Back to school for 2014!

Well it's the start of the new school year and I've been busy plotting what I will be attempting to do in my classes for 2014. Last year I made the decision to not reapply for my role as head of department in an attempt to give myself more time to change my practice and to hopefully assist the HPE team in a more grass roots kind of way. I've set some goals that I will slowly map out at the start of the this term to ensure that they are successful! They are:

1.) To scaffold my lessons to provide a more challenging environment for more of my students. I'll do this by creating a variety of tiered assessment pieces that will provide students with choice when it comes to being assessed. The use of Stile will assist with this.

Example of how my classes look to me.
I can create lessons and then drag them up when I'm ready for students to do them.

Stile is a relatively new comer to the world of cloud based education. We had an opportunity to trial their system within our school last year and many of us loved it and asked for it to continue on so management ticked that box for us. In it's most basic form it allows you to create "online worksheets" for students to complete and once they have you can correct it online and send them individual feedback. I'm hoping to use it on the next level up though by creating a more "flipped classroom" look with explanatory videos to be created on a host of topics from healthy eating right through to how to swing a golf club. If I model the videos right... I'm hoping the students will make their own in return with the use of their iPads.

What a lesson looks like (mixture of introductory video and then exploratory style questions.

2.) To increase the amount of meaningful feedback being given to students and to do so in a timely fashion. My goal is to construct better tasks that assist me in enhancing the quality of feedback given to my students. I also hope to construct a series of self assessing items using various ICT tools.

I'm hoping to do this using a variety of tools including:

• Socrative
• Kahoot!
• Stile
• Email
• iDocieo (to record keep student progress)

iDoceo is an app I picked up last year. It's not a free app but it has been worth the money spent. It's everything in one for me in terms of a "teacher's chronicle" so much so that I didn't buy a hard copy book this year to record student progress and marks.

Example of iDoceo at work.

3.) To continue being a leader within my school when it comes to integrating tech tools in a meaningful way both in and outside the classroom.

I love being able to show my colleagues new and exciting ways to do something, as well as just introducing new tools. The main reason is because I strongly believe that we're more powerful as a team than as individuals and whilst I can think of how to use new tools I'm forever impressed by the new things I learn from my colleagues.

I have other exciting plans too but I might save them for future posts!

So what are your goals for 2014?

Exit Tickets for differentiation!

Using Socrative for Differentiation within your classes...

What is Socrative?

Socrative is a free web based application that has become very popular in education in the last couple of years. The best thing about it is that only the teacher needs to sign up for an account and students only need to know their teacher’s room number.

What does it do?

You can create quizzes that are either teacher paced or student paced. The quizzes can be Multiple choice, T/F or Short Answer in nature. You can also create Exit Tickets which are the main focus of this blog post.

So differentiation is involved how?

Exit Tickets gauge exactly where your students are at by the end of a lesson with a quick series of questions for students to answer. This information is compiled in a excel file for you to skim over at the end of a lesson or series of lessons. This will allow you to alter lesson ideas to suit students and their learning needs.

So just what is an “Exit Ticket?” you ask? Well in it’s simplest form it is a short survey filled out at the end of a lesson. They are becoming common practice at the end of most sessions at any PD conference to allow presenters and hosts to gauge how successful the sessions run were. Questions are usually in a poll or short answer form and are designed to be completed quickly by participants leaving your lesson.

So let’s have a look at how it all works.

You will need to create/sign up for a Teacher’s Account, and then it’s all systems go!

Students will need access to the internet and either the website http://socrative.com/ or they can have the Student version of the app (available free on both apple and android devices). I have both apps on all my devices in case I ever need to be a “student” as well.

When you sign into Socrative as a teacher you are greeted with this view:

Click to enlarge - Exit Ticket is 2nd from the bottom of image.

There is a standard or default Exit Ticket already available and does the job nicely (I use it). When you select it, it will become active in your "Socrative room" and students can now join your room to fill out their Exit Ticket. You get an overall live view that allows you to see how many Tickets have been submitted as they happen it looks like this:

The student log in is really basic, they only need your room number which is always visible on your summary page. I place my number (which never changes) on the board and ask the students to record this down in their diary or in a note on their device for future reference.

