Student access: creating the virtual classroom
Friday 20 March 2020
Using this site for online learning
As a follow on from our last blog regarding student access, here are some suggestions as to how you could use this site during these difficult times of school closure.
As you will have seen, each ATL page is designed for students to work independently through a topic/theme. The topic is organized under ‘guiding questions’ and we have set up ATL activities which help students to both cover and analyse the content.
The pages also work well as part of an online class lesson. To do this you may also want to incorporate other platforms into this learning so that you can interact with your students.
This page is very useful for highlighting planning for school closure and different online platforms that you could use to work with your students either synchronously or asynchronously,
This page from the InThinking site for Leaders is extremely useful for discussing different online platforms and also the kind of clear guidelines that you may wish to set up for a distance learning environment:
This is an example of how you might use one of the History ATL pages, focusing on the Berlin Blockade of 1948
- Start with a "synchronous" discussion e.g. using zoom. As part of this you could talk through the students' lesson plan for the day, introduce the topic and go over it step by step to clarify any questions they may have.
- The students then work individually through the tasks you have set them - in this case ATL Tasks 1 to 6 on the Berlin Blockade
- You could then arrange a time to meet back as a class on zoom or use your school online platform to share thoughts on the discussion style questions e.g. Task Two on the speech by Brynes: What is the tone of this speech regarding US actions towards Germany? What promises does he make the Germans? Why might the Soviets feel uneasy about this speech? Or Task Three: Discuss whether you consider that the division of Germany was already inevitable even before the Berlin Blockade took place took place. Was there a point at which Germany could have been unified successfully before the blockade?
- You may also want them to upload a written assessment on this task such as Task Six: Identify the causes, impact and significance of this crisis.
Here is a slightly different structure using the following page:
- Send or upload your simplified lesson plans for your class to your school platform utilising the Inthinking ATL activities.
- Monitor individual student progress through the set tasks and be available during your scheduled lesson to respond to questions
- Once students have completed the ATL activities set up a "synchronous" discussion e.g. using zoom. Talk through the key points from the activities and clarify any questions they may have.
- Set up the assessment: Practice Paper 1 on the Invasion of Poland.
- After grading the assessment you could post the markscheme to students as part of your feedback.