I’m reflecting on the last synchronous lesson in the ‘Teaching English to Young Learners’ course.
I have quite a lot of thinking to do about the structure of the lessons. I have divided my 36 students into two groups and have allotted 45-minutes for each, in my attempt to free students from sitting continuously on Zoom. I’m happy about that decision, but 45 minutes is looking very short to me now if I want to present a practical activity, and then have a meaningful dialogic interaction activity in small groups.
Yesterday we had fifteen minutes together playing two games which can be directly applied in any elementary or high school classroom or adapted to the teaching needs of the students. After each activity, I stopped for short pedagogical interludes, to explain my planning and the uses of the techniques or strategies in the classroom. As I was leading the games, I felt we were moving fairly quickly. I was very aware that I needed half an hour for the breakout room activity; I also sensed that I was talking too much. I was, however, watching the students closely, and saw that they were actively participating.
For the activity in the breakout rooms, I used a technique I learned recently from Betsy Potash on the Spark Creativity blog, which I heard about on a blog and podcast I follow closely, the Cult of Pedagogy. As soon as I heard and read about the activity, I knew it would be just right for my online teaching. I adopted the eye-catching and teacher-friendly free template, which Potash generously shared on her site.
I introduced the students to the hexagon thinking tool, which is essentially a collaborative semantic mapping process. I asked the students to connect a web of concepts about learning and development, based on the reading and the material they had worked on in the a-synchronous individual work unit. After linking the words by placing them on the web of hexagrams, they were asked to choose pairs of words and to explain the link between them explicitly. The students got to work immediately and made the most of the time in the break out rooms. Unfortunately, the time available was too short, and in both sessions, I left the students to complete the task beyond the 45-minute lesson.
While the students were in the breakout rooms, I decided I would visit them, but not intervene. In most cases, I resisted my inclination to join the conversation. I value having the opportunity to sit and observe groups of three or four students immersed in educational dialogue in the context of online learning. I don’t take the time and space I am creating for discussion for granted, and am aware that the students appreciate it. I sense that there is a real need for the students to meet the other students and to spend time together in this period of social distancing; one of the students has already confided in me that she has begun to deal with loneliness as the semester continues online.
I was excited to see the members of each group engaged and sharing their understandings of the various concepts. The conversation was on-task and thoughtful; students were arguing where the terms should be placed on the web, based on their learning and also their personal experience. The hexagon activity encouraged the students to seriously weigh up the position of each concept, using language to define and redefine the terms as they understand them and to grapple with how each word connects with others. I witnessed deep listening and thought, students questioning one another, asking for clarification and examples; students learning from and with others.
From the central Zoom room, between my visits to the various groups, I watched the progress on the Google Slide deck. Each group worked differently. Some groups had a lengthy discussion before they began moving the concepts into place. Some started moving the pieces immediately. Some groups placed all of the words onto the hexagons before they began writing the connections between them, and others put concepts in the web and formulated their connection explanations straight away.
I think my explanation that there are no right or wrong ways to develop the web of hexagons contributed to the easy-going atmosphere in the groups.
I have designed a short feedback questionnaire on the lesson, focusing on the use of the collaborative thinking activity. I have done this firstly for my future planning, but also to gauge whether these pre-service teachers are beginning to explore using the tools I model in the course, in their teaching practice. I am curious to hear about their learning and their impressions of the strategy. In asking students about their learning experience, I am modelling how I reflect on my teaching and demonstrate that in pre-service teaching education, we are talking about course content while continually engaging in a metacognitive exploration of our learning.
