The joy of pre teaching with Google Drawings and Read and Write by Texthelp

I remember my first EAL student many years ago. We gave him a a dictionary of English to his birth language that he dutifully carried to every lesson. I never once saw him use it. I remember thinking he is doing really well following all this without his dictionary. Then it came to assessments and it was clear he wasn't. He was embarrassed to use his dictionary. That experience has stuck with me for the past 10 years. Even now for exam access we can ask for a dictionary to be taken in. The time it would take to flick through a dictionary to look up every word we were stuck on, is it fair? Should we do more? I speak fairly OK Spanish. If the exam was in Spanish I would need to look up so many words, I wouldn't have time to answer the questions! Does our exam system reflect the society we live in? Is it fair and accessible for all? Are our solutions of additional support purposeful and timely? As educators we need to make accessibility solutions relevant and timely for all our learners.

Comic strip templates (which I make in Google Drawings) are my go to initial solution for pre teaching. 

Not for everyone but it's always my first attempt. I might do one on the sequencing of the skills needed for the next lesson. Nothing new in content just pointing out skills we have previously covered that need to be fresh ready for the next lesson. I might do one on what we are going to do next lesson from start to finish and ask the learner to fill in a blank one on what skills they would need for this lesson. I might to a visual timetable one with days/times on as to when I would look at key points in the week ready for the lesson. In this example I talk through the episodes of the lesson. For my adults my template has moved from a comic strip to a flow chart. I have found this approach help my learners with EAL, ADHD and autism. With my adults I have also found it useful to help them practise retrieval in a busy house whilst juggling parenting and working. It has become the norm for me to share with all my learners a flow chart (in Google Drawings, downloaded as a pdf) of the pre teaching for the next lesson. No one has to use it but no one is singled out. It is a purposeful and timely support to help my learners.

I know teachers who have done this for years. One teacher ends a lesson with an exit ticket and on the back is a list of topics to look over ready for next week. But this is the very minimum of pre teaching. I have a shopping list when I go shopping. It doesn't mean I use it. A list is a starting point. Pre teaching is about what you need to access the lesson. My flow charts are hyperlinked to tasks, resources, videos. I provide the list and the material so that when the lesson happens it feels like retrieval followed my a deeper learning experience. This normal way for me could become the new normal for many in a blended learning approach. 

Here is an example for the one I sent prior to the comic book one above, this is the pre teaching for the angles in polygons lesson. Each section has a hyperlink to a task or resource.

Yet I am not an expert in SEND. Nor do I get it right. I very much get it wrong. Last year I set a mock exam and my top learner in class achieved the lowest result. I asked him why. He had no answers. I was devastated that something was holding him back but I couldn't get to why. In class the next week we did probability. I asked "what is the probability of getting a jack when you pick from a deck of cards?" This is a standard opener for me in probability. Learners can visualise there are 4 suits and therefore 4 Jack's and form a fraction out of 52. We then move on to simplifying fractions. Standard. Normal lesson. My top achiever with the poor mock result looked bewildered. I went over once we moved on and the tasks begun. He explained that he didn't know what a deck of cards was. Right there in that moment I questioned my ability as a teacher. I had failed him.

The reason my learner struggled in his mock exam is because English isn't his first, second or even third language. He couldn't read the exam. I knew he was an EAL student and had given him a dictionary but we don't have any in his first language, I had to give him one of his second language. It is no surprise he didn't use it. We have all experienced the strain on our brain trying to understand written text in another language, be it a warning sign on a foreign beach or an airport notification. Imagine that strain 4 times over. Even if he had been able to read the exam I doubt he would have achieved his full potential due to fatigue through translation.

I sat with the learner and set up Read and Write into his first language. Texthelp had achieved more than we had already! I am lucky in that where I work pays for premium Texthelp products, where you work some features may not be available if you don't have premium. I configured the English to a familiar accent to him. He could now listen to English being read to him and understand it easier than in my dulcet Yorkshire tones. I showed him the dictionary feature, the picture dictionary and the prediction feature. He enjoyed the screen masking too so we kept that when I went through data desk and personalised it for him. As he left he thanked me. I was embarrassed, I had let him down and he was still thanking me? It was a sobering thought about how much content he hadn't been able to read. We had been in class for 2 months. I was slow out of the blocks on this one.

