Daniel S. Christian

Guiding faculty into immersive environments — from campustechnology.com by David Raths
What’s the best way to get faculty to engage with emerging technologies and incorporate new learning spaces into their teaching? Five institutions share their experiences.

Excerpt:

One of the biggest hurdles for universities has been the high cost of VR-enabled computers and headsets, and some executives say prices must continue to drop before we’ll see more widespread usage. But John Bowditch, director of the Game Research and Immersive Design Lab at Ohio University’s Scripps College of Communication, is already seeing promising developments on that front as he prepares to open a new 20-seat VR classroom. “Probably the best thing about VR in 2018 is that it is a lot more affordable now and that democratizes it,” he said. “We purchased a VR helmet 13 years ago, and it was $12,000 just for the headset. The machine that ran it cost about $20,000. That would be a nonstarter beyond purchasing just one or two. Today, you can get a VR-enabled laptop and headset for under $2,000. That makes it much easier to think about integrating it into classes.”

Colleges and universities face several hurdles in getting faculty to incorporate virtual reality or immersive experiences in their courses. For one, instructional designers, instructional technologists and directors of teaching and learning centers may not have access to these tools yet, and the budgets aren’t always there to get the labs off the ground, noted Daniel Christian, instructional services director at Western Michigan University‘s Cooley Law School. “Many faculty members’ job plates are already jam-packed — allowing little time to even look at emerging technologies,” he said. “Even if they wanted to experiment with such technologies and potential learning experiences, they don’t have the time to do so. Tight budgets are impacting this situation even further.”

These amazing pictures of spectacular waves remind me of Psalm 93

On 06/21/2018, in art, creativity, Daniel S. Christian, digital photography, faith, photography, by Daniel Christian

Psalm 93 New International Version (NIV)

¹The Lord reigns, he is robed in majesty;
    the Lord is robed in majesty and armed with strength;
    indeed, the world is established, firm and secure.
²Your throne was established long ago;
    you are from all eternity.

³The seas have lifted up, Lord,
    the seas have lifted up their voice;
    the seas have lifted up their pounding waves.
⁴Mightier than the thunder of the great waters,
    mightier than the breakers of the sea—
    the Lord on high is mighty.

⁵Your statutes, Lord, stand firm;
holiness adorns your house
for endless days.

Spectacular waves shot by Rachael Talibart — from fubiz.net

Reimagining the Higher Education Ecosystem

On 06/20/2018, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, adult learning, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, business, career development, change, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, collaboration, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, credentialing, curriculum, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, distance education, education, education reform, education technology, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, experimentation, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, heutagogy, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, lifelong learning, passions, platforms, professional development, reinvent, society, staying relevant, strategy, streams of content, student-related, surviving, teaching & learning, tools, training / L&D, United States, universities, vision/possibilities, web-based collaboration, workplace, youth, by Daniel Christian

Reimagining the Higher Education Ecosystem — from edu2030.agorize.com
How might we empower people to design their own learning journeys so they can lead purposeful and economically stable lives?

Excerpts:

The problem
Technology is rapidly transforming the way we live, learn, and work. Entirely new jobs are emerging as others are lost to automation. People are living longer, yet switching jobs more often. These dramatic shifts call for a reimagining of the way we prepare for work and life—specifically, how we learn new skills and adapt to a changing economic landscape.

The changes ahead are likely to hurt most those who can least afford to manage them: low-income and first generation learners already ill-served by our existing postsecondary education system. Our current system stifles economic mobility and widens income and achievement gaps; we must act now to ensure that we have an educational ecosystem flexible and fair enough to help all people live purposeful and economically stable lives. And if we are to design solutions proportionate to this problem, new technologies must be called on to scale approaches that reach the millions of vulnerable people across the country.

The challenge
How might we empower people to design their own learning journeys so they can lead purposeful and economically stable lives?

The Challenge—Reimagining the Higher Education Ecosystem—seeks bold ideas for how our postsecondary education system could be reimagined to foster equity and encourage learner agency and resilience. We seek specific pilots to move us toward a future in which all learners can achieve economic stability and lead purposeful lives. This Challenge invites participants to articulate a vision and then design pilot projects for a future ecosystem that has the following characteristics:

Expands access: The educational system must ensure that all people—including low-income learners who are disproportionately underserved by the current higher education system—can leverage education to live meaningful and economically stable lives.

