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!

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.

Circles, pi and Slido! The best lesson ever?

I'm not sure I should write this blog post but anyway! I taught for 3.5 hours 10 adults GCSE Foundation Maths where we looked at shape, space and measure topics. I had planned to do this lesson last week but due to a family emergency I was absent. As my class are adults I was nervous today that I may get a rough ride for the inconvenience of skipping out on them last week. Not true, they were wonderful. One lady said, "never apologise for putting your kids first". I thought, wow that's really powerful. I'm hoping to hold onto that when I am saying no to the million CPD lates I'm asked to do but I realistically can never deliver.

So I have to admit there was a very free and easy approach to my planning, I had a tonne of activities photocopied for a variety of SSM topics as I was out of sync with my scheme of work. I took a look and thought we will start with circles and see where we end up. We had just finished statistics and graphs as a topic a couple of weeks before so I quickly rustled up a retrieval grid on that, set that out as they arrived whilst I checked over my Google Slides presentation on circles. Just at that moment in walked 2 colleagues to do a peer observation. I have an open door policy. As an experienced teacher I feel it is my duty to offer an open door policy. Generally staff ask ahead of time out of courtesy if they can come in. I always reply with "come anytime, I won't be doing anything special" today's lesson couldn't have been more true! 

Off we go then with circles in Google Slides. I have my learning intentions displayed and I write them on my board with my keywords to remain for the whole lesson. I also write the date in words. I'm a bit of a stickler on this one as good habits help make better teachers I think. I was once taught by a head of department that if you write the date in words you are showing learners that there is a quick way to write the date but have pride and high standards and wrote it fully. I quite like writing it in words and it upsets me when it is missing from classroom boards and when it is written as 1/2/20 I always flash back to my old head of department. 

In the slides presentation I have inserted slido. Now Slido is a great polling tool that pops in really easily. It is an add-on to Google Slides (I am a Google Certified Trainer so most things I do are in GSuite) I have used Pear Deck before but due to connectivity issues at the remote campus I find Slido works better. I break down the learning intentions by grade, a grade 3 student should be able to do this and a grade 5 student can do this. I give my class my same old speech: "if we teach to a 4 and we fall short we will get a 3 so no apologies I teach to a grade 5 to give you the best chance of achieving a 4." This is high expectations in its simplest form. The Slido then appears and the learners rate themselves out of 5 stars where they are against the grade 5 broken down intention. We get a split of ratings, and some questions about what a sector is. (The grade 5 intention was about calculating area of sectors!)

I begin with labelling parts of a circle. Reminding them of correct spelling. English isn't the first language for many learners, for some it's not even their second or third language. This takes some time and is dull. I am worried I am losing them. I planned to do a mini quiz on the parts of the circle and a card sort but the mood in the room is, we have notes, you will out this on Google Classroom so we have your notes too, what time is break? Picking up the pace I jump in with the circle song! You can watch the one I use here. I know there are others but this is my favourite and I encourage them to sing it to themselves in their exam!

Back to the lesson... I can then see joy at the song but confusion at pi. No surprise, who actually knows what pi is? I quickly grab the elastic bands from my photocopying and ask them to measure the diameter whilst a partner holds the band in a circle shape. I then cut the bands and ask them to measure the length of the chopped band. They then tell me that they are measuring the circumference and that is. We record the 2 measurements from each pair on the board and discover that the circumference is about 3 times bigger than the diameter. We then look at where pi is on our calculators. There is the inevitable conversation of borrowing calculators, we can debate high standards and correct equipment vs financial situation vs local demographic vs adult learners another time.

