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Collective WHS Ideas about Returning to the Post-Lockdown Classroom
Contents Building community in the classroom Finding gaps in pupils’ understanding Knowing your students and giving voice to all
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Hopefully, returning to our physical classrooms won’t feel like a foray to foreign lands or unfamiliar terrain. However, the changes in the setup of our rooms mean we need to explore different ways of getting the very best from our pupils. Our pedagogy needs to be considered carefully. We will need to combine the very best of ‘digital’ and ‘old school’ teaching methods to create a truly hybrid model. Within a hybrid model, learning centers on personal relationships. It uses face-to-face, and online platforms like Microsoft Teams, to facilitate meaningful connections between students and ensures synchronous time is used for the best possible purposes. It focuses on authentic, relevant learning that provides students with voice, choice, and agency. It incorporates peer tutoring, student selfassessment, and collaboration among instructors and students to design and carry out the learning experience. It is human-centered. In short, "The hybrid model combines the best of in-school and remote learning, with digital engagement. It is more than a quick fix. It is a way to enhance and accelerate learning by providing student- centered approaches to meet diverse learners needs. https://education.microsoft.com/en-us/course/218c22a7/0
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Building Community in the Classroom Thoughts and Ideas • • • • • • • • • •
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Think about the balance between regaining a sense of pupil academic progress and ensuring that we are adapting our teaching to the nature of the return to school. Awareness of pupils’ feelings: notice body language, ask them proactively how they are (e.g. In English, Emma often asks her pupils to write her a letter). Use polls or Teams Forms to check in with pupils – “How are you finding this?”. In the lower years, break up the girls' days by starting lessons with ice breakers so that they begin to relax a little on their return to the classroom setting. Getting classes to create their own rules for the classroom to have a sense of ownership over them. Have the discussion with classes – “How can I know you're on board?” Model vulnerability ourselves. Humour! Ask students directly how they are feeling. Facilitate group work - use Channels in Teams; talk to each other (neighbours) and verbally interact with teacher with excellent questioning that isn’t just students giving sound bite responses. Small group chat in Teams which teacher joins. Notebook marking more interactive with or without voice memo feedback. Wearing a visor rather than a mask. Ability to have conversations in person rather than remotely. Group work using collaboration space, Miro, Microsoft Whiteboard. Tools (including from Guided Home Learning)
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Padlet - treat like a pinboard for class ideas. Microsoft forms - using traffic lights for students to let them know how they are feeling. Quick anonymous polls in Teams conversation space (@forms) to gauge whole class feeling. Group work: use Channels in Teams; MS whiteboard and Onenote collaboration space (more anonymous?); Miro has name attached to each pupil's response so can be helpful for teacher. Audio record in OneNote as a proxy for conversation. Allows personalised and private conversation. Retaining the use of Teams channels for girls to ask teachers questions that they might not want to ask in front of the whole class as they slowly start to build confidence moving back into the classroom. Collaborate with others online then feedback verbally in smaller groups
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Finding Gaps in Pupil Understanding (without test fatigue) Thoughts and Ideas • • • •
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Revisit old knowledge: e.g. have a grid as a starter which includes questions which refer to material they learned last year, last month, last week - interleaving knowledge. ‘Finding gaps’ does not necessarily mean testing - there are other methods such as Flipgrid, which tells us a huge amount, without it being 'pressurised'. Self-assessment and metacognition are vital. Pupils will have a good idea about what material feels like for them and about how they are doing themselves. Empower them! Homework task - introduce what we are about to do, give a few bullet points of what this involves, ask them to consider where they have encountered this before, and then send the teacher an email/complete a Form/record an audio message with how they feel about this. Use Flipgrid to get the girls to explain things verbally. Pretty quickly they (and you) will see their gaps in understanding. Fingers up 1-5 to show their understanding. Low stakes assessment i.e. written paragraphs/answers shared in meeting chats on Teams. Opportunities for peer review. Using all the tools at our disposal to identify gaps in pupils' knowledge, rather than going straight into high stakes testing. Not rushing to assess but gradually acquiring this from our pupils. And being mindful of our reaction as teachers to different activities so that we are not unintentionally making something high stakes. Encourage candour in the classroom. If students are finding something tricky, they must feel empowered to vocalise it in the lesson and not go home with a misunderstanding. Tools (including from Guided Home Learning)
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Use a page in OneNote for 'big ideas' so pupils and teachers can see how ideas are progressing across a series of lessons. Padlet is also good for this. (e.g. in History, they have used 'big ideas' pages so that pupils can record how their ideas in response to an enquiry question such as 'How great was the Great War?' changes over the course of an enquiry. Ask pupils to complete RAG ratings using Microsoft Forms to self-assess their understanding and help teachers find gaps. Self-marking Microsoft Forms. Quick ‘Do Now’ starters. Use collaboration space on OneNote for peer review. Digital ‘Exit Tickets’ using Forms and Teams Assignments. Use Mentimeter for pupils to anonymously post questions about their learning or post what they don’t understand. Flipgrid allows students to verbalise and synthesise their understanding. Quick to find out their gaps.
