@Westylish's Blog

Before I begin this I would like to add as a caveat that I have only been using Twitter seriously for a few months. I am by no means an 'expert'. The reason I write this though is because, even in this short time, I have seen first-hand the real impact using Twitter has had on my students learning and engagement.

I believe there are three reasons why teachers should use Twitter. I will begin by explaining these reasons before showing some examples of Tweets that I have sent.

1) Using Twitter to promote yourself and your subject.
It may seem very ego- centred to use something to promote oneself. However, in a recent discussion with year 11 pupils about engagement it became very apparent that some teachers are able to engage their students before they enter their class. They do this by building a reputation; a reputation for innovation that makes students to look forward to lessons. Twitter is a brilliant tool for showing off the type of engaging activities that you use as a teacher to other students who were not in that lesson. This can only have a positive impact and build your reputation.

Developing from this, Twitter is a brilliant tool for promoting your subject. It is a great way to show off all the interesting and engaging activities that are undertaken in your subject. Photos of classwork and trips are good examples of this.

Added to this, as a history teacher, an option subject, Twitter is an invaluable tool for student recruitment. Rather than relying on student-word-of-mouth (in my experience on of the main ways most students make their options choices) Twitter allows you to show the potential next cohort what the current cohort is doing. This direct access to students, and potentially their parents, allows you to clearly represent what your subject is all about. Even year 11 students who are thinking about A-Levels choices could really benefit from seeing the subject in action.

Twitter allows teachers to promote themselves and their subject in a direct, modern and engaging way.

2) Using Twitter to promote students work
From a student perspective this is perhaps the most engaging aspect of Twitter. In all our classrooms we have noticeboards showcasing exemplar work. Twitter can be used as a modern development of this. Only very few of the relevant parties see the brilliant work that our students produce. With Twitter this can all change. I now regularly photo exemplar work and place it on Twitter. If the students have a Twitter account I will add that into the tweet. This means that if they ‘retweet’ then all of their followers can see their work. This could include parents, or the students could simply show their parents on their Twitter. Around school we have a series of screens that are linked to our school Twitter. If the school Twitter ‘retweets’ my tweet then at break and lunchtime the pupils can see that their peers are producing high-quality work.

Tweeting about students work has had a significant impact on engagement in my lessons especially with the more disaffected students:

"Sir, sir, can you put mine on Twitter?"
"Sir! I've just retweeted that tweet now my mum can see!"

These are some of the types of comments I regularly hear. I have also seen disaffected pupils walking out with their head held high telling their mates outside "sir's just put my work on Twitter innit!"

There is no doubt that Twitter is an effective vehicle for praise and engagement.

3) Using Twitter for CPD
Twitter allows us to connect with other teachers. Through this connection we can learn from each other. When I tweet about the teaching and learning that I am involved in I am showcasing my work to my followers. When others teachers tweet about their teaching and learning they are showcasing their work to me. This begins a two way process. Either we simply copy the ideas we see:
"This looks great, I'm trying it Monday morning!"
"I like this have you got any more information about it?"

Or we try to add to what someone else is doing or develop what we are doing:
"That's interesting have you thought about...?"
"I tried something similar but I found... can you help?"
"I've been using that but I tried doing it slightly differently by..."

In either case both the original tweeter and the receiver are developing their teaching and learning.

On several occasions I have used or adapted something I have seen on Twitter in my lessons; there is often no need to re-invent the wheel. I have done this without ever having met the teachers and, in many cases, without knowing anything about them. Without Twitter I would not have access to their work or ideas.

Twitter gives us all the chance to interact with fellow professionals all across the globe. Those of us already using Twitter are reaping massive benefits.

Exemplar Tweets and Examples

I have already talked about the three benefits of using Twitter for Teaching and below is a selection of exemplar tweets which provide specific examples that showcase how the three aims can be achieved. In many cases one tweet can do all three of the aims and the first one certainly promotes my subject, my students and allows a discussion on pedagogy for CPD.

I have picked these tweets because they do not give out any details of the students work but I would normally include the @studentstwittername in the tweet.

I believe that these tweets give some clear examples of how twitter can be used. If you have any comments or feedback please tweet Mr David West @Westylish

During the autumn term I have been really focusing on motivation as a cause of learning with my GCSE History class. I believe that one of the biggest, but often overlooked, causes of motivation comes from feeling part of something. Students in a class that they feel part of are much more likely to fulfill their potential. This blog post is about explaining how I have tried to ensure my students feel part of something.

Before getting into this post it seems important to point out that I do not profess to give all (or even any) answers. I am simply reflecting on my own experience and sharing my thoughts about it. I really hope that other educators and the students I teach will comment or Tweet about what I have written and give me any advice they deem helpful.

Before I can explain how I have tried to achieve my aim a little context is needed. The nature of my group is vertical. I have 5 year 11's, 14 year 10's and 6 year 9's in my GCSE history class. They are all studying history for one year with 5 teaching hours a week.

The makeup of my class obviously poses some difficult problems especially if my aim is to make them feel part of something. They are essentially a random group of pupils. There are friendship groups within the class but they would normally never be a group in any other context except for the 5 hours a week they share with me.

They are a very hard working group. They nearly always work in absolute silence. It would be easy for me to rock back and let them get on with it; 'it' being anything I set. I am confident that if I prescribed a lesson of copying out the textbook they would simply get on with it. This adds to the challenge. You can't feel part of something you do not engage with and sitting, well behaved, in silence is not engagement.

I share this context because although the group I am writing about is unique it is similar to lots of classes that I have taught and many that you may have taught or been part of.

Non-Historical Activities

In the run up to Christmas I held a Christmas party for my GCSE class. It was a kind of "faith tea." Everybody in the class brought some food. I brought the Christmas crackers and the plates. This could seem a remarkable move especially with an exam straight after Christmas. No history was learnt. But I strongly believe that the time apparently 'wasted' was actually very beneficial. The students in the class were part of something together that was new. After the exam I have promised to spend a lesson playing games with the class. They'll be challenges involving throwing paper into buckets and knocking over various items. The class will be in teams. In this setting the class will again be part of something together. I believe that these non-historical activities will have a major positive impact on the learning that occurs during the 'real' lessons and at home.

An Online Class Space

During this year I have really developed my use of Wiki's, Twitter and YouTube. I have set up two Wiki's for the January exam. These are, I have been told, useful for revision. They include written notes, videos of me and videos the class have produced. The Wiki's also provide a focal point for the class online. Not all the group use them for revision but for those that do I hope it has the effect of making them feel part of something. Most of the class have twitter and follow me. This further adds to that feeling of being part of something and often in the class students say they have seen what I am talking about on Twitter.

Using Co-Construction to Help Plan lessons

During this term I have really developed the use of students to help co-construct the lessons. I use a group of 4 or 5 students from the group and we meet for one lunchtime a week to discuss the lessons that have gone and topics coming up. I change my group of co-constructors about every half-term. Using co-construction really adds to the feeling of being part of something. This is especially true when we complete an activity that the students have helped design in class. They have helped to create the lesson so they must feel part of it. Co-construction also helps me to gauge how the students understand the topic. "I've got all the ideas but I think if we could do an annotated timeline next lesson then I’d really understand it." Next lesson we do the timeline and not just the student who suggests it but the whole class probably feel happier with the topic. The student who suggests it really feels part of the class because they helped create the lesson.

Getting to Know your Students

This is very simple. But you cannot expect the students to feel part of the lesson if you do not know who they are. I've been thinking whether I could speak for 30 seconds about each student in my class. This has helped me to get a clear understanding of whom I need to get to know better. I will get talking to those students when we get back. I have been helping a student over twitter and ended the conversation with 'Did you get a Leeds Utd calendar for Christmas?' or with another 'Did you get any Justin Biebs posters for Christmas?' Knowing about your students really helps them to feel part of something. (Sorry if I've been teaching you to suck eggs)

Letting your Students get to Know You

I really try to let tell my GCSE class about my life. I am the only person in my class that everybody knows well. That might be sad but at least it's a start. Most of my class follows Mister West on Twitter. All are interested what I might be getting for Christmas. All like watching my videos on YouTube! If the students know their teacher as a person then they will feel part of that person's life. Sharing stories about my life is one of the ways that I can make the whole class feel part of something.

