face-to-face

Learning ecosystems across the globe are going through massive changes! [Christian]

On 03/25/2020, in adjunct faculty, adult learning, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Asia, Australia, business side of he, Canada, change, CMS/LMS, collaboration, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, digital audio, digital learning, digital storytelling, digital textbooks, digital video, disruption, distance education, education, education technology, elearning, Europe, face-to-face, faculty/staff, flipping -- inverted learning, game-changing environment, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, ideas, India, instructional design, internet, IT in HE, K-12 related, law schools, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning spaces, Michigan, mobile learning, multimedia, online learning, online media, online tutoring, parents/guardians, pedagogy, personalized/customized learning, platforms, reinvent, remote teaching and learning, society, staying relevant, student-related, surviving, teachers, teaching & learning, teaching online, technologies for your home, telecommunications, telepresence, television, tools, training / L&D, TVs, UK, United States, universities, user experience (UX), videoconferencing, virtual field trips, virtual K-12 schools, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, virtual tutoring, vision/possibilities, web-based collaboration, webinars, workplace, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
Due to the impacts of the Coronavirus, learning ecosystems across the globe are going through massive changes!

Each of us has our own learning ecosystem, and the organizations that we work for have their own learning ecosystems as well. Numerous teachers, professors, and trainers around the world are now teaching online. Their toolboxes are expanding with the addition of several new tools and some new knowledge. I believe that will be one of the silver linings from the very tough situations/times that we find ourselves in.

Expanding our teaching toolboxes

At the WMU-Cooley Law School, our learning ecosystem is also fluid and continues to morph. This blog posting speaks to those changes.

Learning from the Living [Class] Room: Due to the impacts from the Coronavirus, this is happening today across many countries. But this vision is just beginning to develop. We haven’t seen anything yet.

Some resources for teaching at home

On 03/22/2020, in 24x7x365 access, active learning, art, Daniel S. Christian, digital audio, digital learning, digital storytelling, digital textbooks, digital video, e-publishing related items (EPUB and more), elearning, engagement / engaging students, face-to-face, homeschooling/homeschoolers, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, multimedia, neurodivergent/special needs, online learning, online media, online tutoring, open courseware and systems, parents/guardians, participation, passions, personalized/customized learning, play, reading, remote teaching and learning, society, student-related, teaching & learning, tools, United States, youth, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
Below are some resources for teaching at home. And some of this (much of this?) is not typical homeschooling, just as much of what’s being done out there isn’t necessarily typical online-based learning. And some out there may not like such lists, and would prefer a detailed report on just one tool. But this last week was incredibly busy — and time is not a luxury I have right now. And these resources might provide someone out there with just the right tool or pedagogy that they’ve been looking for.

Also, I might suggest:

Creating a Google alert (google.com/alerts) on HSLDA, on homeschooling, on homeschoolers, and/or on related searches.
Create a Keyword Alert on an RSS aggregator such as Feedly
Follow relevant hashtags on Twitter such as #homeschooling

Some analog ideas:

Reading a book together
Watching a play, drama, or another type of program together
Taking a walk out in nature together
Gather together as a family and/or lingering over breakfast or dinner
Drawing
Painting
Taking pictures

And now is a great time to see what your child or children WANT TO LEARN ABOUT! Turn over the control to them for a while — and watch what happens when intrinsic motivation takes hold!

Not a teacher but find yourself homeschooling? These educational apps are free — from parade.com by Stephanie Osmanski

This posting covers 25 Free Learning Apps

We are all homeschoolers now (podcast) — from cato.org featuring Kerry McDonald and Caleb Brown
Thanks to COVID-19, many parents find themselves with kids at home all day. What’s the best way to keep them engaged in their educations? Kerry McDonald, author of Unschooled, comments.

Getting Smart’s Getting Through

Free, Online Learning Resources When Coronavirus Closes Schools — from cato.org by Kerry McDonald

Homeschooling Mother and Author: 6 Ideas For Parents While Schools Are Closed — from fee.org by Kerry McDonald
Amid the Covid-19 lockdown, there are steps parents can take to make time at home with their children more rewarding and tolerable.

Apps for Special Needs Students—As School Buildings Shutter — from edutopia.org by Janey Clare
The coronavirus creates a unique challenge for special needs students—educators share recommendations for apps to support learning at home.

How to Support Home Learning in Elementary Grades — from edutopia.org by John Thomas
A first and second grade teacher shares his home learning plan for his students and how he is engaging their families.

