Trainee Teacher Resources           
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This site has been created for classroom teachers and trainee teachers of history who are looking for easy to use tried and tested online lessons in the Key Stage 3 History curriculum.Teachers with very little ICT experience or confidence will find them accessible and easy to use. DTC trainee history teachers should use this site and the links from it as an essential complementary resource for subject studies. The ICT based lessons presented comprise of differentiated computer based activities which offer challenge to the able and support to the less able. The lessons and activities are designed using freely downloadable web tools and software. The best of these tools I have collated at this page of my College web site. Many of the lessons provided use quiz builder software to create test and interactivities. These are proven motivators and fun to use. However they should not be mistaken by teachers as constituting the most important aspect the student's learning. Unless integrated into a clear lesson plan and process, interactive tests and activities of this type will leave the learner at the "reactive-passive" rung of the learning hierarchy (reading, comprehension, recall). Teacher intervention and extension is required if students are to apply, analyse and deploy their knowledge. Moreover much has been made of online learning's potential to empower learners in self directed study constantly stimulated by pictures, text, sound, movement, and video. This type of learning works well in online schooling environments for colleges. The implied suggestion being that teachers themselves are no longer needed. Online lessons however do not and should not provide the teacher with an opportunity to disappear into the background while the students "learn alone in cyberspace". Teacher interventions are just as crucial when using online resources as in the ordinary classroom. Interventions such as teacher led starters that connect to prior learner and warm up the learners for the challenge of the new lesson and reviews of learning following an online activity where students are challenged to use what they have shown they comprehend in new and interesting ways. And always of course the teacher should intervene regularly to prompt, praise, challenge and motivate while the students engage in online activities just as they would in "ordinary" lessons. Such interventions have been signposted in the lesson plans and activities provided. It must also be emphasised that there should always be time in an online lesson for "time away" from the computer activities and these have been integrated into the online lesson plans provided. For instance in the Year 8 "Civil War" lesson students are encouraged to play a dominoes games away from the computers once they have shown they can recognise and define the key words in the online lesson. The dominoes game makes them apply and deploy what they know and connect the words together in a much more advanced way. Likewise in the Year 9 section the success of the final part of the Hitler lesson depends on a successful teacher-pupil interaction away from the computers on source evaluation and reliability. Online learning provides a uniquely rich and exciting context for learning, but should no more be just used alone than we would say make a child read a history book or watch an historical video without support or intervention.
Sample online lesson activities and lesson plans are provided in each Year group area. (see above). Lesson plans have been created in word format to allow teachers to save and adapt them to their own circumstances. | |||||
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