Online Teaching for 2020
With recent events I've been experimenting with online teaching and online lessons, including online assessments. I know there is a great deal of interest in especially the assessments part.
For a guide on what kinds of work a student might be able to submit from an online assessment, click here.
Other useful files are included below, as well as an example test that has been designed to be answered in MS Word (textboxes have been added in the answer sections).
For a fantastic introductrion to a really worthwhile Coursera course on the Science of Well-Being from a professor at Yale, which can really help to show what can be done with online learning (and is a fascinating course in its own right), click here.
Things I would like to have thought about earlier
Having a school policy on what a teacher can expect a student to have including:
Other general things I learnt along the way - Technology that works
For a total novice to everything, one way to do online teaching is simply to record the audio over a powerpoint or handwritten notes, created before the lesson. Videoing me writing was something I quickly realised wasn't going to work, for instance.
For a register in Zoom, ask the students to write down a number in the chat, that goes up as the lesson progresses. The Chat file produced at the end will have their name (ideally in a standardised format) and their number and when they wrote it. It is a way, however imperfect, of demonstrating engagement, at least attendance. I used Excel afterwards to see who missed which sessions (I do it about 4 to 9 times, randomly, kinda, in the lesson). That Excel processing initially is hard to get the hang of, and eventually becomes mind-bogglingly boring, but routine. An idealistic and unsuspecting IT person might be the best choice for the whole school attendence, or even just a department.
To create credible online assessments there's not much I can say, except other syllabi can be really helpful, as well as include very slight variations in the questions which a student who was only repeating the mark scheme would miss. I have a very large collection of past exam questions broken down by topic and tests can be made from that, the tutorial for that I've been working on for a while now, but if enough questions are used then the students are unlikely to have the time to find all of the answers.
A quick way to find out if the students are not providing their own unaided work would be to give them a test that was easy to find the answers for, and then the lesson afterwards a test where it really wasn't. A big change can be informative.
One to One Sessions.
In Zoom there is the option to go into break-out rooms, where you can talk to students in small groups and in one to one sessions. I found it really complicated the first week I did it, but if the students are doing guided revision or activities, online teaching can really come into it's own on these one to one sessions.
To mark the submittted papers I used a few differernt epen input devices. If you don't intend to make a career out of this, invest 20 to 30 USD in a cheap large version and learn how to use it. It will save hours of your life and eneable you greater freedom in your online lessons. This kind of thing would be perfect, XP Pen.
OneNote 2016 was the best program I've so far used. MS Whitebaord is good in many ways, and the easiest to get started with, but I could copy and paste past exam quesitons (which are available on this site for many different syllabi) directly into OneNote and then write on them in an online lesson. Also, OneNote allows for easier filing of the lesson, as well as not needing to have a constant link to Microsoft, which I think is why MS Whitebaord was sometimes laggy.
Get a decent office chair if you are working from home. I didn't and for 2 months suffered terribly when 30USD has been a gamechanger. You'll be sitting down way more than before.
If working where a VPN is necessary, download the videos before hand (4k Video Downloader works well, I use the paid version, but the free one for fewer downloads is very good)
If you are really serious about this, get a cheap second monitor, especially if you are using a small laptop (or even a large laptop screen). The extra screen space really makes a huge difference to what is possible and can reduce stress. Anything under 100USD would be fantastic.
For the super keen: Get a decent work-only computer. I have my own work laptop that I bought myself. I got a high end gaming thing, I do like the screen, but don't usually appreciate much the speed, but when it does slow down, I can't blame it, which is calming.
I have complete access to everything about it, the hard drive is mine, and I don't need to ask IT for permission for anything. I've only ever once got a decent laptop from work. The gentle sense of satisfaction I get when I turn the thing on and it works, immdiately, is just really neat. I also have my own Office 365 and Dropbox account. And my own office chair at work, again, a really great idea if you spend a lot of time there and takes you out of the race for furniture every year which is usually not great anyways.
Top tip if you are going to run your own computer, get a spare one, basically an older machine, because when your main one goes down IT will not usually help. My other laptop was a decent computer in 2013, later I put in an SSD drive, replaced the battery a couple of times, and the fan, but learnt a great deal about computers along the way, and it's still way better than my work one which was brand new in 2018.
With recent events I've been experimenting with online teaching and online lessons, including online assessments. I know there is a great deal of interest in especially the assessments part.
For a guide on what kinds of work a student might be able to submit from an online assessment, click here.
Other useful files are included below, as well as an example test that has been designed to be answered in MS Word (textboxes have been added in the answer sections).
For a fantastic introductrion to a really worthwhile Coursera course on the Science of Well-Being from a professor at Yale, which can really help to show what can be done with online learning (and is a fascinating course in its own right), click here.
