Keep it simple silly – simple ideas, big impact

One of my favourite mantras for teaching and learning are those based around keeping it real simple. The cumulative effect (sometimes thought of as marginal learning gains (hat tip to Zoë Elder)) of these simple little ideas can lead to a big difference in the classroom. Keep it simple silly (or sometimes known as keep it simple stupid!) is a phrase that often guides me in what I try to do.

I find that if you overcomplicate things you can often easily alienate a large proportion of the people you are working with – teachers and children. Yes, providing stretch and challenge for the most able is important, but for you, as teacher, often keeping it simple (silly) means you can more easily build up a toolkit of classroom activities that’ll have a big impact.

To help with this I thought I would reach out to my PLN and ask, so I did:

DO YOU HAVE A SIMPLE IDEA that's made a MASSIVE IMPACT? Add it here >> https://t.co/2IDEhQaWO6 #HNY2016 pic.twitter.com/VW6NQ3yokk

— Mark Anderson (@ICTEvangelist) January 2, 2016

And so ideas have been coming in which I hope you will find useful. I’ve embedded the Padlet below so you can see the responses and add your own too. After all, sharing is caring and we are so much stronger together!

Happy New Year!

 [padlet key=’1y16qw4gtasa’ width=’100%’ height=’1500′]