As educators in Religious and Moral Education, our goal extends beyond simply imparting information; we aim to ignite curiosity, foster empathy, and encourage deep thinking about the world and our place in it. One of the most effective ways to achieve this is by embracing active and play-based learning. Moving away from purely passive teaching methods can transform the RME classroom into a vibrant space for discovery and growth.
This blog post, drawing from our “MAKING RME FUN! Active and Play based Learning” resource, delves into why these approaches are so beneficial and how you can easily incorporate them into your lessons.
Understanding the Foundations: Active and Play-Based Learning
Active learning is an approach that directly engages students with the subject matter through methods like discussions, problem-solving, case studies, and role-playing. While this method gives learners more responsibility, the teacher’s guidance is still essential to steer the learning process. These engaging activities can be brief, lasting just a few minutes, or can form the basis of entire lessons.
Play-based learning is essentially learning that occurs while playing. It’s more than just fun and games; while an activity can be seen as play without a learning component, for it to be considered play-based learning, the acquisition of knowledge is fundamental. The two main types explored in research are
free play, which is directed by the students themselves, and guided play, which involves some degree of teacher involvement.
Considerations
Before diving into these activities, it’s important to consider factors like the necessary
resources – What do you require, what do you already have?
time – Do you have time for planning, creation and teaching. It will take initial investment of time but resuse the resources.
the desired breadth and depth of the topic – Do you want to ensure you are teaching breadth or depth of the content? how will the learning help?
student engagement – Will your students engage in this type of learning? You might be surprised about who gets the most out of it.
preconceived perceptions about this style of learning – Will it look like a ‘skive’?
Easy Ways to Channel Your Inner Mary Poppins
You don’t need to completely overhaul your teaching style to start making a difference. Here are some simple yet effective ideas:
- Gamified Exam Prep: Turn what can be a monotonous task into an exciting challenge. Organize a “Team Essay planning against the clock” or use a “Random Name Generator” for students to contribute points. During peer or class marking, use a bell for students to signal when they think a mark is warranted. The learning objective remains the same—understanding assessment standards—but student engagement soars.
- Blooket and Online Quizzes: Digital quiz games like Blooket and Kahoot are fantastic tools for tracking student progress through game-based learning. You can find numerous pre-made quizzes or create your own with ease. These platforms are excellent for retrieval practice, allowing for repeated exposure to key questions. A major advantage is that once the quiz is live, the teacher is free to circulate and support students who are struggling. Blookets can also be set as homework assignments.
- Dynamic Revision Games: There are many variations of revision games that can be adapted to your needs. You can start with simple carousel tasks and later add props and prizes to increase excitement. Popular choices include Bingo, Coloured Carousel, and Paper Chain Race. These activities are a great way to gauge where content needs to be retaught and help students see their own revision progress. You can find explanations for some of these on learningrmps.com.
A Little Initial Preparation Will Help With Results
With a bit more planning, you can create truly memorable and impactful learning experiences:
- Role Play: After teaching a particular viewpoint or religious perspective, allow students to step into the shoes of a person who holds those beliefs. For instance, in a Medical Ethics unit, students could take on the roles of doctors facing a dilemma. This is a powerful tool for building empathy, creativity, and higher-order thinking skills, while also improving knowledge retention, analysis, and evaluation.
- Model Building: To solidify understanding of significant religious places or ceremonies, engage students in model building. This could involve creating Buddhist shrines, mosques, churches, or scenes from a wedding ceremony. Although it requires time and can get a bit messy, this hands-on approach promotes information retention, problem-solving, teamwork, and creativity.
- The Power of Storytelling: Religions are rich with stories, and storytelling is a timeless and effective teaching tool. You can incorporate this in various ways, such as giving students a prompt and a “Big Question” and having them devise a story that addresses it. You can also retell a story while pausing to ask questions like, “What do you think will happen next?” to build anticipation and analytical skills. This fosters higher-order and philosophical thinking.
For When You Really Want to Wow the Crowd!
For those special, high-impact lessons, consider these more elaborate ideas:
- Escape Rooms: Transform your classroom into an exciting escape room! There are many templates available online for both digital and physical versions. These are perfect for end-of-unit reviews and are fantastic for developing teamwork and lateral thinking. While they often focus more on skills than specific content, they are incredibly engaging.
- Outdoor Learning: Sometimes a change of scenery is all you need. Taking learning outdoors was a positive outcome of Covid-era teaching that we should continue to embrace. When discussing the cosmological argument, for example, have students go outside to find beauty in the world. You can incorporate storytelling into lessons on creation stories or try Zen walking when teaching about meditation. A litter pick competition is a great, hands-on way to teach stewardship. These experiences can anchor learning in long-term memory.
- Free Play: At the heart of play-based learning is the concept of free play, where students have the freedom to explore and create as they wish. For older students, this can be structured by asking them to invent a new game to explain a concept they’ve just learned, using a box of provided resources. While this is excellent for fostering creativity and engagement, it can be more challenging to ensure specific content is learned and may require more buy-in from older pupils.
Top Tips for Your RME Lessons
Feeling inspired? Here are a few final tips for integrating these ideas into your teaching:
- Adapt what you already do: Think about your existing lesson plans and how you can “gamify” them by adding a timer or a random name generator.
- Build up your resources: Keep an eye out for affordable materials like building blocks, Lego, and pipe cleaners at charity shops or online marketplaces.
- Set clear boundaries: While a change of environment is beneficial, ensure your students know the expectations for the activity.
- Clarify success criteria: Make sure pupils understand the learning goals of the activity.
- Embrace the fun: And finally, remember that you are never too old for make-believe and play!