I really hope you have found what I have written interesting. I really hope you can comment or tweet me about it.

In my mind co-construction is the process where students are used to help plan lessons and to evaluate the progress that has been made. The picture above shows a group of GCSE historians discussing the lessons that have been taught and proposing ideas for the future lessons.

This process has got many many benefits. It is a process i have become a big believer in but rather than read my thoughts watch the video below and listen to the students.

In my mind the three main benefits of this process are:

1) Using students to help plan lessons has a huge impact on learning.

The students involved feel part of the lesson, are more engaged, and feel as if they own the learning.
The results are very creative and take the pressure off the teacher to keep coming up with interesting ideas.

2) Using students to reflect on the learning that has taken place is a brilliant AfL tool.

3) The relationship between the students involved and the teacher is altered. Barriers are broken down. This has a really positive impact on the atmosphere within the classroom.

If you are thinking of setting up this kind of co-construction I offer the following advice. It is by no means concrete and is simply a reflection of my own experience.

I have always used this with GCSE but try to pick a group where things are not quite going as you'd like perhaps where students are not achieving their potential.
That said pick a group you are confident that you can work with.
Choose you students carefully. Try to pick students who are able to empathise with the learning needs of others in the class.
Pick about 4 or 5 students and meet them once a week perhaps at lunchtime.
Keep changing the students involved every half-term.
Begin with a general discussion about education. What do they like in lessons? What don't they like? What's good about your lessons? What's not? This allows a relationship to be built up. Once students see that they can be really honest and that you will listen to what they say they will feel confident in offering advice/ideas.
Look forward and back. Think about how the lessons could have been improved that have already been taught but also discuss how the students would like to see the coming lessons being taught.

Discussing education with students in this way was something completely new for me. I have seen the benefits of the process and will be continuing to develop this into 2012.

I have been looking into motivation with some of my Year 9 GCSE students. Unlike my other GCSE group this class only contains Year 9 students. This group can be a little up and down. Quite often they can be brilliant but occasionally they seem to lack focus and motivation. I decided to focus on the brilliance and asked four students in the group - "What motivated them in my lessons?" This I hope will then allow me to increase the motivation and engagement of the group. No group can be brilliant all the time but some groups are never brilliant. With that in mind I hoped to develop the engagement in this group but also learn a few lessons that could be applied to my teaching in general.

This is what they said:

"Getting actively involved makes it more interesting"
This is something that I have really tried to develop this year. Lydia gives several examples. Firstly, she talks about the video which looked at using boys and girls to demonstrate how FDR tried to 'pack' the Supreme Court.

Lydia also mentions a depression game which involved creating our own 1920s economy in the classroom to highlight the overproduction problem within the consumer goods industries. Finally, she mentions us acting out a trench attack on the tennis courts. I also stood students on the school field to try to get them to imagine what it would be like to go 'over the top' in the First World War.

This group got into this activity and really tried to imagine what it might have been like.

I have tried to develop this approach to teaching and it seems that it has been well received. Getting students up and about and not simply sat at the desks clearly is motivational and it is something I am going to continue to develop. I hope to use co-construction (see other blog post) to develop more of these types of activities.

"New Technology has helped a lot"
Rob explained about the use of new technology. I have my own YouTube channel and we have made Wiki's. As Rob mentions, this has helped with revision as it has given the students access to a variety of learning styles with which to revise from. Added to that when we were outside in 'the trenches' the students used their mobile phones to record their thought and feelings.

Whenever students use their mobile phones they are instantly engaged. We then, using a hashtag and a visible tweets website, collated the students ideas when we returned to the classroom.

http://visibletweets.com/#query=%23rosgcsehis2&animation=1

What Rob doesn't mention is that new technologies have really helped with the active learning that Lydia is talking about. The video on FDR and the Supreme court is a clear example. The students were not only motivated by the activity at the time but its impact was increased massively by the fact they could watch that part of the lesson back whilst revising.

Rob also mentions the use of RealSmartCloud (@SmartAssess) which I have chosen not to include because it is not something that can be accessed by everyone. That said I will obviously continue to use this software as Rob has shown that it has a motivational Impact.

I firmly believe that as well as teaching a subject my lessons should be preparing students for the world they are going to live in. New technology needs to be embraced. Not only is it engaging but it is providing essential life skills. Schools where YouTube is filtered and mobile phones are banned are not reflecting the real world.

"Teachers taking risks"
Sammy explains the impact of teachers taking risks. She says the group is 'intrigued' when the teacher is trying something new. I have always tried to take risks. Writing this blog, using twitter, make class videos for YouTube, going out on a muddy rugby field pretending we are in France etc... These are all examples of me going out of my comfort zone. How can we keep asking students to try new things and ways of working if we do not embody that principle ourselves? We all know that we learn much more when we take risks.

"Student led learning"
Ellen explained the impact of student led learning. She believes that it is better to be taught by her peers than by her teacher. I regularly use YouTube and get groups of the class to produce videos that explain an aspect of a topic. The students then watch each others videos and produce notes or complete worksheets for homework. We have done this for intolerance in the 1920s USA and the New Deal. Here is one about entertainment in the 'Roaring Twenties'.

Videos such as this are much more engaging than listening to me. They are also great fun and allow the students creativity to come out. Doing this kind of student led activity is not a new thing, but using YouTube really increases the lasting impact of the activity.

To conclude, I would like to firstly thank the four students involved in the video for giving up their lunchtime to come and discuss this issue. Secondly, I hope that by listening to them I will increase the motivation in my class but also, more importantly, show that I value their opinions and see the importance of their role in the learning process.

Over the last couple of weeks I have been experimenting with using Twitter in lessons. My aim has been twofold:
1) To develop the engagement of my students by using their smartphones in my lessons.
2) Using Twitter to aid the learning that was already taking place.

Some examples of how I have used twitter in my lessons are below:

1) As an activity ask the students to answer a question on Twitter.
This could be as a starter, or an activity mid way through the lesson. It could be a conclusion to an essay. The only thing you need to make sure is that the students include a hashtag in the tweet.
+ Why did the Schlieffen Plan fail?
+ Why did the USA fall into depression?
+ Why did the barons fall out with King John?
Then using the website http://visibletweets.com/ search for the results and display them on your board.

This is an ideal activity if you are requiring students to think about a topic and come up with their own conclusions. I leave the Visible Tweets on the screen and they can use each others ideas to help formulate their own opinion.
A good example is http://visibletweets.com/#query=rosgcsehissp&animation=2 select 'Rotation' in the animation toolbar to give the presentation a prezi feel.

2) Using Twitter to get a feel for a topic.
At the start of a topic, or at the start of a lesson ask students to Tweet keywords to describe what they have learnt/already know about the topic. Ask the students to Tweet single words with a space in between each word. An example could be:
"Trenches fear sad nomansland death barbedwire"
It is important to put phrases together like this because we will then use Visible Tweets with the 'Tag Cloud' animation setting selected. This allows the words that are most popular to grow and provides a very visual feel to the words used. Again a hashtag must be included in the tweets. A good example is http://visibletweets.com/#query=rosgcsehis2&animation=3 which could then be left running during the lesson to help the students with their learning.

3) Students using Twitter to Show off their work
For holocaust memorial day my GCSE history class produced suitcases of memories. They had to select 6 photos from the @YadVasham website that spoke to them. We then produced a cardboard suitcase and placed the pictures inside. This activity worked well and was designed to re-humanise the victims of the holocaust. Normally I would hand out praise in the lesson but instead I asked the class to photograph their work and to share it on twitter. This allowed the work to be seen by more than just the class. The students were already proud of their work but sharing it in this way increased that pride and no doubt their motivation. The first picture was taken by me showing the whole class but the next two are taken by my students showing their work.

