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Thursday 9 July 2020

Preliminary Report on E-Learning Strategies in Secondary Education

During the period of the lockdown I have been inspired by the possibilities of e-learning and the amazing things that educators have been doing across the world to support students of all ages. With a background in e-learning, I was excited to see what was possible in supporting our students. What began as a few attempts to inspire and engage Y13 and Y11 students in March, developed into a much more extensive research project – I wanted to find out what cognitive scientists and pedagogical experts had to say about e-learning and the potential for technology to revolutionise education. Unable to attend school day-to-day, I immediately began to reflect on how I could support the learning of students in history from Y7 through to Y13. It soon became clear that there were going to be issues reaching and supporting all students. There are some well-recognised problems with attempting to teach new content to students, some of whom do not have the internet, laptops, mobile devices – or even a quiet, calm place to work.  Nevertheless, my team and I wanted to work as hard as possible to support as many students as possible. We have sought to develop engaging online resources, supported by physical counterparts. While this was going on I was speaking to colleagues and reading up on the literature. A conversation with Vincent McInerney was hugely helpful in providing some guidance for my energies. He encouraged me to read the work of Daisy Christodoulou and invited me to meet virtually with a member of his SLT, Jem Osman, who had overseen the remote learning offer at Highlands. I am indebted to them for sharing their own experiences.

This report comprises a case study of the work done at Highlands, followed by a reflection upon the research and experience I have gathered during lockdown. It is written to promote thought and discussion about the opportunities available to schools and to reflect upon some of the lessons learned through trial and error amidst an unprecedented period of turbulence in education.

Highlands Remote Learning Offer

Highlands School uses Google’s suite of tools to provide resources and e-lessons to students. They were caught in transition as the Covid-19 crisis struck. They were able to issue 2 hours training in how to use Google Classroom in the last week before lockdown and so staff have been somewhat prepared in how to use at least the basics.

Staff were asked to pause teaching on new material after Summer Half Term. The aim was to mitigate the attainment gap between students.

Staff were required to use Google Classroom to set work for students. The guiding principle of everything they have done has been to ensure clarity of instruction rather than focusing on particular methods of teaching in a lesson. They have aimed to ensure that their approach is deliverable by every member of staff to start with. They plan later to train staff to do more sophisticated training to make more of the tools they have available to them.

Their SLT lead, Jem Osman, has established a clear and achievable structure for the delivery of online learning. They have carefully consulted with staff, assessed the range of technical expertise, or lack of it, among staff, and established a simple and consistent guide for lessons.

E-Lessons at Highlands – An Analysis

Guiding principle: Narrated Presentation

Rationale: It is realistic to expect staff to be able to use simple audio recording software within a browser.[1] Staff were given simple training in how to carry out recordings and how to prepare and send out their lessons to students via Google Classroom. This approach allows staff to model activities, providing audio descriptions which can be played by students as they move through the Google Slides lesson.[2]

E-lesson structure:

Phase

Activity

Pedagogical Rationale

Starter

Every lesson begins with a low-stakes quiz recalling information from previous lessons. This comes in the form of a link to a Google Form. The quiz is multiple choice and produces instant feedback via a mark.

See Christodoulou, Kirschner, Rosenshine et al for the benefit of spaced revision and active engagement with content. Evidence shows that low-stakes quizzes can be highly effective in storing first order concepts and knowledge in long-term memory

Guided Practice

The second phase of the lesson currently focuses on recapping skills and knowledge that have been previously acquired. Staff are expected to provide detailed explanations with worked examples, followed by scaffolded semi-independent tasks.

This would resemble the kind of learning we would expect in a normal classroom activity.

Based on Rosenshine, Kirschner, Hendrick et al’s understanding of the effectiveness of directed-learning.

 

See an example here of how this might be achieved.

 

Independent Practice

If appropriate, a further phase of learning would include more independent forms of practice – this might be short to medium sized activities – e.g. a series of questions and short paragraph answers; a small exam question; a longer exam question with scaffolding.

