Session 1.1 - What is interactive teaching? An introduction to the interactive Zambian classroom
The OER4Schools Professional Learning Resource
Learning intentions and objectives.
In this session you will learn about:
- the interactive teaching technique of brainstorming and how and when to use it in the classroom,
- activity templates for interactive teaching techniques and how these can be introduced alongside current lesson plans,
- the cycle of ongoing reflective practice (plan - teach - reflect) and how this can be used to improve planned interactive teaching activities, and
- an activity on how to use a netbook to open a web browser.
Success criteria.
To meet the learning intentions you will:
- plan a brainstorm activity that has the potential to generate lots of ideas,
- complete an activity template for the brainstorm activity that has a clear learning objective,
- do this activity in the classroom,
- reflect on this activity (and revise, if necessary) to ensure maximum interaction from students, and
- use a netbook to open a web browser and induct students in the process before the next session.
ICT components.
The ICT components you will focus on are
- Netbook familiarisation: Switching on, logging in, opening a web browser
Classroom based activities (with your students, after this session):
- you will try the same activity in the classroom, introducing your students to the netbooks.
It is imperative that you read the text of this session, and the following sessions very carefully, and clarify any issues. You should make the learning intentions and the success criteria for the sessions explicit to the participants perhaps by writing them on the board or printing them out separately. These should be referred to when appropriate as you proceed through the session/s.
Brainstorm on interactive teaching
Whole class brainstorm (10 min) on interactive teaching. Consider the following questions:
- What is interactive teaching?
- What interactive techniques do you know?
- How often have you used such techniques?
What is a "whole group brainstorm"?
Make it clear to the participants that you want to hear from everyone and that they shouldn't worry if they're not sure but should have a go at making a suggestion... we will develop our collective understanding as time goes on (what are teachers’ expectations?). There are no wrong answers, just ideas. Here we have used a number of questions to give participants an idea of how wide ranging their responses can be. The aim of this brainstorm is to find out what participants know, think and feel about interactive teaching.
If participants are not very forthcoming, probe them with additional questions, e.g. 'What do you think interactive teaching might be? Is it the same as learner-centred teaching?'
Record the brainstorm. The facilitator writes on a board or a large sheet of paper, or makes notes for everybody to see on the overhead projector. Alternatively, participants write on small pieces of paper which are placed on a table. If there are no facilities, then it is ok to not make a record. There should be no evaluation of responses when using the brainstorming technique.
If you are part of our “facilitators program”, use the tools provided to capture the discussion.
Brainstorming in the classroom
Same-task group work (5 min): Discussion in pairs of what a brainstorm looks like in the classroom. Now that we have done a brainstorm in the workshop, what does a brainstorm in the classroom look like? Do you think your students would like this activity? How could you make sure that all students get actively involved? Discuss this with your neighbour.
Observing, thinking, reflecting (5 min): Watch video of a brainstorm. Watch the following video clip together. As you watch, think about the following:
- What are you noticing?
- At what point(s) in the lesson could this be used?
- What do you think the students are learning from this?
- How are they learning?
- Can brainstorming be used with large classes too, where there isn’t time for everyone to contribute each time? How would you adapt it for this?
- What are the benefits of brainstorming?
- What makes a brainstorm successful?
- What do you think about the teacher's comment "since I want all of you to participate, no hands up, OK"?
VIDEO
A brainstorm naming animals
A brainstorm naming animals. Start of lesson: brainstorm with unique contributions, time to think first, no hands up technique.
Video/Eness vertebrates 1.mp4, https://oer.opendeved.net/wiki/Video/Eness_vertebrates_1.mp4,This video is available on your memory stick in the video/Eness Vertebrates folder. Duration: 2:43 watch on YouTube, local play / download options / download from dropbox)(Series: Eness Vertebrates, episode 01)(Transcript available here or via YouTube captions.)
This clip from a Grade 3 classroom illustrates how the teacher solicits (and records) different students’ views without evaluating them.
Note that the clip shows the start of a session but it can be done at any point in a lesson. It shows a brainstorm – with unique contributions, allowing time to think first, 'no hands up’(a) technique.
Workshop participants continue with the discussion.
Whole class dialogue (15 min): Discussion on the brainstorm video. Let's now discuss this. We asked some questions above, which you should now discuss.
During the discussion, record what participants are contributing. You could do this on a piece of paper, or on the board. You could also appoint a scribe, who does this for you, leaving you free to manage the discussion.
