b.
Managing Learning in the Classroom
As
with any work on real IT applications, pupils will be learning
about the context itself, i.e. the ambulance service, as well
as the IT techniques involved. It is important to spend enough
time discussing points from the video to ensure that the ambulance
work and the use of IT is understood before the local brochures
are provide, otherwise pupils will just treat the task as being
to transfer the contents of the brochure onto the web. If left
to design the site individually, many pupils may just try to copy
the brochure anyway, so it is a good idea to group pupils to ensure
that those who you expect to be good at research and structuring
are distributed around the groups. Tell the pupils that all members
of the group will be awarded the same mark.
Groups
should be briefed to ensure that all members have access to the
information provided and should all contribute ideas, as they
represent the people who might use the web. It will be difficult
for them to focus on the overall structure rather than the detail,
and they will need prompting to abstract the key points from the
top level of the hierarchical structure.
When
working on implementation, there is a choice of providing one
computer to each group, or one computer to each pupil so that
groups can split up the pages and work on them simultaneously.
In the former case, brief the groups on sharing the work at the
keyboard so that all members are involved. In the latter case,
careful thought will be needed about storage locations and procedures
if the software is to find all the files that the links point
to.
During
the implementation stage, it is inevitable that difficulties will
arise and your help will be needed, though if pupils with the
greatest IT capability are spread around the groups, this should
be minimised. It will be important to monitor the work of each
group regularly, even though they may not all seek help, to ensure
that reasonable progress is being made and to intervene if they
have gone down a wrong track in terms of structure or content.
There
are continual opportunities for learning during this work, but
the most important time is during the evaluation. When pupils
are testing their work, they should realise their own mistakes,
and this is very valuable. The views of others are even more important,
however, and the comments that you and other pupils make when
looking at their webs will be vital. It is best to look at positive
points first, and then frame any negative points as questions
if at all possible. Those being evaluated should think constructively
rather than seeing criticism as a personal attack. Brief pupils
to ask questions in the form "How could I find out…?" or "Why
did you…?"
In
summary, you have a number of issues to consider in managing learning,
including:
- The
mixing of abilities when you set pair or group work.
- The
arrangement of people in the room, including yourself.
- Keeping
on top of intervention, and ensuring that all pupils get equal
attention.
- Monitoring
the learning which takes place and evaluating the products of
the work.
- Focusing
questioning and discussion on the key points concerning concepts,
processes and strategies.
 c.
Helping Learners Develop their own IT Capabilities
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