… or should that be meat? because seriously I felt like I’d been put through the mincer after this lesson! I tried to liven things up a bit by using a back channel, the free service Today’s Meet. The problem was that I seriously was too ambitious. I had read all about how using backchannels would give students a more engaging lesson and encourage them to ask and answer questions and to comment on what was going on in the class. So I set up a page for my year 11 class who are doing ‘The Crucible’ and we were talking about character and setting. I gave them the site address and told them how to use it. I then encouraged them to post questions and comments throughout the lesson and told them that I would keep a printout of the lesson’s posts for their later revision.
So far so good…
However, my students were far more interested in having fun posting messages like ‘you’re da bomb’ and ‘D’ and ‘ Fo’ shizzle’. Clearly not what I had in mind. So then I thought, ok, I did not set this up well enough and they need more direction and boundaries. I posed a few questions online and then some students began to answer them, albeit briefly. However, it was at that point that students realised that they could post as anyone else and no-one would know. They then proceeded to pick on one boy by posting silly things all in his name. They then posted as the Principal of the school, to which I responded that I would then give him a printout as he had contributed too. Ok. That stopped that. Then, as a last resort, I am sad to say I bribed them. I posted questions and the best post received a lollipop. Well, that worked a treat! I suddenly got articulate and thoughtful responses. Clearly they were capable of using the tools then.
What did I learn? To set it up more carefully and to scaffold the lesson more by providing a set of questions to answer. I also should not have been so ambitious as to try to do it with what is arguably my ‘worst class’ in terms of learning behaviours. Anyway, lesson learnt. I will do it again with more questions, and use it as a piece of formative assessment and tell students that.
Tommy found a Real Book. 