asynchronous for all

As I've been blogging my journey in teaching online has led me to asynchronous teaching. Asynchronous teaching allows learners to learn at their own pace. I construct the routes but they choose the path. Choice is key here for me. My learners are used to the choice and they are invested, they know their own journey through every lesson. They have the comfort of knowing that they have a backup plan to scaffold for them too.

But why did we end up at asynchronous? My class are adults. The traditional barriers for adults returning to education are listed here by the DfE in 2018. There are 3 key ones that I want to focus in on; childcare, work commitments/costs and fear. The beauty of FE is that it is the most welcoming of all education establishments. My adults have already taken a significant step in enrolling on my course. They want to be here. In the traditional battle of hearts and minds of a maths teacher, this is a huge advantage.  Although they have enrolled in our class there are still logistics involved. To attend every week they need to be away from work in good time. There can be no staying late for meetings at work on this evening. They need to give their kids tea early so they can be back out of the door in good time to get to the community centre for class. All not impossible tasks but require skillful juggling by my learners. Juggling that I recognise and appreciate.

I have high standards. Some often tell me too high but I like where my standards lie. Yet I am always supportive. My learners last year, pre covid, would let me know if they couldn't make class. Often accompanied with completed work or work arrived after the lesson. There was a mutual respect, I treated them as my equals which meant I respected the endeavours they had in arriving at class and respected when they failed in those endeavours but informed me that they were to be absent. Add in covid and we needed to re evaluate. Those who are still attending work are now in a more reactive space and late meetings have to be accommodated. Although children are at home they still need supervising for learners to attend the Centre for class, but who can be that adult in relation to bubbles and isolation? 

My adult learners and I agreed that rather than a cyclical attendance of bubbles we would all convene, together, every week online. It was from here we moved to asynchronous, but not immediately. This it the third barrier to education I mentioned, the fear.

My adults are all nervous. Everyone unsure of their own abilities in maths. This gcse that has eluded them for so long is now staring at them, taunting them, telling them it is out of reach. My job is to squash that noise and help my learners believe. I need to show them that maths happens in everyday life and we can apply those skills to this qualification. In the face to face classroom cold calling is a challenge. Last year Ruth left my class in week 2 when I dared to ask her a question. By week 18 she was modelling at the board. Let's now imagine that fear online. Compounded by their fear of their own digital skills. They are witnessing their children navigate platforms with ease that after many years are still alien to them. Cold calling is like a seance, knock 3 times if you know the answer. The fear is real for all my learners. Knowing this, I started with relationship building first i showed them how much I cared and we formed those bonds required for them to trust me to address that fear.

Meet Steve. Steve is early 20s and is working in a supermarket. He has been told that the supermarket would welcome him onto a degree apprenticeship once he achieves gcse maths. Steve enrols on my course. This isn't Steve's first course at our college. Steve has studied here for over 6 years. Every year attempting to achieve gcse maths. When I receive my registers there is a large highlighted mark next to his name and an accompanying 10 page document. This document includes all his prior learning support plans. Steve is diagnosed with 3 learning difficulties. He requires a teaching assistant (TA) one to one. He has 50% additional time allowed for exams. Steve is going to need me to carefully plan his learning.

When we began face to face, Steve was the only one to object to moving online, as he, quite rightly, wanted to know how it would work with his TA. I promised him I would have a think. Think I did and I reached out to the TA dept. Sadly there were no TAs available for my evening class. We can debate the morality of this later. Essentially our college only secured TAs 9-5 and 5-9pm on 2 evenings a week. My lesson day was not one of those 2 evenings. I therefore knew Steve's TA support would be out of class unless I changed my approach.

Evaluating the 3 factors that are known to prevent adults from returning to education I decided to give asynchronous study a trial. The lessons are shared on a Friday, work is due by Thursday and on a Thursday there is a shorter session where we workshop exam questions on the weeks topic. In switching to this my keyworker students no longer had added anxiety for attending extra meetings. Parents no longer had to rush food down with their kids in order to leave the house on time. No one was dealing with unnecessary risks by mixing bubbles for childcare to attend class, and Steve could do his lesson with his TA in a 9-5 slot.

The work that I set all my learners involved a video of me talking over my slides, as per the way it old have done it face to face. Then they would do a task, ideally self marking and easy to re attempt. This allows my learners to get instant satisfaction from being correct, be it their first of 10th attempt. They didn't need to wait for me to come round and mark in the face to face classroom so why do they online? I always hand out answers with tasks when face to face. Learners tick and flick their own work, I give them feedback. This is the same online, they submit their marked work and I give detailed, personalised feedback with next steps.

Steve declined TA support. He wanted to give it a go just me and him. We had a long chat and he said he works better with his mum at home and if I was OK with it he wanted to give it a go with his mum helping him. We agreed weekly we would have a 10 minute checkin 1 to 1 before the workshop to address misconceptions. I was anxious,  I had never taught to this degree online before. I was the only maths teacher teaching asynchronously and I had to document that Steve had declined TA support which meant he would struggle to get any later if we needed it. But fortune favours the ....

Week 1 Steve took 18 attempts on the homework but achieved 100%. His asynchronous classwork was also all correct, I couldn't track number of attempts though. In our discussion he asked me probing follow ups to some of the questions. This told me he had participated in the work and was trying to progress. Week 2 was a similar story but there was an exchange of messages mid way through the week where Steve was adamant he was right but the website was telling him he was wrong. I videoed myself answering the same question and sent it to him. He had been wrong and could now see where he went wrong. Steve, using my video for a prompt reattempt the work and submitted it all correct.

Week 3 Steve came with a long list of questions to his 1 to 1. All of which were reasonable given the topic and were what I had planned for the live workshop session. So we had a chat about how Steve was finding the course instead and saved his questions for the workshop. Week 4 and 5 Steve came with common misconception questions again to the 1 to 1. We glossed over them and I said we would do them in more detail in the workshop. Steve was happy and we talked about how his shift pattern had changed and it was a good job we didn't have set times for classes. In the live workshop in week 5 Steve unmuted after an example and said. I think I get this now, can I go? Of course he could, the workshops were only ever a mop up, the asynchronous work is what mattered. 

