Category Archives: Pedagogy

We review data at the end of the year so why not get students to do the same?

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Students were given sheets showing unit grades, target grade and final grade
Students were given sheets showing unit grades, target grade and final grade

We all know that feedback and target setting are the bedrock of student progress. By getting them to realise where they need to improve we instil independence and allow them to become lifelong learners. Often this is done at the start of term and reviewed at the end, largely because often we do not have students for more than one year. Other than this data is placed into administrative software, such as SIMs, to prove students are progressing then are passed on to parents who quite often do not understand it.

This year I feel I the team I have worked in has been tighter than ever so I decided it would be worth making sure students understand how data works and could review their progress and set target for next year even though it will be with a different teacher. Students understand the difference between a 5a and a 5c but are often unsure of how we come to an overall grade for the whole year, particularly in a subject such as ICT where there are so many different strands.

Students used the data given to fill in self reviews and set targets for next year
Students used the data given to fill in self reviews and set targets for next year

We do write student grades in the front of books and folders but how often do we revisit them? This year, therefore, I gave students a final lesson built around self review. Rather than just a list of grades students were give an end of year review sheet with titles for specific pieces of work rather than subjects, this brought back a memory of the work done rather then them asking what we did in that unit of work. Creating individual grade sheets might seem a daunting task but using my, slightly edited, electronic mark scheme and a bit of mail merge magic they were created in a matter of minutes. Students were then given the sheet, which included target and actual grade, and asked to fill in an electronic evaluation which involved creating understanding from the data to evidence their thoughts. They then needed to set three targets for the year ahead, with Year 7 this was for Year 8 and for Year 9 how they would improve their use of ICT within their GCSE years. The lessons went well and students quickly got the idea of what was needed, one or two were confused at first and said they did not know what they were good at. One even said they were bad at everything. Pointing them towards the data supplied meant they could quickly see where they had gained the highest grade and could be proud of that achievement as well as allowing them to think about why they did so well. I only needed to explain what was required to a few students and all produced semi-detail reviews with suitable targets.

The real work comes next as I will pass these self reviews onto their teachers next year which, if used properly, will work as the basis for progress over the coming terms. I also think it is very important that students understand how to evaluate data about themselves, it is good if they know what we need to do as teachers with data but also that they can pick up a set of grades and work out where strengths and weaknesses lie within them. I am confident that students understand what each level means but not so sure they can use a list of levels achieved to fully understand their own progress. If we can get them to a stage where they do then that is half our job done. It is of particular importance as we move away from levels and, in our school, towards GCSE grades with fine scores. Students may be disheartened to get an E2 rather than a 5b but if they understand the data and that they are on a journey they will be able to pick out areas of weakness and set targets so they can do something about this. If targets are not set based on work they have done and grades given then surely they are just plucking ideas out of thin air and, it may be easy to show progress but they might be doing something they already know how to do and thus this could be false progress. I, for one, would rather less progress in an area they are weaker in than appearing to make progress in an area they are actually already strong in. It might not look as good on the surface but deep down students will have move further forward.

Marking and Feedback: Put it all in one document

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For many years I have found marking a bit of an issue, there seems to be less and less time for it yet the feedback we provide is one of the most important tools in moving students forward. One of my main concerns is that you start, get given another job that is more important, and then have to find you way back into it. This is particularly difficult when you were half way through someone’s work. Add to that the fact that students make improvements but do not sign post these, meaning you have to trawl back through all their work to just find the odd line that is the difference between a C and a B grade.

Since going completely electronic the frustrations have double. Despite given them effective folder structures and doing lots of work on the importance of suitable file names, students still seem to struggle to stay organised. Maybe they need a few years of disorganisation to understand why we keep going on about how important it is to keep things in order. More recently visiting moderators said that the electronic hand-ins were a little confusing, citing students not naming documents correctly or failing to place documents in the correct folders. One moderator stated that it would good to give students a list of work under objective titles and get them to link to the work in their areas so it was easy to see what they had done. This got me to thinking, could we solve all these issues within one document? What I had been doing was giving each student the coversheets I needed to fill in for the moderator and instead of comments on what they had done placed in feedback that students could use to improve their work. This also caused issues as sometimes the objective would cover a multitude of areas, for instance it may say ‘show an understanding of effective methods of communication’, which means very little to students. Actually what they wanted was a list of tasks with individual comments on each. So rather than understand communication methods they wanted this broken down to ‘write a report on written communication techniques’, ‘create a video on verbal techniques and body language’ and ‘do a presentation on effective questioning’. I decided, therefore to add this to the solution so rather then them having a list of tasks on one document, a separate set of objectives on another and feedback on a third this would be collated into one area.

