Making Progress at last

Last Wednesday was the second theory lesson and I began with a small piece of paper with 3 questions:

1. How's Canvas? Why?
2. How did you feel when you finished your homework this week?
3. What did you do for your directed study hours?

Answers were clear.
Many in the class were feeling confused about Canvas - difficulty navigation, or uploading files and a few other issues, which we clarified immediately.
Those who did homework felt good of course. Others were worried they couldn't get it done in time and were worried about what to do next.
The directed study responses became interesting. The whole point was to get students working together on their group work and begin their collaborations, and about half did other stuff,so we went back to what directed study entails.

It feels like a good way to get feedback and I think I might do this more often as it's easy and quick to do. It's not personal as there are no names required and I can react on the spot if there is something getting out of control.

We went through a few more things to put the class at their ease and already the response was a lot more positive. 

Next I got some feedback on how they felt about the groups I had allocated for the Shops and this was quite cool. One group had reconfigured some of the pairings to suit their skills better and who they knew better (not quite my intention but I'll have to see how that develops). I think a combination of what I say and what the group members need to function is a fair solution. Both groups displayed  clear automatic leader and follower sets, and the discussions from both seemed to be quite effective despite having to work in a crowded computer lab. In all, though they felt confident that they knew what was expected of them and they were happy with the set up and information given to them last week. I was interested to hear comments that this Shop felt to be easier to plan than their last one, even though there is more work and input expected in this course.

Perhaps the fact that they don't have to choose groups and and allocate all tasks, but can get on with it, coupled with the preparation we did last week about working together and solving problem, is paying off already.
I'd like to think so!

Next week I'm asking the same questions on the same format and I'll see what difference there is in general with the few changes and explanations. In all, I'd say a positive start to a new way of presenting this Shop Group Assignment.

As a result we went straight to Kahoot!

and it was a massive success! It's been quite  while since I used it in class myself and it was such a buzz to see them so enthusiastic!

Goals for next week are:
1. keep the reflection up to date
2. monitor the group progress and feeling moving forward
3. trouble shooting the spreadsheet progress as planned now that this is also clearer