Week 6 Steve cancelled his 1 to 1 but came to the workshop. He also helped a fellow student out by explaining he originally made the same mistake but realised what he had done wrong. I struggled to stop the Cheshire cat grin from appearing on my face at my pride at his depth of knowledge of the topic. That joy of learning is infectious and is the main reason I say in the job. Seeing Steve develop and grow gave me the biggest buzz. Proud doesn't come close. He told me his enjoyed learning and helping others.

Sadly I had to leave the group at Feb half term. In my final workshop Steve came along. It was great to see him as he didn't always feel the need to attend workshops anymore as he was doing so well! He didn't have any misconceptions that needed looking at, he was flying. Dont get me wrong there were multiple messages exchanged between Steve and myself weekly about work and workload. Mainly Steve's questions were for conversation and confidence, not errors that he needed addressing. He was doing very well. When he came to my final session and unmuted to answer a question after a modelled example. I was beaming again. He unmuted a second time to help a peer out who lost her trail of thought when explaining her workings out. He stayed on at the end of the call.

'I just wanted to say thank you, no one has ever found a way to help me learn and you did, I can do it. In a class I get lost I don't know whats going on, but here, the way you lay it out, I can and I know it's working'

The pandemic has robbed us of many things but also opened new avenues. I have done more CPD than would ever have been possible since lockdown 1. If I had met Steve in class fave to face we would have got him a TA in class and we would have continued as per his previous experiences. Despite my confidence in my teaching abilities in terms of helping him, I know he wouldn't have achieved the level of independent learning he has this year. Let's look at what he said, 'xthe way you lay it out', the videos, the modelling, the short self assessing tasks. The immediacy of the feedback of these tasks worked for Steve. He also said 'in class I get lost' we all know that feeling, as a learner, in a class where we have lost what's going on in a lesson. We have had a lapse where we lost what was going on and we now can't keep up. For Steve this was every lesson. Easing the pressure of learning asynchronously helped him. It removed the fear.

So when we look at synchronous and asynchronous models do we look at them in terms of inclusion models? 

Face to face

I love teaching. I really do. I moan about lack of time, pressures, admin but when the magic is happening I love it. I care so deeply for this bunch of learners already and we've only met face to face once. Anyone who says you can't build community online is welcome to come talk to my learners. We've found our flow. Asynchronous online is working a dream. Everyone is happy. But I can see December coming. An end of term mock looming. An end of topic test and a pre topic test are all on the horizon. Rapidly I set to make the department assessments online based. And then I stop. We will need to do these face to face for fear of....... CAG!

I'm not going to lie I still fear CAG 6 months on. And I had a very small part to play in CAG but the trauma was real. I think when I'm in my old age I will still be able to tell you the names of students I gave a high grade 3 to, knowing they wouldn't get their dreamed of 4. I know I was true and honest and evidence based but I am human. Someone who has studied all year didn't pass, they were unlikely to pass in an exam situation but this year it was me, I said they didn't pass, and that hurts. 

Exams are still happening at present. But we have now had CAG so we know we may have CAG again, anything is possible. We must assess face to face in controlled conditions for potential preparation for CAG. Regardless of CAG fear, that it is the departments decision that this is how assessments are to happen this year and the process is to be standardised. So I bring my learners in, all of them. We split across multiple rooms. In my head one room would do their calculator assessment, another would do their non calculator. When finished I would give each room their next paper calc or non calc. In another I was going to teach solving equations. Something that probably would work a lot better face to face than not. Maximising our opportunity. Me teaching area of 2D shapes face to face would have less of an impact than solving equations I felt.

I had a slide deck ready for the lesson. Some resources to work from. A card sort I had tweaked to be a matching activity so to reduce touching of materials. Ready to go. But I had one of those days, where every meeting takes 10 minutes longer than it should have. Colleagues wanted to chat to me as they hadn't seen me face to face in a while. The day ran away from me. Before I knew it it was lesson time. I went to plug my device in to share my slide deck on the board. There were no wires in the room. I went to print my resources out. There was no printing available. Thankfully the assessments were copied so they could go ahead but the algebra lesson, we'll, that is in real jeopardy!

The obvious solution is to assess all the learners. But I had staggered the groups over 2 weeks. Those who had arrived for algebra this week were anxious about their assessments and wanted another week to revise. Those who had arrived this week for the assessment wanted it over and done with and they would do algebra next week. I decided to test the water with a couple of learners who arrived 5 minutes early and said, ah well shall we not just do your assessment this week rather than algebra? One of them started hyperventilating. This wasn't going to fly as an idea. Stalling for time I started the assessments groups hoping an idea would spark for how to solve the impending car crash that was about to be my algebra lesson. 2.5 hours of free style chalk and talk here I come. 

I always start solving equations with a missing value picture puzzle. A grid of 3 symbols totalling values horizontally and vertically in various combinations. I drew one out on the board. I started to sweat checking I had my values correct. I drew smiley faces, sad faces and hearts as my icons. 3 smileys summed to 18, 2 smileys and a sad summed to 15 and so on. The learners loved it. I drew another and another including a negative value one. All were a hit. I then wrote the equations up. For example for the 3 smileys sum to 18 I wrote 3s=18 and using f for sad  face I wrote 2s + f =15. Then half the class freaked out. They can do it with pictures but not with letters. I laughed, this happens every year I tell them. I tell then that each letter becomes a picture or a shape for them in their mind. The letter is an unknown. A thing that we don't know the value of. Trust is regained and we crack on. 

I show them balance method and function machine method for solving equations. One learner turns to another and says, 'if it was like this in school I wouldnt be here now, this is gold' I am buzzing. I leave the room to swap assessment papers and safely hand out calculators, which is a lengthy process that I hadn't planned for. I return to my algebra group panicked that I have left them so long and the magic will have gone. I needn't have worried! The manager for the site is in there listening to the learners explain the function machine method with delight and passion. He is intrigued too! So I model another answer and I will try to capture it here now, but it needs a bit of theatre which is hard to convey via a blog but here goes:

7m + 4 =25

M gets on the bus, he is joined by 7 of his family.

