@Westylish's Blog

Last Monday we had training @Rossett on Edmodo. It was not a tool I had used before but I had heard many positive things both on Twitter and around school from other colleagues. I was instantly struck by the user interface and how simple it is to create quizzes. I was also impressed with the feedback students received from the completed quizzes.

This got me thinking about how Edmodo could be used to develop students understanding in a formative way. At GCSE we were about to start the Vietnam section of our Cold War syllabus. I had produced a timeline detailing America's increasing involvement in the conflict there. I handed these out on Thursday and gave a brief overview of the topic. I then gave my students 5 minutes to revise the first four sections of the timeline.

I then asked the students to put the timelines in their folders and complete a fill in the blanks quiz on Edmodo using the iPads. (I hope you get a sense of the focus and engagement from the photo below)

Obviously, this was the first time the students had seen the topic and, despite having a really good go at it, they obviously found it difficult. But each student received clear feedback on where they had gone wrong. (You can see an example of the type of feedback below)

Their homework is to complete each of the quizzes (there are three different ones to cover the whole timeline) three more times over the half-term holidays. In preparation for a test when they return to school. The hope is that they will learn from the feedback and improve each time they take the quizzes putting them in a strong position to take the test.

Reflections
1) The students were clearly engaged with the activity. There was complete silence whilst the students completed the first quiz in the lesson.

2) Fill in the blanks quizzes are really difficult. When I first saw the 'fill in the blanks' option for the quizzes I thought it might be a bit simple for GCSE students. As you can see from the feedback that is far from the case. I have used this with my A/S students as well this week and set them a similar task for homework as my GCSE. I also used it with year 7 and on reflection I made the fill in the blanks far too difficult.

3) Spelling is important. If the students cannot spell the words they get it wrong. This seems obvious but with this being the case it has put an incentive on spelling which I normally find difficult to create. Obviously with a topic like Vietnam the students are getting to grips with spellings which are quite alien to them so it helps that this is the case.

4) The students scores and feedback remain on Edmodo. This means that the students can return to a previous quiz to check where they went wrong. This means they can return to their feedback at anytime-anywhere.

5) This would be a great tool for revision.

6) That said I believe that it works even better when studying a new topic. The interactive nature of the quizzes allows the students to check, develop and re-check their knowledge and understanding without being in the classroom. My belief is that this will speed up their understanding and they will hopefully return after half-term with a much deeper and clearer understanding than they would if I had simply said 'learn this'.

7) I don't have to mark the tests. This means that I can focus on handing out praise and rewards. Edmodo allows you to create a customised set of badges that you can award. These badges stay on the students profile. Below are a few examples. My favourite is the 'bounced back from a shocker' badge.

8) The students will be certain about what they know and what they are struggling with. Whatever standard they are at when they return, I will be able see how their understanding has (hopefully) improved as they have to complete the tests three times each.

9) This type of activity forces students to 'do' something. If I had just said "learn this for a test" the majority of my students would simply have read it a few times. They wouldn't have been active and their understanding would not have developed in the same way.

10) The student feedback is instant. Apparently lads spend hours on games like Call of Duty because they are constantly getting real time feedback on their performance and can see themselves improving. Hopefully using Edmodo in this way is tapping into this.

I have experimented with several types of anytime-anywhere tools. But nothing I have used allows the kind of formative feedback that Edmodo gives. By setting a difficult quiz three times my students are getting the opportunity to receive feedback, improve, receive more feedback and improve again all without any involvement from me. I have set it over the holiday, the students are genuinely completing it anytime-anywhere and they are learning and improving. This is clearly a tool I will be using beyond this, my first week of using it.

At Rossett we have had 1-1 iPad scheme running for two weeks. That said it is only this last week that I have really felt that they are part of my classroom. Every student does not own an iPad and I have to book about 5 for most lessons. With that done I am effectively teaching in a school with 1-1 iPads.

Has this completely transformed my classroom. No I guess not. But that could be down to the fact that we have had iPads in school for a year, they just haven't been 1-1. This week I marked a GCSE mock exam and used YouTube (and ExplainEverything) to give my feedback. The students used my video generated content, in individual ways, to produce AfL targets (see previous post). I have been doing this for a year and 1-1 didn't change that.

That said I have already noticed that my teaching has changed.

Ebooks
My head of history has invested in some ebooks in PDF form that we have emailed to KS3. This has already altered how I set homework. Using apps like Popplet I have asked students to screenshot some content and make sense of it. This couldn't have been done before. As time passes I can see the online development of 'books' being used in very different ways.

Edmodo
I have now been able to use Edmodo in lessons. This week year 7 have been working on medieval towns. We play a game which necessitates the students keeping a town diary. The students completed the diary on the iPads (using notes or pages) and then pasted their work into an assignment on Edmodo. I then marked their work, offered a target, and the students then developed and improved their diaries and class work. This was all done 'paperless' within Edmodo. I can see a lot of lesson work being completed in this way in the future. Marking on Edmodo is simple and with some pre-written targets pretty quick.

Becoming an 'ICT' teacher
This is a big change that has occurred in my classroom. I have used Socrative, Edmodo, iMovie, Popplet and keynote/pages this week. My belief was that the students would be able to work these apps. This has not been the case. This has led to me having to become a pretty proficient 'ICT' teacher. I have always been 'good' with technology and I am thankful that I was given an iPad a year before the students. As this develops the students will become more proficient but at the moment the students need support with this. This has undoubtedly developed me as a teacher and has made me more confident in a computer room.

Emailing
Students having their email accounts on their iPads (or being able to access them on the school owned ones) has given me a great tool to share content. No longer do we need to have the work displayed on the board. This has allowed for increased de-facto personalisation of the lesson, something the iPads are brilliant for. We don't all need to work at the same rate and in the same way.

Engagement
The wider availability of this technology has allowed for greater excitement around school. "Are we using iPads in this lesson?" Has become a very common question. I'd have liked to think that students were already excited by the prospect of my history lessons but my use of iPads has certainly taken this to another level.

Differentiation
I love Popplet and YouTube and they are tools I like to use myself when learning. Obviously, now I can embed them into my teaching much more widely which has allowed me to differentiate much more easily. I remember last year filming myself reading an extract from 'Birdsong' to make the text more accessible. It went down a storm with all sets especially the bottom ones. I did as a bit of a gimmick to put it on a level playing field with Blackadder which we were comparing it with. The impact was much greater than that. iPads have the function to read out any text and, whilst it obviously won't be as good as a video of me, I think there is a lot of scope with this.

Obviously there are a lot of challenges with the 1-1 approach but it feels like a natural progression for me as we have had bootable iPads for a while now.

I will need to decide what to keep and remember that my students are working towards written exams.

Obviously, the initial excitement will drop as iPads become the norm. Or will it? Students always look forward to doing things they enjoy.

I love the possibilities that this approach to education brings. After only one real week of teaching I can see the impact. I am very fortunate to work in such a forward thinking school. I believe that our students are lucky to learn in an environment with so many possibilities. I would urge anyone in education to give this idea some serious thought.

I wrote this post on my iPhone on a busy delayed train. I am about to tweet it to 1,238 followers. 18 months ago I didn't have a blog or any followers. Two weeks ago we didn't have 1-1 iPads. Think where we will be in 18 months.

Below are a selection of photos from this week in my classroom @Rossett. All these photos are real they are not staged.

My AS students study the different feedback to work out which one is theirs.

This year I have looked to develop the process of giving feedback to my A-Level classes. I have often found that the pressure of time, of completing the course, has meant that I have not looked to develop the process of giving feedback. I believe I have missed a trick in the past by simply giving students targets. The successful students have acted on their targets but, too often, sections of the class have made similar mistakes in future work. I have therefore looked to develop several processes that have improved the retention of the targets I have given.

1) Not naming essay feedback.
My AS class is roughly 15. When I have marked an essay I have written the feedback and targets on separate sheets of numbered card. I have then handed the 'unmarked' essays back and put the feedback around the room. My students have had to select which card they think belongs to their work. I have then read out the numbers and the students have said which card they have picked.

One of my students compares two different sets of feedback to see which one is hers.

Teacher "Whose got feedback number One?" student "Louise".

Me "Two?" student "James".

