Part 2:
Teaching With ICT

a. Structuring Lessons

In the case study we are dealing with, the teacher has a fairly regular pattern to her sessions. She tends to start with a teacher-led introduction to the session, outlining the area for coverage in the session. In an hour-long lesson, she might restrict herself to just one character, ghost or theme, or the development of the plot in a restricted section of the text. From the introduction, she will set pairs or small groups work to do, using either printed worksheets, a section of the CD or specific investigations on the World Wide Web. This work is structured, and she monitors progress around the class until she can get them to report back to the whole group on their progress, or summarise their progress in small groups to feedback in the next session.

Again, you might not work in exactly this way, but you probably do have a pattern that you favour as a teacher. Characterise this pattern to yourself now, and consider how the use of ICT as a resource might fit into it.

Over something like a ten week period, spending two or three hours a week on the story, the teacher in the case study has wanted to introduce the ICT based work at about the third week, spending the first two on ensuring using other means that all pupils were reasonably familiar with the text. First let's recall the main learning objectives the teacher has for her pupils in this area:

  • Relate the plot of the story
  • Distinguish between the characters
  • Identify the ghosts and their purpose in the story
  • Identify the main moral and social themes of the story
  • Comment to a limited extent on the mood and imagery of the story

Below is a summary of how weeks three-seven are structured to use ICT to meet these objectives. Take a look at this summary and then produce your own account, and your own lesson plans, showing how you would use the ICT resources we have been discussing to do the same job on Dickens. You might wish to extend or contract the time, and to fit the plans, durations and work around your own experience of working with this or a similar text.

Case Study Lesson Structure

Week 3 - Use the CD to consolidate pupils' understanding of the plot, especially using the quiz element.

  • Class introduction and targeted questions - 'warm-up'.
  • CD Quiz - running from computer where possible, or copied and printed to worksheet for filling in. Pairs or small groups.
  • Feedback of answers to whole group. Small groups are 'scored' (and rewarded), all pupils receive correct answers.

Week 4 - Use the images available on the CD and from sites on the World Wide Web to provide graphical representations of the characters and ghosts.

  • Class introduction.
  • Images from the first published edition provided to pairs/small groups either on paper or through the screen with short task.
  • Images from other productions - video, TV - provided for comparison. Images come from CD/Video. Graphical characteristics compared with sections from the text.
  • Feedback to the whole group of comparisons.

Week 5 - Use the CD and World Wide Web sites - with printed worksheets - to identify the social and moral themes of the story.

  • Class introduction.
  • Small group work - one set of groups working on the 'themes' section of the CD, the other set of groups using the World Wide Web with targeted tasks printed to worksheets.
  • Groups provide summaries to each other of the theme with which they were tasked.
  • Class summary/conclusion.

Week 6 - Mood and imagery of the story as found in the CD.

  • Class introduction.
  • Individuals or pairs work on CD or printed pages from CD from the 'Techniques' section.
  • Mid-point intervention to focus on emerging images and registers of mood - combine individuals and pairs to larger groups.
  • Class summary and conclusion.

Week 7 - Consolidation of ICT-based work done and focus on coursework.

  • Class introduction - summarise previous four weeks.
  • CD used to summarise coursework options - possibly by projection to screen for whole class.
  • Small groups provided with coursework brief(s) differentiated by level and topic.
  • Use World Wide Web e-mail to investigate responses to questions in brief - alone or in pairs.
  • After lapse of time for responses, feedback e-mail finding to group.
  • Whole class summary of findings and set coursework.

b. Managing Learning in the Classroom