I then come away from the presentation and project some circles onto my board with varying measurements of radius and diameter. I then give the learners the option to go through area first and then circumference. I highlight that in my experience the thing people get wrong in this topic is doing the wrong one in the wrong question. Calculating area when they needed circumference. Or I give the learners the option of my default every time way. They choose my way. Everyone I see a circle I write CARD. We look at this example where we are asked to find the circumference of this circle:

The question gives us 4cm as a radius. We can write into CARD that R is 4cm and D is 8cm. Quickly singing pi r squared sounds like area to me… we can write in that the circumference would be pi x 8 and area would be pi x 4 squared. We then look back to the question and see what it asked us to calculate. In this case it was circumference so we circle that one and work it out. I like this method as it build solid repetition of the skill of recalling and applying the formulae. I also like it as it encourages the learner to reflect and choose is it area or circumference before diving in. 

In my class today the lower level group struggled to start but once CARD had been repeatedly applied they had rapid progression through the tasks. My top end learner decided his way was better and off he went. I always say, I don't care how you get here, just get here if you can. Meaning here is the correct answer! All the learners have access to the answers of all the tasks, they are marking as they go along. Suddenly my top end learner becomes frustrated. He has got most of the work wrong. I take a look and he has done the classic mistake of circumference when it wants area and vice versa. I remind him of CARD he gives it another go and signals to me 5 minutes later that he is being more successful now!

Whilst the learners are working I take 3 of them out one by one for a mini tutorial. They are my 3 at risk learners. I let them know I am putting in interventions for them and say that I believe with hard work they can improve. I am then taken aback realising my peer observers are with me in my final mini tutorial. I am mortified I left my class unattended with peer observers in the room. I apologise and my peers are great and they say, no we think it's brilliant you have taught them well enough to leave them for 5 minutes and these mini tutorials are equally important. I check on the class and they have all done a nice mix of area/circumference including semi circles and compound shapes. I give verbal feedback (should have written more down!) It's almost time for a break but not quite and I am just about to move on when one of the learners makes a safeguarding disclosure to me out of the class so I call a break for 10 minutes while I make notes and report it to my safeguarding lead. I bid farewell to my peers.

I grab 2 minutes to think about what we can do next. I had planned to do angles in parallel lines but I'm concerned that the secure circle knowledge is at risk if I go to angles. My other option is loci or bearings. I decide to go loci. I don't know why I don't teach loci particularly well. Actually it probably ranks as one of my worst lessons. I don't enjoy it and I struggle to visualise the boundaries of areas in the complex questions. Decision has been made now though, I am writing my new learning intentions up on the board before I remember how badly I teach loci!

We do a quick Slido to check our rating now on circles. Everyone has improved. We review the grade 3 and grade 5 learning intentions on loci and constructions and do another Slido, the class has no idea about the language of the topic. No one rates themselves higher than a 1. With a feeling of dread that this has been a poor decision we begin by drawing line and angle bisectors on blank pieces of paper. I demo them in my Slides presentation. (Someone years ago shared a nice demo where the compass moves and the arc appears, I would never have the time to make such a beautiful presentation so I am very grateful to still have it!) Cue difficulties with expanding compass widths in between arcs. Some are unable to keep their pencil in the compass. Some can't use the compass. I get round everyone improving their techniques I see no harm in spinning the paper rather than the compass if the learner struggles. We then take a look at some exam questions. They progress into not explicitly stating it is a line or an angle bisectors but a more worded question. All can do the explicit ones, most can do the more challenging ones. Progress is through skill repetition practise here.

I then put an x on the board (I have been rummaging in my bag for post it notes whilst they were working) and I ask each of them to put a post it note 20cm away from my x. They chat amongst themselves. Some want to do a line, someone twigs it would be a circle, then there's a competition on who can be accurate and exactly 20cm away. I am observing this active learning loving the conversation. I then demo a dog tied to a post would have a circle locus. Then a dog tied to a bar would have a running track shaped locus. (Handily there's a bar outside my window to help visualise) all are keen to get going and for some unknown reason I then decide to demo one of the complex garden planning questions. I draw a rectangle ABCD and ask them where I could put my path that is an equal distance from AB and CD. I start to get clammy I am about to jump in and answer my own question when one of the weaker learners contributes "would it be a line dissector?" We will skip over the incorrect language for now. I check the room and all are thinking the same. Another learner says "yeah this is fine but more than 5m away from the tree for the fountain that isn't any bisect or anything so what do we do there?" I am over joyed. The long phase about the path was because they had twigged that it was a line bisector and were struggling with the next part of the question. I demo an arc 5m from the tree and all are itching to get going. We do a quick Slido and no one rates themselves below a 4!