Draws on a broad postsecondary ecosystem: While college and universities play a vital role in educating students, there is a much larger ecosystem in which students learn. This ecosystem includes non-traditional “classes” or alternative learning providers, such as MOOCs, bootcamps, and online courses as well as on-the-job training and informal learning. Our future learning system must value the learning that happens in many different environments and enable seamless transitions between learning, work, and life.

From DSC:
This is where I could see a vision similar to Learning from the Living [Class] Room come into play. It would provide a highly affordable, accessible platform, that would offer more choice, and more control to learners of all ages. It would be available 24×7 and would be a platform that supports lifelong learning. It would combine a variety of AI-enabled functionalities with human expertise, teaching, training, motivation, and creativity.

It could be that what comes out of this challenge will lay the groundwork for a future, massive new learning platform.

Also see:

Office of Edtech Wants Help Making Sense of All Those Higher Ed Providers — from edsurge.com by Sydney Johnson

From DSC:
I found the following graphic out at a posting entitled, Continuous Learning & Development; more than just continuous training (from modernworkplacelearning.com/magazine). I thought it was an excellent example of a learning ecosystem!

From DSC:
I just found out about the work going out at LearningScientists.org.

I was very impressed after my initial review of their materials! What I really appreciate about their work is that they are serious in identifying some highly effective means of how we learn best — pouring over a great deal of research in order to do so. But they don’t leave things there. They help translate that research into things that teachers can then try out in the classroom. This type of practical, concrete help is excellent and needed!

Daniel Willingham and some of his colleagues take research and help teachers apply it as well
Another person who does this quite well is Pooja Agarwal, an Assistant Professor, Cognitive Scientist, & former K-12 Teacher. Pooja is teaming up with Patrice Bain to write a forthcoming book entitled, Powerful Teaching: Unleash the Science of Learning! She founded and operates the RetrievalPractice.org site.)

From the LearningScientists.org website (emphasis DSC):

We are cognitive psychological scientists interested in research on education. Our main research focus is on the science of learning. (Hence, “The Learning Scientists”!)

Our Vision is to make scientific research on learning more accessible to students, teachers, and other educators.

Click the button below to learn more about us. You can also check out our social media pages: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, & Tumblr.

They have a solid blog, podcast, and some valuable downloadable content.

In the downloadable content area, the posters that they’ve created (or ones like them) should be posted at every single facility where learning occurs — K-12 schools, community colleges, colleges, universities, libraries of all kinds, tutoring centers, etc. It may be that such posters — and others like them that encourage the development of metacognitive skills of our students — are out there. I just haven’t run into them.

For example, here’s a poster on learning how to study using spaced practice:

Anyway, there’s some great work out there at LearningScientists.org!

Also relevant here, see:

Science-based tips to improve learning — from qbi.uq.edu.au
Use these six tips to help improve the power of your brain.

From DSC: Formative assessments offer enormous benefits! My notes on “The ‘F’ Word: Top Five Complaints (and Solutions) About Formative Assessment” [Duhart]

On 05/30/2018, in adjunct faculty, assessment, colleges, community colleges, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, education, educational games / serious games, engagement / engaging students, faculty/staff, generational differences, higher education, ideas, instructional design, K-12 related, law schools, learning, learning ecosystem, learning theories, metacognition / metacognitive skills, pedagogy, productivity / tips and tricks, student teaching/teacher education, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, training / L&D, universities, youth, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
Low-stakes formative assessments offer enormous benefits and should be used extensively throughout K-12, higher education, L&D/corporate universities, in law schools, medical schools, dental schools, and more.

