School holidays can provide us with a unique opportunity to take some much needed downtime. The fast pace of modern life can take its toll on all of us, both parents and children.
I read in the Sunday Age over the Labour Day weekend about a family who had recently undertaken a ‘screen detox’, attempting to live for a week without mobile phone, computer or games console. While the family certainly admitted that the detox was not without its challenges, they all found they reengaged with each other in positive ways, and realised the experience brought them closer together as a family.
Big tech companies in Silicon Valley routinely send their employees to wifi-free retreats where they are forced to disconnect from the internet and their work, and spend some time operating at a slower pace. Perhaps when they are in this lower gear they might have the inspiration to come up with something wonderful, like Sir Isaac Newton sitting under the apple tree in Lincolnshire contemplating gravity when he left London to escape the Plague, or Australian doctor Graham Clark as he sat on a beach on holiday examining a shell when he had the inspiration to develop the cochlear implant.
Why not join me in undertaking a digital detox for a week in the holidays? And if inspiration doesn’t strike you while you take some downtime, perhaps you will just enjoy the extra time spent with loved ones.
My initial thought on watching this video was that there was no wonder that these kids seemed engaged and empowered by this process. They were, after all, disadvantaged children from a family homeless shelter, who probably don’t have many opportunities in life to feel involved or engaged in shaping their future. Yet here they had the opportunity to work with talented young designers, who were going to invest in improving the fabric of the shelter. All children like to feel that they are important, and here the team were going to listen to them and implement one of their suggestions.
However during the video it became clear that there was something else going on. They were learning skills that may not be taught in everyday classrooms; skills about how to make important decisions, after weighing up all the options rationally. They practised how to work collaboratively and listen to each other, and how to persuade others. They worked creatively, actively seeking solutions to a real problem. These are important skills for life, as the video points out.
How can we include more of these themes into our classrooms? Can we use technology to engage pupils in solving problems? In working collaboratively? In making presentations? In taking pride in their work, and incorporating good design skills? I hope so.
In a recent interview with the New York Times[i], Laszlo Bock, the Senior Vice President of People Operations at Google said the following:
“…the number one thing we look for (in an applicant) is general cognitive ability, and it’s not I.Q. – it’s learning ability. It’s the ability to process on the fly. It’s the ability to pull together disparate bits of information.”
For our pupils to succeed in the modern world, they need to be able to think creatively.In her article “Teaching for creativity: from sage to guide to meddler”[ii], Erica McWilliam makes a convincing case for seeing creativity in lessons as a core learning outcome. The trend for employers to value creative skills means that our pupils will not be successful in the modern world unless they can think creatively. How are they to develop those creative skills necessary for success in life if their teachers value rote-learning over creative thinking?
McWilliam’s article goes on to explore three different models for a teacher; the Sage on the stage, the Guide on the side, and she proposes a new model: the Meddler in the middle. The Sage tends to lead from the front, spending the majority of her effort enthusing and engaging her pupils. She is a skilled orator, and can generate enthusiasm and excitement. However, there can be the tendency for the class to remain passive while the teacher remains the expert. The Guide spends the majority of her time coaching and helping students through a series of pupil-led tasks. McWilliam makes the argument that “…this (approach) can often collapse into passive child-minding and worksheet distribution”. The Meddler creates opportunities for hands-on learning collaboration that puts everyone in the thick of the action. By its nature, this requires the teacher to spend less time talking; to allow her pupils to take risks and make mistakes; to work collaboratively and creatively.
Of course, there are many ways in which digital tools can enable a pupil to work collaboratively and creatively. Recently, as I have blogged before, I have been experimenting with making stop-motion animations with classes in science lessons, using the iOS software “I can animate”. A typical animation lesson involves minimal talk time from the teacher and pupils have found it relatively easy to get on with using the software. Pupils certainly take risks and make mistakes; the animations do not always look great at first go, and a few iterative cycles are usually necessary to get something that pupils are pleased with. There are great opportunities for collaboration too; while pupils may create an animation in pairs, they are always keen to see the results of other groups’ work. This is where I have been most impressed with the merits of creating animations as a teaching tool; pupils have spontaneously peer-assessed each other’s work, commenting on the technical accuracies of each others’ animations. I have rarely been able to engineer such high quality peer-assessment in the past.
The lesson, too, develops those processing skills that Laszlo Bock is looking for in new employees at Google. For example, armed with their understanding of particle motion, pupils must apply creative thinking to making their animations scientifically accurate, but also visually appealing in a limited time-frame. Let’s hope that some of them one day get the opportunity to show him what they have learnt!
