Student Led Learning - The Power of YouTube

A students watches another group's video and completes her worksheet

Today my lesson was completely student led. My GCSE students produced videos on one aspect of Intolerance in 1920s USA, having produced the videos they then watched each others videos and filled in a large A3 sheet on the topic.

Whilst they worked on competing the sheet they had the advantage of working completely at their own pace (with their headphones in) and I was free to move around the room and offer individual support and advice where it was needed.

This is a similar activity to one where you would get the students to create presentations and then present them to the whole class. The difference here is that the use of YouTube allows the students watching the presentations to work at their own pace and rewind where necessary without holding the whole class up. Learning becomes more personalised.

The students had a lesson to research and prepare their videos and then about 40 minutes of the next lesson to complete the video and upload it to Edmodo so all the students in the class could watch it. They then spent the last 20 minutes of the second lesson and their homework completing the table by watching each others videos.

Each group had to showcase what they had learned in a video which answered the four questions I had set for their topic.

The A3 sheet that I created that all students had to complete.

The students were told that they had to make their work both memorable and filled with information. As this was the first time the students had completed this type of activity I created the questions that needed answering. When I do this later in the year I will get the students to create their own questions and thus put more of the emphasis on them.

The students led the learning and I was able to support those students that needed it. These topics vary in difficulty which allowed me to differentiate and pick groups relative to the difficulty of the topic. By having to explain to others and teach their peers in this way all of the students deepened their own understanding.

After they had completed the sheet the students had to think of two or three questions they still wanted answering and we discussed those in the next lesson. The aim was for them to pick 'bigger' questions than just those on the sheet.

PowerPoint slides were included by all groups to add detail.

Aims

• By making the work student led it meant that they had to take responsibility for it and this encouraged them to be independent. 

• It encouraged the students to be creative. I explained that they needed to make it memorable but also genuinely informative and the results were interesting. This hopefully made the work more memorable for both the students making the videos and those watching it.

• It allowed me to give help where it was needed and not be 'tied down' by having to 'give' the lesson.

• It was a great method to showcase teamwork and leadership.

Reflections
• The students were engaged throughout the series of lessons.
• The resulting videos were really creative and informative. My concern is always that the students will make something fun and amusing but not produce a video that actually aids learning. This was proven wrong as all the videos were tightly focused around the information and all were memorable as well as explaining key content.
• This type of activity always allows students to shine. This occasion was no exception. The video on the right is one of my students singing about the 'Red Scare' of the 1920s.

A student watches a court scene from the 'Monkey Trial'

• It was obvious from the subsequent lesson that the students had understood a great deal about the topic of Intolerance. They asked really thought provoking questions that showed both a deep level of understanding and a genuine engagement in the topic.

I am a big believer in using technology in this way. The sight of all my students working at their own pace, with their headphones in, is something to behold. It frees me up to address any problems of understanding.

That said even if you don't have 1-1 iPads like we do @Rossett you can still complete this type of activity, as I have in the past, setting the watching of each others videos as homework.

The Value of Independent Reflection

My GCSE class working independently in lessons.

At Rossett our new timetable has started and last week I had my first lessons with my new GCSE class. This class is exclusively Year 9 students and I teach them for 5 hours a week. Obviously, this group of students will take their GCSE history next summer as part of a cohort of students that will, for the large part, consist of students two years older than them. With this in mind I began this timetable thinking of ways I could close the gap between the potential of my evidently very hard working group and those other students who will be, in the main, two years older than them.

One of the ways I am seeking to do this is through a weekly homework task that the students independently complete. They are tasked with spending 30 minutes developing their understanding of a topic we have studied that week. They can chose the topic (although I strongly advise them to pick the topic they have found most difficult) and they can chose how they go about improving their understanding. The only rule is that they must produce something that I can see. It can be physical or digital. I do not mark this work, I simple check it has been done, give out merits where appropriate, and oral feedback where necessary. The work is set on a Thursday after our final lesson of the week and is checked by me on Monday at the start of the next week. The 30 minute time limit is absolute, and I have explained to the group that they cannot work longer than this even if they are really into the topic. This is obviously difficult to police but I want them to show how much reflective work they can produce in a 30 minute time frame.

I must also say at this stage that this 30 minutes of independent work sits alongside the two formal homework tasks that I set each week. These are obviously traditionally marked.

