LearningTimes Green Room

In this show, Susan and Dan jump into the LT GreenRoom to discuss the feedback we provide to our learners. How often do we give them feedback? What form does it take? How well does it serve them? Listen in, and then share some feedback of your own!



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Show Notes:

Susan and Dan talk about feedback in this episode. That is, feedback as it relates to learning, not specific to online or any age group.

Dan defines feedback as intentional challenge or encouragement from the teacher.

Susan’s definition is useful information that tells a learner whether they are on-track.

When should feedback be given? Depends on task. Think about something that might relate to safety…act quickly! Sooner rather than later seems to be a safe model to follow.

One type of feedback is encouragement (example: encouraging participation).

Challenge: being pushed a little beyond where you are. It could mean being corrected or getting a bad grade.

Formative (keep going and “grow” comments) versus summative (final points and grade) feedback. Summative is usually tied to assessment. Dan thinks formative feedback is more difficult to give because it relates to a learner’s motivation. Susan hates grading, loves formative work.

Teachers need to ask students what’s useful in feedback. Susan gets that sense through the weekly student reflections.

What are ways teachers give feedback? Nonverbals if you’re face to face. Susan is currently using Dragon Naturally Speaking to talk her way through grading papers. It’s saving her time.

She also uses audio feedback, recording with Audacity and sending as email. The best known source on this practice is Jeff Sommers’ site.

Does Susan have a standardized way of giving feedback online? She generally communicates with each learner personally at the end of a unit. She sends back the rubric with specific comments written in – more detailed early in the term and less so as each learner figures out what’s expected.

Dan discusses the importance of giving examples in feedback.

Feel-good grades (A++ Excellent!) don’t really help students learn. However, good feedback about what’s good can be powerful motivators.

Dan and Susan would like to hear from other teachers: how do you give feedback to your students and how do you solicit feedback from them? What’s working?

You can respond using the “Comments” link below or talk to us in LearningTimes. Or call us at 1-800-609-9006 x8055 (US and Canada) or 678-255-2174 x8055 (outside US and Canada). Join us!

In this unusual episode, Dan interviews Susan about a recent online synchronous training seminar she conducted. He asks her to walk him through her planning process, the decisions she made, the activities during the seminar, and what she hoped to achieve.

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Show Notes:

The recent online synchronous training seminar that Susan conducted was presented to a group of doctoral students at Western Illinois University who are examining the idea of integrating technology into the K12 setting. There was also a corollary group in China, and those students were awake in the middle of the night to participate! What Susan knew of the group was that most were principals or superintendents.

Susan’s topic focused on adding digital audio and possibly multimedia to today’s classroom.

Susan started to focus on case studies, but later organized the program according to specific tools. She asked to learners to clarify which tools would be of most interest.

The activities she planned in order to keep learners engaged included polling and demonstration. She knew exactly where she would ask for input. Because the participants had been using this presentation tool earlier in the day, she did not have to train them on what buttons to push.

A question Susan had not anticipated was about funding sources. All the tools she uses are either free or very low cost, but she and Dan discussed the possibility of referring people to publications that list grants, such as eSchool News, or seeking private funding through local businesses and partnerships.

Susan ran out of time because she had too much content! Showing the examples took more time than she anticipated. She also would have been a little more culturally sensitive in the images that she showed if she had known that there was going to be an international audience. She uses the example of Laurel and Hardy and how she needed to put them in a context in case the learners did not know who these figures were.

By the way, Susan talked about her use of:

• Podcasting and audio
• Site Pal (or talking avatars)
• Digital Storytelling
• Voicethreads
• “Tubes” and video
• Skype

She referenced her links in del.icio.us and you too can follow her links
at: http://del.icio.us/smanning/WIU-program.

Listeners, go interview a colleague at the next time he or she presents a seminar and find out what they were thinking! Be surprised what you learned.

You can respond using the “Comments” link below or talk to us in LearningTimes. Or call us at 1-800-609-9006 x8055 (US and Canada) or 678-255-2174 x8055 (outside US and Canada). Join us!

In this episode, Dan and Susan share their holiday wish lists. They might have some surprises under the tree!



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Show Notes:

Dan and Susan share their holiday wish lists. They might have some surprises under the tree!

Dan wishes for something that would help unmotivated learners get motivated real quickly. Likewise Susan wishes that students were adequately advised before they signed up for online courses.

Susan wishes for an easy solution to helping learners manage their expectations. When you read the course catalog, does the description fit the course? What expectations due learners bring to the virtual classroom, and how can instructors clarify what is expected of learners?

Susan needs (wants) a new laptop. A ruby red one, please.

Susan would like an open-source web-conferencing tool that combines graphics, whiteboard, interactivity and audio.

Dan would like a replacement for multiple-choice quizzes. What he really wants is a tool that creates multiple-choice quizzes that foster critical thinking. Check out http://www.willatworklearning.com/.

