The 'Creepy Voice Over'

In recent months, I have been trying to develop the use of on-line resources with (especially) senior pupils.  We use a department Google Drive for this, making use of their shared folders potential.  All resources are posted there for the pupils to view/print as necessary (they cannot download or copy/paste easily). Anyway, this has led me to consider further ways we can use this beyond just a handy backup for notes.  Then I rediscovered the app 'Explain Everything' for iPad...

I  had downloaded this app some time ago but not really explored the potential.  I suppose this was because it suggests it can be used to narrate presentations and this is not something I'm interested in.  However, I thought about using this app for feedback on pupil work, so I gave it a try!

The process is fairly simple, and each video took less than 10 minutes to make.

Here's how I approached it:

1. Read a few pieces of work (in this case a Higher source question) in order to find an interesting one - it doesn't have to be the best one, but I was looking for one that made the point I wanted.
2. Take a photo of the pupil's work before marking it.
3. Mark the hard copy and make notes on a separate sheet about the marking (helpful for the 'script'!)
4. Upload photo to Explain Everything app.
5. Mark the digital copy live with a stylus showing where the marks are awarded and record thought process while marking to show why the marks are awarded.
6. Share with the students on-line!

Now, the first time I did this it was clumsy and I felt more than a bit foolish, but you get used to that bit.  When I told the class, they were amused and keen to see it.  Some watched it at home and commented on my 'weird' accent and 'creepy voice over', but also that it was really clear as to why the marks were being awarded.  Each video is about 4 minutes long, so it's not too much of a deal for them to watch at any point.  Here is the link: http://bit.ly/1C1ykwY

Maybe only one or two watch them, but then that's better than nothing I think.  It doesn't replace any work in class but often there simply isn't time for that level of detail in a very busy Higher course.

Not sure what the next stage is, and I'd welcome any suggestions/experience of doing something similar.

Rubrics

Herman, Aschbacher, and Winters (A Practical Guide to Alternative Assessment, 1992) suggest the following elements of a scoring rubric: 

• One or more traits or dimensions that serve as the basis for judging the student response

• Definitions and examples to clarify the meaning of each trait or dimension

• A scale of values on which to rate each dimension

• Standards of excellence for specified performance levels accompanied by models or examples of each level

As part of a TLC group working on peer assessment, I have been trying to make pupil peer assessment more meaningful, productive and engaging.  I have often found the usual hazards of pupils assessing each other's work - being too harsh, lack of professional distance etc, and am determined to find ways to make this more successful.

As part of the TLC discussion back in late November, the use if rubrics kept percolating to the surface of our chats.  I have used rubrics before as part of my assessment of pupils' work, but have never used them as part of peer assessment.  This may seem a simple step, but I felt at this hectic time of year, it could be one key to more successful peer assessment.

So, I set aside half a lesson (less than 30 minutes) to ask the pupils to set areas of focus that they might expect the piece of work to fulfil.  In this case, the work was a story board (with captions) about a day in the life of hunter-gatherers in the prehistoric period.  We shared these categories (4 in total) and then set each group a task of coming up with 3 'level deciders' for each category.

My concern from the discussion stage was that pupils were very much concerned with the look of the piece of work - colourful, standard of drawings etc.  However, we agreed as a class that the aesthetic could not be more than 50% of the criteria, so 2 categories were about content.  This led the groups to really think about the expression of the written work, the historical content, the detail included, as well as the layout/colourfulness of the piece.

When this assessment was complete (pupils swapped with a critical friend), they were then asked to set targets based on the peer feedback.

Was it a success? I think a qualified success, yes.  There is no doubt that pupils were clearer on how they were marking the piece of work and were therefore more able to make informed and accurate decisions about the level of work.  However, there still appeared to be a preoccupation with appearance - when I looked at the work and the feedback, the ones that looked better received better feedback!  The targets set, though, appeared to be more focused than others I have attempted with other pieces of work and certainly the pupils seemed to relish the peer assessment more than at other times - perhaps this is enough of a success to try it again. Was it worth 'losing' half a lesson for? Definitely - there was enough dialogue about learning to make it worthwhile (and it reduced my marking load significantly).

I suppose what I am interested in is how we encourage pupils to focus on the (in this case historical) content when producing a more 'creative' piece of work - I could have simply asked for a piece of extended writing/diary or something of that ilk.  My next step is to try this method with a more traditional piece of extended writing to see if there is any noticeable difference in terms of success.  I suppose like all things, it is a case of trying a variety to see what works for the pupils in front of me (it never fails to amaze me how 2 lessons essentially the same can be so different with different classes [maybe a blog post for another day...]).