Embodied Thinking « explore. create. share.

07Sep

Deep Dive MAET Style 47 Hour QF

After watching the Deep Dive videos about the design group IDEO (part 1, part2, part3), two “design groups” were formed (7 students in each group) to embark on the longest QF in the history of MAET.

Assigned on Monday morning of the final week of the MAET overseas program, these groups were asked to created the following by Wednesday morning at 8:30:

- Eight Web based multimedia introductions to each of the sections developed on the companion site for our text Sparks of Genius: http://sparks.wiki.educ.msu.edu/
(that is, the introductions could be any technology that can be embedded in a Web page (video, prezi, audio, combinations, etc.))
- These eight sections related to Sparks chapters as follows: Thinking Differently (chapters 1 and 2); Perceiving (chapters 3 and 4); Patterning (chapters 6 and 7); Abstracting (chapters 5 and 8); Embodied Thinking (chapters 9 and 10); Modeling (chapters 11 and 12); Playing (chapters 13 and 14); and, Synthesizing (chapters 15 and 16).

Project specifications:

- Each individual introduction should be one minute or less

- Each set of eight videos for each group should follow the same genre, approach, style, theme, etc. (that is, team 1 was to design a cohesive set of eight videos, and team 2 their own cohesive set based on a different approach)

- Each introduction should be designed to entice, encourage, compel, or otherwise convince K-12 teachers to read that specific section (collection of two chapters) of Sparks and the companion wiki pages

- Ideas for this project were to be focus grouped with year 1 and year 2 cohort students

Team specifications:

- Each team needed to determine a “lead adult” to lean on when guidance and structure are needed

- Each team will had $25,000 to spend in developing their project. This money could be spent on consulting with course instructors, or on focus groups with year 1 or year 2 students. (Creative questions cost $1,000 per question – technical or content questions cost $500 per question. Each 15 minute focus group with year 1 or year 2 students costs $1,000).

Evaluation:

- On Wednesday morning, all sixteen videos will be shown to a panel of experts. They provided a rating for each set of videos based on the following:

1. Overall creativity of the project
2. Creative use of technology in the project
3. Content accuracy based on Sparks
4. “Quality” as defined (or not defined) by Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

- Students were told only one set of videos would be selected for integration with the wiki, and that they would be “rewarded accordingly”

Hints given to groups:

- Focus on creativity, technology, and teaching. Don’t forget about the technology piece in your project (both in use and message).

- Because eight sections will be similarly themed, the “idea” for how to present you arguments is critical. Don’t move forward until you think you have that nailed down. Use some of the strategies from Deep Dive to make sure it is a killer idea.

27Dec

Key topics Wiki

Abstract: Students work in groups on an informative multi-tiered WIKI on a provided topic, working either in class or as a distributed work team.

Description: Students are assigned or chose groups of 3-4. Each of the groups will be assigned a topic (see sample topics for the courses CEP 800, 815, and 822 below). The task as a group is to develop a WIKI on this given topic. Students should think of themselves as being “experts” on this given topic who are introducing this topic to the other groups in the class via this WIKI. These topics provided will be relevant for the overall assignment (in the case of the original courses, CEP 800, 815, and 822 the development of a lesson plan) as well. The WIKI should consist of a series of pages, broadly described below:

A summary page on the front end of the WIKI that offers an introduction to the topic at hand. This page should address general issues of definition, categorization, broad themes etc.
This broad description should link to a set of sub-pages that offer an annotated list of key online resources about that topic. The goal is to not link willy-nilly to any resource out there but rather quality resources that could be useful to someone seeking to learn more about the topic (or sub-topics) brought up in the first page.

The topics (from CEP 800, 815, and 822) are:

Developing information literacy, technology skills (in students)
Meeting the diverse needs of your students, assistive technologies, particularly through the idea of Universal Designs for Learning (UDL)
Social and ethical uses of technology (particularly digital equity, intellectual property, and copyright) and healthy practices in the use of educational technology
Using Technology to Facilitate/Develop Creativity and Critical Thinking Skills in Students
Using Technology to Engage in Professional Development & Leadership

Examples of student work:

Assignment History:

22Dec

Making teaching suspenseful and post-dictable – A reflection task

Abstract: Guided by exemplifying video clips, students are invited to reflect on their own teaching in terms of the degree to which it builds anticipation and “comes together” in a meaningful big picture at the end of a lesson or course.