Susan is really dreaming when she asks for an answer to the security question related to assessment. How I know that the person in my online class is really who she says she is?

For the K-12 teachers and of the world, Susan wishes for fewer filters so that they can access some of the cool collaborative tools that are available online.

Dan wants a tool to tell him which tools he needs to learn.

Susan needs a digital cleaning service that will clear her hard drive of old files that are probably now clutter more than resources.

Dan needs a service to tag all his digital photos.

Dan wants a simple solution for audio e-mail. Susan wants free transcription for podcasts.

Dan and Susan leave their listeners with well wishes for happy holidays and would like to hear what’s on their lists.

You can respond using the “Comments” link below or talk to us in LearningTimes. Or call us at 1-800-609-9006 x8055 (US and Canada) or 678-255-2174 x8055 (outside US and Canada). Join us!

On this Thanksgiving week in the United States, Dan and I would like to extend our heartfelt appreciation to our loyal listeners. Your comments and engagement in the LearningTimes community keep us going. We’ve enjoyed getting to know you and thinking out loud with you. Some of you may be traveling this week, and so if you have not caught all of our episodes, consider downloading and listening to us on your journey. We love to travel! And for those listeners who are not celebrating with us in the United States, we are equally thankful for your international presence. Finally, we want to thank John and Jonathan from LearningTimes for their constant support and encouragement in the production of this podcast. Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Susan and Dan are joined by Stacy Behmer who shares her experience with digital storytelling (DST) in elementary and middle school classrooms.



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Show notes:

Stacy Behmer joins Susan and Dan to talk about her experience with digital storytelling (DST) in elementary and middle school classrooms. Stacy researched DST as a graduate student at Iowa State University and has made her resources available at http://ctlt.iastate.edu/~ds/Behmer/. Throughout this interview, Stacy references Jane Schmidt, a middle school English teacher in Maquoketa, Iowa, as well as her major professor Dr. Denise Schmidt. Both women were instrumental in advising Stacy through her research.

Defining DST: combining story + music, audio, video, photos and other media.

Stacy’s research was with 7th grade language arts students. She walks through how she became acquainted with DST and how she saw the connections to teaching/learning and standards.

The end product of her research were stories created by groups of 3-4 students on the theme “Everyone has a story to tell and we’re going to help you to tell it.” These stories came from interviews of community members; the project extended over a four week period. Stacy shares all the details of how she implemented this.

A couple insights/questions to listen for:

• What happens when a group doesn’t follow the prescribed steps?
• The importance of flexibility
• How kids latch on the technology
• Mac/PC alternatives iMovie versus MovieMaker versus PhotoStory3
• Connecting your project to standards (think language arts)

What would she change? Building in assessment measures throughout the project.

Can this transfer to higher education classrooms where faculty do not have students every day for large chunks of time? Stacy tells about pre-service teachers and their DSTs.

Stacy’s biggest surprise was the level of engagement.

Again, go look at Stacy’s website at http://ctlt.iastate.edu/~ds/Behmer/ and see the stories!

Listeners, Susan and Dan want to hear your stories about DST projects you’ve tried and how they’re working!

You can respond using the “Comments” link below or talk to us in LearningTimes. Or call us at 1-800-609-9006 x8055 (US and Canada) or 678-255-2174 x8055 (outside US and Canada). Join us!

In this episode, Dan and Susan talk about the use of video in online
instruction.

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Show notes:

In this episode, Dan and Susan talk about the use of video in online instruction.

Beginning with a story of how easy working with video is today, Susan senses more instructors are introducing video and multimedia.

A couple schools are studying YouTube and social networks. One example is Pitzer College. Here is an interview on CNN about the class.

Michael Wesch is a cultural anthropologist and media ecologist at Kansas State and has, along with students, produced several popular videos, including “Web 2.0 … The Machine is Us/ing Us” and “A Vision of Students Today”.

YouTube, Google Video, TeacherTube and SchoolTube are all examples of services that make video easier for teachers to produce and get video hosted. A brief discussion of the problems with the openness of a service like YouTubes and why TeacherTube and such services have cropped up. Another service Susan couldn’t remember correctly was SciTalks, which shows science videos.

Susan reflects back 5 years about the difficulties of working with video then. Software has become easier and more accessible, and more people are playing around with their personal cameras!

Why would someone want to include video? Social presence. Demonstrations. One to one problem solving.

Digital story telling and student productions. The value of bringing out point of view. Dan references Jonathan Finkelstein’s Real Time Minute videos. Susan suggests you could ask student to use cell phones to do the same.

Coming back to the idea of using a public social network for such work, Susan shares a comment left by a reader/viewer after watching one of the college-produced videos:

“Huh. I was just magically transported back to college and all of those worthless, boring liberal arts classes I had to take.”

