Digital Literacy, English and Maths Learning Evaluation

When teaching an on-line lesson, it is vital to make sure that the learners are able to use the software for that lesson. For this task no assumption was made of the ability of the learners being taught due to them all being PGCE students. To make the most out of the experience of delivering an online lesson it was decided to treat the lesson as if this had been a real lesson with unknown learners and so an evaluation of the learners and their ability to use the digital equipment was completed by the learners prior to the delivery of the lesson, I sent out a questionnaire using Survey Monkey with simple questions to establish the learners understanding of behaviour management , we decided to both step out of our own comfort zone with our specialised subjects as this also meant that through the research we did we would also get a better knowledge of behaviour management and felt it would be beneficial for the learners to have a good understanding of the subject matter.

As expected all learners had a good knowledge of the different systems and software and no student was identified as having a barrier with digital literacy. When creating an on-line classroom, it is vital that the resources used are accessible to all learners. According to the UNCSNO report Digital literacy plays a central role in work and industry. Computers now provide vital assistance to workers within businesses resulting in an economy based on digital literacy. (UNCSNO)The same can be said for the learning environment, institutions now expect all learners to be contactable via digital literacies, students course within an institution now suggest that in order to get the best from your student’s teachers need to be using blended learning environments. (Duckworth, 2013)

The home page was constructed as a click and go page, learners were able to move back and forward as they wanted to , this made the navigation of the site more accessible to the learners and easy to follow. Feedback suggested that the students found this easy to follow. Unfortunately, some of the answered to the quiz were not correct although I didn’t create the quiz I should of proof read it first I then would have been able to pick up mistakes.

Also the feedback suggests that the topic was information heavy so in future lessons it would be better to use a less word heavy work because learners found themselves disengaged. Maths and English were heavily embedded in to the lesson using graphs, pie charts and statistics. According to Chinn Language is not a barrier for Maths until you present it within context (Chinn, 2012). Keeping the language to a minimum, while ensuring all students understood the language worked well. Contextualising the work also worked well in helping the students understand the relevance to the subject they were completing.

The animation link was uploaded to YouTube and worked well for learners as they watched it with ease, although it was an introductory video for the lesson of behaviour management the animation was made to be appeasing and fun to help the students visually see what they were learning. According to feedback some found the animation’s timings were to quick so they were not able to read the content quickly enough, I had pre-empted this so embedded the stills from the animation so learners could view them after the animation when in planning, the animation was created by myself as my partner who was assigned with me on this assignment is a gaming teacher it would have been easy for my partner to create the animation as my IT skills are not as advanced as my partner’s. The software I used was animaker and this worked well for all learners apart from the timing of the animation which I struggled with when compiling the animation, it was felt that this was actually could have been a barrier, as well as embedding the still there were also instructions to slow the animation below the link.

Students on the whole were able to access the lesson and the materials within it. The differentiated resources meant that all students were able to complete the lesson in their own pace and focus on the areas that they needed to work on, all students showed progression and on completing the tasks showed evidence of learning taking place. But the lesson still lacked a more visual approach to learning, more visual learners would have benefitted to less writing as Chinn suggests that the barrier for students with Maths is language, not the Maths calculations themselves (Chinn, 2012). By developing more visual videos or tasks it could have appealed to a larger range of learners and possibly provided more opportunities for learning to have taken place.

When planning and evaluating the lesson it was important to research the policies and theories of online learning. For the purpose of the online lesson we focused on two reports specifically as it was felt that at large they all incorporated the same ideas and principles.

Professor Wolf was asked to compile a report on vocational education by the Secretary of State for Education. The Government were looking for recommendations on how to improve vocational education for 14-16 year olds and help them to progress into employment, higher education or training, as well as looking at any financial implications in the current climate. Professor Wolf made 27 recommendations and only 20 have been fully put into effect, one has been partially being put into practice and the remaining six are still in the process of being put into practice. The recommendations that have been put into practice have resulted in the following actions:

Apprenticeships are to be restructured by employers to meet their requirements, although this does seem to be in the best interests of the employer and may not help the student if they are struggling with a particular aspect of the job. The Department of Education have produced a list of vocational and technical qualifications for 14 – 16 year olds as well as 16-18 year olds and the performance of these will be reported upon. This would All 16-19 year olds continuing in education will be offered a course of study linked to their previous academic or personal goals. Each student should spend half their time on their in either A levels, vocational or technical studies or the other attending tutorials or work experience. All students who have not gained a grade A* or C in maths or English will continue to do so if studying until they have completed their 16-19 education. Although this would enable the students to have more choice when it comes to choosing a career path that will hopefully lead to promotion and more security this is not always guaranteed.