Description:

Good teaching is (among a long list of other good things) postdictable, i.e. something that is “surprising initially, but then understandable with a bit of thought.” it walks the line between predictability and chaos, and most importantly makes sense post hoc. See these posts here and here on the idea of postdiction.

Step 1:

Consider the characteristics of “postdictable teaching”:

Postdictable teaching keeps us engaged, keeps us waiting for more, the payoff as it were. And best of all, once all the pieces are in, we can’t wait to go back and review everything again, to see just how beautifully the whole thing holds together. There is a strong aesthetic component to this – a sense of wholeness, closure, elegance, and inevitability. Good poems have this quality, as do mathematical theorems. A well crafted lecture or a lesson plan has this quality as well. In my mind these ideas are closely tied to the Dewey’s idea of experience and to the idea of design. Closely connected to the idea of postdictable is the idea of creating anticipation and suspense.

However making suspense work is difficult. Navigating this line between predictability and tension over the unknown is a fine art. Check out the two videos below, which highlight just how fine the line is between succeeding at creating suspense and anticipation and failing to do so. Both of these videos are interesting and well made – both have pace and rhythm but one of them builds anticipation while the other just happens. One tells a story, the other doesn’t.

Step 2:

View sample videos and reflect on teaching:

Watch both videos and ask yourself which one “works” in this sense and which one doesn’t.

Here’s one…
Blue Thousand and One from Blue Man Group HD on Vimeo.

… and here’s another:

Music Painting by JUL & MAT from JUL & MAT on Vimeo.

So what do you think? Both these videos were cool to watch – but don’t you think the one from the Blue Man Group a tad more interesting, both in its buildup and its dénouement? Even within its short time frame, the video sets up a narrative arc and creates, something akin to a classical dramatic structure. In contrast the second video, though visually interesting through out, loses steam somewhere half-way through. The action begins to seem repetitive and the movie lacks a narrative thrust. It lacks drama.

So what does this mean for teaching?

First, everything we do as educators needs a larger goal (the big picture as it were). Too often we get lost in the minutia of of the project and forget the broader, overarching frame. The structure of our lessons, our semester, our mini-activities needs to have a larger narrative thrust, a dramatic flow. A beginning, a middle and an end. A good science activity can have them all. So can a well designed social studies activity.

Second, every thing we do as educators needs to be subservient to meeting that larger goal. The Blue Man group movie works because each frame (and musical note) is part of a larger story being played out in front of us. Not a frame is wasted. In contrast, you could take away a chunk of the second and I doubt anybody would even notice. The first is design for anticipation, for postdiction. As educators this means that we can’t give our students stupid-work (like most seat work at school) but rather every assignment needs to inform the larger picture and in turn be informed by it.

Step 3:

Written/video/audio Reflection on moving your own teaching toward postdictability:

Take something you teach (whole course, specific module/lesson) and view it under the lens of suspense and postdiction. To what extent do individual activities and content come together to a larger, meaningful whole in the end, as opposed to simply checking off covered units? If your teaching resembles the ‘music painting’ more than the ‘blue man’ video, what are concrete ways in which you may be able to move it from the former more toward the latter? Share your 3 -5 best ideas via a medium of your choice.

Examples of Student Work:

History of the Assignment:

22Dec

Weekly Reader: Social Bookmarking

Abstract: Using the social bookmarking application del.icio.us, students facilitate the flow of data, information, knowledge and wisdom in their area of interest by making a minimum or 4 targeted weekly referrals of sites and links from their RSS feeds.

Description: On a weekly basis, students are asked to dig into their RSS aggregators and to take a few minutes to reflect on an article/link that comes their way. An effective way to manage the incoming content is to open things that sound interesting in a new window, and keep scrolling until one has glanced at everything, and then, to read the 3 or 4 things that really caught one’s eye. These items should be bookmarked and tagged with del.icio.us. For this assignment, this tagging routine is taken one step further by requiring students to fill out the notes field in the del.icio.us site. The notes field allows users to type 255 characters – about 40-50 words. When filling out the notes field, students are asked to answer the following:

“why did you tag the site, why did it catch your eye, how did you find it, why is it useful to you?”

Weekly Assignment Requirements:

-tag a minimum of 4 “things” with del.icio.us

-use the tags – “CEP815″ and “weeklyreader” (so your instructor knows which ones to count towards the assignment)

-annotate the notes field

Steps for tackling the assignment:

Step 1: Make sure everyone in class is in your del.icio.us network. Here are directions on adding others to your network (most of you have already figured this out!): http://del.icio.us/help/network

Step 2: Tag a site “for” someone in class. If you installed the del.icio.us browser tools, you will see your network show up when you click on “tag”. As you are tagging a site, if you click “for:gravesle,” then Leigh Graves will see “Links for you (1)” highlighted in the navigation bar when she visits her del.icio.us page.

Step 3: PLAY!

Lots of outside developers have created websites that interact with del.icio.us to create visualizations of your content – there is A TON OF POTENTIAL to use these in educational settings!!! 3rd party tools can be found here: http://del.icio.us/help/thirdpartytools

Here’s how to get the del.icio.us feed to appear in MSU’s ANGEL system: http://feed2js.org/

Examples of Student Work:

History of the Assignment:

22Dec

Socially Sourced Feedback: The Experiment

Abstract: In this exercise, students are connected to experts in their field for feedback coming from another “expert” beyond the instructor. Using a combination of Jing + Screecast applications, the external reviewers comment on students’ online products (in the original case, modules for an online class).

Description: Ongoing thoughtful instructor feedback without question plays a large role in student learning. However, students tend to appreciate getting feedback from additional people in the field. If available, instructors can tap into their diverse Personal Learning Network (PLN) to match up students with a broader set of reviewers of their work. For example, in teaching “CEP 820: Teaching K12 Students Online” with the culminating project of creating a complete online course module, instructor Leigh Wolf was “lucky to have a large and diverse Personal Learning Network” consisting of “professors, MAET alumni, PhD students, practicing teachers, online learning experts,” and so on. By asking friends and colleagues to access a student course and use Jing + Screencast.com (both free tools) to record their reactions, feedback and suggestions for improvement, an instructor can provide students with an “extra set of eyes” on their work that might be somewhat different from his or her views and preferences. Ideally, one would specifically target people in one’s PLN who would match well with the students’ background or project at hand.

In the case of the student-created online-course modules of CEP 820,online modules were sent to reviewers who’s professional experience and interest matched the content at hand (see examples of such matches below).

Challenges regarding this exercise:

There is a risk in relying too heavily on one’s PLN to provide students with reviewers. At the end of the semester, something like this is the icing on the stress cake. It helps to time the submission of the final project 4 weeks before the official end of the semester to try and alleviate some of this stress.
The process is tedious to manage. Until someone develops a way of making the revier/reviewee process a little more automatic, it has to be done manually. This requires minute attention to detail, making sure the right hyperlinks were going to the right people and making sure no one fell through the cracks. With everyone using different course management systems, keeping track of all the access points can be a bit of a challenge.
Not everyone may turn their assignment in on time. Even understanding instructors who realize that things happen, especially with courses such as CEP 820 where students are working adults, many carrying 2 or more courses plus a full time job will realize that it is not fair to the external reviewers to send them late reviews (as they too have full plates.) In those cases, teaching assistants or gracious volunteers and the instructor may have to fill in for the late submission reviews.
It is unlikely to be able to match everyone up with the “perfect” person — in all likelihood one will have to stretch things a bit when it comes to content experts. This is fine as long as some other relevant expertise can be provided, as in CEP 820 where all reviewers were experts in online/hybrid course creation and pedagogy.

The upsides regarding this exercise:

Students may potentially get connected to AMAZING people they would not otherwise “meet.”
The PLN reviewers are able to experience an alternative form of assessment (using Jing & Screencasts) in a “low-risk” setting, i.e., with students in a course such as CEP 820. In the past, external reviewers expressed appreciation in learning how to use screencasting as a form of assessment/evaluation.

Additional considerations/lessons learned:

It may pay off to be relatively explicit with reviewers regarding the technical side of the reviewing task and to give them some tips on microphone and recording techniques.
Only ask external reviewers to perform one review
Adjust the final project due date even earlier – 5 weeks before the end of the semester? - to avoid the end of semester crunch.

Examples of student work:

Troy’s review of Erin’s “6 Traits of Writing” on Weebly Unit
Jessica’s review of Emily’s “American History” Moodle Unit
Sean’s review of Marc’s “Jared Diamond unit for World History” in Blackboard

History of the assignment: 16 brave souls were willing to participate in the experiment of socially sourcing feedback for students in CEP 820 and graciously offered their precious time to assist in this experiment:

21Dec

Video Voicemails

Abstract: By producing and publishing short video clips on the class website, teachers can create a sense of presence and highlight important class concepts and activities from a distance.

Description: Video voicemails are a great, quick way to stay in touch with students in online or hybrid courses, or when traveling in face-to-face courses, ensuring that students know the instructor is still present in the course. Such brief (roughly 2 minute long) clips are easily created using a FlipCam or the PhotoBooth on Mac to record the video, but any digital camera with video capture will work. The video voicemails help create the connection between student and instructor and are also a nice outlet to reinforce important concepts/theories, address confusion, and create a class culture.

Just remember, keep them short! Anything beyond the 2 minute mark will move it beyond “voicemail” and turn it into a “regular” lecture.

As an assignment, students can be asked to create a fun-and-informative sample video voicemail for a class of their choosing, taking into account the background of their class, the time frame in which it would be sent to students, the topic of the course at the time, and making good choices about what to include and what to highlight given the tight timeframe.

Examples of Student Work: [INSERT THE TWO LEIGH VIDEOS]

Assignment History:

Grading Suggestions:

29Oct

Storyboarding Challenge

Abstract: Using film-production story boards, students record and communicate their ideas for scenes on an educational topic.

Description: For this quickfire we will be looking at the usefulness of storyboarding. The storybaording process is a very important step in creating any type of planned video shoot. Storyboarding allows for the ideas about your video project to be expressed verbally and then put onto a visual board so everyone involved can see the tentative layout and flow of the video project. The storyboard allows for the identification of all the scenes or parts of the video, these can then be handled individually in smaller chunks and then put together to create the final video. Storyboarding will also allow for the ease of adjusting and modifying the video as you progress through the project.

A more detailed definition of storyboards… Storyboard Resources/Templates: AFI Storyboard Process

Step 1: I will put you in groups and hand your group a secret topic. (The secret topic can be ANYTHING, a math problem, case study, foreign language scenario, be creative, you can do this with any discipline!) – Alternatively, Chose Topic (change, creativity, design, leadership, learning, technology)

Step 2: On storyboard paper, draft the scenes of your planned presentation. Each scene should run 10 seconds. (Here is a storyboard you can use - http://bit.ly/1uKliQ – you can change the number of scenes and length depending on how much time you have.) You have 10 minutes to complete this task.

Step 3: Take your group storyboard and pass it to the group on your left. (This “surprising twist” in the assignment highlights the importance of communication and storyboarding!!)

Step 4: Now, you must execute the storyboard you were given. Record each scene (in sequence). You have 10 minutes to complete this task.

Step 5: If you have laptops, stitch the 3 scenes together – if not, turn the Flip in to the instructor.

Step 6: Watch the creations!

Deep Dive MAET Style 47 Hour QF

Storyboarding Challenge

LESSON ARCHIVE

DESCRIPTIONS

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