I circulate the room giving feedback. All have the answers so can tick and flick. I see little merit in me ticking and flicking their work. My role is to shape their learning journey and I do this through feedback not ticks and flicks. I can't believe it, everyone can do it! The lower level ones have some beautiful running track shaped around lines and even a running track around an L shape. The higher level ones are shading the correct regions in the town planning questions. One learner even attempts a create a shipping path question involving 5 elements. I look at the clock and 3.5 hours has gone! I pull them back for a final Slido, it stays the same. I recap our learning intentions and ask them to reflect in their fake iMessage sheets. See my blog post on feedback for these. They all thank me for a brilliant lesson.

I grab a cuppa and sit down to respond to their feedback iMessage sheets. Here are some of the responses:

"Why has no one shown me CARD before? Changed it all now"

"I will forget loci but I won't forget the lesson"

"Thank you it was epic, I learnt more than the last 4 years of studying for my GCSE"

I honestly think this was my best lesson ever. Yes I had pre planned presentations and my photocopying was ready but I made responsive decisions throughout and reflected on learner points. I don't think I did anything special, I certainly would never do anything special for a peer obs, and it all came good in the end. The peer observer emailed me a few weeks later and said she was trying Slido and some other bits she had seen me do, that is why I have an open door policy!

Padlet and notice boards

One of the things I am often asked for is an online noticeboard. Staff want to use them to inform learners, assess learners and display student work. The natural choice is Padlet. See my previous post on challenge for all. This is an example of my challenge for all Padlet. When we were ready to enter the challenge for all zone I would display my Padlet and learners would choose a challenge to apply their knowledge from the lesson to.

I hit a problem when Padlet became popular at work. We were limited to the free accounts only and this meant I now had MASSIVE messy padlets. No longer was a nice collection of things, it was now a repository for everything shiny. We trialled a few others, Linoit was my personal favourite.

Linoit allows you to get learners to collaborate together on a large noticeboard. I liked the ease of it. I disliked the basic feel of it. We were then introduced to Jamboards. I must always point out I am a Google Certified Trainer and I do use Google a lot! Jamboard replaced Linoit for me as it was very similar. The real power of Jamboard is the app that can be used on any device and everyone can collaborate live. This is seen best with an actual Jamboard in the classroom. I take the point that it is another type of board and it is unaffordable for many. I am not totally convinced on any type of board to be honest. Some of my lessons are in a room that has a projector onto a whiteboard and I annotate around my slide deck in whiteboard pen. I am very happy with this arrangement! Like I said before, I am not a fan of tech just for the sake of it and an interactive board is not always necessary in my lessons.

Anyway Jamboard...I like the collaborative nature, I like the name, join a jam, I like the colours and ease of it. I dislike the feature limitations and that it doesn’t recognise maths notation (quite a large problem!)(I m hopeful Equatio will be built in soon!) However I work with teachers of all different subjects and it has transformed some lessons. This is a simple maths jam that I use. It’s a drag and drop to reveal a hidden picture. Very similar idea to the amazing Catchphrase activities that the brilliant Laura Rees Hughes made in the early years of my teaching career that were very handy to have. 

I work with provisions with learners with additional needs and some learners with profound learning needs. I hoped the power of Jamboard would be useful to the teaching staff in these areas. I was right. The learners enjoyed the kinaesthetic nature of dragging and dropping to reveal a picture. I then expanded this to reveal giphs. One learner loved buttons, so I used buttons instead of the sticky notes and it revealed a giph of underwater creatures bubbling away. We then used the Jamboard to practise mark making. I inserted mark making worksheets as backgrounds that learners wrote over. Finally we looked at traditional categorising card sort activities and replacing them with the Jamboard. We used the Jamboard to categorise shapes that had 4 sides on. I simply inserted lots of shapes, using the Google image search feature on Jamboard. It layers them nicely on top so you have a stack of them to move about. I then added a sticky of the category.

