Author: George Milliken

engaging and creative activities

Engaging and creative activities

back to learning, teaching and assessment home

Activity

Provide a model to scaffold learning around instead of blank pages:

Word with headings

PP with slides outline

weblinks to read, watch or listen

Continue from last lesson or prior learning at home: 

  • build on a project/document they have started  
  • Add this learning to it  
  • Use feedback tools to guide as it develops and not just final product 

 

Be prepared to go ‘off piste’ if they identify new challenge, opportunity or focus from reading and watching or collaborating  

  • keep their prior learning in document and add this new learning to it 
  •  

Making Your Virtual Classroom More Real 11 11 20 – YouTube

Collaboration in group work:

One shared document, folder or blog page

Track changes to evidence who’s contributing what

regulate and check-in: 

  • Timers 
  • Chat 
  • screen breaks 

making resources for your lessons

Making resources for teaching

 back to learning, teaching and assessment home

A well-crafted resource should be considered an important part of learning. Resources should be structured to convey meaning clearly with concise, bulleted text, alongside meaningful images or data representations and with lots of ‘white space’ on the screen.

When presenting new information or ideas, educators should keep it clear and concise to reduce cognitive load on learners. 

Presentations or videos should be short and succinct. This goes for the visual, audio and text presented. Below are principles to follow when designing teaching materials and resources.

Educators can use presentations to explain ideas or videos to demonstrate skills. Google Slides and Microsoft PowerPoint are available in glow.


Checking learner understanding throughout the lesson

Educators can use quizzes to check learner understanding. Google and Microsoft Forms are available in glow.

 

 

 

Educators can use collaborative spaces, such as Microsoft Whiteboard to share and group ideas using ‘post-its’. to check the understanding of a group of learners. Microsoft Whiteboard is available in glow.

 

 

 

checking learners' understanding

Checking learners’ understanding

back to learning, teaching and assessment home

Using assessment to check learner understanding can be a useful starting point in a lesson. Checking understanding at the start of a lesson can support progression and coherence – that lessons take account of prior learning.

Working with learners to develop learning intentions and success criteria makes clear what they are learning and how they might achieve it. The Education Endowment Foundation classes metacognition as a highly effective and well-evidenced approach to making significant progress in learning. 

Checking learner understanding at the start of the lesson

Educators can use quizzes to check learner understanding. Google and Microsoft Forms are available in glow.

Educators can use collaborative spaces, such as Microsoft Whiteboard to share and group ideas using ‘post-its’. to check the understanding of a group of learners. Microsoft Whiteboard is available in glow.

Educators might build on the flipped learning approach by providing learners with the opportunity to present their learning from home. Google Slides and Microsoft PowerPoint are available in glow.

Share learning intentions and success criteria with learners

Educators can communicate learning intentions and success criteria with learners using the chat/posts function in Classroom or Teams. Google Classroom and Microsoft Teams are available in glow.

 

Educators can create a rubric that explains what the learning intention is and what different levels of success might look like. These can be shared with learners so that they are clear on their outcomes. They can also be used by educators to provide quick feedback to learners. Google Classroom and Microsoft Teams are available in glow.

flipped learning

Flipping learning

back to learning, teaching and assessment home

Flipped learning is a strategy where educators share learning resources and content with learners before thy attend class. This allows learners to engage with the content, adults to support them if required and means a more equal starting point in the classroom. 

Below are some examples of how educators might flip learning.

 

Educators might create video, slides or audio explaining or modelling ideas or skills that will be taught in class. These can be shared using platforms such as Classroom, Teams or glow blogs.

 

 

 

 

Educators should consider the effectiveness of their messaging when creating content to share present ideas and information to learners. Dual coding is a concept of reducing cognitive load for learners and supports retention and retrieval of ideas and information.

Educators can use features such as posts or assignments to share resources and information with learners. Google Classroom and Microsoft Teams are available in glow.

 

An advantage of using digital to implement flipped learning is that learners can create content at home, such as posters, videos or texts, and then access these in the classroom. This allows them to arrive at the lesson with some capital and build on these ideas with the educator’s guidance and support.

Learners could create a poster about the ideas to demonstrate their understanding. Adobe Express is available in glow.

Learners could create a presentation about the ideas to demonstrate their understanding. Google Forms and Microsoft PowerPoint are available in glow.

Learners could create a video explaining their understanding of ideas and information. Microsoft Stream is available in glow.

managing your online classroom

Managing your online classroom

back to learning, teaching and assessment home


Managing your learning space or classroom is an important aspect of engaging learners. Ensuring learners know where, and how, to access resources gives them agency to learn independently. Managing the paper, pens and textbooks in a physical learning space is as important as managing the online space, such as on Teams, and the OneDrive, assignments and the discussion space attached to it. 

What is Microsoft Teams?

O365 and Teams for online learning – part 2: assignments and materials

Using rubrics in assignments for setting success criteria and providing feedback

A Digital Day in the Primary School webinar – part 1: considerations and preparations

cyber comics for young people 2

Cyber Resilience Comic 2 – created by young people

Exciting new resource created by young people for young people. Education Scotland supported North Ayrshire youth work to work with young people to create cyber resilience comics. You can read them here:

cyber comics for young people

Cyber Resilience Comic 1 – created by young people

Tinderbox games club

Tinderbox Games Collective

Tinderbox is a collective of young people, musicians, artists and youth workers in Scotland. Their work uses music and the arts to bring people together and strengthen communities, providing exciting opportunities that support young people to build their confidence, skills, self-esteem, and professional experience. 

Find out more about Tinderbox here – tinderboxcollective.org

Tinderbox Games Clubs currently run in Edinburgh for young people aged 10-18.

At the Games Clubs people get together to play, research and make games, as well as design their own artwork, audio & code needed for them. Tinderbox use different forms of technology to make them, but they also use traditional methods such as hand-drawn art, board game making, clay-sculpting, crafting with recycled objects, and more.

Find out more using this link – Tinderbox Games Clubs

 

These are some games to try to get started:

You can play all the games published by Tinderbox using this link – Tinderbox Lab

making games

Making games

go to the Games in Education page

This section contains information and resources to support educators make games with learners. As valuable as playing games is the opportunity to make them. 

Below are some free-to-use game making platforms. Registering learners as users will require your local authority’s guidance on data security – please check before registering.

glasgow children's hospital charity

 

Do you work with children or young people who enjoy making games?

The Glasgow Children’s Hospital Charity has launched a summer games jam to raise funds to buy adapted gaming equipment, consoles and video games for the boys and girls at the children’s hospital in Glasgow. Fundraising will also support the hospital’s Gamer-in-Residence – so that children in hospital always have someone to play with.

Find out more about the project with this link to the Glasgow Children’s Hospital Charity page

Or go straight to the Weans Game Jam page with this link to itch.io

 

Game Maker

GameMaker is a development tool for making 2D games, used by indie developers, professional studios, and educators worldwide. Users can create games for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS, HTML5, Xbox, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch.

Remember to check with your local authority data security team/officer before registering any learners as users.

Explore tutorials using this link – Learn How To Develop Games 

Find out more about the Game Maker Education license with this link – Teaching Using Game Design 

microsoft make code arcade

Microsoft MakeCode Arcade is a free online learn-to-code platform where anyone can build games.

Remember to check with your local authority data security team/officer before registering any learners as users.

Find out more about MakeCode Educator guides using this link – MakeCode Arcade Educator Page