That week I reflected. I went through the next lesson and picked out words that I thought may pose a problem. I highlighted them in one click and ran them through the vocabulary list in Read and Write. It instantly gave me the definition and a picture to go with these key words. This was my pre teaching. In my class the majority of learners were EAL, many were studying GCSE English. This picture dictionary allowed me to give them pre teaching that was purposeful and relevant. Regardless of their home language they could see a picture of what we were going to be talking about next lesson. Students had a definition that they could translate in Read and Write so that they understood the key vocabulary before the lesson. Imagine a 60 year old grandma in a GCSE maths class who has never left the UK. What good would a vocabulary list be to her you may wonder? It was a revelation. She pulled my observer to one side in a lesson and said, "these words are great, means I can read t'questions dead quick now" My pre teaching is now a hyperlinked flow chart and a vocabulary list for all learners. Support that is relevant, timely and useful for many. If you do something well once it will save you time in the long run. Building pre teaching into my practise has and continues to do this, in reflecting and making this change I have almost forgiven myself for not spotting my EAL learners issues sooner, almost.

Planning for blended learning

As I write this, we don't know what September will bring. We assume September is coming as expected but local lockdowns and bubble collapsing appear to be the normal. I have been fortunate to have 5 minutes to think about what do I want my classroom to look like in September. I am fairly certain I don't want to teach live lessons virtually. I am fairly certain for a few reasons: 

1) How will I check progress?

2) How will I adapt if they're not getting it?

3) How will I give feedback

4) It sounds exhausting

In terms of checking progress, my usual go to tool would be Pear Deck or Slido. Both allow me to collate feedback, confidence checks and contributions whilst presenting. In the section of my lesson where I chalk and talk. In the new virtual world. This should be entirely still possible. However I have been delivering staff CPD virtually for a few months and in the majority of cases staff's internet hasn't been capable of hosting a virtual meeting and another tab in the browser. I have tried guiding staff through joining both Pear Deck and Slido via their phones as well as the Google Meet on their browser. This was a clunky experience for all involved. I'm not sure I want to pursue this. 

Adapting my content, sure, this is a skill I have in my locker but is it a skill I have when running a virtual meeting? When I will be in present mode and not see my students? I am able to join the Google Meet on another device so I can see the participants on one screen and present on another but the focus and attention that takes means I am not focusing on what matters, the learning experience.

Giving feedback. The awkward delay waiting for a response when you throw a question out there, then they talk when you talk. No thank you. If I have an important message to give I want to give it my full attention in my delivery and the recipient to be ready to receive it also. All of this sounds exhausting.

I have blogged before on the Driving Digital New Normal blog about planning. As I have gained more experience in the virtual teaching world I am more convinced than ever that we need to deliver in a team teach approach. In a traditional classroom we plan 15 minute episodes. Ideally staff could take it in turns to deliver 15 minute episodes. Whilst one is delivering the other is running the chat, offering feedback. This seems sensible to me. So far it doesn't seem to be catching on as a concept.

So we are back to square 1, how will I deliver content virtually. Alice Keeler and Jo Boaler have often said, stop pretending that Google exists. Now more than ever we need to embrace the tools and material that already exist. I think the skill of teacher is in the relationship and feedback the teacher builds with the learner. The learner has to trust the teacher and in that trust be willing to take risks, that's when transformative learning experiences can take place. 

My plan currently is, and this is subject to change, record my chalk and talk section. Post this to Google Classroom with the resources of the lesson, then hold a live virtual meeting to discuss how the work has gone and give valuable feedback and build those relationships. Followed by a class virtual meet where we quiz or assess our skills at the end of the topic. I could run a quiz or a bingo in a Slides presentation like in class, where they draw a 3 x 3 grid, and that seems like a nice experience for students.

Hyperdocs are going to be key. Everything all in once place. Self marking quizzes to help check progress. Existing videos that explain my point. You know for that moment when no matter how you say it some students just don't follow? Now we can include an alternative video on the same topic so if they need to hear it from another voice to help it sink in, we can! There are opportunities to be had, we need to seek them out a bit.

