We hosted a fantastic collaborative learning webinar on “HSC Examination Literacy” using SMART Learning Suite. We thought we would share this wonderful HOW TO tool for the Learning Suite & a ready-made lesson for you. The webinar covers how a static workbook can be transformed into an interactive, dynamic learning tool using online collaboration, live questions and real-time assessment.
Resources:
SMART Learning Suite – HSC Literacy Webinar transcript
HSC Exam Literacy Static Document
HSC Literacy Webinar by Eva Korkidas – Visionext Digital Pedagogical Coach
Transcription:
Hello everyone, I’m Eva.
Thank you for the introduction there Kendall. The first thing that we need to do to get started if you haven’t done so already if you can go to https://hellosmart.com, you’re going to need to type in a code and the code that we are going to need. The class code is 46151.
So, I’ll just bring up the window so you should be over at hellosmart.com. And once you’re there you should be prompted with a class asked to supply a class ID. Now. I’ve already logged in I’ll just leave that class to show everybody and you’ll see Miss Techie 46151. I’ve already joined that class before you you’ll be joining a new class and typing in code 46151.
So, let’s get started.
Now today we’re going to be looking at using the online learning suite and as a high school teacher. I think that one of the areas particularly when it’s come to Notebook in the past is that it’s been more suited, from my own perspective, is that it’s been more suited for the primary years. What the online Learning Suite has done for me is that it’s really opened up a whole new world when it comes to collaboration and real-time assessments.
Particularly, those two areas. Engagement is fantastic, there’s a lot of different activities that we could use in Notebook to engage kids, but I find that in the latter years of the older kids want to be able to use this tool particularly for something like maximising HSE success and getting kids to understand exam literacy.
And I believe that this is something that could apply in any sort of learning, teaching and learning context. So at the very least on the Smart Learning Suite Online website, you could also have this open on a new tab if you haven’t done so already suite.smarttech.com gives you access to the online learning suite and as a teacher we can go there and create new resources where we can have the students engage with our resources. These can come down to very static like PDF type files or PowerPoint files. Now, normally, I would have a Word document and I’ll just show you what that looks like. It’ll be an examination success booklet where I would hand it out to the kids, and I would work through the workbook together with the students.
I might give it to them for homework, but if the amount of marking and feedback would be fairly minimal particularly when it would come to me marking these booklets. It’s not an assessment task. And as we know we always have lots of marking to do. So, I suppose the biggest thing that I find that the Learning Suite has done is really given me lots of time and save me time, sorry
So, this booklet we going to share with you. It’s a resource booklet that I use. But to get started. I just want to show you how we could make it a lot more engaging and create a platform for the students to work together. Collaboration is the key here, especially when it comes to the Learning Suite online.
So, at the very least to get started with the Learning Suite. I’m going to start by going to the plus option and then import from your device. And now assuming that I’ve already saved the word document as a PDF. All I would need to do is just open that PDF file. So automatically all I’ve done is just created a PDF file on Learning Suite Online and I’m able to share it with the students.
I’m just waiting for that to load.
Now you can see on the top left-hand corner. And the reason why I’ve got both windows open at the moment. I’ll just work with one.
See on the top left-hand corner. There’s a button there that says finish editing. Now. I won’t start any editing just yet.
I will click on finish editing and I’m going to show you what this looks like in real-time. If I was to share it with the students. Now just going to start the activity rather than stay in edit mode and I can see already that one person is connected.
Now assuming you’ve already gone on to hellosmart.com and I’m just going to click on that little window. You’ll see Miss Techy 46151.
Hello, Nathan. I can see you there as my guest and at this stage at the very least I can now interact with the students whether it’s driving the activity as an individual handout or a collaborative workspace or simply just grab my pen on the SMART Board and when it comes to analysing an exam, I like the idea of looking at past exams of just thinking about well what type of glossary words are used in each of the exams in the past.
Which ones are higher-order thinking words so we can just start writing straight onto the board and you’ll see that just by looking at that at the very least? You will see that image start to appear now. I’ll just turn go to my dual screen.