M➡️x7

Then 4 of his mates get on the bus

M➡️x7➡️+4

The bus pulls into the bus station and they are at stand 25

M➡️x7➡️+4 = 25

They go round town then they want to go home. To get home they need to get the bus from stand 25.

The bus sets off and 4 of his mates get off first, then 7 family, what house number does m live at? 

? ⬅️ ÷7⬅️-4 = 25

Weve done no maths so far. All we did was write out the question long hand then the inverse underneath, now let's work this out. 

M=3

The manager is whooping so are the class. One learner is in tears that finally she can easily solve equations. We move on to brackets. Then unknowns on both sides. Followed by unknowns on both sides with brackets. I hand write a series of questions out. Praying that they will fall nicely as answers. I copy 7 sets out and give them 20 questions. Not enough but the best I could muster. I was doing a lot of the hard work this lesson but I couldn't see another way round with resources lacking as they were. I went to check in the assessment groups who had been supervised by colleagues in my absence. All were laughing at the cheering from the algebra group! Desperate for their turn for algebra next week! 

After 3 hours and a clean down I left happy with my lesson. The assessments are done for 2/3 of the class and we can catch the rest up next week. All my learners in my algebra group made progress. I would have liked them to do more practise but I will reflect on their homework productivity and see where the land lies then. I had great learner feedback from the algebra group to the manager. But also to my assessment supervising colleagues. One learner said, 'she's so funny, I bet she's singing about algebra to them! She's a right laugh! '

And that's the magic. The penny dropping moment when solving equations suddenly looks like a guess the value picture puzzle. The magic is when solving equations can be solved mentally whereas they would have been ignored previously. The magic is when you have tears of joy at algebra rather than tears of sadness. The magic is when learners shout about how much fun your lessons are. The magic is being there for your learners and building those relationships. 

2.5 hours of chalk and talk algebra is not something I want to repeat but I'm glad I did it! Is this magic more magical face to face than online? I would have taught it the same online and they would have done more practise but would I have felt the same magic? Probably less so due to us being asynchronous. Were we synchronous yes I would have felt the same magic I am sure. But do I need to feel the magic? My learners would still have felt the magic as all those moments would still have happened. Does my magic count?

I am being told from colleagues and from my PLN that it's so much harder teaching online. Yes it is as activities need more careful planning. Sequencing is more crucial and what you could have carried face to face in 3 leaps you need to take 5 baby steps with online. But that doesn't make face to face better, does it? Today I had no printer, no tech, Covid rules and regulations and it was stressful from start to finish. It can't be a poor man's narrative that teaching online is the poor relation to teaching face to face. There are pros and cons to both, but what I am excited about is that we haven't even begun to scratch the surface of the potential pros in teaching online

Teaching Online - Part 6 Asynchronous

This has been a long journey. The longest adaptation and reflection I have put into my teaching since, well, forever. It has been a labour of love progressing my ideas and helping my students. We didn't get it right every lesson, we have 'lost' teaching time in trying new things. Yet I am happy to have modelled for them, modelled learning, modelled critical thinking, creativity, communication and collaborated with them. So how does it look now? Now we have Google Forms using go to section based on answer (branching logic in Microsoft Forms) for each episode of the lesson. I record my teacher talk for each episode, input it into the form. Offer them an alternative video from YouTube, so that they have a choice. I offer them a short quiz on Study Maths or a quiz on Maths Kitchen. I give them another choice. They reflect against the learning intentions throughout the form and submit evidence of their work, screenshot via file upload. Each episode is in a Google Forms. All the episodes are housed in a single Hyperdoc. 

My first week of this approach I waited, I had to force myself not to peek to early at the form responses. Eventually I looked. I looked 2 days before the deadline and guess what, the majority had done the work! I was over the moon! All the individual episodes in the Google Forms pull into one Google Sheet, each one on a different tab.

 The sheet reads like a book, I eagerly turn the pages and switch tabs to see the progress happening in the lesson! I have conditionally formatted it so if a student indicates they need help it goes red. There are no red entries! I take the register early, I am only missing 1 students work, all but 1 have done the lesson 2 days before it is due. I look further, they all did it at different times. Some 7am workers, some 10pm workers, they are learning at their convenience, when it works for them. 

I have spoken before about the importance I placed on building community with this group of learners. This included a group chat on Google Chat, it could be a channel on Microsoft Teams. I dip in to see what's been in the chat over the weekend. And there it is, the community I helped create. There are questions about how to access some materials that another student has answered. I see questions about how to tackle the more challenging episode, a student has responded recommending the alternative video I included from YouTube. A student has asked how to put powers into their calculator, another student has replied with a picture annotated for them of what to press. They are collaborating, communicating and helping each other learn. My favourite part of the chat are the honest pleas that it is hard, maths is challenging, but that the group rallies to pick each other up and they are supportive. I recognise mine are a group of adults but they are very mixed in ages and the younger students are only 19, I believe I could replicate this to some degree with 16-18 learners.

Lesson day comes and I log on for the one to one's that students have booked with me. Overwhelmingly the feedback is positive about the asynchronous approach. I then move to the main meeting. I had scheduled 45 minute workshops on each of the episodes. There was the 1 student who hadn't done their work. I joined 2 minutes late and the realisation had already happened, they had missed my Google Chat messages, my Google Classroom posts and my emails all on the plan for the week. They were apologetic and we moved on. In the workshop I modelled examples and set questions via the chat, snipping parts of questions and pasting them into a Jamboard.

I am directly substituting that part of the lesson where I do board work and we collaboratively solve or I model a correct answer. That part of the lesson where learners have done some work, we've marked it and we have identified common misconceptions or common errors. The beauty of doing this online is that it takes a second to snip a question and paste it into the Jamboard (any whiteboard software would do, whiteboard.fi, classroom screen, zoom etc) in real life I am stood there for what feels like an age copying questions out onto the board, losing learning time and board space making my answer area smaller. Secondly I can quickly find a new set of questions either in my drive or online to apply what learners have covered in a new context. In real life there is a delay with this in the classroom. We are saving learning time now being online. Plus, and this is a big plus, I am not spending an age photocopying booklets. Winning on saving paper and winning on saving time. Those who need materials in yellow or green can easily and discreetly turn that on (noverlay is a great example in chrome) and when I find extra work or set different work to what was planned they are included.

