March 2015: Issue 1 .
Learning First Teaching, Learning & Assessment Newsletter TEACHING, LEARNING AND ASSESSMENT ARE OUR FIRST PRIORITY
IN THIS ISSUE…..
Welcome! I am delighted to welcome you to our first teaching, learning and assessment “Learning First” newsletter which complements a number of cross-college initiatives and professional learning opportunities, placing excellent teaching and learning at the heart of all we do. It’s good to see a focus on assessment for learning in this inaugural edition, an aspect of learning that is all too often planned and executed poorly, or overlooked altogether. The newsletter is packed to the rafters with top tips and things to try and I hope you enjoy giving them a whirl! As I said in my presentation to staff, I want to foster a culture across the Collegiate where colleagues are rewarded for trying out new approaches to learning and experimenting with digital pedagogy and I will talk to you shortly about setting up Communities of Professional Practice to do just that. In the meantime, I want to give each curriculum area a special feature, a “guest spot” if you will, in subsequent newsletters where they can share good practice more widely. As such, I am inviting Curriculum Managers to nominate their team (by email to me please) to feature in the next edition. So…. over to you. Best wishes, Nichola
AfL Examples of Good Practice Sharing and clarifying learning intentions is one of the key principles of AfL. This section sets out some of the basics and suggests ideas to try when sharing learning intentions with students.
Killer Filler Activity A creative re-make of the classic gap-filler. This is a simple, but extremely effective activity, useful for reviewing learning in a cooperative fashion.
You are invited to share good practice for the next edition. Please send any ideas to cgeal@warrington.ac.uk before the 26th of March 2015.
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AfL Good Practice SHARING LEARNING INTENTIONS
The basics……. - Be clear about where you are going - Contextualise learning intentions - What do you expect the students to learn as a result of the activities? - Learning intentions should be ‘tangible’ - They should Inspire learning - Learning intentions do not have to be presented upfront, but well planned and clarified. Sometimes sharing learning intentions up-front can spoil the ‘discovery’ element - Don’t wallpaper the intentions and then ignore them for the rest of the lesson
Based on Dylan’s 5 principles of AfL
Ideas ….. - Co-construct learning intentions with students - WALT & WILF - Pose your learning intention as a question and share the criteria in the task - Use pictures to inspire thought - Word Clouds - Jigsaws - Other ideas can be found on Moodle
Clarified Learning Intentions
It is vital that we make our learning intentions clear. Students must know what they are learning about and what the outcome of the learning would look like. Here is an example of how ‘murky’ learning intentions can be ‘clarified’.
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KILLER FILLER ACTIVITY
SUMMARY: IN SMALL TEAMS [3-5], STUDENTS PLAY AGAINST THE ‘KILLER’ TO NAVIGATE THEIR WAY TO THE END OF A GLORIFIED GAP-FILLER WHILST LOSING AS FEW LIVES AS POSSIBLE. Resources & set-up 1.
You will need to create an information sheet which details what you have been learning about, in full sentences. You will need to identify the key-words which you would most like students to have learned by highlighting them or underlining them, or both.
2.
You will need a number of life-tokens, which represent the teams’ lives. Poker chips or buttons are a good resource to use
3.
On each table, place the pre-printed sheet face-down and the tokens
4.
You can decide the amount of lives, or get the students to agree on how many they think they will need
Game Roles and Procedure 5.
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Determine who will be the ‘killer’ and who will be the team captain.. You can use whatever method you like to determine the killer, preferably random. If using the killer filler as a re-cap activity at the start of a lesson, it is a good idea to assign the ‘killer’ role to any student who missed the last lesson as they will most-likely not be able to contribute to the answers. The killers’ job is to read the information loudly and clearly to the rest of the group one sentence at a time. The killer must not say any of the key-words which have been highlighted. Often killers replace the words with ‘blank’. Determine who will be the team-captain. This is the person who will have overall responsibility of deciding the correct answer. As the killer reads out the text, one sentence at a time, the team must first discuss the answer between themselves and the captain should put forward their agreed answer to the killer If the answer is correct, the killer may move on to the next sentence. If the answer is incorrect, the killer will take a life-token from the middle of the table, and the group must continue discussing and guessing answers.
Devil is in the detail 11.
It is vital that the group discusses the answer first, before suggesting the correct answer to the killer. This is to stop a ‘strong’ learner from taking over but also to promote thinking. Students may think they have the correct answer, but may be persuaded it is something else. Killers should be strictly told that any shouting out of answers immediately loses the team a life.
12.
If the team wishes, they can ask for a clue from the killer, however it will cost them one life.
