Tag Archives: teaching

A fun ‘how to’ video

One of our teachers at Inquiry Hub Secondary, Ms. Yu, posted a video challenge on our all-school Microsoft Teams:

I whipped this video up yesterday. It was fun to do, and didn’t take that long to make.

Imagine trying to make this video 20 years ago. What equipment would you have needed? How many hours of editing would it have taken? Now, anyone can create a simple ‘How to’ video in a matter of minutes, or a couple hours if you want to edit it and add captions/music etc.

We live in a time when producing and sharing creative ideas is easier than ever. I’m connected to a lot of educators online that create and share amazing things with me. I’m also connected to educators that have so much to share, and they don’t. If you are the former, thank you for your contributions to my learning. If you are the later, what are you waiting for?

Assessment vs Testing

One of the interesting things that has arisen out of remote learning, due to the covid-19 pandemic, is that the idea of having supervised testing has become problematic.

This isn’t just the case for teachers new to online learning, I run the district’s online school and until now we have relied on supervised tests to ensure there is some consistency in work handed in. For example, a student might only hand in high quality essays because of considerable tutor support, or even intervention, and that would show up when the student does a written test in a supervised environment. Note: this isn’t just an issue with online learning, anyone can have a tutor help them ‘too much’, but rather it’s something that any teacher might have to consider when they can’t see who is doing the work.

Math is a challenge in the same way. Homework can come in that is 100% correct, but without help at home a student might only have enough understanding to achieve a 60% in a supervised test. But then again, maybe they can get over 75% based on understanding, but time limits and test anxiety make the test itself a less than ideal demonstration of understanding in a subject.

I’m making two points here:

1. Supervised tests have been used to ensure integrity of work.

2. Supervised tests create a less than ideal environment for ensuring understanding of learning.

So where does that leave teachers, teaching remotely, when it comes to assessment of learning, without opportunities for supervised testing?

One suggestion is to focus more on competencies rather than content. My online math teacher would typically spend over 10 minutes marking a single test. What if, instead of marking this test, she watched a student video of that student teaching her how to solve a challenging question? What if an English teacher watched four or six students debate a topic, while other students followed along, note taking in a public, digital discussion forum? What if students did a timed problem solving challenge where they all got to collaborate, but they had to put their answers into their own words?

What if we assume that students will get support, have access to their notes, and can’t be fully supervised, how does and should that affect our assessment practices?

Having Back Channel Support in an Online Video Class

I don’t think this is a word, but I’m going to use it anyway: Backchanneller.

There are many educators using tools like Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and Adobe Connect for the first time. These educators are learning that it is very hard to be presenting with these tools and also pay attention to the chat, and what is happening in the digital room, while also delivering instructions or a lesson. One thing that can make this easier is to have a back channel helper, or a backchanneller.

People who run Twitter Chats understand this. They use a team of people to help welcome people to the chat, retweet, and like good responses, while the main moderator pushes out the questions and engages with individual tweets. A single moderator struggles to do it all.

For video-based classes and lessons the teacher/presenter will often struggle with:

  • Following the chat
  • Picking out good questions
  • Helping to orient latecomers
  • Finding the person with their mic on, causing a distraction
  • Keeping the chat on topic, or at least monitor the chat for people causing a distraction.

It’s hard to do these things while also trying to be engaging and/or creating an interactive lesson.

The primary role of the backchanneller is to monitor what’s happening in the chat in the background, and to assist the teacher/presenter. These are the main roles:

  • Look for good questions
  • Respond to simple questions
  • Choosing the right time to interrupt, if the question warrants it… and avoiding questions that would interrupt or derail the lesson, or that can wait for an appropriate pause in the lesson.

There are other things the backchanneller can do, as mentioned above, but the moderation of the chat is key.

It’s hard to run a lesson and watch a chat conversation at the same time. It’s easy to unintentionally let the chat take over the lesson. Having a backchanneller, who can be a student, who understands the responsibility of the role, can help a lesson go considerably better. A backchanneller reduces the cognitive load on the teacher/presenter and lets them focus on the intent of the lesson or presentation.

It’s great when a participant, a student, can take on the role of backchanneller. It’s empowering. Explicitly explaining the importance of this role, and reflecting on the person’s effectiveness can also be a useful thing to do, to help the audience or class understand the value of this useful teaching assistant. And that’s the ultimate role of a backchanneller, an assistant, someone who monitors and manages a conversation stream while the teacher pays attention to the lesson or presentation.