Ibid

Plenary and Assessment for Learning

Once per week, staff send out an ‘exit ticket’ which students are expected to complete.

 

This comprises a longer multiple-choice quiz which, if carefully designed, can effectively:

a)       Indicate the level of student engagement

b)      Indicate the level of understanding and outline misconceptions

Staff are required to feed the learning from these quizzes into the planning for their next lesson (e.g. featured in the starter quiz)

See D. Christodoulou, Teachers vs Tech? (2020). See in particular Chapter 4, especially pages 124-125

Outside of lessons

Teaching Clinics

Once weekly, ideally during timetabled hours of teaching, students are invited to engage ‘live’ with staff via Google Classroom in a ‘Live chat Q&A’. This means they are able to log on at a regular time and ask as many questions as they want and teachers will be able to share their answers with the whole class. This is delivered without the need for staff or student video.

The main omission in this form of ‘recorded teaching’ is the inability of students to engage in instant Q&A with staff. In live teaching this is much easier when using the ‘chat’ function.

Feedback

Rather than attempting to provide individualized feedback to each student for their work, staff are advised to provide collective feedback for each class. There is strong evidence that this can be as effective in promoting student progress and can still feel personal.

See D. Christodoulou, Making Good Progress: The future of assessment for learning (2017)

 

 

 

Critical Reflection

Software

Software like OBS[3] may offer a more intuitive method, as can be viewed in some of the lessons we have delivered in history.[4] However, it was judged that further training would be required to achieve consistent results – it may be possible in future to allow staff to choose either narrated presentation, or full intuitive ‘live-style’ presentation using OBS. This was something that is planned for review for September at Highlands.

Recorded e-lessons vs live e-lessons

There is strong evidence that recorded lessons can be more effective than live lessons. Although there is a natural inclination to assume that live lessons are better – by dint of being closer to a normal lesson setting – there is strong evidence that the distractions and deficiencies of such lessons outweigh any social advantages. For example, during live lessons staff may be faced with the need to manage behaviour remotely, face ongoing safeguarding issues etc. Furthermore, teaching unions are not fully supportive of live lessons and advise staff that ‘these should be arranged in consultation with the teacher and not necessarily expected at the same time and day as on the normal school timetable.’ [5]

There are major advantages to sending out recorded lessons, some of which may actually exceed what is possible in a normal face-to-face lesson. Namely:

·  the potential for students to pause and recap before completing an activity

· pacing of lessons can be self-guided (there are some issues with this as identified by Christodoulou.[6]

· More possibility of differentiation, especially for mixed ability classes

·       Evidence suggests that being able to see a teacher’s face in a live lesson may actually be distracting for students. Richard Mayer’s principles of multimedia learning are particularly valuable in this regard. He warns against ‘redundancy’ (i.e. providing multiple audio and visual stimuli and that we should aim to keep lessons as coherent as possible by keeping e-lessons clear of extraneous audio, graphics or words.[7]

Lesson Resources

One of the issues with e-learning is how we successfully monitor student classwork. There are various technical solutions that have been widely available for the past decade in higher education, but which have been slower to take hold in secondary and primary settings.

VLEs

Perhaps the most effective form comes from VLEs (Virtual Learning Environments) which can be designed, bespoke, for education institutions. Software like Moodle allows institutions to design a huge range of tools for students and staff (including web pages, online reading libraries, exam scores data processing). The most valuable aspect of this in schools would be in the potential to create structured lessons which would allow students to view lesson videos, respond to multimedia resources and record their answers in a range of activity-styles. Student responses are then collected for staff automatically, and staff feedback is returned instantaneously to students. See the demo here in full.

Figure 1. Examples of online teaching using a custom built VLE.


Using Moodle would possibly require significant investment. Having spoken with the IT Resource Manager, I am aware that the school has only recently invested in Microsoft Office 365 and so may be unlikely to look to further investment. This software also requires some training to use and in a school setting, might require specialists to set up courses on behalf of less technically savvy staff.

