EdPuzzle: video questions for formative assessment

Like all teachers, we see our face-to-face time with my classes as incredibly valuable and precious. I want to spend as much of this time as possible checking for understanding, exploring key questions and helping student grapple with complex ideas where I can coach, probe and support.

When introducing a new concept we often default to a mini lecture and some slides and ask a couple of questions to keep the students on track. With laptops and online tools such as EdPuzzle there are some really effective ways for students to work through a tutorial at their own pace and for you as a teacher to collate answers from all students.  Developing an online flipped instruction resource is a skill that teachers should have in their repertoire thereby being able to use the data to check for understanding and then plan how we might adapt our plans for the next lesson.

 

When other school activities, trips, or absences mean that weeks disrupted and we struggle to maintain the flow with our students an EdPuzzle can help you make the most of your precious time in class.

The following slides help you how to set up with EdPuzzle and how to add questions to a video. Signup with your Google Apps account here.

The essential steps are...

1. You can add any video from YouTube or other platforms
2. Just copy the URL and paste into the EdPuzzle search tool
3. Trim the video to highlight a certain passage of a longer clip
4. Click to add either open response, multiple choice questions or your comment on video
5. Save and publish to your students and then sharing the link via your online class.
6. Check your teacher dashboard to see summary of student responses, either by student or by question.

Digital Approaches to Activating Prior Knowledge

In our staff meeting we explored ways that technology can really enhance our ability to activate and assess prior knowledge and to introduce concepts. We all have approaches to pre-assess students understanding some of which involve technology.

There are specific digital tools when used a part of our repertoire can amplify the process of activating knowledge. In clever ways they help assessment, monitor, track and provide the data to help us differentiate learning in the face-to-face classroom. Overtime we should be comfortable with the following and use them to help assess and support differentiation.

• Teamie Discussions - tutorial and examples
• EdPuzzle and YouTube - tutorial
• Padlet - tutorial and example
• Google Forms and self-marking - tutorial

If you teach Maths there is an amazing range of specific adaptive tools at your fingertips. (MangaHigh, Khan Academy, My iMaths) 

First steps:

We all provide students with materials to look over before class, such as unit pages in Teamie, chapters of a textbook or to watch a YouTube video. We also use formative assessment tricks at beginning of lessons such as questioning, mini-whiteboards to connect back to prior knowledge.

Isnt this enough?

Well, yes but with a few tweaks if can be significantly amplified. If we want students to be watch a video or to read an article we should be setting them some questions to focus their thinking.

Technology can really help with this process by letting you

• Track and monitor if students have actually watched or read the material
• Automate collecting responses from the students
• Help you see a collated view of responses and flip between questions or students.

Challenges and thoughts:

Timing:

A few table groups spoke about the timeliness of pre-assessments. If you really wish to differentiate you need adequate time to analyse how students have performed.  For instance if you are beginning to explore a new concept, students can engage with a homework task in the days prior but does this give you time to modify what you were planning to do?

Participation:

Suppose instead of having a mini-lesson during class time explaining a concept, that you record yourself with a document camera and have students engage with this ahead of class. What if only half of the students look at the resource? Do you repeat yourself or split the class into groups. Overtime I would suggest that students understand why you are exploring this approach and help them see it as part of the routine and to be prepared. We also need to do something in the first part of the class that explicitly refers back to the homework and references the prior knowledge so they understand how it connects to the learning. If they come to class prepared and yet that work is not referenced by the teacher they will be less willing to do the pre-assessment next time.

Time: 

To be organised in advance and to preset some homework preparation requires some effort. If you also want to create your own material to support the course it can be extremely time consuming.

• Start with using a Teamie post to ask a simple question about a resource. This can be a virtual plenary to your lesson. Lock the comment if you don’t want students to see each others comments and then unlock when class begins and get them to read or reply to each others responses.
• Take an existing good resource or video and repurpose using EdPuzzle.
• If the approach works explore making your own resource. Try a screencast on your mac using Quicktime, or borrow a document camera to record a mini-lesson.

