Reading - Information Transfer in Y9 Food Tech

 As part of an ongoing focus on reading, our literacy specialist, Marc, has been coming to our department meetings. He has been taking us though information transfer and how we could possibly use it in our lessons. He showed us a couple of examples and asked us to try it with a piece of reading that the students have to do in our own subject areas.

I decided to have a try with it with my Year 9 Food Tech class. They need to read and understand recipes in the kitchen and they have not been very successful with that up to now.

This is the doc that I prepared for them. I took the method straight off the recipe on the class site and included a grid where they needed to look for command words, doing words and how well those things had to be done and equipment that needed to be used.

Chocolate Muffins

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C.

2. Line 12 muffin cups with paper muffin liners.

3. Combine flour, sugar, 3/4 cup chocolate chips, cocoa powder, and baking soda in a large bowl.

4. Whisk yogurt, milk, oil, egg, and vanilla in a separate bowl until smooth. 

5. Pour yogurt mixture into the chocolate mixture and stir until the batter is just blended.
   Fill prepared muffin cups 3/4 full and sprinkle with remaining 1/4 cup chocolate chips.

6. Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 20 minutes.

7. Cool in the pans for 10 minutes before removing to cool completely on a wire rack.

Command words (imperatives)	Doing words (degree of doing)	Equipment
	Stir until the batter is blended
		Large bowl
Pour

On advise from Marc, I included one example in each column as a guide as to what to put. We also did it kind of "as a team". I had a copy up on the screen and I was taking examples from the kids as they found the command words and was filling mine with their suggestions for them to see. With the middle column, which was the harder one, we did it one bullet point at a time. I said which one we were all looking at and they told me what doing word they found and what the degree of doing was. 

I didn't mind doing this activity as more of a team thing today as it was our first time through doing this kind of recipe analysis and reading.

Here are copies of 3 of the students work today.

1. Student 1
2. Student 2
3. Student 3

Using Social Media - Student Voice and Feedback

 I have been trying Social Media as a method of engaging the students with the work for about a term now and need some student feedback as to how they think it is going. I decided not to send them a Google form as that takes too much nagging to get them to do it, so I have just been talking to them face to face and asking them questions in person.

The links to each of them are on the front of my class site - link here

Student Feedback

Student 1 - Y13

She has followed the TikTok account and is asking me if I have done any new ones. She watched the latest one about rendering. She is one of the students who helped me learn how to do the basics on TikTok so she was quite keen to see how I did with it.

Student 2 - Y13

Not very good at reading his emails so does not get the notifications about new videos being up. He hasn't really engaged with the content because of this. 

Student 3 - Y13

She has watched the videos on TikTok. (especially the cookies one ... they all love the cookie recipe !!). She seems to use a "just in time" method with her watching. When she needed to know something about 3D, she went specifically to that video to watch it and when she wanted to know about rendering, she went to that one. 

Student 4 - Y13

Her attendance has not been great so this is exactly the kind of student I was hoping to help with the trial, but she does not open her emails so knew nothing about it.

Student 5 - Y12 (not taught by me)

He watched the video the first time I sent them round but has not engaged with them since then. He is the type of student who does read his emails but he has not watched any more of the videos. He is unsure if this is to do with him not being taught by me but it is me that is sending the links through.

Student 6 - Y11

Watched the first ones and found one of them useful - the perspective one. Saw the emails for the latest ones but did not look at the videos they were busy and "forgot". They don't use either TikTok or Instagram so can not give an opinion as to whether they are useful on there. They watch on YouTube when they do watch.

Student - 7 - Y11

Has not seen any of them as he does not look at emails that are past the top. He has watched the one I sent last week. He thinks that adding spoken instructions would be more helpful. Watched it on TikTok last week.

Student 8 - Y11

Does not check his emails. If he did watch them, they would watch them on TikTok.

Student 9 - Y13

Does not read her emails.

Thoughts :-

• The HUGE stumbling block with this plan is relying on the emails to notify the students that a new video has been uploaded. How do I get them to follow on one of the three social media that I have been putting the videos on?
• Should I put posters up in the room with the social media logos and the handle of the account? This would only work if they are in the room but at least it isn't relying on them opening their emails!!
• Links directly to the videos on the class site and the workspace as I at least know they are going there. (I tried this with the Y9 food class - class site example here)
• QR codes posted up on the wall - made into stickers etc.

Using Workspaces

 The school has been using Hapara workspaces for a few years now. Our DP in charge of curriculum has been pushing for all staff to have the work for the students to complete on a workspace so there is a consistent approach. Also, when you make the workspace public, you can embed it onto your class website so the planning and set work can be seen publicly.

To be completely honest, I was not the fastest convert to working this way. I already had all my work on my class site where my students made copies of the docs and I kept track via a spreadsheet. I made the workspaces as I had been asked to, put them on my site with some work on them, but didn't really engage after that. Bit of a "box tick", compliance thing.

Since going in and out of lockdowns over the last two and a half years and the students not having a lot of consistency, I decided to give it a better try. 

I am a definite convert now. As I already had all the resources on my class site, it did not take a lot of time to set up the cards on the workspaces for all the activities. Yes, it is putting the same stuff in two different places but this has proved to be a positive thing as it gives the students the ability to start the work from where ever they are accessing it. Blog post here.

I got some students voice last year about how they liked to be presented with the work. A lot of the things that I do came out - like making examples and making step. by steps / how to's - blog post here, so I wanted to make sure the students still had access to these things if the only place they were going to for the work when not in the classroom was the workspace. I have been putting my examples and step by step documents and how to videos all on the workspaces so they are easy to find. There is also a link to where everything is on the class site so they can see it there too. 

Another thing that I wanted to try this year was to use workspaces as the evidence "dump" for the drawn work that the students produce as well as the written work. I have only just started trying this, but it is going ok so I will be continuing this next year. The Year 13 student who has been trying this out for me has been taking here own pictures of the work so it hasn't created extra work for me really. I wrote a blog post about this thinking earlier this year.

Here are links to some of my workspaces embedded on my class site.

• Year 9 Food Tech
• Y11 DVC - Architect Information
• Y11 DVC Design Brief
• Y13 DVC Initiate Design Ideas - This was my first attempts at getting the students to put their drawn work on a workspace.
• Y13 DVC Product Design - This one includes blank templates to add design concepts that the students have drawn and photographed.

Here are a couple of examples of one students design and concepts and concept developments that they put onto the workspace (I have made copies of them so their names do not appear as the owner)

• Concepts
• Concept Development

This has definitely made it easier to have all of the work referenced in one place. This is really useful for marking and moderating. The original drawings will still need to be posted to Wellington for external marking. I actually agree with them seeing the originals to be honest as it is difficult to get a consistently clear image from scanning or photographing and you don't want to risk any details being lost.

I am a definite convert to this, but I still have to make my workspaces look pretty!!! - Blog post here