So, on the right-hand side, I’m logged in as a student. The left-hand side is as a teacher. I hope I don’t confuse things. Bear with me everyone. Okay.
So, you should be able to see, and I’ll refresh that.
Okay, you should be able to see a workspace. That’s just been created. What I’ve done and on the left-hand side, I’m just going to show you what that looks like. So very quickly. I’ve been able to create a collaborative workspace. So, it’s asking me how many teams I would like. So, this stage I only do have three students connected or two students.
I’m just going to go to everyone on the team. Then you should now see -remembering the right-hand side is you on the activity as a student and now if you like just by clicking on these three little dots you can go in and you can start writing or adding text. So, students in my class would be able to very quickly start to contribute to this file collectively as a group.
So again, we can type in “describe” as a glossary keyword. Do you want to have a go at adding anything there just to test it out, it would be good to see how this works on your end?
Okay. Anyway, “justify” and then very quickly we will start to gather information there. “Evaluate” fantastic so I can even as a teacher go in and change that around, move it around, you can draw so you can. I’m just going to experiment there, but you can do the same thing. It’s a collaborative activity. Automatically the class would be able to contribute to this activity fairly quickly.
Okay, so I just want to be able to show you than the difference between being in edit mode when we’re using these Smart Learning Suite online and being in live mode, which is what we’re doing now. I’ll just show you down the bottom left-hand side. And remembering this is me being a teacher.
I’m in teacher mode.
I can also set the pacing of the lesson from teacher to student. So, teacher mode meaning that I’m driving this. Student mode will mean that then you as a student – you can see that little messages popped up you can control and work at your own pace. So now on the right-hand side, you should be able to see all of my slides.
You can go through the workbook. Now. The rest of the workbook is very static. So, we haven’t done much aside from that very first workspace at the beginning of the workbook. Now again, all of this will be saved because you’ve logged on and you’re now viewing it as a user. If I turn it over to teacher mode now you’re seeing the same page as me so I can then drive this.
So the past exam review this is simply a questionnaire and I have students reflect – they go off they choose a past exam and they need to just answer each one of these questions I’ll just move this aside for a second.
The great thing about this is that they get to really think about well what are there any significant patterns or wait perhaps any topics that have been really hit on any similar questions in the last couple of years. Now, it’s not to say that you’re predicting questions that it leaves a good exercise for them to really analyze the exam paper and get used to it. The earlier the better.
So, one thing that I like to do is create a questionnaire out of this very activity and to do that I think I need to be in edit mode. So, I’m going to go back to home for a second and you’re going to get a message saying just waiting for your teacher. Now, you wouldn’t normally be doing it this way. You would normally be super organized.
You would have your notebook already to go. Edit mode is where you do that. So, I’m just going to go to the past exam review. And here I’m actually going to create or add an assessment. The reason why I’m using the assessment tool is because it’s one way to create a questionnaire. And in that questionnaire, I could then copy and paste some of those questions.
So, I’m just going to go to one that I prepared earlier. I’ll go back a second and on to the one that I did here.
So back on the one that I did yesterday, if you have a look at some of the questions, I’m just going to go to edit. And you’ll be able to revisit some of the questions and these were just a copy and paste straight from that questionnaire are so past HSC paper. They need to firstly put the year that they’re working on and then what type of questions are what type of questions are in part A the HSC paper, so that would be multiple-choice, but I don’t tell them and let them find out for themselves. The first half of these questions relate to which section of the syllabus so that that’s a reflection exercise it gets them to use the syllabus and start thinking about the different topics.
So, they’re very relevant and the idea is that once you’ve run this – I’ll just run it for you. So, you can see I’ll get out of edit mode. And I will go in to start so you can view it live.
I’m going to be flipping between live and edit mode because I feel like it’s really important to see the links between the two. So, if I click on review results, and I’ll be reset that activity. You should be able to see the activity pop up on your window. When I click on start, Hello Rene.
So, you should be prompted with a past exam review complete the questionnaire for a past agency paper of your choice, and we’re just going to choose a paper 2014 and then go next.
