K-12 related

Three shifts as big as print to digital [Vander Ark]

On 10/11/2018, in active learning, communications, competency-based learning/education, design, digital learning, entrepreneurship, ideas, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, pedagogy, personalized/customized learning, social learning / networks, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, by Daniel Christian

Three shifts as big as print to digital — from gettingsmart.com by Tom Vander Ark

Excerpts (emphasis DSC):

We just lived through the biggest shift in learning since the printing press—a 25-year shift from print to digital. While it extended access and options to billions, it didn’t prove as transformational as many of us expected. It did, however, set the stage for three shifts that will change what and how people learn.

Basic to broader aims.
Passive to active learning.
Time to demonstrated learning.

Why giving kids a roadmap to their brain can make learning easier — from edsurge.com by Megan Nellis

Excerpts:

Learning, Down to a Science
Metacognition. Neuroplasticity. Retrieval Practice. Amygdala. These aren’t the normal words you’d expect to hear in a 15-year-old rural South African’s vocabulary. Here, though, it’s common talk. And why shouldn’t it be? Over the years, we’ve found youth are innately hungry to learn about the inner workings of their mind—where, why and how learning, thinking and decision-making happens. So, we teach them cognitive science.
…
Over the next three years, we teach students about the software and hardware of the brain. From Carol Dweck’s online Brainology curriculum, they learn about growth mindset, memory and mnemonics, the neural infrastructure of the brain. They learn how stress impacts learning and about neuroplasticity—or how the brain learns. From David Eagleman and Dan Siegel, they learn about the changing landscape of the adolescent brain and how novelty, emotionality and peer relationships aid in learning.
…
Pulling from books such as Make It Stick and How We Learn, we pointedly teach students about the science behind retrieval practice, metacognition and other strategies. We expressly use them in our classes so students see and experience the direct impact, and we also dedicate a whole class in our program for students to practice applying these strategies toward their own academic learning from school.

Choice: The key to reaching every student [Graves]

On 10/01/2018, in education technology, flipping -- inverted learning, ideas, K-12 related, more voice more choice more control, motivation, pedagogy, personalized/customized learning, student teaching/teacher education, student-related, tools, youth, by Daniel Christian

Choice: The key to reaching every student — from flr.flglobal.org by Terra Graves

Excerpt:

Who doesn’t like to have a choice? This seems like a no-brainer to me. Whenever teachers can give their students choices in their learning process, everyone wins. When we have options, we tend to have more ownership of that experience. It also provides us with a sense of control, which most students do not experience in school. In her article on facultyfocus.com, Elizabeth Betsy Lasley EdD writes, “When students are asked to interpret, construct, and demonstrate their concepts or ideas regarding specific course concepts from a selection of product or performance options, content retention, commitment, motivation, and creativity increase.” Flipped Learning environments are ripe for offering choices to students in how they consume content and how they express their learning outcomes. Giving students choice allows us to reach every student, every day because it honors their individuality. Cassie Shoemaker explains it simply in her article Let it go: Giving students choices, “When teachers give students choices as to how they will show what they have learned, students become better problems solvers, more creative, and more engaged.” Problem-solving: It’s not just for math! Students NEED to have opportunities to make decisions in school to learn to make decisions in life. If we continue to spoonfeed and micromanage our students, they won’t learn to figure things out on their own. Teachers by nature tend to be control freaks (including me). However, when we allow our students to try/fail/try again, we support their growth and confidence.

“Connecting Assessment and Learning” <-- a look at formative & summative assessments by Spencer Benson

On 09/29/2018, in adjunct faculty, assessment, faculty/staff, higher education, instructional design, K-12 related, pedagogy, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, by Daniel Christian

Connecting Assessment and Learning — from scholarlyteacher.com by Spencer Benson

Excerpt:

Formative assessments provide information on students’ levels of understanding or performance. Formative assessments are designed to facilitate learning and improving teaching, curriculum/course design, and learning progress. They are typically low stakes and inform the teacher and student about current understanding and practices, primarily to improve understanding and performance. Summative assessments are used to evaluate student knowledge, understanding, or performance. Generally, they involve tests to determine grades and rankings.

…

Many formative assessments facilitate learning and motivate students: the ubiquitous; “are there any questions?”, 1-minute papers, pop quizzes, on-line quizzes, clicker questions, muddiest point, jeopardy games, etc. Formative assessments are frequently low stakes and often assigned a few points to encourage students to complete them. Formative assessment “sans” points are unfortunately often ignored or not taken seriously. How do we adapt summative assessment that captures the developmental aspects of formative assessments?

…

Below are four suggestions that have been shown to provide for deeper learning. Two approaches are focused on getting students to think about the content in useful ways and two are designed to help students perform better on traditional assessments.

