Why Are ICT Lessons Boring? The Start of the Lesson
Terry Freedman, Educational ICT ConsultantAs I said in Why Is ICT* Boring?, a lot of youngsters find their ICT lessons pretty tedious. In this series I’m looking at ten reasons for this state of affairs.
Photograph is (c) Nicole Zimmer (See below)If I had to choose just one causal factor to focus on, it would be the start of the lesson. I don’t think this is unique to ICT by any means. If you think about it, the way any activity starts, ie your first few seconds’ experience of it, sets the tone for the rest of the period in question.
For example, how long do you take to evaluate a website or an article on a website? I think the average is 8 seconds. I was recommended a podcast the other day, and I spent a total of 1 minute and 29 seconds evaluating it – and that was only because I tried a second episode to give them the benefit of the doubt after spending about 10 seconds hating the first one I listened to. I’m the same when I go shopping: if the person at the counter is more interested in finishing their conversation with a colleague than attending to me, I walk out, because there are plenty of other places that will be only too happy to accept my custom.
The big difference between these examples and school lessons is that students are, quite literally, a captive audience. If you’re not convinced of this, find yourself some spare-time work as a tutor in adult education. When I first did that I was devastated to discover that the attrition rate between my first lesson and the second one a week later was around 20%. In other words, the class of 30 I started with was down to 24 or 25 the following week. I felt like a complete failure. But my boss assured me that that was typical. Some people realise in the first week that the course is not for them. Others don’t like your teaching style. Others like it, but not enough to outweigh spending the time on other commitments instead.
If you’re ever involved in observing lessons, but don’t have the time to stay for the entire lesson, go for the first 15 or 20 minutes, or the last 15 or 20 minutes. They’re often the really informative periods if you’re looking at classroom management, because most classes can be reasonably assumed to have settled into some sort of routine during the middle section of the lesson. I prefer the first 20 minutes, because that sets the tone for the rest of the lesson, as a rule.
So, back to the ICT lesson. If you accept what I’ve said then you need to ensure that when the lesson starts, it starts with an activity. However, as I say in Go On, Bore ‘Em: How to make ICT lessons excruciatingly dull:
The starter activity is the activity that the lesson starts with: that much is obvious, but many teachers take this to mean it’s the activity with which they start the lesson. It isn’t. The start of the lesson is experienced by each student individually, therefore the starter activity is the activity with which each individual student starts the lesson.
Obviously, the teacher needs to do something to ensure the lesson gets off to a good start, but what? If you adopt a cynical outlook, then almost any activity will do, like getting the students to write their names on top of a sheet of paper. Ideally, though, it should be interesting as well. Should it also be relevant to the lesson proper? My own view is that it should either be highly relevant, ie something that will be drawn upon during the lesson, or completely irrelevant, like a warm-up glossary quiz. I once observed a lesson in which the students came in, logged on and checked their email. That kept them quiet, but then the teacher had to virtually wrest them away from the computer screens in order to start teaching them. How much better it would have been to have ensured that each student would find information pertinent to the lesson in their inbox. That, at least, would have provided a legitimate educational reason for such an activity.
If you’d like to read more about getting an ICT lesson off to a good start, and 9 other key issues, check out Go On, Bore ‘Em: How to make ICT lessons excruciatingly dull (that link gives you a free preview) – just £1.99 (+VAT if applicable) (that links takes you to the ordering section) for the ebook version!
* ICT = Information & Communications Technology
Photo source: Nicole Zimmer's Profile on SXC
Reader Comments (5)
What you say is bang-on as far as it goes. Perhaps I can add a couple of pointers. Yes, I had always (well for most of the previous 30 years) started my introduction to lessons as you describe, challenging, focussing etc. However, in one of my latter posts I discovered the term 'Bell-work'. ie the work that the children start with as soon as they enter the classroom - ie as soon as the bell (if any) has rung.
Particularly in Secondary schools, your class might arrive from all four corners of the campus and can often take at least 5 mins before the whole class has arrived and settled. So, for every lesson, the first children to arrive see a challenge or a quiz, often topical, either projected on the board or items scattered around the classroom. ie something that gets them involved as soon as they arrive. Speed is of the essence, fun is the outcome, learning is incidental. It creates an environment not to be missed, the kids get in more quickly and settle down quietly. During that time I can take the register and deal with any minor traumas without interupting the lesson. Once the last child has settled down we then do a short summary of what the 'early birds' discovered/experienced etc. This approach applies equally to Yr-7 as it does to Yr-13
Only then do we display the anticipated Learning Objectives and Outcomes, list of resources, activities and learning strategies.
Secondly, In my opinion, every lesson should have a range of learning strategies so as to address both Multiple Intelligences and Differentiation. In all my lessons, for many years, I have employed the use of differentiatied worksheets or on-line guides which are colour-coded: Red for 'probably needs a push-start', (in easy English) Orange for 'Get ready - might need a reminder', Green for 'Go! - can get on by yourself' and Blue - 'The Sky's the limit' G+T level, with more open-ended challenges etc.
Not so sure about the differentiated worksheets: don't they pre-empt the outcome in a way?
Perhaps instead of calling them worksheets - I should have said 'Thinksheets' or 'Springboards'.
But yes, with my least able children, particularly in mixed ability classes, some guidance which might actually lead to an outcome which gives satisfaction to the learner might be called a worksheet. There is another aspect to this, that the whole class is seen to be doing the same work, and any brighter pupils who may complain about "They've got easier work to do!" my response was always, "No, it's the same work, but I've written the tasks in 'easier English'."
As I have said elsewhere, when helping to set up the NC for Technology in 1987, I argued that as a Mathematician I would expect a class of 20 pupils all to come up with the same answer to a given problem. However, with the same class in Design & Technology and in I(C)T I would expect to see 20 different solutions - and they all knw it!
You've given me food for thought about my ICT lesson starters. I especially liked your comment about considering the lesson starter from a student's viewpoint rather than the teachers. I'm currently preparing for the start of this year's classes and will definitely take this into account. Thanks! :)
Jenny