Okay, very quickly, what types of questions are in part A of the HSC multiple choice. So really quickly they’re able to answer some questions and feel free to have a go at this. It’s good to see you’re giving it a go Nathan but anything any answers are fine, but as soon as I stop that so far was to end that activity. So over in on my teacher. Live mode I can say end and review and very quickly I’m able to see what’s papers have been or are being analyzed at the moment 2014. I can have a look at two people have answered multiple choice. The good thing is with the next question. Okay, the first half of these questions relate to which section of the syllabus. So automatically I’ve had one person say core topics the other one say be multimedia system now, although this isn’t the marking exercise and I think I’m used multiple-choice question here. Even though they’re red is probably not a bad thing because then you can see the difference between the different type of paper or different type of topics. But the idea is that you could pull a trend very quickly, especially if you’ve got 10 or 15 students doing the very same questionnaire and then, of course, we can export the results in Excel.
So, if I just save those and then open them really quickly. I can now also see a comparison and do an analysis in Excel. So, something that I probably wouldn’t be hitting as much with my class group. I can now see an analysis very quickly based on that questionnaire that we’ve done, and they can see that it’s important for them to see the different types of trends that are taking place.
So that was to have something that was really examining past papers and I’ll just move on. Let me know if there’s anything there or if you want me to perhaps stop something or revisit in the chat. So. Go back to home and then I’ll go into edit mode again because I’d like to just show you then how I can keep it going and I’ll just go to edit.
So normally after we’ve had a look at some papers and past papers, and I’ve had the students familiarise themselves with the format of those examination papers then we start getting into examination technique. So, in this case, we’re looking at responding to multiple-choice questions. And as a teacher, I would go through this document.
I explain to them what identify what qualifiers are and how to identify them and just give him give them some tips and tricks on how to approach multiple-choice questions. Now at the end of that, there’s no reason why we can’t add a few multiple-choice questions to see whether we could use what we’ve learned and especially the tricky type questions and whether they not only are we looking at whether they understand or, their also doing some revisions.
So, to do that. I’m going to start by going into the plus sign clicking on assessment and again the same way we created our questionnaire. In the same way, we created a questionnaire, we can add some multiple-choice questions there. Now the good thing about this is when you actually start to create this you can reuse it after but the idea then we’ll go grab some, you know copy and paste some questions straight from a past paper put them in there. Then they can have a go at answering them and just like I showed you before, we can pull up an analysis very quickly. So, the next thing I cover with them is well, we’ve done multiple choice. We’ve had a go at answering some multiple-choice questions using our response. Now, we’re going to look at well, how do we plan a written response?
One of the things that I like to do is as a teacher would be well, I’d like to identify firstly in a question what are the glossary keywords by underlining them? Then Circle the syllabus content and then highlight any links or relationships and that you can do very quickly in live mode. So, if I was to view that in live mode, I can do that.
We will view it but one of the other things to do would be to perhaps add a “Shout it out”. Now. I want them to start mind mapping and planning their response. To do that again I’m going to go over to the little plus sign click on activity. Now it’s got a little Lab icon or a little an Arcade icon usually because the Arcade indicates that it’s an engaging type activity.
So, it’s a gamification, that’s where it comes from. So scroll down and you’ll see an activity. They’re called Shouted It Out. Now Shout It Out is brilliant because very quickly we can create something that’s going to involve students engaging and interacting together as a class. So, I want them to plan a response and do it do it together as a group before we go off and do it individually.
I’m going to determine how many contributions and ID’s students can create by clicking the plus sign or on the up arrow and whether or not we want to show or hide students. Now, normally I hide students being high school. Sometimes they get a bit silly. I think you need a bit of teething time for this. But anyway, we’re going to try hiding and then click finish now. Now I’m going to view this again in start mode. And you’ll be able to say it. It’s going to flip and because I’ve just started it’s automatically set to teacher mode. You can see that if I start that for the class – wait for it to load – you should be able to see it. We can start to very quickly brainstorm some ideas. Okay, so one of the questions was construct, let’s jump to describe how Information Technology could be used in the proposed system. So, anything that comes to mind to describe is to provide features. All characteristics so I would say to the class what comes to mind, what are some key elements there that we need to consider when we actually are responding to this question.