I am now adding value. I am modelling. I am explaining. Learners are expanding answers, applying to new contexts. Helping each other with little hints and tips. I can stretch the learners on. Focusing on each episode for 45 minutes means that learners dip in and out. We have a lovely 2 minutes at the start of each workshop for those leaving and those arriving saying hi and bye. This isn't lost time, this is valuable community time. This is lovely for me to be part of. 

We are now 2 weeks in to this model. Learner feedback is overwhelmingly positive. All now prefer this asynchronous approach. All check in with me during the week, via email, hangouts chat or messages on Google Classroom. I don't ask for this, but they choose to let me know how it is going, which is beautiful. The workshops are attended by 3 regulars who are the weakest based on recent assessment data, I am pleased that without intervention from me they have chosen to stay close. Then the rest ebb and flow. Sometimes I have 8 in a workshop, sometimes I have 5. We wouldn't cover misconceptions with all of our learners every lesson, we would differentiate and target and I am pleased that this has naturally happened through this model. 

One to one's are consistently snapped up by different learners who need different things. I feared I would be repeating or modelling the same questions or topics across all the one to ones but this hasn't happened. I am taking this that the topics I have chosen to cover in the workshops have been appropriate. Now we are further on I have added in another workshop specifically called challenge workshop. In this workshop I move the learning on to the next level applying to new contexts. A specific example is when we were doing ratio the challenge workshop covered those no starting point questions that require a bit of algebra. These are the best attended sessions. The majority of learners come to these apart from my 3 who attend every session usually, because they feel it isn't right for them at this time to take on the challenge. I respect that awareness. 

I wanted to share some recent feedback from learners. 

"I'm having my tea whilst you do this, I'm OK with the topic but I got stuck on question 7 and I knew you would cover something like that tonight so I've dipped in and out, thanks I'm all sorted now" 

"See when you do it I'm alright but when I'm on my own I panic. I need this class and the doing work myself to make it sink in."

"I like to do it when you set it and then come along so I've had time to kind of forget it you know, then coming here I remember it and I get it more" 

"Honestly I hate ratio but now I get it, can't believe I've spent so long not doing it at work" 

"You just get it, it's hard fitting it all in with work and kids and you make it OK for me to do it when I can" 

"I couldn't do a proper class and be all shy and that, here I'm OK to say what I want to ask" 

There's so much in these quotes. The unintended application of retrieval practise. I hadn't planned that this would be an outcome. Yet the reality of me setting the work asynchronously and 6 days later hosting a workshop has naturally created that spaced practise and I am excited to look at this more. I knew the benefits of asynchronous for working parents would be huge but I wasn't expecting the safety of the smaller numbers. By offering optional workshops that learners self select the numbers are smaller meaning those who are usually less confident feel able to speak. This has huge power and potential for me to explore as a means for engaging reluctant learners and I am keen to evaluate this more. 

Yet this isn't all perfect. Massively I miss hearing from all of my learners and that control. I decide their learning and here I am handing huge chunks of that over to them to manage. I recognise that this is the future and it is the best approach for them, yet its new to me and I am learning to let go! 

The biggest drawback of this model is my time. I've gone from being a well organised experienced teacher with a bunch of lessons ready to go and therefore only light planning in face to face classes to this. And the time taken to plan for this cannot be underestimated. I have multiple channels of communication to manage. Learners are messaging on hangouts chat, on classroom, via email. They need replying to and there is an urge for me to drop what I'm doing to help and reply immediately, I am working on managing this better! The time to plan has been reduced somewhat now I can copy the forms I am using and the Hyperdoc and change the links each week, yet to make the videos for each episode takes time that cannot be cut down. A 15 minute learning episode takes 5 minutes of me talking for input, perhaps some editing, then curation of resources to go with that. The 15 minute episode takes 20-30 minutes to plan. The workshops need planning for too, granted not for input but curation of resources. Snipping of images. A 45 minute workshop is taking 10 minutes to plan. One to one's take time, they can't be cut. So in a week of 4 learning episodes I'm taking an hour to plan. Then 3 workshops is another 30 minutes planning. On top of that is the time for managing communications, let's assume 20 minutes over the week. The one to one's are 15 minutes each and I will do 4 of those, another hour. The delivery of the workshops, 3 lots of 45 minutes. We are at 60+30+20+60+45+45+45 we are at over 5 hours for what was once a 3 hour lesson face to face, which would have had minimal planning. That's before marking which would always be outside lesson time anyway. I love spending my 5 hours doing this weekly but is it sustainable long term? Yes if I am given the 5 hours to do it. 

I can see huge potential in this but it will rely on teachers being given the time to do so. Not just in terms of the 5 hours vs 3 hours a week but in terms of the journey I have been on. What works for me might not work for your class. That's the beauty fo teaching, trialling new ways and reflecting and adapting. We need to be trusted by managers to be given space to explore. 

This has been an amazing journey that I have enjoyed reflecting on here, I hope its showed that things don't always work, we need to reflect and adapt but that's why we love the job right? 

Teaching Maths Online Issue 5

 Synchronous vs Asynchronous

On our journey to become asynchronous we had another lockdown. Full on big style lockdown, the time pressure of this was now more real than before, we kind of knew we weren't physically going into the building but now it was definite. Although colleges remain open in the lockdown initially, my adults and I were an honest bunch and we all recognised we had seen the last of each other for a while. I was very grateful to have had them in for their mock previously. We needed to get this online learning working better and quicker.