Break in routines

It’s Monday after the March break and the week ahead will be far from routine. I’m starting my work day in less than an hour but students won’t be walking in the school doors and I’ll only see my teachers digitally. I’ll start the day reviewing emails I’ve flagged that remind me about new procedures and expectations around dealing with Covid-19, and the ‘new normal’ that will be far from normal. Next I’ll join a district team in a digital meeting to discuss supporting administrators and teachers. After that I have two meetings with two of my different school staffs. After that, communication to students and parents.

Usually, returning from March break means going back to a normal routine, but this year there is nothing normal about what I’m returning to. Yesterday I wrote that the quick answer isn’t always the best answer, but starting today I’m going to have many people wanting immediate answers from me. Some will understand my need to find out more and ask more questions before responding, some will get frustrated with my lack of answers. Some will approach me with resilience to handle the abnormality of our new situation, some will feel frustrated, nervous, and even scared. Some students or parents won’t engage in asking questions even if they have them.

In general we are creatures of habit and we like routines. Not all the these routines we have are positive and healthy, but routines help us cope with challenging situations and help us stay calm and resilient. When routines break, some of those coping strategies are lost. This is a time when we have to be supportive to those that do not handle changes and breaks in routine as well as others. This is a time to remember that we are dealing with human beings going through a challenging time. This is a time to remember that we ourselves are going through a challenging time.

This tweet by Dean Shareski really hit me this morning:

We need to focus on the needs of those we work with and for. We need to remember that that students, parents, and educators can struggle with new routines. We need to put people’s well being ahead of concerns about curriculum and learning. As we navigate the new teaching and learning routines we are creating, we’ve got to put people first. The rest will fall into place as long as we don’t rush and, while going slow, we show that we care for one another.

Just shifting online or shifting the learning?

Across the globe schools are closing due to Covid-19 and the learning is being moved online. I recently shared in my Daily-Ink post, ‘Novel ideas can spread from a novel virus‘:

Discussion about the possibility of remote learning invites questions about blended learning where some of the work, both asynchronous and synchronous, is done remotely. It also invites conversations and questions about what we should be spending our time on when we do get together?

…this virus is impacting the world the way it is might impact how we think about operating our schools and businesses in the future. What excites me isn’t the idea that more work might be done remotely, but rather the ideas behind what we do when we connect face-to-face, and how we use that time? Will we focus more on collaboration, team building, social skills, construction and creation of projects, and more personalized support? How will we engage students in learning when they might not be coming to school every day?

With the shift of learning at school moving digital, the only thing that seems to be shared on my Twitter feed as much as Coronavirus updates are online resources. There are tons of free resources that you can use/share and teach with. But the idea that all we need to do is put work we are usually doing in a class online can lead to disengaged and overworked students.

“In a world where information is abundant and easy to access, the real advantage is knowing where to focus.” ~ James Clear

Here are a few things to think about as course content is moved online, and lessons are taught from a distance:

What can you do synchronously? There are amazing tools like Microsoft Teams and Zoom that allow you to meet with students. How will this time be used? Will you lecture or allow students to meet in groups? Will it be a Powerpoint presentation or a discussion? If you are giving a presentation that can be pre-recorded or viewed online asynchronously, then are you utilizing your synchronous time effectively?

What can you edit out? Taking everything you do face-to-face and trying to put it online will be overwhelming, especially for students that already struggle in class. What are the essential things students need to learn? What skills and competencies do they need and how can you create a positive learning environment to learn these skills?

What assignments can you create that engage the learner with questions that do not have a single correct answer? How can you make the assignments open ended? For instance, these video writing prompts invite students to personalize their writing, and can provide a variety of writing samples that can show you their writing competencies… while not being cookie-cutter assignments that box students in. The videos are easy to embed and share, and the answers can promote great discussions when you meet synchronously.

To summarize, ask yourself a few questions when you are shifting from regularly meeting students to providing an online/digital program:

  1. What should you do to most effectively utilize synchronous time, when you have it scheduled?
  2. What can you take out of your course so that you are reducing the expectations of students working from home, with less support than they get at school?
  3. How can you make assignments engaging, interactive, and interesting?
  4. What kind of things will you assess and how can you ensure that assessment is something that authentically assesses the students skills and competencies?

How can you shift the learning experience beyond just shifting everything online?

Also shared on Pair-A-Dimes for Your Thoughts.

Novel ideas can spread from a novel virus

I travelled to China during the early H1N1 (swine flu) pandemic in 2009. Concerns were low in Canada and there wasn’t a travel warning at the time. On my flight to Japan there wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. However after leaving Japan, when we landed in Chana we were asked to stay on the plane and remain seated.

A team of people masked and dressed in white came on board and used an infrared thermometer to take our temperatures. Two rows in front of me a person that was coughing and unwell, and her husband, were escorted off the plane first. I remember thinking, ‘Oh man, sucks to be you!’