So, there we go. That’s just my contribution. But then each student would have to have a go at just brainstorming, well how can I connect, how what type of things should I include in this type of response? So, describe how information technology, I would say to them give me some examples of information technology that could be used and this is very subject-specific.
I’m computing. Teacher so obviously this would be specific to your key learning area. But that’s one way that I would go about to create quick, very quickly, plan a response to an HSC just to HSC style question. And I think this needs to be I usually do it very early on and in preliminary even because they need to be able to get used to seeing these questions.
So, as a teacher, I can then either reset this activity or even by going to select a game element I can add things like a timer so I said, all right. Well, let’s add a timer here and I want you to know you’ve got one minute to complete this task before I turn it off, which is brilliant. So, you can add game elements remembering that this was a lab-style activity and the whole purpose is to engage and make sure that everybody is contributing so happens really easy. Just going to pause that. Again, you can display names if you want to so if I go into the settings and also then if I pause the activity perhaps, I’ve realised that I need more contributions so I can add more contributions there. And then run or resume the activity. I’ll just end that.
So, as I said before like to be able to plan a response again now students have to do this together as a group I could say to them. All right. Well, I want you to have a go at doing this. I can set it as an individual hand out in edit mode, or I can do it as a collaborative task.
All right just move on.
Okay. So now I’m going to ask them to have a go at doing it we do it together. Now this is something that I definitely want to create a collaborative task before I would need to go back into edit mode now again, please I’m not going to apologise for keep flipping back and forth as I do want to show you how each of these elements work, but normally you would be doing this pre hand.
So, I’m just going to go let’s and we’ve done that and a jump straight to let’s do one together. Now to do this we’re going to just click on convert to activity and you’ll notice make this a collaborative workspace activity. And then we can preview that as a teacher I can then preview and say okay that’s what it’s going to look like and then students will be able to work on this together.
Or I’m going to undo that I’m going to convert it as an individual hand out still means they are working on it, but they’re not going to be seeing each other’s comments. They’re going to work on it on their own individually, so I’ll leave it at that.
So, moving on. So now this is the tricky one – oh, sorry, we move on to extended response questions. And this is something that again fairly similar to planning a response for short answers, but obviously we’re going to have to develop a scaffold process to help them and assist them. Particularly when they’re planning their extended responses. So, I go I would go through this with them and I’ll identify highlight key areas, then it’s time to get it to get them to have a go at it.
So, with this, I would set it again as an individual hand out. Where they would go off and complete it themselves. So, they have to answer some questions things like having a look at or making links directly to the syllabus area for that particular question. It’s important that they have an individual and the great thing about providing an individual hand out activity is that I can also provide feedback in real-time, and I’m just going to show you again. I’ll quickly set them as an individual handout finished editing.
So, we going to jump straight onto an extended response and I’m just going to set it to student mode. So, if I start the extended response activity, it’s an individual hand out, I can work on it in my own pace. I’ll just full screen that so you can see. It should be loading. There it is – start hand out. So, what you can see at the moment is a student. Student view, hopefully yours is running a bit quicker than mine at the moment. I’m just going to start the next one and if that works. Hey – this page is a collaborative activity. Okay, that explains why so I said it’s over to the student when it was actually, in fact, a collaborative activity and I will just start that off again. I jumped ahead, see if you can get back on track.
Okay, we can start. Hey, we’re loading it up. So basically, you can go in or student will be able to go in again and start to do things but the immediate feedback so I should be able to also have a look at student progress. And then see what the students are doing and where they’re up to and then also provides feedback straight up. So, at the moment I can see that one student is started. It’s actually me because I’m doing it as well. If I click on that then I could also say hey hurry up and get some work done.
So, the idea is that you’re able to give that feedback and Mark as they’re also completing the tasks, and everything’s been saved as well. So, moving on. I think the biggest learning experience that I could give my students is to have them thinking like a HSC marker.
So, having done HSC marking myself. I think one of the biggest learning curve for me as far as the content knowledge base and the way that I deliver HSC courses is to understand well who how does the marking process work? And this is something that I teach them explicitly. So, one of the things that I do with them is then to start with having a look at some marking criteria and next to a question.
