On 06/11/2021,
in adjunct faculty, colleges, community colleges, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, instructional design, K-12 related, law schools, learner profiles, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, learning preferences, liberal arts, metacognition / metacognitive skills, podcasting, society, student teaching/teacher education, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, tools, universities, web-based collaboration, youth,
by Daniel Christian
Why Professors Should Ask Students For Feedback Long Before the Semester Is Over — from edsurge.com by Rebecca Koenig
This article is part of the guide Better, Faster, Stronger: How Learning Engineering Aims to Transform Education.
Excerpt:
About a month into each semester, Gayle Golden sets aside a little time to ask her students about their learning.
The journalism instructor at the University of Minnesota keeps the process simple, with brief questions similar to these:
- What should keep happening in this class?
- What should we start doing in this class?
- What should we stop doing in this class?
Golden collects the results, which students give anonymously, then studies the feedback and makes a list of all the information she’s received. During the next class period, she discusses the findings with her students. She tells them which suggestions she plans to put into practice, which recommendations she can’t act on, and why.
From DSC:
Speaking of feedback…
I think it would be good to have our students journal about their learning — integrating their notes, readings, experiments, lectures, etc. Students could check in on these 3 questions for example.
And in the (potentially) digital process, they could also submit a form to their faculty member to answer the question:
- What do I want my professor to know about my learning experience today?
Such a question could be electronically delivered to the professor on any given day. This type of feedback loop would provide real-time, formative feedback to the professor as well as help the students develop their metacognitive skills.
I would think that such a process could also be used within the K-12 realm, including homeschoolers.
Also from edsurge.com, see:
- How to Use Podcasts in Teaching — by Bonni Stachowiak
- To Support Black Male Teachers, A Nonprofit is Paying Off Student Loans — by Jeffrey R. Young
- Millions of Students Are Still Without WiFi and Tech—Why Haven’t Policymakers Stepped Up? — by Mary Jo Madda
Six postings designed to help students learn how to study effectively [Megan Smith & Yana Weinstein]
On 05/10/2021,
in adjunct faculty, adult learning, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, education, face-to-face, faculty, heutagogy, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, instructional design, K-12 related, law schools, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, liberal arts, memory, metacognition / metacognitive skills, pedagogy, productivity / tips and tricks, research, student teaching/teacher education, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, teaching online, tools, training / L&D, universities, workplace, youth,
by Daniel Christian
Learn How To Study Using… Dual Coding — from learningscientists.org by Megan Smith & Yana Weinstein
Excerpt:
This is the final post in a series of six posts designed to help students learn how to study effectively. You can find the other five here:
- Learn How to Study Using… Retrieval Practice
- Learn How to Study Using… Elaboration
- Learn How to Study Using… Spaced Practice
- Learn How to Study Using… Interleaving
- Learn How to Study Using… Concrete Examples
What is dual coding?
Dual coding is the process of combining verbal materials with visual materials. There are many ways to visually represent material, such as with infographics, timelines, cartoon strips, diagrams, and graphic organizers.
When you have the same information in two formats – words and visuals – it gives you two ways of remembering the information later on. Combining these visuals with words is an effective way to study.
Now, look at only the visuals and explain what they mean in your own words. Then, take the words from your class materials and draw your own visuals to go along with them!
From DSC:
As the authors comment, this is NOT about learning styles (as research doesn’t back up the hypothesis of learning styles):
When we discuss verbal and visual materials, it does sound like we could be referring to learning styles. However, it is important to remember that a great deal of research has shown that assessing your learning style and then matching your study to that “style” is not useful, and does not improve learning (2). (For more, read this piece.)
