound, and try to figure out what the heck is happening.
I then set my students the following task –
1) What? is it showing
2) How does it work? the tech or physics behind it
3) Are there any real life applications?
4) How would you explain it to secondary school students? * create a handout, summarised to a page and include diagrams if necessary
Two other lessons I have had my students create are underneath.
Electronics
Explain to secondary school students in a lesson format with a handout the function of the following –
Inductors , conductors, resistors, line cards, transmitters, base stations and MOSFETs.
Senses & Tech
Create a lesson comparing the function of one of the senses to a technological device.
Feel free to road test them and let me know how you get on.
Often the drawback of students specialised in a particular field is that they have broad specific vocabulary, but not necessarily so in regards to general or comprehensive vocabulary. Likewise they are unable to at times paraphrase or simplify. The above tasks/lessons I find help with alleviating this, and broadening the scope of their communication skills. Plus they tend to have great fun pretending to be dumb pupils.
I will give an update to this blog entry when I have done more road testing of the above lessons.