Me "Three?" student "Matthew". Etc...

At the end of reading out the numbers I tell the students how many have got the correct card (I do not tell them who is correct and who has the wrong card).

I then repeat this process several times in the hope that more of them get the correct feedback.

Reflections

+ I have found that this works really well.

+ The students are engaged, one student said "Yes! I love this!" When they walked into the lesson the second time I did the activity. I think the combination of trying to work out a puzzle and the competitive element of the activity help promote engagement.

+ The students actually read the targets on the cards! In the past I don't think that this has always really happened.

+ The students help each other. Comments like "Well you've put this in your conclusion so these can't be your targets."

+ In the next piece of assessed work the students have remembered more of the targets I had set. One student even wrote their targets out from their last piece of work along with a detailed explanation of how they felt they had met them in this essay!

2) Producing exam feedback videos

Last year I started to produce some ExplainEverything exam feedback videos for my GCSE students. I found that they worked well in promoting independent reflection. Developing from this I produced a series of six videos for the AS mock exam. The students had to watch the videos and produce guidebooks to help them improve in the future. This took them two lessons. Whilst they were watching the videos (on iPad's) I was freed up to go around the class and offer one-to-one help. Below is an example of one of the videos, the rest can be found on my MisterWestylish YouTube channel.

Reflections

+ Again this was an engaging task. All the students were on task for both the lessons on this.

+ It was independent, personalised learning as the students were able to pause, rewind and replay sections of the clips to suit their own needs.

+ I benefited from being in two places at once. I was able to offer individual help and answer specific questions whilst the rest of the group got on with their own work. In the past (with a kind of exam lecture going on) the whole group would have to stop so that I could deal with individual questions.

+ After the first lesson the students were tasked with re-writing one of their answers. In the second lesson I was able to mark all of these one-to-one with the each student whilst the rest of the class got on with their exam guides (again I felt like I was in two places at once).

+ Progress was made. The quality of the exam guides was excellent and the re-written answers all represented significant improvements on the original work.

3) Videoing essay feedback

Like many A-level teachers I often give back essays that require further improvement and re-drafting, especially at A2. In the past I have found that students can often forget what I meant by the feedback I have given. They either are conscientious and come back to check, or they don't and their work doesn't improve. This year I have trialled videoing the essay feedback. The students video their essay using their phones/iPads whilst I give the feedback. If they then get home and have forgotten exactly what I have said they can simply replay the video and here it again.

Reflections

+ This is pretty simple but it seems to have worked. I have not used it in every case but think I will next year.

+ I don't know why I haven't done this before.

Overall, I believe that the students have focused more on the feedback I have given than in previous years, this has led to less repetition of targets and hopefully greater progress. The students have also been engaged in these activities and it has allowed me to develop the different types of activity I set within an A-Level lesson.

All of these activities have made essay and exam feedback feel more formative than summative and helped students to see the process that goes into improving exam work.

I hope you have found this interesting and I welcome any comments.

We are currently in the last week of our school term @Rossett. We teach GCSE options five hours a week for a year and then after the exams the students either leave (if they are year 11) or move onto their next option subject (if they are year 9 or 10). This is a very intense way of teaching a GCSE. I have to say I love it. You really feel that you get to know the students and you can really build momentum. The challenge is finding time to step back and think about what is making an impact. With what appears (results obviously not in until August) a very successful group just completing the course it is a good time to try and do this. I do not profess to offer anything groundbreaking, but simply an honest reflection.

Like all good blog posts the simple reflective act of writing this, of crystallising my thoughts, is worthwhile but I have published this blog post in order that it might help others think about what makes an impact in the learning in their classroom.

The reflections in this post come firstly from me, but also from my aforementioned GCSE class, these reflections have been collected from informal conversations and from a GoogleForms survey (see several previous posts like this one http://westylish.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/the-best-type-of-feedback-students.html?m=1)

Increasing the importance of Mock Exams

One of the ideas I tried this year was to increase the significance of mock exams. I emailed parents to explain when the mock exams would be throughout the year and gave the results in envelopes akin to those given out on the real results day. I forced the few who were below target to resit. Not particularly groundbreaking stuff but I felt that the quality of the students mock exams improved. Making the students take mock exams seriously is always a challenge and I felt that this approach improved the quality of what was submitted.

Increasing the amount of Exam Feedback videos

With the advent of iPads at my school we now have the ability to produce sophisticated exam feedback videos that the students can watch anytime-anywhere using the app ExplainEverything. I have produced a whole host of these for both of my GCSE history exams. If you search "MisterWestylish women" in Google you will see that one of my videos had been watched over 1,300 times. Whilst all those views cannot possible come from my students it is testament to the validity of creating them that a 23 minute video has been watched so many times. I know from my GoogleForm survey that students found these very useful for revision. In the past I have wondered how much of the time students spent revising was dedicated to working on how to answer the questions as a pose to the exam content. By making these videos I have allowed the students to work on exam technique at home whenever they wish. (See this link for one of my posts on this http://westylish.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/using-ipads-to-give-exam-feedback-and.html)

Using solo taxonomy for Source Analysis

This year I began to use solo taxonomy to help students develop their source analysis skills. By showing students how to build up their answers through stages I hoped to improve the quality of the final answer. From the lessons themselves and the GoogleForm feedback it seems that the students felt that the solo work allowed the to develop and improve their source analysis (see this link for my post on solo http://westylish.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/making-my-solo-taxonomy-debut.html).

Using the quiz function on Edmodo

I have used Edmodo in many ways but the ability to set and re set quizzes on it was very popular with my students especially during revision. When we can get instant, formative feedback, that shows us how and where we can improve we always do well. I feel, and my students seemed to agree, that this use of Edmodo was a good way of assessing the students knowledge anytime-anywhere. (For my full blog on this see http://westylish.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/using-edmodo-for-anytime-anywhere.html)

Keeping the parents aware of student grades and targets

This year I devised a simple system that required the parents to sign to say they had seen the targets and grades that their son or daughter was achieving. I felt that this again added a greater significance to individual essays and source work. Again not particularly groundbreaking.

Developing Active Learning

I have always tried, where possible, to develop activites that allow the students to get involved. A lot of my class highlighted the impact of this in the GoogleForm. Whether it was dressing up as flappers, playing a game I devised to show overproduction, or the many video activities I do, the students all said that this was something that helped them learn. This type of learning is something I look to continue to develop next year.

Using Twitter for Praise

This is something I have done for several years now. Instead of sending postcards home I simply tweet the example of brilliant work I have received with a picture attached. The school twitter feed often picks these up but where possible I include the students twitter name in the tweet (from a list I make on twitter at the start of the year) and this often leads to the students retweeting. There is surely no better way of showing praise than to have a student proudly retweeting an example of their work to their peers. On a wider note several of my students have said that I make a really big thing of praise, one of them said that "you know if you put a lot of effort into your homework Mr West will recognise this and reward it." This is again pretty standard stuff but I still like to get excited when I get homework that is creative and where the student has clearly put a lot of effort in.

Engagement

The most popular word in the GoogleForm was 'fun' and whilst I wouldn't want to sell myself short, I do believe that being engaged and enjoying the learning is essential. I always aim to make it so the students look forward to my lessons. If students turn up looking forward to what they are going to do, before they even know what that is, then the atmosphere in the classroom is positive and the students are focussed.

This is by no means an exhaustive list but looking at the year I feel it shows examples of what I have done to try and make an impact. If you have not used GoogleForms to gain feedback from one of your teaching groups I strongly suggest you do.

My GCSE class working independently in lessons.

At Rossett our new timetable has started and last week I had my first lessons with my new GCSE class. This class is exclusively Year 9 students and I teach them for 5 hours a week. Obviously, this group of students will take their GCSE history next summer as part of a cohort of students that will, for the large part, consist of students two years older than them. With this in mind I began this timetable thinking of ways I could close the gap between the potential of my evidently very hard working group and those other students who will be, in the main, two years older than them.