On 11/05/2020,
in A/V -- audio/visual, adjunct faculty, adult learning, animation, Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Deep Learning / Algorithms, attention, colleges, community colleges, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, digital audio, digital learning, digital storytelling, digital textbooks, distance education, education, engagement / engaging students, faculty, graphics, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, ideas, instructional design, K-12 related, law schools, learning, Learning Experience Design, learning preferences, learning theories, liberal arts, love of learning, media/film, memory, metacognition / metacognitive skills, more voice more choice more control, motivation, online learning, online tutoring, participation, passions, platforms, remote teaching and learning, simulations, student teaching/teacher education, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, teaching online, training / L&D, universities,
by Daniel Christian
From DSC:
Many people talk about engagement when they discuss learning, and with good reason. It seems to me that what they are really getting at is the topic of getting and maintaining someone’s *attention.* Attention is the gatekeeper to further learning. I wonder if some of the next generation learning platforms that employ some level of Artificial Intelligence (AI)-enabled features, will look to a learner’s preferences (as stored in their cloud-based learner’s profile) in order to help gain/maintain such attention.
And this also helps explain why allowing more learner agency — i.e., more choice, more control — in pursuing their own interests and passions really helps: A motivated learner is paying closer attention to what’s going on.
From DSC:
And along these lines, that’s one of the key reasons I’d like to see more involvement from the Theatre Departments, Computer Science Departments, and from those involved with creative writing across the land — in terms of helping develop content for remote and online-based education. Actors, actresses, set designers, costumer designers, audio/video editors, programmers/software developers, and more who could collaborate on these kinds of ideas.
Last comment on this. I don’t mean that we should present our classes like many advertisements do (i.e., running a thousand images by me within 30 seconds). But changing things up periodically — both visually and audibly — can help regain/reset your students’ attentions.
On 07/21/2020,
in adjunct faculty, attention, collaboration, colleges, communications, community colleges, Daniel S. Christian, distance education, education technology, engagement / engaging students, higher education, ideas, innovation, instructional design, IT in HE, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, metacognition / metacognitive skills, online learning, pedagogy, platforms, presentations, productivity / tips and tricks, professional development, remote teaching and learning, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, teaching online, telepresence, tools, universities, user experience (UX), vendors, videoconferencing,
by Daniel Christian
Pedagogical considerations for instructional videoconferencing sessions — from onlinelearningconsortium.org by Amanda Major
Excerpt:
Presented here are recommendations and strategies to support educators.
We hope you find these pedagogical considerations for faculty holding a synchronous class session via a video conferencing tool as timely, practical, and rewarding. The intent is to allay your anxieties about offering quality instruction to your students; thereby, helping you to adapt quickly to this new situation.
The ending points of your content delivery should make a lasting impression. Try these ideas:
-
- Wrap-up your session with a Parking Lot designed as a quadrant (see below), use a shared document and include the following quadrant headings/questions so students can respond in real time:
Also see the idea of a learning journal here.
On 07/11/2020,
in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, adjunct faculty, adult learning, Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Deep Learning / Algorithms, blended learning, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, colleges, communications, 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, distance education, education, education technology, elearning, emerging technologies, faculty, flipping -- inverted learning, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), hybrid learning, ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, K-12 related, law schools, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, memory, metacognition / metacognitive skills, microlearning, multimedia, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, online learning, online media, online tutoring, platforms, presentations, productivity / tips and tricks, remote teaching and learning, teachers, teaching & learning, teaching online, tools, training / L&D, universities, usability, user experience (UX), vendors, videoconferencing, virtual K-12 schools, vision/possibilities, webinars, workplace,
by Daniel Christian
From DSC:
As I’ve been listening to some sermons on my iPhone, I end up taking visual snapshots of the times that they emphasize something. Here are some examples:
Which got me to thinking…while tools like Panopto* give us something along these lines, they don’t present to the student what the KEY POINTS were in any given class session.
So professors — in addition to teachers, trainers, pastors, presenters, etc. — should be able to quickly and easily instruct the software to create a visual table of contents of key points based upon which items the professor favorited or assigned a time signature to. I’m talking about a ONE keystroke or ONE click of the mouse type of thing to instruct the software to take a visual snapshot of that point in time (AI could even be used to grab the closest image without someone’s eyes shut). At the end of the class, there are then just a handful of key points that were made, with links to those time signatures.