I thought that was it, but after leaving the plane I guess that we passed a heat sensor camera because I was tapped on the shoulder and pulled aside. A lady in a mask, shining a red light on my forehead, took my temperature and said, “Too hot.”

To say that I was freaked out is an understatement. I was visiting for 1 week to learn about my future job as a school Principal, and visions of quarantine in a foreign country, where I don’t speak the language, swirled through my head. Fortunately, a second reading was done and I was fine. I think a coffee right before landing, plus the fact that I run a little hot anyway, might have been the initial trigger.

Still, that shook me a little. I wondered about why these measures were not happening elsewhere? The response in China seemed preventative, while in other countries it seemed merely reactive. I’m not sure too many lessons were learned and the novel Coronavirus currently spreading across the world will likely have a significant impact on our globe before things get better. Yet I don’t mean that to sound like foreboding, and ominous foreshadowing. This virus will run its course, then some valuable lessons will be learned that were not learned by viruses like this in the past. Lessons that will hopefully help prevent the severity of a future pandemic.

—

I read in interesting article, “How the coronavirus will shape the future” and want to expand on one section as it relates to schools and education:

If the growing novel coronavirus outbreak becomes a lasting pandemic, it could accelerate fundamental changes in the economy, politics and the workplace...

Going remote: Videoconferencing and remote work have exploded as the virus has spread.

  • According to Kentik, a global provider of network analytics, videoconferencing traffic in North America and Asia has doubled since the outbreak began.

  • Led by tech firms like Twitter and Facebook, companies are encouraging and even requiring their employees to work from home, both to slow the spread of the disease now and prepare for the worst should offices be closed in a quarantine.

  • Many experts believe business leaders will come to see that central offices and face-to-face meetings are less vital than they thought. “We’re going to see that work can be tied to productivity anywhere rather than putting time in an office,” said Peter Jackson, CEO of the digital collaboration company Bluescape.

At Inquiry Hub Secondary every assignment is already available online. Students have access to Moodle, Microsoft OneNote, and Microsoft Teams from any connected computer or mobile device. The Microsoft tools also have immersive readers and dictation tools to support students no matters where they are learning from.

Using Teams, I can invite colleagues or students into a virtual classroom, sharing video including either my or a student’s screen, and we can all link to resources in the Chat. Students could collaborate and do presentations, submit work, and get feedback without entering a school. That creates a lot of opportunities that weren’t previously available. I have no idea if this is something that will become necessary in the coming months, but in some parts of the world schools have already been closed, and so the idea that this is possible becomes a topic of discussion.

Discussion about the possibility of remote learning invites questions about blended learning where some of the work, both asynchronous and synchronous, is done remotely. It also invites conversations and questions about what we should be spending our time on when we do get together?

We might not have to change anything to deal with the Coronavirus, but the fact that this virus is impacting the world the way it is might impact how we think about operating our schools and businesses in the future. What excites me isn’t the idea that more work might be done remotely, but rather the ideas behind what we do when we connect face-to-face, and how we use that time? Will we focus more on collaboration, team building, social skills, construction and creation of projects, and more personalized support? How will we engage students in learning when they might not be coming to school every day?

Learning Through Failure vs Failing to Learn

We talk a lot about learning through failure, but not a lot about failing to learn. When we fail because of lack of resources, lack of support, lack of knowledge, and/or lack of reflection, it’s just a failure. We do not necessarily learn.

When we talk about learning from failure, we are not actually talking about failure, we are talking about perseverance, and resilience, and tenacity. We are talking about coming up to resistance and unplanned outcomes and working through them to achieve a goal. We are talking about students learning significantly more than if everything went their way.

Who learns more, the person who follows the cookie-cutter curriculum and content-focused assessment, or the student who tries something really original, challenging, and maybe even epic? Even if both paths led to the coveted mark of an ‘A’, which path holds the most promise for deep learning?

We never want students to fail, but we also don’t want them to have such an easy path to success that the learning is forgettable. The struggle that potential failure can create is something that separates learning through failure from failing to learn.

(Image by Bill Ferriter)

Just follow the steps

I enjoy solving puzzles like this:

The thing about these kind of puzzles is that if you don’t see the solution, you make a guess, you toss around ideas, then you eliminate them, and suddenly you see the pattern… you’ve figured out the steps, and you know you are right even before you’ve completed the answer. At that point you just follow the steps.

Easy… Or is it?

