The Victorian Student Representative Council (VicSRC) and Verso Learning are proud to announce the launch of a free student check-in tool for teachers ready for Term 4 of 2020. The tool has been co-designed by VicSRC students across Victoria to give all students a greater voice by making it easier for teachers to check-in on student learning progress and understand student emotional wellbeing, either in class or whilst learning at home.
The check-in tool is free for individual teachers to use with their students and accessible from any mobile device or computer. From today it is available at https://checkin.versoapp.com. To reduce the workload for teachers the customisable tool has been aligned to over 5,000 Victorian F-10 curriculum questions covering most subject areas. In under 30 seconds teachers can send students a Verso check-in to gather feedback on their learning progress, where they need help, what they would like to do more of next lesson and how they are feeling about their learning. Teachers can access the feedback via a simple and colourful dashboard that enables them to quickly gauge individual students' learning and emotional needs and identify those who need extra support and attention.
CEO of Verso Learning Colin Wood said working with the Victorian Student Representative Council (VIC SRC) to co-design and build the Verso student check-in tool had been a fantastic experience and demonstrated the importance of listening and responding to student voice. “The students were so excited to see their ideas built into a check-in tool that is used by teachers around the world, and positively impact the wellbeing of students not just in Victoria but across the globe”. During the co-design process, students highlighted the difference between classes in which they were given opportunities to provide feedback and felt their ideas and opinions were listened to where they felt ‘motivated, inspired and engaged’. In classes where they were not they reported feeling “frustrated, bored and disheartened.” One feature specifically requested by students was a help button to confidentially ask for one-on-one support from their teacher if they feel they are not coping or need help. As one student commented “having an easy and private way to request help from a trusted teacher when you really need to is vital to feeling supported and listened to.”
VicSRC’s survey and report about remote and online learning showed that students wanted more regular check ins from teachers to support their wellbeing, and the opportunity to give regular feedback to teachers about their learning. In addition, students wanted a greater say in their learning journey and more opportunity to give input on the direction of future classes. These themes of supporting positive mental health and wellbeing at school and increasing student engagement also featured prominently at the 2020 VicSRC Congress.
VicSRC teamed up with Melbourne based Verso Learning to build a check-in tool to support teachers to regularly check-in with students either in class or when working remotely. Executive Officer of VicSRC Nina Laitala said “Working with Verso, VicSRC was able to design an innovative check-in solution that will reduce teacher workload, whilst helping support Victorian students emotional wellbeing, giving them greater voice over their education and help teachers better adapt lessons to the needs of the students.”
Co-Design Workshop 3: Review of the student led changes made to the Check-in Tool
When Verso’s Product Manager presented the updated Check-in form, the SRC students were excited to see that the changes were a true representation of their ideas. Some students commented that their peers in other classes would now have a far better opportunity to work with their teachers to make a difference to the way that they learn. They were overwhelmingly excited about the opportunity for students to be part of the change and remarked that we all have to work together to make this happen.
With this in mind, the students also picked up on the use of language on the check-in form. Before selecting an option from the list of ten, the text was changed from “What could I do differently next time?”, which the students recognised put all of the emphasis on the teacher having to make all of the adjustments, to “What could we do differently next time?” which they felt spoke to the partnership and collaborative nature of high agency classrooms. This shift was then picked up by the Verso team and similar changes were made throughout the product.
Verso will continue to partner with the Student Representative Council as we continue to refine the Check-in tool and the way that it can be presented and used within and beyond the scope of the lesson. In 2021 we will be returning to share anonymous usage data with the SRC, so they can see the strategies that students are selecting and consider adaptations to the lists, and the extent to which the emotional responses are progressing from the negative to the positive as students become empowered to connect more closely with their learning.
- About Victorian Student Representative Council (VicSRC) -
VicSRC exists to empower students across Victoria: it is led by students, for students and supports student voice at every level. It consists of a Student Executive Advisory Committee to provide governance and strategic advice to the organisation, and VicSRC student Ambassadors who work together with staff and stakeholders to make change at every level. The VicSRC is auspiced by the Youth Affairs Council Victoria, and funded through the Department of Education and Training Victoria (DET).