Aims

• The main aim of this work is to get the students to reflect on the work they have done that week. The simple action of choosing the topic that they have found most difficult gets the students to reflect. The aim is that they also reflect on their understanding and develop it.

• The second aim is to give the students ownership of the work they produce. By choosing what they do I hope that the students will be more committed to ensuring it is as good a quality as it can be.

• The work produced will be brilliant for revision. All of the examples I have seen so far (and particularly the ones in this post) make fantastic revision aides. The aim is not just to shore up the understanding but to help close the gap come revision time.

• The aim is for the students to creatively develop their understanding in a way that best suits their own learning. By being creative and active my aim was to ensure the students consolidated their understanding. The examples in this post have all done that.

Examples

The first example comes from Sophie. It is a video she has made to show how Republican Policies of the 1920s caused the Boom. The second half in particular is very impressive as she relates the Policies to the Boom. When I watch this back I am struck both by the quality of the work and the fact that you can almost see the cogs whirring as she explains it. There is no doubt that this work fulfils all of the aims I set and is work of a remarkable standard for a student who is essentially still in Year 8 (although technically in Year 9 they are not really until after the summer).

The second example comes from Katie who has produced an Educreation on the Republican Policies. Again this is another fantastic piece of work which fulfils the aims. I like here how she has combined a mind-map with her own explanation. Such is quality that it is the sort of resource I could easily use within my own lessons.

Katie's Educreations Lesson

The next example comes from Matthew who produced this Keynote on the 1920s using a LACKPANTS video that I found online and embedded in my wiki mrwestusa.wikispaces.com I am impressed with the creativity here and how Matthew has found a resource that he could use to help develop his understanding of the causes of the boom. It was not a resource we used directly in lesson so it is good to see him using his initiative (and the wiki) to develop his understanding.

The final example comes from Lucas who produced revision cards, on the other side of the card is the  relevant explanation. I particularly like this as it is an old fashioned example but one that works well. It has minimal glamour but is still a very effective tool.

Reflections

• Clearly it is only the second week of this but I can already see the quality of both the work and the creativity that has been displayed. I firmly believe that the students will have a much better grasp of the topics they chose than they would have done simply from my traditional teaching.

• I also believe an air of competition has developed with the students keen to produce better work to show themselves in the best possible light.

• Even at this early stage of the course setting this type of activity has allowed me a de-facto look at how my students revise and I have been able to guide them to more worthwhile activities than simply just re copying out what they have already learnt.

• The quality of the work from my Year 9 class in the first week of their GCSE History speaks volumes for this approach. I think the freedom here coupled with the traditional standard homework tasks works really well.

Going forward

The aim is to have a mini learning fair in the last lesson of term, the students will have completed three separate 30 minute pieces of independent work by then, the aim of this is to show off the quality of the students and their work. The students will have to lay out their work (digitally or physically) and the students in the group will go around the 'fair' and see all the creative ideas that have been produced. If this is a success I hope to replicate it regularly throughout the year.


3 weeks later...

The Learning Fair

Well the learning fair has just finished. The students brought in three different examples of the 30 minute independent learning work they had completed so far. they then set them out on the desks in a 'u' shaped fashion. The students moved around the fair in a clockwise fashion watching, reading and listening to their peers work, they then commented on what was good about the work produced.

I asked them to give specific comments not just general vague ones like 'detailed.' At the end of the fair the students all gave one reason why their independent work was good. An example of the work produced is below:

This is about prohibition and Al Capone, I love the creativity and drama.

 

 

Reflections on the Fair

We held the fair on the last period of the final Thursday of term. It was really hot. Despite this the quality of the work was outstanding. I was completely blown away by the students and I could easily have put an example from every student on this blog.

 

My students are a huge credit to themselves, in just 4 weeks they have really got into the idea and importance of this independent work. Without any input from me they have produced fantastic work.

 

I believe that the fair will spur everyone on at the start of next term to be even more creative and to use some of the excellent examples they have seen from each other to make their work even better.

 

The work produced will be invaluable for revision.

 

I set this independent activity up to help close the gap between my year 9 GCSE class and the older students taking the exam and I believe it has already gone some way towards achieving that.

 

I would urge everyone who teaches a group more than 3 times each week to try this approach as I believe it has yielded some fantastic results.