Session 1.4 - Effective use of ICT
The OER4Schools Professional Learning Resource
Learning intentions and objectives.
In this session you will learn about:
- Leadership for Learning as a framework that creates the opportunity for change in schools to promote the activity of learning
- Most Significant Change (MSC) as a technique for monitoring and evaluating this professional development programme by collecting stories of significant changes in areas of practise
- Sharing resources effectively across groups and within groups when doing activities that make use of ICT taking into account the number of students per computer and the need for all students to spend time on the computer
Success criteria.
To meet the learning intentions you will:
- recognise the potential for leadership capacity to expand as a result of the professional development of staff on programmes like this
- contribute MSC stories on a regular basis either by writing them down or making an audio recording
- plan ICT activities that allow all students to see the computer well (no more than 6 per computer) being prepared to provide alternative activities for the rest of the class to work on at the same time
- plan activities that allow all students equal access to a computer by eg giving them roles within groups and encouraging them to monitor use
ICT components.
The ICT components you will focus on are
- Searching for images and downloading images
- OpenOffice Impress for making your own photo stories
- Continuation of typing practice
- Typing practice in the classroom
Resources needed.
You'll need to make a "pin board", so you might need some pins or bluetack, and some space.
Review of follow-up activities from last session
If you are running a professional learning programme which follows these sessions in sequence, then you should do the review of follow-up activities relating to the (Category:OER4S CPD). The 'review of follow-up activities' for that session is available, and also shown below in the session text. However, if you are following selected sessions in a different order, then you should use the reflection appropriate to the previous session you did.
The review of the follow-up activities for this session (to be done at the start of the next session) is available here.
There is no review of follow-up activities from last session available. You can go to the previous session () and.
Why are we doing this? An introduction to Leadership for Learning
Reading (5 min). Read the following text.
Leadership for Learning is a way of thinking, doing, communicating, working, and reflecting about educational leadership in schools for the singular purpose of promoting the activity of learning.
Five principles of Leadership for Learning are as follows:
- Focus on learning
- Conditions for learning
- Learning Dialogue
- Shared Leadership
- Shared Accountability
In this unit you will explore the five LfL principles in practice with a view to contributing your own ideas about Leadership for Learning through interactive learning opportunities.
LfL is not something that can be implemented, ‘done-to’ a school or imposed on a person. LfL provides a framework that creates an opportunity for change; for expanding leadership capacity in schools and improving the quality of learning. The OER4schools programme adopts an approach similar to the one in LfL in how it defines professional learning. You will have an opportunity in this unit to reflect further on the application of LfL in every aspect of your own professional learning.
Small group activity (10 min).: Form a different small group of three to four teachers and discuss these questions:
- What is your initial impression of the terms ‘leadership’ and ‘learning’?
- Who are the leaders and learners in your school?
- Who are the leaders in your school who are responsible for learning within the school?
- Can you be a leader who promotes learning in your school? Why?
Make sure that the participants think about this broadly. For instance, “Who are the leaders and learners in your school?” should include the head teacher, both as a leader and a learner. There may also be others (such as cleaners) who may not seem to play an important teaching or administrative role in the school but there is certainly plenty we could learn from them. (e.g. their stories of the school, their observations, and of course, how they have kept the school clean and tidy in an efficient manner to create a conducive environment of learning for all)
This is only an introduction to Leadership for Learning, but we will use those principles throughout the programme, and return to it in more depth shortly.
VIDEO
Ghana Leadership for Learning
Ghana Leadership for Learning - The Context
Video/Ghana Leadership for Learning - The Context.mp4, https://oer.opendeved.net/wiki/Video/Ghana_Leadership_for_Learning_-_The_Context.mp4,This video is available on your memory stick in the video/Video from other organisations folder. Duration: 06:58 watch on YouTube, local play / download options / download from dropbox) dudfilms(Series: Video from other organisations, episode N/A)
Where are we going? Overview of the resource topics
The present resource intends to cover a number of units. You have now come to the end of Unit 1.
Unit 1: Introduction to interactive teaching and the use of ICT. The unit offers an introduction to interactive teaching with and without ICT. It introduces the idea of “plan-teach-reflect”, as well as lesson planning to include interactive activity. The unit covers the following aspects:
- What is interactive teaching?
- ICTs in interactive teaching.
- Effective use of ICTs, including basic use of netbooks, browser, and images / slideshows (also in OpenOffice Impress).
