So far so good?

I continue to have my little chats with students on an informal basis whenever I can to try and sus out their feelings about the Scale Up experience.

So far, top of the list when it comes to the moans is, you guessed it, the use of Macs instead of PCs.

The unfamiliar key board and desktop is causing a lot of lag for some in the classroom tasks and students respond fairly grumpily, but they are getting on with it. It just seems a shame that they have to "get on with it" when other solutions were available. In my view teaching equipment really needs to be selected by teachers (and students) not by technical staff.

I also still maintain that providing a simple laminated card with a SHORT list of gestures and essential info would have helped enormously. So I have now made my own which I will take to class with me. There will be one per table and it will be based on the most common questions I get asked as I patrol the classroom.

The other moan seems to be around pacing. I have been conscious a couple of times that students working on tasks in their separate groups tend to do so at different speeds (not really so surprising). This can mean that some feel left behind as the class moves to the next activity whilst others get bored, tune out and start to check their Facbeook updates.

I think what we need to plan here is a basic plus an extension activity. The basic one is something everyone can accomplish in the time allowed, the extension activity could be achieved by the quicker students in the hour, but is certainly do-able by everyone in their personal study time.

An example of this came from this week's session run by Sharon where she asked students to find two articles, then answer a series of questions about these in a Discussion Board post. Some managed to find just one in the time available; others did both; some posted during the allotted hour and some did so after the workshop.

When you work in this way (inquiry/group based learning) you have to let go of the need to control pace - and of the fantasy that you can determine what people will learn in a given space of time. Standing up at the front and lecturing do we imagine that every student is understanding every point to the same extent? That some don't drift off or get confused? Of course we don't - that's why we set reading tasks or upload lecture notes on to the VLE. So we have to accept that groups will work on tasks at different rates and allow for that.

For me, working in this environment - and taking a more inquiry-based learning approach - has meant letting go of control in a number of ways. The noise level for one is something you have to simply accept if you want 12 groups of 9 students to be working actively on a task for the best part of the hour.

When I have spoken to students about their experience of the environment and the group based activities, they seem to have found it strange to begin with but then come to accept it and when they are actively engaged in their group tasks, seem to be able to blot out what is going on around them.

For the teacher (well, for me) this also takes some getting used to. I generally feel less exhausted by the end of the session now than I did at the start of term and more likely to be satisfied with the outcomes. I find the noise less of a problem and can similarly focus on a specific student or table as I do my rounds and am able to use the mic to get the attention of the whole group when I need to. I am becoming more comfortable with the technology and consequently a bit braver in the things I ask the class to attempt (as I know what works, for example).

One tip I have learnt is to plan the group tasks by having them written up as a web page on the VLE with any links they are going to need on the same page, but opening in a new tab. This makes it easier for them to follow the tasks without having to go back and forth between different sections of the learning room (for example - if I need them to make a post to the Discussion Board, I simply put the link to that Discussion Board on the same page as the instructions.) I also try to avoid paper handouts if I can, unless again it helps to avoid the problem of navigating between multiple pages. (For the level three students, who are more familiar with the VLE, this isn't quite such a problem).

So yes - so far, so very interesting, but there is much to think about in this project.  In particular, the need to adapt teaching and learning to the students' level of knowledge and skill, to the physical environment, to the VLE and to the technology.