Why do we count in 4s?

 Why do we count in 4s in England?

As a former maths teacher who chose to work in #FEmaths I think we may need to look at assessment at age 16.

I give the analogy of a pilot in my book.

A pilot proves knowledge has been acquired and retained on key aspects of flying in an exam. But to fly a plane commercially they accrue hours of competency. They evidence, over time, how they apply this acquired knowledge. They progress in their roles held in a hierarchical structure with flying hours a key part.

When I think about assessment in England, we assess at 16 a whole course approach and those who don't achieve the desired grade 4 are immediately affected for the rest of their lives. 

Imagine a student who achieved a grade 3 in maths but 7s in all other subjects. They gain 4 A levels (not in maths). Go to university and achieve a BA. They do an MA and then decide to get a job.

The first qualification that is often required is a grade 4 in English and maths. The rest of this students brilliant study doesn't get taken into account unless that grade 4 is there.

The 4 is what counts.

Sure the student can re-sit alongside other study but the point is, we place all our emphasis on this assessment designed for students aged 16.

What were you like at 16?

We don't take into account experience, skills, evidence of learning over time. 

We count in 4s.

I say this having taught an adult who worked as a healthcare assistant in a hospital, during covid, who wanted to be a nurse. They re-sat maths 6 times. They earnt a healthcare assistant wage for the 6 years of re-sits they took. They gained vast care and medical experience in that time. The year of covid they passed maths and immediately began a nursing qualification. Upon completion all the years experience were recognised and they entered nursing at a higher band salary than would be usual.

The experience counted but only after we counted in 4s.

So I come back to the pilot example, yes a skills test of the basics. Then a process of evidencing learning over time, applying the subject to real life, showing what you know in a variety of non exam ways. Sounds like a good maths course for 16-19 years olds, no?

These are not our decisions to make but we can raise our voices and show how we think change would deliver better for our students.

We need to stop counting in 4s.

This analogy and other arguments for disruption are in my book which is raising funds for charity. It is also available as an audio listen along version as well. Info at www.whatthetrig.co.uk 

Building Community in virtual maths lesson

 I am a huge fan of building community when teaching online. It is a challenge but I like the challenge that it presents. I like getting to know my students, what their experiences of maths are and I like to get going quickly. My favourite tool for getting to know my students is Flipgrid. Flipgrid allows us all to record a video saying hello and answer some ice breaker questions. I quite like asking how many times you have sat the GCSE exam before or how many pets do you have. Something so that they can all connect. I make a video too showing off the bedlam that is my house and then they can connect with me. We can then use Flipgrid again because we have overcome any difficulties we have with using Flipgrid early doors meaning that we can harness it's full power when we start learning.

If Flipgrid isn't for you, you can replicate this in Google Slides. You can create a Slide deck with the name of each student written at the top and ask them some questions on the slide. They then record a video on their pwn device and insert it onto the slides. This is my default tool for asking students to reflect on how their revision is going and sharing top tips with other learners sometimes over Flipgrid. It is slightly more formal and I think that makes students be more succinct.

If video makes you or your students uncomfortable you can do the same activity but without asking them to insert videos. Using a named slide deck, students find the slide of their name and insert a collage of images that reflect them and their interests. They can add text too to personalise it further.

Once we have been introduced I like to give my students a space to communicate. Google Classroom is my space to communicate with them and Google Currents or Google Hangouts Chat can be their space. I turn on join via  a link and share the link to the students. I inform them that it is optional and I recognise that I teach adults resit GCSE so this may not be appropriate for all ages. I am obviously in the chat and the currents group too. But we set expectations at the outset that it is their space to communicate and I will respond if they need me to. I ask them to help me out and say if you know the answer to a question from one of your peers please respond to save me doing it. Not that I am lazy but that I am busy with many groups and if you see a peer in need please step in to help them out as you may be able to reply quicker than me.

Now we have established communication channels I like to make my students feel welcomed and connected with me throughout their studies. Where possible I leave verbal feedback as an audio file either by Read and Write voice note or Mote. I encourage my learners to do the same. Read and Write gives 1 minute and Mote is 30 seconds in the free version. It's a challenge to be personal and succinct in giving feedback verbally.

Every now and then I like to do a video update about things they might want to be thinking about. When to start revising, recapping a topic that was a while ago, or social information like Christmas activities. I record a Screencastify for less than 5 minutes on the free version and share it with my students. If I have marked a series of papers I like to record a video of me modelling the most common answers that were incorrect and again share that video. This helps me stay connected to my learners. Once they have their marked papers back I would ask them to do a Flipgrid about what would they like to tell themselves if they were to sit the assessment again.

Finally in every task, hyperdoc, choice board I insert my bitmoji doing a crazy thing to show my learners it is me, I created this work for them and I want them to do well.

I hope you manage to stay connected with your learners digitally too.

Screencastify

I moved into Ed tech a couple of years ago and one of the first things I was asked to do was to pass my master caster course. Nope, me either! An embarrassed Google later and I discovered Screencastify. It's a great recording tool in Google Chrome that allows you to record your screen with or without your webcam included or just record your webcam. The beauty of working on a chrome book is that you always have a webcam and microphone ready to go. Screencastify is not paying me for this post. No one pays me for my posts. There are alternatives to Screencastify; Loom, Screencastomatic, Awesome Screenshot, Nimbus, Hippo Video and We Video to name a few. All have their merits and a place in my heart and much of what I'm about to talk about can be achieved on all these tools. But none with the ease that I have found with Screencastify. 