Things I would like to have thought about earlier
Having a school policy on what a teacher can expect a student to have including:
- what level of computer a1ccess is expected, e.g. a computer, smartphone or just a phone
- access to a MS Word, or Open Office (its free)
- the ability to use email
- what type of file format is acceptable (some stud1ents just sent in a bunch of photos)
- acceptable file names (100 students or more makes this really important)
- acceptable student names. For Zoom when they login they are allowed to create any name, however, if they are given preditirmined names beforehand taking registers and other things is much easier.
- centralised sanctions policy for missed deadlines, failed attendence and other common problems.
- Should the students have their videos on or not? There are important child protection issues surrounding this.
- Should other operating systems be supported by teachers (e.g. Apple, or Ubuntu) or is it the student's responsibility to deliver a file that can be accessed by the teacher
- Should students be allowed to send in links instead of the actual file? If it's a link, they can change it later, like after the test.
- Make sure your operating systema and your antivirus is uptodate, and keep it that way. You'll be getting emails from kids who have little understanding of what malware is.
Other general things I learnt along the way - Technology that works
For a total novice to everything, one way to do online teaching is simply to record the audio over a powerpoint or handwritten notes, created before the lesson. Videoing me writing was something I quickly realised wasn't going to work, for instance.
For a register in Zoom, ask the students to write down a number in the chat, that goes up as the lesson progresses. The Chat file produced at the end will have their name (ideally in a standardised format) and their number and when they wrote it. It is a way, however imperfect, of demonstrating engagement, at least attendance. I used Excel afterwards to see who missed which sessions (I do it about 4 to 9 times, randomly, kinda, in the lesson). That Excel processing initially is hard to get the hang of, and eventually becomes mind-bogglingly boring, but routine. An idealistic and unsuspecting IT person might be the best choice for the whole school attendence, or even just a department.
To create credible online assessments there's not much I can say, except other syllabi can be really helpful, as well as include very slight variations in the questions which a student who was only repeating the mark scheme would miss. I have a very large collection of past exam questions broken down by topic and tests can be made from that, the tutorial for that I've been working on for a while now, but if enough questions are used then the students are unlikely to have the time to find all of the answers.
A quick way to find out if the students are not providing their own unaided work would be to give them a test that was easy to find the answers for, and then the lesson afterwards a test where it really wasn't. A big change can be informative.
One to One Sessions.
In Zoom there is the option to go into break-out rooms, where you can talk to students in small groups and in one to one sessions. I found it really complicated the first week I did it, but if the students are doing guided revision or activities, online teaching can really come into it's own on these one to one sessions.
To mark the submittted papers I used a few differernt epen input devices. If you don't intend to make a career out of this, invest 20 to 30 USD in a cheap large version and learn how to use it. It will save hours of your life and eneable you greater freedom in your online lessons. This kind of thing would be perfect, XP Pen.
OneNote 2016 was the best program I've so far used. MS Whitebaord is good in many ways, and the easiest to get started with, but I could copy and paste past exam quesitons (which are available on this site for many different syllabi) directly into OneNote and then write on them in an online lesson. Also, OneNote allows for easier filing of the lesson, as well as not needing to have a constant link to Microsoft, which I think is why MS Whitebaord was sometimes laggy.
Get a decent office chair if you are working from home. I didn't and for 2 months suffered terribly when 30USD has been a gamechanger. You'll be sitting down way more than before.
If working where a VPN is necessary, download the videos before hand (4k Video Downloader works well, I use the paid version, but the free one for fewer downloads is very good)
If you are really serious about this, get a cheap second monitor, especially if you are using a small laptop (or even a large laptop screen). The extra screen space really makes a huge difference to what is possible and can reduce stress. Anything under 100USD would be fantastic.
For the super keen: Get a decent work-only computer. I have my own work laptop that I bought myself. I got a high end gaming thing, I do like the screen, but don't usually appreciate much the speed, but when it does slow down, I can't blame it, which is calming.
I have complete access to everything about it, the hard drive is mine, and I don't need to ask IT for permission for anything. I've only ever once got a decent laptop from work. The gentle sense of satisfaction I get when I turn the thing on and it works, immdiately, is just really neat. I also have my own Office 365 and Dropbox account. And my own office chair at work, again, a really great idea if you spend a lot of time there and takes you out of the race for furniture every year which is usually not great anyways.
Top tip if you are going to run your own computer, get a spare one, basically an older machine, because when your main one goes down IT will not usually help. My other laptop was a decent computer in 2013, later I put in an SSD drive, replaced the battery a couple of times, and the fan, but learnt a great deal about computers along the way, and it's still way better than my work one which was brand new in 2018.
| acceptable_methods_to_complete__online_exams.pdf |
| rules_for_the_online_chemistry_exam_published_version.docx |
| how_to_convert_pdfs_into_word_documents.docx |
| ig_chem_all_test_p6_monday_igcse_pre_chemistry_monday_30th_march_4students_textboxes.doc |