The musings of a high school educator who is continually refining her idea of what it means to be a “good teacher.” Please feel free to comment and add your own ideas to the discussion.
One of my favorite quotes, this embodies some of my philosophy as an educator. I find myself continually searching for new ways (new, at least to me) to improve the experiences of our students. I changed the word “wander” to “wonder” for this blog because there are all kinds of things I am continually wondering about. Things such as classroom management, content topics, effective teaching techniques, the teenage psyche, and how to get students to bring back my ransomed hall pass!
I have been pondering how to share my ideas and experiences on education with my friends/colleagues and how to get their ideas and experiences in return. Even though we are scattered all over the map, there is no reason in this age of technology why we can’t continue where we left off or go to places we haven’t yet been. I often learn a great deal through writing and discourse. This is the vehicle I’ve come up with to do just that and to broaden my horizons.
I invite you to comment on any of the ideas in this blog. If you agree/disagree with me or other contributors, have questions to ask, or your own ideas/opinions to share, please add them. I value your thoughts. All I ask is that you do it “respectfully” (isn’t that a word some of us have discussed with our students a lot?). Thank you and I look forward to hearing from you.
This is the second post in the Presentation Tips series. The suggestions in this series are based on observations of trainings and presentations during the 2008-2009 school year. Tag: Presentation Tips.
When giving a presentation the visuals you choose to incorporate can greatly add or detract from your effectiveness as a speaker. Be sure to carefully consider how you are using your visuals to support your content.
There are two books that I highly recommend to people who are looking to refine their presentation skills. The first is Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds. This book is an easy read with a lot of information on how to make your presentations more powerful and effective. It is a great place to get started if you want to know more about presentation design. Garr also has a Presentation Zen Blog, which is a great resource. The second book I would recommend is Slide:ology by Nancy Duarte. This book delves more deeply into the design principles of good presentations and has some great food for thought. Both of these books have shifted the way I approach presentation design for professional development and for use in the classroom.
Before designing your presentation, decide the purpose of your visuals/slides. Do you need them to help support the content of your presentation? Are they a way to better include your visual learners? Do your slides need to stand alone for absent colleagues or students? Would your content be better served with no visuals? Whatever the reason, decide ahead of time and use that to guide the design of your presentation.
Computer/Laptop:
If you have participants doing various activities (group work, breaks, etc.) use Power Point or Dashboard timers to give a visual cue of how much time is available and to signal when time is up. It helps you to regain your audience more quickly.
Turn off your screen saver, especially if it contains personal photos. I have seen these become highly distracting to the audience because the presenter’s photos can be so very interesting!
Clean up your computer desktop. LOOK organized, even if you aren’t.
Videos/Film:
Videos should be short, relevant, and to the point. Unless this is the stated purpose of your presentation, avoid long videos.
If you are using video clips, try to embed them into your slide show.
Are you using a site like YouTube to show your videos? Be sure to use the full screen option when playing them. This allows better viewing of the clip and minimizes distractions from website “clutter” that often surrounds online videos.
Slides:
When presenting with a PowerPoint/Keynote or other visual aide, do not put a slide up until you are going to discuss it. As soon as your slide changes, so does the focus of your audience.
Are you at a conference? Be sure to have a title slide up while people enter so they know if they are in the right place.
Whenever possible, include less info and make you slides more concise and visually appealing.
Avoid reading your slides to your audience & avoid having all of your info on your slides. If you are doing either other these things, the audience only needs a copy of your slides. You are the reason they are present, not your PowerPoint.
Be sure that your audience can easily read your materials. People should always be able to read your slides both on the wall and on any handout.
Looking for high quality creative commons images? Use the advanced search features on Flickr, Google Images, or other image search engines to specify images that fit your use requirements. My personal favorite is currently Compfight, a Flickr search engine. Be sure to provide attribution for the images you use either on the slide, a works cited page, or a link to a gallery of the image sources.
Be sure to include a works cited slide if you did not cite your sources in your presentation.
Consider including a “Teaching Strategies Used” slide at the end of your presentation. This helps to show that you practice what you preach in terms of instructional strategies and allows your audience to learn more.
cc licensed flickr photo by Dark Sevier: http://flickr.com/photos/sevier/68914862/
I recently had the opportunity to attend a week long Quantum Learning training. At the training we did a team building exercise know simply as “The Maze.” While you can read more about one version of this exercise here, I will try to give you a short synopsis. This exercise prompted a great deal of thought by everyone present at the training.