Some Reflections on Using Twitter in lessons
From the reaction of my classes, the work produced, and from individual conversations with students, I am confident that using twitter in this way has increased engagement and motivation.

I believe that it has helped the quieter students have a greater voice in the class.

Visible Tweets is a brilliant display tool and it is displaying information that is directly relevant to that topic and, more importantly, that class. It is impossible to have a relevant display for every lesson but visible tweets takes care of that for you.

It is collaborative.

It is ideal during more active lessons where a pen and paper are not suited.

Quite a few students have signed up to Twitter (although they would probably never admit it) so that they can become involved in the lessons in this way.

It allows good work to be shared.

Some Problems
In my GCSE classes just over half of the students have access to their twitter account via a smartphone. They have worked together in groups sharing this resource and allowing everyone to have a voice. Obviously, if the percentage is too low then this activity is not viable. With more and more schools investing in handheld devices I believe this will become less of a problem over time but clearly it is important to check out the situation before you plan to use Twitter in the way.

I am lucky to work in a school that is looking to embrace technology and is very open to this way of thinking. There may well be some of you reading this who work in a school where mobile phones are banned. Until that changes this way of working will not be open to you. I have said in previous posts that i believe a school should prepare students for the world they will enter, surely using social media in this way is doing just that and should be encouraged.

I am a big believer in using student co-construction to help plan my lessons and as a vehicle for feedback (see my other post). This has proven very valuable however it has not allowed me to access a wide range of opinions from all the students in several classes. I designed a questionnaire using Google forms, with a series of simple questions to gauge the opinions of my students simultaneously from years 8 - 12. The questionnaire was anonymous and I only asked the students to specify their year group. using Google forms was incredibly easy. The form took 5 minutes to make and Google collate the responses for you.

Some of the results are displayed briefly below. I am using Tagxedo.com which is brilliant for turning a large amount of text into a meaningful image.

How would you describe Mr West?

I was struck by some of the words such as 'unique' and 'different' and it seemed that students valued my attempts to be creative and think outside the box. This made the time put into those kind of activities seem worthwhile.

What are your favourite types of activities in Mr West's lessons?

What struck me from this was the importance and value students placed on the active learning elements of my lessons. I was also struck by how popular my use of YouTube and Twitter is.

How could Mr West improve his teaching?

This was the most interesting and enlightening question. At first it can be the most difficult type of question to ask but it is always the most rewarding. My students made two contradictory points of note:

1) A preference for a more traditional form of teaching. They would like to see more "boring" activities and for me to "Maybe add more note taking during lessons". Quite a number of students "Would like a bit of old school copying down from the board every now and then."

2) A preference for more role play and active learning. They would like to see me "Try get the children out of their seat's every lesson!" and "maybe to do some more role plays to help us learn "

Clearly these two points are contradictory and reflect students with different learning styles. They also highlight the challenge of teaching; what works well for one does not for another.

Clearly then, doing a Google form and asking your class their opinions will not give you all the answers. But the value of this activity has been high. It has allowed a quieter element of my classes to state a preference for a more old fashioned approach. Don't get me wrong I will not be throwing the baby out with the bath water and getting a new set of board pens for every activity. But I have already started to incorporate elements of more traditional teaching into my classroom, I have made sure today that as part of my teaching I have displayed the key information on the board and allowed the students, if they wish, to copy it down. I will continue to do this and, in doing so, will be better at teaching to the needs of that group.

Using Google forms to find out what is good about my lessons is just a new, more effective, way of doing what I have always done. Listened to the preference of my students and incorporated that preference into my lessons.

It creates engagement and ownership of the learning from my students and it makes my job easier and me better at it.

Everyone's a winner! I encourage you to try it.

Yesterday we had our second session from @T2TUK on Kagan Structures @Rossett. This built on a session that took place last year. This second session gave us a few more examples of structures that we could use in our lessons but more than that it reintroduced us to the ethos of structured collaboration and the learning power of the collective over the individual.

For me the most powerful element of this message is the aspect that when we teach others we understand the content much better, our brains have to work harder to explain to someone else compared with just understanding it for ourselves.

All teachers understand this principle. It is a principle at work right now, as I write this blog, I am trying to convey my experience to someone else, this is making my brain work harder and it would work even harder if you were here discussing it with me.

This is particularly powerful for me as I believe that I could include more collaboration in the learning of my students. So today, with the words and enthusiasm of Elaine @KaganUK ringing in my ears, I have tried to further develop the collaboration in my classroom. I must make it clear, before I begin, that I am not a trained Kaganite (or whatever the plural is) I am not aiming to show how these structures are set up but simply to offer some examples and reflections of how I have tried to use them.

Examples
1) I started by using 'Stand up, hand up, pair up' with my Year 8's looking at WWI. This basically involves students standing up, moving around and discussing a topic with different students in a paired format. I added my own element of @Westylish glamour by making the students do a 'Top-Gun' style high5 rather than just a regular high5.

Two of my Year 8 students completing the 'Top Gun' Style High5 before discussing WWI

This proved an interesting and engaging way of getting the lesson going and allowed students to mix with others in the group.

2) I started my Year 12 class by doing a 'Quiz-Quiz-Trade' using the key concepts from the last lessson. I gave each student a concept, got them to 'revise' it whilst I did the register, and then set them off to test their peers, in a paired format (again with the Top-Gun High5's). The students walked around and tested each other and, where appropriate, coaced more information out of their partners.

My A/S students Quiz-Quiz-Trade about Nazism and the Law

This starter had three main benefits:

+ It proved a much more engaging way of starting the lesson than simply asking the students individually.

+ It got the whole class involved.

+ It proved to be a great AfL tool as students were able to work out which topics they understood and which ones they were struggling with.

3) I also got my A/S class to use 'Numbered-Heads-Together' to construct a plan for an essay question. This involves groups of four (3 in my small A/S group) producing an answer to a problem. Firstly, they write their own answer, then they stand up and lean in sharing their answer, they can only sit down when they have agreed and come to a concensus.

My A/S students 'Numbered-Heads-Together' about the main difficulty in answering an essay on Collaboration and Denunciation within Nazi Germany.

This approach yeilded three benefits:

+ It increased the confidence of all the group when they agreed on a consensus.

+ It allowed all the students to contribute to the answer.

+ It built up the teams and made the students feel part of something.

Reflections

The structures gave the classroom a real look of collaboration but you need to work hard as a teacher to make sure that the room has a feeling of collaboration too. It might look right but appearences can be decieving and there were a few examples today where the quality of the collaboration wasn't very high. This I am sure will come with time.


It looks like effective collaboration but is it?

In my Year 8 class, despite my best efforts to mix things up, it seemed that a lot of friends had stayed together and I need to make sure that I work harder to ensure a truly random nature of the groupings. I am confident though that, with time, I will be able to get this right.

Elaine @KaganUK was very good at constantly using a timer and giving fixed ideas about how long and how many times we should do an activity. This is something I need to develop over the coming weeks.

Despite these concerns I have already seen the benefit of using these kinds of collaborative structures today.

+ The whole class are involved for more of the lesson.

+ The learning was a lot less teacher-led particularly in my A/S class.

+ The Kagan structures can be dropped into the lesson really easily. They don't need a lot of planning and can be dropped in almost off-the-cuff to reflect a need in the lesson.

+ The students were much more engaged with each other and less with me.

+ The confidence of the students improved.

I am really pleased to have had the training and had a chance to try out these Kagan structures. I love the simplicity, the engagement and the student focus that they bring.

The Power of Structured Collaboration is something that has been very evident today.

Next week we will be involved in an Ofsted and as such i have been getting my lesson plans together for the possibility of an observation. As regular readers will know I 'loves a caveat early doors' and here is todays; I do not profess to be an expert on Ofsted, I am not trying to give out guidelines, but simply to offer my reflections. I have been observed once by Ofsted in 2010 and I am using that experience, along with advice from many people, to help me write this short blog post.

