Personal Blogs

Introduced to 'The Reflective Cycle (Gibbs, 1988)' I then used this to consider the micro teach I gave last week. 

Description

What happened?

• I tried to deliver a 60 mins class in 15 minutes. 

Feelings

What were you thinking and feeling?

• Like a runaway train. 

Evaluation

What was good and bad about the experience?

• It is self-evident that I need to observe a lot more , and teach a lot more and improve at every step and opportunity. 

Analysis

What sense can you make of the situation?

• All things can be taught? Though you’ll never teach me to dance! But teaching isn’t a dance. Might I be better suited to some teaching situations than others? 

Conclusion

What else could you have done ?

• Observed the micro teach sessions the week before while self-isolating and I would have quickly understood what can be done in the time ! 

Action Plan

If it rose again, what would you do? 

• Keep it simple.

• Talk less, teach more 

• Give it to them.

What I wrote, see above, was of less value than what others wrote and shared. It was a lesson to be part of an exercise, the second of seven or more, over three hours, where it felt as if we were being indulged. The tutor actively sought out our experience and point of view, pausing to develop a variety of insights that resulted and only as a final thought did we go to a description or summary that had been prepared in advance. This was neither an afterthought, nor the statement that would dominate all others. The way it was shared it simply become one more opinion in the shared and constructed meaning.

A number of things are profoundly different face to face: the context of the learning. We are in a place designed to study (albeit a teaching restaurant with dining chairs used as desks). But there are chairs, there is a teacher on her feet with a big TV screen at the end of the room.  This context includes other learners. You see and feel their response to the experience, how they take notes (or not) and how much a point of view, a conclusion or shared anecdote matters. Doing this in a group chat online is not the same; for a start only four out of twelve would do it. My experience of the MAODE was that those of us who shared our experience, learnt together and got to know each other online, were a minority. Did we gain from that experience, or was it an indulgent distraction? 

https://theblackcurriculum.com/

Another invaluable session with EdTech Summit 2020. 

Day two is proving as valuable as day one. 

I'd like to do this every quarter, or at least once a term ... just to get a grip on industry best practice in a fast changing world, to get a feel for what works so as to avoid what in practice does not. 

I've just come out of 'Promote the Benefits of Using Technology'

From Personal Learning Networks (PLN) - very OU MAOD, we also came away with two books, a few theories and a lot of notes on what people like or do not like.

Matthew Syed: Rebel Ideas

David Price: The Power of Us

Communities of Practice > Wenger quoted, I'd add my old favourite Engestrom.

Then a mix of the physical environment: corridor, coffee machine, staff room and water cooler, as well as the digital apps and platforms such as Google Classroom, WhatsApp, Chat, WordPress blogs, use of e-Newsletters and flyers ... and analogue favourites of posters and newsletters too.

Others have had success with Digital Champions.

No one has had success with Twitter, but Facebook and LinkedIn are worth another look.

I have done this twice and scoring over 82% both times I was able to join the waiting list to become a mentor. I became a menot a year or 18 months later. This role has diminished over the last 2 years as Coursera have moved away from the volunteer mentor approach. It's hard to mentor over 1 million students however many mentors you have! Peer support within each cohort is now favoured (as happens on FutureLearn).

Click here to join > Learning How To Learn 

I believe the provenance of this blog post it my analysis of the stages of e-learning design taught during the MAODE, modelled on the OU's approach and based on Gilly Salmon's 'five steps' of e-tivities. Though EMA suggests it was part of an 'End of Module Assessment'. It looks handy so I want to know I have it somewhere!

What you should do (the corporate perspective):

Identify a clear business problem or opportunity to which e-learning can be effectively applied.

Choose the provider based on two things:

1. their clear solution to the business need

2. a means of measuring the value that solution delivers

H800 EMA on Learning Schedule (OU MAODE) Flowchart

H800 EMA on Learning Schedule (OU MAODE) E-tivity Flowchart

PHASE ONE

EdTech > My head is being blown apart by the depth, quality and insight of the speakers at the EdTech Schools and Academy Show. The vMix platform for delivering this online conference to many thousands of people is also impressive. 

Listening to Daniel Susskind had me reaching to Amazon so I have his book and will be reading it in any break I get today. 

Everyone needs to know how to 'get into the flow'. 

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi tells us how: 

1. Complete concentration on the task;
2. Clarity of goals and reward in mind and immediate feedback;
3. Transformation of time (speeding up/slowing down);
4. The experience is intrinsically rewarding;
5. Effortlessness and ease;
6. There is a balance between challenge and skills;
7. Actions and awareness are merged, losing self-conscious rumination;
8. There is a feeling of control over the task.

