Duration: 1:36
Wellington High School teacher, Ben Britton describes the differences and opportunities to planning and teaching as a result of using online resources and students bringing their own devices. Working in a one-to-one classroom, "makes it much easier to find activities that cater to different ability levels".
If you know that your class is going to be one-to-one, it does change the way you plan your lessons. Some things that work wonderfully on paper, do not work very well at all if you try to do them with a device. Some things that you cannot do at all well on paper work wonderfully when you have a device.
When I’m planning my lessons, it makes it much easier to find activities that cater to different ability levels. Once my students are used to working in a certain way, I will get students who will start working on what I’ve asked them to do, realise that they missed something the other day and then they’ll just go back, find the resources, and keep going.
I am a maths teacher and it has meant that sometimes I can go out and I can find real world data sets, the same sort of things that professionals use, has been really empowering for a lot of my students. A lot of my lesson plans is really curating resources and having them available for students.
When I do stand up the front to do a bit of teacher talk, I always back it up with links or online resources that students can go back to if they’ve forgotten it. Other times I take groups that, particularly extension kids, and I’ll steer them at an online resource that they’re going to be able to work through that will have the explanations and all of the discussion in some sort of online format so that they can take the reigns for their own learning, they can extend themselves. I do still need to be around to help them when they get stuck, and help them through any difficulties, but they can take a lot more responsibility and be much more active participants.