Jonesieblog

I have seen a number of articles/videos over the last wee while that have really helped to clarify my thinking about the difference between how learners feel about their learning experiences and how effectively they are actually learning.

Interleaved Practice

Research seems to suggest that if you ask learners to do a mixture of problems after a teaching episode rather than doing lots of practice of the type of problem they have been taught about, they feel more confused and perform worse on the day, but when they are given a test a week later they drastically outperform those who stuck to the one type of problem during the original lesson (The Effects of Interleaved Practice, Taylor and Rohrer 2009).

Facing Misconceptions

Derek Miller showed learners a video about gravity and motion.  Learners judged the video to be clear and easy to understand, but the video completely failed to correct their misconceptions, and their performance in a post-video test was virtually the same as in the pre-video test..  Another group of learners were shown a video which went on to state common misconceptions, and explain why they were false.  The learners described this video as confusing, but they went on to improve by 100% their performance in the test on the topic. You can watch his description of the experiment here on YouTube.

Effective Presentations

I can’t find a link to the last bit of research, alas, so I am paraphrasing from memory.  An American who spent decades researching effective use of Powerpoint performed the following experiment.  He presented the same set of information to 2 groups using Powerpoint.  One group saw a bland, bare presentation, whilst the second group saw a flashy presentation with lots of animation and colour.  The second group enjoyed their presentation much more than the first, and felt more confident about the topic than the first.  But when tested the first group outperformed the second group significantly.

And so…

How often do you take the phrase “I’m confused” in your classroom as a negative sign?  And how often do you use learner satisfaction or ability to perform on the day as barometers of the effectiveness of your lessons?  It appears that you shouldn’t be doing either without some deeper assessment of the quality of the learning that is going on.

Stumble it!

[disclaimer]This is a ramble, full of internal inconsistencies, born of a weary mind.  I post it into the ether like fresh meat thrown to a pack of wolves – go ahead and tear it to shreds![/disclaimer]

I guess you all know about Khan Academy.  If not: it’s one man’s collection of 2100 video lectures on maths, science, finance and more – all freely available.  In maths, it purports to provide a full progression from the basics of counting and place value up to some areas of university maths.

Bill Gates has endorsed it, whilst many educators are throwing their hands up in horror.

A heretical thought that popped into my head today.    What if young people decide one day that they want to spend all of the limited amount of time they devote to maths actually learning how to do maths instead of learning how to collaborate effectively, design bridges, play Mario Kart, be good time-keepers, produce presentations or whatever latest thing might be? And what if they then start using Khan Academy in large numbers to fulfil their needs? And what if they find that Khan Academy is actually much more useful to them than their school maths lessons in providing them with the exam passes that will open the doors to employment and/or further education?

How relevant will school maths look then?

As I look back over my 20 years of teaching, I can’t think of that many youngsters who have been motivated enough to spend time at home on maths beyond homework assignments, so it’s probably just a crazy, passing thought.

The broader purposes that we pursue as educators these days (under the banner of “A Curriculum for Excellence” in Scotland) are very noble – more than that, they address the real needs of young people growing up into a world of accelerating change.  But how good are we are getting buy-in to these broader purposes from parents, employers and the learners themselves?  Without that buy-in the project runs the risk of becoming irrelevant despite it’s worthiness – because our customers can now get what they think they need elsewhere.

Stumble it!

New National 4/5 Maths Qualifications with Mr Topping

• no more NABs!  Items will be on NAR and we’ll have to assemble them into unit assessments
• Nat 5 will not be Int 2.  Carving off of apps into Lifeskills Maths means that the harder stuff can permeate all 3 units better

Other random stuff that occurred to me or was said to me through the day:

• make textbook work richer by having pairs take it in turns to answer questions, explaining their thinking to their partner as they go
• use local carry-out menus for money work
• use a google docs form to perform something like a diagnostic interview with a whole class at once (pupils logged into GAE)

Quite a lot of ideas for one day.  I guess it made the early start on a Saturday morning worthwhile!

Stumble it!

This morning we had 2 minutes silence across the school.  It was at the start of my lesson with 10 S1 pupils.  After the silence ended, I told my class about the silent meditation retreats I had attended, and about the school on Vancouver Island which has a silent morning for the whole school [I can't find a link to this - anyone help?].

One of the pupils said “Oh – can we do that this lesson!”  The rest of the class was up for it, so we did the entire hour lesson in silence.  It was a lovely experience, and the pupils were very positive in their learning logs.

Stumble it!

1. provide students with tools to help them to reflect upon their own learning

I want the students coming to my department to be aware of themselves as learners, and to be active participants in their own learning processes.  Of course every student is actively involved in their own learning – no learning would take place otherwise – but I want them all to be able to take a step back from themselves and reflect upon their own progress.  Making this reflection regular, manageable and meaningful is a challenge!  We don’t have 1-1 computing devices in class, so if we are going to use ICT we are largely going to have to use the students’ devices in the students’ time (until enough of them have smart phones!).

Moodle

Moodle offers a plethora of tools that might help here:  Class wikis, glossaries, journals, forums… the list goes on.

Glow

Wikis and blogs are in Glow now aren’t they?  Or they will be soon.

Google Apps

Google Apps include forms and shared documents.  I guess they could be used somehow.

Edubuzz blogs

I’ve used scribe post blogs in the past. They can be very effective, but are really reflections upon the group experience rather than personal self assessment.  Blogs can be made private, so we could have individual scribe post blogs.  Unmanageable perhaps?

The desktop

Students could write up learning logs as word processing documents, stored on the server.  Not appealing!  We don’t have 1-1 in class, so impractical.  They could do the same at home.  How would they share these reflections with me?

Ad-hoc tools

Wallwisher could be very effective for group reflections. Can anyone suggest other tools that would work?

Non-ICT solutions

One solution would be to have 5 minutes at the end of each lesson for students to write up learning logs by hand.  This is simple, manageable and accessible for all students.  But the activity could quickly become perfunctory.

I don’t really seem to have resolved anything here.  Moodle and pencil-and-paper seem to be the front runners.  I’d be most grateful if you could help to clarify my ponderings!

Stumble it!