It’s an unfortunate fact that the issues I raised in my book ‘Go on, bore ‘em: how to make ICT lessons excruciatingly dull’ are still relevant today.
This has been clearly demonstrated in our interview with Edith, a 14 year old, recently, and it’s also apparent from emails and other messages I receive. So what can be done about it?
1. How about talking to your students? Yes, a novel concept for some people, but when Edith complains that she is being ‘under-taught’ she is not alone. When Miles Berry and I researched for our presentation on the subject of ‘What are your kids learning while you're not looking?’ we found (as if we didn’t already know) that youngsters are a lot more tech-savvy, and do a lot more with technology, than teachers realise. In fact, when we gave the presentation at least two members of the audience were inspired to conduct a survey of their own students to better inform their teaching.
2. Think about what you do. This point very much ties in with the preceding one. At the Naace 2009 Conference, Niel McLean mentioned the standard question asked by an advisor called Jeff (or Geoff) Howard:
“Did you teach the kids to do that, did you ask them to do it or did you allow them to do it?”
The current conventional wisdom is that we don’t teach kids to do anything, we allow them to find things out for themselves or from each other. How do you ensure that what they learn is actually accurate? How do you justify the amount of time wasted in letting kids ‘discover’ stuff that you could teach them in 5 minutes? And what exactly is the point of having a fully qualified and highly-trained teacher in the classroom if they’re not actually teaching?
But even if you shy away from such musings on the grounds that they are far too radical for a Friday morning (which is when I’m writing this), surely you would agree that in order to ensure that kids don’t have gaps in their knowledge and understanding, sometimes you actually have to teach them something?
3. Get out more. It’s all too easy to start to think that your school is the centre of its own universe, like the one-dimensional creature in Flatland. In any case, as I explained recently, in the UK one of the aspects of ‘best value’ is using comparisons.
4. Embark on a programme of lesson observations within your team. This needs to be done carefully, and will take some planning and possibly a bit of creativity and quid pro quo-ing as far as cover arrangements are concerned, but it can yield very valuable results. For example, as I said to Vicki Davis yesterday, I once observed a lesson in which the teacher spoke for a total of 40 minutes – the lesson was only 50 minutes long! He hadn’t even realised until I pointed it out, because he had spent the lesson giving instructions, then letting the kids try it, then giving feedback, and so on. So it looked like there was a good balance talking and activity. But when you added up the time spent on each aspect of the lesson, as I did, the reality was rather different.
5. Finally I suggest is that you buy my book! Obviously, I would say that, wouldn’t I? But the book covers ten key reasons that ICT lessons can end up being as dull as ditchwater. Addressing any one of them would almost certainly result in a noticeable improvement. Also, the book is available as an electronic download for GBP 2.00 (around USD 3.00), which is not only less than the GBP 4.99 for the printed version (though not as nice, obviously) but also caters for people for whom deferred gratification is an unknown concept.
Wordle summary:
Why have I used Wordle? See Five reasons to use Wordle in education.
This is #19 of 25 reflections on the Naace 2009 Conference.
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