Below are my notes from the following article – with the provided emphasis/bolding/highlighting via colors, etc. coming from me:

Duhart, Olympia. “The “F” Word: The Top Five Complaints (and Solutions) About Formative Assessment.” Journal of Legal Education, vol. 67, no. 2 (winter 2018), pp. 531-49. <– with thanks to Emily Horvath, Director of Academic Services & Associate Professor, WMU-Cooley Law School

“No one gets behind the wheel of a car for the first time on the day of the DMV road test. People know that practice counts.” (p. 531)

“Yet many law professors abandon this common-sense principle when it comes to teaching law students. Instead of providing multiple opportunities for practice with plenty of space to fail, adjust, and improve, many law school professors place almost everything on a single high-stakes test at the end of the semester.” (p. 531)

“The benefits of formative assessment are supported by cognitive science, learning theory, legal education experts, and common sense. An exhaustive review of the literature on formative assessment in various schools settings has shown that it consistently improves academic performance.” (p. 544)

ABA’s new formative assessment standards (see pg 23)
An emphasis on formative assessments, not just a mid-term and/or a final exam – which are typically called “summative assessments.”

“The reliance on a single high-stakes exam at the end of the semester is comparable to taking the student driver straight to the DMV without spending any time practicing behind the wheel of a car. In contrast, formative assessment focuses on a feedback loop. It provides critical information to both the students and instructor about student learning.” (p. 533)

“Now a combination of external pressure and a renewed focus on developing self-regulated lawyers has brought formative assessment front and center for law schools.” (p. 533)

“In fall 2016, the ABA implemented new standards that require the use of formative assessment in law schools. Standard 314 explicitly requires law schools to use both formative and summative assessment to “’measure and improve’ student learning.” (pgs. 533-534)

Standard 314. ASSESSMENT OF STUDENT LEARNING
A law school shall utilize both formative and summative assessment methods in its curriculum to measure and improve student learning and provide meaningful feedback to students.

Interpretation 314-1
Formative assessment methods are measurements at different points during a particular course or at different points over the span of a student’s education that provide meaningful feedback to improve student learning. Summative assessment methods are measurements at the culmination of a particular course or at the culmination of any part of a student’s legal education that measure the degree of student learning.

Interpretation 314-2

A law school need not apply multiple assessment methods in any particular course. Assessment methods are likely to be different from school to school. Law schools are not required by Standard 314 to use any particular assessment method.

From DSC:
Formative assessments use tests as a learning tool/strategy. They help identify gaps in students’ understanding and can help the instructor adjust their teaching methods/ideas on a particular topic. What are the learners getting? What are they not getting? These types of assessments are especially important in the learning experiences of students in their first year of law school. All students need feedback, and these assessments can help give them feedback as to how they are doing.

Practice. Repetition. Feedback. <– all key elements in providing a solid learning experience!

“…effective assessment practices are linked to the development of effective lawyers.” (pg. 535)

“Low-risk formative assessment give students multiple opportunities to make mistakes and actively engage with the material they are learning.” (p. 537)

Formative assessments force the students to practice recall. This is very helpful in terms of helping students actually remember the information. The spaced out practice of forcing recall – no matter how much the struggle of recalling it – aids in retaining information and moving items into longer-term memory. (See Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning by Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger III, & Mark A. McDaniel). In fact, according to this book’s authors, the more the struggle in recalling the information, the greater the learning.

Formative assessments can help students own their own learning. Self-regulation. Provide opportunities for students to practice meta-cognition – i.e., thinking about their thinking.

“Lawyers need to be experts at self-regulated learning.” (p. 541)

The use of numerous, low-stakes quizzes and more opportunities for feedback reduces test anxiety and can help with the mental health of students. Can reduce depression and help build a community of learners. (p. 542)

“Millennials prefer interactive learning opportunities, regular assessments, and immediate feedback.” (p. 544)

Ideas:

As a professor, you don’t have to manually grade every formative assessment. Technology can help you out big time. Consider building a test bank of multiple-choice questions and then drawing upon them to build a series of formative assessments. Have the technology grade the exams for you.
- Digital quizzes using Blackboard Learn, Canvas, etc.
- Tools like Socrative
Alternatively, have the students grade each other’s work or their own work. Formative assessments don’t have to be graded or count towards a grade. The keys are in learners practicing their recall, checking their own understanding, and, for the faculty member, perhaps pointing out the need to re-address something and/or to experiment with one’s teaching methods.
Consider the use of rubrics to help make formative assessments more efficient. Rubrics can relay the expectations of the instructors on any given assignment/assessment. Rubrics can also help TA’s grade items or even the students in grading each other’s items.
Formative assessments don’t have to be a quiz/test per se. They can be games, presentations, collaborations with each other.