1) Focussing on Progress
I have really tried to focus on progress in my lesson planning. This is obviously from the start to the end of the lesson but also for each of the parts of the lesson. My old Head of Faculty once said "as soon as they walk in do a mini-plenary" and whilst this might have been partly a joke, I believe it is sound advice. Ofsted are only 'in' the lesson for a short period so it important that they can see the progress that has already been made or is made in that time. The easiest way to do this is to have lots of mini-plenaries built into the lesson plan.

2) Pick activities that you are familiar with and your students love
The lessons I have planned for the Ofsted contain elements and activities that the students know and have done before in another guise. When planning the lesons I have included activities that I (and the students) know work really well. I don't believe an Ofsted inspection is time to try something completely new. Others might disagree but I feel that if you have taught an activity before and it has gone well then there is a reasonable expectation that it will be successful again. If the students are doing an activity they have done before and enjoyed they will be far more engaged and focused. There will also be less chance of them getting confused or mis-understanding.

An example of this is an activity I have used before which involves 'building' a conclusion using different cards to represent each factor; the higher off the table the card is the more important it is. Students complete several cards (each with a different factor on) and then construct them into a kind of tower using blu tac.

A Card building activity from Year 7 based around the causes of the Peasants Revolt

A card building activity from Year 8 about the reasons soldiers carried on fighting in WWI

The students place key words on the front of the cut up cards and place explanations (written or visual) on the back.

Here is a completed 'building' on the causes of US involvement in Vietnam from GCSE

I know that this activity was successul and that the students loved it. They were also able to be creative and the resulting conclusions were well thought out and of a high level. When I told one of my Year 8 classes we were doing this activity next week they all went "Yes!" What that said about the lesson that they were currently being taught I don't know! However, I do know that they will come into the lesson engaged and looking forward to it.

You can also see from this that both my Year 7 and Year 8 lessons will be doing, in part, a very similar activity. The content and level will be different but the resources similar. This has really helped my planning work load. Once the Year 8 lesson was planned it was easier to plan the Year 7 one.

I think that if I focus on progress and pick activities I know my students love then I will give myself every chance of having a successful lesson whether I am visited by Ofsted or not. I guess too that these are not bad principles for any lesson.

At the start of the year our school purchased RealSmart software. It is a programme that allows students and staff to collaborate. I am discussing the blogging aspect of RealSmart in this blog and I hope my reflections have value for anybody who is considering/using any blogging tool to form part of the students learning.

As I teach in a room with only 1 computer I have been using the blogging aspect of realsmart as a homework tool. I have been impressed with the collaborative nature of the software and believe that the reflections of my Year 7 students show that it has had a massive positive impact.

A good example of how I have used Realsmart blog is the link below. I embedded a YouTube video (filmed with the group in class) and asked the students to show what they had leaned:
The Feudal System
As you can see from the results the mixed-ability students produced a lot of high effort, high quality work.

Below is a video from the class explaining what they like about RealSmart (I believe that their reflections could apply to any blogging tool)

I have found four main benefits of using blogs as part of my teaching.

1) The ability to combine Multi-Media with students learning in one place
The real value for me (an avid YouTuber) has been that I have been able to embed video into my students work. A good example is above with the Year 7 students. I have also been able to embed images into the blogs and this has allowed me to get students to produce detailed analysis of images. An growing example below is from my GCSE class who are using Propaganda posters to analyse the impact of WWII on Britain.
Using Propaganda Posters to Explain how WWII affected Life in Britain
Another example is how I have used video to help students discussing and comparing Birdsong and Blackadder.
Which is the better interpretation; Birdsong or Blackadder?

2) The Inclusive Nature and Accessibility of Blogs
It is with weaker students that I have found the biggest benefit of using blogs. The video content has made the homework much more accessible to the weaker students or those with literacy issues. This has massively improved the quality of the work of these students. It was always relatively easy for the stronger students to produce high end work but much harder for the weaker students; using video has levelled the playing field.

3) The competitive nature of Blogging
Once the expectation of the amount of work has been established the nature of the blogging response encourages the students to be much more competitive. The first post on the propaganda posters Blog is a quality effort and I believe this sets the tone for the rest of the group. Hard-working students are naturally competitive and using blogs really helps to promote this natural competition.

4) A blog is a great Anywhere/Anytime tool for revision
Once a blog has been created and checked/marked by the teacher it forms a brilliant tool for revision. Some students (mainly boys (sorry lads))can find organisation difficult. Quite a few lads have said to me the fact that 'work on a blog/wiki/YouTube can't get lost' is a major positive. Using ICT for revision is also a nice way of 'changing-up' the revision programme.

I think that using a tool like RealSmart for blogging has improved the engagement and inclusive nature of the homework I set. It has also given it more of a lasting use and impact.

This post is appropriately titled because I believe I have been using a 'flipped' classroom on different occasions but without intentionally setting out to do so. I have used my YouTube Channel as the vehicle that has allowed my students the chance to use 'flipped' elements of their lessons anytime-anywhere.

Firstly, I believe a 'flipped' classroom is when the learning element of a lesson takes place outside the normal time constraints of a classroom and the formative assessment, the checking of that learning, takes place inside the conventional classroom. Those who believe in this theory feel that it is a far more effective use of classroom time.

The 'Flipped' Referencing Video - A2 History
My first inadvertent step in this direction came when I was trying to get my A2 Historians to footnote and reference their 3,500 word personal studies. I only see this group of students once a week and spend most of that time one a 1:1 basis looking at the individual studies. I judged that the footnoting could be completed outside of our contact time and produced the following video.

I then checked that the referencing and footnoting had been done correctly when I saw the students individually, during the our regular contact time. This, I believe, is the 'flipped' classroom in action and it brought several benefits:
1) The students could work on this whenever they chose.
2) They could pause, rewind and replay the video as many times as they wanted to suit their individual needs.
3) This method freed up time in the regular lesson and allowed me to focus on more important issues whilst still having the opportunity to check that the referencing had been done correctly.

The 'Flipped' Revision Room - GSCE History
I have used my YouTube channel to help my students with their revision and this has struck me as having elements of a 'flipped' classroom. Students can access these videos from several Wiki or RealSmart (School programme kinda-like-a-VLE) sites, watch them anywhere-anytime and revise and recheck (or for some learn in the first place!) their understanding. If they have any questions they can ask/tweet me. An example of this is the following video which goes through an exam past paper for GCSE history. I wouldn't watch it all but you can quickly get a feel for the idea by skipping through.

This brought several benefits:
1) It allowed students to check through the paper at home at anytime before the exam (This video was primarily watched during the Christmas Holidays).
2) It could be shared with all our GCSE students not just the ones in my class.
3) Several students told me that it had had a really positive affect on their revision.

This said, if I had adopted a more directly 'flipped' approach and set the video as a homework, and built time into the a future lesson to review it, I may have increased the impact.

The 'Flipped' Interpretations Lesson - Year 8
As part of our Year 8 scheme of work we compare two different interpretations of the Great War. Looking at both Blackadder and Birdsong I asked the students to work out which interpretation helps us best understand the plight of the soldiers. In the past we have read an extract from Birdsong and watched an extract from Blackadder in lesson and then compared them for homework. This year (partly in a effort to be more inclusive) I videoed myself reading out the extract of Birdsong:

The lesson was similar as before with students watching this (or reading the book as I spoke) watching Blackadder and then comparing them. The difference was that when the students completed their homework (On Realsmart) they could watch again the clip of Blackadder and the clip of Birdsong. See the link below for the students' responses:
Interpretations of WWI
Obviously there was nothing directly 'flipped' about this approach however several students were absent from the lesson on a maths challenge. Being a top set they all found the homework out and completed it. When I compared the quality of the work of the students who had missed the lesson with other comparable students who were present in the lesson it got me thinking. Both were of a similar standard. Had I played this wrong? Should I have set the homework at the end of the previous lesson, got the students to complete it and then started my lesson with their homework as a base? I feel the answer to both these questions is "Yes!" because it would have allowed my students to finish up with both a greater understanding and higher level of thinking. They wouldn't have spent any longer on this topic but they would have achieved higher.

Why didn't I do this? Because I was caught up in the traditional method.