My solution, therefore, is a spreadsheet containing two workbooks. The first is a working document where students link work done to a checklist and then when they are marked I give comments and suggest improvements to these. The second is an overview of which objectives have been passed. This is working out brilliantly so far as students have a checklist, can link in documents so they are easy for the moderator and myself to access regardless of how well organised the students folders are, allows me to quickly see what needs remarking and lets me give students quick feedback. In detail the columns are as follows…

  • Before the columns the students name and target appear
  • The first column underneath lists tasks under objectives
  • The second gives students an area to link their files to
  • The third is a drop down menu that tells students if work is marked and allows them to state if they want work marked or remark, the cell goes green for marked, yellow for remark or red for to be marked. This means I can quickly look and see what needs to be marked, if I get pulled away half way through I can easily pick up where I left off
  • The fourth tells the student if work is not done, partially done or completed. Again this is colour coded so they can quickly see what needs improving based on colour rather than reading every cell
  • The final column gives feedback
Students get a list of tasks and link their files, a bit of conditional formating shows what they want me to mark/remark and what they have completed with comments for improvements
Students get a list of tasks and link their files, a bit of conditional formating shows what they want me to mark/remark and what they have completed with comments for improvements

It takes a while to set up sheets for each unit but it has saved so much time and allowed students to organise work and understand what improvements need to be made.

Attached is the spreadsheet for the Unit 1 Front Sheet. Feel free to download and use it, you can also contact me if you want any more I have created. I hope these ideas help you, although it is a bit of work at first it most definitely saves time in the future and in this day and age time is one thing us teachers really need to find.

Pedagogy POUNDED!

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Us teachers like a new idea or two but we often tend to shy away from them, we do not always have the time to put into place new strategies and keep them going. Recently, however, the Computing and Business Faculty within the school in which I work was challenged to something called Poundland Pedagogy. If you have not heard of this before it is where random items are bought from a pound shop (for legal reasons I need to make it clear that there is more than one pound shop in which you can purchase goods in; ok I don’t need to but it makes me sound more professional) and then teachers need to find interesting ways to use them in their lessons. After the challenge was initiated a magical box of random tat appeared in our office and it was our job to turn things we would usually ignore into new and exciting learning situations.

As I drew some gliders, a set of ping pong balls and some wooden cubes with letters on out of the box a feeling of dread washed over my body. I immediately had an idea for the cubes, then I realised these were pound shop cubes so there were only thirteen of them with letters on either side. This scuppered my plans for anagram work. After some thought I came up with some ideas, these I tried on a bottom set Year 8 class and a mixed ability Year 10 class. Amazingly students really enjoyed the lessons and were glad to do something different, one student even said, “we should do stuff like this every lesson, it’s really fun.” So here is some information on how I used these mundane objects…

  • Gliders – I was confused at how these would work, maybe I could put questions on
    Students made gliders and wrote sets of instructions, these were then passed to a peer to debug
    Students made gliders and wrote sets of instructions, these were then passed to a peer to debug

    them and glide them across the room, but then they were pound shop gliders so probably didn’t work. It was actually in the middle of a lesson where I changed a plan on the fly (pun most definitely intended!) that I used these to good effect. I was teaching bottom set Year 8 about programming, this contains concepts they find hard to understand. I wanted them to get to grips with the idea that computers follow sets of instructions and if we make a mistake then that affects the outcome. They were not quite getting it when I remembered the gliders, I grabbed them from my cupboard and told the students to try and build them then write a set of instructions on how to make the one they had. They traded these instructions and the, now taken apart, glider with another student. The students then needed to build the glider based on the instructions they were given from their peers, some went wrong so worked out what needed to be done and changed the instructions they were given. Effectively they were debugging code as well as understanding how computers work at a basic level. It worked really well and I plan to use this activity with all groups, differentiating by the complexity of what they will be building.

  • Ping pong balls – Star, ring and bus networks may be slightly defunct now but are a crucial part of understanding how networks work and thinking about which topology to use. We like to give a one off lesson on this to Year 8 so they get some idea on how networking has developed. It was another challenging concept for bottom set Year 8 so I decided to take them outside and make human networks. Each student was a device and each ping pong ball a piece of data. The ping pong balls were different colours so I gave each ball out randomly and stated that one colour needed to go to one student and another to a different student. To limit bandwidth I stated that only one piece of data (or ping pong ball) could be transferred (or passed) at a time. I then set conditions such as; in a bus network all data can only move in one direction, in a ring they can only pass to the people next to them and in a star all data needs to go into the centre (or hub) first. Students then acted out these events. After each one we talked about the speed and ease of transfer. Student quickly picked up that star networks were the most effective.
  • Wooden lettered cubes – After the disappointment of there only being thirteen
    Wooden lettered blocks were used to make anagrams, students were then picked to leave a writing task for a few minutes and solve the anagram (p.s. the answer is archive)
    Wooden lettered blocks were used to make anagrams, students were then picked to leave a writing task for a few minutes and solve the anagram (p.s. the answer is archive)

