GCSE Biology, Groby Community College

As we had a week off for half term I revisited the previous weeks work. The completed text boxes in the PowerPoint presentation were particularly useful memory aids as the learners could remember the discussion once they saw the slide with their comments saved. I intended to use this technique again and I have. I have realised that the boxes do need to be much bigger for a discussion. If I had an interactive whiteboard, or SMARTboard, available then the boxes would be superfluous as I could use the functionality of the board to do the same job with much more space available. e-learning is proving particularly easy to implement in the development of the teaching and learning environment.

GCSE Biology, Groby Community College

Tonight I used the PowerPoint Presentation with the text boxes. Whilst I have some minor niggles with the layout and look of the presentation I am pleased at how easy they are to implement. The learners seemed impressed that they could contribute to the presentation. As this was also an observed session I am pleased that the use of the boxes worked well, and that the observer was also impressed. As the main point of the exercise was to collate opinion the text boxes allowed me to pool these ideas in an accessible and retrievable format.

One point made by the observer was that I do not ask enough probing questions. I am aware that this happens. I frequently ask if everyone understands but I fail to ask leading and probing questions. This is partly down to my lack of confidence; I don’t want to look daft by asking a learner a question that I’ve not prepared them to answer. Also I don’t know necessarily how to ask the right questions, it is a knack I am yet to learn and one area of teaching where I feel I am weakest. I am improving my knowledge of assessment techniques, mainly written assessment as this is what the summative assessment will be for the biology course. I could do with sharing some good practise on verbal assessment techniques. I am also aware that some of my learners are more vociferous than others. Of course, just because someone doesn’t want to speak out in a class doesn’t mean they don’t know the answers. I just don’t know how to tease the information I want out of some of the more introverted members of the class.

Biology Lesson Preparation

I am trying an idea suggesting on the Adult Learning Platform. It is to include text boxes in a PowerPoint presentation to make them more interactive. I look forward to seeing how this idea works in the class.

Adding text while viewing a slide show PowerPoint text boxes using the Control Bar

You can get your learners more actively involved in your PowerPoint presentations by using the text box facility. It lets you add text to a slide during the presentation.

Make sure you have a blank slide.

View>Toolbars>Control Toolbox

Drag the text box to your desired size and shape

Text cannot be entered in edit mode – you need to view the slide show.

For some reason known only to Microsoft (bless them!) the text defaults to one line and no return. So you have to change the settings.

Right-click on the text box and click on Properties.
Change Multiline to True
Change EnterKeyBehaviour to True
Word Wrap should default to True but check to see.

PCE, Longslade

The session looked at providing feedback on assessment. How honest would I be in providing feedback? This seems an odd question to be asking, but the matter was raised that if a learner had performed really badly in an assessment, would I tell them just how badly they have performed and risk demotivating them? Would it be better to focus on the small positive aspects and offer guidance in where they should be going without letting on just how badly they are doing? I think this is a judgement call you have to make as a tutor, based on how well you know your learners as to what format the feedback is provided.

GCSE Biology, Groby

Before the session one of the learners spoke with me to ask some questions about some extra reading she had been doing on the previous topics. She also mentioned to me that she is an alcoholic, albeit a dry alcoholic. I am not sure how I deal with this information, as it would not appear to have any current implications on her learning, or attending the course. However, all the students need to be aware that when we conduct our practical experiments none of them should be under the influence of intoxicating substances. At this point I think it might be prudent just to be aware of the situation without the need to draw any attention to the fact, especially as she is not attending the sessions intoxicated.

I also had a brief conversation with a new learner after the session. She said that she was pleased that I had agreed to her joining the course late as the one she had hoped to attend at North Warwickshire College had been cancelled due to insufficient numbers. She also said how much she had enjoyed the session and how infectious she found my enthusiasm for my subject. After attending this session she is feeling a lot more positive about attending the course as she had had concerns but did not go into detail about these concerns.

Telephone Conversation with Admin

Would I be happy for a new student to start course on Monday?
Yes if student is prepared to do catch up work in own time.
Student is willing to do work, and arrive 15 minutes early for session.

Whilst I am unable to be very flexible with the content of the course I am happy to take new learners onto the course up to the October half term. This has been especially helpful for the numbers as a course that should have run at another college has been cancelled and those learners are now attending at Groby. The course now has 13 enrolled learners. I feel this particularly relates to the FENTO standard B3, enhance access to and provision in learning, as well as supporting the service by enabling more learners to attend up to a reasonable point.