Author: George Milliken

Assessment within Numeracy and Mathematics

The videos on this page demonstrate some approaches to formative assessment and feedback with digital tools in Numeracy and Mathematics learning. These approaches could be adapted to other subjects and we would welcome examples of this Get Involved – DigiLearn (glowscotland.org.uk)

There are a number of virtual whiteboard/notebook tools within Glow and these are useful tools for learners to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding – making them effective assessment opportunities.

 

This is an example of how O365 OneNote could be used with learners to demonstrate their understanding of number, using virtual manipulatives and annotating their thinking on their whiteboard.

Part 1 – We delivered this workshop on how to transfer Concrete Pictorial Abstract numeracy and maths teaching practice to the online environment. CPA can be supported effectively with interactive manipulatives and whiteboard/notebook tools.

Part 2 – This video demonstrates the concepts in Part 1 using Jamboard and OneNote to capture assessment evidence.

O365 also has another dedicated whiteboard tool, separate from OneNote, and this can be used in Teams calls to share thinking and understanding. The whiteboards are automatically saved in your OneDrive and can be edited and annotated to provide feedback to learners.

Book Creator is a platform external to Glow but can be effective for capturing learners’ thinking and allows them to create a meaningful end product to showcase their learning. However, it can be added to in an ongoing basis which makes it effective for formative assessment.

Forms and Quizzes

What are Forms?

Microsoft and Google both provide their own version of Forms that can be used to make forms or quizzes. Forms are created to capture information, such as evaluations, and quizzes are created for assessment purposes and can be assigned correct answers and feedback. Forms can include multiple choice, text or numerical input, or even file uploads (such as photos of working) for their answers. Questions can also include links to external sites or include videos form YouTube to facilitate flipped learning.
Feedback has suggested that learners engage with Forms because they adapt to any device, regardless of screen size.

This webinar recording explores the range of features available in Microsoft Forms but Google Forms has a very similar interface and options.

Creating Quizzes for Assessment

Microsoft Forms

Google Forms

The videos in this section demonstrate how to split your Form into sections and add media to a question. The examples are for Microsoft Forms but Google Forms does the exact same and the instructions are almost identical.

Assignments

Assignments are a useful tool for effective assessment. They allow the educator to make clear the learning activities and instructions, including all relevant resources in one place, and enabling learners to respond in a variety of ways with different tools. These assignments can then be posted or shared to communication channels, such as Teams and Classroom, making them easy to access for learners.

Being digital means that it easy for learners to submit learning, the educator to assess it and add feedback then return it, and for the learner to make changes to improve it before submitting for further assessment. Assignments also allow the educator to keep track of all learners’ submissions in one place and to easily track progress with at-a-glance data.

 

Assignments, on both platforms, can contain:

  • Title
  • Instructions – perfect place to explain learning intentions and success criteria, as well as instructions
  • Materials – you can add web links, videos, documents (O365 and G Suite)
  • Rubrics – excellent for making success criteria and feedback clear and transparent for learners
  • Scheduling – time and date to be set and completed
  • Pupils – whole class or individuals only

Assignments using Teams

Assignments using Classroom

More with Assignments on Teams

Using Microsoft Forms to Support Learners and Assess Understanding

Gayle Badger is a Biology and Science teacher from Johnstone High School in Renfrewshire.

She has been using Microsoft Forms to support and assess learners understanding of the course content. Forms has allows her to create a variety of questions and provide instant feedback for them. This has been extremely beneficial and has received great feedback form learners and parents about how the instant feedback has guided their learning and next steps. Forms also allows Gayle to embed video and picture content that can be used to flip the learning or even to provide support to incorrect answers on the quiz, allowing learners to revise their answers more independently. 

“It is definitely my go to now for checking understanding and I also use it as a ‘live’ lesson to go over answers , especially with seniors where they can see where they may have gone wrong with their answers.”
 
Pupils have said that they find it useful to have the teacher go over answers ‘live’, after completing the form, as they benefit from hearing her ‘going through the process’ of how to pick out data from the problem solving questions – just like they would do in class.
 
