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 topic, outlining the area for coverage in the session. In an hour-long lesson, she will restrict herself to just one topic. From the introduction, she will split the class into groups. Each group will be asked to concentrate on one particular age category to ensure that all age sectors are covered as equally as possible. Each group will discuss what types of question need to be asked before reporting back to the rest of the class. Since this is a class exercise it is important that the whole class agree on the questions that are to be asked.

Again, you might not work exactly in 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 a four week period of preparation, spending two or three hours a week on the topics, the teacher in the case study has wanted to introduce the ICT based work at the beginning. First let's recall the main learning objectives the teacher has for her pupils in this area:

• Plan their approach to obtaining and using information, choose appropriate methods for obtaining the results they need and justify the choice.
• Carry out multi-stage calculations, including use of a large data set (over 50 items) and re-arrangement of formulae.
• Justify the choice of presentation methods and explain the results of calculations.

Below is a summary of how weeks one to four 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 jobs on the topics. You might wish to extend or contract the time, and to fit the plans, duration and work around your own experience of working with this type of activity.

Case Study Lesson Structure

Week 1 - Three Hours. Introduce the method for the four-week phase of work. Explain the group project that the students will be expected to carry out. Discuss the significance of collecting data and the advantages of the students sharing the information.

• Class introduction and allocation of resources to individuals. The teacher discusses the project, the merits of primary or secondary research, and how the data will be collected.
• The teacher explains the significance of closed questioning and the difficulties of analysing open questions.
• The group decide on the questions will be asked and questionnaires produced.
• The teacher discusses with the group the benefits of using a computer to help with the analysis of the data.
• The teacher sets students homework to interview an agreed number of peers and family.

Week 2 - Two Hours. Students work in groups, creating their own database and entering the results of their own questionnaires.

• The students decided on a field name for each question in their survey.
• The teacher ensured that all groups created files with unique names (eg. dataset1, dataset2, etc), and used the field names that the whole group agreed upon.
• The teacher also provided sets of data for students who were absent or who failed to bring in their completed forms.
• The students e-mailed their files to the teacher so that she could import the data into a single larger file.

Week 3 - Three Hours. The students analyse their dataset by sorting and using queries. Spreadsheets and the database may be used to create charts to display the results . Discuss what results the students might expect.

• Students can use measures of average and range to compare distributions and estimate mean, median and range of grouped data.
• Discuss the significance of the different measures of average: median, mode and mean.
• Students compared different subsets of data such as males and females, by age, etc.
• Students use a computer to create different types of chart, such as scattergraph.
• Each group was asked to concentrate on their own subset and draw their own conclusions.

Week 4 - Two Hours.

• Each group feeds back on their conclusions.
• Class discussion about the validity of findings and the appropriateness of the charts chosen. General rules about the various forms of data presentation are discussed and noted.

b. Managing Learning in the Classroom