These examples have opened my eyes to this way of working and whilst I will not be creating a Yorkshire Kahn Academy I will be looking to try and adopt this approach a little more. Their will be obvious technological challenges but these will be perhaps more easily overcome than the challenges my traditional mindset might pose.

Over the past week I have been using the iPad app ShowMe to develop my students source analysis skills at GCSE. ShowMe is an app that allows the user to combine photo, VoiceOver and annotation. It is very similar to quite a few apps on the market and I therefore believe that what I have to say about developing source analysis and AfL could apply on a wider scale than just ShowMe.

The Process
I set my students a source analysis question for homework. They had to compare the two sources below and explain which source they believed gave the more accurate view of the government towards immigration.

I then collected the answers in and skim read them. I selected five. For these five I took a photo of an aspect of their answer. I then used show me to highlight what was good about each piece and what could be improved. In the next lesson I gave the students back their unmarked answers, watched the ShowMe's with the group and asked them to put targets onto their work based on the feedback I had given. I then collected their work in, checked the targets and gave the students a mark.

The Results
Using this process had several positive results:

1) It was engaging; seeing the iPad on the 'big screen' was engaging. The students "loved it", "thought it was fun" and "liked that it was real examples from the class". They liked the modern approach to feedback.

2) It was a powerful praise tool; the students whose work was selected were visible pleased and when I picked out what was good about it in front of everyone they were proud and some of the students complemented each other on their work.

3) It was an excellent AfL task; all the students were able to add accurate targets to their work irrespective of whether their work had been chosen or not.

4) It got the students involved in the assessment process; rather than simply handing the work in and waiting for it to be marked the students were involved and took responsibility for their own targets.

5) Virtually all of the targets given were accurate; this reduced my workload and improved the students understanding of their own abilities. It felt like some really good formative assessment was going on.

Below is an example of one of the ShowMe's I made for this activity.

Below is a ShowMe I made today to help my A/S students improve their source comparison skills:

I made this to help my students reflect on their mock exam. They have to watch it for the start of next lesson where we will be going through their papers (you can watch ShowMe's anywhere, you do not need the app and this video played on my HTC Desire phone). I will start by asking my class how they each could have improved their answer to this question. I will then give the papers back and see if their ideas match up with my targets. If the students think that this is a good vehicle I can see myself producing a resource bank of these to help them anytime-anywhere with their revision.

I encourage anyone with access to an iPad to download ShowMe, or an app like it, and get some formative feedback going on the 'big screen'.

For a number of years I have used this activity as a way into studying Nazi Germany, it works well with Year 8 students but could easily work with older students too. On the face of it it is quite teacher led, however when you get into the student responses it can go a number of ways.

The basic principle that needs to be explained at the start is that the teacher has become the new leader of the country and the class represents a block of flats in that country. At this stage I would not mention the Nazis, Hitler or even Germany. The teacher/leader is going to do three things and at each stage the class must note down their views of both the teacher/leader and what he has done.

1) The first stage of this requires the leader to explain that upon coming to power he has given everyone "what they have always wanted". In the past I have printed out small pictures of iPad's and GHD's and handed those out physically but more recently, with groups I know better, I use my knowledge of the class to decide what to hand out on an individual basis. The important thing to note as the teacher (but not to communicate to the students) is that these gifts represent the Jobs that Hitler 'created' in 1933.

Upon 'receiving' their gift ask the students to complete the following sentence:
"When the leader gave me what I had always wanted I thought..."They should look to comment on both their opinion of the leader and what he has done.

Then go around the class taking feedback. Take care to mentally note those students who are very positive and those who are suspicious or down-right negative.

2) Announce that the leader is going to create "two block leaders" to ensure that there is no "mis-behaving" and "crime" in the block of flats. Select two of the students who gave the most gushing and supportive responses and ask them to walk around the class (I have some dodgy old 'police looking' hats that I give them to wear to add some glamour).

Then ask the students to compete the following sentence:
"When the leader created the two block-leaders I thought..."They should look to comment on both their opinion of the leader and what he has done.

Again take feedback mentally looking for those who are most suspicious. If necessary look to defend your actions and explain how "if you have nothing to hide" you will be fine.

3) Select two students and ask them to sit on the floor. These students need to be ones who have been the most critical of your leadership (but don't explain this) and they also need to be, if possible, the nicest students in the class.

Explain to the group that both of these students have been involved in terrible crimes (I usually pick something like "knife crime" etc.) which your block leaders have found out about, and that you have decided to throw them out of the block of flats. You may need to explain that they will not be returning for the foreseeable future.

Then ask the class to complete the sentence:
"When the leader threw out the 'criminals' I thought..."They should look to comment on both their opinion of the leader and what he has done.

4) Finally, you should ask the class to rate your leadership out of ten and explain why they think this.

Then get the class to show their answers on their fingers. This should give you a great snapshot of what they each think and should allow you to target groups with different answers.

Take some feedback and then explain what you've been doing, how you selected the block leaders and criminals. Explain that the criminals haven't done anything wrong but it was all made up.

For those that bought into your leadership (7-10 / 10) get then to reflect on that and how easily they were duped and what being so supportive would have meant for them in Nazi Germany.

For those that partly bought into it (4-6 / 10) get them to reflect on why they weren't more critical and what being partly supportive would have meant for them in Nazi Germany.

For those who didn't buy into it (1-3 / 10) get them to reflect on what advice they may give others if they faced a similar situation and what being so unsupportive would have meant for them in Nazi Germany.

ReflectionsThis works really well with all abilities. But the most interesting is with the most able who are drawn naturally into obeying and following the teacher. The reflections of this group of students in my year 8 top set today posed some interesting and ultimately difficult questions about what their role might have been in Nazi Germany.

Added to that is the reflections of some students who were prepared to follow the teacher blindly without question.
Finally, the reflections of what I would term a middle set student highlight that they were the most prepared to challenge the leader and to not buy into what he was trying to create.

The reflections of one of my students shows how easily they had taken on board what I was trying to do, (for some reason my blog won't show this the correct way round but i hope you can still read it)

This is certainly an interesting activity which allows the teacher to differentiate on a different level than simply ability.

I look forward to any comments.

I have been using my iPad @Rossett for the past month or so. It has really helped transform and invigorate giving exam feedback and today I tried to take this to the next level. In the past I have created a video that goes through the exam and we have watched it as a class or as a homework. This has worked okay but I wanted to develop this and develop the 'personal learning' aspect of the feedback.
Before I continue I am in debt to Mr Mark Bulmer @MrBulmerPE (Rossett's-most-featured-in-iPad-magazines) for his excellent blog on using iPad's in this kind of way in PE. I also do not profess to be breaking any new ground with this but simply to be recording my reflections of the process.

I started by marking a mock exam that I had set for homework and then produced the following video using the app Explain Everything. (I wouldn't watch all of this but if you flick through it you can get the idea of what I have produced)

At the start of the lesson I gave each of my students their scripts back, a piece of blank card, and i gave each pair an iPad. Then I asked them to watch the video and produce a AfL target sheet with targets for each question that applied to their individual performance. They had to write targets that could apply to any GCSE history paper of this type in one colour and more specific ones in another colour. I told them to pause the video whenever they required. I then set them off, most students used their headphones but some just let my video play out loud. I had an activity ready for when they finished. The students worked through the video (itself 22 minutes long) in about 25-30 minutes. Below is a short video of them working on the task. All the students were on task throughout and produced a lot of targets.

Reflections

It was quite a surreal experience; whilst the students were watching the video I was essentially redundant, my work (hopefully) already done, and all I could hear was snippets of me speaking.
The class seemed to be more on task; normally when I go through an exam there are times when certain students seem to 'glaze over' with the 'teacher-talk' overload. This didn't seem to happen here.
It was a 'lesson' that was individualised; it was like i was having the same conversation 25 times but in a way that was tailored to each of the students as they were pausing when it was relevant to them and moving on when it wasn't.
It glamorised exam feedback; at this time of the year students must have exam feedback overload. By using the iPad's in this way it made the activity 'new' and to some degree 'exciting'. This obviously had a positive impact on engagement and hopefully made their targets more memorable.
The students enjoyed it and found it worthwhile; this is the most important reflection. Below are the Tweets that my GCSE class have sent reviewing the lesson. I am grateful to them for taking time out of their evenings to share their opinions. As you can see they are a very perceptive bunch.

