Tag Archives: History Teacher
Retrieval Roulette – Quiz and Game Generator
Last year Adam Boxer shared a simple but highly effective spreadsheet to randomly generate short quizzes (which include questions from the current topic being studied as well as questions from previous topics) from a list of pre-set questions. The link to his original ‘Retrieval Roulette’ post is here, and is well worth a read.
With his permission I’ve taken his original spreadsheet and added templates that create boards for games of Battleships, Blockbusters and Connect Four.
You can download a copy of the Quiz Creator here. The ‘Questions’ tab is currently filled with questions for the IGCSE course I teach (interwar politics, Cold War and a Germany 1918-1945 depth study) but you can replace them with your own questions in the order in which you cover them through the course.
To create quizzes:
- Add questions and answers to the list on the ‘Questions’ tab.
- Set up your question range:
- Enter the question number you have covered up to in cell F1
- Enter the first question number of your current topic in cell F2
- Enter the last question number of your current topic in cell F3
- Click the tab name (e.g. Battleships 6×6) for the questions to be randomly populated into the template grid
- Press F9 on any tab to refresh with a new random set of questions. There are occasional repeats within the same grid – I’m currently trying to work out a way to stop this, but my students actually quite like it.
- When you go to print the template you will get two A4 sheets – one with the questions and one with the answers. The printed template will also feature a random Quiz ID so that you can match the questions and answers in case you produce numerous quizzes.
Using a macro to create and print multiple random quizzes
You can use a macro to automatically create and print a certain number of random quizzes. It only takes a couple of minutes to set up and allows you to produce unlimited random quizzes quickly and easily:
- Load the spreadsheet and go to the VBA editor (press alt-F11)
- Insert a new Module (menu Insert, select Module)
- Copy and paste the code below (substitute the text-like variable called number_of_desired_copies with the actual number of copies you want to produce):
Sub print_random()
For i = 1 To number_of_desired_copies
Application.Calculate
ActiveSheet.PrintOut
Next i
End Sub
Now just press the ‘play’ button to run the macro and hey presto 🙂
‘March Madness’ 8-factor causation priority bracket
The ‘March Madness series of North American College basketball games uses a ‘bracket’ system to eliminate teams. You can use the same bracket system to run a series of debates or individual considerations to identify the most significant / important cause of an historical event.
Begin by identifying 8 key factors, which are written on the 8 legs of the 1st Round. Each pair of factors is debated, with the ‘winner’ (i.e. the most convincing argument) making it through to the 2nd Round. The 2nd Round factors are then debated against each other, resulting in the final two factors making it through the the Championship round.
Editable ‘fortune teller’ template for plenaries and peer questioning
A while ago I saw a brilliant resource from Stuart Godman at www.aheadofhistory.co.uk who had created a peer assessment version of the playground paper ‘fortune teller’ game. It’s great to reach these out as a plenary activity at the end of an intense lesson of historical analysis and get the students talking to each other about their work.
I’ve since made a series of ‘fortune tellers’ for different units. The most successful seem to be those which require students to explain the contribution of a specific factor to an event. Students enjoy having a little bit of control over the factor they are going to be asked about, while still maintaining the random element. You can download some examples below.
Nazi Rise to Power ‘Fortune Teller’
Causes of WW1 ‘Fortune Teller’
Causes of WW1 ‘Fortune Teller’ v2
Origins of the Cold War ‘Fortune Teller’
Collapse of Soviet Control ‘Fortune Teller’
I thought it also made sense to share this editable PowerPoint of a fortunate teller so that you can create your own. Instructions on how to fold it, in case you can’t remember back to when you were in KS2, are below!
Great website to find music, sorted by country & decade www.radiooooo.com
The www.radiooooo.com website is definitely worth adding to your ‘Favourites’. A crowd-sourced directory of 20th Century international music, it features a host of tracks categorised by country of origin and decade. With just a couple of clicks you have quick and easy access to a huge range music to play in the background while students work. Great for adding a ‘sense of period’…or just for fun!
‘We Are History’ photo collage display to download
I created this photo collage as a title for one of my display boards. Each letter is made up of images I collected for my daily HistoryPod podcast so they cover a range of events from the Wild West to the Space Race and the Qing dynasty to Tiananmen Square. The letters make a great display board title when cut out – around it I added front page images from various editions of Time magazine covering the past few decades.
It makes a great conversation starter – students have enjoyed identifying the images, or quizzing me about the events they relate to.
You can download a PDF of the letters below. To give you an idea of size, the word “We” is the width of an A4 sheet.
Succeeding at Sourcework exam tips
This History revision podcast focuses on how to answer different types of source questions. Many of the hints are good practice with for any sourcework paper, but if you would like specific advice for the CIE exams then check out my revision podcasts for IGCSE Paper 2 and IGCSE Paper 4.
This specific episode presents tips on a range source question types including:
- Comprehension
- Comprehension in Context
- Reliability/Usefulness/Value
- Source Comparisons
- Interpretation
IGCSE History Paper 2 exam tips
The summer 2018 exam will include a Paper 2 exam on the League of Nations in the 1920s and 1930s. There are extensive revision materials on this topic in the IGCSE/GCSE history revision menu.
This video (also available to download as a podcast) has been created specifically for students studying the CIE IGCSE History 0470 course, but a lot of the advice contained in it is appropriate for all source questions. My advice comes from reading the examiner’s report, which is written by the chief examiner – that’s the person in charge of marking all your exam papers – in which they explain what students do well in the exam and what needs to be improved.
This episode provides general tips on how to improve the quality of source answers, drawn from common mistakes that students make in the CIE IGCSE History 0470 exam. Specific advice is given on how the answer the final 12 mark question, which is always asks how far the collection sources agree (or disagree) with a particular point of view.
If you want more general guidance on answering source papers, download my other podcast called on Succeeding at Sourcework. Although it’s not designed specifically for the CIE Paper 2, it still contains lots of good tips that you might find helpful.
‘Argument words’ vocabulary mat to evaluate significance
Students can sometimes find it difficult to reach a conclusion on the importance or significance of a particular factor. This handy ‘Argument words’ mat by @Snoopycmf is a great starting point to help develop this vocabulary.
Awkward dinner party: WW1 alliances seating plan
This activity works well as a plenary or as an energising starter to the next lesson. Having studied the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente, students are faced with the problem of seating the six countries at a dinner table. They need to keep disagreements to a minimum by positioning the biggest rivals away from each other.
Students enjoy the debate involved in this activity, and often need to re-draw their plans as the discussion progresses. Having decided the seating plan, they write the name of each country on the appropriate chair and give a short explanation of their placement in the blank box.
The activity can be easily adapted for other situations – I know of colleagues using seating plans to get students to show the differing internal alliances in the early years of Stalin’s Soviet Union, and a Philosophy & Ethics teacher using it for arguments about the existence of God.
The History Channel Documentary Random Name Generator
The History Channel (now just called ‘History’) used to be jokingly referred to as ‘The Hitler Channel’ for its often disproportionate focus on the German dictator. However, over the past couple of years it has branched out to include documentaries about things that can barely even be referred to as historical. Drawing on many of the History Channel’s original series, this random name generator will hopefully help you come up with a new idea for a television show…and maybe even made you smile a little bit.
Please note that the names are generated at random, and I take no responsibility for the results.
However, if you get a particularly good name, please add it to the comments below!