Sometimes the solution eludes you. Sometimes you just don’t see the pattern. In the example above, I can even tell you the next line of numbers and if you don’t see the pattern, it won’t help you understand: (13211311123113112211). The new row I shared would just become another set of confusing numbers. The solution won’t help you figure out the steps.

For some learners, getting started on a project or an assignment is like this. The blank page is daunting, giving no hints as to what to do next. Interpreting the question is too hard even before thinking about possible answers. For others, getting started is easy, but knowing how to finish involves a roadblock such as, explaining a process, collecting relevant data, summarizing information, extrapolating what the teacher wants, understanding the conclusion, or figuring out the purpose of even doing the assignment in the first place.

It took me about a minute and a half to solve this question, with half of that time doing the simple math to ensure I was right:

Find next number in the series:
23 21 24 19 26 15 28 11 30 7 36 ?

If you know the pattern, great! But if you don’t and I told you the answer is 5, that wouldn’t actually help you figure out the next number in the sequence.

When you know or understand the steps to get to the end of an assignment, it’s just a matter of doing the work. When you don’t understand the steps, or when a learning challenge gets in the way, then the steps become cliffs, too big to climb.

How often do we ask learners to climb cliffs?

Talents, Time, and Space: Passion Projects in Schools

In every school there are athletes, musicians, dancers, artists, designers, and creatives in the areas of coding, electronics, mechanics, and even gaming, who do not get to express their full potential in school. And while it is not our job to be everything to everyone, we can create the time and space for students to work on passion projects that let them shine.

It’s time for all schools to let go of rigid block schedules that corral students through the entire day from teacher to teacher, where every moment is determined and controlled by adults.

This isn’t about the teachers and teaching in some of those blocks, we have amazing teachers that are engaging and excellent at teaching the curriculum. This is an issue with the schedule, and design of the day, in such a way that classes after classes fill a students day with courses that limit their ability to shine… Shine in fields they are passionate about that schools could but don’t always allow students to express themselves in.

When students have time in their day, they can do some amazing things, like write an entire musical, design an app to help homeless people and their support workers locate resources, and build a non-partisan app & website to help people make an informed vote, (actual projects at Inquiry Hub).

Teachers are still essential, they are the compass that helps guide students. And teachers still have classes and curriculum to teach at different times of the day… they just share that time with other times and spaces where students can follow their passions.

Learning doesn’t have to only happen in a guided way with the teacher leading the way. If that’s the approach, letting students follow their passions will be overwhelming. The task would be too great for teachers. To do this the schedule needs to build in the time and space for students to lead their own learning, with the ever important teachers and mentors helping them find their way.

Hitting the goal posts

Wayne Gretzky had an amazing talent for scoring goals.  Three records that he holds, that may never be surpassed, are scoring in 51 consecutive games, scoring 50 goals in 39 games, and scoring 92 goals in one season (80 games). To accomplish this he did something very well… He would visually focus on the back of the net, the open space between the goal posts and the goalie, and he would send the hockey puck into those spaces. Yes, that’s what most hockey players want to do, but it’s not what they actually do.

When most people are aiming at a goal, be it in hockey, water polo, soccer, lacrosse, or any other sport with a net and a goalie, they are (almost) always aiming for the edges of the net, near the goal posts or crossbar. However it is challenging to aim at an empty space, so many people end up looking at the posts instead, and that’s what they end up hitting.

When I coached and saw someone hitting the crossbar a few times, sometimes I’d pull them aside and ask them to close their eyes. “Imagine the goalie and the bars of the goal behind her. Do you see them? Ok, now make them all one dark colour, like black. Now brighten the space between the goalie and and the bars. Got that in you head? Ok, aim there.”

Related to this, have you ever noticed the weird odds that a car accident will often include the collision with a telephone pole or a post, when there isn’t any other obstacle for quite some distance? The less interesting reason for this is that accidents that do not involve poles and posts are faster to clean up. The more interesting reason is that when a driver is in a dangerous situation and sees the post, they fixate on it, and while consciously scared and wanting to avoid it, their hands steer where their eyes go.

In school, there are many ways that a student can aim for the goal posts:

What do I need to do to get a ‘A’?

What’s the fastest way to get this done?

What does the teacher want me to do?

There are also many ways that educators can aim for the goal posts:

Teaching facts void of big ideas.

Teaching ‘the how’ without ‘the why’, (such as in Math, teaching that a negative times a negative equals a positive, and not explaining why this works). 

Counting marks rather than marking what really counts. 

None of these questions or examples are about learning. They aren’t on target; they aren’t the goal. But when we aim for the posts, we tend to miss the intended target, or in these examples, the intended outcomes.

What’s a goal post you are aiming at? And what would you be doing differently right now, if you were aiming at the net rather than the posts?