6 Lessons Learned About Remote Learning During the Coronavirus Outbreak — from blogs.edweek.org by Mark Lieberman

DSC: These items hit home to the world I live in…big time! What a riot!

On 03/19/2020, in adjunct faculty, Canvas - and other Instructure-related items, CMS/LMS, colleges, community colleges, education technology, face-to-face, faculty/staff, higher education, learning, learning ecosystem, multimedia, music, online learning, remote teaching and learning, teaching online, United States, universities, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
With a shout out to a colleague of mine for these resources:

DC: This hits home to the world I live in…big time! What a riot! I appreciate this faculty member’s sense of humor and his love of music too!https://t.co/RXaEkAIlCi

— Daniel Christian (@dchristian5) March 19, 2020

Also see:

Welcome to your hastily prepared online college course — from mcsweeneys.net by Ryan Weber

This cracks me up too!https://t.co/LvISVTr0EK

— Daniel Christian (@dchristian5) March 19, 2020

My wife sent me this video from John Bennett, a math teacher. This was posted to YouTube back on 11/8/11.

In fact, if it were up to me, I’d would no longer require math to be taught…in middle school and high school.

NOTES:

300 million people in the U.S. (as John mentioned back in October 2011)
- 1.5 million engineers
- 1/2 of a percent; and you can add another 1/2 of a percent for other kinds of jobs that require that kind of math
- That leaves 99% of us in the United States who don’t use what we learned about in middle school and high school math classes. But the problem is, math has caused major stress for people in the last 40 years.
John Bennett had some major cognitive dissonance to the reasons WHY he was suggesting his students know the math concepts that he was trying to relay.
He came to ask, “When do most of us use math in real life?”
- Money. Financial stuff. Balancing checkbook. Tipping. Cooking and carpentry.
Why are we still teaching algebra? Because it teaches us about inductive and deductive reasoning. Math helps us develop that kind of reasoning.
So a better plan would be to:
- Let people who want to take math in middle school and high school take it.
- For the rest of the students, provide strategy games and logic puzzles that help develop those cognitive reasoning skills.

From DSC:
When this math teacher meets people out in society, people confess how much stress math brought to them in school….and they’re aren’t joking.

Given that we are all required to be lifelong learners these days, I love what John Bennett is saying here…because we really aren’t serving society at large by requiring math be taught in middle school and high school.

It causes stress and very negative learning experiences for many people.
We don’t use it. (By the way, I could plug and chug ok, but I had no idea what I was doing. No real understanding. I haven’t used algebra and/or calculus since my youth.)

What does it take to change our curricula like that?! Is it possible? I sure hope so.

For those of you who teach and/or give presentations, you might be interested in this new video regarding what’s called “cognitive load” [Christian]

On 03/10/2020, in A/V -- audio/visual, active learning, adjunct faculty, adult learning, attention, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, design, digital audio, digital learning, digital storytelling, digital video, education, elearning, engagement / engaging students, face-to-face, faculty/staff, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, ideas, instructional design, K-12 related, law schools, learning, learning ecosystem, learning theories, multimedia, online learning, pedagogy, presentations, productivity / tips and tricks, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, teaching online, training / L&D, United States, universities, user experience (UX), by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
For those of you who teach and/or give presentations, you might be interested in a new video that I put together regarding cognitive load. It addresses at least two main questions:

What is cognitive load?
and
Why should I care about it?

Transcript here.

How do I put it into practice?

Simplify the explanations of what you’re presenting as much as possible and break down complex tasks into smaller parts
Don’t place a large amount of text on a slide and then talk about it at the same time — doing so requires much more processing than most people can deal with.
Consider creating two versions of your PowerPoint files:
- A text-light version that can be used for presenting that content to students
- A text-heavy version — which can be posted to your LMS for the learners to go through at their own pace — and without trying to process so much information (voice and text, for example) at one time.
Design-wise:
- Don’t use decorative graphics — everything on a slide should be there for a reason
- Don’t use too many fonts or colors — this can be distracting
- Don’t use background music when you are trying to explain something

An analysis of the value of the ways of learning at work — from modernworkplacelearning.com by Jane Hart

However, I think the most interesting profile of them all is for those who are in non-salaried/freelance positions in the workplace (8%). These people still highly value learning from the daily work, but for them learning from professional networking and access to external resources and blogs and feeds is much more important to them than through internal resources and courses. Interestingly, though conferences are valued less than the average profile – which is probably due to cost and the more significant fact that they can learn more efficiently in other ways.