Multitasking is actually kind of a problem — for kids and adults [Tsukayama]

On 09/29/2018, in adult learning, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, K-12 related, learning, research, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, youth, by Daniel Christian

Multitasking is actually kind of a problem — for kids and adults — from washingtonpost.com by Hayley Tsukayama

Excerpt:

Multitasking is a problem in a couple of ways, Robb said, citing recent neuroscience research on the practice. “Many people think multitasking does not hamper your ability to get things done,” he said. “But multitasking can decrease your ability to get things done well, because you have to reorient. That causes a certain level of cognitive fatigue, which can slow the rate of work.”

But Michael Robb, the group’s director of research, said multitasking should no longer be seen as “some desirable trait that makes you the best 21st-century worker.”

NEW: The Top Tools for Learning 2018 [Jane Hart]

On 09/29/2018, in A/V -- audio/visual, active learning, adjunct faculty, Adobe, adult learning, animation, Apple, Asia, assistive technologies, Australia, blended learning, blogs / blogging / vlogging, Canada, career development, change, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, collaboration, colleges, communications, communities of practice, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, design, digital audio, digital learning, digital photography, digital storytelling, digital video, distance education, e-publishing related items (EPUB and more), e-readers, education, education technology, educational games / serious games, elearning, Europe, Google, graphics, heutagogy, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, India, instructional design, internet, IT in HE, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, lifelong learning, media/film, microlearning, Microsoft, mobile learning, mobile technologies, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, more voice more choice more control, multimedia, online learning, platforms, podcasting, presentations, productivity / tips and tricks, professional development, smart classrooms, social learning / networks, social media, society, story, storytelling, streams of content, student teaching/teacher education, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, teaching online, technologies for your home, technology (general), telecommunications, tools, training / L&D, trends, UK, United States, universities, vendors, videoconferencing, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, web design and production, web-based collaboration, workplace, by Daniel Christian

The above was from Jane’s posting 10 Trends for Digital Learning in 2018 — from modernworkplacelearning.com by Jane Hart

Excerpt:

[On 9/24/18], I released the Top Tools for Learning 2018 , which I compiled from the results of the 12th Annual Digital Learning Tools Survey.

I have also categorised the tools into 30 different areas, and produced 3 sub-lists that provide some context to how the tools are being used:

Top 100 Tools for Personal & Professional Learning 2018 (PPL100): the digital tools used by individuals for their own self-improvement, learning and development – both inside and outside the workplace.
Top 100 Tools for Workplace Learning (WPL100): the digital tools used to design, deliver, enable and/or support learning in the workplace.
Top 100 Tools for Education (EDU100): the digital tools used by educators and students in schools, colleges, universities, adult education etc.

3 – Web courses are increasing in popularity.
Although Coursera is still the most popular web course platform, there are, in fact, now 12 web course platforms on the list. New additions this year include Udacity and Highbrow (the latter provides daily micro-lessons). It is clear that people like these platforms because they can chose what they want to study as well as how they want to study, ie. they can dip in and out if they want to and no-one is going to tell them off – which is unlike most corporate online courses which have a prescribed path through them and their use is heavily monitored.

5 – Learning at work is becoming personal and continuous.
The most significant feature of the list this year is the huge leap up the list that Degreed has made – up 86 places to 47th place – the biggest increase by any tool this year. Degreed is a lifelong learning platform and provides the opportunity for individuals to own their expertise and development through a continuous learning approach. And, interestingly, Degreed appears both on the PPL100 (at 30) and WPL100 (at 52). This suggests that some organisations are beginning to see the importance of personal, continuous learning at work. Indeed, another platform that underpins this, has also moved up the list significantly this year, too. Anders Pink is a smart curation platform available for both individuals and teams which delivers daily curated resources on specified topics. Non-traditional learning platforms are therefore coming to the forefront, as the next point further shows.

From DSC:
Perhaps some foreshadowing of the presence of a powerful, online-based, next generation learning platform…?

Download the new Metacognition Sheet from retrievalpractice.org

From DSC to teachers and professors:
Should these posters be in your classroom? The posters each have a different practice such as:

Spaced practice
Retrieval practice
Elaboration
Interleaving
Concrete examples
Dual coding

That said, I could see how all of that information could/would be overwhelming to some students and/or the more technical terms could bore them or fly over their heads. So perhaps you could boil down the information to feature excerpts from the top sections only that put the concepts into easier to digest words such as:

Practice bringing information to mind
Switch between ideas while you study
Combine words and visuals
Etc.