Google and Microsoft

In the history department we have been organically drawn towards the software offered by Google. Much of this is entirely free to use and we have seen effective implementation of pedagogically sound lessons. I have met with the IT Resource Manager to discuss how the methods we have used with Google could be transferred to Microsoft and he is sure that we already have the capability, if not the training, to deliver the same thing from within Office 365.

It is possible to mimic the more advanced VLEs by using Microsoft Forms or Google Forms to create lesson activities. My department have produced a range of lessons which allow us to:

·       Create engaging and accessible content

·       Structure learning and break down complex tasks

·       Provide video guidance to model activities to students

·       Engage in low stakes testing and use the data to inform future learning

·       Provide rapid and formative feedback to students

·       Conduct GCSE and A Level assessments and feedback activities

Figure 2. Examples of using forms for online teaching resources and data gathering


My preference as a teacher would be to use software like this because:

·       It immediately captures and saves student responses

·       We can monitor responses ‘live’

·       Feedback is much easier to deliver when the students’ work is broken down onto a spreadsheet

·       We are able to provide high quality student work for their records and future revision

As was the case at Highlands, careful consideration of the ability of staff to adapt, the technology available and the capacity of students to engage with lessons should be paramount in any new e-learning policy.

Online Assessment and Feedback

Group assessment means that staff are able to respond effectively and expediently to students on a very regular basis. This falls in line with Ofsted’s recent emphasis on prioritising staff welfare and workload. It also does not detract from the progress students are able to make. It is also highly conducive to E-Learning in that staff can view student work as soon as it is produced and begin the process of feedback instantly.

Individual assessment is also possible and potentially beneficial in some circumstances. For example, in our online forms we were able to quickly offer an effort grade and a brief ‘even better if’ statement after each form was submitted to allow students to improve in their next lesson. This can also be offered through automated quiz scores.

Figure 3 An example of consolidated student work and teacher feedback

Responding to the current crisis and beyond

Short-term

Highlands plan to continue this approach in September. Their expectation is students may not be in for a full timetable of lessons, meaning this approach will form a vital underpinning of their teaching and learning for the foreseeable future. As the Chief Medical Officer, Chris Whitty, recently admitted, ‘“I would be surprised and delighted if we weren’t in this current situation through the winter and into next spring. I think then, let’s regroup and work out where we are."[8] It seems prudent to assume that distance learning and e-lessons are going to continue to play a role in the lives of teachers and students at least into 2021.

Long-term

In the longer term, there are significant potential gains to be had from adopting this approach:

·     Staff will be more technically skilled and experienced, and thus more capable of engaging with technology

·     Senior and middle leaders will gain greater insight into the potential of technology to advance, supplement – even revolutionise – our ability to support student progress

·       Students will be equipped with a range of new technical skills which are relevant to the world of work

·   The simplistic and consistent approach should minimise the potential distractions of online learning.[9]

·      Within the strategy there are elements which can significantly improve face-to-face learning. There is a growing body of evidence supporting the directed-learning approach to education. Kirschner et al have shown the benefits of low-stakes testing, spaced revision and breaking down skills into their constituent, and more accessible, elements. Online technology such as Google Forms or Microsoft Forms can help us to develop low-stakes testing and lesson activities which can be used not only to help students acquire and retain knowledge, but also for teachers to use data acquired from these assessments to challenge misconceptions and improve their planning.

 

Patrick Longson

Head of History

Jo Richardson Community School


[1] As opposed to downloading a programme like OBS to desktop which would require significant work from IT and a guarantee of certain basic hardware for all staff

[2] Google’s equivalent to Microsoft PowerPoint

[6] Christodoulou, D. Teachers Vs Tech? The Case for an Ed Tech Revolution (Oxford University Press, 2020) pp. 55-59

[7] https://sites.google.com/site/cognitivetheorymmlearning/home (Accessed: 03/07/2020 10:52:52); Clark, R. C., & Mayer, R. E. E-Learning and the Science of Instruction: Proven Guidelines for Consumers and Designers of Multimedia Learning (3rd ed.). (San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons, 2011)

[9] See Christodoulou, Teachers vs Tech?, pp. 141-142










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