For further insights on this topic (and more) from Northwestern University, see:

New ABA Requirements Bring Changes to Law School Classrooms, Creating Opportunity, and Chaos –from blog.northwesternlaw.review by Jacob Wentzel

Excerpt:

Unbeknownst to many students J.D. and L.L.M. students, our classroom experiences are embarking upon a long-term path toward what could be significant changes as a trio of ABA requirements for law schools nationwide begin to take effect.

The requirements are Standards 302, 314, and 315 , each of which defines a new type of requirement: learning outcomes (302), assessments (314), and global evaluations of these (315). According to Christopher M. Martin, Assistant Dean and Clinical Assistant Professor at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, these standards take after similar ones that the Department of Education rolled out for undergraduate universities years ago. In theory, they seek to help law schools improve their effectiveness by, among other things, telling students what they should be learning and tracking students’ progress throughout the semester. Indeed, as a law student, it often feels like you lose the forest for the trees, imbibing immense quantities of information without grasping the bigger picture, let alone the skills the legal profession demands.

…

By contrast, formative assessment is about assessing students “at different points during a particular course,” precisely when many courses typically do not. Formative assessments are also about generating information and ideas about what professors do in the classroom. Such assessment methods include quizzes, midterms, drafts, rubrics, and more. Again, professors are not required to show students the results of such assessments, but must maintain and collect the data for institutional purposes—to help law schools track how students are learning material during the semester and to make long-term improvements.

And/or see a Google query on “ABA new formative assessment standards”

“Retrieval practice” is a learning strategy where we focus on getting information out. Through the act of retrieval, or calling information to mind, our memory for that information is strengthened and forgetting is less likely to occur. Retrieval practice is a powerful tool for improving learning without more technology, money, or class time.

On this website (and in our free Retrieval Practice Guide), we discuss how to use retrieval practice to improve learning. Established by nearly 100 years of research, retrieval practice is a simple and powerful technique to transform teaching and learning.

In order to improve learning, we must approach it through a new lens – let’s focus not on getting information “in,” but on getting information “out.”

What is retrieval practice?
Retrieval practice is a strategy in which bringing information to mind enhances and boosts learning. Deliberately recalling information forces us to pull our knowledge “out” and examine what we know.

For instance, recalling an answer to a science question improves learning to a greater extent than looking up the answer in a textbook. And having to actually recall and write down an answer to a flashcard improves learning more than thinking that you know the answer and flipping the card over prematurely.

Often, we think we’ve learned some piece of information, but we come to realize we struggle when we try to recall the answer. It’s precisely this “struggle” or challenge that improves our memory and learning – by trying to recall information, we exercise or strengthen our memory, and we can also identify gaps in our learning.

Note that cognitive scientists used to refer to retrieval practice as “the testing effect.” Prior research examined the fascinating finding that tests (or short quizzes) dramatically improve learning. More recently, researchers have demonstrated that more than simply tests and quizzes improve learning: flashcards, practice problems, writing prompts, etc. are also powerful tools for improving learning.

Whether this powerful strategy is called retrieval practice or the testing effect, it is important to keep in mind that the act of pulling information “out” from our minds dramatically improves learning, not the tests themselves. In other words retrieval is the active process we engage in to boost learning; tests and quizzes are merely methods to promote retrieval.

Also on that site:

Learn more about this valuable book with our:

Summaries of each chapter in Make it Stick
Sketchnotes by Krystyna Gadd and Mary Kemper
Recommended research articles by leading experts

Also on that site:

Excerpt from the Interleaved Mathematics Practice guide (on page 8 of 13):

Interleaved practice gives students a chance to choose a strategy.
When practice problems are arranged so that consecutive problems cannot be solved by the same strategy, students are forced to choose a strategy on the basis of the problem itself. This gives students a chance to both choose and use a strategy.

…

Interleaved practice works.
In several randomized control studies, students who received mostly interleaved practice scored higher on a final test than did students who received mostly blocked practice.

From DSC:
Speaking of resources regarding learning…why don’t we have posters in all of our schools, colleges, community colleges, universities, vocational training centers, etc. that talk about the most effective strategies to learn about new things?

“The scary amount that college will cost in the future” DC: This line of thinking — and trend — needs to come to an end.

