Evidence: Use of Smartphones and the application "Socrative" for learning
| 1.3 | Students with diverse linguistic, cultural, religious and socioeconomic backgrounds
On practicum I taught a linguistically diverse stage 6 Biology class where 50% of students were language background other than English (LBOTE), including 6 international students. These students had developing English reading and writing skills and were disengaged in the content that seemed extremely challenging and out of their language depth.
The task for me was to provide as many opportunities for English language practice and development I could whilst delivering the demanding senior Biology content. I needed to ensure that I could engage these students in the content and develop their literacy skills and key vocabulary every lesson so the intended learning outcomes were achievable.
I asked my students to download the application “Socrative” to their mobile devices and all students could do this. I wrote many short multiple-choice quizzes that were delivered to student’s phones at the start of each lesson. These quizzes included literacy-focused questions on definitions, spelling and correct use of key terms from the content learnt in previous lessons.
Students who had been disengaged were completing the quizzes and looking to improve their scores each time. Students were able to improve their English language development over the course of one unit and were more confident and willing to contribute to class discussions.
I learnt that it is important to adapt teaching strategies to meet the individual needs of students. By making learning relevant to students and linking it to their world (for example by use of their phones) then it was easier for students to construct knowledge. I will aim to improve my use of socrative because as I get to know a class and student’s language needs change I could design tiered quizzes depending on the level of challenge particular students require.