The Flipped Classroom

Flipping the classroom, or reverse instruction, has been quite trendy lately.  For those new to the topic, it means giving lectures or instruction to students over the internet and using the in class time to actually do work, discuss, or solve problems.  Teachers often accomplish this via podcasting of lectures or screencasting sample problems for students to use as a model. You can see examples of it on many educational blog posts and Youtube is increasely filled with more academic content than just Angry Birds tutorials.  I've been watching this trend and seeing some of our teachers begin engaging in it.





Salman Khan has a great TED talk on what has eventually developed into Khan Academy.  He has some interesting insight and thoughts that are fantastic for reflection.  He has found strategies to gather data to impact what is being presented back to students.  Take some time to watch the video if you haven't.

As I've watched the application of these ideas and concepts to the classroom, some educators have really used this with tremendous benefit to students.  Research has shown the benefits for students to be able to pause, rewind, and carefully take notes on a lecture.  Some teachers have given students a lecture to view at home and then use the in class time for discussion or to practice solving problems.  Aside from increasing the class time available for working with teacher assistance and student to student interaction, sending these lectures home gives students a finite time of homework.

On the other side of the coin, I have seen teachers put a lot of extra time on students because they now put every lecture up on Youtube.    It is important for teachers to retain balance in the work they send home.  I also think the art of the interactive lecture can be lost in this format.  At times, lecture is an appropriate way to deliver instruction (despite what I would call myths that this is never appropriate).  However, interactive lectures engage students and flex the content around the responses and reactions of the participants.  And I do mean participants.  To relinquish a presentation to one way video can leave out the interactive nature of teaching.  It's not all bad but something to consider within a flipped classroom context.

We need to be careful that we don't misapply the flipped classroom methodology so it overburdens students and removes an important element of personal interaction from students that is the learning and dialogue we desire in our classrooms.  As with so many things in life, we need balance.   I have seen some applications that take and mistakenly apply it in ways that just aren't helpful and really don't embody the same type of online education that Khan and others advocate.   I've approached this idea with caution because extremism can be dangerous in any trendy fad.

What do you think?  What do you see as the pros of the flipped classroom and the pitfalls to avoid?

The Why

Do you know the why of your organization?

I had the privilege of attending the Apple Leadership Summit in Singapore this past weekend.  The first keynote was from Simon Sinek.  He described the ordinary process of pitching ideas or products as starting with the what, progressing to the how, and the why last.  In his study of exceptional people and organizations, he found that they approach it backwards.  They start with the why.  The why inspires people to follow.  The why creates followers that might never engage with the what or the how.

For this inspiration to happen, Sinek says we must have clarity in the why.  It must be clear to us and communicated clearly.  We have to be consistent in the how, and lastly, we have to be authentic in the what.  Vision and communication must accompany each other with the why or else it won’t be conveyed to others effectively.  Do you have people in your organization that get the vision and communicate it well?  Identify them and give them opportunities to convey the why to your parents, faculty and students.  It doesn't matter what official "position" they have.  It is about tapping into the right people, regardless of the position.

When people share the why, a community develops and within the community, we have trust.  As we trust, we can collaborate.  The power of the community can be actualized.  When new faculty come to your school, do they know the why of your organization? Perhaps we should be more personal.  Is your presence transactional in that it just fills a spot in a job?  Do you know the why of your organization and does it motivate you to be a part of something bigger than yourself? 

Sinek says statistically, approximately 80% of people do not “love” their jobs.  He envisions a world where 80% of people “love” their job.  What would that do to your organization if people loved their jobs?  Tell them why.

Effective Presentations

If you have the opportunity to connect with people face to face on a topic, take advantage of it.  

Engage your audience and make them interact with the content and topic.  It's not about you...it is about your audience.  Know why you are there and be clear on what you want to accomplish in the time you have.  If you don't know what you are presenting, it's doubtful others will figure it out either.

What makes a presentation effective?  First, think back to the presentations you remember.  If you remember it, something about it must have been effective, right?  Too many of us have sat through boring presentations that could have been half the time or involved someone reading to us.  Don't make your audience leave thinking they could have picked up your handout.

Speaking of handouts, think of presentations in 3 parts: my presentation "script," slides/visuals, and handouts.  Don't just print your slides as a handout.  I like to include additional information or sources of information on handouts.  I also add content that I want them to take away...or they will try to scribble down so furiously that they miss what I'm saying.

Know your content.  I like to have a few notes and ideas when I speak to keep me on track and make sure I hit what is important.  However, powerful presenters know what they want to say.  Many of them can do it entirely without notes.  I find this impressive and something I need to improve upon.  Nothing can lose an audience like an awkward pause as you fumble your notes or squint to see the tiny writing on the screen to jog your memory.