I believe this is the profile that is going to become more and more relevant and important as the work environment changes, where there are no jobs for life and everyone needs to take responsibility for their own learning and development.

For those involved with creating/enhancing learning spaces as they relate to pedagogies

On 02/22/2020, in A/V -- audio/visual, active learning, adjunct faculty, attention, change, changing business models, collaboration, colleges, communications, communities of practice, community colleges, education, education technology, engagement / engaging students, expectations, face-to-face, faculty/staff, generational differences, higher education, ideas, innovation, IT in HE, law schools, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning spaces, multimedia, online learning, online media, online tutoring, pedagogy, platforms, smart classrooms, student-related, teaching & learning, technology (general), telecommunications, telepresence, tools, traditional / tradition, training / L&D, trends, United States, universities, user experience (UX), user interface design, vendors, videoconferencing, vision/possibilities, web-based collaboration, by Daniel Christian

From DSC — and with a shout out to Brad Sousa for this resource:
For those involved with creating/enhancing learning spaces as they relate to pedagogies:

How Has Technology Impacted Higher Education?
In part one of this three-part series, AVI Systems CTO Brad Sousa talks with Jeff Day, Founder of North of 10 Advisors, to discuss the key ways education and, specifically, pedagogy differs from 10, 5, even 3 years ago.

Discussion Topics

The impact of active learning and the introduction of the internet of things (IoT) in the classroom
Recommendations for deploying modern learning environments with technology partners
Classroom systems design, then and now

Some timestamps (roughly speaking)

5:15 — changes in pedagogy
7:15 or so — active learning
15:30 design needs around active learning
17:15 DE rooms and active learning — software-controlled platform
21:30 — advice; look to outcomes & expectations that want to achieve/meet; uses cases

Media controller w/ intuitive interface to mimic the way someone teaches / way a classroom goes:

“Class start” — chaotic; mics on everywhere
“Lecture” — gates /mics closed and focus shifts to the professor
“Class interaction” — presents roster of who’s there (20:00 mark roughly)

Also see this introductory posting re: the implications of active learning in the higher ed market.

Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy — from Iowa State University; with a shout out to Matt Miller for his blog posting entitled, “10 tips for lesson planning writer’s block” — where I saw this reference

Reflections on “What Is the Price of College? Total, Net, and Out-of-Pocket Prices in 2015–16” [Published in Dec 2019]

On 01/17/2020, in 21st century, colleges, community colleges, cost of getting a degree, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, face-to-face, future, future of higher education, higher education, United States, universities, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
This report reminds me of a graphic that Yohan Na and I did 10+ years ago…and the student debt now sits at around $1.5 trillion.

Using Cisco Webex’ Meeting Room, any classroom can become an active learning classroom [Grant & Miller]

On 01/16/2020, in 21st century, A/V -- audio/visual, active learning, attention, Bring your own device (BYOD), collaboration, colleges, community colleges, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, education technology, engagement / engaging students, experimentation, face-to-face, faculty/staff, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, instructional design, IT in HE, K-12 related, law schools, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning spaces, liberal arts, mirroring and/or multiple devices, multimedia, participation, platforms, second screen apps, smart classrooms, student teaching/teacher education, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, teaching online, tools, training / L&D, universities, user experience (UX), vendors, videoconferencing, web-based collaboration, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
If you are using a tool like Cisco Webex in your school, consider implementing the idea below. I’d like to thank Mr. Steve Grant and Mr. Nelson Miller from the WMU-Cooley Law School for their work in implementing/recommending this approach.

If you are using a tool like Cisco Webex, you can use it to share content to displays, laptops, smartphones, and tablets. If the professor starts a Cisco Webex Meeting Center session using their own personal room, the students can then join that meeting via their devices. (To eliminate noise and confusion — as well as to reduce bandwidth — the students should mute their microphones and choose not to send the video from their webcams.)

If you were doing a think-pair-share, for example, and you really liked what a certain pair of students had going on, one of the students could share their work with the rest of the class. By doing so, whatever was going on on that student’s device could be displayed by any projectors in the room, as well as on any other devices that were connected to the Cisco Webex Meeting Room.

“So you could project any student’s work as students proceed with in-class exercises. Projecting student work adds another level of accountability, excitement, and concentration to in-class exercises.”