Equatio and Read & Write

I have sat for years listening to CPD that was absolutely brilliant with a voice in my head going "not possible in a maths classroom though. " I have tried to fight it, shushing my inner voice, willing things to be possible. But we have to hold our hands up and say maths is a different subject, we can't ask students to expand or share an opinion on someone else's correct answer. 

Imagine sitting in a CPD session on Read and Write from Texthelp. Read and Write can read aloud text to learners, look up words in a picture dictionary and allow learners to speak in and it types for them. (it does a LOT more but I'm trying not to waffle!) it's brilliant, what a powerful tool for our learners. Amazing. Now how do you embed that into a maths lesson? Possible, thankfully, but not a perfect fit. Can it read complex formulae or calculations? Does it have pictures in its dictionary for density? No? Boo! I was gutted when I first came across it. I thought, argh it's so close but it's still not for me. 

A short while later I was sat down again to be talked at, sorry I mean, I was sat down in a CPD session, and this time it was on Equatio. Which is a pain to blog about because Google thinks I mean Equation, so if Google auto corrects and I miss it I apologise, I am talking about Equatio! Hold on to your seats if you've not heard of Equatio before and if you are a maths or science teacher this will blow your mind!

Equatio is a toolbar that allows you to speak in maths work. You say 2x bracket x add 4 bracket and it will write 2x(x+4) with curly xs. Equatio will let you type in fractions and curly xs and all the other niggly things we battle with typing as maths teachers with ease. If you have a touchscreen device you can freehand your maths and it will type it up for you. Hurrah, at last we have something amazing for maths, whoop! I was so excited and got straight on it, fractions were now a breeze to write, my work sped up when I was writing questions and making resources. You can even put it in Google Forms and make quizzes! I mean come on, this is the dream folks!

Loving my new Equatio life I ingested their website. I watched video after video, became certified in Read and Write (Texthelp make both products, I am not paid by them for this post, this is not an ad, I'm not paid by anyone to blog, wish I was!) importantly I signed up to updates from Texthelp and their monthly webinar list. Some time later I was introduced to the mobile features of Equatio. Students can handwrite their working out, photograph it into Equatio and it will make it editable typed maths for them... Take a moment... Take that in. Happy dance!!!!!!! Equatio has and does a lot more but I might do another blog on the other bits later. 

Students prefer pen and paper for maths in my experience. Maybe it's because I teach resit and they have experienced that paper linear exam, I don't know. I know that I prefer paper when I am work things out, I always have a pen in my pony tail ready to go in class! Students like to show their working out, sometimes! I like those conversations where they have spent ages anwering a question incorrectly and you go through their working out together to spot where it went wrong. I dislike those conversations where they have spent ages working something out incorrectly and their working out cannot be followed and they cannot articulate what they were trying to do. Those conversations are the hardest, where you desperately want to help but you can't. I have always wanted a way to make students stop and check their work or at least check they are on the right track. I have tried setting timers to get them to practise pausing mid answer but generally they just lose their flow. I have tried building in check your answer time but mainly they stare into space. Anyway back to Equatio... 

It's become my new way of working, especially since lock down. Students snap their work and sent it to me all typed up. Yes they could just snap their work but sometimes I struggle with the shadows of their photos, or the clarity of their working out. This way Equatio does the quality check for me. If it can't read what the students have put (and its very good at reading, trust me I have tried all sorts of maths working out to try to catch it out!) then an examiner wouldn't be able to read what they have put. Equatio helps me promote high standards. Equatio saves me time and it saves me marking on paper, although that's not happening in the world anyway at the minute.

Since lock down I have wanted to stay connected with my learners. I have found that the Read and Write tools that I have ignored in my maths lessons have really become invaluable. It has a feature where you can make a 1 minute voice note. I have been able to give verbal feedback to my learners. I don't mind that it's 1 minute because if I'm talking for more than 1 minute to each learner I'm not being clear enough in my feedback. My learners have said they feel little difference in terms of marking and being in the classroom, they can still hear my voice. 

I am so overjoyed that finally I have something that is invaluable and it is maths specific and maths focused. I feel like we can truly support learners remotely now, which is more important than ever. We have accessibility and maths speak all under one roof. Learners like it too. Sure they get frustrated when it doesn't correctly type up their written work and they have to edit it. But what's the harm in that, they are checking their work! A battle I long since thought that i would never win!