Inquiry 2022 - Know your students - Ethnicity

 My inquiry this year will focus on my two senior classes> Year 11 and Year 13 DVC.

Working with Sites, Workspaces and Calendars

 This video is a brief explanation of how I am working with a combination of Google Sites, Hapara Workspaces and Google Calendars with my students. It is using a lot of hybrid teaching styles so they are available both while we are face to face with a "synchronous" learning situation and when the students can't be face to face (either in person or online) in an "asynchronous" learning situation.

The example shown here is focussing on my Year 11s.

Here is the link to the class site 

Here is a link to where the workspace is embedded into the class site so it is viewable and there is a button there so the students can get straight onto their own Workspace dashboard.

Lockdown Drawing and Giving Feedback

 We are onto the drawing stage with my Y11 and Y12 classes now. Even though we are on lockdown, the show must go on. 

I have written a few blog posts about setting this up

• Setting Up for Teaching Drawing Online
• Using Lego for Cross Sectional Visual Aids

The school has sent out sketch books, pencils and coloured pencils, So I know that the students have some basics that we can be. using to move on with.

Yesterday and today, I have had a few students through my Year 12 class, who are all working on slightly different projects so I have been drawing with them individually or in small groups, targeting their specific project ideas. 

I have been uploading my examples that I do with them online into a folder so that they have access to them and can get a better close up view rather than just seeing them on a Google Meet. Link to folder here.

When it comes to feedback, it proved to be difficult for me to see their work clearly enough when they held it up to the camera during a meet. To overcome this, the students have been photographing their work and sending it to me so I can give them more detailed feedback as I can see it clearly.

I then used my camera set up to record me drawing for them so I can give them ideas on how to improve their work. This is what I would do if we were in the class. I would sit next to them and draw on a different piece of paper and give them ideas for improvement.

I have shared this with them on a Google presentation with some notes. My initial idea was to share a Google Drawing with them so I could annotate their photograph (Google Drawing is always my first thought!!). This was not a good option, however, as you can not embed a video directly onto a drawing (please sort this out Google!). I decided to go with a Google Presentation for feedback and have decided that this is a better option anyway as I can embed videos, give annotated feedback and we are able to keep the same presentation for all drawing feedback as we do it.

Here are two examples of feedback given today. I have shared these with the individual students. 

Lockdown Cooking with Y9's

 I have been teaching a y9 food class this year. With the help of the fabulous Mrs Heka, TIC Food Technology, I have been having fun in the kitchen with 3 lots of Year 9 classes over the year. With being on lockdown at the moment, I met my new Year 9 class rotation while we are all at home. I have been sending them theory work to do, kitchen hygiene, safety etc and then I saw that the wonderful Mrs Heka and Mrs Hamer were doing practical lessons with their Y7 - Y10 classes. I then felt sorry for my class that I wasn't giving them that option to have a go if they were able to.

Link to the Food Tech section on my class site

With the support of Mrs Heka, I have had the confidence to try doing practical from home with the Y9 class for the last two weeks. Last week we made pasta from scratch and a nice sauce to have with it. I had one student come on with his Mum. They were all ready to go with the ingredients. I had sent the class the ingredient list a week in advance. There was another two students in the meet, but they were spectating, cheer leading. 

This week, the topic was hot cakes. I had two spectators this week. The student who was planning on coming to cook was unable to make it. I decided to do the practical anyway as I had two students in watching and I recorded it. My chef from last week can then access the video if he wants to have a go. 

Questions about Inquiry during Lockdown

• How another lockdown period may impact the learners in your focus group?
• Will you need to make any changes to your Inquiry?
• How might your intervention look different if you continue through this period?
• Do any of your intervention plans work via distance learning?
• Is there any information about implementation of your changed practices/intervention you could collect during this time?

This lockdown has definitely affected my learners. It feels so different this time. I am not seeing many of them come online for our scheduled meets.

I am working with the students who come online to complete the work that was started before the lockdown started, in terms of documents in their drive. I had already started making help videos to go with all of this online work so this effort has been stepped up to try and help the students in between seeing me on meets and to try and help those students who I am not seeing. I am not sure many of those students who I am not seeing are doing the work though, as their documents are not changing when I check them, I can only help where I can though, so I have been trying to convince myself to stop stressing over things I have no control over.

Example of where I have been making support videos - this has definitely expanded beyond my original inquiry group of Y11 and Y12 students.

• Year 7 Algorithms
• Year 7 Flowcharts
• Year 8 3D Design
• Year 8 Types of Clock
• Year 11 Materials Research
• Year 12 design brief

What I have also been looking at is how my Y11 and Y12 students can pick up extra credits for the work they are managing to complete. There are Generic Technology standards at NCEA 1 and 2 that are about writing a design brief. For my Year 12 students, this was quite a smooth one to slide into as they had done most of what they needed for the standards they were already entered into, so it was just a case of some specially targeted extras to make everything line up. Link to work here. I added this on the end of what they had already completed for their design brief. Two of my students have taken me up on this and have completed this extra work and have got the 4 extra credits as of writing this blog post. With my Y11 class, they had done a very basic design brief so this would mean a fair chunk of extra work to bulk it out for the new standard. I offered it to them and one of them has said yes so far, which is great. I am adding their extra support here. I have only just started this with them, so all the work is not there yet.

The multi modal structure that I was trying to build in this year has become especially important as trying to explain things to the students over a Google Meet is not always the easiest way to learn something new.

