In my last post I shared a link to Tom Sherrington’s pragmatic approach to transferring Quality First Teaching practices into the digital classroom. I wanted to reflect on why I think this is so important through the lens of an excellent digital NASBTT CPD I recently attended, a new book I’m reading and to share the successes I have experienced in my own digital lessons (sharing success is so important right now!).
Gemma Taylor, STEM Ambassador, NASBTT contributor, Digital Design industry veteran, Design and Technology (D&T) teacher, Mum and all around megastar multipotentialite hosted a digital CPD session this week that I was lucky enough to attend. In this seminar Gemma extolled the virtues and value of Digital Design. As a D&T teacher myself, I feel it is an often overlooked subject area. D&T links vast areas of the wider secondary curriculum and promotes critical thinking processes as well as promoting creative skills. The practical application of concepts that D&T offers can provide an accessible immediacy, excellent for well being and self-esteem in all learners. It’s particularly effective for those students who may struggle to experience success in other areas of the curriculum. But what happens when we can’t get learners into the D&T classroom using software, machinery or learning hands on skills in person?
What really stood out to me from Gemma’s engaging session was her passion for subject knowledge and the value of Quality First Teaching. ‘Teach the skills, not the software’ as one of the attendees affirmed in the chat. Remote teaching has created a ‘digital divide’ – a socio-economic learning gap ever widened by access to software and equipment. The haves have and have not’s have not, inequity laid bare. The point Gemma pressed is that if we can’t provide students with the latest tech or software, we should instead teach them the underpinning principles that allow them to apply their knowledge. Learners will have plenty of opportunity to apply this knowledge in their education and in their future lives as independent adults. This applies to all Design and Technology areas, Textile Design, Engineering, Graphic Design, Product Design, Food Technology and more. Teach the skills not the process. This applies to all full stop.
The other benefits to Quality First teaching I have picked up on through my own practice have been gleaned through maintaining ‘classroom hygiene’. Patrick Garton recently published a NASBTT guide to behaviour for early career teachers that, amongst other pragmatic and empirically proven advice, promotes the importance of routines in managing behaviour. The content of this book is gold for teachers at any stage in their career. The underpinning values transfer with surprising ease to the digital classroom. For example, good practice such as taking formal registers and making expectations explicit, following school behaviour policies, questioning and feedback are all transferable to our digital classrooms.
An example from my own practice: I know it’s easy to skip the formal register when you’re having connection issues. It feels acceptable to let a learner get away with replying with ‘Hello’ in the chat box instead of following whole school protocols, turning their mic on and saying ‘Good morning Mr Haddock’. These events can seem like trivialities given the wider adversities of the COVID-19 pandemic. NO. I say the formal register has never been more important. I stick with a student, sometimes for minutes on end until I get a ‘Good morning Mr Haddock’ out of them. I would in school so why not online? These routines and protocols serve to provide comfort, structure and routine to learners. The first 5 minutes of a lesson sets the tone and the expectations. If I get a successful formal register, no matter how pained, I nearly always have upwards of 90% of the class submitting good quality work at the end of the lesson. The students know I expect only the very best from them. We need to get the mechanics of the classroom right to enable learning, this is true online as it is in the classroom. Slow down. Don’t worry if you don’t deliver every concept you planned in your digital lesson. Get the protocols right, the rest will follow. Quality Teaching First!
NB – These sorts of protocols work best as a whole school approach and I am very lucky that the school I am placed with has been blazing a trail in the remote learning world. The school started practising digital delivery with all year groups very early on in the school year and adapts quickly and efficiently to the changing face of the COVID-19 pandemic. Her Majesties Government could learn a thing or two from the calm, pragmatic approach and communication skills of our current Leadership team.
Back for a moment, if you will, to Gemma Taylor, who went on in her CPD seminar to introduce us to a wonderful concept called the ‘Hype Cycle’ – a graphical representation dreamt up decades ago that explains the life cycle stages a technology goes through from conception to maturity and widespread adoption. Very appropriate for the now, don’t you think?
Consider online learning using the Hype Cycle. During the first lock-down I was working as an instructor teacher and looked upon the new idea of ‘video call lessons’ (the innovation trigger) with starry eyes, filled with excitement about how it was going to help us deliver learning to all during the unfolding pandemic (My peak of inflated expectations) Very quickly I and the rest of civilised society fell hard and fast into the trough of disillusionment (ouch). Access to technology for the most vulnerable in society, connectivity issues, transferring schemes of work into a digital format. You name it, we all felt it.
For me now the dust kicked up by falling from that great height is beginning to settle. Thinking about my practice using a cognitivist approach as laid out in Daniel T Willingham’s fabulous ‘Why Don’t Students Like School’ has helped me look past the immediate challenges of teaching online. Through the practice of delivering digital lessons we experience challenge. Challenge helps us to ‘think hard’ about our subject matter and delivery. Memory is the residue of that thought. The practice/challenge/think/memory cycle develops schemata – the interconnected network of memories and concepts. A developed schemata, a cache of memories linked to experience can guide us to independent thought, helping develop better classroom practice. Keep repeating the whole process until you begin to drag yourself up the slope of enlightenment towards that shining beacon that is the plateau of productivity. By combining a cognitivist approach with good classroom hygiene and Quality First Teaching principles I’m beginning see glimpses of that glorious plateau with each protracted ‘Good morning Mr Haddock’
Now, cameras on year 8 it’s time for the formal register!