Gathering all the feedback from my learners whilst balancing my own workload I began looking at tools we could use. (My workload for info, I am contracted to teach the class for 3.25 hours and the class is 3.25 hours so there is no planning time, marking time covered in the contracted hours, this is common in FE unfortunately.) I like Transum, Maths Kitchen, Study Maths, Mathsbot, YouTube videos, PearDeck, Nearpod, Edpuzzle, the list goes on. My learners particularly liked Transum, Maths Kitchen and Study Maths. Transum has levelled progression and the learners were capable and confident to drop down a level or jump up a level depending on how the task was going. They particularly like the check it button that self marks part way through the task. Maths Kitchen gives levelled progression and videos if you get stuck. Study Maths has quick 10 questions that change all the time and are instantly marked.

The hyperdoc concept had worked but to create a hyperdoc of all the videos, tasks for the vast amount of content that we cover in class it would be a booklet of hyperdocs in no time at all, defeating the object of it being a one stop shop hyperdoc. I wanted to give them choice over the tasks to complete, if they preferred Transum they could do that, or if they wanted a Maths Kitchen, I wanted to give them a choice. Likewise I wanted to give them a choice over which videos they watched, there would be one of me explaining the topic with my nuances but I wanted to give them another option, I didn't want them to get stuck at any point. I decided on Google Forms, the same theory applies to Microsoft Forms too. I used branching logic, or go to section based on answer to create a path for my learners through their asynchronous work. Much like my favourite choose your won ending books of my childhood the principles applied nicely here to Forms.

I began with writing the learning intentions and giving them the video of my explanation. I did this by pasting a link into the form text, in Google Forms unless it is a YouTube video it cannot be inserted. I didn't want my learners heading to YouTube and becoming more lost, they were staying with me on this form! 

If they were ready to practise, they would be taken to a choice of tasks to complete, if they wanted another video it took them to a YouTube video explaining the same topic. No matter what their route they all ended up at a final exam style question in the form and a self reflection score.

We trialled it synchronously first. We had 3 different topics to cover in our 3 hours. I inserted each of the Forms into one hyperdoc and wrote the timings on for each section. I ran one to ones with learners in those self study times. At the end I was exhausted, there was no difference for me, I still talked for 3 hours constantly be it in a group chat or a one to one. I gave them 45 minutes on each topic and we came back together for what was planned to be 15 minutes cover misconceptions chat but ended up just being a chat. The chat was fun. In the Form I also included a file upload question. Here the learners could upload a screenshot of their work on the task. This was less successful as many couldn't do screenshots so took photos on their phone and then sent them via our Hangouts messaging chat instead. Either way I still got evidence of how many correct they go in the task. So the chat time in the lesson became more about the technical features of the file upload section and by the third round of forms I had an almost 100% success rate of file uploads coming in.

At the end we chatted about how the lesson had gone, I am honest enough to say I am trying new things to help them and I need their feedback to decide on the next steps. Overwhelmingly this was their favourite lesson so far. We decided to make the switch to asynchronous from next lesson. (I best get some videos and forms made quickly!) The main feedback was they felt less pressure not being on a large call with all of us. They like the peer support but they all felt pressure. In the one to ones that I held this was expressed too, they didn't want to be the one with tab issues slowing people down. So that's it we are now trying asynchronous learning. 

3 forms with go to section based on answer enabled (branching logic in Microsoft forms) choice on video, choice on task, upload evidence of work, answer exam style question to assess, and give self evaluation score too. All pulling in to one Spreadsheet for me to analyse.

Easy done, never need to speak to them on a call again right? No! I have long been aware that the value of the teacher is in the explanations and tackling misconceptions not in delivering content. So in our 3 hour timed slot I will be available for one to ones for 45 minutes. Followed by 3 workshops all 45 minutes long. Where I will tackle misconceptions address errors, recap key points, the mini teaching we used to do in small groups in class. Sometimes I will invite learners specifically to come along. All have an opportunity to speak to me on a one to one basis, at present it is first booked first served. I would like this to be a rotation basis so that they all get time regularly. I am excited by this. I am excited by spending more quality time with my learners, at this moment I have no idea if it will work at all! Hope you're online teaching is going well.

teaching online - Issue 4

Synchronous vs Asynchronous

In class, as in face to face, I like to hold the learners hands a bit, in a non touching way! What I mean is, I give them choice but I guide them down a path I have planned for them. I recognise it in my teaching and have reflected on it lots. I struggle to define if it is my teaching style, my subject specific issues or teaching in further education specific. All my learners are resitters, do I know what's best for them? Probably? can I help them? definitely! Should I let go of their hands and give them more freedom? I wish I could but I can't!

Knowing this dilemma I ploughed into my online teaching in a synchronous manner. We sat online for 3 hours together doing maths. Little introduction chat, building community and connection. Retrieval practise task. Me give content input. Them do work. Reflections on that and check progress. Me do input, they do work etc etc. Openly admitting this may not be the best approach but it was successful in terms of progress of my learners. They progressed through the lesson like superstars. Did they enjoy themselves? Some did because of their success. (yes I asked them, I ask them a lot of questions to learn more about their experiences!) some didn't because it was exhausting. I get that, I was exhausted.

We synchronously worked together, timed tasks. Breakout rooms. Modelling of answers, misconceptions addressed, all whilst progressing through content after content. My subject is maths. It is content heavy. As a resitter in FE you sit what is designed as a 2 year course in 1 year. It is content heavy. My learners are adults. Whilst I have managed to support them in building community online, supporting each other online, we weren't all learning to our greatest potential. The 3 hours synchronous learning were tiring. 

I have waves of evidence of completed tasks, self reflections, assessment quiz scores, polls but it didn't feel right. I brought all of them physically in the building to sit a mock exam under exam conditions. Fear of CAG combined with an exercise in show what you know. I staggered start times to make sure I had 5-10 minutes with each of them before they began their exam. Each of them told me how much they were enjoying the course. How much they couldn't believe how well they were doing (even those that weren't which is lovely but concerning!) and I asked how does it feel in the class online. This is where feedback differed. Some loved it, some wanted more breakout rooms, some had huge wifi issues and hated breakout rooms. It was a real mixed bag of feedback. In my head we were always on a journey to learn asynchronously and meeting the learners confirmed this and accelerated the process.

