Welcome to Alec Hunter Humanities College

Trevor Lawn - Headteacher

“No Hands Up”

Once again, over the past week, our staff have been trialling a new approach in their teaching with a view to developing their practice and improving the classroom experience for all our learners. During the week beginning 16th January, teachers were encouraged to insist on ‘No Hands Up’ from students when answering questions, as research shows that this can increase their engagement and enjoyment of the lesson and further their progress. The ’No Hands Up’ initiative supports the expectation that all students should have an answer and whereas some classroom discussions may be dominated by a few individuals, when no hands are shown, everyone has an equal opportunity and an equal responsibility to get actively involved in all aspects of the learning.

Staff have been very ingenious in adopting alternative methods of deciding who should answer a question, ranging from lolly sticks with students’ names on to rather more technical electronic random name generators. The ‘No Hands Up’ approach can also provide increased opportunity for valuable assessment for learning techniques to be used with students to ascertain their understanding of key points. Moreover, it can improve the attention level of students and encourage a greater level of differentiation. Students sometimes put their hands up before they have had time to think about the question being asked and their answers may therefore be less well developed. Additional thinking time gives everyone the chance to consider their response carefully.

Staff and students are sharing their thoughts and giving feedback on this experience via the forum on iAlec. We would welcome any views on this, just log on and join the debate. Special thanks go to Mr Fox, Assistant Headteacher, for providing the inspiration for this initiative and for enthusiastically encouraging colleagues to attempt new strategies