Presentations - click to end to see department ideas

Formative Assessment with Google Forms and a Video

A great hint I learned last year from a colleague Steve Voster at UWCSEA, is to repurpose a Google Form to help students engage with a simple video tutorial.  Whilst YouTube is full of many suitable tutorials such as the Crash Course resources, the struggle is getting students to engage and to elicit some feedback on their level of understanding whilst they watch. Within a Google Form you can now embed a video which opens up a new realm of possibilities for getting students to engage with a video. 

LINKING GOOGLE FORM AND YOUTUBE

Google Forms are a simple way to collect some feedback. Create one from your Google Drive, then play the video whilst waiting for a few key points. I try to develop "hinge questions" which really highlight if the student gets a concept, these are explained in the work of educationalist Dylan Wiliam. Less questions the better !

Recently, Google Forms was updated so you can embed a video directly into the form. Once you have finished share with your students for homework. The feedback spreadsheet of student responses is a great discussion starter/plenary at the beginning of the next lesson. 

Google Forms can now be shared with colleagues so others can reuse and recycle your task. Just remember your colleague needs to make a copy of your form.  Whilst this isn't revolutionary it is just a nice example of repurposing a few tech tools to make learning a little more interesting and effective, it sure beats reading the textbook each week.

As shown below, you can access the student responses via the associated spreadsheet, or scroll through via the "Show Summary of Responses" button in the Google Form.

Summary of Responses as a spreadsheet.

Full tutorial to get started.

YouTube Playlists for the Flipped Classroom

YouTube, the world most popular video sharing platform, is an ideal place to store and share videos. The creation of playlists and curating material for students is a technique to support the Flipped Classroom and helps prepare the learner.

Any school GApps email address has an associated YouTube account, so you can use your staff email account to create playlists and store videos. Our department GApps accounts can also be used to curate playlists for students and shared across different classes. The following presentation steps through the basics, but also see here for more tips and tricks about YouTube and the flipped classroom.

Video Questions in YouTube - increasing student engagement

A current piece of research by the Digital Literacy team is looking at how video tutorials can be created and then shared to students. These ideas fit with the UWCSEA Learning Principles and the idea of providing feedback to students through the learning process. It also links to the idea of the Flipped Classroom to provide students with time in class to apply, discuss and evaluate ideas.

Currently YouTube is the best option for teachers to share videos that they produce, both to students and to the wider community. Some of the educational features of YouTube are outlined below.

• Single sign-in to YouTube using your Google Apps accounts
• Unlimited storage capacity
• Ability to create channels to curate material for students.
• Ability to add annotations and comments to videos.
• Build in multichoice, popup questions to a video to enhance student understanding.

The last feature is the newest education idea that YouTube has developed and is the feature that we see the most benefit in. The following example from Grade 11 Economics demonstrates how this works.

The first question appears at 1.10. When you click on the correct answer "true" the video will proceed. 

If you would like to try these ideas in your class or develop some tutorial videos, please be in touch with Andrew McCarthy who can provide some guidance and additional resources. 

To turn on multichoice questions you need to be signed into your account and then click on this link. Video Questions Beta. This will activate the beta testing of this product, which has not been realised to the public yet. 

Future posts will explain how to create channels and curate material for your students. 

The Flipped Classroom and Infographics

Both of the concepts, the Flipped Classroom and Infographics are in vogue at the moment. Hence my choice to share the image below. Infographics are just an informative way of displaying information, you can use Google to search infographics and your subject and you will find a wealth of ideas. Student can also use the infographic idea to showcase their own information. We will try publish some more ideas and inspiration about this later.

An excellent website for infographics is here - http://www.good.is/infographics/

Created by Knewton and Column Five Media

FLIP YOUR VIDEO

Planning a video project? Send your students to Video School! Vimeo, a site created by film makers, has introduced Video School 101.  Video 101 is here to teach you the very basics of making videos and show you how fun it can be.