    wooden cubes I managed to work out some anagrams for a lesson on backing up and archiving data. Whilst students were working I had an area where the anagrams were set up, I picked students at random to go and work out the anagram. They absolutely loved this as it gave them a break from a writing task and got them thinking in a different way. One student that is not very focused kept checking if I had put a new anagram together and wanted to go up and solve all of them. Before this task I had also got them to select a block at random from a bag and pick one of the two letters, they have a scenario for an exam they will be taking in May and in pairs needed to list down any keys terms starting with the letter they had drawn out that might be in the exam. This was an effective started and moved us quickly onto discussions about meanings of key terms and what would appear in the exam.

I hope you have enjoyed this post and gained some inspiration, you may not have picked up an idea for a resources but if you now feel confident enough to raid your local pound shop then I have done my job well. I myself am off to order some more lettered cubes (hopefully with twenty six in each pack) and random things the students can build.

Why Question Level Analysis (QLA) is some data you should be bothered with

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In this age of accountability and proving you are doing all you say you are data appears to god. If we look at what we get bombarded with and what we are asked to produce, many of it is not useful for everyday teaching. This can lead us to run and scream when we see a table of data of overly formatted chart. Whilst I am one who advocates knowing your students, focusing on them as individuals and taking data with a pinch of salt I have recently come across a set of data that can be easily created and is really useful in classroom practice. I am one of those people who find data rather frustrating so for me to tell you to create more must be a big deal!

The data in question is Question Level Analysis or QLA. If you have not come across this before then it is as simple as setting a threshold mark for an answer on an exam paper. If students get over that mark they have done well, if they are below it then it is an area where improvement is needed. Popping the data into a spreadsheet with a few formulas and a bit of conditional formatting, it is clear to see where both individuals and the whole class needs to improve. You can then focus on the topics around those questions during lesson time and intervention sessions. For instance if a question on data collection came up on a mock test and was worth six marks you might expect students to do well so set a threshold of four marks. If the majority of students got less than four when you marked the test you would know that was an area for a revision session. If all bar two got four or over you could individually target those students.

On that basis, it makes QLA a great tool for focusing revision in and out of lessons. However, in subjects such as ICT, Business and Computing we do not always get the same time as some core subjects. This means we may need to wait for mock exams weeks. A Maths teacher at my school, however, has a different approach which I have used to focus revision. Rather than waiting for mock exams, she sets different questions for a starter activity. These are based on question that are likely to come up in the exam. She can then do the QLA on these to find misconceptions and move revision forward.

Recently I tried this technique out and it has worked wonders for understanding where students are. Some areas I thought the students were strong on they struggled with. In home learning and in class tasks they have all the support so can write good answers, take the support away and the holes in their knowledge can be seen. How I went about the starter activity QLA was to give students twenty minutes to answer eight questions. This was for the Cambridge Nationals in ICT at Level 2, so I asked questions based around the case study we have been given for their examination. The questions were on areas I expect to come up. Once complete, I took the questions in and gave students marks out of two for each question…

  • Zero for questions not attempted or no clear understanding
  • One for limited ideas or bullet points on the topic
  • Two for answers that had a clear understanding of the topic
Students were given questions for the starter activity then these were used with QLA to work out revision topics
Students were given questions for the starter activity then these were used with QLA to work out revision topics

From here I created a simple spreadsheet that used conditional formatting to show the zeros in red, ones in yellow and twos in green. I added every student’s score to the spreadsheet and thus can see at a glance what each student understands. From here I added up all the scores for each question and again conditionally formatted the totals. This time less than ten was red and a concern, ten to twenty five yellow and needs recapping, and finally over twenty five green showing the students understand the concepts so we do not need to touch on it whole class. What is concerning is that I have no topics in the green overall, this may be because we have moved onto a different unit and thus need to go back and recap knowledge from the examination unit. What was interesting was that it was not only the two areas of acceptable use policies and archiving that I expected to be misunderstood that came in low. We have covered databases to death, however students are still not able to pick up the concepts behind them. It is clear that whilst my whole class revision sessions need to focus on these topics I once again need to look at how I deliver databases. A positive aspect of the data was that students were unclear of Global Positioning Satellites (GPS) the previous time we took the exam but now seem to have a good understanding.

What the QLA has now done is allowed me to look closely at an area I thought students understood and spend less time on an area I presumed they did not have good knowledge in. In this way QLA has allowed me to focus on students needs, it is not data that I will be picked up on and asked about, it may not be used to prove that I have done a specific intervention but it has changed the way I teach so the students get the best possible support and, quite frankly, that is what data should be used for.