The Maze is a grid on which a team must discover the correct path from one end to the other. Until the correct route is discovered, only one person may be in the Maze at a time. If they step on an incorrect square while trying to discover the path, they get “beep” from the Maze Master (who has a sheet with the correct path). They must then retrace their steps exactly to exit the Maze. Team members can get penalties for touching the Maze out of turn, touching people in the Maze, using props, speaking and a few other things. They cannot ask the Maze Master any questions and the Maze Master may only give feedback in the form of a “beep” (when team members step on the wrong square) and a “buzz” when the team invokes a penalty. We had three teams attempting the Maze at once, the first one to finish wins (though all teams needed to finish the Maze). It took us around 45 minutes to complete the exercise.
This was one of those experiences where the frustration was palpable in the room. This was not an easy task. My role in the exercise was that of a Maze Master. My job was to be completely deadpan the entire time, only speaking to give “beeps” and “buzzes” (with a short description of the buzz offense). The presenter told us before we began that that Maze Masters had the hardest job. I would have to agree with her that it was fairly difficult. I had all the answers, but I had to sit and allow the team members to make mistake after mistake after mistake with virtually no reaction from myself. The team was clearly frustrated at points in the exercise and often their anger pointed towards me. After all, I was the one who kept telling them they were wrong and they had to restart their path. They had questions that I desperately wanted to answer. However, I was not allowed to say anything other than the scripted beeps and buzzes. The basic idea is that the team represents the students in a class while the Maze Master is a representation of the teacher.
I learned a lot from the Maze, I know I will be thinking about it for some time. Here are three of the lessons that I have been thinking about the most since completing the exercise.
Failure
I’ve been thinking a lot about failure lately but this activity put those thoughts into overdrive. As the Maze Master I had to sit and watch as team members made lots of mistakes. It was especially tough when they repeated some of the same mistakes. As teachers, how willing are we to allow our students to make mistakes in order to succeed?
I have always tried to be supportive of my students when they make mistakes, helping them to learn where to go next. But I realized that I might not be so good at knowingly watching them “step into the wrong square.” There is a difference between problem solving when things don’t go right and purposely allowing students to make the wrong choices. It is hard to stand and watch them make mistakes and not stop them before it happens. We naturally want to keep them safe and save them the pain. However, as my friend Katy put it, “true learning doesn’t come without frustration.” So now instead of just telling my students it’s ok to make mistakes because that’s how we learn, I need to be better at allowing those mistakes to be made. I have a lot of processing to do on this issue.
Focus
As the Maze Master I had a lot of things that needed my attention. In addition to making sure people were on the correct square, I had to pay attention to make sure everyone was standing in the right place, that they didn’t touch the people in the Maze or the Maze itself, that they weren’t talking, that they retraced their steps correctly when they got a beep, that everyone was taking their correct turn, etc. It wasn’t easy to keep track of it all.
My take away on this aspect of the challenge was reinforcement that as teachers we can’t effectively focus on everything all the time. We can give much better feedback when we focus on one or two things at a time instead of trying to do it all. We should also allow our students a specified focus. The best example I’ve seen with this involves writing. When teaching writing skills, it is hard for us and the students when we tell them everything has to be perfect. It is ok to focus on and grade just mechanics or just organization on a particular assignment. It is not to say that we throw away all the other good things about writing, but that we intensely focus on those elements in order to help our students improve.
Course Correction
cc licensed flickr photo by alicepopkorn: http://flickr.com/photos/alicepopkorn/2736173495/
During the exercise, I made a mistake as the Maze Master. I buzzed the group when I shouldn’t have and things got confused. The group tried to ask questions and the facilitator came to remind me that I couldn’t deviate from the script. I couldn’t tell them I made a mistake and fix it. I had to keep buzzing them for being in the wrong place. I panicked a bit because I knew they were frustrated and I wanted to fix my mistake.
What I wish I would have done is said “pause” (which we were allowed to do) so I could take the time to look at the Maze, figure out what had just happened and then respond appropriately. While I do make a conscious effort to analyze my mistakes as a teacher, I would like to be better at it. I would like to be able to say “pause,” evaluate the situation, and then respond appropriately. Some of the best reflective conversations I’ve had about my teaching have been with my students. I would like to “pause” with them more often to evaluate and decide if there is a better path for us to follow.
While there are a lot of lessons that can be learned from the Maze exercise, these are the three that have been on my mind the most. I have particularly been thinking a great deal about failure in terms of how we assess and assign grades. I would love to hear your thoughts on any of these issues.
For the past few years, I’ve been using a Moleskine notebook to keep track of notes in meetings and professional development presentations. I find having less paper to shuffle around and keeping everything in one place works very well for me. As an Instructional Facilitator, I have been making a conscious effort to study the presentations of others so I may improve my own skills. Being an IF (and a new district employee) has also given me the opportunity to see many presenters in action. For about a year and a half, I’ve been putting presentation suggestions in the back few pages of my notebook. Some of my colleagues have noticed this, and offered their own suggestions to be written down in the book. What you see here is the compilation of professional development presentation suggestions from 2008-2009. My colleagues and I have also worked to include these ideas in the presentations that we give. These suggestions will be a series of posts on topics such as preparation, materials (handouts, food, tech, music, etc.), use of time, presentation slides, and others. I will be using the tag “Presentation Tips.”