On 05/18/2018, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, business side of he, change, changing business models, colleges, community colleges, cost of getting a degree, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, future of higher education, higher education, ideas, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning spaces, liberal arts, library / librarians, lifelong learning, microlearning, more voice more choice more control, online learning, parents/guardians, personalized/customized learning, platforms, reinvent, smart classrooms, society, streams of content, student-related, technologies for your home, technology (general), tools, trends, United States, universities, youth, by Daniel Christian

The scary amount that college will cost in the future — from cnbc.com by Annie Nova

Excerpt:

Think college is expensive now? Then new parents will probably want to take a seat for this news.

In 2036, just 18 years from now, four years at a private university will be around $303,000, up from $167,000 today.

To get a degree at a public university you’ll need about $184,000, compared with $101,000 now.

These forecasts were provided by Wealthfront, an automated investment platform that offers college saving options. It uses Department of Education data on the current cost of schools along with expected annual inflation to come up with its projections.

Excerpted graphic:

From DSC:
We had better be at the end of the line of thinking that says these tuition hikes can continue. It’s not ok. More and more people will be shut out by this kind of societal gatekeeper. The ever-increasing cost of obtaining a degree has become a matter of social justice for me. Other solutions are needed. The 800 pound gorilla of debt that’s already being loaded onto more and more of our graduates will impact them for years…even for decades in many of our graduates’ cases.

It’s my hope that a variety of technologies will make learning more affordable, yet still provide a high quality of education. In fact, I’m hopeful that the personalization/customization of learning will take some major steps forward in the very near future. We will still need and want solid teachers, professors, and trainers, but I’m hopeful that those folks will be aided by the heavy lifting that will be done by some powerful tools/technologies that will be aimed at helping people learn and grow…providing lifelong learners with more choice, more control.

I love the physical campus as much as anyone, and I hope that all students can have that experience if they want it. But I’ve seen and worked with the high costs of building and maintaining physical spaces — maintaining our learning spaces, dorms, libraries, gyms, etc. is very expensive.

I see streams of content becoming more prevalent in the future — especially for lifelong learners who need to reinvent themselves in order to stay marketable. We will be able to subscribe and unsubscribe to curated streams of content that we want to learn more about. For example, today, that could involve RSS feeds and Feedly (to aggregate those feeds). I see us using micro-learning to help us encode information and then practice recalling it (i.e., spaced practice), to help us stop or lessen the forgetting curves we all experience, to help us sort information into things we know and things that we need more assistance on (while providing links to resources that will help us obtain better mastery of the subject(s)).

Are you telling stories in the classroom? — from teaching.berkeley.edu by Melanie Green

Excerpts:

Stories can make a subject accessible and even interesting… [Storytelling] can provide value, turn something abstract or obscure into something concrete.
…
Stories:

make a subject relatable and accessible to students
can pique interest, or demonstrate relevance, in a subject that students usually dislike, or worse, find mind-numbing
build meaning-making (there’s that word again), helping students to recall the information later
forge, or repave, paths to material that students already thought they knew, making way for new perspectives, connections, and experiences to develop through someone else’s story
make a subject approachable

From DSC:
The Master Teacher also used stories (parables) to teach people:

If our Creator/Designer did so, I think we should take a serious look at doing so as well.

A huge “Thank you!” to all of the teachers out there!

On 05/09/2018, in accessibility / UDL, Daniel S. Christian, hearts -- matters of the heart, K-12 related, neurodivergent/special needs, passions, society, teachers, teaching & learning, youth, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
I’m very grateful for the teachers that I’ve had in my life as well as for the teachers that our children have had throughout their lives! (This goes for the coaches and pastors that have been in our lives as well!) Many of those teachers really went the extra mile — making personal sacrifices while they contributed the additional time and efforts that it took to get the job done.

Teaching and learning is messy and very tough work. For example, it’s very difficult — if not impossible — to simultaneously provide personalized/customized learning to 25-30+ students (and to do so every day)!

Not every student has the same prior knowledge.
Not every student has the same capabilities; some students have additional/special needs to help them learn.
Not every student learns at the same pace.
Not every student has the same goals.
Not every student has the same interests and/or passions.

The job can be very stressful, for a variety of reasons — one of which is that teachers have to deal with all kinds of agendas that are simultaneously coming at them.