Vimeo Video School: Video 101

The Flipped Classroom - so what exactly am I flipping?

The Flipped Classroom concept is an idea that has been floating around for a while. It has been in the media recently alongside the growing popularity of a group called the Khan Academy. The Khan Academy as explained in last week's Economist, is becoming a favourite learning aid for many teachers. The traditional definition of a flipped classroom is something like this...

Where videos take the place of direct instruction. Thereby allowing students to get individual time in class to work with their teacher on key learning activities. It has been called the flipped class because what used to be classwork (the "lecture" is done at home via teacher-created videos and what used to be homework (assigned problems) is now done in class.

The initial idea was that the internet could provide students with 24hr/7day a week access to learning materials, and that this could make our class time more effective. To me this is a similar notion to the university concept where you needed to read the textbook chapter before the lecture, to make sure you understood the basic ideas. The growth of the Khan Academy and their suite of learning resources for Maths and Science is now making this is concept a reality for many teachers. The following video is one of the nicest explanations I have seen.

The flipped classroom concept can now be linked to some broader teaching ideas. By providing students with online learning resources, the students can take responsibility for their own learning. The time in class with the teacher can be an opportunity for more meaningful and personalised interactions. It is a classroom where the teacher can become more of a "guide on the side" and not the "sage on the stage" It is a concept where information and resources from class are stored and archived so that students can access and personalise thier learning overtime.

This sounds just like my classroom..?

Many classes at UWCSEA already follow a similar idea, and I think that this is a concept that we should be trying to follow in specific subject areas such as Science, Maths and Economics/Business. Overtime it will help us become more efficient teachers and support learning. With student laptops the idea of a flipped classroom is more achievable. Lots of teachers place resources on StudyWiz and ask the students to prepare for class by putting resources up prior to the lesson. But here are a few further reflective questions to ponder?

1. Do you provide students with an outline of where the next lesson is heading? Where can they find this outline?
2. Do you point students to specific resources which could support their learning in the next lesson,  or next topic?
3. How do students access these resources? Are the resources effective, dynamic and interesting? Is there an filing system of where these are saved?
4. Do you share these resources and collaborate across the department with other teachers?
5. Do you give students your presentation/notes before the lesson or guard it until the students finish the topic?

I must confess that I taught in a laptop school for three years and struggled to adopt all of these ideas. I was successful with the following which in my opinion are the first steps towards a flipped classroom. 

• Using my StudyWiz classes and the information box to explain the focus of learning, both backwards (where we have come from) and forwards (where we are going next)
• Provided at least one resource ahead of the next topic to prepare students. In the simplest context this was sometimes a chapter reading from the textbook. Sometimes I would point them to a specific video from an Economist on YouTube. 
• I would often give students my presentations as a PDF file at the beginning of the topic so that they didn't need to copy down copious amounts of graphs. This allowed them to read ahead to the next lesson and be prepared.

The biggest challenge..?

The significant pedagogical change required is the shift from being the lecturer at the front of the class to becoming a facilitator of the students learning. For me the shift was hard because I had always been taught in a lecturing style, growing up in the Catholic Boys school environment. 

Be asking students to complete even the smallest amount of learning before class; looking at a video tutorial about light , flicking through a Prezi about Development, or reading some notes will make their learning in class more effective. It is recognized in research that students need to revisit new material 2-3 times over 3-4 days and the flipped classroom idea supports this. Classtime is better spent doing hands-on activities, role plays, experiments, looking at case studies and participating in discussions. 

Students need to be taught about taking notes, and overtime being more independent in their learning. If students using time previously dedicated for homework learning about material for the next lesson then I think they will learn more.

As a teacher it is also hard to find resources which prepare the students for class to the depth that you require. That is why many teachers may think about recording mini-lectures for students and placing these on StudyWiz or will provide students with notes outlines such as in Senior Biology. A nice example of mini-lectures is this idea from a friend, Jason Welker teaching Economics at the Zurich International School.