Remote learning

I always thought of myself as someone, who was quite up-to-date with Tech but remote learning has shown me just how much I still have to learn.

My school have chosen to use Microsoft Teams and I feel I now have basic knowledge of this. The next step is to look for quick wins and things to make lessons run smoothly.

At the start of my lessons, I type a question in the chat box along with 3 or more answers. I then ask students to respond with an emoji. This gives me time to let everyone in from the lobby and remind myself to press record and download the register. 

I use the chat box to check how much of the previous lesson students have completed or understood. I also show numbered pictures or numbered sentences, I say the German/English and the students type the matching number. This works well for translation too and I can see student comments in the chat box and give instant feedback.

Thanks to the amazing people on Twitter, who have been constantly sharing their tips, I learnt that typing @forms into the chat box means I can easily set up a poll. This is very useful at the end of the lesson to gauge understanding or to vote on the topics of the following lesson. 

 

I am using OneNote a lot in lessons. I really like having one place for students to submit work and I can easily check through what they've done and give feedback.

To avoid students having to navigate different sources to complete work, I can screenshot Kerboodle texts or copy and paste my PowerPoint slides straight into OneNote for students to access. 

As with other Microsoft products, you can use the dictate tool and set the language. This cuts down on typing and allows me to give feedback quicker. I have also been experimenting with verbal feedback using the insert audio function. 

It's great that I can set up my lesson in the teacher only area and then copy the pages to all the classes that need it. I then just need to set up the assignment on Teams and add the Class Notebook as a resource.

Retrieval practice

I'm currently reading Tom Sherrington's book about Rosenshine's Principles in action, which talks about reviewing previously learnt material at the start of the lesson. As a languages teacher, it's vital that I constantly revisit vocabulary and grammar with my students to ensure they don't lose old knowledge when new knowledge is learnt. I've started creating a bank of retrieval style task that I use alongside "Recapping questions".
There are lots of retrieval tasks being shared on Twitter and mine are modelled on those.

I like the tasks that allow students to choose their own level of challenge and this style of task has proved popular with my students.

I also like the collection grid "Give me 5" task, which focuses on knowledge retrieval and is great to use as a starter or plenary.

Translation has been a big focus in my lessons this term and enjoy using something like Wordcloud to create topic vocabulary pictures that students can either use to create sentences or find the translations hidden in the picture.

Starters

Here are some tasks I designed based on ideas I saw on Twitter. Quite often, I see great resources that are sadly not in German so often have to create them from scratch, sometime I can simply translate someone else's great resource.

Ping pong translation. This is from the fabulous Gianfranco Conti.
Students work in pairs with each having a different version of the sheet. Student A reads out the TL text and student B has to translate it. They then continue until they've read the whole sheet. Sometimes I put a timer on and the student who completes the most in that time, wins.

Speaking swap shop.
This idea was taken from Twitter. Give students a starting sentence and ask them to develop it as much as they can. The challenge is to add in extra elements.

Vocabulary recall.
Students are given key words to translate. The challenge is to then use them in a sentence and extend the sentence.
I also challenge students to come up with their own key words and test each other.

Pirahnagrama.
This idea was taken from the amazing Gianfranco Conti. I do this activity as a group task and put a timer on to keep control of the pace.

#FHSTM

mY first Teachmeet

On the evening of Monday 29th June, over 60 people gathered together and gave up their time to support my first ever Teachmeet @FHSBristol. 

The attendees included Primary & Secondary teachers, support staff, Senior Leaders and Governors. The aim of the event was to share best practice and demonstrate ideas and activities which could be used in the classroom. Also present, were representatives from @Matific (Bruce Seymour), Into Film (@rico_intofilm) and the Watershed (Hannah Brady) all of whom were very keen to share how their products can help to enthuse students in the classroom.

The evening started with a welcome speech from our Principal, Ms Catriona Mangham. This was followed by our key note speaker, @Crista Hazell (Severn Vale School) who shared with us her fabulous ideas on creativity in the classroom. 

 We were then treated to a lot of fantastic presentations, some of which included audience participation. I @SJBarnes81 demonstrated websites and apps that can be used as an alternative to PowerPoint presentations including, Powtoon (an online presentation website), Kahoot (an interactive quiz where students respond using mobile phones or tablet devices), Quizlet (an online site that allows teachers/students to create quizzes to practice key subject vocabulary) and also GoNoodle (a fun brain break website). We were also taken back in time to the 1980s with our “Superman” dance.

Cameron Parker @CamParkerHUD (Elite Motivator) gave a motivational speech, Candida Gould @candidagould (Cotham School) spoke about taking control of your CPD (slides here) and Hayley Yelland @Miss_Yelland (Fairfield High School) explained how to ensure successful collaborative learning. 

Jasmine Williams @Miss_JFWilliams (Hansprice School) demonstrated her marking and feedback policy and Rose Hooke @MissHooke (Fairfield High School) clarified the difference between “English” and “Literacy” and demonstrated how we can ensure Literacy is used successfully across the curriculum.

Ben Davey @el_davooo (Bridge Learning campus) told us about his Challenge board and Tower of Power and Said Benchama @SaidBenchama (Bristol Met) spoke about using Bloom’s Taxonomy in lessons to encourage students to progress and challenge themselves. 