Turn up the difficulty…..why not get the students to create their own information sheets, identifying their own keywords….and then try them out on each other? Benefits
Promotes cooperation and interdependence
Promotes self-management
Promotes active listening
All learners engaged
Mildly competitive
Quick and easy set up with few resources
Easily differentiated
Covers big or small topics
Students can work at their own pace
Flexible on group size
Tutor can easily monitor performance
Doesn’t single-out students’ knowledge
Restrictions
Students can ‘ear-wig’ on other groups
Killers need to be ‘ruthless’
Teams may ‘cheat’
Lose a life for….. An incorrect answer If anyone shouts an answer at the killer without discussing first Requesting a clue
Can the students get to the end of the information, losing as few lives as possible?
Have you used this activity in your teaching?
What did you think? Any questions? Would you be willing to show examples? Can you make it better? cgeal@warrington.ac.uk
March 2015: Issue 1
Killer Filler *Example*
A reminder of the rules is a good idea!!
Introduction to Pharmacology: Specificity, Selectivity and Affinity Killer Filler Rules The clinical, cost-effective and safe use of medicines to ensure patients get the maximum benefit from the medicines they need, while at the same time minimising potential harm is called the ‘therapeutic intention’. To
- TEAMS MUST NOT SHOUT OUT ANSWERS - THEY MUST DISCUSS AND AGREE - CLUES COST A LIFE - STUDENTS MUST ANSWER, NO FREEBIES
date there has not been a drug developed that does not cause side effects. The scientific discipline that seeks to describe the actions of drugs on specific systems is called pharmacology. Drugs are defined as “Molecules that interact with specific molecular components of an organism to cause biochemical and physiologic changes within that organism”. The majority of drugs work by binding to receptors, which are usually proteins. In order for binding to occur, the drug and the receptor must be a corresponding shape. This makes them highly specific. Drugs will therefore only work on specific receptors. The fact that drugs will only bind to certain receptors is called the ‘selectivitiy’ of the drug. Proteins are made of long chains of amino acids. There are roughly 20 amino acids which make up all human proteins. It is the specific sequence [order] of these amino acids which determines the shape of the protein. Individual amino acids are joined together by a dehydration reaction, which forms a peptide bond. This means that a molecule of water is extracted and the two amino acids are bonded together. A small chain of amino acids is called its primary structure. As the chain of amino acids gets bigger, the chain folds up on itself, forming more complex shapes of the secondary structure. The chain can either form an alpha helix or beta sheet. The alpha helix is a telephone cord shape and the beta sheet is a blanket shape. The bonds which hold the ‘shape’ together are ‘hydrogen’ bonds and are much weaker than the peptide bonds. When these hydrogen bonds are destroyed the shape of the protein unravels and causes the protein to denature and can result in the drug not binding. A mixture of these secondary structures gives rise to a proteins tertiary and quaternary structures. There are a number of coupling mechanisms which act when a drug binds into a receptor and some are stronger than others. The increased amount of coupling mechanisms required for a drug to bind will make the drug more selective. Another factor which affects the selectivity of a drug is the distribution of receptors available. If there is a wide distribution of receptors, the drug will be less selective. The favorability of a drug-receptor interaction is referred to as the affinity of the drug for its binding site on the receptor. The distribution of receptors and number of coupling methods both affect a drugs affinity. A highly selective drug will have a low affinity, so this means that higher doses will need to be administered to achieve the required effect.
March 2015: Issue 1
The Warrington Collegiate ‘ILT superheroes’ want to send out a reminder of the ways staff can contact them in relation to support with ILT in the classroom: Weekly clinics on a Tuesday in the LRC @ 12.15-1.15 E-mail to contact any member of the team: iltsupport@warrington.ac.uk. They are happy to provide support to individuals, small groups, curriculum teams or develop resources with the SL
Throughout the Spring term the ILT support team will be offering lunchtime ILT clinics-with demos, tips and tricks to help you use technology to enhance and transform learning in the classroom and beyond
Session title and description
Day, date and time
Facilitator
Where?
Socrative: Online application for creating quizzes, polls or feedback on a session. Accessible on any device with a browser or download the app to your phone.
Thurs. 26th February 12.15-1.00pm
Louise Colverson
LRC-Pop-up classroom
Facebook for learners - a beginners guide
Thurs. 5th March 12.15-1.00pm
Danny Rimmer
LRC-Pop-up classroom
Shooting and editing video using your phone
Thurs. 12th March 12.15-1.00pm
Danny Rimmer
LRC-Pop-up classroom
Tue. 17th March 12.15-1.00pm
Rory Lees-Oaks
LRC-Pop-up classroom
Padlet-Virtual corkboard –simple to use for collaborative working and Afl
Thurs. 26th March 12.15-1.00pm
Louise Colverson
LRC-Pop-up classroom
QR codes-Generate QR codes that can be read by a smartphone and link to assignments, feedback, additional information
Tue. 31st March 12.15-1.00pm
Rory Lees-Oaks
LRC-Pop-up classroom
Podcasting for beginners-Record audio feedback on phone/tablet, upload and share with learners
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The message above was created by a web-site. There are lots of different templates to use. Why not use one to present your learning outcomes? The web site is: http://www.redkid.net/generator/sign.php
Look out for SMARCH!!!!