One of the ways I am seeking to do this is through a weekly homework task that the students independently complete. They are tasked with spending 30 minutes developing their understanding of a topic we have studied that week. They can chose the topic (although I strongly advise them to pick the topic they have found most difficult) and they can chose how they go about improving their understanding. The only rule is that they must produce something that I can see. It can be physical or digital. I do not mark this work, I simple check it has been done, give out merits where appropriate, and oral feedback where necessary. The work is set on a Thursday after our final lesson of the week and is checked by me on Monday at the start of the next week. The 30 minute time limit is absolute, and I have explained to the group that they cannot work longer than this even if they are really into the topic. This is obviously difficult to police but I want them to show how much reflective work they can produce in a 30 minute time frame.

I must also say at this stage that this 30 minutes of independent work sits alongside the two formal homework tasks that I set each week. These are obviously traditionally marked.

Aims

The main aim of this work is to get the students to reflect on the work they have done that week. The simple action of choosing the topic that they have found most difficult gets the students to reflect. The aim is that they also reflect on their understanding and develop it.

The second aim is to give the students ownership of the work they produce. By choosing what they do I hope that the students will be more committed to ensuring it is as good a quality as it can be.

The work produced will be brilliant for revision. All of the examples I have seen so far (and particularly the ones in this post) make fantastic revision aides. The aim is not just to shore up the understanding but to help close the gap come revision time.

The aim is for the students to creatively develop their understanding in a way that best suits their own learning. By being creative and active my aim was to ensure the students consolidated their understanding. The examples in this post have all done that.

Examples

The first example comes from Sophie. It is a video she has made to show how Republican Policies of the 1920s caused the Boom. The second half in particular is very impressive as she relates the Policies to the Boom. When I watch this back I am struck both by the quality of the work and the fact that you can almost see the cogs whirring as she explains it. There is no doubt that this work fulfils all of the aims I set and is work of a remarkable standard for a student who is essentially still in Year 8 (although technically in Year 9 they are not really until after the summer).

The second example comes from Katie who has produced an Educreation on the Republican Policies. Again this is another fantastic piece of work which fulfils the aims. I like here how she has combined a mind-map with her own explanation. Such is quality that it is the sort of resource I could easily use within my own lessons.

Katie's Educreations Lesson

The next example comes from Matthew who produced this Keynote on the 1920s using a LACKPANTS video that I found online and embedded in my wiki mrwestusa.wikispaces.com I am impressed with the creativity here and how Matthew has found a resource that he could use to help develop his understanding of the causes of the boom. It was not a resource we used directly in lesson so it is good to see him using his iniative (and the wiki) to develop his understanding.

The final example comes from Lucas who produced revision cards, on the other side of the card is the relevent explanation. I particularly like this as it is an old fashioned example but one that works well. It has minimal glamour but is still a very effective tool.

Reflections

Clearly it is only the second week of this but I can already see the quality of both the work and the creativity that has been displayed. I firmly believe that the students will have a much better grasp of the topics they chose than they would have done simply from my traditional teaching.

I also believe an air of competition has developed with the students keen to produce better work to show themselves in the best possible light.

Even at this early stage of the course setting this type of activity has allowed me a de-facto look at how my students revise and I have been able to guide them to more worthwhile activities than simply just re copying out what they have already learnt.

The quality of the work from my Year 9 class in the first week of their GCSE History speaks volumes for this approach. I think the freedom here coupled with the traditional standard homework tasks works really well.

Going forward

The aim is to have a mini learning fair in the last lesson of term, the students will have completed three separate 30 minute pieces of independent work by then, the aim of this is to show off the quality of the students and their work. The students will have to lay out their work (digitally or physically) and the students in the group will go around the 'fair' and see all the creative ideas that have been produced. If this is a success I hope to replicate it regularly throughout the year.

This week I my year 7's have been producing pieces of work on different Tudor and Stuart Kings and Queens. The work has been produced in the style of a portrait. The aim has been to promote both independent learning and creativity.

We began by spending a lesson studying portraits of Queen Elizabeth. The students opened the portraits in Popplet and then analysed how they were produced. They focussed on how Queen Elizabeth was depicted and what had been placed in the background of the portraits. With this in mind I then set the students the task of researching a Tudor or Stuart monarch, with the aim of producing a portrait on their chosen monarch.

The students had to bring in accessories to make the 'portrait' cloth, paper, wool and the like. They also had to bring in some pictures to include in the background of the portrait.

The students then worked independently to produce their portrait, all I provided was a piece of cream card and a paper plate.

There were two main outcomes to this activity. Firstly, the students had to develop their understanding if what makes a good Tudor/Stuart portrait. Secondly, they had to develop their understanding of their chosen Monarch.

There were two main motivators. Firstly, I wanted the students to be creative, there were several simple designs but many of the students came up with really creative solutions. Secondly, I wanted them to produce something independently in a way that they could teach others about 'their' monarch.

On Monday 3rd September I was asked to go and speak to staff at another school. Several staff members had witnessed the Teacher Learning Communities (TLC) that we have at Rossett (our vehicle for staff training and development) and were preparing to adopt a similar approach. I had already been and spoken to the new TLC leaders and this visit was to speak to the whole school staff.

The aim of this was not to simply explain what we do at Rossett with relation to staff training and development but was to try and get the whole staff to think about what it is that makes a successful training environment. The staff had KWL grids to fill in but I emphasised at the beginning that the 'learning' element of the grid could come from themselves and others on their tables rather than just from me. It wasn't going to be much use to them if they just heard 30 minutes of 'what works for us' I believed that it would be much more useful for them to establish 'what will work for them'.

Throughout the session the aim was to also showcase some simple straightforward activities that could instantly be used in any classroom.

This was only a short 30 minute 'presentation' and the central activity revolved around the staff completing a card sorting activity:

The initial aim was for them to establish 6 essential components of good staff training. They could then put the other six in a column of 'ideals' or, as some of them did, they could remove some of the suggestions altogether.

The secondary aim was for the staff to get into discussions about what makes good training. They were sat in tables that would form their TLC groupings for the year to come and the aim was to feedback to their new TLC leader some ideas that were essential for their staff development.

Throughout the session the staff filled in their KWL grids beginning by showing what they knew already about TLC and developing to show what they had learnt. I thought that this approach was particularly useful as there was different levels of understanding and knowledge at the start of the session and in order for me to attempt to show some personalised progress this tool worked well.

At the end of the session I asked the staff to share what they had learnt on a central grid in the middle of the table. The grid was split into sections. One was to be used to show what they had learnt from me. The other, more important part, was to show what they had learnt from each other.

Reflections

+ Ensuring that the training occurs in a supportive, non-judgemental environment was highlighted by every group.

+ The importance of, and opportunity to, collaborate was also something that featured very highly in most groups.

+ Virtually every group placed 'Linked to Performance Management' as the least important and some groups found that it was actually counter productive.

It seemed that this kind of activity worked well at the start of the year. It provided a base for discussion about what is important when delivering staff training. Arguably all the points are very valid but this activity gave the TLC leaders clear insight into what their groups would most value. Whatever the vehicle for staff training it seemed to me to be a worthwhile activity to begin a year with and to allow staff to think about what is important for them.

I also believe it is a good activity for groups of students who are looking to deepen understanding of a particular topic. At GCSE for example, I could see an activity with 12 causes of American Involvement in Vietnam being used in a similar way.

A students watches another group's video and completes her worksheet

Today my lesson was completely student led. My GCSE students produced videos on one aspect of Intolerance in 1920s USA, having produced the videos they then watched each others videos and filled in a large A3 sheet on the topic.

Whilst they worked on competing the sheet they had the advantage of working completely at their own pace (with their headphones in) and I was free to move around the room and offer individual support and advice where it was needed.

This is a similar activity to one where you would get the students to create presentations and then present them to the whole class. The difference here is that the use of YouTube allows the students watching the presentations to work at their own pace and rewind where necessary without holding the whole class up. Learning becomes more personalised.

The students had a lesson to research and prepare their videos and then about 40 minutes of the next lesson to complete the video and upload it to Edmodo so all the students in the class could watch it. They then spent the last 20 minutes of the second lesson and their homework completing the table by watching each others videos.

Each group had to showcase what they had learned in a video which answered the four questions I had set for their topic.

The A3 sheet that I created that all students had to complete.

The students were told that they had to make their work both memorable and filled with information. As this was the first time the students had completed this type of activity I created the questions that needed answering. When I do this later in the year I will get the students to create their own questions and thus put more of the emphasis on them.

