*This post involves nothing by the way of new ideas, I merely put the word ‘flipping’ in the title so more people would read it*
Exam season is approaching. Year 11 are soon to be sitting their GCSE Maths exams, mostly not for the first time. Year 10 are also soon to be sitting their GCSE Maths exams, mainly for the first time (they will doubtless have a few more chances before they finish Year 11). All of this has put more pressure on teachers to begin revision lessons when they still have content to deliver.
This is where I’ve found video content to be a huge help. Each week I make a short video (under 5 mins) explaining how to tackle questions on my chosen revision topic, using the superb Explain Everything app for the iPad. The content is uploaded directly to Youtube so it can be easily embedded in the class wiki. I then distribute a set of revision questions to my students on the topic, tell them to watch the video and wait to collect their work in without even mentioning the topic in class. Here is a little sample of a short ratio video:
The aim of these videos is to create additional time for covering other topics in lessons. I have found it to be an extremely valuable method, especially with my Year 10 classes; weekly homeworks now have a revision focus, leaving lessons as a time for exploring new topics – the way it should be. In this way the main benefits of a ‘flipped classroom’ can be truly felt; it provides students with more time to access a greater amount of material and to a higher level.
The quality of my students’ revision homework has been very high, with some students predictably highlighting the ability to replay video content until they understand it. I am yet to map it to any exam results, but am hopeful even at these early stages. It certainly seems to be beneficial to a real range of ability groups. I have found it incredibly useful for high ability classes as a means to revising easier content they have not covered for a while, whilst it is equally useful with lower ability classes who can often struggle with retaining information and new skills.
I suspect these revision video homeworks would be further enhanced by a platform for student interaction where students are able to assist each other – such as Edmodo – but this isn’t something I have setup for my GCSE classes, yet.
Most Maths teachers (and many other subject teachers) will have tried to use an exam topic tracker before. Often, these are created using a simple time-consuming spreadsheet into which the teacher has to manually enter the marks gained – by each student – for each question. This then allows the teacher to analyse the results and target areas of weakness.
This seems to miss the point a little. Our students need to be more independent and responsible than this ‘teacher reliance’. If they are aware of their own weaknesses then they can act responsibly to correct these. Surely students need to have their own version of an exam topic tracker if they are to analyse their results themselves?
Using Google Docs, each student can have a copy of their own tracker, which they can then share with the class teacher. Upon receiving exam papers back, each student then updates their tracker with the marks they obtained for each question. Depending on the marks obtained, each cell is turned either green, yellow or red. This information can then be used by both the student and the teacher to drive progress (and the teacher hasn’t even had to lift a finger yet – marking aside). Feel free to have a play with the spreadsheet by clicking on the image below.
Utilising videos of exam answers
The updated spreadsheet contains a hyperlinked video solution to each question. I encourage my students to watch the videos to the questions they have got incorrect. I find the videos to be a helpful tool in my students’ assessment of their own knowledge; by watching the short video explanation they can usually gauge their level of understanding of a topic.
Unfortunately, all of the video answers are Youtube clips, which means they are still not accessible within the majority of schools. Until we all have access to YoutubeEDU, this means the videos can only be accessed outside of school by students. Of course this isn’t a problem, since students can access their Google Docs anywhere via any web browser.
Using Google Docs to enter into a dialogue with students about their progress
Getting students to reflect on their learning and target their own areas for improvement can be difficult to achieve. I didn’t want my students taking the time to complete the spreadsheet and watching the videos without any reflection at all. After completing the spreadsheet and watching the videos, I usually get my students to set 3 targets for themselves to work on before their next exam, which can be written on the spreadsheet as a reminder.
Sadly the ‘Comments’ function of Google Spreadsheets are not quite up to the standard of Documents. However, they still provide a nice way of communicating with students. Once the students have used the spreadsheet and completed their targets, the teacher can then right-click on the appropriate cell and choose ‘Insert Comment’. The comments can be used in lots of ways, such as directing students to resources to further their knowledge, or suggesting targets the student may have missed. Comments appear as small orange triangles in the top right hand corner of cells.
Sharing your Google Doc tracker with your students
There are lots of different options for sharing a Google Doc tracker with your students, but here is my method – and you only have to do this once.
Keep a master copy of the spreadsheet (you can have a copy for yourself by going to ‘File’ > ’Make a Copy’) and don’t use it for anything, except any necessary updates. You can then use this copy to send any updates to your students’ spreadsheets. I have a master version and also a copied version that I share with students.
Make sure each of your students is logged in to Google Docs (signing up just a few seconds) and provide them with a link to the copied version of the tracker – via wiki, VLE link, email etc.
The Google Doc will then open, students click on ‘File’ > ‘Make a Copy’ > Tick the box ‘Also copy document collaborators’ > Rename the file containing the students name/initials.
The teacher will then automatically have access to each student’s spreadsheet (without even sharing email addresses). I recommend creating a ‘collection’ for each class and moving your classes’ spreadsheets into one collection.