We then built on this to parts of the body, we did an activity on vowels and consonants. We also did an ordering activity where I inserted the images of washing your hands and the learners had to put them in the right order. It has been hugely successful with our learners with additional needs. My maths learners like the maths sticky activities too. So from a tool where we collected ideas on Padlet we have now moved to Jamboard for assessing and categorising. This meant I still had a need for a tool for displaying ideas and resources. I was introduced to Wakelet. 

You can add anything to Wakelet, your own material, material from the web, videos, bookmarks the list goes on. The aim of Wakelet is to curate your collection. The very problem I was having with Padlet ending up all messy is resolved with Wakelet as it is about picking your best, and being selective. My learners like Wakelet as a reference board. For example I would make one on multiplication, starting with lattice method. Then multiplying decimals. Supported with some videos and some practise on the methods. I am by no means a Wakelet expert, others I work with are! But I see the benefit and I like to set them up after a staff CPD session just displaying the tools or theory I raised in the session.

Hegarty Maths and active dialogue

I have to admit when I was told that we were getting Hegarty Maths and we all had to do it, I was a little resistant. Initial thoughts were, not another thing I have to do! I already do so much! I will also fight tooth and nail to protect my learners from additional work too. I was not on board with this new Hegarty Maths! After speaking to Mr Hegarty himself, I began to see the benefit for the learner and for me. This blog post is about Hegarty but it can be about any platform that marks student work, you will see! 

When I started teaching we set all student homework on My Maths. It was great they did a little online worksheet, it told me who got the highest so that I could give them a good comment on SIMS, and who didn’t do it on time so that I could give them a bad comment on SIMS, and those that didn’t do very well on it. These learners would either have taken less than 2 mintues to complete or they were genuinely struggling and you could pick this up with them in class. It was great, no books to mark on the weekend at home! Perfect!

Hegarty Maths can be used in a similar way. Learners log in, see the tasks that I have set them, watch a video to explain the topic to them and attempt a quiz on the topic. It gives them a mark, I can view the class as a whole, see who has done it, who hasn’t, how long they spent doing it and so on. I still don’t have any books to mark at home! Perfect!

Yet as I have progressed through my career I have realised that these platforms have the opportunity to provide so much more! The benefit for the learner is that instant gratification from getting it correct. The opportunity for them to further research the topic by going to the video before or after to either re-cover the basics or extend their knowledge. A bank of videos for all topics so if they want to pre-teach themselves something they think they may struggle with is a great tool as well.

The benefit to me is that I don’t have lots of marking, but I do have lots of opportunities for feedback! For me, my purpose is to have an active dialogue with my learners, to engage and enthuse them. See my post on feedback. Hegarty Maths is great for promoting an active dialogue. Learners can leave me comments as they progress through tasks. One student left me 57 comments one week. I read every single one. I will give you a small flavour of what she wrote:

“Don’t get this”

“I tried to put 5 but it wouldn’t let me”

“I see I should have times it first”

“Think I know where I went wrong”

“Nope not getting it”

I like this as an example because as a teacher I can see what she went on during the task. She had to overcome that initial frustration at the task, then she followed some of it, still getting it wrong. Then she lost it again.  I can respond to each of these comments individually or as an overall feedback. Ultimately what I want to say to her is well done for getting stuck in, it must have been hard. I want to say well done for keeping going even though she was getting it wrong. I want to spend some time with her going over it again to show her where she went wrong. I want to set her the previous topic as a refresher before she comes back in and we go over this task again together in class. This was my reply:

“Wow! What a journey you went on, well done for sticking with it! I think we need to take another look at this together to make sure we have it solidly in our memory bank. Can you take a look at task 87 (I have set it for you now) then bring your notes in for this and task 87 and we can go back over it together. Thank you for giving 100% to this”

Yes it is brilliant that Hegarty Maths and other online platforms take away the tick and flick element for me but time saving they are not. Nor should they be, it is our job to educate and converse with learners and help shape their learning together through an active dialogue.