“YouTube is … supposed to be more interesting than this. YouTube is … not an education device. YouTube is … a distraction from the intellectual rigors of college, not a substitute for it.”

Hmmmm, so you can overdo it with inappropriate use of social media. Susan and Dan also want to be clear that they are not recommending that we all videotape ourselves lecturing.

The Dramatic Question – Dan’s favorite idea for production.

We want to hear how you all are using video. What were some of the challenges?

After the fact resource: another video worth watching “Pay Attention Video” - about the need to infuse technology into teaching.

You can respond using the “Comments” link below or talk to us in LearningTimes. Or call us at 1-800-609-9006 x8055 (US and Canada) or 678-255-2174 x8055 (outside US and Canada). Join us!

In this episode, Dan and Susan explore the idea of critical thinking in online learning. Can you create the same kind of dynamic, spontaneous pursuit of a topic when you move online?

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Show Notes:

In this episode, Dan and Susan explore the idea of critical thinking in online learning. Can you create the same kind of dynamic, spontaneous pursuit of a topic when you move online?

Susan first asks whether there is the possibility to work synchronously. But for those who teach asynchronously, most would argue that the technology can be used to bring about greater depth, participation and critical thinking.

What is the disconnect that keeps faculty from making the transition and building courses that are driven by critical thinking?

Susan says this starts with instructional design. What are you asking students to do and how?

How are we asking the questions? A couple resources: A Questioning Toolkit - old ’97. And then Introduction to Crafting Questions for Online Discussion

Dan also suggests looking at the verbs you use when asking questions, but Susan reminds us to keep it within the vocabulary range of the learner.

How do you know when someone has thought critically? Facilitators must not assume learners understand the roles needed to bring about critical thinking. Instructions, rubrics and rewards are three strategies discussed.

Poorly inter-related monologues; how do we get beyond these? Susan admits she’s struggling in this area!

Final nuggets: get training in pedagogy, set up your course for discussion to be central, craft appropriate questions, know what outcomes you want in advance, facilitate accordingly. Of course, it is never that simple!

Listeners, what are your ideas and experiences in bringing about critical thinking in online discussions?

A final resource we forgot to mention:
Teaching Critical Thinking through Online Discussions [PDF]

You can respond using the “Comments” link below or talk to us in LearningTimes. Or call us at 1-800-609-9006 x8055 (US and Canada) or 678-255-2174 x8055 (outside US and Canada). Join us!

In this show, Susan and Dan discuss strategies for first year teacher prep with Cheri Toledo.

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Show Notes:

By way of Skype, we are joined by Dr. Cheri Toledo, Assistant Professor in Curriculum and Instruction at Illinois State University.

Cheri is innovative in how she helps prepare tomorrow’s K12 teachers. This topic came from David Warlick’s 2¢ Worth blog posting on the topic of first year teachers and technology. Cheri helped move the discussion forward by commenting, but also articulated her thoughts on her own blog.

What’s Cheri doing in her classroom? For example, now she gets students to know standards by using del.icio.us and having them network to pool resources.

Part of what Warlick was writing about was that new teachers didn’t know they were using Web2.0 tools. Cheri followed up on this idea with her own informal in-class survey of who’s using what. Our students might have the skills, but are not using the same tools we use.

Susan and Cheri then questioned the Pew research [PDF] from last year.

Susan asks Dan what he expects from his kids’ teachers and their use of technology. He’d love for the teachers to model the use of these tools. He shared what kinds of things happened in school as he observed them. Susan’s school is different; very strong support from the LMC Director.

What are Cheri’s hopes for what pre-service teachers would eventually do in their own teaching? Using blogs and wikis for collaboration. Her concern is the lack of understanding at the school sites and the overabundance of blocking.

We tend to teach the way we have been taught. Even before the term begins Cheri’s students are asked to engage. However, their responses are not always favorable. Who likes change? She introduces the “Did you know …” video.

Dan asks if Cheri has come across a resistant student who finally “got it.” Do people shift? In a couple years we’ll know about the long-term impact, but short term success does happen!

Hey Cheri’s students, we’ll comment!

Teachers sometimes don’t recognize how their own futures are changing. Pedagogies are shifting, too. Small discussion of teacher-centered versus student-centered.

Susan gives praise to Mrs. Baumert, LMC Director at Smith Elementary School, who blogged about a trip to Space Camp, hosted by the James Jordan Foundation. See the blog and pics. She helped keep families connected.

Dan and Susan want to hear comments from new teachers. What is it you wish you’d been trained in that you weren’t. Or, what is it that you are not able to do that you want to do? Cheri would like to know their ideas about how we can help education professors.

You can respond using the “Comments” link below or talk to us in LearningTimes. Or call us at 1-800-609-9006 x8055 (US and Canada) or 678-255-2174 x8055 (outside US and Canada). Join us!