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Written by Edward Upton, Teachable founder

We certainly have the former on Teachable, contributing their best ideas and inspiration for others to download.

The question is how can G&T pupils benefit. What G&T resources do we have on Teachable.net?

Founded by a group of ‘talented’ students, we try to make sure a lot of our content is challenging for the higher ability learners.

• Firstly, our contributing and moderation guidelines ensure that all the files are designed to encourage thinking, not spoon-feed learners. Most of the 5* resources also have extension activities to go with them.
• Secondly, we tag all the files by ability, so you can find files marked as Advanced within a particular strand of the curriculum, which means they go above and beyond the requirements of that exam / curriculum.
• Thirdly, we are always on the lookup for fresh, topical material that will stimulate and engage. We would even welcome contributions from star pupils whose insights might spur on others to new heights.

Speaking for myself, the things that engaged me as a student were the innovative lesson styles and zany experiments. Ten-year-old lessons or videos used as padding always stuck out a mile off. Opening minds relies on having an open and creative mind yourself.

G&T teachers meeting G&T pupils.

I’ve been banging on about in in various training sessions, and I do believe that there are really basic errors you can avoid to stop boring your class. The two presentations below (from a business slideshow sharing site, Slideshare), both make the same points.

However, they do also make the two same mistakes. Too many images, flashed up in sequence, can be distracting. Sometimes a well worked through page of text (just not too much text) really does get the point home.

It seems that modern teachers are pulled apart by on the one-hand pressure to deliver exciting, action-packed lessons to engage an attention-deficit generation, and on the other to plan and prove that is what they are doing.

A well argued point by Phil Beadle from Oasis Academy, Coulsdon, UK in his blog for the Guardian highlights this:

In general, kids mess about when they are bored. Gilbert is merely drawing teachers’ attention to the simplest answer to the difficult class: don’t bore ‘em …

But planning exciting lessons is a time-consuming activity. Vast swathes of a teacher’s time in an over-regulated education system is spent proving they are doing the job, rather than actually doing it. If [Ofsted] wants more exciting lessons, perhaps the focus should be less on top-down diktats, and more on reducing teacher workload, so that we have the time to engage, to excite and, yes, even to entertain.

The only practical solution to seems to be: get sharing those interactive lessons, along with the lesson plans, so other teachers can keep the class on track WITHOUT sacrificing their weekends in lesson preparation. Entertain, yes. Produce all the entertainment yourself – no.

Our countdown of clips to take and use in your class.

10. And you think table salt is dull?

9. Sonic Boom visualised

Very unusual shots of a sonic boom in action.

8. Superconductors in action.

Tough to explain the underlying physics, but good for challenging more able pupils. Ages 16-18.

7. Egg drop experiment.
A great experiment that can be re-run in schools with help from DT. There is also a more technical version from MIT .

6. Standing waves demonstrated using flames

A YouTube classic, but the physics of longitudinal waves can be nicely explained using this. Ages 14-18.

5. Duff caesium experiment

This doesn’t quite produce the expected bang, but a great way to get the class thinking about safety aspects when designing a less risky experiment.

4. Demo of weighlessness on a zero-G flight.

This is a promotional film, but it is great fun.

3. Relative size of objects in space.
Don’t expect them to recall the star names, but a good illustration of scale. Age 16-18 (A-level).

2. Musical guide to the elements – The elements song!
Short clip to introduce or recap the periodic table.

1. Condensing gas sucks in an egg.

Just such a simple and visual way to demonstrate change in gas volume with cooling. Age 11-16 (GCSE).

Teachable has been running a series of training sessions on how to use more advanced animation features in Powerpoint.  If you’ve been to one of these sessions, and would like to download the files again, they are listed out below.

The Credit Crunch -  Pre-prepared file for you to work on when building animations

Task List (Powerpoint 2007)- Step by step guide to how to build animations and embed videos.

If you have any problems or further feedback on the sessions, do contact Teachable.