I could say more but Jesse Desjardins may say it more emphatically and articulately with his presentations than I can.  If you communicate with an audience regularly, or even occasionally, you should really take a look.  (Hint:  All educators do this regularly.)

You Suck At PowerPoint!

View more presentations from @JESSEDEE.

STEAL THIS PRESENTATION!

View more presentations from @JESSEDEE.

Any tips you want to share with others?

Consumption

We consume a lot.  Reflect on what you consume.  Although this video is part of an effort to educate the one campus about their consumption in a creative way, it is a good opportunity for all to reflect.






Do you have suggestions on how to innovatively engage a community on a dialogue about their consumption?

Overwhelmed?

The more I know, the more I realize I don't know.  The world of technology resources is vast and seemingly endless.  I see many people just overwhelmed by the technology available and it comes out as frustration and a feeling that it's hopeless to even try getting up to speed.

Steven Anderson wrote a nice blog post focused on beginning teachers and those that feel overwhelmed.  He rightly points out that teaching the first few years is vastly different than having a few years of experience under your belt.  Can you imagine walking into many of our schools just out of college with no experience and encountering many of these technology resources for the first time, particularly coming from a teaching program that fails to prepare you for this reality in schools?  And first year teachers are not the only ones overwhelmed.  Experienced teachers can have these exact same feelings in technology.

Some teachers give in and do nothing, resigning themselves to irrelevancy and hopelessness.  I see some tech savvy teachers and professional developers reinforce this by overwhelming teachers with what's available.  It is important to get outside our limited perspectives but those responsible for professional development also need to know their audience.  Sometimes less is more.  For many teachers, focusing on 2-3 things that can powerfully impact their classroom is sufficient for a year of growth.  The depth of use by the teacher can really help students learn and benefit the classroom instead of a surface glaze of many different "cool" tools.

We have to exercise the same discretion and information literacy that we need to be teaching our students.  We need to filter out what is most important in a digital world and determine how to leverage it for learning.  As technology leaders, we also have to help others find balance so teachers are not overwhelmed.  In the midst of our push to move people forward in their journey, we need to do so responsibly so we don't undermine ourselves with a lack of depth.

If you are an overwhelmed teacher, model the goal-setting you ask your students to do.  Don't give up!  Make some manageable strides forward and seek a true learning community that enlists the help of your students!

Relevant Learning

School must find ways to engage students in relevant ways. A colleague recently pointed out this website which turns a variety of topics among many core subjects into rap music. It is called Rhythm Rhyme Results. Not only does it take concepts and information and put it to lyrics that can be recalled more easily, but it actually has different versions of songs at different paces and with blanks to allow the learning process and scaffolding to occur. You do have to pay for the service but the website says much of the music is available for download via iTunes or Amazon. I didn't listen to all the music but it seemed like a neat concept and innovative way to engage students. Perhaps it is worth checking out for something you are teaching...

Web 2.0 Impact

I was recently pointed to a website that features a new show:

Justice with Michael Sandel

I found it interesting and applicable to our IB Theory of Knowledge (TOK) students. However, I also found myself reflecting on the sheer number of reality TV shows and their popularity. I have to wonder if it's not a reflection of Web 2.0 impact. Web 2.0 took sharing and transparency to a new level that is felt throughout our society. Whether it is reality TV shows, iTunes courses put online for anyone to participate, or a Harvard course turned into a TV series, transparency and the display of the process (not just the outcome) are infiltrating our lives. Don't get me wrong. I don't think it is a bad thing. It shines a light on many areas but it can bring out some spiders along the way. In many ways Web 2.0 reflects culture but perhaps these technology leaps are also culture shapers. What came first, was it the chicken or the egg?

I teach, therefore you learn...or do you?

I recently ran across this video... Aside from the content, it also gives some tangible examples of using images in ways to create "hooks" or illustrates concepts with images as opposed to words, which I advocated in my last post.


I teach, therefore you learn... or do you? from José Picardo on Vimeo.

Listening Skills in a Visual World

At what point do visual representations undermine listening(auditory) skills? Listening skills are important. By producing visual presentations, am I undermining the development of that skill? These questions are good and I had the opportunity to reflect upon them recently thanks to a question from a colleague.

At first thought, it seems easy to say these skills are mutually exclusive. Are we not emphasizing one over another? However, I don't think that this is the case. Visuals should not reduce auditory listening. Visuals should be a "hook" for the learner/audience to make the concept being talked about more vivid and easier to recall. Hopefully, the visual brings out some relevant relationship for an unusual way to think about the idea or reinforce the verbal description. If an audience can remember an image, it is much more likely they will remember a concept.