 
Here are two examples for different stages:
 
 
 
 
 

run your own CRIS event

Run your own CRIS event

We have created this pack to support you in running your own Cyber Resilience and Internet Safety event. It contains information to support you when discussing different areas of CRIS (no one knows everything!) and provides activities to engage young people and adults to share their experiences of the online world.

If you do deliver your own CRIS event – please share your story with us here.

 

Download the pack

cyber toolkit informaiton literacy and misinformation

Information Literacy – critical thinking online

About information literacy

“The ability to think critically and make balanced judgements about any information we find and use. It empowers us as citizens to reach and express informed views and to engage fully with society.” – CILIP Information Literacy Group

 

back to Consume

Planning information literacy learning

Almost three-quarters of young people say social media is an important source of news to them – although there is growing awareness of its trustworthiness only around a third of young people will question what they read. (Ofcom, 2019)

 

As this content is dependent on being read, viewed or heard online it makes sense to bundle digital literacy and literacy and English experiences and outcomes, such as:

    • Searching, processing and managing information responsibly, TCH x-02a
    • Cyber resilience and internet safety, TCH x-03a
    • Recognise the difference between fact and opinion and progressing to evaluative comments about relevance reliability and credibility with appropriate justification, LIT x-18a

This learning is often taught in the context of ‘fake news’ but ‘false or misleading information’ is a more accurate term. False or misleading information can be potentially dangerous when it relates to medical or health claims and requires learners to be smarter about how they engage with online content.

Consume. Create. Communicate.

Educators should help children and young people understand how to engage critically with content the consume, create and communicate.

Learners should understand the risks of deliberate misinformation and know how to identify content that is misleading. They should be aware of how to manage their feeds to reduce the chances of seeing misinformation or harmful content and be able to use the platform’s reporting tools to report this type of content.

More challenging is supporting learners to consider the impact of content they share and the part they play when they share malicious misinformation. Discussions, linked in to PSHE can be an effective way to explore the harms of spreading misinformation. 

These resources can be used to explore the features of ‘fake news’ and deliberate misinformation and how to identify and avoid it: GCF Global resources

There are a number of credible and reliable websites offering fact checks:
Reality Check – BBC News
FactCheck – Channel 4 News
Reuters Fact Check
Fact Check: Political & News Fact Check | AP News
Fact Check Tools (google.com)

For teachers using Microsoft Teams, the Search Coach tool is useful to evaluate search results; each result in a search has a ‘reliability score’ that informs learners of the validity of the source: Microsoft Search Coach

Who can help?

Internet Matters has an in-depth guide on misinformation here: Internet Matters

Information literacy is also a key role of school librarians and they are always willing to support learning about it. Find out more about how school librarians can support information literacy learning.

The literacy and English curricular team at Education Scotland have more on their national Professional Learning Community site:

Vibrant Libraries, Thriving Schools national strategy

Information, Digital Literacy & Digital Creativity

Resources for educators

Digital Media Literacy by GCF Global

This site has lots of free lessons and resources, including this series of lessons on how to interpret and evaluate information online. The lessons are progressive, relevant and each one comes with activities that are easy to adapt for your learners’ needs.

YouTube Playlist

Digiduck

The Detective Digiduck story and resources from Childnet, and author Lindsay Buck, are a great introduction to CRIS and information literacy. In this story Digiduck finds that not everything on the internet can be trusted and that you need to check the reliability of it from a range of sources.

Fact or fake – BBC Bitesize

This site has lots of information, videos and activities to support you develop your learners’ understanding of what fake news is and how it affects us.

National Literacy Trust

The NLT has a  fake news and critical literacy resources page with cross-curricular resources for learners of all ages.

They also have their Words for Life page that explains what fake news is, how to spot it and links to The Guardian NewsWise content and has a section on child-friendly news sites: Child-friendly news | NewsWise | The Guardian

 

YouTube | Moving Image Education

Moving Image Education has lots of resources and information to support you teach film literacy, including this activity that supports learners evaluate and analyse YouTube content. Let the learners lead the learning by selecting their own video and then analysing it with this scaffolded activity.

 

Making Sense of Media

Ofcom hosts this site which contains information about media literacy – what it is and how to teach it – alongside reports that explain how, what and why children and young people are accessing media. Read the latest research on the impact of covid on children’s media lives here.