Laura Horton encourages a passion for history in her pupils by using simulations

The most dangerous trainee of all time; or the use of simulation in the classroom!

By the end of my first week on main placement, rumours were rife in the corridors that an outbreak of the Black Death had hit the school – and rife in the staffroom that I had been in some sort of brawl the preceding weekend thanks to the purple marks on my face and neck that looked suspiciously like bruises. Was I, in fact, the least professional and most dangerous trainee the school had ever known?

The answer, of course, is no. It was my predilection for using costume, drama and simulation in the classroom that had caused all sorts of gossip in the school. I’d planned my first lesson with Year 7 about the causes and spread of the Black Death as a simulation, where they – as teams of medical experts – would follow learning objectives that were tailored to ‘curing my disease’ and preventing it from spreading around the school, whilst cunningly teaching them historical content and the skills of analysing cause and effect. I decided to dress up, by using red food colouring to create burst buboes, black lipstick to paint purple swellings on myself, and finally by pouring an entire pint of water over myself, in the minutes before I entered the classroom, to give myself a feverish-looking sweat (a note for those of you considering this – water does not mix terribly well with interactive whiteboards!)

This is quite an extreme example of ‘simulation’ in the classroom, and to some, the lines between this approach and ‘drama’ are blurred. The difference, though, lies in the roles given to pupils to ensure the whole class is participating to create the simulated scenario. In this instance, I was the victim and they were doctors, nurses and government health officials, each with a specific role in their table groups throughout the lesson to focus them on meeting the learning objectives. This is wholly different to drama, where often only a small proportion of the class (or just the teacher!) is in role. Additionally, in drama, participants are required to immerse themselves into a role, which reduces opportunities for meta-cognition and the subsequent focus on learning objectives. By using a simulation, both the function of the role, and the outcomes created in that role, are apparent to the pupil. For instance, as a doctor in this scenario, the pupil would know that the ‘function’ of their role was to achieve the learning objective of ‘identifying the symptoms of the Black Death’, and they would do this through accessing content relating to these symptoms. Other roles would match other learning objectives and the group could then feedback effectively to ensure everyone in the table group had met all of the objectives.

So why use simulation in the classroom?

Simulation has a wide range of benefits for teachers and pupils alike. The immersion in a fictional scenario inspires and motivates pupils – simply put, it’s exciting and probably different to any other lesson they will have that day! It’s memorable and engaging and thus can go a long way to strengthening your reputation as a teacher and impression on a class, helping to provide a positive classroom environment and thus promote good behaviour. Furthermore, this reputation for the kind of lessons you don’t want to miss tends to spread around the school (I always find it helps if you stand in the corridor to welcome pupils whilst dressed in some kind of outrageous costume)! Another benefit simulation can have for you and yourpupils is its structured nature, assigning pupils specific roles that match learning objectives. This can help you, and them, to measure their progress through assessment – in such a subtle way they will not notice they are doing it (for instance, an ‘emergency government meeting’ [in teacher language = verbal feedback] to discuss the causes and spread of the plague throughout Europe!) It suits a huge range of learning styles, as you can incorporate written, visual and kinaesthetic tasks into the simulation, as well as providing a comprehensive and well-structured plan for you as the teacher, where every pupil is participating. To meet the needs of all pupils, differentiation ‘by role’ is easy to achieve, and I often allow pupils to choose their own roles – this allows them to reflect on their strengths as a learner and take ownership of their learning. It can also help you to strengthen your relationships with other members of staff – through Health and Safety negotiations, but also the inclusion of Teaching Assistants in the simulation (by providing them with a plan in advance and an appropriate costume). Lastly, I felt the benefits reaching more widely than just the pupils and staff of the school at a Year 7 Parents’ Evening where I was greeted by one pupil’s parent with the slightly terrifying “I’ve heard about you…” – luckily, they’d heard only good things about how their 11-year-old son had become a doctor in my lessons with him, and wanted to thank me for engaging him in history!

So how could I use this in my classroom?: top tips and suggestions!

Tips for using simulation in the classroom

 

        Choose your scenario carefully – obviously avoid things that will be offensive such as a Nazi simulation.

 

        Do not over-use this as a classroom tool – firstly, they take absolutely ages to plan and resource, and secondly, the ‘novelty’ effect that makes these lessons so engaging will be lost if this is repeated every time you teach.

Do not break role for the whole lesson – once you’ve swept them up in the pretence it is easy to carry their attention, but when broken it’ll be hard to reconstruct.

To achieve this, you will have to plan for every instruction you give, or resource you give out, to be ‘themed’ along with the scenario. For instance, in my ‘Thomas Becket’ scheme of work, I would only address the class as ‘Detective [Surname]’ and all resources were themed to look like crime scene reports. We also placed sources into freezer bags and labelled them ‘exhibit 1/2/3 etc’ to mimic the real-life procedure that would take place – I strongly advise you to spare no detail. The more convincing the scenario, the more engaging it will be.

