Half Term Reflections - Feb 2021
Half term has arrived hurrah! For some a week off away from the screen for others a week of
work. For me, a mixture - one day off but in an odd way, I'm enjoying the space to catch up on marking, planning and finding the time to meet with colleagues to discuss ideas.Looking back to those first weeks, I think I was definitely more eager than my learners. I had lessons planned and felt confident with using Teams, delivering live and incorporating and trying online tool but for the first time I started to feel the strain that others were feeling.
Hello? Anyone there?
Get your bingo cards out for a lesson on Teams, how many times will you hear the following in a lesson... 'Can you hear me?' 'Just going to share my screen?' 'Any Ideas?'
I like to think I have great rapport with my classes, in the classroom we learn, but we also have a joke and a laugh. There are times where my Games Designs learners teach me new words, latest one is POG. Building a community online has always been important to me for my learners, especially amongst this chaos but there are times where it isn't the same. As we've progressed through the term, i've noticed a lack of talking back over the mic. All my learners are cameras off. Talking to a blank screen, lesson in and lesson out is exhausting, its lonely, especially when all you can see is a sea of initials and at times no one responds in the chat. I have since found that asking learners directly into the chat and asking them to react has had a positive, engaging and quick response. Allowing me to identify quickly who needs help (as well as who is listening)
Despite this, I couldn't help but think to myself, what have I done wrong to minimize the over mic discussions, what happened? A learner reached out to me after the day had finished, to talk 'I'm struggling to keep up, with this, with Maths and everything in between'.
It clicked, they needed time - I was trying to keep the pace up with delivering the content without fully considering what's going on outside of our little community. I'm tired, my colleagues are tired, my learners are tired. I decided to put on some catch up sessions within the lessons throughout the term for those who needed it (and created a Nandos differentiated writing takeaway menu of options for those who were up to date) but this time allowed me to talk to the learners in 1to1s, something which I don't normally have much chance to do F2F in a one hour session of English.
It clicked, they needed time - I was trying to keep the pace up with delivering the content without fully considering what's going on outside of our little community. I'm tired, my colleagues are tired, my learners are tired. I decided to put on some catch up sessions within the lessons throughout the term for those who needed it (and created a Nandos differentiated writing takeaway menu of options for those who were up to date) but this time allowed me to talk to the learners in 1to1s, something which I don't normally have much chance to do F2F in a one hour session of English.
Time is important; time for rest, time for reflection, time for progress, time for one another.
Marking
For the first time, the majority of the term has had me worrying about it. Am I giving enough feedback? Am I giving the right feedback? Am I feeding back frequent enough?
Like all of us, I don't want to feel as if I am cutting corners and not give the feedback which our learners deserve. In a F2F, non-covid world, I'm a fan of live-marking. Following an action research project , I conducted last academic year too, it came out that live marking had a positive impact on learners: they were actively looking at the feedback in session and responding to it as well as asking for feedback in class. Online I have been able to do some of this. I use Class Notebook through teams and I can pop in and out of the notebooks, see where learners are, help with planning, however it is time consuming and difficult to get around every single learner as well as support all of those learners who we know may need a little more guidance.
I've discussed feedback at length with other educators, looked into other ideas, but I think for online we are still finding what works best. As everything with our learners/classes it isn't one size fits all. Some work for me to do!
What I am looking forward to hearing is more of Nicola Milton @NikkiMilton16 action research project on 'alternative feedback strategies'.
What I am looking forward to hearing is more of Nicola Milton @NikkiMilton16 action research project on 'alternative feedback strategies'.
Don't forget to say THANKYOU
We all love to feel valued and appreciated at work and now more than ever, we probably need to hear it. At my college, we are lucky to have a magic thankyou button, where you can type in a thankyou to send to someone & the thankyou fairy delivers it to their inbox - it could be something small like, 'Thanks for making me that brew' or something more 'Thankyou for taking the time to work through that resource with me'. Following something Stef Wilkinson (@Stef_Wilkinson) said over whatsapp, I made it my own challenge to thank someone each week in college, and thats when my Thankyou Thursday began. So far I have thanked, colleagues, my line manager, caretakers, members of the admin team (you get the deal).
It then sparked me to take this to twitter and share the thanks. After putting heads together with other hashtag enthusiasts, Sinead Blackledge (@TutorSinead) and Chloe Hymes (@ChloeFibonacci), my small seedling was able to grow and #FEThanks became a 'thing'. I created a #FEThanks card for anyone to download and send their own thankyou - (It doesn't have to be shared on twitter you can simply download the template and send it to an FE superstar!) Interested? You can access the template here: bit.ly/FEthanks
But, it didn't stop there. Inspired by Amy Woodrow (amy_woodrow1) on Twitter I took my #FEThanks to the classroom. Having seen the effort colleagues have put in during the last 6 weeks, I thought what better way to end the term than to have the learners show their appreciation for their tutors. Tables turned and I was playing the role of the Thankyou fairy, delivering the thankyous to tutors inboxes. Reading the thankyous really took me back. We hear it all the time, 'we do more for learners than just teach them', but we really do and the thankyous highlighted that.
But, it didn't stop there. Inspired by Amy Woodrow (amy_woodrow1) on Twitter I took my #FEThanks to the classroom. Having seen the effort colleagues have put in during the last 6 weeks, I thought what better way to end the term than to have the learners show their appreciation for their tutors. Tables turned and I was playing the role of the Thankyou fairy, delivering the thankyous to tutors inboxes. Reading the thankyous really took me back. We hear it all the time, 'we do more for learners than just teach them', but we really do and the thankyous highlighted that.
So, I challenge to say thankyou to someone who has helped you during the last 6 weeks of term.
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