Google Forms

In my quest to be better at giving feedback I am willing to give anything a try! I make no apologies I am a Google Certified Trainer so Google is my thing. You can recreate this in Microsoft Forms I am sure but Google is what I know. I wanted my learners to go over what they had done wrong in an exam independently. I had a class of 30 with 3 papers to go through and a variety of questions answered incorrectly across the board. I decided to go down the route of Google Forms to get feedback and next steps all done in one lesson. 

I chose 3 key questions from each paper, 9 in total. I marked the papers at home, entered them into my analysis grid and chose my 9 questions that were fairly red on the analysis grid. I had in my mind a choose your own ending scenario, like the Goosebumps books from my childhood! The form starts with instructions, assumptions are the enemy of a teacher. The instructions ask the learner to have the 3 papers, some paper to make notes, headphones etc. Question 1 asks “Did you achieve 5 marks for question 14 on paper 1?” The options are yes or no. The question was 5 marks for drawing a pie chart and a comparison between a pie chart and a bar chart. If the student answers no on the Google Form it takes them to a video on You Tube (Corbett maths) covering drawing pie charts. This is achieved with the After This Section Move to (‘After section’) part of Google Forms. If a student did get 5 marks on the question the form would take them to another section with a video on interpreting pie charts. After those videos the learner is given a question on what they have watched on the video, the question self marks as it is written as a multiple choice. The learners are then reunited on the Google Form and it asks again about another of my 9 questions, again with a yes or a no route. 

There are a few things I learnt through this process. First 9 questions was too much and too long. The next time I used a Google Form for feedback I only chose 3 questions and it ran smoother. Second thing that I learnt was that learners will sit quite happily watching videos about the topics. I wanted a way to harness this and assess them more robustly during their peak engagement with the videos. I discovered EdPuzzle, you can read more about it my experiences with EdPuzzle in my next blog. Third thing that I learnt is learners enjoyed the experience and that they could go back over things at their own pace.

I am never a fan of doing something for the sake of it. At the time of writing this Esports is everywhere and I am yet to see the benefit to my learners so I am not on board, for now! A while back QR codes were everywhere, Every worksheet, poster, display and staircase, yes staircase! I was a little late to the QR code game, it took me a while to find a place that was meaningful for me and my learners! A really nice way I found was to use it in a feedback sheet. I took the idea that students liked watching videos and were willing to work at their own pace via this medium. I created a table with the 9 questions and added 2 QR codes. One linking the learner to the video drawing pie charts and the other QR code linking learners to the video on interpreting pie charts. The point of Google Forms and the QR code sheet is to engage the learner with taking next steps or guiding them to recover topics they need to look back over. Both ways were successful in this aim. Successful in students making progress?, I have no clear answer but we try these things and build on them, I am still building!

Another use of Google Forms I have used in maths is as mini assessments. I was tasked with reducing the marking workload of the maths teachers for a LARGE number maths learners. The team wanted a 30 minute assessment on the topics covered to far that was robust and akin to GCSE. I cut and paste images from Exam Wizard and Exam Pro (both exam boards were used so I ended up making 2 assessments!) I would then make 4 choices on a multiple choice question. I was fascinated by Mr Barton’s Diagnostic Questions and the idea that you can diagnose a misconception. An example would be an averages question asking for the median of a data set. Option 1 would be correct, option 2 would be the mode, option 3 would be the mean, option 4 would be the median but using unordered data. The aim being that if the learner chose the mode or the mean you can assume the learner doesn’t know the difference between the 4 types of averages. The learner who chooses option 4 knows the median is the middle value but forgot to order the data. They need teaching differently to the learner who can calculate averages correctly. One needs practise on the language of the question, the other needs to practise median. This is a very crude example but I hope I make my point.