The students led the learning and I was able to support those students that needed it. These topics vary in difficulty which allowed me to differentiate and pick groups relative to the difficulty of the topic. By having to explain to others and teach their peers in this way all of the students deepened their own understanding.

After they had completed the sheet the students had to think of two or three questions they still wanted answering and we discussed those in the next lesson. The aim was for them to pick 'bigger' questions than just those on the sheet.

PowerPoint slides were included by all groups to add detail.

Aims

• By making the work student led it meant that they had to take responsibility for it and this encouraged them to be independent.

• It encouraged the students to be creative. I explained that they needed to make it memorable but also genuinely informative and the results were interesting. This hopefully made the work more memorable for both the students making the videos and those watching it.

• It allowed me to give help where it was needed and not be 'tied down' by having to 'give' the lesson.

• It was a great method to showcase teamwork and leadership.

Reflections

• The students were engaged throughout the series of lessons.
• The resulting videos were really creative and informative. My concern is always that the students will make something fun and amusing but not produce a video that actually aids learning. This was proven wrong as all the videos were tightly focused around the information and all were memorable as well as explaining key content.
• This type of activity always allows students to shine. This occasion was no exception. The video on the right is one of my students singing about the 'Red Scare' of the 1920s.

A student watches a court scene from the 'Monkey Trial'

• It was obvious from the subsequent lesson that the students had understood a great deal about the topic of Intolerance. They asked really thought provoking questions that showed both a deep level of understanding and a genuine engagement in the topic.

I am a big believer in using technology in this way. The sight of all my students working at their own pace, with their headphones in, is something to behold. It frees me up to address any problems of understanding.

That said even if you don't have 1-1 iPads like we do @Rossett you can still complete this type of activity, as I have in the past, setting the watching of each others videos as homework.

Towards the end of last term and at the start of this I have been looking to develop my strategies for ensuring students make the most of their feedback and hopefully therefore make the most progress.

Firstly, I think it's important to say that none of the principles I am discussing here are new to my practice. All of the things I have done before. What I am really talking about here is ways of systematising what I do to make sure that as many students as possible can successfully close the gap between where they are and where they want to be.

One of the big issues with this is time and efficiency. This is especially true in my lower school teaching. If I am honest I am always going to make sure my priorities (GCSE and A-Level) are taken care of. That is partly because I don't feel that I have to be as efficient at closing the gap with my GCSE and A-Level classes as I do with my lower school classes because of the following reasons:

• My GCSE/A-Level classes are smaller and I see them more often than my lower school classes.

• My GCSE/A-Level students are older so can work more independently whilst I am speaking 1-1 with other students.

• My GCSE/A-Level classes are probably more assessed and can therefore remember their feedback more often.

• If students in my GCSE/A-Level classes are struggling it is much more feasible to bring them back on a lunchtime or after school to work 1-1.

• My GCSE/A-Level students are motivated by a real exam so are much more likely to want to improve.

So what I am setting out to do this year is to develop my teaching so that I ensure more students close the gap. But I am aiming to do it in a way that is efficient enough so that all my students can do this more effectively, not just my examined classes.

I am going to base my attempts to close the gap around the following three principles. I do not believe these are groundbreaking in any way but I do believe they will help all my students to close the gap.

1) All feedback must be acted on.

I have always asked all my students to show that they have understood assessment feedback. Whether it is year 7 completing a SHP analysis of the 'Mystery of the Skeletons' or my A2 personal study students, all have had to act on the feedback.

Having given students a target for their work they then had to do something to show me they had understood it. If a year 7 hadn't included enough facts and figures to back up their arguments for example, then they had to find five facts they hadn't included and add them to their work.

What I am doing this year is to ask all my students to act on all their targets no matter the significance is the work. My students have to write where they have worked on this under the target so that I can quickly see when looking through their books. For some pieces of work the students may be able to add to the original. For others they would have to do something on another page. I have asked my students to number the pages of their books to make it even easier for me to find.

At the start of a lesson I will give the students 5-10 minutes to look at my marking and to close the gap. I am giving lesson time to show the importance of this task, even with year 8, where I only see them once a week, I am going to force myself to ensure that I make time for this.

I am then be able to quickly scan through this when I next see their books. I have ordered a stamp which says "@Westylish says "Feedback acted on! Well Done!"" Obviously, if they have still not understood I will then be able to bear that in mind for that round of marking.

2) All feedback must inform.

At the start of a new piece of work all my students must write a previous target that they are going to apply to this particular piece of work. Obviously, some targets may be related to a certain type of piece of work and may not apply to the new piece. Students will have a choice and must write the target and what they are going to do in this piece of work to make sure they don't get the same target written down. With my lower school classes I will use a Kagan structure to share what has been written.

3) All students must reflect on their work before handing it in.

The idea for this came to me from one of my A/S students last year. At the end of every assessed piece of work he wrote down what I had told him to do last time and how he believed he had managed to achieve those targets on this piece of work.

The way he did it was to sort of have a bit of a 'pop' at me. As if to say "well you said this last time and look I've done it now, so you better give me a higher mark!"

I was really impressed with this and I am going to make all my students do it inevery year. When I tried it for the first time with my GCSE class quite a number of students were forced to write "last time you told me to do this and well, I still haven't done it. But I will do next time." A few students decided to take their work home and hand it in tomorrow in light of this 'revelation'.

This last example shows how important it is to force students to return to their targets.

To finish

All three of these strategies are basic. But what I am trying to stop is the advice and feedback I give being wasted with students slipping through the net and not closing the gap.

I believe that all of these three strategies can be adopted without significantly adding to my workload even with the 90 or so year 7's I see a week.

I do believe that they will take up some lesson time but what's the point in marking taking up my time if the students do not get the real benefit out of it?

I hope that by systematising my teaching in this way far fewer students will slip through the net and far more will be able to close the gap.

This week I will be involved in facilitating my first Improving Teacher Programme (ITP). I recieved the facilitation training for both the ITP and Outstanding Teacher Programme (OTP) back in July.

I will be blogging about my experience of facilitating the programme. This will give me the essential opportunity to reflect on the programme and my facilitation of it. But I believe it will also provide food for thought for anyone involved in staff development but not necessarily this particular programme.

As a teacher who is in his eigth year of his career the chance to facilitate this sort of programme has come along at a good time. I have given several staff training sessions at my school over the years and I currently have responsibility for ensuring the smooth running of our TLC programme. I also deliver a day on the history PGCE at York University. Recently I have been involved in school to school work.

Despite that I believe the chance to facilitate this ITP is a step up. It is a programme that runs over six weeks and as such offers the chance to invest in the staff involved in. A way that one off training does not.

As I prepare for the first session the following themes are in my mind.

Facilitating not leading - the answers are in the room

One of the main things that struck me about the facilitator programme was that this is not a course where I will be asked to stand at the front and tell folk how to be good teachers.

This really pleased me as this programme is about providing the opportunity for staff to develop not telling them what to do.

Six or so years ago I heard Dylan William talk about staff development. He said that just telling teachers what to do doesn't work. In the same way that just telling students what to do doesn't work. If we just tell students what is good a small minority will get it but the vast majority of us require some support to get there.

Developing from this the answers and the ideas are in the room. We are not expected, or indeed allowed, to provide them. This has got to be a massive positive for the programme.

It seems to me that this programme is about creating the opportunities for staff to develop and excell. If I can manage to do that then I will have been successful.

Not affirming

One of the big challenges for me personally is the rule that, as facilitators, we are not allowed to affirm the comments or work of those on the programme. My standard response as a teacher to a well thought out response is to say something like "I really like that. Have you thought about....?" However the organisers do not want this type of affirmation as they believe that those on the programme should do things for their own affirmation and not affirmation from the 'teacher'.

I found this really hard on the facilitator training. Through this I realised the importance and central role of praise to my own pedagogy.

This obviously, links with the previous point of the answers being in the room and it is something I will have to work on throughout my role as a facilitator to ensure that those on the programme get the most from it.

It's a programme not a course

The ITP is not a course. This might sound like a bit of semantics naming it a programme instead but the point is to develop the theme that the progress will be both made by and come from those taking the programme. It's not down to me or anyone else.