So thank you to all the teachers out there who are making significant contributions to others’ lives.

Thank you for your service to others!

#TeacherAppreciationWeek2018

DC: How soon before we can do this with learning-related spaces/scenes/ALCs & more?

On 05/02/2018, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, attention, business side of he, change, changing business models, colleges, communications, communities of practice, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, digital storytelling, disruption, drama/theater, education technology, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning spaces, lifelong learning, love of learning, more voice more choice more control, multimedia, music, personalized/customized learning, platforms, play, professional development, society, tools, training / L&D, trends, vendors, virtual field trips, virtual K-12 schools, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, virtual tutoring, vision/possibilities, web-based collaboration, webinars, by Daniel Christian

From DSC regarding Virtual Reality-based apps:
If one can remotely select/change their seat at a game or change seats/views at a concert…how soon before we can do this with learning-related spaces/scenes/lectures/seminars/Active Learning Classrooms (ALCs)/stage productions (drama) and more?

Talk about getting someone’s attention and engaging them!

Excerpt:

(MAY 2, 2018) MelodyVR, the world’s first dedicated virtual reality music platform that enables fans to experience music performances in a revolutionary new way, is now available.

The revolutionary MelodyVR app offers music fans an incredible selection of immersive performances from today’s biggest artists. Fans are transported all over the world to sold-out stadium shows, far-flung festivals and exclusive VIP sessions, and experience the music they love.

What MelodyVR delivers is a unique and world-class set of original experiences, created with multiple vantage points, to give fans complete control over what they see and where they stand at a performance. By selecting different Jump Spots, MelodyVR users can choose to be in the front row, deep in the crowd, or up-close-and-personal with the band on stage.

See their How it Works page.

With standalone VR headsets like the Oculus Go now available at an extremely accessible price point ($199), the already vibrant VR market is set to grow exponentially over the coming years. Current market forecasts suggest over 350 million users by 2021 and last year saw $3 billion invested in virtual and alternative reality.

DC: We should change the color of the ink that we use to grade papers from red to green!

On 04/28/2018, in assessment, Daniel S. Christian, homeschooling/homeschoolers, ideas, K-12 related, learning, love of learning, mathematics, science, society, student teaching/teacher education, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, virtual K-12 schools, visualizing information, writing, youth, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
I vote that we change the color that we grade papers — whether on paper (harcopy) or whether via digitally/electronically-based annotations — from red to green. Why? Because here’s how I see the colors:

RED:
- Failure.
- You got it wrong. Bad job.
- Danger
- Stop!
- Can be internalized as, “I’m no good at (writing, math, social studies, science, etc…..) and I’ll never be any good at it (i.e., the fixed mindset; I was born this way and I can’t change things).
GREEN:
- Growth
  - As in spring, flowers appearing, new leaves on the trees, new life
  - As in support of a growth mindset
  - It helps with more positive thoughts/internalized messages: I may have got it wrong, but I can use this as a teaching moment; this feedback helps me grow…it helps me identify my knowledge and/or skills gaps
- Health
- Go (not stop); i.e., keep going, keep learning
- May help develop more of a love of learning (or at least have more positive experiences with learning, vs feeling threatened or personally put down)

From DSC:
As important as being able to effectively communicate with others is, I think we could do a better job throughout the entire learning continuum of proving more coaching in this regard. We should provide far more courses, and/or e-learning based modules, and/or examples where someone is being coached on how best to communicate in a variety of situations.

Some examples/scenarios along the continuum (i.e, pre-K-12, higher ed and/or vocational work, and the workplace) might include:

For children communicating with each other
- How to ask if someone wants to play (and how best to find an activity everyone wants to do; or how to handle getting a no each time)
- How to handle a situation where one’s friend is really angry about something or is being extra quiet about something
- How to listen
For children communicating with adults (and vice versa)
- How to show respect
- How to listen
- Not being shy but feeling free to say what’s on their mind with a known/respected adult
For highschoolers
- Wondering how best to interview for that new job
- For communicating with parents
- How to handle issues surrounding diversity and showing respect for differences
- How to listen
For college students
- Wondering how best to interview for that new job
- Encouraging them to use their professors’ office hours — and to practice communication-related skills therein as well
- For communicating with parents, and vice versa
- How to listen
For those entering the workplace
- How to communicate with co-workers
- For dealing with customers who are irate about something that happened (or didn’t happen) to them
- How to listen
For managers and their communications with their employees
- How to encourage
- How to handle disciplinary issues or change behaviors
- How to listen
For leaders and their communications with their departments, staffs, companies, organizations
- How to inspire, guide, lead
- How to listen

I intentionally inserted the word listen many times in the above scenarios, as I don’t think we do enough about — or even think about — actively developing that skill.