In my 30 minute assessment using Google Forms I made all the questions multiple choice. I enjoyed finding misconceptions. Using the incorrect trigonometry ratio, listing a highest common factor when we were looking for a lowest common multiple, it was great fun! Once the responses are in the Google Form you can direct them to a Google Sheets. From here we can mark them correct or incorrect using IF formulas. We can then RAG rate the student’s work. Staff appreciated the reduced marking, but challenged the use of multiple choices. Ideally free text would have been better but I couldn’t see a way to mark it automatically this way. If the answer was vertically opposite angles are equal learners could have made spelling mistakes that would have been marked correct if the spelling was logical. In a later blog I will talk about Equatio, a potential solution to this.

The advantages of using Google Forms in this way was that we could batch upload student results to our student data system. When it came to assessment time again 6 weeks later we could see progress within the areas assessed. Problems arose when staff got ahead or fell behind the scheme of work. Students felt under prepared. Nothing will ever be perfect but we are making strides in the right direction. If this has peaked your interest and you want to know more about my use of Google Forms, please get in touch. My plan is to write an ebook at some point about them in great detail...

Analysis Grids

I make no apologies I LOVE an analysis grid! I love it per question, I love it per topic, I love it conditional formatted.  Love it RAG rated. I love it all. 

This is a snapshot of a number assessment for one of my groups. I can instantly see I need to go over dividing fractions for a few of them and maybe adding fractions as a starter as well. We have been using these in departments since I began teaching. The revelation of Google Sheets and that everyone can be on the same document together avoiding the need for you to wait for Miss Haans to input her results before she sends the Excel sheet to you has been transformational. I encourage all of my student teachers to use an analysis grid regularly, it easily informs your teaching at a glance. If you are looking for a start activity, check out your most recent analysis grid and it will tell you an amber topic for most that may need recovering. Likewise if someone comes to see you teach, and they ask how do you know what they need to cover the analysis grid shows them.

Great, we as teachers have a lovely coloured sheet that informs our teaching. Sorted! What about our learners? Is it just for us? Is it a secret? I give my learners their analysis grids too! They can quickly see where they need to put their revision efforts. Obviously I don’t share the whole class grid with individuals. I will add in some QR codes to Corbett maths videos as well so that learners can watch a video on a topic that they need to work on. Learners can see their grid, see their amber areas and search the topic on Hegarty Maths and give it a go. 

One of the biggest challenges I face around revision time is helping learners understand what the topic is called. They see it as a tiling the wall problem whereas we know it as a percentage discount and area with money problem. Do we expect them to know that? Do we tell them that is what they would look up if they wanted to revise it? The analysis grid does. Especially the ones made by the exam board. It gives them the complicated long name that we are very used to as staff. It gets learners used to seeing what we are looking for in their answers. 

An analysis grid is not the only opportunity for this. I like to (like is a bit strong, I do it because I believe it benefits my learners, I don’t like doing it!) cut and paste the title of the topic from the analysis grid into a text box in the exam paper so that as the learner completes the exam paper they can see what the topic is that they are being assessed on and research it if necessary. This takes a long time, especially with a question with parts a,b,c,d,e and f! But I think it genuinely benefits learners by allowing them to be a bit more independent in their revision and think about what topics they want to learn more about.

Feedback and Marking

This is a hard post to write as I feel that this is one of the weakest areas of my teaching. I have to be honest, I struggle! I am well read on types of feedback and marking but I often find it a challenge to apply to maths when the answer is either right or wrong and it is SO natural to tick and flick. I hate ticking and flicking I also hate writing “great” or “well done” I despair when I see it in other books when I am observing. But what is the answer? I’m not sure I have one!