An example of this is with my Year 12 group who have to move on and learn about cross sectional drawing as part of their design development work. I had set myself up to be able to draw online with them and organised with Mr Dunn to have some drawing equipment sent out to their homes. - blog post here.  I have also had to come up with different ways for them to visualise what a cross section would look like. Working with Lego was one way - blog post here and putting together a multi model page on the class site is anther way - link to page on class site here. This gives them hands on examples that they can manipulate and move around, questions to answer and get instant feedback, video to watch and information to read. 

The great thing about all of this preparation work that I have been doing during this lockdown time is that non of it is wasted. It is all good stuff to be available to the students at any time. It has also cemented in my head how important my class site is as the place to go for everything so it needs to be as supportive as I can make it. Using the site in tandem with shared evidence spreadsheets and calendars has been my main structure.

Multimodal set up for Year 8 3D Design on Tinkercad

 Tinkercad is awesome at any time but during lockdown it is great. My students can do 3D design from home and they are supported by the lessons that Tinkercad make, taking you step by step through individual skills. What is also really useful is the "class" that you can set up. This makes it super easy to see the work the students are doing without them having to share it with you.

I have tried to set up my class site with step by steps and videos to help them with skills to go along with the Tinkercad ones, They can then see the steps being done on video. My Y8 group have just started learning the skills so I have been working through tasks with them as well as making them videos that they can watch in their own time. I have tried to keep my videos nice and short and to the point so they are targeted to specific tasks and skills.

Link to page on class site

Great blog post from Deborah, explaining one of her Tinkercad lessons.

Using Lego for Cross Sectional Visual Aids

Some of my Year 12 class are ready to continue with their design work. We are onto design development and they need to include details like cross sectional views. When we are on site, I get the students to make shapes in 3D with plasticine to cut in half, so they have a visual understanding of where the cut surfaces are so they can draw them on paper.

I have set up my drawing area for online teaching, Blog post here, but I needed to find a way of explaining cross sectional. views in 3D for them.

I made some blocks out of Lego. One was a solid cube, one was a solid cube made in two sections and one was a hollow cube in two sections. I made them all the same size so i could relate them back to the original one that is not cut in two.

Here is a brief section from the lesson today. It was great to hear the students drawing and then showing me their drawings on the camera so we could see that everything was being undserstood.

Lego Algorithms

 My Year 7 coding class are learning what algorithms are. As we are on lockdown at the moment, I am thinking of things they can get stuck into at home.

As I am busy building Lego at the moment, following the instructions, I thought we could have a go at making our own Lego instructions for someone else to follow.

Here is where the work is set up on my class site.

They can choose what ever they like to build and break it down into what steps are needed to get it across clearly to someone else.

I have included a video for them so they can use remove.bg to get rid of the backgrounds in the photographs of their lego pieces.

Here is my example step by step to make yellow boy.

Setting Up for Teaching Drawing Online

 We have been on lockdown for getting on for 5 weeks now and my students need to get on with their drawing work. We have done loads of work that can be done online on Google docs etc but it is time for a few of them to move on. 

I had a chat with a couple of them last week about getting some drawing done in the next week and they are keen so it was time to get my set up sorted out.

On my desk I have arranged it so that I can draw live on a Google Meet with the students and also record my drawings for them to try in their own time.

I know being able to draw with the students next week will make me feel so much better.

Using Wordwall for Learning New Words

Today, Mr Cunard in our PE department played a game with use using the flip grip option on Wordwall. He then shared the link to the website. When I checked it out I found there was a load of options and templates to choose from.

I decided to try the Match Up template to have a go at a word game for my Y7 and Y8 coding classes.

It was easy to put the words and definitions.

You can send the link to students via their email, so they can play the game in a browser window or you can grab the embed code and put it onto your class website, which is what I've had a go at here.

I made a video to explain.

Prepping to Learn about Algorithms

 My two new intermediate coding classes have got to learn what an algorithm is. They have to know and show what this is both in a non digital and digital way.

Link to algorithms page on class site

I have started with them finding three things that they know about and breaking them down into input, algorithm, output. I have made an example for them to look at and made an explanation video for them to watch after the lesson to remind themselves what to do. I also found a good explanation video on YouTube.

The second activity on this page is to be done in their own time while we are in lockdown. They have to write instructions for someone else to follow. They then have to analyse how it went and write up any changes they would make to improve their instruction (debugging).

I have written these activities to line up with the tracking document linked to the Progress Outcomes. Blog post here about this tracking sheet These activities are linked directly to Progress Outcome 1.

At the top of the site page, I have included some extra reading for the students and extra activities for them to try.

Online / Distance Learning - Graphics with the Intermediates

 We are on lockdown at the moment, and our classes with our intermediate students are still going ahead.

My Year 8 graphics class are making a start on the clock design project. I have been working on elements in my class site for them so what is on there is more useful and supportive.

They have been coming online for our weekly lessons, so I have been making support material to help them continue when they are not with me or they need reminding about what I have just shown them. This hopefully will help the students who are unable to come online too but it will definitely help when we are all back at school as they will all be at different places in the project.

Over the last two weeks, we have been working on -

• Types of clock
• Design Brief
• Reference images

The links go to where the work is on the class site. There is instructions, templates, examples and explanation screencast videos.

Link to whole project - as of writing, the support materials have only been added to the above sections.

We are not connected as a class via the Hapara teacher dashboard, so we keep a class shared spreadsheet. This is also useful as I can put the links to everything there for them in one place so they can get to their work and support material quickly and easily.

This is the same spreadsheet from the start of todays' class to the end showing the difference in how much work they have done.

Here are a few blog posts from this work

Jasmine

Militina

Useful Online Design Tools

 Here are some useful online design tools that I keep on my class site for quick access.

Link to page on class site