Geographical Association

The intranet project focus was to develop intranet resources and activities to aid students in developing their learning. As a result, we finally focused on two elements:

1. The development of electronic writing frames to aid students in production of essay work.
2. The development of an online project to be used in the first year of GCSE

In both cases, the work was developed and trialled, being evaluated through student questionnaires to gauge response.

Electronic writing frames have been developed to aid students who find it difficult to write in continuous prose, e.g. when assembling an essay style response to a question. This is especially focused on those in lower and middle ability groups and was specifically trialled with a Year 9 group who were researching and writing an essay based on global trade, using the Ecuadorian banana industry as a case study reference.

The writing frames themselves were very easy to develop, using the hidden text function in Word.

Check highlighted text with ‘Hidden’ box, in Format/Font

This then underscores the text, and we changed the colour to make it stand out. Whilst the students can see the text, and write below it, in print preview, or when the document is printed, the hidden text disappears, and the students’ work is brought together to give a continuous essay answer.

Once the essay had been completed, a questionnaire was given out to the students. The responses are given below.

The writing frame was obviously very easy to use, with 60% classifying it as very easy to use, with 90% finding it generally very positive in terms of clarity.

The advantages of electronic writing frames picked out by students included the fact that they were easy to use on screen, that they helped students remember what was required next, and that they felt they needed to rely on the teacher less.

The only two disadvantages highlighted (only once each) were that some students might write more quickly by hand, and that they had to be careful not to hide their own text.

It was also obvious that students preferred electronic writing frames to the usual paper based ones they are used to. Finally, there was a strong agreement that further use of electronic writing frames would be a good thing.

The electronic writing frames made students more independent, and resulted in more detailed work than is usually the case with the particular pilot group studied. Students appear to have been more motivated, and their organisation was better. Careful consideration needs to be given in their use, as it may well be the case that if they are used indiscriminately they will lead to over-reliance from the students, and may actually suppress, rather than enhance, literacy skills. As a result, having met with very positive preliminary results, there is an intention to plan for their integration across Key Stages 3 and 4, ensuring that the level of support is slowly with drawn to ensure that they encourage, and help develop, literacy skills.

Over the past 6 months the Geography department at the Deepings School has started to consider how the GCSE specification followed (the Pilot GCSE specification) can be opened up to personalised learning. It is a central belief that an important part of this development is the use and integration of ICT based work into the main curriculum. As a result, a section of work from the Core of the Pilot was presented as an independent learning project to be completed over the summer half-term holiday.

Some students did not have direct access to the internet from home, and where this occurred, CD-ROMs were burned to allow access for those students. The activity can be found on the internet. It is essentially designed to allow students to work independently, whilst also ensuring that they can work at one of three levels – therefore beginning to personalise their work. There are also a number of website links so that students do not need to spend time surfing the net for little or no return. An example of a page from the exercise is given below to demonstrate the levels approach.

Once completed, students were asked to complete a short questionnaire, reflecting on the use of the activity. The results were of great interest.

Males enjoyed working on the internet (62.5%), finding answers easier to find than normal (62.5%), and preferring the opportunity to work at one of three clearly identified levels (50%). They also felt that they were very good at using computer skills (65%). However, they didn’t all find it easier to understand than classroom work (45%), and 45% felt that they weren’t particularly well motivated. On the whole, the exercise was generally well received, but the level of independence and the lack of close support were issues to be considered.

The reaction from the girls was less positive. Only a minority liked working on the internet (24%), and few preferred it to class work (15%). However, this seems to be solidly couched in terms of a dislike of independent work, only 29% liking the independent aspect of the work, with many commenting that the lack of immediate contact with a teacher hampered their work.

This would suggest that the trial has not been particularly successful. However, there are a series of positive conclusions that can be drawn from this pilot:

• The students were thrown in at the deep end, and were asked to complete tasks with no help/guidance. We believe that by integrating this format of task into the classroom, it will add, rather than distract from an enriched curriculum, for example, planning groupwork into the activities, as well as group research etc.
• The girls did not like the independent aspect of the work, but by positioning the tasks into group time, this issue should disappear.
• The boys, given their other reservations, actually liked the interface, and enjoyed working on the web. This is crucial in many ways, especially as boys generally perform less well on portfolio orientated work. If they can be helped into this format of assessment by using an electronic interface, it may well help redress the gender split somewhat. Also, because the girls will still get the teacher contact they prefer, the extra support for the boys will not occur at the expense of the girls.

This pilot has played a very important role in planning for curriculum developments for the Autumn of 2005. It is intended to build a curriculum model which will rely on teacher led sessions acting as an introduction to sections of the work to be completed in the second year of the GCSE. However, once these sessions are completed a number of group and individual activities will follow which will have a mixture of paper based and computer based work, allowing the students to use the intranet to a greater or lesser extent, thereby bringing a large degree of flexibility for the students.

It is intended that we will re-test the structures developed (through another questionnaire) mid way through the first term, and carry out a limited number of semi-structured interviews to analyse the developments in more depth. If the results are positive when the ICT is embedded within the wider curriculum, it could hold a key position in developing personalised learning structures and curricula.

Phil Wood and Jo Dexter
July 2005