I have openly admitted that I struggle with questioning in my lessons. I can ask for the answer, I can ask for someone to explain the answer but I can't pick pose pause pounce bounce or any other iterations. Questioning is not my strength. Likewise feedback. I can do right or wrong, I can do corrections needed. I can do next steps or go back over this, but, I can't do Star or any other iterations. I'm not sure if it's me or if its subject specific but I am not the best at either. I am especially poor at giving feedback on mock papers. I have built Google forms to help (and blogged about these previously, read about them here) but when I am marking I am going through a process and because I have three papers for each of my 22 learners per group, I don't have the time or the inclination to handwrite this process down. This is where Screencastify changed the game. 

I was sat marking a paper and I wanted to give the student full marks, the page was full of working out! The final answer was incorrect but not a million miles away. Yet I had to score the answer zero. Imagine being that learner and seeing that effort not being rewarded with a single mark. Previously I would have written, "you've gone on the wrong track, let's have a chat". That was the best I could do in the time allocated to mark that question. Not insightful for the learner, and requiring them to ask me for more information. The change is now I sit with my chrome book open as I mark and when I come to a question like this, I flick on Screencastify with my webcam only and chat as I mark. (the chrome book isn't fully open as to see what I'm writing the camera needs to be angled so the chrome book is partially open which often results in my colleagues entering my room to check today isn't the day I finally lose it as they think I'm talking to myself! I need a sign for my door to say recording in process!!!) 

I can orate to the learner how I am marking their answer. I can explain that if you used an incorrect method that arrived at this answer it is automatically a zero mark answer. I can explain that if you had carried on with this piece of working out here part way down the page you would have got 2 marks but because it was replaced with this working out it is a zero. This is powerful because the learner can hear my voice. They can hear my empathy, they can hear the effort I have put in to marking their work. I can flash them the mark scheme and show them what it says, this informs the learner and helps them decide on what they will do next. The learner doesn't have to come to me for feedback. I can post this just to them on Google classroom and they can privately reflect. They can reply with video too if they want to have another attempt. Or they can reply with their thoughts and feelings on my marking. This powerful because they can see their mistakes and the impact these had in a 1 minute video and they don't have to leave their house! They don't need to be in class to hear this, they don't need to ask a peer "what did you get for Q8 I got nothing but I wrote loads?". Screencastify is helping create a clarity in what we need to do next to improve. 

Once I have marked a batch of papers, much like a chief examiner, I can pick out things that went well as a theme and not so well. I can use my analysis grid (I have blogged about these before read about my love of them here!) I can see as a group what we did well on and what we can improve on. I can record this as a video with Screencastify. Very quickly I can explain an overall class picture, I can hide the names on my analysis grid and include my webcam as I talk over the whole class results. Including my webcam is not something I enjoy but I recognise the power of my learners feeling connected and seeing my expressions as I explain. I can explain that because we all did well on this we won't be coming back to it in class so it's something the learner needs to keep ticking over at home. I can explain that because we didn't do well on this as a class that we are going to need to spend a bit of time on it next lesson and what I need the learners to do to prepare. Screencastify is helping create a clarity in what our next steps are. 

If there is a particular question that many have done poorly on, I can model answers. I can quickly open Screencastify, webcam only, tilt my chrome book and model my working out on certain questions. I can show my learners what we were looking for. I can explain it in the way that we learnt it in class, using the examples we looked at linking to the event of the lesson, triggering memories in my learners. I can explain my frustrations at poor exam etiquette and illegible handwriting. My learners can reflect on this exam without leaving their home, just by picking up their phone they can see my Google classroom video on whole class feedback. Screencastify is helping create a clarity with that feedback. 

This was all before COVID and before things changed. Screencastify has now come more to the forefront as we look at blended learning becoming the normal. I can now talk over my slides like I would have done in class. I can share my screen and flick between resources. I can embed my webcam so my learners can see my face and feel connected to me. Screencastify allows me to plan as normal (ish) I can record my content that allows those outside the classroom to learn at their own pace. It allows them to go back over things they are unclear on. It helps them personalise their own learning in developing their understanding of the content. 

I also love to use Screencastify to orate my curation of resources. I have been using it to talk over my lesson plan and record why I chose that approach and that tool or that website for colleagues to help them begin planning for blended learning. But this is also powerful for my learners. I am now giving them choice boards of much wider choices as I am no longer constrained  by device limits or photocopying limits. In this choice though I want to explain why I have chosen what I have chosen as a resource and at what point in the learning journey a learner might want to access that resource. I can explain that "this website is great for this but I think it would sequence better if you practised with this task before you give the website activity a go". I can give my learners choice but explain why I have curated in this way. I can also orate my expectations of the tasks and how I will be giving feedback. Screencastify is helping me create clarity in why and what we are doing. 

The incredible ease of using Screencastify in a GSuite environment is that it automatically saves to My Drive. You can change the sharing settings to all within the domain in one click. In one click you can share your video to Google classroom. In one click you can export as an Mp4. In one click you can open the editor and begin easily editing and inserting more clips. It launches from chrome on 1 click too. It is an easy to use tool. I appreciate I have a premium account, and lack of editing and video length are an issue for free accounts, but I don't think premium is prohibitively expensive. Yes, I accept premium is significantly better than a free account. But all the one click sharing tools that I just described are available on the free account. And let's be honest if you're talking for more than 5 minutes about 1 thing to your learners they may have stopped listening anyway so a free account may help you keep it concise!