Benefits of brainstorming include:
- giving everybody an opportunity to speak,
- encouraging students to contribute a large range of ideas,
- reduces the fear of risk taking, and
- shows respect for all participants (making sure that students do not laugh at each other).
At the end of the discussion, summarise the outcomes of the discussion, including any key points the participants have made.
Planning an activity - “activity template”
Whole class dialogue (10 min): Discussion on activity plans. Have a brief discussion about current practice on lesson planning. Consider such things as: Where do the lesson plans themselves come from? What do you think about the activities that are being done? Can you see a way that new activities could be introduced alongside your current lesson plans? Do you forseee any difficulties in doing this?
DIscuss with the participants how they plan their lessons and how the new interactive activities that they are being introduced to can work within their current plans.
In designing 'activities' we do not aim to replace whole lesson plans. We simply try to make some activities in the lessons more interactive.
Introduction (10 min) to activity templates. In this section, we consider strategies to incorporate new interactive elements in your lessons, including things you might say, and things you might do. To help you structure your planning, we provide an activity template. It includes:
- what the activity is (a technique such as a brainstorm, group work, mini blackboard use plus an activity in which it is used, e.g. “a brainstorm on what animals are found in your environment”),
- the grade,
- the subject & lesson topic,
- what the (learning) objective of the activity is (e.g. to find out what students already know about topic X),
- resources to be used (such as blackboard, mini blackboards, paper, objects, etc), and
- how the activity is carried out.
Same-task group work (10 min): Planning in pairs for activity templates. Break into pairs, and capture the activity shown in the video above in the activity template. Remember to include the 'no hands up'(a) technique - this works very well with brainstorming but can also be used for general questioning.
The cycle of Plan-Teach-Reflect(a)
In this section, we introduce a key tool for this programme, which we call “The cycle of plan - teach - reflect”. What this means is that in our professional learning, we progress by planning (e.g.) an activity. We then do this activity in the classroom, and then reflect on the activity (either on our own, with a colleague, or in a group). You can read more about the idea of "Plan-Teach-Reflect(a)".
Sometimes we capture these reflections. The simplest way to capture reflections is on paper. These can easily be shared. Because this involves extra work (e.g. done after a lesson), teachers can be reluctant to do so, and if you ask them to make notes, you may not actually get anything back. It can be helpful to give teachers some prompts, that will remind them to reflect.
It is important to make very concrete plans with the teachers as to when they will be using their activities, and we would strongly recommend that teachers decide on a particular day / lesson / class, when they will trial an activity.
Also arrange with the teachers when they will reflect, for instance agree that the teachers will reflect immediately after the lesson. It is a common pattern for teachers to set the class quiet work. While we do not necessarily encourage this as a good use of lesson time, it is an opportunity for a teacher to quickly write down some reflections. So if a series of interactive activities is followed by some individual work, the teacher could use that time to make some notes using the reflective questions provided.
The participants will plan an activity in pairs. Explore whether it is possible for these two teachers to observe each other doing the brainstorm with their class. That is to say, is it possible for one teacher to set their class some work, to be able to observe the other teacher. In principle, this should only take about 15 minutes, so do explore whether this can be done. We will come back to this in the next session.
As a facilitator, discuss these ideas with the participants, and make concrete plans for when the activities take place (together with peer observation), and when the associated reflection takes place.
We suggest that rather than reading the text below to (or with) the participants, you just draw attention to the diagram, and explain the contents to the participants. Make sure that they understand the reflective questions provided. How do you know, whether they have understood these questions? For instance, you could check whether participants can give concrete examples.
Introduction (10 min) to the cycle of ongoing reflective practice. Here we introduce the cycle of ongoing reflective practice in the context of doing a brainstorm activity. By following this cycle you will gradually refine your classroom activities, so that over time they become more interactive activities, providing better opportunities for students to learn more deeply.
- Part 1: Plan an interactive activity such as brainstorming
- Part 2: Teach using the activity, bearing in mind the learning objective
- Part 3: Reflect on how the activity went, first on your own and then with a colleague and perhaps a wider group
- Revise plan and repeat cycle
For reflecting on an activity, it is useful to have questions to guide the reflection. For example, the following questions could be used to guide reflection:
- What did the children get out of the activity? How can you tell?
- How did you (as the teacher) find out what the children learned / thought about the activities / got out of them?
- What did you (as the teacher) get out of it?
- Did you find it difficult?
- What would you do differently next time?
- Did the activity allow students to meet the learning objective that it was designed to address?
We will use this cycle in the following section to refine a brainstorm activity.