At the end of a course, a student could easily review the KEY POINTS that were made throughout the last ___ weeks.
****
But this concept falls apart if there are too many things to remember. So when a professor presents the KEY POINTs to any given class, they must CURATE the content. (And by the way, that’s exactly why pastors normally focus on only 3-4 key points…otherwise, it gets too hard to walk away with what the sermon was about.)
****
One could even build upon the table of contents. For example…for any given class within a law school’s offerings, the professor (or another team member at the instructions of the professor) could insert links to:
- Relevant chapters or sections of a chapter in the textbook
- Journal articles
- Cases
- Rules of law
- Courts’ decisions
- Other
****
And maybe even:
- That’s the kind of “textbook” — or learning modules — that we’ll move towards creating in the first place.
. - That’s the form of learning we’ll see more of when we present streams of up-to-date content to folks using a next-generation learning platform.
. - Future webinars could piggyback off of this concept as well. Dive as deep as you want to into something…or just take away the main points (i.e., the Cliff notes/summaries) of a presentation.
At the end of the day, if your communication isn’t in a digital format, there is no playback available. What’s said is said…and gone.
* The functionality discussed here would take a day’s worth of work for a developer at Panopto (i.e., give a presenter a way to favorite existing TOC items and/or to assign a time signature to slots of time in a recording) — but it would save people and students sooooo much time. Such functionality would help us stay up-to-date — at least at a basic level of understanding — on a variety of topics.
On 05/07/2020,
in adjunct faculty, adult learning, blended learning, bots, career development, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, education, engagement / engaging students, face-to-face, faculty, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, hybrid learning, ideas, instructional design, K-12 related, law schools, learning, learning ecosystem, learning theories, memory, metacognition / metacognitive skills, motivation, pedagogy, personalized/customized learning, productivity / tips and tricks, professional development, psychology, special needs, strategy, student teaching/teacher education, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, teaching online, United States, universities,
by Daniel Christian
From DSC:
Here’s an idea that I’ve been thinking about for quite some time now. It’s not necessarily a new idea, but the seed got planted in me by a former colleague, Quin Schultze (which I blogged about in January of 2018). I’m calling it, “My Learning Journal.” The purpose of this device is to promote your metacognition — helping you put things into your own words and helping you identify your knowledge gaps.
I realize that such a learning strategy/tool could take some time to complete. But it could pay off — big time! Give it a try for a few weeks and see what you think.
And, with a shout-out to Mr. James McGrath, the President of the WMU-Cooley Law School, the article listed below explains the benefits of taking the time for such reflection:
Reflective learning – reflection as a strategic study technique — from open.edu
Excerpts:
Rather than thinking of reflection as yet another task to be added to your ‘to do’ list or squeezed into a busy study schedule, view it as something to practice at any stage. The emphasis is on being a reflective learner rather than doing reflective learning.
Developing a habit of reflective learning will help you to:
- evaluate your own progress
- monitor and manage your own performance
- self-motivate
- keep focus on your learning goals
- think differently about how you can achieve your goals by evaluating your study techniques, learning strategies and whether these best fit your current needs, identifying your skills development needs or gaps in knowledge
- think about and overcome what may be blocking your learning by using a different approach, or setting more pragmatic (realistic/achievable) goals
- support and enrich your professional practice ensuring that you are better placed to respond to and manage new, unexpected and complex situations – a key requirement at Master’s level.
From DSC:
Pastors, trainers, K-12 educators, student teachers, coaches, musical teachers, and others: Perhaps a slightly modified version of this tool might be beneficial to those with whom you work as well…?
And for educators and trainers, perhaps we should use such a tool to think about our own teaching and training methods — and what we are (or aren’t) learning ourselves.
Addendum on 5/14/20:
Perhaps someone will build a bot for this type of thing, which prompts us to reflect upon these things. Here are some examples of what I’m talking about or something like Woebot, which Jeremy Caplan mentioned here.