Introduction to OER4Schools
The OER4Schools Professional Learning Resource
Unit 1 - Session 4
Reflection
Reflection on your lesson activity.
- How did the netbook familiarisation go? Have you all recorded your audio reflections?
- ICT-based task: Log into your email, etc. Did you manage to do that?
Make sure they have all recorded their audio reflections. (Make sure they can all use the upload script.) Make sure they have all come into the lab to practise their ICT skills. Make sure they are able to save whatever resources they have found into the “lesson_resources” folder, and then to transfer the contents onto the server.
How do you use ICT effectively?
Review of found resources.
Discuss (11 min). Last time you were asked to come to the lab to find resources. Did you manage to find resources for an ICT-based lesson? How did you find them? What did you find? Was it easy? What do you think can be done with it?
Small group activity (11 min). Last time you were asked to prepare a simple activity using ICT, and to develop a lesson plan around this. Share your lesson plans in your group.
Examples:
- draw on examples from VVOB toolkit, one example for shared writing, and one example for mindmapping
- video examples of ICT use in lessons
Discuss the use of ICT. Does it support interactive teaching?
The VVOB toolkit is available on the server for reading in your own time if you are interested. The VVOB toolkit is also available online:
- PDF file: http://www.vvob.be/vietnam/?q=toolkit-ict-atl
- Website: http://www.ict4atl.org
Introduction to an ICT-based collaborative writing activity
The following activity uses an internet-based application called EtherPad which allows everyone to see - in real time - what others are writing, and to build on that.
Practical activity (11 min). Choose a topic you each want your class to write about in a forthcoming lesson – it can be a factual topic (eg diseases or hobbies or weddings or buying food in the market) or a creative story. It needs to be fairly broad so children are free to write around the topic without feeling there are right and wrong answers. Discuss it with a partner if you like.
Practical activity (11 min). Now open all the netbooks, take one per workshop participant. Go to EtherPad and try out the collaborative writing task below.
‘’’To help your students type faster, before or after this lesson:’’’ play games on typing under “Edubuntu Applications > Education”, such as TuxType.
‘’’Activities you could do with Etherpad when your students can type faster:’’’
- Writing a story together (each student in each group writes a sentence that follows on from the previous sentence)
- Students type a question they are curious about, and other students respond. (eg “Why is the moon only out at night?”)
Whole group discussion (11 min). Discuss the issues and any pitfalls you anticipate. What are the outcomes you would like – what should the students be writing? ‘’’Change the plan a bit if necessary, to suit your own learners.’’’
Background text
This section summarises some principles of interactive teaching. They are here for information and reference for the workshop participants. Ask them to look through the list and see if they have any comments? Print the list and ask them to file it in their folders.
What is interactive teaching?
Principles of interactive teaching:
- recognising children as individuals actively engaged in interacting with the world, rather than passive recipients of knowledge
- assessing learning needs and tailoring teaching to the child’s current level of knowledge and understanding (“scaffolding” or “child-centred” approach)
- “multimodal” interaction and expression – using different modes of presenting material and expressing ideas (drawing, video, audio as well as conventional texts) to engage learners
- higher-order thinking – encouraging skills like analysis, synthesis, evaluation, sorting and categorising
- improvable ideas – providing an environment where ideas can be critiqued and refined
- diversity of ideas – exploring ideas and related/contrasting ideas, encouraging different ideas
- building directly on others’ ideas to create joint knowledge products
- democracy in knowledge building – everybody participates and is a legitimate contributor to knowledge
- learner agency and peer support – encouraging students to take responsibility for their own and one another’s learning
You can print this page separately HERE [Principles.doc]
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 covers an introduction to interactive teaching and ICT. It introduces the idea of “plan-teach-reflect”, as well as lesson planning to include interactive activity.
Unit 2: Whole class dialogue & effective questioning. This unit covers how to promote and manage discussion, how to engage students in activity at the blackboard, suggestions for school-based activities, as well as a “talking toolkit” with questions you can ask in class.
Unit 3: Effective group work and collaborative learning. 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).
Unit 4: Assessment of 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 time in lessons effectively, while making sure that your students are learning.
Unit 5: Enquiry-based learning and supporting co-enquiry. The unit introduces how to work in an “enquiry-based” way, for instance learning through project work and in-depth, open-ended investigations.
Unit 6: Sharing the vision. This unit introduces 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.
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 the workshop participants to the “Most Significant Change technique”. We would like participants to formulate the goals of the workshops, and to find out what change they would like to make.
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 program 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 (11 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.
Whole group discussion (11 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?
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.
‘’’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.
Homework
Teacher lab activity
- Come to the teacher lab at least once this week to learn more ICT skills.
- Familiarise yourself with “EtherPad” on the netbooks.
Classroom activity
Do the collaborative writing activity - the classroom activity sheet is available below. Please print it, and use it during the lesson
homework
Read the principles of interactive teaching - do you have any questions or comments?