The aims of Unit 1 are to
- understand principles of interactive teaching - with and without ICT,
- see illustrations and discuss issues involved in implementing it,
- think about changing one’s own practice, and
- develop ways of working with colleagues to reflect on practice, share ideas and trial new strategies.
The unit also introduces the most significant change technique, and at the end of this unit, we look at the Leadership for Learning principles.
Unit 2: Whole class dialogue & effective questioning. The unit’s focus is whole class dialogue and effective questioning. It covers:
- creating a supportive environment for dialogue;
- introducing cumulative talk – creating a story together;
- promoting and managing whole class discussion;
- types and examples of effective questions to ask in class, and
- how to engage students in activity at the blackboard.
At the end of this unit, we consider how to communicate with other teachers at the school, with parents, head teachers, as well as officials who might seek to assess your new teaching practices. It also includes some material to support school leaders in providing a conducive learning environment for their staff.
In terms of ICTs, this unit introduces GeoGebra and collaborative writing. You should continue practising your other ICT skills, including typing, and making use of images.
Unit 3: Group work. This unit introduces group work, how to agree on ground rules, and what sort of resources support group work (such as “talking points” and digital resources). In detail, the unit covers
- exploratory talk,
- same task group work,
- different tasks group work,
- group composition and formation,
- ground rules for group work,
- carousel of activities for group work,
- mixed pace group work and differentiation, and
- talking points activity for promoting group interaction.
Unit 4: Assessment for learning and lesson pacing. The unit introduces how to find out what your pupils have learnt, and where they need more help, allowing you to use lesson time effectively whilst making sure that your pupils are making continued progress.
In detail the unit covers
- using an assessment inventory as a self-assessment measure,
- sharing learning objectives and success criteria,
- summative feedback,
- formative feedback, and
- peer assessment.
Unit 5: Enquiry-based learning and project work. The unit introduces how to work in an “enquiry-based” way, for instance learning through project work and in-depth, open-ended investigations. We explore a way of teaching and learning that encourages students to take the initiative to pose questions and explore their curiosity about the world around them, through a process of enquiry.
Unit 6: Into the future. This unit reviews the programme, and continues to make connections between the various interactive practices introduced throughout the programme. It also offers an introduction to action research and communities of practice, through which teachers can continually evolve their teaching practice.
You can print this content on a separate sheet here: OER4Schools/Unit overview.
Go through the above text (not spending too much time), making sure that everybody understands.
What is the most significant change?
In this section, we introduce participants to the “Most Significant Change technique”. We would like participants to formulate their own goals, and to identify what change(s) they might like to make.
A useful addition to an SC story is a headline or title similar to what might be used in a newspaper article. This can be a convenient handle for participants to use to refer to the story when comparing it to others. It can also help the writer distil and communicate the essence of what happened.
The most significant change (MSC) technique
MSC is a form of participatory monitoring and evaluation. It is participatory because many project stakeholders are involved both in deciding the sorts of change to be recorded and in analysing the data. It is a form of monitoring because it occurs throughout the program cycle and provides information to help people manage the program. It contributes to evaluation because it provides data on impact and outcomes that can be used to help assess the performance of the program as a whole.
Essentially, the process involves ‘searching’ for project impact through:
- collection of significant change (SC) stories emanating from the field level
- systematic selection of the most significant of these stories by panels of designated stakeholders or staff
- collective reading of the stories aloud and regular and often in-depth discussions about the value of reported changes
When the technique is implemented successfully, whole teams of people begin to focus their attention on programme impact. You can find out more about the MSC technique here: http://www.mande.co.uk/docs/MSCGuide.pdf
We now consider what the biggest changes might be as a consequence of being involved in this programme - for yourselves, for your teaching, for your students, for the school, or in whatever other area!
Brainstorm (5 min). Think about how a newspaper works. A newspaper presents news stories about interesting events. Newspapers are structured into different sections (subject areas, such as foreign news, domestic news, financial news, sport, leisure). The most important stories go on the front page and the most important of these is usually at the top of the front page.
Information to be documented should include:
- Information about who collected the story and when the events occurred
- Description of the story itself – what happened
- Significance (to the storyteller) of events described in the story.
Documenting who collected the story and when helps the reader put the story in context and enables any follow-up inquiries to be made about the story, if needed. The SC story itself should be documented as it is told. The description of the change identified as the most significant should include factual information that makes it clear who was involved, what happened, where and when.