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Knowing Your Students and Giving Voice To All Thoughts and Ideas • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
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Lots of low stakes opportunities to speak up at the beginning of the lesson - even asking about how their day is going helps with some quieter students. Engage quiet classes - teach without speaking for the first 5-15 mins (see Friday Gem #1) Small group conversations using silent debate on Teams. Good for the quiet girls or those who need more thinking time. Pause once you’ve asked a question. This allows all pupils to have an answer ready (good for neurodiversity). Share/prep questions in advance so pupils have thinking time before the lesson. Ensure questioning doesn’t encourage sound bite answers from students. Allow them time to fully develop and verbalise their response. Harkness method for purposeful pupil-led conversation that engages every member of the group. Music on quietly so there's some background noise for them to talk under with their neighbour. Assign a pupil/groups of pupils a focus/topic which they know they will be asked about so that they have an area of expertise to focus on in questioning. Ask a student to sum up their group’s ideas, rather than just give their own individual idea. Ensure questioning is democratic by using hands down (‘pounce’) to ensure that every student has been heard that lesson. If a pupil gets something wrong, praise an element beyond simply answering e.g. the process they used to get their answer/how they phrased it etc... Ask pupils to ask the questions rather than the teachers. Usually we get to know our girls through the day to day observations, trips, clubs etc... while this will be slightly hindered this term, we can use our colleagues’ knowledge and experience to find out at least something about our girls. We already know a lot about them. Quieter girls are often quiet because they lack confidence. Pick out those pupils and praise them, remembering something they have done in a previous lesson will be powerful - the child needs to feel attachment and belonging to the group; being seen by the teacher and by the group through peer feedback, enables them to feel like their contribution is valued. It's really important they get that peer validation so ask students to peer assess and respond to each other in class conversation. Being known is about being seen, feeling safe and feeling soothed so that you can reach out to your teachers to help. Harkness lends itself to this. Reflecting on our 11+ days - it is not about creating classrooms of extroverts but remembering the value of introversion too. Discussion around the fallout of two girls within a group of 8, which makes teaching difficult. Could have a conversation about psychological safety and the impact this has on the group.
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Engage quiet child or quiet class: Teams questioning or use of Padlet or Mentimeter, then open up for class discussion. Pupils express thoughts in writing, then ask partner give positive written feedback. Use of mini whiteboards (takes away the fear of error) so that every pupil contributes. “So what..." questioning by one pupil of another (HJ effective with Y8) ‘Think pair share’ idea to allow all students to articulate themselves in a ‘safe’ way. Choose your leaders carefully so you're not always praising the same girls. Pupils cross Teams Channels to learn from each other. Make pupils feel known: know pupils through their work by personalised marking and feedbac. Give pupil roles in the classroom e.g. note taker, and praise them in this role. Use OneNote page encouraging girls to tell teacher about themselves; pupils strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes. Tools (including from Guided Home Learning)
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Padlet. Miro. Kahoot. Mentimeter. Team Forms for traffic light system – pupils tell you how they are feeling. Use Flipgrid to allow pupils to verbalise their ideas. Using silent debates via Teams. Be thoughtful who you choose to answer questions. Enable pupils to cross Channels on Teams and learn from each other.
All images created by ProSymbols in Noun Project. In order that they appear: 1. classroom by ProSymbols from the Noun Project 2. community by ProSymbols from the Noun Project 3. find by Alice Design from the Noun Project 4. voice by Adrien Coquet from the Noun Project
