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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

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:

06Nov

The TPACK Project

Abstract:In this capstone project, students apply the TPACK framework to an actual problem they have encountered in their practice and create a website that explains the TPACK-based solution to the problem they have chosen to pursue to fellow teachers.

Description: The assignment was established to have you identify a problem of practice, use the TPACK framework to address the problem, and create a web-based experience that presents the problem and solution to your peers as well as explain the thinking process that led you to this particular solution as opposed to others. Hence, there are two goals of the project: (a) have students tackle a specific, authentic problem and practice and consider a plan for a solution, and (b) share their problem, plan, and the thinking that went it to with a larger audience (i.e., represent it on the Web).

Within the Web-based experience, you will need to address the content (i.e., what do you want students to learn and be able to do? What are the problems different students might have learning this content?), the context (i.e., what is the specific context? What are the affordances and constraints of this context?), the technology (i.e., what technology seems best suited for the problem? What this is the best as opposed to other options?), the pedagogy (i.e., what pedagogies will work best given the choice of content and technologies? Why this choice over others?), and interrelatedness (i.e., how are the areas – technology, pedagogy – affected by changes in one another?).

Examples of Student Work: Past students have come up with very divergent authentic problems of practice and very creative projects both in terms of applying the TPACK model to their problem of practice and their Web-based ways of representing their problems and “solutions”. For example, John* sought to address how he could help students engage in higher order thinking in an English class when students’ educational conditioning focused on memorization and the idea that an answer is either right or wrong. In applying the TPACK model, John initially began with searching for how technology could be a solution to this problem. However, John realized that because of this exposure to a Year 1 of a Masters of Educational Technology he already integrated a great deal of technology into his teaching. Hence, he concluded he needed to change his pedagogy to work within his context, with this curriculum, and with the technology he was already implementing (see screen shots below).

Another student – Dave* – faced a problem of practice of teaching photographic techniques but without the availability of a dark room. Hence, considering the context, curriculum, pedagogy, Dave concluded appropriate technology would address the challenges, such as utilizing Adobe Photoshop and digital photo printers (see screen shots below).

In the final student example, Liz* also arrived at technology as a solution to her problem of practice – teaching social studies in a why that makes it come alive and challenges just what is written in textbooks. Specifically, she chose to focus on Christopher Columbus for her TPACK project. Using an inquiry-based approach, Liz felt her technology options were limited, but eventually found an appropriate WebQuest which aligned with her pedagogy and curriculum (see screen shots below).

01Nov

Cool i-Images

Abstract: Students choose a “cool” idea in their area and create an i-Image for it using open source or self-generated text and image that, as a combined product, create a “wow”-effect in the viewer.

Purpose: As teachers, does our own passion for our subject still come across? After all, most of our subjects taught are full of fascinating ideas that may get too little attention in the hustle for covering the curriculum. Therefore, “our purpose is to make school ideas cool. Cool ideas spark the imagination and stir our feelings. They cause us to stop what we’re doing, look more closely, share with our friends, and, perhaps, be forever changed. If an iPod can become something that everyone talks about and enjoys being with, why can’t an idea do the same?”(from David Wong and Regina Carey’s website ideasarecool.com).

Description: One vehicle for bringing out the coolness of ideas are i-Images. As David describes them, i-Images are “professional, provocative images that seize the viewer’s attention and, more importantly, spark their imagination.” They capture the cool idea in a joint form of image and text that synergistically create this powerful effect. See section below for some examples.

For this assignment, find a cool idea in your area and create an i-Image for it using open source (creative commons?) text and image (Flickr?), or text/images created by yourself, that, as a combined product, create a “wow”-effect in the viewer. To do so, go beyond the obvious and highlight some aspect of your discipline that is rarely consciously thought about but that illustrates the imaginative reach of the field.

Examples of Student Work :

Summer 2011

LESSON ARCHIVE

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