Making Learning visible

Making Learning visible

Introduction

How do I know all students are at the right starting level? How do I know all my students have understood my explanations? How do I know all the pupils achieved the objectives at the end of my lesson?
The question "is this clear to everyone?" often leads to little or no response from the class. Every teacher will recognize this. There are of course several good ways to check comprehension. It is important to take into account aspects such as individual accountability, thinking time and security. 
In practice it difficult to get a good insight in (individual) mental states of all students in your class. Response systems (also called clickers) may help out here.

Especially in a classroom instruction teachers feel it is important that all students are ate the same knowledge level. Clickers can help to verify this. And outcomes of polls can be used to adapt further lesson procedures. Clickers and other additional tools, like tablets and document cameras can help to make the instruction process more interactive.

Document camera

Respons devices, for example, can also help to visualise the ideas and distribution of opinions in the group at any point during sessions. Teachers can check whether pupils are still ‘with them’ when developing a line of reasoning or explaining a complex concept.
If used appropriately (for example, by also challenging students to motivate their choices (Schmid, 2008)), this type of device can contribute to students’ involvement and deepen the processing of lesson content.

First two of a set of options and graph showing class preferences.

The visibility of diversity of opinions in the group can quite naturally lead to new questions and / or trigger the need for new vocabulary.

 Curriculum Examples

 In her lessons on the EURO Yvonne Gall, a modern languages teacher at Wallace Hall Academy uses voting systems to check comprehension. Read how she prepared gave and evaluated her lesson and view the accompanying short video impressions.

Literature lessons
Particularly when discussing personal interpretations of literary text passages or poetry learners it can be difficult to illicit responses from learners. The anonimity that can be realized by using response technologies can help to overcome this problem. Making the variety in responses visible will help to get a discussion going. It is also a means to engage more learners as the shyer students are given a chance to voice their views.

Practices

A demo for some uses here 

Research and further reading

Learner response systems (LRS)are suitable tools to organize (intermediate) comprehension checks, debriefing and reflection activities in the classroom  (Moss et al, 2007). Wall et al (2005) and Glover et al (2007: 14) report that this type of activities promote learning and study skills.
If well applied (e.g. by asking learners to also provide arguments for their choices) response technologies can contribute a further engagement and deeper processing of content (Cutts, 2004; Cutrim Schmid, 2008 (see abstract below)
In an experiment with the use of clickers with English and Science at the Meadow Head school in Sheffield where the (same) questions were asked about the teaching contents at the beginning and the end of the lesson students appeared to perform better. Especially the weaker students had benefited from this approach.

Final report for practitioners produced by the research done on case studies at the Reveal Project

Cutrim Schmid, Euline. (2008). ”Using a Voting System in Conjunction with Interactive Whiteboard Technology to Enhance Learning in the English Language Classroom.” Computers and Education, Volume 50 ,  Issue 1
This study discusses the pedagogical potential of an interactive voting system used in conjunction with interactive whiteboard technology. The data discussed here are drawn from a qualitative study, carried out in the context of a British university pre-sessional programme in English for Academic Purposes and Study Skills for international students in the summers of 2003 and 2004. Research data were collected via a variety of ethnographic research instruments, namely classroom observations and feedback from critical colleagues, teacher's field notes, video recording of classes, semi-structured interviews with students, and pre- and post-course student questionnaires. The findings indicate that the electronic voting system was seen to increase considerably the scope of interactivity during the lessons by helping students to enhance their development into active participants. However, the data have also indicated that the levels of interactivity in the approaches adopted in the context investigated could still be considered relatively ''shallow'', and some suggestions have been provided to improve this aspect of technology use.