Pupils have been watching animations in science lessons for years; educational films use animations to help to explain a model or underlying micro-structure. More recently, web-technology has increased the access to animations, and animations feature on an increasing number of web-pages describing a scientific concept.
A couple of years ago, while teaching a junior physics class about Brownian motion, I showed them a short animation produced by Minute Physics, “Albert Einstein: The Size and Existence of Atoms”. Watching the video certainly helped them to improve their understanding of the concept. This, in itself, wasn’t new to me; after all this was just the latest incarnation of an animation used to show the underlying microstructure that explained the concept. In effect, this is what Einstein, and others before him, were able to imagine when they saw the movement of the tiny particles of pollen or smoke dancing under the microscope.
Pupils as makers
However, I also thought it would be interesting to get my pupils to create an animation to explain the concept. I have tried a variety of ways to create pupil animations, but I think that making stop-motion animations is the best. Although it is a lengthy and painstaking process, pupils really enjoy the tactile experience of moving around particles on the desk to represent the molecules in a gas, and I think it helps them to internalise and really understand the intricacies of the model.
Feedback from students has been excellent; it is clear that they enjoy the lesson, and like working creatively in science lessons. But I was most convinced that this was a worthwhile project when I started to observe some quite spontaneous but really sophisticated peer-review taking place. Pupils were watching each other’s animations as they were being built, and noticing the scientific inaccuracies in the models, as well as praising them for their work.
Recently, I tried a similar exercise with an upper sixth class; this time considering the workings of the internal combustion engine. Again, the results were impressive, as you can see from the short film below.
I was looking around a school recently that has invested a great deal of money into new technology. Our excellent pupil guide was quick to point out all the computers around the place; PCs popped up from desks in the design-technology suite, and Apple Macs connected to musical keyboards lined the room in the music teaching room. At the end of the tour, another parent commented to me about the number of computers on show, but it seemed she was less than impressed. She added “but when do they learn how to write with a pen?”
A sixth form pupil examines the wavelengths of light passed by a plastic gel filter using a spectrometer.
Technology pervades all that we do. Computers are everywhere; there are very few jobs remaining where computer literacy has no importance or relevance. The business of education is, or should be about, preparing pupils for the next stage of their life, so that they are well placed to step into the world with confidence. This should be, on its own, a compelling enough reason to embrace technology in schools; teachers should be allowing pupils to work in the same way that they are going to work in the outside world. Powerful though this argument is, there is, for me, a much more powerful reason to embrace technology in education.
“Powerful though this argument is, there is, for me, a much more powerful reason to embrace technology in education.”
When teachers plan a lesson, they should start with the lesson’s objectives; what is it that they want pupils to be able to do by the end of the lesson that they couldn’t already do at the beginning? Computers are tools like any other; if their use enhances the educational objectives for a lesson, then that provides a compelling reason for their use; if it doesn’t enhance it, then don’t use them. I recently heard of a class in an iPad school where pupils were having discussions about a topic over a ‘facetime’ video call. But the pupils were not holding discussions with pupils in a partner school somewhere across the globe; in fact they were calling other pupils in the same classroom sitting on the other side of the room. This doesn’t offer any enhancements to the objectives for the lesson, it only acts as a distraction from the real business of holding a discussion. (In actual fact, you could go further and argue that it is actually damaging to the pupils). Contrast that lesson to another where pupils were recording each other using iPods as they held a conversation in French that might take place in a shop. The teacher observed that because they were recording the exchanges, the pupils took more time ensuring the grammar was accurate and were not satisfied unless their accents were as clear as they could be. As the objectives for the lesson were for pupils to practise their use of a specific set of vocabulary in context, and to develop their accents, the technology ended up enhancing the lesson dramatically.
In most mobile or tablet device trials in schools, it’s video or audio production that seems to get the most use. This style of working seems to enhance work in all subjects; it can encourage pupils to take pride in their work; it can encourage pupils to use key technical vocabulary accurately in context; it can encourage pupils to work collaboratively, and with a real sense of purpose, avoiding distractions, and it can encourage pupils to work creatively. There is plenty of software that offers advantages that can be tailored to an individual subject (as aptly illustrated by the photograph). However, generic tools such as video editing can have a very profoundly positive effect in a whole range of lessons. I urge you to give it a try.
I am no authority on ‘flipped lesson’, but I wanted to share my first real experience trying out a completely ‘flipped lesson’with a year 10 class. In case you didn’t know, the premise is that in a traditional (maths) classroom, the teacher delivers a lecture to the class, and then for homework they attempt practice questions. In the ‘flipped lesson’, they watch the video lecture for homework, and then attempt practice questions in class, thus giving them more time to ask their questions teachers for help and support.