This is something that sits well with me. As a teacher I've always tried to get that little bit better. I've always been open to trying new stuff to see if it works. I think this (very common) attitude has massively helped my personal development.

The aim of the programme is to help those taking it to develop in this way.

Check back later to see how the first session has gone.

Since we have returned from half-term I have been focussing much more on source analysis with my GCSE class. One of the trickier exam questions focusses on the reliability and usefulness of a source. The exam also requires students to look at a large range of source material and assess both the reliability of the content and the provenance.

The nature of this task can mean that the lessons get a bit repetitive as students work through the sources and analyse them. I was looking for a way to add some more engaging elements into the lesson especially as a starter or a plenary.

Working on this topic has coincided with me being introduced to an app called Tellagami which is free and allows users to record 30 second clips. One of @Rossett's finest @mike_sweetman introduced me to the app and explained to me that he felt it could be very useful for source analysis.

The app is based around a virtual person speaking to an audience for 30 seconds. The background of the app can be changed and this is the real beauty of the app as it allows for the 'student' to appear to be stood in front of the source they are analysing. Below is a photo of one of my 'students' in action looking at the memories from WWI of Corporal W.H. Shaw.

The students can either record their own voices or they can type their work and choose from a wide selection of voices. Even the computer generated ones sound real and can pronounce nearly every word clearly. The app adds in the movement of the hands and mouth.

Why do I think this app is really useful?

+ Firstly, it is incredibly easy to use and share. Having never used the app before all my students were able to quickly work it out and instantly produce work of a good standard. They did not waste time trying to get it working.

+ Secondly, it's the correct amount of fun. You can customise 'yourself' in a fun but ultimately simple way. My big issue with some technology is that it can easily distract from the learning and can end up wasting time. Even with the initial excitement of using a new app the first time the students still quickly produced good work. The second time they used it their work was outstanding. They also really enjoyed using it, as you can see from some of the comments below. This app is great because it enhances source analysis and doesn't detract from it.

+ Thirdly, it makes the students want to produce outstanding work. Far from distracting my GCSE class this app was incredibly engaging. There was a real level of competition amongst them to try and outdo each other. The quality of all the students work was excellent they were really trying to include and analyse as much of the content and the prevenance as they could to make their Tellagami's good.

+ Forthly, it is really challenging. To produce a decent piece of source analysis in 30 seconds is not easy. You've got a lot to say and not very long. This makes it difficult but gets students used to the pressure of the exams.

+ Finally, it is really accessible. Students can either talk into the app or type and the results either way are really good.

Below is a photo of my GCSE students working on the app to develop their source analysis skills:

Some examples from my GCSE class

All of these Tellagami's were produced in a cover lesson when I was absent. They were then uploaded to my YouTube channel in the lesson ready for the start of the following lesson.

The fact that such high quality work was produced in my absense shows the real value of the app.

How can I see myself using this in the future?

+ This app is ideal for source analysis. It will be even better when the source analysis takes the form of revision. Students will be quickly able to create great revision videos that they can watch in the build up to the exam.

+ This app would be a great tool for measuring progress. The difference between a video constructed at the start of the lesson and at the end would be marked and this would show how much content the students have learnt or how much their understanding has developed within the lesson.

+ This app can be used quickly and easily and dropped in without prior planning. Without any real planning this app can be used. If I realise there is a misconception in my class I can use it as a way of ensuring the students have understood. If I am finding a topic is struggling to engage the students (obviously this has never happened, but if it did) then this is a great tool to develop the engagement.

+ It will work equally well with top or bottom sets. Due to the inclusive nature of the app, as mentioned above, it can be used to both stretch and challenge and also in an inclusive way to enable all students to access a topic.

What do my GCSE students think about it?

+ Sophie said "The app was really fun because you can change the voice and how the person looked and their position and stuff. It was useful because if you don't want to film yourself or you don't like your voice then you can use this. Also having fun helps to learn so you learn more."

+ Una said "Our group found Tellegami useful because it was a great group tool, as we all worked together to produce the final result. Also, personally I thought it was great because I tend to blabber on about the topic, and don’t actually cover what is needed to in a concise way, but having the 30 second time limit really got me thinking about how to put my point across in a small amount of words."

+ Katie said "I enjoyed using the app, especially how you had the option to either record yourself or type it in. Also, I think it's going to be a good revision tool for me, to see and hear back what we had written previously. However, occasionally the app did crash so it was a bit annoying at times and took a while to get yourself back to what you were doing."

+ Jamie said "I think that the Telligami are fun and useful because they are easy and quick to make and also you can watch them until you get the facts in your head."

+ Brad said "I think that Tellagami was very useful, since you can easily look back on them to see what information you have on a particular subject, and I think this is particularly useful in source work. I also think it's very funny with all the things you can do with it, such as Jimmy's voice and rotating the person.

The only issue I have with it is the time/word limit, since you sometimes can't fit in all you want, and some parts may be questioned because of the lack of information e.g. Today I couldn't finish a sentence, so I had to cut it out."

+ Hannah said "I thought that using tellagami for the sources was quite useful as it helped me think more about what the key points about the source were because of the set amount of words/length of the video, which stopped me from writing lots. It was also a more interesting way to set out the information and it helped our group communicate more and discuss the source more."

I would again like to thank @mike_sweetman for showing me the app and explaining how he thought it could be used. I would also like to thank my always brilliant GCSE class for really getting stuck into working with this app and using it in such a creative way.

This year I have tried to improve the feedback that I give to the students in all of my classes. I have tried to develop efficient feedback techniques to aid all of my classes. I blogged about this at the start of the year (see link). The aim has been to try to increase the impact of the feedback that I give in order to help the students close the gap between their current performance and the desired performance . I was happy with the quality of the feedback I was giving but felt that the impact of the marking and feedback could be increased. I also looked to do this in a more efficient manner.

The first page of an A/S assessment book

One of the ways I have looked to do this is by having specific assessment books for both my GCSE and A/S classes. The aim of these books is to keep all the assessed work, all the feedback and all the improvements, in one place. This allows the students to show understanding and ultimately progress and keeps the feedback in one accessible place.

The first pages of the A4 book are taken up by the students copying out their feedback and explaining how they are going to improve their answer. The parents also sign this page.

The rest of the book is taken up with assessed answers, my feedback, and then the improvements/re-drafting that the students have completed to ensure they have understood. The final part is me checking that the improvements are correct.

Feedback from my students
Last week I asked my A/S and GCSE class to complete an anonymous GoogleForm to give their feedback on the assessment books and my feedback more generally. Below is a Tagxedo of what they said:

Words that stand out from this to me are easier, good, helpful, improvements, think and useful.

Below are some comments from my GCSE students about the assessment books:

"I think it's quite good because you have all of your important work in one place and not all mixed in with the other stuff that doesn't have as much priority."

"It's easier having all of the more 'important' pieces of work being written in one book because then it's all in one place and it isn't likely to get lost; it's clear where everything is when it comes to writing targets or looking back to compare pieces of assessed work."

Lots of comments were similar to this in mention the organisational benefits and many also said how easy it was to look back over their work and targets.

Below are some comments from my A/S students about the assessment books:

"I like completing my AS work in the book as it allows me to keep it all in one place and easily look back on past questions / essays. It's also good for teacher feedback and discussions with parents over how certain tasks have gone."

"Great idea! We can keep all our work in place, see where we need to improve, do the improvements and get feedback easily."

"I like been able to keep track of all my essays and i can see improvement across the book,
However i feel getting it signed and filling out the front is a bit over the top "

My A/S students focused more on the impact of the feedback and moving forward. It seems that getting parents to sign the book has divided opinion but my reasoning behind it is to keep parents informed and ensuring that any performance is seen be all parties. I also think getting it signed increases the seriousness with which the students take the assessed work.

Moving forward
It seems that the students feel that the assessed book is worthwhile. None of the comments were completely negative about it and the vast majority were positive.

That said one reaccurring theme was obvious; the students would like more positive feedback.

"Give positive feedback as well as improvements (particular things we did well)."

"Give more positives."

