Cherry-Picking Revision

Cherry-Picking Revision is a simple Presentation based on an original idea by History teacher James Fitzgibbon. While the basic idea is much the same as his – getting students to identify key ideas they can “cherry-pick” to answer exam-type questions – I’ve converted it to PowerPoint and extended it slightly:

1. To make it a little more interactive.

2. To provide a range of different “revision options” to use with students.

3. To potentially cover a wider range of questions, from simple 2-markers to essay-type.

As you’ll see, once you fire it up, there are now 3 different types of resource contained within the Presentation. While these are all minor variations on the same basic theme, they provide a few different options for any revision exercise, depending on what you’re trying to do with your students:

Pick-Your-Own: Students select options from a range of ideas to answer a question.

Cherry-Picking: This has 3 different sub-options you can use it to get students to answer a wide range of questions.

Pick-The-Best: Students are presented with 7 possible ideas they can use to answer a question, from which they need to pick 2, 3 or 4, depending on the type of question asked, but some are red-herrings they will find difficult, if not impossible, to apply.

Finally, since the Presentation only provides a single sample question to familiarise you with its mechanics, I’ve provided a Template slide you can use to devise and implement any question(s) you want to use. I’ve tried to make it as simple as possible to create new questions and answers, particularly if you’re not familiar with the creation of slightly more-complicated forms of slide interaction.

I’ve also included reasonably extensive Notes under each slide to explain the basic purpose of each type in the Presentation.