We did a lot of work around growth mindset, Carol Dweck being the expert. One of the things that came out of it was providing learners with a help zone. The idea of the help zone is that at any point in the lesson learners could go and seek further information to help them overcome what they are stuck on. This was universal to all subjects and it is something I really ran with. I always have a help zone, I have a travel pack for when I am in between rooms! It contains:

• Chromebook - learners can look online for answers

• Revision Guide - learners can research the topic

• Templates/grids - prompts that learners may need, e.g. lattice method grids pre-printed

• Equipment - if tracing paper will help with a rotation or loci question, why not use it?

• Dictionary - English one to help with definitions, overseas language to English if I have a few learners from the same country in class too

• Answers - to all the questions/worksheets/tasks of the class

Why do some teachers make the answers a secret, it was the same when I was at school. I vividly remember by teacher telling me that she would give me the answers after I had done the first exercises. Interestingly she recently interviewed me for a post, I didn’t recognise her, it’s funny how the mind builds up images of people over time! If the students have the answers they can mark their work and move on to an appropriate task when they are ready. Sometimes it is easier to unpick where you have gone wrong when you see the answer. I am a firm believer that as hard as understanding is to teach if you can articulate how, where any why an answer exists incorrect or correct you are on your way to developing understanding. 

If you are sat in my class and you can’t go forward because you haven’t got a clue how to tackle the first question. I would like to think I would spot you and be able to help. However with adults they can be very good and acting like a swan and mis-lead the teacher into being OK when they aren’t (this happens weekly with a student of mine who rattled through work happily but all of it incorrect!) If you are stuck and you don’t want to ask for help, how do you get help? Yes students should be comfortable asking for help, that is the purpose of staff being there! But sometimes it is a lot more than that, take my student with severe anxiety in public. For her to turn up is an achievement. Yet when she is stuck, how does she alert me, how do I know? I actually keep a close eye on her but what she likes best is that she has the answers and she can work out where she went wrong once she sees the answer and then move on. Take my confident student who likes to regularly tell me I have written something wrong on the board. She wants to know that she has got everything right and get to the harder work before I have even typed it out! She needs the answers so she can pick and choose a few of the easier ones to do, check she has got it and move on. Take my student who is a doctor in her home country. She needs the answers because she knows the maths but is unfamiliar with the language of the GCSE exam. She wants to read a few questions and answers before moving on to the harder work. 

If my learners have the answers, what am I doing I hear you ask? I have my trusty coloured pen in my hair. It can be red, green, purple or rainbow coloured depending on the department I am working in. I wander around the room giving feedback and asking students, why did you put that? Can you tell me how you got that answer? What would happen if we did this? I am helping those who are really struggling, offering alternative explanations. I am having conversations with my learners about their homework, or lack of it. I am asking them to move up a level in the tasks they are completing. I am spending time with them. I think that is a better use of my time than me standing at the front reading the answers out so that they can tick and flick.

So how do I record feedback? This is another challenge. They have got everything right, they have answered a more challenging set of work. We are collectively at the end of the topic now, where do I take them? How do I feedback? Like I said I am not an expert but I take this opportunity to ask them to find my error in some incorrect work that I have done or for them to write a cheat sheet of their workings out, I challenge them! See my post on Challenge for all

To record feedback is hard, most of it is verbal, or notes over corrections. I have tried the old, “verbal feedback given” stamp and they have to copy down what you said. I like this idea, it allows them time to reflect on what you said and by writing it down it may stick a little more than if they just heard it. However it takes time, it slows them down, pace is crucial in maths. I also have the challenge of adults who don’t really want to talk things through with me or admit that they are struggling freely, I mean who does! So I hit upon a fake imessage idea. It is a printed template, it has a blank fake messaging conversation

that looks like this,

We use this during the lesson to capture verbal feedback. I am the green, they are the white. Sometimes I will write in the green myself for speed. The white is what is important to them, their misconception. I then developed it to include a progress line on the top as well. This then meant that learners naturally wrote in the white part how they felt in my progress checks in my lesson. Say we were mid way through translations and we were just finishing translations with words before we looked at column vectors the lesson naturally has a progress check in, learners will record their thoughts in the white message bubbles at that point. “This is easy” “ I need to remember that I pick a corner first” and so on. 

