What is it?

“Collective memory” is a collection of memory activities designed to encourage positive collaborative learning and give students a deeper understanding of a given topic. They also help stimulate a fun, interactive learning environment.

What’s in it

This collection of resources outlines three possible formats for collective memory activities, depending on how much time you have, the needs of your class and the topic in question.

All of the activities involve pupils working together in teams to remember and recreate a poster of information. The first option is a rich lesson activity where each student plays an equally important role in the team - they must strive to work together positively and co-operatively to recreate the important aspects of a poster.

The second is called “Flashpoint collective memory”. Instead of students coming to view the poster individually, the whole class is shown it for 15 seconds, and then students must work in their teams to recreate it and discuss before the second viewing.

Finally, there is a quick starter activity, where each individual pupil views the poster and must recreate as much of it as they can.

A possible twist you could introduce would be to enforce the rule that the student returning to the group, having viewed the poster, is not allowed to draw anything themselves - this helps boost co-operative learning.

Collective memory exercises like this provide an ideal introduction to a topic, or a means of revision. MrBartonMaths has uploaded three possible maths subject areas that would work well with these exercises, including posters on polygons, metric and imperial measurements, and one on money which includes a deliberate mistake.

www.tes.co.ukcollective-memories.