In light of these comments, and others like them, I am going to increase the amount of positive remarks I give. Looking back through the books I realised that I gave out merits but did not specifically say what the students had done to earn these merits. I am obviously going to make this a New Years Resolution.

Finally, though I am pleased with the reaction from my students to the assessment books. It has made my feedback more meaningful, it has allowed the students to show how they have acted upon the feedback and finally it has been organisationally efficient.

A final word from one of my A/S students:

"I don't really have any improvements, it's the best feedback I receive on homework."

For a number of years I have been setting aside DIRT after I have marked an assessment. This time has allowed students to re-write / re-draft their answers to show that they have understood the targets that I have set and can now apply those targets and improve their work.

I have struggled to make the experience truly personal though. Yes, I have always set targets that are specific to that student and allowed a variable amount of time so that students working at different rates can complete their improvements. But I don't believe that this has been as personalised as it could have been I also believe that the process has been too reliant on me as a teacher. Having done the marking the focus should be on the students, not me, to improve their work.

With this aim in mind I marked a set of GCSE history mock papers. I have 20 students in the class. There were six questions on the mock. All were based around source analysis. There were not any direct marks for students knowledge. The topic was Britain 1945-75. The focus was the growth of the teenager. The students would have a two hour lesson to complete their DIRT. Their final exam was 5 days away.

As I marked the paper I simply placed a mark, and nothing more, on the vast majority of responses. That said I noted down on my mark scheme specific students who had really struggled with each question to guide me in the lesson. I wanted the students to take responsibility for their targets and their improvements.

At the start of the lesson I emailed the students the links to the two clips below. These clips are created by me using an app called ExplainEverything. This app allows you to talk over a PowerPoint/Keynote and makes a video for you.

Also at the start of the lesson I handed back the mock exam papers. I asked the students to look through their paper and identify which questions they had struggled most on. I asked them to rank their questions in order of priority with the ones that they found the hardest at the top.

Once the rank order of questions was established we got into the main part of the lesson.

The stamp I use for point 5

I asked the students to watch the part of the video that applied to the question they had identified as the one that they had struggled the most with.
Once they had watched this part of the video I asked them to write out a suitable target that would allow them to improve their answer.
The students then had to check this target with me. In most cases this appeared as simply a rubber stamping exercise but in asking the students to articulate the problem and solution to me I was getting them to reinforce their understanding. This conversation acted as a mini-plenary. Obviously, some of the students required more support, especially the ones I had previously identified, and I spent more time working with these students.
Then the students re-wrote / redrafted their answer to show that they had understood how to improve it.
The students checked their answers briefly with me. If I was happy then I stamped the answer if not I could offer further guidance. Again this process acted as a mini-plenary.
The students began the process again on the next question within their rank order.

Literacy Focus
This lesson coincided with a literacy walkthrough at my school. Question six on the exam is an essay which the students can achieve an additional three marks for spelling and grammar. On this question I provided a literacy target as well as a mark and asked the students to ensure that their improvements (point 5) allowed them to show that they had acted on this literacy target. Working in this way allowed the students to showcase the progress that they had made on both the wider exam and on their literacy.

My class work independently on improving their work (DIRT)

Reflections

It was personal: Each student's work in the lesson was different. After rank ordering the answers based on the marks the scored the students were able to personalise their journey through the lesson.
I felt like I was at two places at once: I was able to be the teacher, on the screens via the iPads, and be a offer 1:1 support to the students when they needed it. This meant that the students were more on task because they were getting support from me in different ways at the same time.
The mini-plenaries ensured I could measure progress: I feel that we are always been asked to measure progress. The fact that I was able to check both the students targets and the improvements they had made to their work allowed me to know how much individual progress was being made.
It was student led and independent: I really felt like the activity was student led as they chose their route through the lesson, my job was to provide resources and support. Once I had provided the resources (the videos and the marks on their exams) the students were able to work independently through parts 1-3 and 4.
It was well placed in the year: my GCSE class had done a lot of this type of thing before and it really showed. Although this lesson was a step further (in being more student led) the students saw it as a natural extension to their work and assessment.
The students were engaged: this might have been because of the immediacy of the exam but I would like to think that it was, at least in part, down to the activity.

One students redraft of part of one question

Results
All of the students made progress in the lesson and all produced at least two rewrites of their answers. Obviously, the proof will be in the pudding on results day, and it will be hard to tell how much this lesson contributed, but judging by the atmosphere in the room and the quality of the student work the personalised DIRT was successful.

The fact that this lesson was so close to the real exam I was expecting the students to ask about learning content but the fact that they didn't shows that they understand how important these type of activities are to improving performance.

DIRT isn't a new concept for me and has formed part of my lessons for a number of years. The videos the students were using were made two years ago. That said delivering the lesson in such a personalised way felt like a breakthrough as it allowed the students the ability to really tailor the DIRT to their specific needs.

I have been using Socrative for two years. For the most part this has primarily been to Turn Students into Teachers by getting them to make quizzes and then test each other using them, this was primarily a type of plenary for the end of the lesson. However, I have recently developed my use of this app to use it more at the start of the lesson and to show progression in the students' understanding.

This blog post features both an explanation from me and a video to show the activity I am describing taking place.

My GCSE class complete a source question

For the last couple of months I have being using the short answer function on Socrative. This allows students to respond to a question and then vote on the responses showing which answer they feel to be the best. Recently, during the revision season I have developed this further using Socrative to both connect the learning and allow the students to develop their understanding.

Are you surprised by this source?

At the start of the lesson I have projected a source up on to the board along with a question and asked the students to answer the question using Socrative (see the picture). Individually they complete the question. I have found that this has engaged the students as soon as they have entered the room and got the lesson started very quickly. Whilst they are completing this activity I can set up the rest of the lesson or take the register.

I then ask the students to submit their answers to Socrative. Some of the students write their answers in their notes app as Socrative can be a bit clumsy and it is easy to send your answer in before you are ready to.

Once all the entries have been submitted I then send the entries back to the students using the app. Once they have received entries from the whole class the students then have two tasks to complete:

Make a list of the points you have not included: the students have to look through the other entries from the rest of the class and note down the points that others have made that they have not. This acts as a kind of mini-plenary as the students have to reflect on their own responses and work out how to improve them. For some it might be simply facts and figures that they have missed out on. For others it may be more of a style issue.
Vote for the three best answers: Socrative allows the students to vote on the best answers (to vote more than once simply ask the students to log out and back into the app). My current GCSE class have been especially good it picking out the best responses. The votes are sent back to my iPad / PC. The entries are completely anonymous so the students are forced to judge the quality of the answer and can't just vote for their mates.

To finish the activity I ask students, at random, to explain a point that they have picked up from looking at other students' responses. In the video below you can hear Lucas explain how he would improve his answer based on what he has read from his peers. This is obviously another mini-plenary as it allows the students to explain how they would improve their answer. This alternatively can be done as a Kagan style activity in pairs.

Finally, I read out the answers that got the most votes and the winners stand up. We have no idea who they will be. This is always a good moment as the students know it was the quality of their answer that got them the votes. You would expect that it is the same students who would get the votes but this is not my experience as a real mix of students end up winning.

Below is a video documenting what happened on one occasion when we did this activity:

Reflections

This activity really gets the lesson going as the students are working straight away and is good for pace.
It can be used as both a starter to connect the learning or as an activity in its own right depending on the context of the topic. In this case as it was revision I used it as a starter and something to get the students thinking about teenagers in the 1960s which developed in the rest of the lesson.
The anonymous nature of the activity is great as it makes the students work do the talking.
The students enjoy it and are always engaged by it, I hope that this came across in the video.
It allows the students to develop their ideas in a supportive way. I am not just looking for the best answers but I am also looking for the students who can explain how they would improve their work.
It is a great tool for both revision and practicing exam technique.

The students really enjoy this activity, they enjoy seeing whose work is the winner and they are able to explain how they would improve their own work showing both progress and a developing understanding of the topic/skill.

Below are the thoughts of some of my GCSE students:

At the start of the year I aimed to develop my students ability to close the gap between the work they were producing and their potential. In a post entitled 'Developing Efficient Feedback Techniques' I set out my aim:

Firstly, I think it's important to say that none of the principles I am discussing here are new to my practise. All of the things I have done before. What I am really talking about here is ways of systematising what I do to make sure that as many students as possible can successfully close the gap between where they are and where they want to be.