30 Sites and Apps for Digital Storytelling

On 09/08/2018, in 21st century, A/V -- audio/visual, creativity, digital learning, digital storytelling, flipping -- inverted learning, K-12 related, learning, mobile learning, mobile technologies, story, storytelling, student-related, tools, by Daniel Christian

30 Sites and Apps for Digital Storytelling — from cyber-kap.blogspot.com

Excerpt:

Digital Storytelling is the process of telling a story through the use of digital means. Also, it happens to be one the easiest ways to integrate technology into the classroom. Educators can use digital storytelling w/ almost any subject and can even “flip” their classroom by using mobile apps. Below is my comprehensive list of sites/apps that can be used for digital storytelling…

Flexible Classrooms: Research is scarce, but promising [Merrill]

On 09/08/2018, in active learning, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning spaces, smart classrooms, UK, by Daniel Christian

Flexible Classrooms: Research Is Scarce, But Promising — from amp.edutopia.org by Stephen Merrill
An ambitious study of 153 classrooms in the United Kingdom provides the best evidence that flexible spaces can boost academic performance.

Excerpt:

Despite the challenges, an ambitious effort to study the design of lived-in classrooms, including looking at hard-to-define factors like flexibility, was completed in 2015 by the University of Salford, in the United Kingdom. Researchers put in the legwork, visiting 153 classrooms in 27 schools across the country—from small, remote village schools to much larger suburban buildings on the outskirts of metropolitan London. In the end, the effect of classroom design on academic performance was studied across 3,766 British children aged 5 to 11.

“We were trying to take a holistic perspective,” explained Peter Barrett, the lead researcher and now an honorary research fellow at the University of Oxford. “In other words, we were trying to look at spaces as experienced by people. So this isn’t just air quality, this isn’t just temperature, or an effort to measure the factors separately. This is the whole lot together.”

THE FINDINGS

The study looked at three dimensions of classroom design: naturalness (factors like light and temperature), stimulation (factors like color and visual complexity), and individualization (factors like flexibility and student ownership).

The big insight? Optimizing all of these physical characteristics of primary classrooms improved academic performance in reading, writing, and mathematics by 16 percent. The personalization of classrooms—including flexibility, which Barrett defined as “student choice within the space”—accounted for a full quarter of that improvement.

The takeaway: Flexibility, combined with characteristics like acoustics and air quality, has a real impact on student achievement. If used properly, flexible classrooms produce better academic outcomes among primary school children than more traditional, static classroom designs.

Also see the work of:

Why demand originality from students in online discussion forums? — from facultyfocus.com by Ronald Jones

Excerpt:

Tell me in your own words
Why demand originality? In relating to a traditional classroom discussion, do students respond to the professor’s question by opening up the textbook or searching for the answer on the Internet and then reading off the answer? Some might try, but by asking questions the professor is looking to see if the students grasp the discussed concept, not if they know how and where to find the answer.

Online students have the advantage of reflection time, along with having the textbook and Internet search engine open when responding to discussion questions. With a few simple clicks, virtually any question can be answered by searching the Internet. Once again, why demand originality? Classroom learning takes place when students are required to think; that’s a few steps beyond clicking copy and paste. As instructors, we should encourage our students to be resourceful and to learn the skills of locating and incorporating scholarly literature into their work. But we also must instill the learning value of synthesizing sources in such a manner that produces evidence of gained knowledge.

From DSC:
I like the idea of asking students to put it into their own words. Not just to get by the issue of copying/pasting or trying to stem plagiarism, but because it’s more along the line of journaling about our learning. We need to actually engage with some content in order to put that content into our own words. Not outsourcing our learning to others. Journaling can help us clarify what we’re understanding and where we still have questions and/or concerns.

Encouraging participation of all in the course: Moving from intact classes to individuals students — from scholarlyteacher.com by Todd Zakrajsek, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Excerpts:

During every class session, read the room by watching individuals. Are students taking notes, nodding along as others speak, or even advancing the discussion by building on the comments of classmates? Are verbal responses merely defining terminology, or do they make connections between the text and real-world examples? Analyze the extent to which certain examples or content areas are received by individual students. Take note when student responses are merely noise to fill the void when you are not talking. Overall, look for individual characteristics that emerge within your course as a community of learning is being established.
…

Keep in mind that it is often less threatening to one’s ego to claim a lack of preparation for class than it is to admit that one is finding it difficult to understand the material. For those who need a bit of motivation to come prepared, a quiz at the beginning of class will help students to come to class ready to discuss the material for that day.

…
As all students are pressed for time these days, a quiz might be the added motivation that most students need. These quizzes do not need to be extremely challenging, but they should be challenging enough to ensure the required preparation is done. That is, one should not be able to get responses correct simply by guessing. For students who do not understand the material, quizzes will not prepare them to engage in class discussions or to answer your questions during a discussion lecture. For those students, failed quizzes might add additional pressure and cause less engagement with the material. Struggling students who are not prepared for class need assistance to understand the material. Carefully structured small group projects and discussions might be the best way to get their voices into the class. Ask increasingly difficult questions as part of the discussion, and when you know you have struggling students reserve some of the easier questions for those students.