I began drawing on all the tools, tricks and websites I knew of as to how best to deliver asynchronous learning for adults. The bit that my learners liked was my explanations of things, they made more sense than when they found a video online. This is feedback I have had before from previous classes who were face to face. Interestingly what I teach in content is no different to others. The tasks I set are exam booklets from Corbett maths or the old 1MA0 ones, again widely used and incredibly dull. The bit they like is the bit of me that I give in that connection, that relationship. Essentially they would say this about any teacher, because it is 'their' teacher the one that they listen to and work with. I saw it in school a lot, when teaching a split class they would side with one teacher over the other and the teacher that they preferred would hear all about how awful the other teacher was. The 'awful' teacher would get poor behaviour and the cycle would go on. Teaching online I was conscious of this and wanted to help my students stay with me and be connected to my teaching.

We trialled hyperdocs synchronously, aiming to be able to do them asynchronously in the future, a one stop shop where everything that they needed would be in one place. Amazing I thought, surely this couldn't go wrong. It did. Wifi issues meant tab management became an issue. Losing where the hyperdoc was because of too many tabs open was another issue. Wifi issues of being on a video call and having a hyperdoc open. The frustration from my learners was tangible but we laughed about it and we got through it. Some were frustrated at having to wait for others to sort their tabs out, some were frustrated at being left behind because they couldn't find their tabs! We talked through it at the end of the session and one learner said 'I need to be in a classroom, this isn't for me'. 

I paused and reflected and asked if we could talk later, the learner said yes and we did. In that chat I offered them a face to face class with another teacher. It was a flat no because I was 'their' teacher. I asked why they felt they needed to be in a classroom. They confided their lack of digital skills was worrying them. I was shocked. This learner had managed everything I had asked of them so far online but still they lacked confidence. We explored this further and their children were helping them online but also mocking them so they felt inadequate. Now I can't do much about kids mocking parents, mine do it! But that confidence part I can help with. I explained how pleased I was with their work so far and they were buzzing and retracted their comment and wanted to stay. 

I reflected on this and all the other parts of my teaching and spoke to my line manager. They said, same as younger students, adults just need to know they are doing OK once in a while too. They were right. I needed to build in more opportunities for little chats with me in traditional lesson time. If I am delivering content this can't happen as well, I need to make the shift to asynchronous, even though some say they feel they are not ready!

PDFs and blended learning

It maybe summer but my head is full of blended learning ideas. I am a huge fan of Puentedura's SAMR model. When we think about what we are planning for (which is still unclear in terms of live in person and live online, certainly for me!) I want to make things as easy as possible. For me and my learners. I would love to rip up the rule book and start again. Make a completely new way of learning maths. A project based curriculum completely interactive. Make some apps. Create some platform games. Use GoPro cameras to track journeys and explore the maths. But...I'm not going to. 1) I am not capable or capable of creating a team who are capable of helping me achieve this at this time. 2) I have no budget for this. 3) As things stand my job is to prepare learners for a paper based written GCSE maths exam. My project based learning can come in in elements but ultimately I have to prepare them for the paper based element. 

When I look at Puentedura's SAMR model, I need to substitute that paper based element onto online in the first instance. Working in FE I have learners that have sat the exam before. They will be expecting a similar experience, I have a lot of content to cover and I need to make things as simple as possible. Sure we will spend time learning about the apps we need to use like Google Classroom. We will learn about logging in to systems correctly. We will spend time helping those who need accessibility features turn them on. To support all of this their material and content need to be as easy to use as possible.

For years we have been fortunate in maths to have Corbett Maths with brilliant pdf workbooks of exam style questions, and answers, on every topic as well as videos! For years I would have been lost without this resource. It saves my life weekly in class when I need to put my hand on something, I know Corbett Maths will have it. I am going to be honest I don't have time to sit and make beautiful interactive activities every week for all 5 different levels of ability of students I am expecting in my adult FE GCSE maths class, sorry. What I need is a way to make existing content, that I know works, interactive and accessible quickly, so that if I do have a spare 5 I can choose to spend that making a brilliant new innovative resource.

I created a workflow that looks like this, take the pdf resource, pop it through a pdf to slides converter. My favourite is ilovepdf I like this one because it is easy, it has never let me down and it converts maths nicely. I use the pdf to ppt to make a slides presentation from the pdf. I like to do this as it makes each page 1 slide in a  slide deck, so if I want to differentiate I can chop and change using the slide deck to remove or add in slides. I then save the ppt as a Google Slides, but that's just me, if you use ppt, leave it as a PowerPoint presentation. I then insert text boxes over where the answers should be written. I change the line colour of the text box so that it stands out and I type in 'please enter your answer here'. This bit takes time but CTRL D in Google Slides is duplicate, so once you have 1 you can duplicate. CTRL C and CTRL V also work. Because ilovepdf keeps the pages as they were in the original pdf the text boxes tend to be in the same place on each page so I can select all the text boxes on a page and CTRL C and CTRL V them onto the next one in most cases. I am not endorsed by ilovepdf, and there may be alternatives you prefer

I have shared this with colleagues and it seems a popular way of working. Staff are keen to substitute their existing paper based pdfs into a digital format to get ready for teaching, however we are going to be teaching in September. Job done, sorted! Even exam papers can be done this way, fabulous! Then the thought popped into my head that because ilovepdf converts the pdf as a mix of images and text it makes it hard for screen readers to read the converted file out. Back to the drawing board...so I thought and then I remembered about Texthelp's pdf reader! Again I am not endorsed by Texthelp, you may have an alternative that you prefer! There is a video of installing the pdf reader on our Driving Digital You Tube Channel, as well as Google Classroom tutorials, here.

Texthelp pdf reader allows the user to have the pdf read aloud. You can screen mask making it easier to read. You can add text over a pdf. You can freehand draw over a pdf. This can then be saved, printed or shared to Google Classroom. I am lucky that where I work pays for premium Texthelp products, if yours doesn't many of the features are available for free. You can annotate the pdf, so to differentiate you could add in a note saying this Q for those aiming for a grade 4 and this question for those aiming for a 5 and so on. Students will need to open the pdf in the pdf reader to see this. After spending a little time teaching students how to use the pdf reader, this could be a workflow for you. The tool works in Google Chrome as a web based tool, so on any device that use has a Chrome browser installed.