To watch > Flow by Csikszentmihalyi 

Csikszentmihalyi, M (2020) The 8 Characteristics of Flow. [accessed 17/11/2020] 

During the first lockdown the family quiz became the thing. Six location, six family hubs, my sister with her hubby, my wife and I, her kids from California and Newcastle, my own kids from London, and nephew also from London.

Eight months on and at the same time, on the same night I've got two organisations pushing a global quiz, the above from my old school (I attended unwillingly for three years and go out after O' Levels) while the Western Front Association has gone from branch, to national to an international Zoom offering too. Here we have tested the water with webinars first too New Zealand and Australia, and most recently from New Zealand and coming soon from Canada.

What has the world come to? Not so much the Global Village, as the Global Sofa - or wherever the shared space might be. 

I'm attending a face to face PGCE class so won't be able to to this. Had I been at home I may well have had to screens open and followed the class while answering the quiz - like a simultaneous exhibition of chess.

My students for 'Sports Nutrition' could vary between GPs and nutritionists to the young swimmer new to competitive swimming. I expect to split the class between swimmers and parents/guardians, and  by age and by default, within reason, educational attainment. Talking to primary school swimmers will be different to college and secondary school students - especially those with a science A level. 

Simply offering further reading is one approach. I also have papers on 'compliance' and the vital role of the parent/guardian to changing behaviours so that they are aligned with what a competitive club would expect. 

When you're on a roll you have to take more on. There is method here. By filling up my day with education I don't leave space for other distractions. I always have something on my mind, something else to start, from other social media projects, to applying to be a Governor, to saying yes to standing in a local election (again), to needing to learn the Adobe Creative Products I now have a licence for ... to reading the 27 books I have stacked up to review ... event to purchasing rights to a book to turn it into a TV series. There aren't enough hours in the day, which rather suggests I need to delegate, or tema-up, even start a business again. 

Gabriel Byrne Saturday Live BBC Radio 4 9:37am 

Gabriel Byrne was on (via Zoom to Maine) to talk about his autobiography, which took hm from Ireland to Hollywood. At one point he said "When you listen to someone fully it's like a prayer.".

Can a teacher do that? Like Robin Williams in 'Dead Poet's Society' - where the students hang on your every word? It requires a bit of the religious. It takes story telling. 

Could I use this?

John Carroll

Given the student profile, do I end up giving some of them or all of them the opportunity to learn in the time available? Knowing the potential group would it be better to split the group, rather than trying to cater for everyone all in one go? Self-paced learning can overcome this by signalling the choices a visitor to web content might take: fonts, graphics and image choices indicate the age range and for two extremes, kids with a brightly promoted online colouring book can be differentiated from parents in the know who are offered academic papers in the form of a link to a PDF to read.

There can only be ONE thread in a live classroom. In self-paced learning you can branch it, so letting a student find the way that is best suited to their knowledge, understanding and desired pace.

In 15 minutes there is little need for perseverance.

Achievement is the witness of the 'before' plate from the 'after' plate.

There are six elements to Carroll's model: (1) 

Academic Achievement: the outcome 

Aptitude: The "the amount of time a student needs to learn a given task, unit of instruction, or curriculum to an acceptable criterion of mastery under optimal conditions of instruction and student motivation" (Carroll, 1989: 26). "High aptitude is indicated when a student needs a relatively small amount of time to learn, low aptitude is indicated when a student needs much more than average time to learn" (Carrol: 1989: 26).

Opportunity to Learn: i.e. the amount of time available for learning (classwork, homework and private study). Carroll (1998:26) notes that "frequently, opportunity to learn is less than required in view of the students aptitude". Slow down. Take your time. Pace it. Provide opportunities for questions, feedback and going over something multiple times. (Where digital resources come into their own). 

Ability to Understand Instruction: This relates to learning skills, information needed to understand, and language comprehension. Know your students before. Get to know them during. 

Quality of Instruction: Plan the lesson with your students in mind. Follow Gagne's nine general steps of instruction for learning (2). 

1. Gain Their Attention
2. Describe the goal. Remember to state the Learning Objectives i.e. what they will learn and what they can do with it.
3. Stimulate Recall. Prior knowledge based on past classes, conversations and student profiles
4. Present the materials to be learned. Chunk information to avoid memory overload.
5. Provide 'guidance for learning' > present rather than instruct
6. Elicit Performance 'practice' > get the students to do something. 
7. Provide information feedback > analyse learners' behaviour. 
8. Assess performance > any simple indication that progress is being made
9. Enhance retention and transfer  > look for similar problem situations, give more practice. 

Perseverance: Amount of time a student is willing to spend on a given task or unit of instruction. This is an operational and measurable definition for motivation for learning.