Co-Design Workshop 2: Identifying the professional practices that underpin high agency learning and a positive sense of self.
In this second workshop, students were asked to think again about lessons where they had experienced those positive emotions This time they were asked to consider the strategies that led to that high academic engagement and positive sense of well being and make a list of teaching practices that contributed to a positive sense of self.
On completing their list, the students aligned their ideas with the 10 Vic Dept of Ed High Impact Teaching Strategies. This led to some additional ideas and revisions before producing a definitive list of 10 strategies / classroom practices which they thought would be most useful to their peers in schools around the world.
The general capabilities play a significant role in the Australian Curriculum in equipping our students with the knowledge, skills, behaviours and dispositions essential to thrive in and outside of school, as successful learners, confident and creative individuals, and active and informed citizens.
To support this process, Verso check-in has been designed to support teachers in meeting the requirement that they teach, assess and provide opportunities for students to develop and apply these capabilities to the extent that they are incorporated within learning area content, where they can support deep thinking and learning.
Fig 1: Verso reflection prompts can be filtered to focus on year level, learning area and capability . Simply select your subject area and the year level of your students. Select the learning outcome and use our filters to select your desired prompt.
Reflection prompts are questions that require students to think critically about what or how they have learned. They are designed to support synthesis and analysis, the forging of connections between ideas, and the development of knowledge, skills, behaviours and key learning capabilities.
The key ideas for Critical and Creative Thinking are organised into four interrelated elements in the learning continuum:
Verso check-in supports teachers in developing each of the four elements through the provision of banks of more than 250 carefully designed reflection prompts that can be filtered for a variety of contexts and purposes, providing an appropriate lens for student to develop capability in critical and creative thinking as they learn to generate, organise and evaluate knowledge, clarify concepts and ideas, reflect on their journey as a learner and connect their learning to new and existing concepts.
Verso Check-In Inquiry prompts have been organised into 6 sub sets, aligned to each stage of the inquiry cycle Each set contains :
1.Activate. Sample prompts include:
2.Discover . Sample prompts include:
3.Analyse. Sample prompts include:
4.Organise. Sample prompts include:
5.Evaluate. Sample prompts include:
6.Implement. Sample prompts include:
“This element involves students creating ideas and actions, and considering and expanding on known actions and ideas” Australian Curriculum
Sample Prompts:
“This element involves students reflecting on, adjusting and explaining their thinking and identifying the thinking behind choices, strategies and actions taken” Australian Curriculum
Sample Prompts:
“This element involves students analysing, synthesising and evaluating the reasoning and procedures used to find solutions, evaluate and justify results or inform courses of action”. Australian Curriculum
Sample Prompts:
In order to meet the priorities of individual schools and develop the broader capabilities of students, Verso Check-in Prompts also allows teachers to generate prompts of their own or quickly and easily search for prompts under the following additional headings:
Verso is very excited to announce the launch of its new Instant Check-in Tool for 2021, which has been co-designed with students to support and empower Student Voice in classrooms.
The new Verso Instant Check-in makes it even faster and easier to create, launch in class and listen to Student voices. Based on feedback from students and teachers, we have made a number of important changes to our popular student check-in tool.
Most importantly we have shifted the responsibility for articulating a learning objective from the teacher to the student. This fundamental change, provides students the opportunity to articulate their own understanding of the learning intention, providing important feedback to the teacher on whether students have really understood the purpose of the lesson.
This powerful shift makes it easier to check-in with students, reducing the process to a simple select and send. However, more importantly, it now requires students to engage more deeply by elevating the requirement that students invest in understanding where they are going in their learning. This lays the foundation for focused reflection, so that students are able to monitor their progress and make informed decisions about the support, strategies and tools essential to move their learning forward.
Other changes include more inclusive student centred language that focuses on developing joint responsibility for learning, new set of emotions developed by students to reflect how they feel in 'low' and 'high' agency classrooms and an adaptive list of strategies that help learning that will change over time based on student feedback.
Its never been easier to listen to every voice in the classroom and we've got lots more to come over the next few months. Login to try the new check-in now from your class page, or create a new account and get started.
Looking for something specific? Search the site below.