The key point was to systematise the process so that all of my students were able to make real progress. I had felt that, because of their relative importance, my GCSE and A-Level classes were receiving better quality feedback than my other groups. I believed that if I could make my GCSE/A-Level classes close the gap efficiently and effectively then I could filter this down to my lower school teaching and make improvements across the board.

In December I asked my GCSE and A-Level students to complete a GoogleForm anonymously giving their views about the new assessment books (These are exercise books that only contain assessed work, feedback and improvements. The first pages are taken up with the targets and grades which are suigned by the students parents). Using this 'Student Feedback on my Feedback' I was able to ascertain that the assessment books were a big success. One student wrote:

"I like completing my AS work in the book as it allows me to keep it all in one place and easily look back on past questions / essays. It's also good for teacher feedback and discussions with parents over how certain tasks have gone."

Since my December blog post I have looked to develop my use of DIRT to improve my students exam performance. I focused on Personalising DIRT using ExplainEverything videos. This allowed the students to get the most out of the limited time directly before the exam.

Results and Impact

I have decided to use assessment books throughout my teaching from next year. From year 7-13 all students will have books that just contain assessed work, feedback and improvements. To add to this my Head of Department has also decided to implement these assessment books across the department. This has shown the value of the idea as all history students @Rossett will have these assessment books from September.
At the start of the year I vowed that every time I marked a piece of students work I would make the students improve it. I have been able to stick to this for the most part with year 7 and 8 but the new assessment books will make this easier and ultimately more efficient.
During the Spring Term there was a whole school marking scrutiny to see if books were being marked effectively. One of my year 8 classes books were scrutinised and they were found to be effectively marked showing that the students had been able to take feedback on board and act on it. Without making the decision to always make students act on my feedback I don't think that this marking scrutiny would have been as successful. I was particularly pleased that these were year 8 books as it proved that I am lifting the standard of feedback across the board.
I felt that during the intense period that preceded the exams that the work I had completed throughout the year on improving exam answers really paid dividends. The students were able to quickly work on improving answers with limited guidance from me. This was very valuable in the final lessons before the exam.

Going Forward

Obviously, I will look to use the assessment book model throughout my teaching from next year. With the lower school I will use it for most marked work and not just assessments as it is good for the students to get used to the idea of improving their work. It also will allow me to stick to the principle of only marking work if the students are going to improve it.
From the student feedback I feel that I still need to develop and improve the amount of written praise that I give. I am looking to perhaps use 'Two Stars and a Wish' which will allow me to make sure I include more 'stars' in my marking. This will continue to be a challenge for me as when I am under pressure with time I naturally default into focusing on how students need to improve their work.
This work links well with our new whole school focus on DIRT. As a faculty we are going to be using purple pens for feedback and green pens for the students improvements. These colour will work well with my assessment books and make the different parts of them visibly different.

I feel that my work this year has been successful. I will only truly know when the results come in but I do feel from observations, book scrutinies, and working with the students that what I have tried to do has had an impact. I will now have to think about how to develop this for the coming academic year.

The Context
On Friday 27th June I attended #RKD3 an event held in Harrogate for the schools in the Red Kite Alliance. The day started and ended with some inspirational Keynote addresses from @LiquidThinker and Rosie Swale Pope. They were brilliant but in this post I want to focus on the middle part of the day and how I was involved in a piece of collaborative problem solving.

The Central Tensions

This was an opportunity, either side of lunch, for staff to get together in departments and focus on 'Central Tensions' that are important to all of the schools in the Red Kite Alliance.

The aim of these two sessions was to work with colleagues from other schools, who were part of the same department, on strategies focused around these 'Central Tensions'. Working together in the first session and presenting our ideas in the second.

We focused on 'From Description to Evaluation' and applied this to the history context of GCSE cartoon source analysis.

1) The Collaboration
I was pleased that we decided on this topic because cartoon sources are notoriously difficult. Students struggle to both describe the source and then evaluate that description. This is also a perennial challenge for history teachers. I have tried to use Solo Taxonomy in the past and had some success but I was keen to develop and learn from the other teachers.

Students struggle to...

We began by focusing on a source and brainstorming the problems that students had with answering cartoon questions of this type. It was positive to see that other history teachers in different schools had found similar problems as I have had.

Having outlined the problems we decided on a solution that focused around a starter activity that would allow the students to engage with the source that they would be looking at in that lesson. We wanted to produce a generic activity that would work with every GCSE cartoon source.

We decided to produce a series of cards that could be dealt out as the students came into the room. These cards would either be based around description or evaluation. Depending on their target grade the students would have to answer a different number of description and evaluation questions. Description questions are in red and evaluation questions are in green:

+ Grade C/D students would have to answer three description questions and one evaluation question.

+ Grade B students would have to answer two description questions and two evaluation questions.

+ Grade A*/A students would have to answer one description question and three evaluation questions.

The differentiation

We thought it was important to ensure that all students answered at least one describe question as description is an important aspect of the lower levels of the mark scheme. Also it is difficult to evaluate if you haven't already described.

The questions.

Within the activity the students would not aim to answer all of the questions just four. The card nature of this activity could allow for further collaboration or a more individual focus depending on the class. The cards themselves would be laminated. The differentiated background could also be laminated with the source cut out and placed in the middle and post-its used to complete the activity. The idea would be that this activity could be used a number of times over the year. We believed that this would allow the students to familiarise themselves with the activity and the important distinction between description and evaluation. The different questions and possibilities would also keep it fresh. We also believed that the activity would prepare students with practice at asking the type of questions that they should try and ask of the cartoon sources within the exam.

Reflections
+ Firstly, it was reassuring. To hear other teachers in the group talk about the difficulties they face with this common problem reassured me and us all that we were doing a good job.
+ It was great to work with other history teachers on a common problem. To get other perspectives was really helpful and I will definitely be using the idea we came up with.
+ All the staff were eager to make the most of the rare opportunity to collaborate in this way.
+ I certainly couldn't have produced a resource of this quality on my own.
+ I think it is important to always role model what you want from your students. Even though they didn't see this (unless they saw it on Twitter) I believe we, as a group, did role model what we expect from our students.

2) The Digital Literacy
Whilst another member of the group was producing a large sheet with our ideas and solutions I decided to make a Keynote presentation on my iPad of what we were doing. Whilst doing this I was still able to contribute to the group work but I wanted to make something of lasting significance because I believe that too often the excellent ideas created on a day like this are wasted because we cannot take them away in a form that can be used. The slides you have seen already are from the Keynote I made (I used Popplet for the mind-mapped parts).

I would like to point out that I do not consider myself an absolute whizz on the iPad (there are others within my department who are far more proficient then me) I was still able to quickly make the presentation and keep contributing.

Once we had finished the presentation I then copied my Keynote to iCloud and tweeted the link out.

This meant that the Keynote could be accessed by everyone in the history session because you do not need to hold a twitter account to view my tweets and we displayed twitter.com/westylish on the big sheet when we gave the presentation after lunch.

This meant that not only could the teachers in the history cohort hear our presentation but they could see it too (either on their devices 'live' or at home on a computer) if they chose.

Reflections
+ All the staff in our group were pleased to have a copy of our presentation to take away from the session.
+ The presentation looked professional and provided a clear structure for implementing this activity.
+ The tweet was retweeted 6 times by other members at the #RKD3 this shows that others were also interested in what we produced. These people would obviously not have been able to see this as they were not in the room.
+ I had never shared a link on iCloud before but it was easy and straightforward. Staff could download the presentation in either a PowerPoint, Keynote or PdF which made it very accessible.
+ None of the other groups created a presentation and shared it. This made ours stand out. The presentation had a final 'feel' to it and I think this made us work harder to make sure that we were happy with the content than we would have been just using the big paper sheet.
+ I think it is important to always role model what you want from your students. Even though they didn't see this (unless they saw it on Twitter) I believe we, as a group, did role model what we expect from our students.

3) Overall Reflections
The Red Kite Alliance day was brilliant. The speakers were inspirational. But the opportunity it provided for collaboration was the highlight for me. As I was on the train home and reflected on the day I began comparing the opportunity that I had received as a qualified professional with the opportunities that I give my students in my lessons.

