Crafting Lessons
A question often asked, is how do we transition from traditional ways of learning and shift the responsibility of learning to the students. How do we make students less passive and more active? This page attempts to map the traditional ways of learning to some new possibilities.
Teacher-centred Ways
Student-centred ways
Teacher lectures & students listen for the whole lesson
Teacher reads a Powerpoint presentation for the whole lesson
Reading from a textbook
Make short instructional videos or voice notes for key concepts or explanations, no longer than 5 mins for each. Get students to look up or listen to the information they need and use it to create something new for an essay, a book, a movie, an animated GIF, a spider diagram, a presentation, a poster, a website, a wall, or a blog.
Handing out photocopied worksheets with questions and answers or other matching activities
Recreate and deconstruct the worksheet into a digital format - consider using Quizlet, Kahoot, Quizzes, Socrative, Learning Apps
Answering questions in a textbook
Consider recreating questions in quiz tools. E.g. Socrative, Quizziz, Kahoot, Quizlet, Microsoft Forms, EdPuzzle
Completing tests on pdf handouts
Test documents need to be recreated for use in an online platform. This is not a waste of time, as these quizzes can be reused with other classes, for differentiated learners or in subsequent years. For me the best quiz platform to conduct tests in for a traditional test or exam is Socrative. However, beware, you will need to restructure questions into a multiple choice format. Students will find it harder to communicate on phones at home in search of answers, as each question can be scrambled and the answers to each question can be scrambled too. If you choose to teacher-pace the quiz, you can manually set a time limit for each question before you allow students to answer the next question. You can also allow students to visit the question only once.
For any other kind of longer problem-solving such as that found in Maths, Science or Computer Science, I prefer my students to be tested in an open-book examination kind of situation. I try to embed these tasks in a project that is evidenced in stages. Each stage needs teacher feedback to ensure that it is the students' own work and is propelled forward in the right direction. ePortfolios are very useful in this regard as they document the process of reflective thinking, the feedback cycles, and moving forward.
An example lesson recrafted
From a content heavy and rather dull chapter on computer devices with lists
...to this, where students need to create content to clarify their understanding, reorganise, classify, apply, and evaluate.
Which method would engage most of the students first, and which method lends itself to differentiation?
This topic is an examination topic found in many syllabi around the world. Learning a list of devices already classified does not allow learners to think through the reasons. Getting to a deeper understanding of the different data types that flow through these devices and the directions in which they flow supports the learner in the long run.
Input Output Devices.pdf
Which method would students remember the content of the most?
The chapter they read on the right or the book they wrote complete with animations and spider diagrams?
Lesson 1 LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
* Learn the names of components in a computer system
* Describe the function of components in a computer system
* Recognise different data types
* Understand that input and output devices have data that flow in certain directions
* Create a book for a particular audience which uses layout, colour, font type, style, and size in a consistent way.
TASK: You will author a book called How Does a Computer Work? Your audience: Year 5 students will read your book. You can choose to make the book with paper and pen, OR in Book Creator OR in a website.
How Does a Computer Work_.pdfLESSON 2 LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
* Learn how to sequence image and text data to create an animation
* Understand speed and frame rates
* Apply knowledge of a computer's internal components and create an animated GIF.
* Collaborate in a team using Microsoft Teams and Keynote
* Be able to export file as an animated GIF
* Be able to share the animated GIF to Showbie and evaluate each others' work.
TASK: In groups, you will create an animated GIF to show how the CPU, RAM and SSD connect to the motherboard. Share the group's Animated GIF to Class Discussion. Each person needs to insert the animated motherboard GIF into Chapter Two: Brains, Memory, Storage and share your personally completed book with me in Showbie.
LESSON 3 LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
* Reinforce understanding of data flow
* Group devices and components into Input / Output or both.
* Collaborate in a team using Popplet
* Be able to export the spider diagram as a JPEG
* Be able to share the jpeg to Showbie and evaluate each others' work.
TASK: In groups, you will create a spider diagram to show how data flows between the motherboard and all devices and internal components. Colour-code the Input devices, Output devices and those which are both. Share the group's spider diagram to Class Discussion. Each person needs to insert the spider diagram into Chapter Three: The Big Picture and share your personally completed book in Showbie.
