That’s all changed in a big hurry for our parents as we’re in the midst of the second year with 1:1 laptops in the secondary school. But, it’s not all doom and gloom. The “ins” you had with your children still exist, they’re just on a different medium, a digital one. Here are some ways that you have the conversation with your children about their learning and sound like you know what you’re talking about.
Disclaimer: our main objective is to produce independent, well-rounded learners.
I mention this because you shouldn’t be inclined to use the following info to “spy” on your child.
It’s meant to be a way to start a conversation about them as a learner.
Communicating
Across our secondary school, teachers maintain class pages for their students. They communicate their homework and assessments on these pages using either a Google Calendar, an Announcements feed or a mix of these. Students know that they can go to their class page and find the necessary information they need. Many of them subscribe to the class calendars so that any updates appear on their calendar automatically.
The class pages are designed to be a communications channel between students and their teacher, but parents can access them as well. Check out this guide to navigating and bookmarking your child(ren)’s class pages.
Talking points:
- Sit down with them as you look through their class pages together
- Ask how they’re transferring this information into a “to-do” list and how they prioritize it
Producing
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Our students produce a range of things to show their learning. Many of them, we’d all be familiar with – papers, posters, brochures, dioramas. Some products though are things that wouldn’t leave a visible trace which can make you wonder “what have you been doing in there for two hours?”
Typically, your child will have a folder in Google Drive that they can save work to that is also shared with the teacher. Sometimes the products they’re working on are collaborative with one or more peer and they can all edit together in real time.
- Sit down with your child as they’re producing their work and watch
- Ask them to show you their finished work on their laptop or have them share it with you if you’re keen to try Google Drive yourself
- Go back though their “to do” list to double check with them
Feedback
Though we’re just beginning to see a shift in the kinds and frequency of feedback given, there are some excellent examples emerging from our innovative teachers. We are very positive on formative, or “in the moment” assessment. That is, the best time to give feedback is as the learning is taking place. Some teachers are giving regular feedback on student’s Google Docs by using the comment feature which allows them to highlight text and record a comment specific to that text.
- Ask your child how they’re doing in class and how they know this to be the case
- When asking them to share feedback, it’s OK if they don’t read word-for-word. Maybe ask for “two highs and a low” for a particular assignment
Hopefully this will help you kickstart the conversations with your child about their learning. Please comment if you’ve found other strategies that could be useful to others.
Thank you for the information shared at the coffee morning today. I learn something new every time I attend one!