Incorporating Formative Assessment and Critical Skills within 2nd Level Social Subjects

Overview
Sarah Burton currently teaches Primary 6B at Harrysmuir Primary School in Livingston, West Lothian. After the Headteacher, Susan Mackenzie, and another member of staff received some initial Glow training, all staff were encouraged to use Glow to support their classroom learning and teaching activities. Since the school is double-stream, it was initially decided to have one Glow Group per stage. Sarah was so keen to use Glow, she and her stage partner decided to have one Glow Group for each of their Primary 6 classes.

Hear Sarah tell us more about this:

Sarah Burton talks about why and how she began to use Glow (0:23)

Context
The Glow Group for P6B in Harrysmuir Primary has been growing throughout the year. Sarah initially wanted to use the Group to share information with pupils, such as Homework tasks, or about activities that the class would be doing. She soon found though that she could make more use of the Group and the web parts available.

As an integral part of all of learning and teaching, Sarah always strives to incorporate Critical Skills activities. She found that she was able to utilise a range of web parts within Glow to help support this.

In this cookbook, we will focus on how Sarah and the pupils in P6B used the Glow Group whilst working on their Social Studies ‘People Place and Environment’ topic of ‘Europe’. In separate cookbooks, we will see how the Glow Group was also used to support Literacy and Numeracy and how Glow Meet has been used to widen the audience to enable pupils to develop their presentation skills.

Social Studies Topic – Europe

The Europe topic was focusing on the following Curriculum for Excellence Social Studies outcomes:

SOC2-12a I can compare my local area with a contrasting area outwith Britain and investigate the main features of weather and climate discussing the impact on living things.
SOC2-14a I can extend my mental map and sense of place, and interpret information from different types of maps and am beginning to locate key features within Europe.
SOC 2-19a I can compare the lifestyles and culture of citizens in another country with those of Scotland and discuss the similarities and differences.

Pupils took part in a range of activities whilst learning about Europe. We can get a flavour of some of these here:

To incorporate elements of collaborative learning, Sarah split the class into four groups. Each group was asked to learn about a different country. They then had to present what they had learned to the other three groups. Pupils were also asked to design a leaflet to advertise their country, ensuring correct spelling and grammar were used. They were additionally asked to research and include information on the weather data for the country, through use of charts and graphs. This, amongst other activities, allowed for the embedding of literacy and numeracy skills within the topic, and through use of technology, Sarah was able to provide activities to address the following outcomes:

TCH 2-03b I can use search facilities of electronic sources to access and retrieve information
LIT 2-08a I can develop an informed view, distinguish fact from opinion and I am learning to recognise when my sources try to influence me and how useful these are.
LIT 2-24a I can consider the impact that layout and presentation will have, and can combine lettering, graphics and other features to engage my reader.
MTH 2-21a I can display data in a clear way using a suitable scale.

Expressive Arts were also covered within the work on Europe. In its simplest form, this area was addressed by pupils creating art work connected with their chosen country’s flag and National dress. However, other areas of expressive arts were addressed in even more engaging ways! – Within their groups, pupils were asked to write and perform a song for their country, as its entry in the Eurovision Song contest. They additionally had to design the CD cover for their song. Another activity required pupils to script and then act out a TV commercial to market their chosen country. This enabled Sarah to cover the following Expressive Arts outcomes:

EXA 2-02a I can choose and explore an extended range of media and technologies to create images and objects, comparing and combining them for specific tasks.
EXA 2-18a Inspired by a range of stimuli, I can work with others to express and communicate my ideas, thoughts and feelings trough musical activities.

There were many other activities included as part of this topic, with more outcomes addressed from other curricular areas. This cookbook gives merely a flavour of the rich learning activities that pupils engaged with.

As a means of formative assessment, Sarah utilised the WWW (What went well) and EBI (Even better if) Critical Skills strategies to evaluate the topic with the class.
Hear Sarah Burton tell us more about this, and other elements of the Glow Group:

Sarah Burton talks about the Europe topic (0:21)

So, how was the Glow Group used to support these activities?
Let’s look now at the Europe page within the Group to find out.

 How was the Europe Page in the P6B Glow Group used?

There are a number of web parts within the Europe page.

Announcements
The Announcements web part is used to share weekly targets with pupils. These are written in the form of ‘I can’ statements, to mirror Curriculum for Excellence outcomes.

Document Stores
There are a number of Document Stores within the Page.
These are used to upload:
• TV commercial scripts and Powerpoint presentations
• Song lyrics for the Eurovision entries
• CD cover designs
• Powerpoints comparing Scotland with the class’s pen-pal country, Norway

Discussion Boards
There are a range of Discussion Boards on the Europe page. These are used to:
• Peer-assess the Eurovision songs
• Talk about their famous European they chose to research
• Incorporate formative assessment in the form of ‘WWW – What Went Well’ and ‘EBI – Even Better If’

Text Editor

This was used to upload images of pupils and their work

In this cookbook, we will look at
• The Europe Page in the P6B Glow Group
• How to include multiple Document Stores on a page
• How to include multiple Discussion Boards on a page

Ingredients
What did Sarah Burton need to do to design and create content on the Europe Page?
• A Glow Group at school level
• Add  all of the P6B pupils
• Rename and add pages
• Create multiple Document stores
• Create multiple Discussion Boards
• Add and text editor web parts to upload images

In the following videos, we will take a look at the P6B Glow Group and then find out how to replicate some of its structure and content.

What does the P6B Glow Group look like? 8:29

What does the Europe Page contain? 2:30

How to have multiple Discussion Boards in a Glow Group (7:02)

Impact

The P6B Glow Group in general allows pupils to have a permanent record of the work they have been doing. They can access this from home and share their learning with their parents. Through the security of the Group, they can take part in collaborative activities and have a forum for sharing their work.
Hear Sarah tell us about this.

Sarah Burton talks about pupils’ home use (0:11)

In addition, all staff have membership of the P6B Glow Group, enabling the sharing of ideas, resources and good practice. Since the Headteacher is also a member, she has been able to see the work that the children have been doing and has taken the opportunity to comment on it and praise them for their efforts.

Related cookbooks

There are currently three other cookbooks relating to other aspects of the P6B Glow Group in Harrysmuir Primary School.

Click on the link to view each one:

Peer Assessment within 2nd Level Literacy and Language

Incorporating principles of AifL into 2nd level Numeracy

Developing literacy and presentation skills through use of Glow Meet

Incorporating Formative Assessment and Critical Skills within 2nd Level Social Subjects5.0524