Whole group discussion (10 min). Now imagine that later on you will be putting together a whole newspaper issue about how this whole programme affects your thinking and classroom practice: What kinds of stories will be the most important? Who and what will the stories be about? Who will be affected by those stories, who would listen, and who will be they of interest to? What different sections would the newspaper have? What kind of change would you like to make?
The storyteller is also asked to explain the significance of the story from their point of view. This is a key part of MSC. Some storytellers will naturally end their stories this way, but others will need to be prompted. Without this section, people reading and discussing the story may not understand why the story was significant to the storyteller. For example, a woman may tell a story about going to a community meeting and sitting at the back and asking a question. ‘So what?’ you may think. She then tells you that this story was significant because she had not previously had the confidence to go to a community meeting, and that the program helped her gain the confidence to express her views in front of the village elders for the first time.
Where possible, a story should be written as a simple narrative describing the sequence of events that took place.
Do the participants agree on how things might be different as a result of the programme? How will we know when these significant changes have happened? What kinds of evidence do our stories need to refer to? They can also be revised as time goes on. If participants mention ICT use and skills, ask them to focus on changes in pedagogy too.
Record what participants say in a permanent form - in writing or electronically so we can refer to them later on. Make sure it is recorded on video / audio.
Groupwork with computers: Sharing resources across groups
Reading (5 min)'. Read the following.
Access to computers: “We need more computers." Many schools don’t have access to computers at all, but where schools do have access, it is often felt that there are not enough computers. How many computers would a school need? While some might say that one computer per child, or perhaps one computer per two children would be ideal, for many schools (and classrooms) this is unrealistic. In general, when you have access to computers, you should therefore make sure that the computers are used in the best way possible in your context. We now consider how to make best use of whatever computers are available during group work.
Pair work (5 min) on sharing computers.. Spend 5 minutes as pairs, considering the following scenario: You have 60 children in your class, and 10 computers. How would you arrange the groups, how would you distribute the computers, how would you structure the lesson?
To help with this, consider the following questions:
- In devising groupings consider how many children can see the screen and get hands-on experience.
- If you only have a few computers, it is better to operate a carousel so everyone gets a chance?
Presentation and discussion (10 min). Go round all the pairs, who very briefly present their suggestions. Discuss the various outcomes. What different proposals are there?
Often the computers would be distributed equally (in this case one computer per group of 6), and all groups would do that same task. This distribution may well be seen a equitable. However, in practice, more than 3-4 children per computer does not work well.
Another way is to do different tasks groupwork, where some groups do computer-based work, while others do non-computer-based work. After a period of time, you can swap around the tasks, so that the groups which were not using a computer can now use one.
Refer to the two pictures above: In the picture with many children behind one netbook, do you think the children are using the netbook effectively? In the picture with the tablet, are the children interacting?
Here are two more pictures you can consider, regarding how children are sitting around a computer: In one picture, the screen us upright, and all the pupils are squeezing in behind. In the other picture, the screen is flat, allowing the children to sit around the screen.
Groupwork with computers: Sharing resources within groups
Having considered how computers are distributed among groups, we now consider how the computer can be shared equally within groups.
Pair work (5 min).. In pairs, consider the following questions:
- What would you do if there are some students who always control the computer, while other group members never get to use it?
- Would you say that it is sensible to mix computer-literate pupils with novices?
- How will you ensure they help rather than dominate their peers?
Discussion (10 min). Discuss the outcomes of your reflection as a whole class.
You should discuss strategies for access to computers within the group, i.e. rotating access to trackpad. You could also discuss the benefits of using tablets or putting computer screen flat (where this is possible).
It's important to create an environment where all pupils can participate. It's very important to make this explicit as the goal for group work: Everybody should have a go on the computer, not just the students who can type fast.
Come up with strategies for how you can achieve this. For example, in a group of 4, the students need to change over: For example, after a set period of time, access to the computer is rotated. This could be facilitated by giving each student a bottle top when they use the computer (but only on first use). At the end of the task, part of the evaluation is how many bottle tops your group got.
Planning a lesson using groupwork and ICT
Ensure that you have plenty of time for this task to be planned!
You should allow at least half an hour to 45 min.
Plan a lesson in year groups (30 min). Plan a lesson together in year groups (i.e. all grade 4 teachers plan a lesson for grade 4 together; grade 5 teachers together for grade 5; etc).