So, we have a look at for instance question 21 and the marking guidelines for this. Then we start to really think about and let’s brainstorm this together. How would we approach this question?
Now again, I could create this and make it a collaborative workspace just like I did before to do that. I would need to go back to home and then go into edit mode and start that process.
I’ll do that because the next scenes are where we actually start looking at samples. So, I’m going to do now is go back into edit mode. Hopefully, by the end of this, you’ll be used to seeing start mode and edit mode. Start mode is you live mode and edit mode is where you’re actually adding and really designing, you’re redesigning your static document.
I’m just going to go straight down to my samples. So typically, I would create a collaborative workspace activity and the idea here would be for the class to have a go and think about well, what are the outcomes that are being addressed? What is the explicit question? What’s it asking?
What are some of the things that we need to consider? What are the better response is going to include? Then we do that using our sample questions. The sample questions simply click on them, convert to individual handouts.
I’m going to do that again. So the idea there would be well, we’ll have a look at that and see whether we could firstly as a marker myself, perhaps maybe tick some areas where I feel like well they have this person’s answered something. Usually in HSC style marking we would do that on the side that anyway, but it would be a way to identify and actually get the students to read the responses and highlight anything that they see is worth a point or a mark. And of course, get them to then understand the holistic approach of marking because it’s not just seeing key points, but it’s also looking at what the criteria is asking.
And then after we go through that, maybe to then have a go at creating or reflecting upon a [sample themselves. So, they would choose a sample and then really highlight together as a group what elements of the sample have been addressed. I will convert that into a collaborative activity so that we can see that they finished. Then individually we would do it for homework. So, I’m just going to set that as an individual hand out. Now the great thing about this, assuming I finished and I’m just going to convert it. So, I’m just going to go to finish editing.
Let’s see what our final product looks like. Say the booklet that we originally had was again a static booklet, we’ve gone in we’ve created some collaborative workspaces. Now, this is probably one of the main elements if people ask me, what do you think the main features that Notebook and the Smart Learning Suite Smart Learning Online Suite has I think there are three key factors that I keep hitting every time. One of them is engagement and that’s using the lab-style activities using the little arcade icon we used before the other one is assessment the ability to assess in real-time. I love that it gives me the opportunity to gauge where my students are at and the third element is collaboration and by far this tool the Online Learning Suite does that and it enables that, and it can happen almost instantly. You don’t even have to go into edit mode to do that. Like I’ve shown you.
So, I would go through this, some of it with my students remembering at the moment I’ve said it to teach a pace which is teacher-led. If I wanted them to do this at home, then I would click on student now as soon as I do that, I could also set whether I want the ability to change it and as an individual handout or a collaborative workspace activity. So that option is also there for you to do but then just driving through it and teaching my students exactly what I want them to learn then giving them the opportunity to either learn together as a group or have a go at doing it themselves is probably one of the biggest benefits.
Now, I’m just going to jump straight to my marking criteria section, which I probably just missed. Okay, that’s loading just so that we can finish chapters, I do understand that we’re running out of time however the very last thing I did want to show you – thanks Nathan – Is that once you go to home we’ve got this awesome workbook. And this workbook now has become an interactive work. One that requires students to be able to actually engage with its not paper document that’s just throwing somewhere. If you just click on these three little dots and go share link, then you can actually share this link with your students you get a student access link. What that then means is that your students will be able to will you be able to share that link copy it and I’m just going to bring it across to my window over here and then they could then work on their workbook for homework. And I think that’s another awesome benefit and while they’re working on it for homework all of that information that they’re doing all the individual handouts that they’ve done any sort of collaborative activities that have been done together as a class has been saved in this workbook so they can then go off and do it for homework and then you will also be able to go in and view it then mark it. So, I think I’ll end it there. Hopefully, I have given you some insight on how I would use this in the HSC context. Feel free to ask any questions.
Download a pdf transcript of this webinar Collaborative Learning with SMART Learning Suite – Eva Korkidas – HSC Literacy Webinar
Other Resources HSC Exam Literacy Static Document
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