For example, in some presentations, I have recently used this visual:

CC Prescott Pym (Universal Playground)

I picked it up off of Flickr via Creative Commons. It gives some vivid imagery in relation to our students, our world, and our future. I like it. It may not work for everyone but can say more than the words I type. The image provides a hook to a concept I want to articulate.

Back to my focus, if we post less text and more images/media, then more listening is required, not less. Note the stark contrast to straight powerpoint presentations...typically heavy on text. Text-heavy powerpoints can undermine presentations as much as enhance. People become extremely dependent on the words on the screen--they listen less and read more. Why not hand out a sheet with the text and just let them read it if that is the goal? Some would rationalize this because students listen and write it down themselves as a kinesthetic way of learning. Although true, it seems to me that they spend more time making sure they "write" down the right things than understanding the concepts/content.

We need to find ways to use more images and multimedia to engage students and make the content memorable in place of text powerpoints. If we can do this effectively, it seems to me the images require more listening to make the connections and derive the content. However, I don't want to seem naive and say this is easy. It isn't. This is something I am working on in some of my PD work with teachers. It takes time and it is a skill which develops with use, practice, and effort. Effective teaching is not easy.

Let's note an exception...there is a value in helping ESL students by having more text visible. That doesn't necessarily mean less images, but more text may be interspersed. For ESL students, much of their learning extends to language learning and having a language rich environment. Their learning is more than just getting the content. However, images are invaluable to them as they use it for context and depend on it for understanding, perhaps even more than those without language limitations. For ESL students, they may not understand the oral language...again, they need to practice and do it, but in smaller chunks. For them, it is not the listening skill that is so weak as comprehending what is being said. Again, balance is needed.

Listening as a mental discipline. Effective visuals can be a way to engage and "appeal" to students to perform the discipline of listening in some non-painful, enjoyable ways. At the same time, a discipline takes effort and sometimes there is no way around it.

What do you think?

Creative Commons

Regardless of whether or not you agree or disagree with the new US president's policies, President Obama has taken a different stance on technology. He is trying to use Web 2.0 tools to his advantage in communicating and collecting information from the American people. Perhaps only time will tell how genuinely transparent and open his government is. Regardless of whether it is a facade or not, the tools he is employing reflect changes in society.

One of the most telling examples of the changes technology has brought can be seen in the idea of citizen reporting. Cell phone videos, random pictures submitted to news sites, and twitter feeds have given instant information on a number of recent incidents. The terrorist attacks in Mumbai and recent emergency landing on the Hudson River by an airplane serve as vivid examples. CNN has sought to embrace this and they have edited their website to make it easier for individuals to submit newsworthy items. Anyone can become a reporter or a photographer. Everyone potentially has an audience and access. Technology has enabled someone that may have never had a voice in the past to be able to reach millions via the internet.

With many publications, you see items regarding copyright, like all rights reserved. With Creative Commons, it allows a creator to share their work with only some rights reserved. Typically, attribution and credit should be given. However, it lets others use it. Whether it be music, writings, photos, etc., it is contributed to the "commons" for the world.

Creative Commons is a non-profit organization. It states the following on its website:

Creative Commons is a non-profit organization that works to increase the amount of content (cultural, educational, and scientific content) in "the commons" — the body of work that is available to the public for free and legal sharing, use, re-purposing, and remixing. Creative Commons does this by providing free, easy-to-use legal and technical tools that give everyone a simple, standardized way to pre-clear copyrights to their creative work. CC licenses let people easily change their copyright terms from the default, restrictive "all rights reserved" to a more flexible "some rights reserved."

Whether you are looking for some different background music or a photo to spice up a presentation, check out Creative Commons. I use Firefox and in that browser there is a convenient search for CC in the toolbar. Just click on the default G (for Google on top right of your browser) and a drop down will appear and select CC. By using a general CC search, everything is included but many sites like Flicker will allow the advanced search features in a service to filter out only CC images.

People do some really creative things. Check out what is available on creative commons...

A Fast World

Friedman wrote about a fast world. The world's interconnectedness is speeding up. I went to watch a 20 minute video today. It started a little slow and I debated in my mind whether or not to stick with it. We have come to expect relevance and engagement quickly...20 minutes is too long. In reality, we often may only give 2-5 minutes to see if something is worth our time. In some cases, it may only be 30 seconds. Our ability to find the information relevant to us has become critical. Using Google effectively has tremendous value.

I would guess students may frequently hold this view. How much with they engage your lesson based on the first 90 seconds? How about the first 5 minutes? Are they intrigued? Or have they already written it off and tagged it as irrelevant? As educators, we must recognize and engage our audience.

For the record, I stuck with the video and it got interesting. In a fast world, may we take some time to slow down. Patience is a virtue we need to practice at times amidst the speedy culture in which we live. But may patience not be an excuse for us to be left behind.