- Discuss with your colleagues (from the same grade) which topics you have coming up next week, and whether some of these topics would work particularly well with groupwork and ICT.
- Make active use of the computers in the lab to identify digital resources together.
- Devise an open activity where groups have a shared goal and where outcomes may differ between groups, for a lesson you are teaching next week.
- Consider: How will you ensure everyone participates and everyone learns? How will you stretch all learners?
- What will you say to the groups to ensure this? (Make a note in your lesson template.)
- Explicitly ask groups to make sure everyone understands the new concept or process; make it their responsibility to support each other and check this is happening.
- Consider whether you can assign different roles within the group.
- Consider how the computers will be swapped between groups, and between pupiles within a group, to ensure that there is effective access for everybody.
Connecting with overarching goals of the programme
Open space (10 min). It's now time for the "open space", that gives you an opportunity to discuss issues that have arisen, and to relate those to the broader context of the programme. Do not just gloss over this section, but make time to raise issues, and probe the progress that you are making. You could use this space to:
- Remind yourselves of the of the Most Significant Change Technique, and e.g. collect more of your stories.
- Discuss your assessment portfolios: Is there anything that you are unsure about? Is it going well? What could be done better?
- Check on the work with the classroom assistants: Is this going well? Are there any tensions? Any observations or tips you can share?
- Reviewing individual ICT practise (such as typing practise).
- If you are preparing a presentation for other teachers, you could work on the presentation (about what you have been learning, stories emerging from MSC).
- Remind those who are doing audio diaries, to upload them.
- You could discuss any other issues that have arisen.
You will find notes and summaries of various techniques and concepts on our reference page, and you might want to refer to those for clarification during this activity if needed.
Follow-up activities
Agreeing follow-up activities (5 min).
Part A: Try out your groupwork with ICT. As the week progresses, the teachers within each grade should share the experiences. That is to say, if you are the first teacher to teach this lesson, meet your colleagues afterwards, and discuss with them how it went, and what improvements could be made.
As you teach the lesson remember to think about your own role in the classroom; it is not just to monitor progress but also to interact with pupils, assess their understanding, offer support and help move their thinking forward. Sometimes a group will even need you to sit with them and offer intensive support to progress. Think about how you can identify this need?
During the lessons, remember to encourage groups to let everybody within the group have a go at using the ICT!
Video some of the groupwork if you can (ideally a colleague can do this for you so they can capture you as well as the pupils) and upload it to the server.
Part B: Learning about ICT. Teacher lab activity.
- In preparation for developing some image-based lesson activities, you should search suitable images.
- Do some typing practice to improve your typing skills.
The following items are specific to the programme at CBS, and may need to be adapted to local circumstances:
Searching for images:
- If there is internet, you can use the "search images on flickr" link from your school homepage (http://192.168.128.1)
- Alternatively, if connectivity is poor, you can do this by browsing the schools edition of wikipedia, also linked from the school homepage.
Part C: Read the principles of interactive teaching - do you have any questions or comments?
Part D: Learning more about email (optional).
- Come to the teacher lab at least once this week to learn more ICT skills. This week you should
- Send an email to the oer4schools list
In the next session, these follow-up activities will be reviewed. If you are using this session on its own, you can have a look at the review of follow-up activities here.
[[todoinfo::
Notes about etherpad - move elsewhere:
Part B: Classroom activity. Do the collaborative writing activity - the classroom activity sheet is available here. Please print it, and use it during the lesson
- Go to Etherpad and explore options for making text bold andunderlined.
| ]]
At the end of each session, we provide an overview of the activities in this session, together with their suggested timings. Although this appears at the end of the session (for technical reasons), you should keep an eye on this throughout the session, to make sure that you are pacing the workshop session appropriately!
Total time: 110 (min)
Activities in this session:
- Reading(5 min).
- Small group activity(10 min).
- Brainstorm(5 min).
- Whole group discussion(10 min).
- Reading (5 min)'
- Pair work (5 min) on sharing computers.
- Presentation and discussion(10 min).
- Pair work(5 min).
- Discussion(10 min).
- Plan a lesson in year groups(30 min).
- Open space(10 min).
- Agreeing follow-up activities(5 min).
If you have printed this session for offline use, you may also need to download the following assets:
- Video/Ghana Leadership for Learning - The Context.mp4 (local play / download options / download from dropbox)
Next session:
