From DSC:
This article contains some interesting ideas for professional development.
- DIY PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR TEACHERS AND OTHER LEARNING PROFESSIONALS — from 3starlearningexperiences.wordpress.com by Paul A. Kirschner & Mirjam Neelen
On 11/03/2022,
in 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, animation, Canada, career development, communications, education, education technology, Europe, human-computer interaction (HCI), immersion, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, interaction design, interactivity, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, multimedia, participation, pedagogy, platforms, presentations, productivity / tips and tricks, real-world assignments, simulations, skills, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, technologies for your home, tools, United States, user experience (UX), vendors, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, vision/possibilities, vocational / trades, workplace, XR - extended reality, youth,
by Daniel Christian
Using Virtual Reality for Career Training — from techlearning.com by Erik Ofgang
The Boys & Girls Clubs of Indiana have had success using virtual reality simulations to teach students about career opportunities.
Excerpts:
Virtual reality can help boost CTE programs and teach students about potential careers in fields they may know nothing about, says Lana Taylor from the Indiana Alliance of Boys & Girls Clubs of America.
…
One of those other resources has been a partnership with Transfer VR to provide students access to headsets to participate in career simulations that can give them a tactile sense of what working in certain careers might be like.
“Not all kids are meant to go to college, not all kids want to do it,” Taylor says. “So it’s important to give them some exposure to different careers and workforce paths that maybe they hadn’t thought of before.”
AI interviews in VR prepare students for real jobseeking — from inavateonthenet.net
On 11/02/2022,
in attention, blended learning, change, changing business models, collaboration, Design Thinking, education, education reform, education technology, educational games / serious games, engagement / engaging students, Hyflex learning, ideas, innovation, instructional design, K-12 related, languages and translation, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, learning preferences, learning spaces, love of learning, maker movement, more voice more choice more control, motivation, parents/guardians, participation, passions, pedagogy, project-based learning, teachers, teaching & learning, technology (general), youth,
by Daniel Christian
Innova: A Revolution in Education? — from gettingsmart.com by Chris Terrill
Key Points
- Innova Schools is designed to rapidly cut through the vast inequities that exist and be a lever for change in Latin America.
- Innova has the potential to revolutionize education around the globe.
Excerpts (emphasis DSC):
The initial school start-up was funded by Carlos Rodriguez Pastor, a Peruvian businessman. He saw an opportunity to provide high-quality schools in areas where the government struggled to supply essential education services (Peru and Colombia consistently rank near the bottom on the global education survey). He enlisted the famed US design firm IDEO to develop a comprehensive program that would eventually be utilized in multiple countries.
From DSC:
Stop the presses. I love that idea of using IDEO to be involved here. It seems like that is a positive step towards implementing Design Thinking within our learning ecosystems.
In the original model, the founders designed a rigorous, engaging, personalized curriculum, with a heavy emphasis on Project-Based Learning. I wanted to know if and how that is actualized, and how that is enacted across multiple countries in schools thousands of miles apart.
Finally, IDEO’s work included a design for the physical structure of schools to be quickly and economically replicated at each location; how was that design working? The vision for Innova may be one of the most ambitious educational undertakings today. What lessons can I, as an individual educational leader, and we, as a global education community, learn from their work?
The Maker Space and the Gaming Lab demonstrate clearly how digital competency is a central element of their curriculum. I saw highly engaging lessons that were perfectly synced with classroom projects, pursuing a bigger goal of equipping Colombian students to fill the digital labor gap.
On 10/16/2022,
in adjunct faculty, colleges, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate universities / corporate training, digital learning, digital video, education technology, elearning, engagement / engaging students, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), instructional design, interaction design, interactivity, K-12 related, law schools, learning, Learning Experience Design, learning preferences, pedagogy, simulations, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, teaching online, training / L&D, universities, usability, user experience (UX), user interface design,
by Daniel Christian
How Long Should a Branching Scenario Be?— from christytuckerlearning.com by Christy Tucker
How long should a branching scenario be? Is 45 minutes too long? Is there an ideal length for a branching scenario?
Excerpt:
Most of the time, the branching scenarios and simulations I build are around 10 minutes long. Overall, I usually end up at 5-15 minutes for branching scenarios, with interactive video scenarios being at the longer end.
From DSC:
This makes sense to me, as (up to) 6 minutes turned out to be an ideal length for videos.
Excerpt from Optimal Video Length for Student Engagement — from blog.edx.org
The optimal video length is 6 minutes or shorter — students watched most of the way through these short videos. In fact, the average engagement time of any video maxes out at 6 minutes, regardless of its length. And engagement times decrease as videos lengthen: For instance, on average students spent around 3 minutes on videos that are longer than 12 minutes, which means that they engaged with less than a quarter of the content. Finally, certificate-earning students engaged more with videos, presumably because they had greater motivation to learn the material. (These findings appeared in a recent Wall Street Journal article, An Early Report Card on Massive Open Online Courses and its accompanying infographic.)
The take-home message for instructors is that, to maximize student engagement, they should work with instructional designers and video producers to break up their lectures into small, bite-sized pieces.
On 10/10/2022,
in active learning, adjunct faculty, analytics, assessment, attention, Bias | Diversity Equity & Inclusion (DE&I), biology, chemistry, colleges, community colleges, education, Emotion, engagement / engaging students, faculty/staff, higher education, instructional design, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, metacognition / metacognitive skills, pedagogy, productivity / tips and tricks, professional development, student-related, teaching & learning, universities, vendors,
by Daniel Christian
Learning from Our Students: Student Perspectives on Good Teaching — from everylearnereverywhere.org; with thanks to Beth McMurtrie for this resource
Excerpt (emphasis DSC):
Twenty-two students trusted us with their stories and their reflections on good teaching. We honor that trust and hope that instructors who read this document gain as much insight about teaching from the students as we did. While we often write of students in the plural, each one of these students had an individual experience with learning and therefore a unique story to tell about good teaching. The key takeaways from their stories are:
- Students want to be recognized as individuals and appreciated in the classroom.
- Students want real life in the classroom.
- Students want to be treated with respect and trust.
We hope readers will likewise ask their own students, “What do your best instructors do?” and use that feedback to continuously improve their craft as teachers.
Out of 22 students:
On 09/26/2022,
in adjunct faculty, change, colleges, community colleges, Europe, experimentation, faculty/staff, higher education, ideas, instructional design, law schools, Learning Experience Design, pedagogy, teaching & learning, UK, United States, universities, vision/possibilities,
by Daniel Christian
Just another new Academic Year? Think again! — from The Educationalist by Alexandra Mihai
Excerpt:
Welcome to a new issue of “The Educationalist”! For many of us the new Academic Year just started or is about to start. These are busy times: catching up with our academic (and administrative) duties, reconnecting with colleagues and with students. It’s all too easy to fall back into an old pattern and go into the classroom with the same set of assumptions and expectations from previous years. That’s why I would like to call for a pause. A moment to collect our thoughts and acknowledge where we are. Think of what’s important. I believe this exercise is not a luxury; it is extremely necessary right now as it allows us to take stock of the current situation and decide on our next steps. Intentionally and not “by default”.
But how about letting go of the idea of “normal”? How about we take a moment to meaningfully reflect on our experience in the past three years in a try to see how it shaped the way we teach, learn, work, the way we interact with each other and with our environment?
On 09/22/2022,
in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, adjunct faculty, adult learning, colleges, community colleges, Daniel S. Christian, Design Thinking, distance education, education technology, engagement / engaging students, experimentation, face-to-face, faculty/staff, higher education, Hyflex learning, ideas, innovation, instructional design, law schools, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning preferences, learning spaces, pedagogy, smart classrooms, teaching & learning, universities,
by Daniel Christian
Course Awareness in HyFlex: Managing unequal participation numbers — from hyflexlearning.org by Candice Freeman
Excerpt:
How do you teach a HyFlex course when the number of students in various participation modes is very unequal? How do you teach one student in a mode – often in the classroom? Conversely, you could ask how do you teach 50 asynchronous students with very few in the synchronous mode(s)? Answers will vary greatly depending from teacher to teacher. This article suggests a strategy called Course Awareness, a mindfulness technique designed to help teachers envision each learner as being in the instructor’s presence and engaged in the instruction regardless of participation (or attendance) mode choice.
From DSC:
I had understood the hyflex teaching model as addressing both online-based (i.e., virtual/not on-site) and on-site/physically-present students at the same time — and that each student could choose the manner in which they wanted to attend that day’s class. For example, on one day, a student could take the course in room 123 of Anderson Hall. The next time the class meets, that same student could attend from their dorm room.
But this article introduces — at least to me — the idea that we have a third method of participating in the hyflex model — asynchronously (i.e., not at the same time). So rather than making their way to Anderson Hall or attending from their dorm, that same student does not attend at the same time as other students (either virtually or physically). That student will likely check in with a variety of tools to catch up with — and contribute to — the discussions. As the article mentions:
Strategically, you need to employ web-based resources designed to gather real-time information over a specified period of time, capturing all students and not just students engaging live. For example, Mentimeter, PollEverywhere, and Sli.do allow the instructor to pose engaging, interactive questions without limiting engagement time to the instance the question is initially posed. These tools are designed to support both synchronous and asynchronous participation.
So it will be interesting to see how our learning ecosystems morph in this area. Will there be other new affordances, pedagogies, and tools that take into consideration that the faculty members are addressing synchronous and asynchronous students as well as online and physically present students? Hmmm…more experimentation is needed here, as well as more:
- Research
- Instructional design
- Design thinking
- Feedback from students and faculty members
Will this type of model work best in the higher education learning ecosystem but not the K-12 learning ecosystem? Will it thrive with employees within the corporate realm? Hmmm…again, time will tell.
And to add another layer to the teaching and learning onion, now let’s talk about multimodal learning. This article, How to support multimodal learning” by Monica Burns, mentions that:
Multimodal learning is a teaching concept where using different senses simultaneously helps students interact with content at a deeper level. In the same way we learn through multiple types of media in our own journey as lifelong learners, students can benefit from this type of learning experience.
The only comment I have here is that if you think that throwing a warm body into a K12 classroom fixes the problem of teachers leaving the field, you haven’t a clue how complex this teaching and learning onion is. Good luck to all of those people who are being thrown into the deep end — and essentially being told to sink or swim.
On 09/15/2022,
in art, content development, aggregation, repositories, creativity, curriculum, design, digital audio, digital learning, digital photography, digital storytelling, education, graphics, ideas, K-12 related, learning, Learning Experience Design, learning preferences, love of learning, media/film, Michigan, multimedia, music, online media, participation, passions, pedagogy, podcasting, productivity / tips and tricks, professional development, skills, STEAM-related, story, storytelling, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, tools, United States, vendors, vision/possibilities, web design and production, youth,
by Daniel Christian
Arts Integration and STEAM Resources for K-12 Educators
Official Trailer (Art Works for Teachers)
Excerpt:
Introducing the Art Works for Teacher Podcast Trailer! Get a quick sneak peek at what you can expect from this new show, launching September 22, 2022. New episodes will be available each Thursday on your favorite podcast platform, on YouTube, and right here on our site.
From DSC:
Along these lines, also see WEST MICHIGAN CENTER FOR ARTS + TECHNOLOGY. Such a learning environment builds skills and creativity while supercharging participation and engagement!