Gen Zers look to teachers first, YouTube second for instruction — from campustechnology.com by Dian Schaffhauser

Excerpt:

Students in Generation Z would rather learn from YouTube videos than from nearly any other form of instruction. YouTube was designated as the preferred mode of learning by 59 percent of Gen Zers in a survey on the topic, compared to in-person group activities with classmates (mentioned by 57 percent), learning applications or games (47 percent) and printed books (also 47 percent). A majority (55 percent) believe that YouTube has “contributed to their education.” In fact, nearly half of survey participants (47 percent) reported spending three or more hours every day on YouTube.

The only method of instruction that beat out YouTube? Teachers. Almost four in five Gen Zers (78 percent) reported that their instructors “are very important to learning and development.” That’s nearly 20 percentage points higher than the YouTube option.

While Millennials also value teachers above all else for learning (chosen by 80 percent), that’s followed by printed books (60 percent), YouTube (55 percent), group activities (47 percent) and apps or games (41 percent).

Also, see the work from Pooja K. Agarwal | @PoojaAgarwal
Assistant Professor, Cognitive Scientist, & Former K-12 Teacher. Follow @RetrieveLearn and subscribe for teaching strategies at http://retrievalpractice.org.

An example posting:

Retrieve, Space, Elaborate, and Transfer with Connection Notebooks — from retrievalpractice.org

Excerpts:

How can we encourage students to retrieve, elaborate, and connect with course content? Here’s a strategy called Connection Notebooks by James M. Lang, Professor at Assumption College. Connection Notebooks include retrieval practice, spacing, elaboration, and transfer – all in five minutes or less!

Ask students to dedicate a specific notebook as their Connection Notebook at the beginning of the semester (or provide one for them) and have them to bring it to class every day. Approximately once a week, ask students to take out their Connection Notebook and write a one-paragraph response to a “connection prompt” at the end of class. For example:

How does what you learned today connect to something you’ve learned in another class?
Have you ever encountered something you learned today in a TV show, movie, song, or book?
Have you ever experienced something you learned today in your life outside of school?

…
Connection Notebooks are effective for a few reasons:

Students build connections over time and across diverse contexts
Students engage in retrieval practice, spacing, elaboration, and transfer
Students focus on learning, not assessment, by keeping it low-stakes

Also, see the work from Learning Scientists | @AceThatTest | learningscientists.org

An example posting:

In this digest, we put together 5 blog posts by teachers that focus on implementing spaced practice in one specific subject at a time. For more of an overview of spaced practice, see this guest post by Jonathan Firth (@JW_Firth).

8 great iPad audio recording apps for teachers & students [educatorstechnology.com]

On 08/11/2018, in A/V -- audio/visual, Apple, colleges, community colleges, digital audio, education technology, higher education, K-12 related, productivity / tips and tricks, student-related, teachers, technologies for your home, tools, vendors, by Daniel Christian

8 great iPad audio recording apps for teachers & students — from educatorstechnology.com

Excerpt:

For those of you asking about audio recording apps to use on iPad, here is a list of some of the best options out there. Whether you want to record a lecture, an audio note, a memo, or simply capture ideas and thoughts as they happen, the apps below provide you with the necessary technology to do so, and in the easiest and most effective way.

You’re already harnessing the science of learning (you just don’t know it) — from edsurge.com by Pooja Agarwal

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Now, a decade later, I see the same clicker-like trend: tools like Kahoot, Quizlet, Quizizz and Plickers are wildly popular due to the increased student engagement and motivation they can provide. Meanwhile, these tech tools continue to incorporate powerful strategies for learning, which are discussed less often. Consider, for example, four of the most robust research-based strategies from the science of learning:

Retrieval practice
Spaced practice
Interleaving
Feedback

Sound familiar? It’s because approaches that encourage students to use what they know, revisit it over time, mix it up and learn about their own learning are core elements in many current edtech tools. Kahoot and Quizlet, for example, provide numerous retrieval formats, reminders, shuffle options and instant feedback. A century of scientific researchdemonstrates that these features don’t simply increase engagement—they also improve learning, higher order thinking and transfer of knowledge.

From DSC:
Pastors should ask this type of question as well: “What did we talk about the last time we met?” — then give the congregation a minute to write down what they can remember.

Also from Pooja Agarwal and RetrievalPractice.org

For teachers, here’s what we share in a minute or less about retrieval practice:

Retrieval practice can raise students’ grades from a C to an A, with a significant benefit even after an entire school year
Retrieval practice boosts learning for a wide variety of ages, subject areas, and settings
It doesn’t take more time! No extra prep, class, or grading time

And when it comes to students, the first thing we share are Retrieval Warm Ups. These quick, fun questions engage students in class discussion and start a conversation about how retrieval is something we do every day. Try one of these with a teacher to start a conversation about retrieval practice, too!

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