*********

Also, using the Cisco Webex Meeting Center in your face-to-face classroom not only opens up that sort of collaboration channel, but, via the chat feature, it can also open up a running backchannel to draw out your more introverted students, or those students who have questions but don’t want to have the spotlight thrown on them.

*********

Using a Research-Based Approach – It’s Up to Us [Schwegler]

On 12/21/2019, in adjunct faculty, colleges, community colleges, face-to-face, faculty/staff, higher education, law schools, leadership, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, online learning, research, teaching & learning, universities, by Daniel Christian

Using a Research-Based Approach – It’s Up to Us — from wcetfrontiers.org by Andria Schwegler

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

This discrepancy suggests that perceptions are heavily influenced by idiosyncratic, personal experiences instead of by research.

Nearly a decade ago, a meta-analysis of studies comparing student learning in online, blended, and face-to-face contexts revealed no significant differences in learning across course modality (Means, Toyama, Murphy, Bakia, & Jones, 2010). Today, a growing body of research corroborates no significant differences exist (National Research Center for Distance Education and Technological Advancements, 2019). That some faculty attitudes are not aligned with this information suggests that concerns regarding course delivery are confounded with beliefs about course modality. Leveraging existing research on teaching and learning and conducting new research to address gaps can clarify how to address concerns with course delivery to facilitate students’ ability to meet learning outcomes instead of assuming course modality is the problem.

Learning for a Living [Petriglieri]

On 12/15/2019, in business, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, experimentation, face-to-face, formal learning, heutagogy, informal learning, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning spaces, lifelong learning, pace of change, professional development, society, training / L&D, by Daniel Christian

Learning for a Living — from MIT Sloan Mgmt Review by Gianpiero Petriglieri

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Calls for learning have long been common at corporate retreats, professional conferences, and similar gatherings. But with the furious pace of change that technology has brought to business and society, they have become more urgent. Leaders in every sector seem to agree: Learning is an imperative, not a cliché. Without it, careers derail and companies fail. Talented people flock to employers that promise to invest in their development whether they will stay at the company or not.

If we are after transformative learning, what we need is a familiar yet open frame — a playground of sorts that magnifies our habits and the culture that breeds them so that we can examine both, and imagine and try new ways of being.

A boot camp must replicate workplace constraints to help us master ways of navigating them more efficiently. Whether it’s a course on, say, reaping insights from data analytics or a training session on giving respectful feedback, the space supports practice and improvement. A playground must remove most constraints to promote experimentation. Providing some distance from day-to-day reality allows us to get real in a deeper sense. A boot camp amplifies and exploits the shame of learning, helping us learn how not to be found wanting. A playground exposes and challenges that shame, helping us realize that if we were less anxious, it might be easier to claim what we want and discover how to get it.

From DSC:
A heads up. The way they use the word bootcamp is different from the way I’ve heard that word used these last 5-7 years. I think of bootcamps as more along the lines of a 10-12 week, intensive course — often involving programming. I don’t see them as internal training courses. But this article uses the word bootcamp in that way.

2019 study of undergraduate students & information technology [educause]

On 12/03/2019, in accessibility / UDL, active learning, adjunct faculty, adult learning, analytics, attention, blended learning, CMS/LMS, colleges, community colleges, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, digital learning, education technology, engagement / engaging students, face-to-face, faculty/staff, flipping -- inverted learning, formal learning, higher education, hybrid learning, instructional design, interactivity, internet, IT in HE, learning, learning ecosystem, learning preferences, online learning, pedagogy, platforms, student teaching/teacher education, student-related, teaching & learning, teaching online, training / L&D, United States, universities, by Daniel Christian

2019 study of undergraduate students & information technology — from library.educause.edu

Excerpts:

Drawing on survey data from more than 40,000 students across 118 US institutions, this report highlights a number of important findings related to students’ technology preferences, supports, and experiences, with the goal of aiding technology and higher education professionals in improving student learning experiences and success.
…
But they want to be more than in-class spectators:

“I want my professors to stop reading PowerPoint slides word-for-word off of a screen, and to start using the technology at hand to create a different kind of lecture that will engage their students in the learning process.”
“I’d love for there to be more interactive polling and questions during class. Even though I don’t like the idea of being in lecture every day, that would keep me more engaged if the instructors were more dynamic with their tech use.”
“Integrate [technology] more into lectures. It’s very difficult to sit and watch you talk. Technology can be so beneficial to learning if used in the right ways to enhance and complement lectures. Use collaborative quizzes (Kahoot, etc.), let us research in class, etc.”
“Provide more online learning tools such as interactive lectures where people on laptops or tablets can also engage with the material being presented.”

