Signs of learning by Camilla Holck Hemmingsen and Susanne Djurhuus VUC
Skills and competences, Evidence of learning, Feedback, Action pansPadlet and quizzes
By Camilla Holck Hemmingsen and Susanne Djurhuus
In hybrid classes you need to have different interventions and not just lectures and reading. Padlets and quizzes are excellent for making small stops during the teaching. Design these activities to show signs of learning and they are not just for fun.
In my class, we often use Padlets, for instance when starting a new topic or if we want to expand our vocabulary. It is just like an organised brainstorming. The best thing about Padlets is that all students have an easy access – no matter from where they participate – the classroom with the teacher, the other classroom or from home. They just use a link which is provided by the teacher, and they can give each other inspiration to make the brainstorming even better, because they can see the other students’ words.
The words we write on the Padlet are used in different ways. Each student present their own contributions and show they know how to pronounce the word, how to use the word in a sentence, and identify the word class.
We reuse the words in other games such as Hangman and Kahoot. That way we make sure that the students revisit the words many times and in different contexts to make the word become part of their active vocabulary.
Padlet is also used in connection to text work. If we have read a text or watched a movie, the students might look into different aspects of the movie, and we share the knowledge here. Later they use this information in another task. We always make sure to reuse words and phrases. In this case, we saw the short movie The Present as part of our topic Being different. The students had different tasks like make a story line, characterise the boy and the message in the film.
All students present their contributions, and more are added to the Padlet if necessary. Next step is to use the information on the Padlet to make a review of the film. This work is started in the Class Notebook as group work, and then in the end the students finish the work individually and hand it in as a written assignment to the teacher. The teacher will now use the work both from Padlet, Class Notebook and the finished work in his feedback and discuss the signs of learning with the student.
Last, but least, quizzes are also used frequently in the English lessons. It might be certain grammar area which will be assessed for instance congruency or when to use to do in a question. Normally, the grammar is introduced by a video or by the teacher, then the students work on different exercises and in the end the grammar area is assessed by playing a Kahoot.
We also use Kahoots or other competition setups like digital escape room, when we have finished a topic – like we did with Yosemite Park. Each student had to remember facts about the place and awareness of the place as Native American heritage. They got to know their strengths and weaknesses by their score, and they used that knowledge afterwards in rereading some of the areas from the topic.