It is helpful to arrange the classroom in table groups of 4, mixing pupils with different skill-sets (creative, good at presenting, good at researching etc). This enables all pupils to have a fulfilling and engaging role.

You will probably have to invest a lot more time in planning and creating resources for this sort of lesson, especially if costumes are involved – I remember sitting in the staffroom frantically cutting up bedsheets to create my Pope costume, as I had underestimated the amount of time this would take. Leave yourself ample time!

Check with Health & Safety before you plan! – after planning to squeeze 30 Year 9s into a tiny kitchen in order to create an air raid shelter, I was told the night before the lesson that it would be too dangerous and breach Health & Safety policy. Cue frantic re-planning involving borrowing an enormous amount of blackout curtains from the Drama department and a very hectic period before the lesson attempting to set up an air raid shelter in the Learning Support zone!

Overall - careful planning is an absolute necessity. You, as the teacher, must have a clear idea of exactly what each ‘role’ will be achieving in terms of the learning objectives. Additionally, strict timing is necessary to ensure that progress is made and assessed.

When used effectively, simulation in the classroom can be an excellent tool for promoting pupil (and teacher!) engagement and enjoyment of lessons – ensuring that they make progress and that your relationship and classroom climate is positively strengthened. I’ll leave you with a list of suggested simulations, some of which I have tried to great effect and some of which I am aiming to use later in my career!

Suggested scenarios

Scenario	Teacher role	Pupil roles
Black Death	Victim	Doctor/nurse/government official/medical researcher
Medieval church	Pope	Cardinal/archbishop/bishop/priest
WW2 = Blitz	Air raid warden	Families (father/mother/children)
Henry VIII & the Reformation (this can be adapted to the court of any monarch studied!)	Henry VIII	Wolsey (Chancellor), More (Chancellor), Anne Boleyn, William Tyndale
French Revolution (fall of monarchy)	Louis XVI	Representatives of the Paris clubs (Jacobins, Cordeliers, Girondins, Hebertistes)
Cold War (Korean War, but could apply to any military event)	Commander-in-Chief at the Pentagon	General, Major, Colonel, Private
Feudal system	King	Lord/knight/peasant/priest
Treaty of Versailles	Secretary of the League of Nations	USA/France/Britain/Germany

… But the possibilities are endless!

Laura Horton is a PGCE History trainee with the York University PGCE Partnership, 2012-13.

Sarah Jackson teaches us the benefits of Edmodo

Edmodo: initially suspicious of a Facebook-like tool for classroom use, my ideas about Edmodo have been completely transformed.

Edmodo is an alternative method to Twitter of keeping in touch with your class, with much greater privacy. You create classes and each class will get a group code, which students can then use to sign up the site. If you want to, parents can also get a code to see what is going their child’s Edmodo page. You don’t need to worry about students using the site inappropriately as students can only send messages to the teacher or send public messages to the class wall, which ensures that all content written on Edmodo is education-related!

The ‘post’, ‘like’ and ‘comment’ features of Edmodo make it an incredibly useful classroom tool. With a quiet Year 10 class I used Edmodo to create a silent debate forum during class, where students had to respond to controversial quotes about women both from the modern and Victorian era, as an introduction to the ‘Women and the Vote’ topic for GCSE.  Students would ‘post’ for a new point, ‘like’ to express they agreed with point, or ‘comment’ to build on or argue against somebody else’s ideas. Edmodo worked really well in this context because you can track who has commented, and also question students further by commenting yourself. A usually hesitant class were then able to build off their ideas in the silent debate to then talk more confidently about the issues in the class.

Another important use of Edmodo is for setting an extended-writing homework or an assessment. You can use Edmodo to set assessments –which you can attach a video and the markscheme to explaining what they have to do (and perhaps giving them some useful tips), which is particularly useful for the more disorganised student as they don’t have to try to remember what you’ve told them in class. The student will get due dates for notifications on the site, and if they signed up with their email address (they get the choice) they will get an email notification that they’ve been set an assignment. Not only can teachers set work on here conveniently but they can also mark it easily on the website, as you just have to click and type to give feedback to students or use the highlighter tool to emphasis good or bad points in a written answer. Once the teacher has given their response, students will get a notification telling them their work has been marked. Students work will remain on the site for easy access to both you and them in the long term, so for example when they come to revise they can re-look at their work, without the risk of them having lost it.

There are also several other useful features of Edmodo. Each student gets a grade book from the assignments they have handed in, so as a teacher you can keep a track of their progress. Furthermore you can also use it as an useful AFL tool. You can set up quizzes so that you work out what areas of a topic students are struggling with, which will also feature on the mark book. You can send polls to students to use for student voice – or alternatively you could use this feature instead of ABCD cards at the end of the lesson. Furthermore, it also allows you to keep track of your class if you have set for example a reading homework, you can see which students have viewed the relevant pages.
Edmodo is therefore a useful classroom, organisational, and marking tool that can transform both student and teaching experiences.

Sarah Jackson
York University PGCE History student 2012-13