Figure 2. Student learning environment preferences for specific course-related activities and assignments

Recommendations

Leverage analytics to gain a greater understanding of the student demographics that influence learning environment preferences.
Continue to promote online success tools and provide training to students on their use through orientations and advisement sessions.
Expand efforts to improve Wi-Fi reliability in campus housing and outdoor spaces.
Allow students to use the devices that are most important to their academic success in the classroom.
Establish a campus community to address accessibility issues and give “accessibility evangelists” a seat at the table.

From DSC:
Well students…you might find that you have a major surprise ahead of you — as a significant amount of your future learning/training will take place completely online. Go ask some folks who have graduated about their onboarding experiences. Then go ask people who have been in the workplace for over a decade. You’ll see what I mean.

A lesson in active learning — from characterlab.org
How to make difficulty desirable

Excerpt:

Recently, a group of physics professors at Harvard University ran an experiment you should know about.

There were no balls rolling down planks. No springs or pulleys, no magnets, and no electricity.

What these professors wanted to know was, how can we get students to learn more? More generally, how do people learn anything—and what gets in the way?

Years of experience suggested that students learn best when assigned hands-on laboratory activities, weekly problem sets, in-class opportunities to discuss material with fellow students, and frequent short quizzes. This active approach seemed far superior to the more traditional—and more passive—approach of sage-on-a-stage lectures.

To test their hunch, the professors randomly assigned students in introductory physics to classes using either active or passive instruction. The material was identical—only the style of teaching differed.

The above article reference this item:

Measuring actual learning versus feeling of learning in response to being actively engaged in the classroom — from pnas.org

Also see:

Normalizing struggle — by Catherine Martin Christopher
Abstract:
Learning lawyering skills, and becoming competent or proficient in them, is a struggle. This article is a call to action for all legal educators: We need to acknowledge that students struggle, to expect it, and to convey to students that their struggle is normal. In fact, struggle is productive — learning is hard, and lawyers learn and struggle throughout their careers. This article examines and criticizes the ways legal academia treats law students’ academic struggle as a problem, and suggests that legal educators reorient their attitudes toward struggle, forgiving and embracing student struggle, even building opportunities for struggle into the curriculum. By normalizing the fact of struggle, law schools will not only improve the wellness of their students, but also create lawyers who are better prepared to cope with the constant problem-solving required of successful lawyers.Keywords: Academic success, academic support, legal education, student support, academic struggle, successful lawyers, law school

Addendum on 11/12/19:

Why struggle is essential for the brain — and our lives — from edsurge.com by Jo Boaler

Neuroscientists have found that mistakes are helpful for brain growth and connectivity and if we are not struggling, we are not learning. Not only is struggle good for our brains but people who know about the value of struggle improve their learning potential. This knowledge would not be earth shattering if it was not for the fact that we in the Western world are trained to jump in and prevent learners from experiencing struggle.

How to choose a co-teaching model [Cassel]

On 10/21/2019, in education, face-to-face, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, learning spaces, pedagogy, student teaching/teacher education, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, youth, by Daniel Christian

How to choose a co-teaching model — from edutopia.org by Sean Cassel
Knowing the pros and cons of the six models of co-teaching can help teachers determine which one is best for a given lesson.

Excerpt:

Fortunately, a lot of available research categorizes different models of co-teaching. There are basically six models:

One Teaching, One Observing: One teacher is directly instructing students while the other observes students for evidence of learning.
One Teaching, One Assisting: One teacher is directly instructing students while the other assists individual students as needed.
Parallel Teaching: The class is divided into two groups and each teacher teaches the same information at the same time.
Station Teaching: Each teacher teaches a specific part of the content to different groups as they rotate between teachers.
Alternative Teaching: One teacher teaches the bulk of the students, and the other teaches a small group based on need.
Team Teaching: Both teachers are directly instructing students at the same time—sometimes called “tag team teaching.”

Learning Ecosystems

Reflections on “What Is the Price of College? Total, Net, and Out-of-Pocket Prices in 2015–16” [Published in Dec 2019]

Using a Research-Based Approach – It’s Up to Us [Schwegler]

Learning for a Living [Petriglieri]

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