Jemma said"I thought it was fun and helped me, a lot better than reading the board! We should do it more often :D"

Robyn said "it was a different way of learning and going through exam questions, seems like everyone enjoyed it and we could all be involved"

Liz said "You usually go through the exams as a class, and i think we learnt more using the iPad as it was like an individual lesson. #great"
Ryan said "it was useful to go through the questions to find ways of improving source skills. It was decent"
Dannie said "i think it worked well today and is a good activity to do every so often as it suits some students more than others"
Tyler said "I genuinely liked it even though I'm not a fan of that kind of stuff usually"

Kerry said "it was better than having you just go through it in the lesson, I feel like I absorbed more of the info, no offense there sir"

Thea said "learnt a lot more because you could go through it at your speed and understand everything better."

Staff engage in stroll-pair-share

About a month ago we had our third instalment of Kagan Structure training @Rossett. This allowed us to re-evaluate our progress so far and taught us a few new structures. One of these was Stroll-Pair-Share. The aim of this was to pair students up, get them to stroll around arm-in-arm (like off-of a promenade at a generic coastal resort, I'm thinking Whitby N-Yorks but you can insert your own coastal-resort-of-choice) and share their thoughts on the topic being taught. The teacher then selected 'students' at random to feedback the thoughts of their'Strolling-Partner' to the group. The aim of the structure was to 'oxidise' our brains and 'get the glucose going'.

My initial reaction to this was that it was a bit of fun.

I had two thoughts about the structure:

1) I thought that the students wouldn't take it seriously and the arm-in-arm style might be an issue.

2) That said, I liked the element of fun that it brought to our staff training and felt that if it could bring that element of fun to my classroom it would be a good thing.

With this in mind I tried it with my Year 7 classes that week using my random selector to pair the students and get them to discuss the Renaissance:

Year 7 Students @Rossett stroll-pair-share

The students really enjoyed the experience but the responses that the students gave were pretty poor. Many of them had little idea about what their partner had said. They hadn't really focused on the task.

The Stroll-Pair-Musical Chair

With the above reflections in mind I decided to keep the strolling and pairing elements of the structure but to add a 'musical chair' element. This activity could be used as a starter but I feel it is better placed as a plenary at the end of the lesson. The lesson needs to have been based around two or more different themes. In the case below we had been looking at the Reformation and some basic differences between Catholics and Protestants in the 16th Century. This was an introductory theme to Henry VIII and the Tudors.

Here is how to make it happen.

1) Randomly Pair the Students; and explain that they cannot leave their partner.

2) Set up a space with two or more lines of chairs.

3) Get the class to stroll around, arm-in-arm, in the middle of the space.

4) Shout out a fact that applies to one of the lines of chairs, the students have to try an get a seat in the correct section.

5) Any students who do not find a seat (for both them and their strolling partner) in the correct section are out. If one of the pair gets a seat but their partner doesn't they are both out.

6) Keep reducing the number of chairs until you have a winner.

Below is a (poorly taken) video of my Year 7 students Stroll-Pair-Musical Chair-ing:

Reflections

1) The students seemed to really get into it.

2) We played it a couple of times, with different winners.

3) Unlike the original stroll-pair-share the student focus was excellent.

4) Even those who were 'out' were still getting involved.

5) It brought an element of competition to the classroom (my co-constructos always talk about how they would like more competition).

I am going to speak to my groups next week and add some of their thoughts onto this blog.

Last week I was privileged to spend a morning with the current cohort of history PGCE trainees at York University. The aim of the session was to show how YouTube could be used within the history 'classroom'. I aimed to provide some stimulus and then asked the trainees to film themselves, upload their films to YouTube, embed them within a Wiki and reflect on the experience.

I believe that this is interesting for a number of reasons:
1) It allows the reader to see the potential impact that creating YouTube videos can have.
2) It also shows a good way to start students/staff/trainees creating YouTube videos.
3) It shows the brilliant levels of creativity that are displayed by the trainees.

We began with the question "Why could creating YouTube videos be useful within the history classroom?" This question was deliberately open ended and vague to allow the trainees to run with their own ideas. After feeding back we then produced this video to explain our thoughts:

For many in the group this was their 'debut' on YouTube. I wanted to showcase their ideas within a framework that reflected the element of fun that YouTube can bring. This was also an excellent icebreaker as the trainees had to say their name, three words to describe themselves, and then give their views on how YouTube could be used. Watching this back I am struck both by the engaging atmosphere within the room and also by the quality of the ideas being presented. The spinning went down a treat!

This video served several purposes.

1) It broke down the barriers within the 'classroom' and allowed everyone involved to see the kind of creativity that the session would focus on.

2) Within the 'safety of numbers' it allowed many within the group to take their first steps in a supportive environment.

3) It was a powerful vehicle for tapping into the knowledge that already existed around the topic.

After this starter I then showed some examples of how I have used YouTube with a particular focus on engagement and differentiation. Some examples of which are below:

I then asked the trainees to 'go away' into the university campus and produce a short 1 to 2 minute video that they could see themselves potentially using in their classrooms. I also asked the trainees to reflect on how their videos might aid engagement and differentiation. All of the videos that were produced can be viewed on the WIki by clicking on the trainee pages (right-hand side)

http://westylishpgceyorkuni.wikispaces.com/

We then reconvened and watched the videos together as a group in a kind of show-and-tell style.

This process highlighted the following:

1) The atmosphere within the room was 'electric' some trainees were literally rubbing their hands together in anticipation of watching the videos.

2) All the videos were excellent.

3) They all showed a creativity that made the end product very memorable.

4) They were all engaging and would all have been excellent tools for differentiation.

Some of the reflections from the trainees are below:

Reflections

The session showed the creative power of YouTube .
All the videos produced were excellent tools to promote engagement and differentiation.
I believe that teachers should empower their students to achieve. Whilst the PGCE trainees are not my students, using YouTube in this way allowed me to empower 13 brilliantly creative people to produce excellent work.

The last point is perhaps the most important thing that this session showcased. YouTube is a very poweful vehicle to tap into the creativity of the people we teach as it makes any topic instantly 'fun' and when we are young we can all do with that.

Massive thankyou to Paula Mountford (@pgcehYork) and the excellent trainees for throwing themselves so wholeheartedly into this session. The future of the history teaching profession looks very good.

If you are interested in having a session run similar to this or have any further questions please do not hesitate to tweet me @Westylish

The Excellent York University History PGCE Trainees

On the 3rd July we had an 'Independence Day' (#IDRossett2012) @Rossett. The aim of the day was to embed and showcase the Rossett 3R's: Responsibility, Reflection and Resilience. Below is a video of what I believe the 3R's look like in my history lessons:

The main 'R' I was looking to incorporate into the students learning on Independence Day was Resilience and I was looking to create an activity that made the majority of students fail.

The lesson was focused around the key question "What was it like to live in the British Empire?" but I believe the activity could easily be adapted to any question. The main activity centered on students producing a museum-style exhibit that aimed to answer the key question. They worked in groups to produce this. During this I repeatedly interrupted their work to offer them a chance to book an actor who could add another dimension to their exhibit by explaining 'their' view on what it was like to live in the Empire.

So often we talk about the importance of learning from mistakes but all too often our achievement driven outlook stops us from planning failure into our lessons.

Before the lesson - The Responsibility

In the lesson before the Independence Day I grouped the class into groups of 5 and gave them a worksheet each that looked at what it was like to live in the Empire from the point of view of a different country. I emphasized that this was only a starting point and that they could do extra work and bring in extra resources. I also gave them a flavour of the kind of competition theywould be involved in. I explained that they all needed to pull together, to work hard individually at home, to make the group successful.

