Lesson 6 - cover

Last night I found myself in the dreaded position of writing cover work and for the first time was actually just a little tiny bit excited - time for another iPad experiment! Truth be told, setting cover work is usually a pain, and striking the correct balance of cover work that is simple yet worthwhile and engaging, I have found to be a near impossibility.... That is until today...!

I was quite conscious that the pupils haven't really spent much time with the iPads in lessons. This was to be their 6th hour with them and after last lesson's negative end I knew this had to be a success.

I decided to set them a challenge - they were to lead their own learning. Rather than giving the instructions to the cover teacher (well, I did, just in case, but the pupils didn't know that!) I emailed them out to the pupils and told them that they were in charge of helping each other to make sure everyone understood and completed the work. I told them that I would be just an email away if they needed help, but to try and work it all out for themselves first.

In their email they had full instructions for each task, a link to Word Reference, a worksheet to complete on their iPad, a written task to email me, and an iBook with instructions on how to produce a Sock Puppet show based on the work that they had done in class.

By the end of the lesson, everyone had sent me the work that they needed to and I was very impressed with the quality. They had helped each other, although some did email me a few times at the beginning of the lesson in confusion (they are not used to working quite so independently - I shall be working with them on this!)

I was able to sit in my onesie on the sofa with my Lemsip, keep an eye on the work being produced in class, help my pupils to progress and have peace of mind that the lesson was not being completely wasted. I know this method is not for everyone - I can see why some might be irritated at the thought of a teacher 'working' whilst 'off-sick', and I certainly don't think it should be an expectation. But for this project it worked, and I liked it :)

Maybe that's just the control-freak in me!