Introduction to OER4Schools
The OER4Schools Professional Learning Resource
“Tell me and I'll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I'll understand.” (Chinese proverb)
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?
- Designing interactive lesson plans
- ICTs in interactive teaching
- Effective use of ICTs including collaborative writing using ICTs
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 is presented here in four section or "sessions" of approximately two hours length (when used in a workshop setting), but you may want to divide the material to suit your own setting.
There are also background notes, that are useful to teachers and educators for background reading. They are usually found on separate pages or at the end of units, and are meant to provide additional background information that workshop participants can read in their own time.
In the facilitators’ version, additional notes for facilitators appear like this and is for an educator to use, for example when facilitating a workshop or working with a class of students. It is interspersed with the “teacher” text, to provide additional guidance on how to use the resource.
Timing. As a workshop facilitator, you should consider how to use the present material, and what form your workshop will take. The resource could be used in
- weekly or bi-weekly session of say 2 hours each (e.g. teacher group meetings in a school or regular scheduled sessions in a teacher education college),
- for whole day workshops,
- or a mixture of those.
You should negotiate this with the participants. We provide guidance but as a facilitator running a course based on these materials you will need to make your own plan, and evaluate this plan as you progress.
A key principle is taking responsibility for your own teaching and learning. This means that as a facilitator, you take responsibility for providing a successful workshop, teachers take responsibility for their learning during the workshop and their teaching practice in schools, while school students take responsibility for learning, as well as supporting each other in that process.
Jointly building an understanding of interactive teaching: at the end of Session 1, ask participants: What does interactive teaching offer you?
You might return to the principles of interactive teaching as a group after a few sessions and classroom trials to see which ones are / are not being addressed.
Adapting the format of the resource to the specific context. Ideally, there would be at least the following contexts:
- Paper only. Possibly only the facilitator has a copy of the materials but ideally users do too.
- Semi-digital: There’s one computer / projects
- Fully digital: There are several computers with sound, and participants are able to watch various videos in groups.
ICT use in the classroom will be introduced in the workshops. Teachers need a basic level of ICT skills, for instance how to type, how to open a web browser and open applications, how to write documents and spreadsheets, etc. If your workshop participants have no prior ICT skills, you need to allow time for them to practise those skills.
Follow-up and practical classroom activities: End each session with planning for follow-up activities, eg classroom trials, lesson planning, readings, etc.
Introduction to running the workshop.
What are the issues with primary education in your country? Why are people invited to the OER4schools programme?
What are teachers’ expectations (attend for the whole year - starting off weekly)? Some people will be concerned with big picture, others with detail. Agree the day of the week for f2f meetings.
Some expectations about what a workshop should be like. Modelling activities in the workshop on activities planned for the classroom. (Modelling participation and interactivity at all levels.)
Modelling: A key “interactive” principle is for the “students” to start from what they know, and then to extend that knowledge. We apply this to the workshop by asking the teachers about their own experience of interactive teaching.
The facilitator should say explicitly that they will not judge the views put forward, but simply make notes of the views put forward.
As the workshop facilitator, clearly signpost what is happening at each stage in the workshop. E.g. you might say “We now look at interactive teaching.“
Introduce this resource and the topics within it
introduce strategies to incorporate interactive elements (things you might say, things you might do)
thinking about your own practice; do you think you’d like to try one of these new approaches?
Do you want a buddy system (pairs of teachers matched by grade or subject)?
Running the first session.
What are the educator notes here?
Setting up the room - remove tables? Chairs in circle? Tables arranged in islands?
What props are needed? Sheets of papers and pens? May be hard to find for some schools.
Ice breaker Welcome everybody to the workshop.
You start the workshop with an “ice breaker”.
We would suggest first name basis.
Icebreaker 1 (for a group of colleagues):
Stand up and sing a song together.
Icebreaker 2 (for group of participants who don’t know each other well):
People say one or two words that describe themselves (such as “funny”, “sociable”, “shy”).
OR Chat in pairs, and then introduce your neighbour to the group.
Icebreaker 3 (for either colleagues or strangers):
- people form themselves into groups of 3
- they have a conversation for no more than 3 min, 1 min each, on a specified topic, e.g. their favourite foods, what activity they are glad to be rid of and don't have to tackle today, their worst fantasy about what could go wrong as a consequence of the workshop...
- facilitator claps their hands after each minute to signal changeover; after 3 min, groups dissolve and form new groups; facilitator changes the topic at this point and after every 3 min until everyone has spoken to everyone else
- people have to stand up the whole time and move around - it is very energising, normally beginning quite quietly and ending up very loud!
- the next activity might connect with this icebreaker, for example asking volunteers to report back on their worst fantasy about what could go wrong in their classroom as a consequence of the professional development programme?!
Need a list of topics here - workshop facilitator to decide these in advance.
Consider whether there is a hierarchy among the participants?
To continue the workshop, present the aims of Unit 1.