During the lesson - The Resilience

When the students arrived at the lesson they sat in their groups and after a quick numbered-heads-together wherethey defined what makes a good exhibit they were off working on their exhibits. Apart from providing them with paper, glue and scissors I did not give them any direction about how they should produce their exhibit. It was completely up to them to decide what it should contain and how it should look.After about 5 minutes I stopped the students and explained that they had the chance to book an actor for their exhibit. I played the first section of the following video to the whole class (the video 'stars' the @Rossett history department and a guest from REP):

I paused it after 'Chief Cakobau' had finished speaking leaving the key points on the screen. I then asked one random person from each group to come up and speak for 20 seconds (speaking at the screen, as if the actor was in the room) explaining why the Chief should be a part of their exhibit. After they had all finished speaking I explained

that unfortunately the actor playing Chief Cakobau could only work at two exhibits, he was a busy man, this meant that 4 group would be unsuccessful.

I awarded the actor to the two successful groups (by giving them a small picture of him to display). I then explained that I had made the decision based on 5 success criteria which I would not be sharing with them. They had to spend the next minute thinking about why they had, or mostly, had not been successful. I encouraged them to talk about the successful groups and focus on what they thought made them successful.I then asked the students to carry on with their exhibits but repeated the process with the other parts of the video until every student in the group had the chance to explain why an actor should work in their group's display.

At the end of the lesson - The Reflection

At the end of the lesson I gave merits out to the most successful group. I also gave every group the chance of winning a merit by reflecting on proceedings and coming up with their own success criteria. The group with the closest answer was the winner. Obviously groups that had been resilient and reflective had the most chance to win in the end.

My Own Reflections

The students were very engaged by this form of learning and produced some excellent work.
Working in groups certain students took it upon themselves to be responsible for other members in their group by making sure they knew what to do.
The groups that had been the most responsible and produced the best homework had the best chance of doing well.
The group that won the activity (claiming three actors for their exhibit) did not win anything on the first run through but were resilient and worked best together to try and work out what was success looked like.
Every group tried to reflect on what they were doing and the standard of the work increased throughout the lesson. It got much harder to pick my two winners later in the lesson.
This lesson was part of @Rossett School's Independence Day which was designed to promote Responsibility, Resilience and Reflection. The day was brilliant and I really enjoyed teaching a lesson like this. I will definitely be doing this type of activity again.

I would like to thank Mrs McFarlane (@rowmc64) for her help refining my original idea and for helping with the lesson plan and the resources. I would also like to thank Mr Grainger (@MrG_Ranger) for producing some excellent SEN homework resources. Part of the lesson plan is below

ROSSETT SCHOOL

LESSON PLAN

Teacher:		Subject:	Date/Period:
Teaching Group:		Unit/Module: (if applicable)

Learning Objectives By the end of the lesson students will understand/know/do:
Learning Outcomes By the end of the lesson students will be able to: recall, describe, demonstrate, explain, evaluate etc: All will be able to: show responsibility by bringing research to the lesson on what it was like to live in Empire Reflect on why they/or other groups have been successful. Show resilience by not giving up if they are not successful. Most will be able to: show responsibility by ensuring that all of their group is working toward producing a good exhibit. Reflect, and apply those reflections, to improve their exhibit. Apply what they have learnt from observing more successful groups and applying it to their own pitches (resilience) Some will be able to: Some will show responsibility by explaining to the group why and how an improvement could be made. Some will be able to draw and apply reflections from other members of the group. Some apply observations of good practice to develop/suggest alternative approaches.

Resources Minds and Machines pages 98-103

Starter(s): (5-8 mins)	Get the groups to all-write-round-robin things that they have learnt about what it was like to live in the Empire.
Main Activities: Check progress-refer to learning objectives & outcomes. (8-10 mins) Mini-Plenary	Students work in groups of 5 to produce a a1/big sheet poster about the topic. They must show responsibility and work independently using the resources provided by the teacher. While this is happening at intervals the teacher puts on a mask and explains a bit about a character who can help visitors to the exhibition understand what it was like to live in the Empire. One person from each group must then come forward and explain for 20 seconds why their groups exhibit should have that actor in it. They should try and persuade the teacher. The teacher will then judge each group by the set of criteria (that the students have not seen) and say they will feature in two of the groups exhibits. This means that 3 groups will be unsuccessful. The groups will have to try and work out why the groups were successful and this shows resilience and reflection. The teacher could ask the students to discuss what they think made the successful groups successful. The teacher will repeat this process 4 or 5 times (using the 5 'ruled' sources from page 102-103 except Chief Crowfoot) during the lesson and each time a different student from the group must pitch. These need simplifying for lower sets. There will be merits for the group who produce the best exhibit. This will be a combination of their work and the actors they have managed to 'book' for their exhibit. There will also be merits available in the plenary for the group that can explain what the success criteria was. Success Criteria Show an understanding of the country the source comes from. Show an understanding of the theme that the source talks about. Make a quality exhibit for the actor to be part of. Be enthusiastic. Be creative.
Final Plenary: (5 Mins)	There will also be merits available in the plenary for the group that can explain what the success criteria was.

I have recently been receiving and analysing feedback on my teaching provided by my last GCSE class. Using a GoogleForm I anonymously asked them several questions about my teaching. The questions focused around what they thought was good about my lessons and what I could do to improve them. This is a process I repeat at regular intervals and is something that I believe has real value. It provides me with some of the most useful and valuable feedback I have had as a teacher.

Why does this provide the best type of feedback?

• The feedback is real. Most feedback we are given as a teacher is based around short lesson observations which, for various reasons, do not always reflect the normal classroom practices. I had taught my GCSE history class over 150 times. Their experience was real and their feedback is based around that period as a whole. This means that it is not only fair but also allows the students to comment on a whole series of activities and lessons which are far more wide ranging than several 30 minute observations.

• The feedback is provided by experts. My GCSE class is a combination of Year 9, 10 and 11 students who have spent their whole lives in education. They know what works well and what needs to be improved because they live it everyday.

• The feedback is personal. The students in my class spoke only about my lessons and provided me with the kind of detailed focus that would be difficult to achieve without the GoogleForm.

• It profoundly alters the classroom dynamic. This is perhaps the most significant reason. I am a big believer in students co-constructing the lessons (see Co-Construction Blog) because it places greater responsibility on the students and allows them to 'own' the learning. When students see that they have the chance to influence what is taking place I believe they become much more engaged. When I explain to the students how the shape of the learning has been altered by the information they have given you can clearly see the impact of the process.

The class that filled in this GoogleForm are a group that I no longer teach. @Rossett we change the school timetable 4 weeks before the summer and begin teaching our new groups. I was keen to use the advice my former students provided to improve the learning for the new cohort.

What did I learn from this process?

• The Impact of my YouTube Channel. Nearly all the students referred to the videos I have made explaining how to answer exam questions. The vast majority said how useful they had found them and how the pause/fast-forward/rewind had individualised feedback. This is obviously something I will continue to do.

• The need to keep changing the seating plan. My students felt that they were stuck working with the same people too often. My new group have been constantly changing partners and groups. I have made use of the random pair generator and at least once a lesson the students are working with 'random' other students. In just the first 4 weeks I have seen the benefit of this. My class is mixed Year 9-11 and the constantly changing pairing's have really developed the class dynamic. I am grateful to the students who pointed this out. One of my students actually tweeted me to say he enjoyed an activity partly because it allowed him the chance to meet new people.

• The need to improve the revision sessions. In the run up to the exams I held a series of revision sessions after school. One of my class pointed out that most of the work that was completed in these sessions could have been done, by them, at home. They had attended but had not got the most out of the sessions. This led me to consider the work that was going on. For some of my students this was exactly the aim of the sessions because they were completing work that they would not otherwise have done at home. However, for a significant group, the sessions were not working. I have decided to develop my revision session around the principle of Solo Stations. Setting several activities that allow the students to select where they begin their revision journey. I am confident that this will improve the quality of the revision sessions and am pleased that the plight of this student (and doubtless others like them) has been brought to my attention.