Student Log in view.

Students filling out the default Exit Ticket available will be asked the following 4 questions:

• Their name
• How well did you understand today's material? (Multiple Choice)
• What did you learn today? (Short Answer)
• Please solve the problem on the board. (Short Answer)

When they fill out the last question they have an option to just Finish the Exit Ticket or to Finish and then allow someone else to fill it in out after them. The flexibility of this meant that I could use this in a class with a limited number of devices or a class where everyone had a device.

The results are compiled and you have the option of downloading the report or emailing the report to yourself for later viewing. If you are using the mobile app you only have the option to email to yourself.

How would you like this data you have just collected?

The information is sent to you in an excel document with each question/answer in a column and each student/responder in a row, you can simply scroll across to see how a student went individually or scroll down to see an overall result for a certain question.

This works well in both theory and practical classes as the main aim is to assess whether students have felt that they have learnt something or have been challenged in their way of thinking. You might find in the first couple of attempts of doing this that students will be tempted to be silly or even untruthful in their answers especially if reflecting and reviewing their progress isn't a regularly occurring practice for them. Don't be put off though, instead ensure that this practice is a regular event and that it is always consistent. Students will come to develop self reviewing skills as a result and you will soon find that they are quite descriptive in their responses to the answers in their Exit Ticket, thus building on the class practice with you as opposed to waiting for you to just deliver the content and hoping that it is something that will engage and challenge them.

The great thing is it also provides feedback to the teacher instantly that may help them determine why a lesson wasn't as successful as they thought it would be when planning it.

Give it a go! You could be surprised at the results.

How I keep student work - Digital Portfolios

So I'm back! It's been a very busy year this year with my school making some big changes but I'm here tonight to share what I've been doing in the classroom. I've been wanting a more permanent way to monitor my students progress as I work with them throughout the year, I also wanted to model a practice for my Year 9 students who each have access to an iPad.

I’ve started using  the app  “Easy Portfolio” which was developed by #pegeek MrRobbo. This app has changed the way I record student progress within my class. It did involve a little bit of setting up at the start (entering students/classes) but I’m so glad I took the time. Now I want to share with you all what I’ve been doing with it (see the comic strip below).


Firstly  I  created my  classes  as  “groups”  and  then  created  a  “portfolio”  for  each student  within each group/class. Now when I tap on a student’s name I’m presented with a portfolio that is broken up into file types (Video, Images, Audios, Notes, URLS, Docs). So when my year 9 or 10 classes submit work I ask them  to send  their  files as a PDF document  (Pages, Keynote etc will offer this option) and I save their attached  work  into  their assigned portfolio. This has been  fantastic as  I can monitor student progress whenever  I want  to. I can have students submit what they have done in the day’s lesson every time we meet or I can simply ask them to submit assessment tasks for me to save as a record.


When I mark a rubric  I save a copy of the rubric to their portfolio as well. As for my classes that don’t have iPads I just simply take photos of everything. I recently had year 7’s complete an assignment on Melanomas they all handed in their proudly constructed assignments and  I photographed  the work and then photographed the  hard  copy of the rubric I marked prior  to handing back to students. This ends up being a great resource when parent/teacher interviews come around.

Some of the uses of the Easy Portfolio App

What I really love though is that I can film my students performing skills in a variety of skill development lessons which I can then use to review one-on-one with the student. Video analysis is a powerful tool when used right and can correct technique issues faster than any verbal or demonstration style  instruction given by a coach. The goal for me is to film regularly enough to then hopefully capture skill improvement during a unit of work. I can then keep  this database of videos for reporting as well as parent/teacher interviews. The app also allows me to email any items in the portfolio to the student, parents or homeroom teacher. I can also back up my files using my Dropbox account.

So that's what I've been up to recently, tell me how you keep track of your students, do you have a great suggestion for us fellow #pegeeks? How important is it to track student progress in a Phys Ed class? What do you like to have on your table when meeting parents at interview time?

Stay tuned, my reporting period is nearly over and I aim to update this blog again soon!