Handouts: Professional development can involve a lot of paper. These are some of the ideas we suggest to help streamline the process and to be sure your handouts are user friendly.
Do you have a handout you want people to grab as they walk in? Put them somewhere obvious and in plain site.
You can use handouts to indicate where you would like your audience to sit. Place handouts or goodies in only the front rows, group areas, or other places where you would like people to situate themselves.
Have an agenda and try to honor it. Make it available to everyone through a handout, email, etc. It is also a good idea to have this posted somewhere in the room.
Make copies on different colors of paper for easy reference. (Please refer to the blue copy, green packet, etc.)
Include easy to find page numbers on multi-page handouts. Even if these are hand written on the originals and then copied, they make packets much more user friendly.
Handouts printed in color ink can grab the attention of your audience and show them you cared enough to make that extra effort.
Avoid PowerPoint format handouts. Rather, give people information that can be used and/or referenced in your presentation. Good slides are “little statements that would be a waste of paper.” –Jane Kise
Be sure that everything on your handouts can be easily read. I see people run into the “legibility” issue most often with data (charts, graphs, etc.)
Looking to go Paperless? If your audience has access to computers during the presentation, consider the following options:
Hand out a collection of related resources on CDs, DVDs, or flash drives. This method allows you to easily provide additional resources and can help you differentiate for your audience. Be sure that your materials are both Windows and Mac friendly.
Upload handouts to GoogleDocs or similar web applications where your audience can easily access them. If you choose this route, but sure your audience is comfortable using the web application you have chosen.
Include a reference list of web resources using a social bookmarking site such as Diigo or Delicious. This can be especially helpful if you or your audience will be using various websites during your presentation. You can also use this method to provide additional resources or websites/research cited in the presentation. This Diigo resource list is an example from one of my tech classes.
Comic Life and similar graphic design programs make easy to follow how-to guides for technology presentations. See an example here.
If you have comments or questions on any of the tips provided or if you would like to add your own tips, please feel free to comment. Thank you!
I am currently teaching an optional course for our teachers on Embedding Technology. Our last class was an introduction to Twitter. During the class, I asked for responses from my PLN to the question “How do you find useful education professionals to follow?” The teachers in my class requested that I post the responses in an easy to read format, so I chose to use my blog for this purpose.
Here are some live links to the websites included in some of the responses:
During our kick-off week of professional development for the 2009-2010 school year, I did a presentation for our staff on being safe and savvy on the internet. As of this year, we are drastically reducing the number of websites that we filter (yes, this includes Facebook and MySpace). I was tasked with presenting this new direction to the staff, how to keep our students safe on the net, and how to help them be effective consumers of digital media.
I have been asked by several people to post my presentation on SlideShare. I am choosing not to do this and write about it here on the blog for two reasons. 1) Most of the information in the Keynote is tailored to my building and my district and 2) I don’t put a great deal of information on my slides. I use them primarily as an aid for visual learning and to keep myself on track (I’m a big fan of Presentation Zen). So I hope you don’t mind that I don’t post the Keynote. I believe writing about the ideas in the presentation here would be more helpful and easier to understand.
The following is an overview of the main topics included in the presentation.
Essential Question: How do we teach students to be safe and savvy on the internet?
Explanation of new district internet filters
Internet Safety
Effective consumers of digital media
Classroom management strategies
District Internet Filters
This year, our district has decided to minimize internet filters. A district email explaining this decision outlines the 3 main points for our new direction:
“…the reason for opening access is multifaceted: One, school should be a place where kids can stay engaged and network, both of which help creativity. Two, broader Internet access gives students the opportunities to learn responsibility, acceptable Internet behavior and time management. A third reason for increasing access is for staff to be able to better communicate with kids on their channels…”
We discussed the Child Internet Protection Act (CIPA) requirements on libraries and school computers. A portion of this federal law states the requirements for libraries and schools with computers as follows:
An Internet safety policy must include technology protection measures to block or filter Internet access to pictures that are:
(a) obscene
(b) child pornography
(c) harmful to minors (for computers that are accessed by minors)
I spoke about the complexity of this process and how our IT people can’t just “flip a switch,” as it were, and make all the good sites appear and all the bad sites disappear. It will be something we will have to work on as we go. Also, in an effort to preserve bandwidth, we will be limiting sites with streaming capabilities. Sites such as Facebook and MySpace will be “squeezed,” meaning they are only allowed to use a certain percentage of the bandwidth. Teachers were asked to be aware that laptops are not the only devices that students will be using on our wireless network. Student’s personal cellphones and iPod Touches will also be present and should be monitored for appropriate use.