I was struck by how successfully we had completed the task. Two of my group of four teachers I had not met before. Yet we were still able to produce something with a lasting value that I, for one, will use time and again.

Why was it successful?
Collaboration
1) The Keynote speakers and facilitators had created an atmosphere that allowed our group to prosper.
2) We were given the freedom to chose which topic/problem we worked on.
3) All of us wanted to get better and improve in the area we chose.
4) We had the resources to make it happen.

I wrote the previous list 'off the cuff' but reflecting on it now it seems that it is pretty much in order of importance. Without 1) we may have just been inclined to sit there. We were only 3) because of 2). And 4) is easy to get right.

Digital Literacy
1) I had a desire to make the most of the situation and opportunity.
2) My colleagues and the facilitators didn't block me
3) I had the technology at my disposal.
4) A #tag had been set up to allow me to share our work.

This list was a little harder to compile. I still think looking back on it that it is in order of importance. Some may disagree about 3) but in my world of education technology is not a problem. Had I not had my iPad I could have used my phone. Having recently been on a facilitation programme where I was banned from using my iPad 2) was a bigger concern than you might have thought.

I do obviously give my students these opportunities to collaborate and use technology. I do strive to promote Digital Literacy and collaboration but I could do more. The #RKD3 was a great opportunity but it was also a great opportunity to remind me of what makes a successful learning atmosphere. I hadn't forgotten any of this but it was really useful to be reminded of it.

I need to ensure that I continue to make sure that I plan the type of activities that allowed our group to be so successful on the day.

I think I may make posters of the two lists of successes above and stick them up in my classroom.

Students use their iPads and the Lego to articulate their answers

The Over the summer I saw the Twitter account @LegoAcademics which documents the activities of three female Lego characters working in a lab. I also found that you can order a free Lego StoryStarter kit online. Coupling this with some excellent Lego Therapy that I had witnessed with Jo Clark in the @Rossett Bridge I came up with the idea of using Lego to engage students in a story at A-Level.

Creative A-Level teaching can be difficult with the pressures of time and assessment but I believe that if students really engage in an activity then it will stay with them and make revising a lot easier. In this particular lesson several students were away on a Shakespeare trip so it seemed like an opportune moment to try this.

The Lego StoryStarter Kit in action

Students collaborating to produce their work

I chose the Hitler Myth created by Joseph Göbbels and asked students to compare the Myth with the reality using Lego. Each group had to create at least 4 issues with the myth and the reality articulated in both words and Lego.

What I like best about this type of activity is the unknown. I really had no idea what would be produced and as I sat watching them I had to stop myself from getting involved. The students had 45 minutes to produce their work and I tried my best to it leave them to it.

The students were really engaged on the task and produced very creative solutions. Before the lesson I imagined what I would do and I got pretty stuck. The students were quick to overcome any issues.

"Why is Hitler wearing a witches hat?""To show the spell that Hitler put on Germany."

"Why is Hitler waving to a cat?""He is giving up his personal happiness to devote himself to the nation"

"Why is the spider laid like that?""He is giving the Nazis salute showing how devoted all his people were"

Reflections
I often find that when you gamble in education and try something new the results are always better. I have a very good group of dedicated students who immediately saw the value of the activity and ran with it.

Sixth form teaching can be pretty dry at times. We would normally have simply written the difference between the myth and reality and discussed the impact of this in a more traditional fashion. As you can see from the work produced (below) this activity was much more memorable and did not compromise on the depth and detail of what was created.

Sadly blogger won't allow me to upload a PdF but I hope that the images are clear enough to show the high quality work that was produced. There were three groups and all produced excellent work that was better than it would have been had the lesson followed its traditional course.

This is something I will definitely use again when the opportunity arises. The engagement and enthusiasm was clearly apparent. I believe that next time I use this the results will be even better as the students will already have an idea what is required.

That said, for a first attempt, the results are remarkable.

Group One Produced

Group Two Produced

Group 3 produced

This is the video blog detailing my TLC focus and the impact it has had.

Below are the feedback videos that I made:

Below are some photos of the students DIRT. One student is targeted a grade A the other a grade C:

Last week I wrote a blog post that tried to explain how I had used Lego in an AS level history lesson. The aim of the lesson was to get the students to articulate the difference between the Hitler Myth, projected by Göbbels, and the reality of Hitler as a leader. The students had to write about the differences and show the differences using a basic Lego kit made up of around 30 pieces.

On Twitter the response to the blog post was really positive. As was the response from the students to the lesson.

However, when I was looking at the statistics for my blog I noticed a large number of visits from two 'referring sites' - the TES and StudentRoom. Clicking on the link I found that someone had posted my blog post and asked whether the activity was "unacceptable dumbing down" of the topic.

What followed on both sites was a series of incredibly negative and offensive posts from people (some of whom I would assume are fellow teachers) panning me and the Lego activity that I had tried.

Amongst the personal insults there was an unwritten consensus that I clearly shouldn't be a teacher.

There were a couple of typing mistakes in the opening sentence which I should have spotted when I proof read the post but didn't. That said written communication has always been a challenge for me and there are probably other errors in my post (and probably in this one) that I haven't spotted.

As I read the posts on the message boards I couldn't believe the negativity and the personal nature of the insults. One of the people who had posted had clearly trawled through my YouTube channel with the aim of finding further evidence of my ineptness.

Having discussed this with my colleagues, and with several of my sixth form students, I have been struck by support I have recieved. Several students have spoken to me about how much they got out of the lesson and how it has helped them think about the topic of propaganda.

I realise how lucky I am to work where I do.

At the school where I work we always talk to the students about the importance of resilience. In the face of this abuse I have had to be resilient, it would have been easy to delete my blog, it would be easy to stop sharing my work, it would be easy to stop innovating, it would be easy to keep my head down and let the bullies win.

I would be lying if I said that the posts hadn't effected me but:

+ There is absolutely no way that I will cease to write my blog.

+ There is absolutely no way that I will stop trying to innovate.

+ There is absolutely no way that I will let the views of people who do not know me effect what I do.

This year I have been working on videoing the feedback that I am giving to my sixth form students. My AS class produced an essay on the extent to which Hitler's consolidation of power was achieved in a legal manner. I then videod the feedback and the students used the feedback to improve their original draft using DIRT. Initial reactions suggested that this method was a very effective way of disseminating feedback with the student voice being very positive and the DIRT showing that the students had made real progress towards their targets.

A 'A' grade student clearly showing progress towards their targets

A 'C' grade student clearly showing progress towards their targets

Student voice explaining how effective the video feedback was

Looking at what the students produced in their books and what they thought about the activity only got me so far. Yes, I was pleased with the impact that the video had on the students and their DIRT but would it have lasting impact?

The students then produced a second essay on the reality of the 'Economic Miracle' within Nazi Germany. There were some similarities with the first essay as they both looked at 'how far' and both asked the students to engage with an opening statement. I therefore felt that the students would be able to apply some of the targets that they received in the previous essay to this one.

The students selected three targets that they received last time and applied them to this essay. In some cases these targets were formed through a bit of consultation with me; as some students picked very specific targets that needed broadening slightly. That said all of the targets truly reflected the feedback that I had given the students.

When the students handed their essays in and I videod my feedback I began by focusing on these three targets and whether I had felt that the students had met them. If they hadn't met them, or they were still working towards them, I then offered further advice to help them achieve their targets.

A student uses the video and her own opinion to assess her progress against her targets

Using the video feedback in this way felt a lot more 'joined up' than before and the impact was clear as students who had missed one of the videos didn't make as much progress as those who had benefited from both. A example of the type of video I produced is below:

In terms of the actual impact, of the 9 students (producing 27 targets) who had both videos, 11 targets were met outright, with 13 targets being partially met and 3 not being met.

Obviously, I don't have a control group to measure this against but it does feel like the video feedback has had an impact that is greater than simply writing out the feedback. I would usually expect a higher number of targets not met across 9 students. Although I have no evidence, I believe that the figure would be close to half without the video feedback. The video below is a video blog of the process (it is an updated version of the video in the previous blog post):

Latest Images