Planning a brainstorm activity
Same-task group work (5 min): Planning in pairs of a brainstorm activity. Break into pairs, and plan a brainstorm together. The pairs should be arranged, so that it will be possible to do this brainstorm with your class (e.g. pair by grade, or pair by subject). As you plan, share your ideas with your partner as much as possible, and listen attentively to their ideas and feedback.
Here are some questions, you could consider to help you plan:
- What do you need to know about students’ knowledge or understanding of the topic? What will you ask them to brainstorm?
- What will you do with the results? How will you build on that in the rest of the lesson?
- What are you teaching next week?
- What is the topic of your brainstorm?
- What makes for a good topic?
Whole class brainstorm (5 min) of participant's suggestions. Pick one or two of the brainstorms that were just planned and try them on the rest of the group.
The topic of the brainstorm needs to generate lots of ideas. Look out for topics that have correct responses and/or are narrow in scope e.g. name the parts of a flower. This would not be a suitable topic to brainstorm, instead the topic could be 'what do we know about flowers?'. (Further questions could be asked by the teacher as the brainstorm proceeds in order to find out the depth of the students' knowledge). Encourage participants to accept all responses without evaluation and if possible, to make a note of them for all to see.
Whole class dialogue (5 min): Discussion of the trialled brainstorm activity. Did this work? How do you know? Did everyone participate?
Same-task group work (5 min): Planning in pairs to revise the planned brainstorm activity. Based on what you have learned from the brainstorm trialling activity, revise your brainstorm, making sure that you have phrased your topic in a way that will generate lots of ideas. You can do this activity in pairs but each one of you should plan an individual brainstorm activity that you will use with your class before the next session.
ICT practice: Netbook familiarisation
The following activity, as with other activities in later sessions, assumes that you have some netbooks available. If you have other forms of ICT available you could use those instead. In future sessions, we will use internet browsing, spreadsheets, and GeoGebra among other applications, so it would be useful if you have access to these.
If you do not have any ICT at all, you can spend longer on the other activities in this session.
Same-task group work (20 min): Practical activity exploring netbooks. Here is a netbook familiarisation activity that you can use with your students, spend some time working through the activity yourself now and think about how your students will respond to it. Make sure that you can answer all of the questions.
Netbook familiarisation activity
Take the school netbooks to your class - making sure that they are carried and used according to the rules set by the school.
The pupils work in mixed ability groups (with computers distributed evenly). Groups do not need to progress at the same speed: There will be faster groups and slower groups. However, the faster groups should be helping the slower groups. If a fast group has managed to do something, their task is to split up and help others to reach the same stage!
Activity:
- Exploration of turning on a computer. Allow pupils to figure out how to turn them on (find the power button). The pupils should be discussing this in the groups. Encourage them, e.g. by making analogies with other electrical devices. If they are stuck, first show one group and then ask that group to show others. When they have managed to turn on the computers, they should observe what happens; the login screen comes up. Remember that faster groups should help slower groups.
- Exploration of the login screen. Ask groups: What do you need to do next? What do the parts of the netbook do? Can you give names to the parts? Give them plenty of time to discover and press things on the netbook (with the password screen up), without telling them. They can’t really break anything if they are careful. Let them help each other and discuss with each other what they are finding out.
- Logging in. When groups have figured out how to type text, tell one group about the username and password, and see whether they can enter them. When they have managed to do so, they should immediately help other groups to reach the same stage.
- username: classroom
- password: student
- Exploration of the desktop. They now need to apply their new knowledge: “click” on “username” classroom, and “enter” the “password” student. They now see the desktop. When a group is ready to move to the next stage, the teacher demonstrates how to open a web browser (to that group). Ask the students to do the same. Again, the students find out what happens. Don’t worry if they can’t open the web browser - let them try to open whatever applications they like. After a while, repeat the instructions about opening a web browser to the same group. Again, get the groups to help each other how to open the browser. They should immediately share anything they find out with the whole class.
This activity is an example of enquiry-based learning, which we will cover in much greater detail later in the OER4Schools programme.
You can print this content on a separate sheet here: OER4Schools/Netbook familiarisation.
While participants learn about their own use of ICT, it is really
important that participants are aware of their own learning process.
While they are learning about ICT, participants should think about how
they could engage their students in the same learning process.
This of course could apply to learning anything new, but in the context of the OER4Schools programme, ICT is likely to be a completely new skill, so it's particularly important to bring awareness to the process.
Classroom assistants
The notion of classroom assistants needs to be discussed at school level, and you may encounter resistance. However, especially if the programme has already been running in a previous year (in some grades, but not the whole school, and some students are thus familiar with netbooks), it will be very beneficial to the smooth running of activities if some arrangement with classroom assistants can be made.
