On last night's national news....

.....was a feature about a school in Birmingham where they had banned pupils raising hands in lessons. In place of this, teachers would pick a pupil to answer their questions. If the pupil didn't want to answer or was stuck, they could 'phone a friend' (ask in the class) to help them out. It was interesting - and raises points about student interaction and engagement in group sessions. It is clear that teachers are still thinking about ways to engage and involve pupils/students.

DVD board games are popular at the moment, and there is a pop quiz game for PlayStation 2 called Buzz that allows 4 people to use buzzers to show that they want to answer a question. We should consider looking into how these (or simiar) can be used to improve classroom interactions