Background of placement
This placement was a three week block based in the nursery. There was a two week block in the same school in February. As the school that I was placed in had a morning only nursery I was also placed in a primary 3 class in the afternoons.
The school is situated in a deprived area with high levels of unemployment, drug and alcohol misuse and crime. Many of the pupils have a difficult home life. The area is undergoing regeneration with support from The Coalfields Trust. The school encourages parental involvement and is currently developing more ways to extend this. Parents are very supportive of the school and the local community holds a very high opinion of it.
Consolarium Visit
As part of our ICT elective we looked at the advantages and disadvantages of using games based learning to support and enhance learning in the primary school setting. The potential for developing motivation that mirrors intrinsic motivation in pupils through the use of games based learning is something that I believe strongly in. While this is not something that I have always been aware of; I was never adverse to the use of alternative methods to provide children with a stimulating learning experience. Yet as part of my own learning experience I have discovered a love for the use of technology.
Game format
Endless Ocean 2 follows a storyline with characters searching for the solution to 'The Mystery of the Song of the Dragons'. The use of a story as opposed to the exploration element of Endless Ocean 1 had both positives and negatives.
Distraction - At times the story got in the way of the exploration. This caused me more frustration than it bothered the pupils and once passed the initial tutorials this became less of a problem.
Focus - Despite the story distracting from the main focus of my intentions it also sparked motivation in some of the pupils. Again, for me this highlights the individual learning styles of each child. Some were simply engaged through the explorations while others thrived on having a structure to follow in a storyline.
Planning
When planning I had the use of the teacher's previous planning and assessment schedules. This led me to identify a series of appropriate curriculum for excellence outcomes which I then broke down into smaller targets. Many of these were generic targets in relation to literacy and health and wellbeing. With the list of outcomes that related to the needs of the children in terms of progression I created a curricular overview for the three week block. Using the overview in association with the work the children completed I then made both weekly and daily plans.
The reality
With the structure of the placement not being focused on the primary 3 class it was difficult to achieve as much as I had planned. There are several reasons for this; the class had 3 non contact slots per week during my afternoon sessions; I overplanned in relation to the time available and I had to ensure that the focus of my workload was on the nursery area of my placement.
The pupils did benefit from the project in a variety of areas. My focus was on literacy, however, the class gained a great deal of experience in group decision making and found that they respected a democratic process when presented with choices. To begin with they would vote on a decision and argue against the result, after discussing the need to respect the choices of others they began to accept the decisions reached.
The game play was planned for a maximum of two twenty minute sessions per week. During the game play sessions pupils would take turns reading the instructions and the story, they would take turns using the controller and they would record certain things in their log books. The use of log books mirrored the use of a log in the game. If there was a word that they were unsure of they would record this in their log book and research it following the game play session. They would also record how they were feeling periodically and this was an individual choice task. The final instruction for recording during the game play was to record details of creatures that they encountered during the game.
The majority of the game play sessions were minimally led and I only intervened to highlight important facts or pose questions for recapping on experiences. The class were fantastic at developing their own aims and leading their own learning. This links well to my personal educational philosophy in my belief that teaching is so much more than passing on facts from one generation to another. A learner who is in control of their own learning is more likely to engage fully and I believe that a teacher has a powerful influence in encouraging this from an early age.
I had concerns that the game play would need to be limited to whole class sessions due to the distraction factor of a group using the wii when others would be doing other tasks that may be seen as less exciting, yet as time went on I realised that this was not the case (at least for this class). Although I did not have the opportunity to introduce this idea I believe it would have been able to have been implemented after the first fortnight.
In the classroom we set up a display area for art work, log books and other project related material. The class took the lead again in developing this and created the display themselves.
We had two paradise fish arrive during the final week for a visit. They now live at home with me. The children relished the responsibility of caring for them, with many of the children not having had a pet previously. When the fish arrived they came with a note for the children:
Hello Marine Adventurers
We heard that you are exploring the ocean for your project with Mrs H and we wanted to come and visit you for a week.
We need to be given a tiny pinch of food every day and Mrs H will need to clean our tank out on Friday when we leave.
We have never been to a classroom before and we are looking forward to watching you do all of your class work.
We don’t have names but we thought that maybe you would be able to name us. Mrs H has a blue box for you to put suggestions into for our names. If you write one name on each piece of paper then put it into the box Mrs H will have a draw to choose our new names on Tuesday.
Thank you for letting us stay in your classroom.
Fish
The surprise
The reading ability of the pupils was highlighted in a different way than had been during group reading sessions with reading books. Pupils showed a different ability in decoding with some demonstrating an ability above that which they would normally display. There were also pupils who struggled with the language when it was least expected. The class teacher commented on the value of the reading activities within the game. The environmental language also encouraged exploration of language through the recording of words within pupil 'log books'.
What next?
Hopefully my next placement will allow time to integrate gbl into my planning. The further I progress with the course the more responsibility I will have to implement my own strategies. I understand there are some concerns relating to the use of gbl on behalf of some schools yet I do believe in the great potential when managed carefully; but this is true of any teaching strategy and resource.
Now if only the Consolarium had summer interns for students ;0)
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