So, I started by creating a short video lecture on electrical power, the use of fuses, and energy transferred. In their previous lesson, I set the class a homework to watch the video and make notes, pausing it when they needed, and rewinding if necessary. Here is the video lecture they watched:
Click here for a post showing how I made this video lesson.
The lesson consisted of three activities; pupils had to choose which to tackle, and in which order they should approach them. I also told them that I expected everyone to have completed at least two tasks, but that some of them should complete all three. In order to participate, they first had to show evidence that they had made the notes from the video. (One pupil hadn’t done the homework, and so he went off to the computer room to watch the video and make notes first).
I had written on the board:
1. Practical task. This is designed to help your conceptual understanding.
2. Calculation practice. This is designed to help you apply the mathematical formulae.
3. Problem solving task. This will allow you to work creatively. It is probably best for an extension task.
The idea was to give the class responsibility for their own learning; they choose what task to do after having thought about the reason they were going to do it. Most pupils enjoy practical work in science, and the majority did indeed start with the practical task, but a couple opted to do the calculations first. What was interesting was that they were all able to explain to me why they had chosen their particular activity first; they had definitely engaged with the pedagogical reasoning behind the lesson.
The group worked with a real sense of purpose and engagement. What was particularly noticeable was the relatively seamless way they moved from one activity to the next; they didn’t require a motivational speech once in the one hour lesson, as groups often do when you change the activity at the same time for all pupils.
At the end of the lesson, I asked them to complete a short survey, and to offer any other thoughts. I’ve summarised the class responses graphically below:
Figure 1: Post flipped-lesson questionnaire results
The results of this short questionnaire are extremely positive, and show that my pupils appreciated the style and way of working. There are a number in the class who are dyslexic, and find it difficult copying from the board; it was encouraging that one of those pupils commented:
“It is helpful because we have to think about the notes for ourselves from the video rather than just copying down words and diagrams from the board.”
This seemed strange to me at first, because I didn’t think that there was a huge difference between the way I would do this in a lesson. Yet somehow the task seems to have been more engaging for this pupil. Another dyslexic pupil commented:
“I find it easier to write the notes because you are reading what I need to write down.”
I also read aloud what I am writing in class, but because in the flipped lesson he could pause the video, the result is that I was reading at the pace at which he was writing, so the note taking instantly became easier for him. The only negative comment was that:
“I enjoyed it, but sometimes when you can’t ask questions it can be annoying.”
However, it was interesting that this particular pupil agreed that he had more time to ask his teacher for help and support during the lesson. Next time I set a flipped lesson, I will also ask them to write down a list of questions as they come across them. Sometimes you can forget what you were going to ask when you have the opportunity to do so later. Another pupil commented:
“It is efficient because you can revise in your own time and it has more information.”
I’m particularly keen on this point; flipped lessons as a revision aid allow pupils to work at their own pace, and in their own time. My YouTube channel contains a large number of revision videos designed to help pupils to revise by watching a flipped lesson. It is a shame that, for the vast majority, as my channel’s viewing stats show, they revise the day before the exam itself!
Figure 2: Most people revise the day before the exam.
Retrospectively, I should have asked questions that were less leading; for example the first question could have been phrased “Do you think that making notes for homework instead of doing practice questions is a [much better], [better], [no different], [worse], [much worse] way of working”. In my defence I can say that for simplicity’s sake, I wanted the answers to be the same for each question; but perhaps I have led them to believe that the outcome I was looking for was true. Or perhaps it shows that my pupils have been persuaded by me that the flipped lesson has educational merit. Either way, their behaviour and motivation during the lesson itself has certainly shown me that there is a lot to be gained from this approach. It certainly takes time to set up in advance, but I think that time is a worthwhile investment.
I made this flipped video lesson using PowerPoint 2010. Once the slides are made, I added animations to make the text reveal a bit at a time; particularly with examples of calculations I wanted each line of the calculation to reveal a bit at a time, so I could encourage my students to follow the right methodology. To do this, click the animations tab, select the text to be animated, then choose the animation type from the selection. Finally, click effect options, and choose the Sequence > By Paragraph option to make the text reveal a line at a time when you click.
To add the narration and laser pointer, click record slide show from the slideshow tab. You’ll need a microphone connected (I used a Zoom H1 mic; the accessories kit comes with a small desktop tripod). To get the laser pointer effect, hold down CTRL and click with the mouse. I found that I wanted to correct my voiceover occasionally; PowerPoint lets you rerecord the narration for a single slide at a time, but not for a part of a slide. I found it helped to practise the narration once for each slide before recording it. When you’re happy with your slideshow, click File > Save and Send > Create a video. You’ll then need somewhere to host it like YouTube or Vimeo; both offer free accounts.
Digital Education 