If this is the first year that you are running the programme, you may want to consider running a computer club, which helps some students to learn about netbooks quickly, with a view to them helping out in lessons.
How do you think an older child (e.g. grade 8 or 9) could help in a grade 5 class? In some innovative European schools, cross- or multi-grade teaching takes place, not out of necessity, but because it makes pedagogical sense. Older students can benefit from having to explain things to younger students, while younger students may surprise older students with how they think about things.
Sometimes a student can even explain something better to peers than the teacher can! In Unit 3, Session 1 (video: new Abel clip 4), we saw how Abel solicited the help of two older boys in his mixed age (11-16) class when he himself had had difficulty in helping a group of students to understand how to find 'area' and 'perimeter' of a rectangle using GeoGebra software.
In an African context, many schools operate in two (or more) shifts. This might mean that (e.g.) Grade 5 is taught in the morning, while Grade 7 is taught in the afternoon. This situation, born out of necessity, could be turned around to really benefit teaching and learning at your school. This week, we are asking you to conduct an experiment to see whether this can work at your school. In your homework today, we suggest that you each try to recruit two or three “classroom assistants” from a higher grade to help you with teaching in your grade.
Whole class dialogue (10 min): Discussion about classroom assistants. Here are some points that you need to discuss:
- What is the benefit of this to your class?
- What do you need to discuss with the head teacher before you can recruit some students from a higher grade to help? How often is it reasonable for the older students to come?
- What is the benefit for the higher grade students? What incentive is needed for those students to want to come and help in your class? How can you make sure that those students stay engaged in the programme? For instance, you might want to set up a “computer club” for those Grade 8 and 9 students who help out in the lower grades.
- How will the parents of those students react to this? What do you (or the headteacher) need to say to those parents? Do you need to write a letter, that can be given to the parents?
Follow-up activities
Agreeing follow-up activities (5 min).
Part A: Practical classroom activities and reflection. Complete an activity template for the brainstorm activity that you planned and revised in this session. Do the activity with your class and be prepared to reflect on how it went.
Part B: Netbook familiarisation. Introduce the class to the netbooks during one of your lessons. netbooks should be run on battery. The activity is described in a separate classroom worksheet at the end of the unit, that you should have in front of you when you run the activity.
Part C: Don’t forget to bring your activity plans again, and your recorded reflections. (Use your dictaphone if you have one, or make notes on paper or electronically)
Part D: Classroom assistants. In another lesson this week, we would like you to try to recruit two or more “classroom assistants” to help the younger children with a specific activity, either ICT-based or not. Reflect (using your dictaphone) on whether/how that was useful from your perspective and what the students’ own reactions were?
Remind participants to do their activities. They may want to review the notes that have been handed out, as well as read the background text available below.
As the facilitator, you should also do a reflection on how this first workshop went - please see facilitator reflection for Unit 1!
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.
Activity template
The activity template is available on this page for printing: OER4Schools/activity template:
Downloadable version: Activity template.pdf (info)
| What is the activity?
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| Grade
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| Subject
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| Lesson topic
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| What is the (learning) objective of the activity?
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| Resources used
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| How is the activity carried out? Write out all the steps in detail.
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Here is a photograph of a completed activity template for a lesson on conduction. Note that one template can be used for multiple activities:
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: 130 (min)
Activities in this session:
- Whole class brainstorm (10 min) on interactive teaching.
- Same-task group work (5 min): Discussion in pairs of what a brainstorm looks like in the classroom.
- Observing, thinking, reflecting (5 min): Watch video of a brainstorm.
- Whole class dialogue (15 min): Discussion on the brainstorm video.
- Whole class dialogue (10 min): Discussion on activity plans.
- Introduction (10 min) to activity templates.
- Same-task group work (10 min): Planning in pairs for activity templates.
- Introduction (10 min) to the cycle of ongoing reflective practice.
- Same-task group work (5 min): Planning in pairs of a brainstorm activity.
- Whole class brainstorm (5 min) of participant's suggestions.
- Whole class dialogue (5 min): Discussion of the trialled brainstorm activity.
- Same-task group work (5 min): Planning in pairs to revise the planned brainstorm activity.
- Same-task group work (20 min): Practical activity exploring netbooks.
- Whole class dialogue (10 min): Discussion about classroom assistants.
- 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/Eness vertebrates 1.mp4 (local play / download options / download from dropbox)
- Activity template.pdf
