Day 2: 'Remote Delivery'

So, day 2 of working from home and teaching using an online platform.

Firstly, I have to say that students have generally been really responsive to work which is being set and the majority are completing tasks. I think maybe the newness of not being in College will maybe wear off.

For those students that seem not to be fully participating and there were a few this morning I found using analytics on CANVAS really useful. From the students I could see were not engaging I sent an AD Hoc SMS through pro solution and then the majority started sending work in. Also setting up tasks as small assignments has seemed to work well, especially when students can see they are late with a submission.

Today I have found that completing more mini tasks has worked well and has allowed me to be more on top of any questions that students may be having.

One big bit of advice I would say would be to be prepared. I felt that I would just plan as

I went along. However, internet connections have not been great today. Whether this is due to heavy traffic online due to more people working from home. Always have a bank of extra online resources available and make students aware of where they are just in case you find yourself in a similar position.

I would also encourage you to look at different educational apps that you can use. I have been using large amounts of textbooks and guides that students would benefit from. Apps like ‘Scannable Evernote’ has been really useful today. This allows you to take a simple picture of text and edit specific parts easily and store all images and notes together. This has been great for looking at exam case studies and larger sections of text.

There are loads of different apps and online platforms out there. I have had loads recommended to me today as every other teacher in the country is either doing or preparing to go online. Students also are really savvy with technology so they are really responsive to using such mediums.

My biggest struggle today has been setting a mock exam via an online platform. My A Level exam is 2 hours long and students have known this mock has been planned for some time, so we still went ahead as planned. I uploaded an online copy of the exam in assignments in CANVAS and got students to either type up their responses and submit via CANVAS by the deadline time. Some even used the suggested app and took an image of their written response. This seemed to work well and I am planning on giving detailed feedback using voice recordings. To give valuable, personal feedback from their exam.

Regards

Andrew Heaney