What I like about this as a workflow is that it is accessible for all. There are no barriers. Students who have additional needs don't need to draw attention to themselves, they can access the work and join in with the rest of the class. Imagine if you needed a pdf read aloud and you were studying from home with no printer to make it larger or clearer, you would feel pretty alone. I love the fact that we can teach digital skills and independent learning skills to learners in how to add pdf reader and access it whilst making work accessible for students, that sounds like a good workflow to me!

The other beautiful thing about the Texthelp pdf reader is the freehand draw. I don't know about you but I have been sent a million pdfs to sign recently via email for return to works, policies, kids clubs, membership forms and so on. I have a printer but I don't have the time to print the pdf sign it and scan it back in. Nor do I think that is a good use of my time or paper, ink and electricity. So now I freehand draw my signature on and download it and email it back. Time saving, yes please!

blended learning 2

Earlier this week I shared a brief, very brief, Slidesmania template adapted to a maths classroom for geometry. It went off! I mean it was really popular. This struck me for 2 reasons. 1 staff are working or thinking about planning in the summer. And 2 staff need quick easy to adapt ideas. If you missed this and have no idea what I am on about the link to the blog is here. As part of #VIA20 and a Google Innovator it was probably one of the simplest examples I have ever constructed. This made me think about the level of interest... I'm too techy in my normal work!

Normally I will say here is an idea, we can then take it online with this idea and students can adapt it with this idea. Actually we're not in a new idea world at the min. We are in a substitution world. Looking at Puentedura's SAMR model. We are rapidly trying to substitute our traditional classroom activities with online activities. We are not limiting ourselves and stopping at substitution but this is the current state of play. Even for me, my classroom is quite paper heavy to be fair and I am trying to move my content online. Sure I have flicks and hints of tech but as it's a linear paper exam activities are regularly paper based.

When we learn a new skill we are asking our brain to learn the new skill as well as linking it to our previous experiences and making room for us to adapt it in future experiences too. That's a lot. So if it's a lot for us, it's going to be a lot for our learners. Especially in FE where you may be returning to education after a 20 or 30 year gap and all of a sudden it's all online. That just seems overwhelming. We need to make it as familiar as possible and as simple to use for learners to settle them in and from there we can build to new ideas. Now in terms of accessibility I'm not fully there yet, in a general sense. I am fortunate that where I work we have Texthelp products so many issues are overcome with those tools but if you're not; sorry I don't have all the answers for now. One thing I can recommend greatly is nOverlay. It's a chrome extension and puts a coloured overlay on your browser. For those who need things on yellow paper, this helps virtually. If you're using a chromebook turning on select to speak or any of the other accessibility features may help too. But yes hands up, I don't have all the answers for accessibility yet.

Thinking about what will be needed in September, whatever that brings, we need to build relationships. Something as simple as a slides presentation with each learners name as a title and a slide for the teacher. Then everyone adds a video using INSERT>VIDEO introducing themselves. This can be a regular check in tool too, how are you feeling, how's the work going? General ideas. Or use it for topic based discussion. Personal connection is huge. Those uncomfortable with video could insert a bitmoji and an audio file using MOTE. Once we have the relationships we need to get content delivered. Delivering in a live meeting virtually sounds exhausting and tricky to manage, why not alternate or switch it up?

The value of a teacher is in their guidance and support. A live meeting where teachers and students chat through ideas, misconceptions, how tasks went sounds like a wonderful meeting that everyone wants to join. A meeting where a teacher talks over slides and students zone out does not. Why not share videos that cover the content and set students work. Then you can have the nice chat about how it went and where to improve.

Thinking of all this made me feel inspired to make this I built a bookcase and inserted books for algebra, each links to a video, from YouTube and some questions. I think it is easy to follow and can be replicated regardless of subject or topic. Now obviously students wouldn't be left to cover all of this on their own but this with a virtual meeting every week checking in sounds like a supportive approach that allows learners to push themselves asynchronously of they want to. To link to slides within a presentation it's INSERT>LINK you can link to another slide or an external website. Here the little library in the top right links to the first slide. The videos were all dropped in by INSERT>VIDEO and then safe searched on YouTube. The questions are either pdf exam booklets run through ilovepdf and converted to slides or free self marking websites. I hope it's useful, it's a step up from the hyperbook and allows us to build as we step back into the classroom. If appetite continues I will keep playing, thanks for reading.

Fully editable blank version of the library template here. Please feel free to use it but remember it was from here that you found it and credit it as such, a tweet saying you have used it would be nice :)

Blended Learning Quick Wins

I have just published my blog on what I plan for September and I wanted to follow it up with how I will do it. 

Cast your mind back to a lesson that required cutting paper. Perhaps they were making their own loop cards, or cutting triangles to prove Pythagoras. Remember the times you needed to stick work into books. Your lesson was planned, it ran well, but you probably had a frantic 5 minutes at one point because of the extra equipment, I know I did. In my experience finding the scissors posed a challenge, including the left handed ones. Finding the glue sticks too. Handing them out in the class, realising some students had 3 pairs and others had none. Losing glue sticks lids, the time lost to equipment diverted from valuable learning. All of this happened on more than 1 occasion to me and can still heighten anxiety, including now when I reflect. What caused me the problems was the extra equipment, to make things flow I like to give my learners everything that they will need all in 1 place. In my physical classroom I have a helpdesk where they can come up and grab maybe a device to check an idea, watch a video. It might have the scaffolding sheet for the topic, a broken down task. It might have the help sheet or template to help write a cheat sheet or multiplication grids pre drawn. It may have foreign language dictionaries. Everything that they need to access the lesson themselves, helping them be independent no matter how much assistance they need to get there.

