Blog of the Week: 26 February 2021 – Understanding Clues

As students return to schools, what are the subtle clues we can look for to check student understanding?

In just over a week, all students across the country will be returning to school – something we are all very much looking forward to. However, at the forefront of teachers’ minds will be how we are going to assess what students have understood during remote teaching, so that we can use this information to plan how we will fill these gaps. What we refer to as formative assessment.

EEF CEO Professor Becky Francis articulated this concern in June 2020:

​“Taken together, the prior literature on school closures and the growing evidence about the experience of socially disadvantaged families during …

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Blog of the Week: 12 February 2021 – Microsoft Forms and Feedback

This is a post to show teachers how to add feedback in Microsoft Forms and to show where pupils will receive and see that feedback.

Create a Microsoft Forms Quiz

Add questions, in each multiple choice question there is an option to add feedback to students choosing particular answers.  This is seen after a pupil submits the quiz.

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Blog of the Week: 5 February 2021 – Avoiding Synchronous Video Fatigue During Remote Learning

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in some monumental shifts to practice.  Educators have taken a critical lens as to why they teach the way they do and how it can be done more effectively.  For virtually every school that is, or will be, implementing some sort of remote or hybrid learning model, you can bet that videoconference tools will play an enormous role. While it is excellent that educators now have a variety of options at their disposal, there is a growing concern that has to be addressed if learning is the goal.

I need to get something off my chest.  Have you heard of Zoom fatigue? It is a real thing I assure you, and it applies to Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, or any other similar platform.  Facilitating professional learning using video conferencing tools is exhausting.  I have experienced this firsthand over the past couple of weeks as I have worked with numerous districts on remote and hybrid pedagogy through all-day virtual workshops.  Being put in this position empowered me to critically examine how the day would playout for the educators I was working with.  In the end, I went with shorter …

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