Specifications are crammed full of content, creating considerable pressure on ‘coverage’ within teaching time. The temptation is to cut activities which seem to take up more time than apparently necessary. However the real question is not ‘how much time does this activity take?’ but ‘how effective will it be in enhancing knowledge, understanding and memory?’

Decision-making activities provide a good example of activities that appear ‘cut-able’ but which actually play an important role in improving students’ attainment. One of the arguments in ‘Make it Stick’ is that when students attempt to answer a question or solve a problem before being told what actually happened this has the effect of making the mind more receptive to new learning. By puzzling over the choices facing a historical individual, students are far more likely to learn and remember the solution than if their teacher explained the decision just the once. The more students wrestle with decisions beforehand, classroom learning is stronger when they go on to find out what choice really was made. As the attached examples explain (See Resource File, Pages 13&14), the value of the activity lies in

a) discussing the pros and cons of each choice within a decision, not in getting the ‘right answer’

b) identifying what the students do not understand when they make a different choice from the historical individual.

It is particularly worth thinking about using decision-making activities when students face what appears to be a particularly turgid topic! Thomas Cromwell’s governmental reforms may be one such topic that we hope to have made more accessible, understandable and memorable – we set up a decision-making activity as the first layer of the topic within the context of investigating the extent to which Cromwell was able to make royal government more effective.

In addition a brief discussion and examples of decision-making activities can be found HERE …

For an A level activity which provides a model for other topics see HERE …

It is vital that new information is presented to students in an engaging and meaningful way. Decision-making is just one example of activities that successfully enhance knowledge, understanding and memory and so help students do well in exams.  Our own work and that of Ian Luff has also shown how carefully structured role plays and active demonstrations can help students build clear understanding of ‘difficult’ areas of a course. Many GCSE and A level students can overcome initial learning obstacles much more quickly through this type of activity, enabling them to read more keenly and independently and with a greater sense of understanding in follow-up work. If you are really engaged, thinking hard about options and motives, then your ability to remember is much enhanced. It is therefore essential to treat a structured role-play as a central learning activity with precise objectives and helping students understand complex situations, choices and aspects of a period – it is not a bolted-on extra or mid-unit treat.

For a more complete discussion of these issues see our article, originally published in Teaching History, on teaching the ‘Je sui le roi’ activity at KS3 see HERE …

However an activity by itself will lose impact if not followed by thorough debriefing and immediate reflection – another point that cannot be made strongly enough. Debriefing is vital in moving students on from a feeling of being ‘in the past’ to reflecting ‘on the past’, reflections enhanced by their experience of ‘thinking from the inside’ about a historical situation. Follow-up work will benefit both from the excitement and the clarity of thinking generated by the activity. Moreover, students tend to remember anything with a strong emotion attached – ‘emotion’ does not mean that the classroom is full of students in floods of tears but that they have been fully engaged with a historical situation, thinking hard about their choices and understanding why certain choices were made.

In addition, these activities substantially and directly improve pupils’ writing and their ability to recall information. This is why there should be a strong focus on speaking and listening during the phase when students are constructing arguments. Alexander has shown how talk is important in building children’s powers to think and reason and Barton argues that ‘Students – especially boys – improve their writing skills when allowed brief spoken opportunities to discuss what they will write’. 

Debates and discussions help to generate ideas and construct arguments that may otherwise have remained incomplete.  Such tasks help students shape their learning and understanding in a low-risk activity, whilst at the same time keeping them involved and motivated. As Didau in The Secret of Literacy points out ‘We can only write what we can say.  We can only say what we think.  It’s impossible to verbalise anything which you are unable to formulate inside your head.  But, if we can say it, we can write it.’