Using a Google Doc tracker with your students over a longer period of time
Of course, you may not want to share a giant spreadsheet with your students containing video answers to every paper they might sit in the next two years. By making another copy of your master version, you can reduce the spreadsheet so it contains only the exam papers relevant to you, and slowly add more papers to your students’ spreadsheets. Here is an example of how:
As your students sit an exam at the beginning of Year 10, you can go through the process above but share with them only the exam papers they have completed.
Next time your class complete an exam paper, return to your ‘master version’ and find the exam paper you would now like to share with your students.
On the sheet you would like your students to now have access to, click on the sheet name at the bottom and click ‘Copy to’.
Tick the box next to each student’s spreadsheet to add your new sheet to their tracker. You are done!
I recognise this post is almost disturbingly focused on improving students’ exam scores. However, it is also primarily about encouraging students to reflect and take responsibility for their learning. If you would like a copy of the spreadsheet, use the same ‘Make a copy’ trick mentioned above and give it a go. Thanks to Tim Buckton (@mrbuckton4maths) and Carl Roberts (@carledgar86) for providing some of the videos. If you have any questions or recommendations please leave a comment below or contact me on Twitter (@riley_ed).
For those of you who haven’t come across it, Evernote is a remember-everything app. It remembers, everything. When used to its full potential, it has the capacity to improve the productivity of our students. Here are 10 reasons I think it could help to do just that, with a particular focus on the role of Evernote in 1:1 iPad schemes.
1) Evernote makes you organised. I am the opposite of an organised person. However, a peek inside my Evernote account reveals a different story. All of my notes are tagged and saved into one of my notebooks and give more than an illusion of organisation. These notes contain typed notes, handwritten notes, pictures, webpages, audio files, documents, pdfs, powerpoints and much, much more. The same tagging system can be used to allow students to organise their notes for different subjects, modules and even lessons between their devices.
2) You can email to Evernote. Every Evernote account comes with its own unique email address, which allows you to instantly save into Evernote. One of the frustrating problems associated with a lot of iPad apps can be a lack of export options, but with this handy feature you will always be able to email your work to Evernote and you can even choose the notebook and tagging options in your email too.
3) TheEvernote web clippers. This is how I first began using Evernote; as a way of storing information that I have come across that I may need again in the future. Evernote has web clippers for all of the major web browsers that allow you to clip a webpage so you can tag it and make its contents searchable. This makes Evernote ideal for collecting ideas and evidence for projects.
For the iPad, the process is a little more complicated. You can’t add an Evernote extension to the iPad’s Safari browser, but there are a couple of clever workarounds. One option is to copy the contents of a webpage, choose the ‘mail link to this page’ option and paste the contents into an email directly to your Evernote account (see the demo below). Alternatively, you can use the bookmarks function in Safari to set up your own Evernote web clipper for iPad. The two options offer fairly equal functionality and speed.
4) Evernote gives you access to your notes on multiple devices. The Evernote iPad app does some very impressive things, but doesn’t quite give you the full functionality of the desktop version. Of course, it doesn’t matter too much since Evernote automatically syncs your notes between all of your devices. This allows you to have your notes with you all of the time, meaning you can create notes and organise yourself on the move.
5) Using Evernote to share notebooks. Shared notebooks opens up yet more possibilities for the role of Evernote in education. It is another possible solution to the ‘How best to share documents with your students?’ question concerning iPads (along with Dropbox, email, blogs/sites and iTunesU). This impressive setup of a Science teacher in Californiashows what can be achieved through sharing notebooks with students, allowing them to access all of their course documents whenever they like.
6) Use Evernote to search your notes. Evernote is all about organisation and efficiency. The ability to search your notes provides a serious time-saver. In the past I could regularly be found scrolling through dozens of pages of my web browsers’ history in order to find a website containing something interesting that I forgot to favourite. Not any more. Evernote makes all of your notes searchable, including any clipped webpages, so if you know what you are looking for, Evernote will return all of your saved notes containing that term within seconds.
7) Use Evernote to search images. This particular feature adds a good element of wow factor to Evernote (see the video below). It has always surprised me just how effective the image search feature is, but having taken pictures of notes written in my own unique handwriting style Evernote still hasn’t had any issues searching my images for text. This option means students can take snapshots of their handwritten notes and save them to Evernote, allowing them to search all of their documents for keywords.
8) You can create Evernote notes automatically. Using the genius of If This Then That, you can choose certain triggers that send notes directly to Evernote. For example, you can set up RSS feeds that create a new note every time a new item appears in the feed, or you can set up a trigger that fires every time a new tweet matches a given search query.
9) You can make revision flashcards from your Evernote notes. Those lucky enough to own a smart cover for their iPad can enjoy the luxuries ofEvernote Peek, a handy revision tool that converts your notes into study materials. For the rest of us, Evernote also integrates into the excellent flashcard creator StudyBlue, which allows you to access your notes for customising as flashcards.