Keziah Featherstone @BLC_Head34 (Headteacher at Bridge Learning Campus) delivered the closing speech on the theme of @WomenEd which encourages Females to put themselves forward for leadership roles. She also asked us to save the date of a special Women Ed event on 3^rd October 2015.

The twitter feed for #FHSTM can be viewed here #FHSTM

There is also a dropbox folder with the presentations. Please add your presentation from the evening, if it's not in the folder.

Everyone went away at the end of the evening very happy, enthused and laden with goodie bag. Some lucky attendees also took home a raffle prize including a T-shirt from either Quizlet or Kahoot, a £25 iTunes voucher from Matific and a Teacher subscription to Biteslide. Fairfield’s very own Mrs Lamming was the luck winner of the tips2teaching.co.uk classroom resources. I’d like to thank everyone who presented, attended, sponsored and supported the Teachmeet. Let it be the start of many more to come.

Sharon Barnes @SJBarnes81

Grammar Gate

I often find that despite numerous hours spent teaching grammar that students still muddle up their tenses and produce very interesting word order in their sentences which seem to combine the rules to all 3 tenses.

I decided to create something that would allow them to have all the key information in one place but that wasn't a worksheet that they'd put into their folder and forget about.

The result was a "Grammar gate" It's a flap book style resource that allows students to see the basic rules for the past, present and future tense.

This is our first version and so far, it's working very well. I tried it with Year 11 who loved it and it's made teaching tenses to Year 10 much easier.

Marking in MFL

Trying to find a system that involves students reflecting on their learning with minimum impact from the teacher can be tricky to do. I teach 16 classes across 4 subjects and I often find myself trying to climb a constant marking mountain. 
I've read lots of blog posts on triple marking and DIRT time which I think are fantastic but I feel that they don't always lend themselves to MFL. In Citizenship, it seems easier to ask students questions which encourage reflection and answer development and I've had great feedback on my marking but in MFL it's a different story.

I developed a marking code for the department (based on a resource from a fellow #mfltwitterati teacher) which allows us to use symbols to show students what needs to be changed/improved. We use this alongside stickers that contain the next steps.

This was working well, or at least I thought, until a book scrutiny was done and it was felt that compared to other departments, MFL wasn't encouraging enough student reflection 
I decided to come up with a system that used the target language and would be quick and easier to do.

After completing a piece of work, I ask the students 2 questions "Was it easy/okay/difficult?" "Why?"
I do this in the target language and after asking it a couple of times, I shorten it to a code.

French- C'était facile/ bon/ difficile? Pourquoi? (Shortened to C'était f/b/d?)
German- War es einfach/okay/schwierig? Warum? (Shortened to War es e/o/s?)
Spanish- ¿Fue fácil/vale/difícil? ¿Por qué? (Shortened to ¿Fue f/v/d?)

Students are now able to reflect on their work at the end of the lesson by using this system.
The lower years respond in English but I am working with year 9 and KS4 to encourage a response in the TL.

I now have a clearer picture of who is finding the work hard and who needs more challenge. 

This is very much work in progress and is the 2nd year I have used it. I have had good feedback from lesson observations and book scrutiny since introducing it. 

Using Vokis

Use Voki's as a different way to do a listening task or just to grab attention at the start of the lesson.

Here's one I made.

Apps for the classroom

I've been experimenting with apps in order to try and use mobiles in a positive way. We all know that most students have mobiles which they mainly use for snapchat and Instagram. If they're bringing them into school then why not try and incorporate them into your lesson in an engaging way.

Of course there are students who don't have mobiles but I've not yet met a class where there wasn't enough mobiles for one between two.

Edmodo

also available online at www.edmodo.com

Edmodo is a place to connect with your students and even set up links outside the classroom.

It's great for the flipped classroom as students can view material before the lesson and even be set tasks to complete.

I also use it to allow students to review lesson material and for absent students to catch up.

There is a function to set up polls and quizzes which my students enjoy.

All material is secure as you need to create the group and then give the access code to your students . The code has a limited validity and may need to be reset for any students who are late joining the group. 

There is also a great network of teachers on Edmodo who share resources and advice with each other. You need to request access to the groups by selecting a group and then choosing "join". 

Kahoot

On the PC/Interactive board, Teachers need to go to create.kahoot.it and create an account. You can then either choose a pre-made game or create your own.

When you are ready, select play. A random pin will be generated for your students.

Students need to either download the kahoot app or open their web browsers on their mobiles or tablets and type in kahoot.it

They will then be asked to enter the pin which is shown on the teacher's screen. 

They will need to enter a username so you can keep track of who is winning.

Students will be shown the questions on the interactive board and they need to answer by using their kahoot keypad on their phones or tablets. 

After each question has been answered, the results are shown on the board, followed by the leader board so that students can track their progress.

Tellagami

This is great for creating short animated video clips. I play them to students and ask them to come up with responses.

I've also used them as a listening exercise with students noting down key words or phrases.

You can also get students to make their own videos. Perfect for building up confidence before speaking exams.

Memrise.

Also available on the web;  www.memrise.com

Students need to create an account and then select a language course. They are shown a word or phrase as well as a picture. The picture links to the word/phrase and should help students to remember the vocabulary. Students are able to choose from a variety of pictures or even add their own.

For every word/phrase they guess correctly, they earn points. Their score is shown on a leaderboard. Students can follow each others' progress.