DoodleMaths and DoodleEnglish are ideal home learning solutions for schools; they’re a great way for pupils to continue their learning when they’re not in the classroom for a prolonged period of time. Below are our top tips for how you can use Doodle as an effective, supportive home learning solution.
1. Ensure your pupils’ work programmes are correctly calibrated
In the Teacher Dashboard, hover over Analyse and select Programme. You should ideally see a column of green, smiley faces for your class. This means that their work programmes, determined by Proxima™ (our unique algorithm which creates every pupil a personalised educational experience), contain the correct mix of challenge and reward.
Keep an eye out for any orange faces, which highlight work programmes which may be presenting an uneven level of challenge, or red faces, which signify that a pupil’s programme needs recalibrating.
2. Encourage pupils to work independently
However, this doesn’t mean that they’re unachievable. Encourage your pupils to use the ‘help’ button, the ‘hint’ button and the ‘tricky questions’ feature so that they can come back to the problem later when they have the support of a teacher or parent.
3. Increase your expectations
Doodle has been proven to have a significant impact from as little as 20 minutes of usage per week. However, during prolonged periods away from the classroom, it’s reasonable to have higher expectations than this.
Rather than the expectation being for children to complete one exercise a day, increase it to two or three exercises a day or 200 stars per week. On average it takes 17 seconds for a child to answer a question in DoodleMaths and 21 seconds in DoodleEnglish, which is very achievable during an absence from school.
4. Set an exciting challenge!
Set your pupils a fun, exciting challenge! You’ll find challenge sheets in the Resources section of the Teacher Dashboard or on our website, which can be printed off in school or at home by parents. We recommend our popular 30 Day Challenge as a great way to promote daily Doodling.
Let parents know about the challenge and ask them to reward their child with a sticker when they have completed their exercises for the day. When they return to school, you could present your Top Doodlers one of our fantastic free printable certificates!
5. Don’t forget about your own scheme of work
Doodle creates its work programme based on an individual child’s strengths and weaknesses and not on your scheme of work. But that’s not to say that you can’t set work yourself.
To set work in a particular ARE or topic, log in to the Teacher Dashboard, hover over Extras and select Add an Extra. You can then put your choice of content into all of your children’s work programmes. All curriculum content is easily searchable and is fully-aligned to the English (or Welsh) national curriculum. It can also be set to the US and Australian curriculums.
This method is more time-consuming than allowing Proxima to set the work programme, especially if you have different ability groupings in your class, but it will allow you to ensure your pupils to refresh their knowledge and continue learning what you’ve been teaching in class.
All questions are carefully graded and you’ll get instant feedback in the Teacher Dashboard, so you can always keep on track of your pupils’ learning and continue motivating them, even if you’re not in the classroom.
To find out more about how Doodle can benefit your school, chat to our Account Managers today, who can get you started with a free, fully-supported trial in your school in no time.
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