I hope that you have found this blog interesting. I hope I have shown why I believe student reflections using GoogleForms is the best type of feedback. I also hope I have shown the type of quality outcomes that this kind of interaction can produce.

At the end of the October half-term we took 41 @Rossett students from years 9, 10 and 11 to Ypres and the Somme to gain an understanding of the trenches, cemeteries, museums and memorials of the First World War. This is a yearly trip which follows a similar pattern each year.

The big difference this year was the use of social media to 'produce' the trip. At the parents meeting before the trip I explained that parents could follow the trip on twitter. I set up the @RossettHistory twitter account and explained that parents would be able to watch the trip unfold here.

Why?

A trip to the sights and memorials of the First World War is an emotional an moving experience that deserves to be documented.
Using social media allowed the parents to see where we were and what we were doing. Twitter is public and you do not have to have an account to see the Tweets.
I also believe that it probably had a reassuring effect as parents knew we were safe and well.
I believe that it involved parents (and other interested parties) in the trip.
It was (wifi permitting) real time and the story unfolded on Twitter as it happened on the trip.
Upon returning to the UK it allowed the students to see how the trip had been documented.

How did it work?
1. Wherever we went on the trip I took my iPad and photographed and filmed what was happening.

2. Whilst we were on the bus between the sights I wrote out Tweets, such as the ones you can see on the right, I saved these tweets to my drafts. I also used iMovie to edit together the footage.

3. When we were in a wifi zone (on the ferry, In Flanders Fields Museum, at Thiepval, in the hotel) I Tweeted my drafted tweets and uploaded the footage to YouTube. This was quick and easy because they were pre-written.

4. Parents and other interested groups could see what was happening on the trip.

What was the impact?

Whilst we were still in Belgium the footage of the first two days on YouTube received over 40 views. This shows that the videos were being watched.
About 5 or 6 parents engaged directly during the trip by Tweeting, Re-Tweeting and favouriting the tweets that were being sent.
Some parents had never been on Twitter but explained to me when we returned that they were now 'adicted' and had 'loved' seeing the trip on twitter.
Whilst we were still in Belgium several students showed me texts from their parents saying that they had seen the photos and videos.
Several students said that, although their parents didn't have Twitter, they had still seen the photos and videos because they had just 'Googled' @RossettHistory.
Several students told me that Grandparents and other family members had seen the videos and photos.
Upon returning to the UK several students looked back through the feed and Re-Tweeted and favourited the tweets.
A media company affiliated with the school is producing an article about the trip which has been based on the information in the Twitter feed.
As I write this blog the cumulative views of the videos from the trip stands at just over 500.

Reflections

When assessing the impact of using Social Media in this way it is difficult to be precise. I could ask students to fill in a questionnaire but I believe that the huge amount of 'anecdotal' evidence I have suggests that this has clearly been a worthwhile exercise.

I would encourage anyone planning a trip to use social media in this way.

If you would like to see the videos of the trip the playlist is embedded below:

Students working at the unistructural stage

Two weeks ago I started to use solo taxonomy for the first time. I had read several posts about the taxonomy on Twitter and felt it could work well with GCSE history source analysis. I liked the way that students could build up their answers working through the different levels of the mark scheme.

Below is a video blog recording my thoughts:

Since making this video I have been observed using solo taxonomy in this way and the following aspects of solo taxonomy contributed to a successful lesson in that instance.

A student working at the relational stage

By its nature it is student led.
All of the students in my class were engaged and active in their learning.
It allowed for some natural differentiation as students worked at their own pace. That said I feel that the observer would not have been satisfied if this had been the only differentiation in the lesson.
Progress was easy to see as students visibly moved around the room.
It was simple for students to explain the progress that they had made (both for their benefit, my benefit and the observers benefit).
As they worked through the stages solo taxonomy allowed students to see how to build up their source analysis answers through the levels in the mark scheme.

I would definitely recommend this approach to teachers especially those working through past papers / exam questions with their classes.

Over the coming weeks @Rossett iPads are being introduced on a 1-1 basis. As a teacher there I am obviously looking for ways to incorporate them into the learning (that said everything discussed here can be done on 'normal' computers using the Socrative website). This week I looked to develop my use of the Socrative app. It is an app I have been aware of for some time, but something that I had rarely used. This week I looked to change it up.

In the past I have created the quizzes, and whilst I have felt them to be a decent activity, I wasn't particularly blown away by them. This week I made a change. Looking at 5 areas we have recently studied on the Cold War I grouped my GCSE students and asked one of each group to create a teacher account on Socrative. I then asked the students to produce a 10 question multiple choice quiz on their topic.

Before they did this I emphasised how serious I wanted the 4 multiple choice answers to be. I explained that my own A/S economics had been delivered in a multiple choice method, at first I believed that it would make it a little 'Micky Mouse' but it was actually really difficult because all the options could be correct. I also explained that I wanted the test to be difficult.

The students then produced the quizzes. The students worked really hard and were clearly motivated and engaged.

Socrative allows you to share quizzes between teachers, it gives you a 'SOC number' which allows other 'teachers' to copy the quiz. When the students had completed their quiz they out their 'SOC Number' on the board. This allowed the other students in the class to copy each others quizzes to their account.

One of my students leading the learning giving her groups quiz.

In the next lesson the students took it turns to run their own quizzes. We had 12 school iPads, a few phones and a few student iPads. Most worked individually with a few working in pairs. I also got involved, sat at the back I took part too.

Reflections

Throughout the process the students were completely engaged.
The students were reading through their notes and looking online to find the questions. Rather than just reading their notes they were active in their learning.
The whole process was really competitive. Socrative displays your score and we had this projected on the board so there was nowhere to hide.
When you get an answer wrong, Socrative immediately tells you the correct answer, this proved really formative. Some students 'cheated' by taking the quiz a second time to get full marks. Is this really cheating though? In the context of the competition in the class then yes. In the context of developing as a learner it is definitely not.
As I was a student I really felt the pressure of the situation. I didn't want to get anything wrong. But I couldn't just wait for someone to out their hand up and copy down the answer, I had to really think.
As a teacher I love it when my students lead the learning, in many other posts I have extolled the values of this approach and using Socrative in this way facilitated this nicely.

Going forward

Revision can often be really dull. When you get into that exam season, the challenge of keeping it interesting is a big one. This is something I will definitely be using.
One if the big advantages of this approach as iPads are rolled out on a 1-1 basis is that students will be able to set up a teacher account and revise with each other away from the classroom. Quite a few of my students say they do homework and revise over Skype and I can see this being a good extension of that. I have kept the 'SOC numbers' and will get students to copy each others quizzes so that they can revise like this nearer the time.

When I walked out of my second lesson my head was buzzing. I knew I had been in a lesson, the students must also have felt the same. I had really had to think. I couldn't opt out. I was also buzzing because it had been a brilliant example of student led learning.

The Benefits of Teachers Using Twitter

Making my students feel part of something - GCSE History

Using Students to Plan Lessons and Evaluate Progress - Co-construction with GCSE History

Engagment and Motivation - GCSE History Year 9

Using Twitter to Enhance Learning in History Lessons

Getting Student Feedback on my Teaching using Google Forms

The Power of Stuctured Collaboration - trying to adopt Kagan Structures into my students learning

A history teacher preparing lessons for Ofsted Inspection

Using Blogs for History Homework

"Flirting with the Flipped" - YouTube and the 'Flipped' Classroom

Using The ShowMe app to develop source analysis and AfL - GCSE History

"When the leader came to power" - Hinge Question based Introduction to Nazi Germany

Using iPad's to give Exam feedback and Create AfL Targets

"Stroll-Pair-Musical Chair" @Westylish's Very Own Kagan esk Structure

Developing the use of YouTube within the 'Classroom' – A PGCE Session

Creating Opportunities to Fail - Resilience and the Rossett 'Independance Day'

The Best Type of Feedback - Students Reflecting on my lessons using Google Forms

Using Social Media to 'produce' the @RossettHistory School Trip

Making My Solo Taxonomy Debut

Turning students into teachers - Socrative and student led learning