Blended learning is going to be no different. I am going to want to put everything in one place for them. Hyperdocs then come into their own as do Hyperbooks. A hyperbook is a notebook digitally held, maybe for a unit of work. A hyperdoc is a lesson plan of everything they need for the lesson. There are different types of hyperdocs. Ones that guide through each stage of a topic, discover, explain, explore and others that are choice board in style.  I can see benefits of all of these. Mainly they help the learners be independent and progress through their learning at their own pace. The true meaning of asynchronous learning. Slidesmania is my go to place for these things. Well worth checking out. Imagine a hyperbook of tabs all within shape space and measure. Once for area, one for perimeter, one for circles, sectors, compound shapes, problem solving tiling questions, sounds good! Sounds like a lot of work from the teacher, but when was teaching not a lot of work? We are planning for a new way of learning and perhaps we could save some time in this and insert a video on the first page of each section that already exists? Is there a youtube video we could insert? Yes of course there is! Can I take a moment to recomment the brilliant Mars Maths videos, worth checking out! All we need to do in Google Slides is click Insert>Video and search for the best video for our needs.

 The beauty of Google Slides we can start the video at certain points, so only the first 2 minutes are relevant to your group? No problem! Use the start and end times! 

I accept building a hyperbook on a series of lessons within a unit is a lot of work, but ready made videos can be a real help. Like Alice Keeler says 'stop pretending Google doesn't exist' Let's use the videos that are available. Personally I will be mixing it up. I like the way I explain certain topics, you can see in my blog about, SASSYLASS for Pythagoras, ADAM for ratio, TERRY for transformations and DIN0 for nth term. I will be using a mixture of Loom, Screencastify, Hippo Video and Screencastomatic to record my explanations. I will be recording my desktop whilst I talk over my slides that I would normally use in class.

I have begun doing this for lessons and recording over my slides. In what would have been a 3 hour lesson previously I have found the actual teacher talk element is only 20 minutes when recorded. I have used the exact same slides I would talk over in class. No editing. What I found that when I would normally set them to work on the topic I have explained I have asked them to pause the video. This means that I can edit the videos into shorter videos later or leave it as 1 long video. I found that the problem with doing this is I am assuming they will get to the end point I am anticipating. I think there needs to be a mix of my own videos and ready made ones. I can select and curate existing videos to show progression, of topics I think they will get to and signpost it as such. This one is only if you got 100% on the quiz on that one. This one is if you struggled in that quiz. You get my meaning. This will all be trial and error but I was surprised that in a 3 hour lesson I only talk for 20 minutes! It feels a lot longer!

OK what about questions? Could we insert hyperlinks to a quiz in our hyperbook? I think so! 

Quizzes are quite easy, if not easier to replicate online. I think many have been using Kahoot for a while in the physical classroom. Now you can assign Kahoots for home learning. You could insert the link on a page in a hyperbook, the beauty of Google Slides is you just need to click INSERT>LINK or use CTRL+K. There are lots of existing quizzes already on Kahoot.

Another favourite for quizzing is Quizizz. You can post the quiz to your class and they can do it at home. Again there is a wide library of quizzes to choose from, so if the one you are looking for doesn't exist on Kahoot, Quizziz is a good place to look. If both of these are familiar to you and you want to change things up a bit, there are lots of others but Assistments is a good tool too. The old Transum quizzes, although can't be assigned and tracked are still great. 

Transum was around when I began teaching, starter of the day was everyone's form time activity! I like to insert the link to Transum in the hyperbook in Google Slides and ask the learner to insert a screenshot of their results underneath when finished.

Many of them are levelled and differentiated allowing learners to push on if they are finding it easy. I like that there is no sign in, they show progression, sure I accept I don't hold all the results in a nice Google Sheet, but I could type them up myself if I really wanted to! Transum has self marking on all sorts of activities and topics so for me it's on my list of places to link to.

Don't forget that in our Hyperbook, because it is in Google slides we can insert our own Google sliddes from our lesson presentation to help learners follow the topic too! Copy and paste in our summary slides or our nice examples into the hyperbook, sure! In our hyperbook then we have video, explanations, questions. All in one place! I think that if we could create a hyperbook on a unit sectioned by topic it would be a great experience for our learners. I'm now thinking it doesn't seem that much work? Maybe a little more but I think I see a way of suing some stuff that already exists?

Now what about robust questions? Teaching GCSE resit in FE means there have to be some GCSE exam questions in there. I am a big fan of both the old 1MA0 topic questions which you can find from Mr Barton here and the Corbett maths ones here. In my physical classroom I love handing these out as my consolidation exercise. Putting what we have learned in the lesson into exam context practise. But we have a problem. They are paper based pdfs, much like the real GCSE! (Which will obviously have to move on...but we will save that for another day!) This is where I hit a snag, how can I move these online? Then I hit upon ilovepdf and my life was complete! 

I convert the pdf to powerpoint. I then save the powerpoint at Google Slides. 

Once in Google Slides I insert textboxes for learners to insert their answer. This bit is fiddly but they could insert their own, I'm just being super organised! I plan to share these with the answers so it can be self marked. Whoa you say, self marking, they will all get 100% surely! Ah but the beauty of Google Slides is we can use FILE>VERSION HISTORY and see when the changes were made and what it originally looked like! 

Obviously not all my ideas are acceiboe for all, I am HUGE fan of Texthelp and for those with additional needs I would leave the pdf as is and encourage them to use the pdf reader from Texthelp. We can then screenshot or save their edited version. I haven't gone into it too much on here as I wanted to present an affordable acheivable work flow. We could use this method for all but not everyone subscribes to Texthelp products. 

There are a thousand more ideas that I could talk about for blended or distance learning but I have tried to keep it as simple as possible and as free as possible. Through my work I have seen that not all schools have access or subscriptions. I think and feel it is doable to create a unit workbook using a Slidesmania template. Inserting videos, inserting self marking quizzes and linking to exam workbooks in Google Slides format. What would be really great if we got learners to find the videos that spoke to them, if they created the content in their workbook. They research the topic, curate the resources, and design their own template. That is my aim but I know that as new as blended learning will be for me in September it will be multiplied and magnified for my learners and we can build to the top of any learning mountain. But to start with we are at the base camp and I need to help them pack their rucksack with all the right tools for the job and I think a hyperbook is the way to go!

Here is my rough first draft, welcome to copy and adapt, please click FILE>MAKE A COPY. Many thanks to Slidesmania for the template.

Example