When I think about my aim when providing feedback, it isn’t to say “great”. It is to develop the learner, that is why I am there. They can watch videos on you tube and learn translations without me. They can also find exam questions on translations and mark schemes and tick and flick them without me. The purpose of me being there is to help them overcome misconceptions. I am there to guide them on next steps. I am there to provide alternative explanations. I am there to praise them. I am there to support them. All of this needs an active dialogue between me and my learners. I need a one to one with them during class, after class, mid week when they tackle their homework and before they come into class to check on their actions from the last one to one. This isn’t possible! But if we have an active dialogue we can achieve many of these things. This messaging print out allows me to do this. Remember the old red card on the desk to alert you that a student was struggling. These do the same thing, they can write down they are unsure and you can see it as you go round the room. I take them in at the end of the lesson, provide detailed summary feedback from my point of view after the lesson. I set next steps or challenge work and we have 5 minutes reflection on what i have written at the start of next lesson. 

Now I know what I do isn’t perfect, nor is it ground breaking but it works for me and I may provide someone with a structure that may help them, so if you are struggling to avoid writing “great” it may be worth a try?

Exam Top Tips

The pressure of the exam can cause so much distress that learners automatically forget how brilliant they are. I am a huge fan of doing everything possible to settle and calm nerves before exams. I remember in the opening year of a small school I was in buying pan au chocolat, cereal bars and hot chocolate for the 12 year 11 learners on the day of their exams. It is always something I have done, maybe it is the areas I work in but breakfast seems to be a meal we, as education providers, often supply. No more so on exam day. 

I began thinking about ways to embed the exam throughout the year in an effort to reduce some of the stress of the actual event. Every lesson includes and exam question, printed from the exam so it looks and feels like the real thing. After a couple of years of this I asked one of my repeat repeaters what was happening when he got into the exam and he said there’s just so much stuff to remember he kept making mistakes on the easy parts.

I then began building a bank of hints and tips that I could embed into my lessons that I called save the space. The idea is to give learners more space to remember the stuff that they find hard. Here are a few examples:

Number line

I am a big fan of a -10 to +10 number line somewhere on the exam booklet. Once it’s down it can be referred to and the learner can jump from one to another hopefully doing addition and subtraction of negative numbers a little easier. Even if the numbers are more sophisticated the number line may remind them of the concept of whether a number gets larger or smaller.

Get out of jail 2,3,5,7,11

I teach prime factor decomposition with the first 5 primes written all over the place. I call them the get out of jail free numbers and say one branch on the decomposition must be one of the top 5 primes! I then use the first 5 primes again in simplifying fractions. It is essentially divisibility checks but in my experience if you mention the word division panic sets in for many learners so giving them the divisibility checks as a helpful hint overcomes that panic. 

360o protractors.

Every year around February I will ask the head of department I am in what equipment they have for the exam. I understand in the outside world if you turn up to your job without the correct equipment it is your responsibility and no one will help you out. Maybe it is the area I work in or my empathy for the learners going through the exam again not for the first time. Whatever the reason I always provide equipment. I always encourage the department to buy 360o protractors. Again it just helps ease learners stress in the exam when working with bearings

Faces Edges and Vertices

There is so much for students to remember in exams. In my private tutoring work I always say my job is to get you ready for your exam, your teacher is teaching you. When I am the teacher in front of a group of resitters it is both my job to get them ready for the exam and teach them! So a little thing I like to do is to teach faces, edges and vertices using your hand, forearm and elbow. Put your hand in front of your face, this is a face! Your forearm is the edge and your elbow is the vertex. The hope is that students will re-enact this in the exam on the low grade 3D shape property questions and save some valuable brain space for the more challenging topics. Plus it provides the invigilator some entertainment in the exam!