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.