Passive Zoomers, Means of Participation, Ratio and that Sweet Spot

This blog is written by guest writer Michelle Smiley, DHT Teaching and Learning at Forest Gate Community School.

As the spectral mass of virtual learning became a certainty during the Christmas holiday, I began to obsess about my office echoing with a singular voice. My voice. I indulged myself in these thoughts. Thinking often about the colourful letters on my screen rarely pulsating with sound. Instead a stagnant silence and me sweating with noisy enthusiasm, trying desperately to fill the void that is the passive zoomer.

I started thinking of all the ways I could encourage my pupils to participate in their learning and I created a table of these different methods. Simultaneously, Thahmina Begum took this a step further in her blog ‘The Golden Ratio :getting our pupils cognitively active.’ This is my reflection on the think and participation ratio and how I have embedded this within the school’s teaching and learning framework on Explicit Direct Instruction (EDI).

The best possible start to your lesson

Getting pupils to engage with a memory starter has been one of the highlights of my lessons since the introduction of DPR poll and becoming more proficient on google forms. I use proficiency lightly. I often forget to add scores, points deducted for their names or I share the editing link, although this has all added to their engagement where they become teachers and I become the learner. But who does not like a quiz and who does not want an easy way to display their knowledge? The stakes are low and it is very easy for me to praise pupils who have completed and call out those who have not engaged. It has also provided me with an opportunity to address misconceptions (pre-planned). However, the thinking is not “deep” enough because it is not asking pupils to process new information and apply it. For example, during the teaching of the AQA poetry cluster, it has enabled me to use the “quiz” questions as a springboard to some deeper analysis. What I have noticed is that participation then reduces drastically and I find myself cold calling those I know will answer. My solution to this has been to frontload my expectations and that all pupils will be expected to justify their answers.

My rank: 1. Google forms 2. DPR Poll 3. Google slides

No sweet spot

Presenting new material

Presenting new material has always been my favourite part of any lesson when I am in the classroom. This is because I will not let ANY pupil hide. I reinforce that their thoughts and voices are important and they should be heard. I try to make the learning environment feel safe by arguing that being “wrong” is not a negative thing. It is when most learning occurs.

So for me, getting this right, was to emulate that learning high I feel in the physical world.

During an English lesson (whether that be English Literature or language) I will always move to the text we are studying next. I have finally worked out how to share a video clip so pupils can hear it. Knowing pupils are listening in the virtual world is important. So I will always set a question alongside the viewing. I do not make the question too taxing as I want them to fully absorb the clip. I normally base the question around mood, tone and atmosphere and simply ask pupils to share a word after. I read the words out and name the pupil and name those that have not shared. This often jolts them into participation but their responses, I think, are often copied. I make a note of their names.

I have found that routine has helped pupils. They know what to expect and this has helped with engagement. They don’t think Miss Smiley is suddenly going to chuck a 2 hour exam at them or (more importantly) talk at them for 100 minutes and expect them to catch up with the work after.

With English literature, context is important as it helps analyse the intention of the writer.

At the start of virtual learning, I shared a laborious slide detailing the context of the poem we were studying. I asked them to insert a context box into their anthologies and take 3 bullet points. This is the epitome of switching off engagement. Is Miss going to check it? If it was me, I would have a lovely 3 minutes stroking my cats.

So I have now started to flip-it using google slides or Jamboard. Now I ask them to tell me what they know about a specific context first and they share their knowledge in front of everybody with me reading it out and praising and addressing misconceptions. Today we studied a poem set during WW1. I had about 75% participation. Most knew at least one piece of information. Our historians blew us away. They were not unmuting themselves,but through me, their voices were being heard. This was preferable to Dr WikiP and I was able to gauge the participation and help pupils develop the “facts” they shared.

So overall, I found that the participation was slightly less than my starter activities, but the think ratio was deeper.

Quote explosions and planning comparisons

For quote explosions, I have mainly been using Jam boards. This has had a similar participation ratio to my context tasks, however, with a higher thinking ratio. Some barriers have been that pupils can’t access jam board so these pupils share their ideas in the chat and I copy and paste onto a post-it with their name on so they can be included. Because of issues with pace, I have been missing out the “we do” part of this task. However, this has been to the detriment of participation.

Finally, one of my most successful strategies has been creating “breakout” slides for pupils where they work in a group. And I share the screen as a grid as Modelled by TB. They work in the same groups everytime and the task starts with putting statements under the correct heading and then moving on to creating their own comparative statements. Pupils compete to be the group whose work is shared and I ensure I give merits. The grid view also allows me to see who is not starting the task and I quickly prompt them to start. By far, this has been a task that has the most participation and thinking ratio and very nearly hits that “sweet spot”!

My rank: 1. Google slides grid view groups 2. Google slides grid view individual 3. Jamboards

Shed Loads Of Practise and the best possible end to your lesson

I am grouping the final two stages together simply because on reflection, my pace is still questionable. In order to ensure that pupils have time to submit during the lesson, my ending has been sacrificed somewhat.

At FGCS, the English department reinforce the need for extended writing from the start of year 7. At least 25 minutes is dedicated to this each lesson. In my opinion, it is the grand masterpiece. The Mona Lisa. This is not to undermine the value of oracy, listening and reading within our curriculum.

Engagement for this task has been between 97-100%. I sometimes still insist on pupils writing in their books so they do not lose their writing stamina and sometimes I insist on google docs so I can give live feedback and praise pupils. It then provides me with an opportunity to model excellent pupil work.

Additionally, this is also where pupils respond to an exam style question so their thinking ratio is as deep as the challenge and is probably only out performed by challenging feedback. So I would rate this part of my lesson as meeting that sweet point. What this proves is that pupils like consistency because they like knowing what to expect. They are not trying to beat the teacher at a quiz or deciding which colour post-it note to use on a jam board. It is just simply them and the keyboard/pen. It is 4 and a half years of consistency from all the teachers in our department.

Finally, the end of my lesson. Merits. For the last five minutes I display Behaviour Watch (our way of tracking rewards and sanctions) and go straight to the merits section. As soon as a student uploads their work, I have a sneaky peak (in case it is a blank slide) and I add their name to the merits list and also vocalise this as well. What then happens is that I get a flurry of messages. “I’ve uploaded mine Miss”. “Miss check mine!” And this is with year 11s!

However, I would love to build in time to do a review quiz to check their overall understanding of the poem we have just studied rather than the two quotations they may use in their response.

My rank: I do not have a rank for this. It is about pupil choice.

References

Begum, T. (2021) The Golden Ratio: Getting our pupils cognitively active ‘https://tbeeblogs.wordpress.com/2021/01/16/the-golden-ratio-getting-your-pupils-cognitively-active/amp/?__twitter_impression=true&s=09’, accessed 28th January 2021.

Jesnick, M (2021), Ratio, Pause Points and being trained by Doug Lemov, https://markmywords1989.wordpress.com/?blogsub=confirming#subscribe-blog, accessed 28th January 2021