In addition, all colleges of further education and sixth forms will continue to be funded and have their progress reviewed and is on an individual student basis which will give the colleges and sixth forms to provide a study program to meet each student’s needs and skills at the same time help them to meet their goals and aspirations. All educational establishments are held responsible for what they deliver and provide for each student, at the same time they must produce clear information and notify students with the choices of courses available and further opportunities to study.

In conclusion these recommendations appear to be aimed to ensure that the student is at the centre and that their education, training or employment will help them to grow and flourish to be able to achieve their goals and ambitions for the future. If these recommendations are followed and the students are supported with the decisions, they make this could in fact enable the students to feel more motivated to continue on their chosen career path and become more confident in late life.

The Moser report (1999) also found that around one in five of the adults in the UK were not functionally literate and far more people had problems with numeracy. In perspective when one in five of the 7 million adults of the UK were given the yellow pages and asked to look up a plumber, only one in five could locate the relevant section. (Group, 1999) The data for Numeracy is less reliable indicates that between 30 and 50% of adults were requiring further assistance in making calculations. To put this in to perspective one in five were unable to calculate the area of a room even when given a calculator. (Group, 1999)

As a result of the research it was felt that the ten key elements to be focussed on. The national targets should be both ambitious and realistic aiming for the functionally illiterate adults of working age should be reduced by half by 2010. This can only be achieved if all have an entitlement to learn free of charge in all aspects of teaching and learning. It was also felt that all those whether working or not should be entitled to free assessment and guidance for literacy and numeracy if they do not hold a GCSE in Maths and English at A*-C.

In addition, better opportunities for learning should be available, so an enlargement of the number and variety of courses available should be made, these should be of a high quality and have a clear and defined curriculum with creditable qualifications. The building of a new curriculum recognising the different motivations for learning should be made that is regulated and inspected at regular intervals for delivery and teaching and learning. The use of ICT to support learning will be a powerful tool in the process of raising the standards of literacy and numeracy (Group, 1999). Thus should be made a staple part of the basic skills program.

Other reports looked at were the Lifelong Learning UK, in their publication called ‘Inclusive Learning Approaches for Literacy, Language, Numeracy and ICT – Companion guide to the minimum core’ (2007) recommended that all teachers need to develop a heightened awareness of literacy, language, numeracy and ICT needs of their learners in order for them to teach their area of specialism as effectively as possible and the JISC principle says that digital activities should be relevant to the practices of the subject and should contribute to the overall learning goals of the course.

The online learning environment created an inclusive learning environment where all were able to learn and achieve. By having a contextualised Maths lesson as suggested in the previous reports we were able to ensure that the learners were able to develop their numeracy skills within a context that satisfied the recommendations of the reports. The contextualisation of the topic meant that they were also developing their literacy skills as they needed to be able to pick out the key words and information from the questions in order to calculate and answer the questions. Although these could have been made more robust with the addition of key words and their definitions. By differentiating the resources and using a variety of assessment methods learners were able to achieve to their potential in most instances, but the development of more robust resources with a larger scope of differentiation would have meant that all of the students would have been able to achieve to their highest levels. According to the Moser report, the lessons need to be made to the highest of standards to incorporate all needs of the student’s and the relevance of the course to the outside world. By contextualising the work for Best Buy, it allowed the learners to understand the relevance of the learning, thus embedding the need for them to learn the topic and how it will affect them in life as stated in the previous reports this is fundamental to them in developing the relevant life skills required to function successfully within work and in life. 

Bibliography

• Ann, G. (2012). Preparing to teach in the lifelong Learning Sector (5th ed.). London: Learning Matters.
• Ann, G. (2013). The award in Education and training. London: Learning Matters.
• Chinn, S. (2012). The trouble with Maths (2nd ed.). Oxon: Routledge.
• Duckworth, S. I. (2013). Enhancing Learning through Technology in Lifelong Learning. Berkshire: Open University Press.
• Group, T. M. (1999). The Moser report. Norwich: TSO(The Stationary Office).
• John, H. (2012). Visible learning for teachers. Exeter: Routledge.
• UNCSNO. (n.d.). http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0021/002144/214485e.pdf. Retrieved from http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0021/002144/214485e.pdf
• Wallace, S. (2005). Teaching and Supporting Learning in further Education (2nd ed.). Exeter: Learning Matters Ltd.