Group work – give them all a pen!

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Group work is often seen as something we do not do in ICT and Computing. Computers themselves are seen as machines that isolate people, remove them from the real world to instead engage with bit and bytes rather than people and conversations. Yes there is the social side but this is still a little disengaging from the world around us, we can put on a new persona and hide behind the blinking lights. For a teacher this can cause some stress, there is a lot of theory that needs to be covered and we really want students discussing and coming up with their own ideas. Collaborative working can be easily achieved over the Internet but getting students together in the same room can appear much harder, they actively want to be at their machine working and we cannot move desks like many other subjects can. When ICT students do work in groups, you tend to have the dominant one at the machine or writing on the paper you have given out. There is not much room for the rest of the group so they sit behind, physically and mentally pushed out.

Students worked in groups of three with different coloured pens to analyse leaflets
Students worked in groups of three with different coloured pens to analyse leaflets

Recently, working as part of a Teacher Learning Community (TLC) looking at collaborative working, I hit upon a great idea. It is so simple and has probably be done so many times before in so many other lessons. Sometimes I think ICT is so different to other subjects that we forget the basics, or maybe that is just me. The idea is a simple as giving groups more than one different coloured pen, in fact give everyone in the group a different coloured pen. From there make each coloured pen represent a different focus, each individual can discuss points with their group but can only write with their coloured pen. This means that all group members need to be involved and it is easy for the teacher to see who has written what. We can assess the success of the group work quickly, analyse the contribution of each member and move thinking forward. I tried this with my Year 12 Cambridge Technicals group and it worked a treat. Students who often sat back were required to engage their brain and at the very least write something down. I quickly scanned the room to see all on task and what is more, discussion had improved. The task was centred around leaflet design and groups needed to look at good features of a leaflet, how features affect communication and how leaflets could be improved. It was as simple to set up as gathering screenshots of a few different leaflets, printing them on A3 paper and having a selection of green, black and blue pens. After the group activity I took feedback and we came up with a list of success criteria that students could take forward when designing their own leaflets. It was most definitely a success and something I will try to embed in group work throughout each year group I teach.

Get them off the computers!

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Every time I give my students paper based tasks, particularly completing storyboards, they complain that, “this is ICT,” and, “we should be using the computer.” It gives an interesting insight into how students’ minds work. Many seem not to have the ability to step back and see that an underpinning of theory will help them to understand how computers and systems actually work. In the media rich society we live in, young people are constantly bombarded with images, videos and sounds. ICT and Computing students tend to go straight for these forms of information over the written word and it concerns me that this may mean they are missing vital details. Laptops, tablets, mobile devices and the trusty desktop may enable our students to gather information from many places and at any time but how much do they understand? Words, numbers and pictures without meaning is the definition of data, does this therefore mean that students are simply data depositories and thus no more than glorified databases? The times when I have found students gaining deeper understanding of theory is when they are working away from the computer. Card sorts, crosswords, Venn diagrams, matching exercises and spider diagrams on sugar paper are all used successfully in other subject areas so why shy away from them in ICT and Computing? Recently I had some Year 7s matching titles, pictures and images from components inside the computer. One student asked me, “why are we doing this? It is a bit babyish isn’t it?” By the end of the task the student had failed to get many right but a whole class discussion had enabled her to progress and now she understands what different components do and exactly what is inside that magical box sitting in front of her. Yes I could have made them do this on the computer but I am afraid they may have looked up the answers on Wikipedia and no real thinking would have taken place. I did extend the task by getting them to write up the definitions on a word processor then expand on these using web searches, but only by writing in their own words! In other lessons I have got students to do some internet research then physically write in a Venn diagram the differences and similarities of vector and bitmap images. I have also printed out grids with different cards that have images of electronic devices on them so groups can sort them into those they think are computers and those that are not. This extra stage of learning, away from the computer, gets the students thinking and they no longer seem to repeat parrot fashion the first thing they see on the first website they find.

Tasks away from the computer such as matching exercises allow students to think before completing computer based work
Tasks away from the computer such as matching exercises allow students to think before completing computer based work

No longer can the students be seen as data repositories but can use their brains to move them forward rather than some online encyclopaedia entry they do not really understand. So what I would say to any ICT and Computing teachers, nay anyone teaching in an computer room, is not to just give students tasks to do but remove them from the computer and make them think. Do not give in to the constant moaning about how they are in an ICT lesson or computer room so should be on the machine in front of them. Finally, print things out, laminate them, imagine you are in Geography or English where you do not have the luxury of a computer. These colleagues in different subjects come up with creative and innovative ideas, sometimes we need to take a leaf out of their book rather than defaulting back to PowerPoint. I hope this post makes you think about your lessons and if you follow these points you may just find that when they get onto the computers the students are producing far better work.