The manner in which we deliver and engage learners here could vary:

One possible way would be to use interactive videos that pause at critical points within conversations and ask the listeners how they would respond at these points in the scenarios. They might have 2-3 choices per decision point. When the video continues, based upon which selection they went with, the learner could see how things panned out when they pursued that route.
Or perhaps we could host some seminars or workshops with students on how to use web-based collaboration tools (videoconferencing and/or audio only based meetings) and/or social media related tools.
Or perhaps such training could occur in more face-to-face environments with 2 or more learners reading a scene-setting script, then pausing at critical points in the conversation for students to discuss the best possible responses
….and I’m sure there are other methods that could be employed as well.

But for all the talk of the importance of communications, are we doing enough to provide effective examples/coaching here?

Some thoughts on this topic from scripture

James 1:19-20 (NIV)
Listening and Doing
19 My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, 20 because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.

Proverbs 21:23 (NIV)
23 Those who guard their mouths and their tongues keep themselves from calamity.

Proverbs 18:20-21 (NIV)
20 From the fruit of their mouth a person’s stomach is filled; with the harvest of their lips they are satisfied. 21 The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.

Proverbs 12:18-19 (NIV)
18 The words of the reckless pierce like swords, but the tongue of the wise brings healing. 19 Truthful lips endure forever, but a lying tongue lasts only a moment.

To Microsoft, Google, Apple, Epson, Creston, Extron, & other relevant vendors: This is how you could help us implement #AR/#MR in Active Learning Classrooms! [Christian]

On 04/20/2018, in 21st century, A/V -- audio/visual, active learning, Augmented Reality (AR), cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, collaboration, communications, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, digital video, education technology, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, face-to-face, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, internet, K-12 related, law schools, learning ecosystem, learning spaces, machine-to-machine communications, Microsoft, mirroring and/or multiple devices, Mixed Reality (MR), mobile technologies, multi-touch, multimedia, online media, platforms, presentations, second screen apps, smart classrooms, student-related, tablets, teaching & learning, tools, universities, usability, user experience (UX), user interface design, vendors, vision/possibilities, visualizing information, by Daniel Christian

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From DSC:
So regardless of what was being displayed up on any given screen at the time, once a learner was invited to use their devices to share information, a graphical layer would appear on the learner’s mobile device — as well as up on the image of the screens (but the actual images being projected on the screens would be shown in the background in a muted/pulled back/25% opacity layer so the code would “pop” visually-speaking) — letting him or her know what code to enter in order to wirelessly share their content up to a particular screen. This could be extra helpful when you have multiple screens in a room.

For folks at Microsoft: I could have said Mixed Reality here as well.

#ActiveLearning #AR #MR #IoT #AV #EdTech #M2M #MobileApps
#Sensors #Crestron #Extron #Projection #Epson #SharingContent #Wireless

From DSC:
How do we best help folks impacted by these changes reinvent themselves? And to what? What adjustments to our educational systems do we need to make in order to help people stay marketable and employed?

Given the pace of change and the need for lifelong learning, we need to practice some serious design thinking on our new reality.

The amount of retail space closing in 2018 is on pace to break a record — from cnbc.com by Lauren Thomas

Bon-Ton’s more than 200 stores encompass roughly 24 million square feet.
CoStar Group has calculated already more than 90 million square feet of retail space (including Bon-Ton) is set to close in 2018.
That’s easily on track to surpass a record 105 million square feet of space shuttered in 2017.

Learning Ecosystems

Guiding faculty into immersive environments [Raths]

These amazing pictures of spectacular waves remind me of Psalm 93

A great example of a learning ecosystem!

DC: How soon before we can do this with learning-related spaces/scenes/ALCs & more?

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