Safety Tips
It is our responsibility to support parents and to help our students use the internet safely. With this in mind, we discussed the idea of a digital footprint, along with its implications for teachers and students. I asked teachers to check their own digital footprint by Googling themselves, including an image search.
A question that I had gotten from teachers earlier in the week involved whether or not it was appropriate to “friend” students on social networking sites. Our district does not have an official policy on this issue, so I presented my own opinion with a large disclaimer that our district does not have an official policy on the issue at this time. I’ve sent a request for a “district approved” response up the chain of command and it is in process of being considered. I feel strongly about this issue and I am choosing not to elaborate on my perspective here at this time so I can stick to the point and make this a shorter read. I may post more on this issue in the future.
I believe the most effective way to help students use safe internet practices is to involve and encourage their parents. They are more involved than we are and understand things about their child that we never will. Making sure that parents are educated and involved can make a huge difference.
The following is a list of more specific tips that were presented and discussed with reference to teen internet use:
Avoid posting identifying information.
When posting pictures, use the “Grandmother Rule” (would you want your grandmother to see this picture?)
Familiarize yourself with the privacy settings of the site you are using and select the appropriate choices.
Keep your passwords secret! (with the exception of providing them to your parents)
Download with caution.
Meeting online friends in person: Probably not the best idea for minors, but teens need to be educated on two things to help them stay safe in the future. If you are going to meet an online friend in person you need to 1) Meet in a public place and 2) Bring at least one friend.
Be able to spot the signs of internet scams.
We discussed the issue of cyberbullying and I presented the following reaction steps to teach our students if they are being bullied.
Do not respond.
Take 5: Walk away from the computer for 5 minutes so you have a chance to calm down a bit.
Keep a record of the incident.
Inform a trusted adult.
I was asked to address another concern that unfortunately seems to crop up anytime you have laptops and cellphones in a high school: pornography. We discussed the issue from our school’s perspective and I outlined the appropriate teacher response if they spot this type of material on a student laptop.
We encourage teachers to use internet sites that enhance instruction. However, in doing so, the teachers need to ensure that students are safe and their privacy is protected. With that in mind, we went over the following tips for using class sites on the web:
Never use a student’s full name.
No “real” pictures – Students are welcome to alter their photos so they are not recognizable with fun paint and warping tools.
Avoid any identifying information of students.
Teachers may identify themselves and their school (this is helpful for allowing collaboration and sharing of examples between educational colleagues and PLNs).
Effective Consumers of Digital Media
What has search overload done to our students? They are exposed to so much content, it is difficult for them to analyze what is useful and what is not. I used the above clip to introduce the concept of “Filter Failure.” While our students need us to teach them how to find resources, I believe it is more important for us to guide them on how to find and analyze useful resources.
“The difference between good and poor learners is not the sheer quantity of what the good learner learns, but rather the good learner’s ability to organize and use information” -Frank Smith, B. Keith Lenz Et al. Edge Enterprises
As educators, it is our duty to teach our students the critical thinking skills needed to analyze the different types of media they encounter. We also need to teach them the skills necessary to “organize and use” their information. Otherwise, they can be either overwhelmed by the vast amounts of information or they could just use the information that is the easiest to access (which is not always accurate information).
As an activity, teachers worked in groups to complete a website analysis using the instructions and the form listed below. They had the chance to familiarize and re-familiarize themselves with internet domain names such as .gov .com .edu .net. This knowledge is helpful when analyzing the usefulness and accuracy of web sources. (Note: This assignment was adapted from the assignment found at the bottom of the page here.)
There are many aspects of a web source students can analyze, much like a primary document in history or English. Aspects to consider when analyzing for accuracy and bias include:
Source and/or Sponsor
Publication Date
Audience
Ads
Purpose
“There is a good use for Wikipedia.” I’m not sure I have ever uttered those words in public before, but I did say them! I explained a little about Wikipedia and focused on the references section found at the end of every entry. This is where the controversial “research” site can be a useful tool. If a student is having a hard time finding resources on a subject, they can check the references on the Wikipedia article and use them as a spring board to locate more appropriate sources. As long as they are aware that these sources can be biased just like any other, it can be a good starting place.
209 References on Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor's Wikipedia article on the day of access.
Classroom Management Tips
The following is a list of classroom management tips for students using laptops. These tips were sprinkled throughout the presentation and were modeled for and with the audience.
Do students have a specific reason directly related to instruction for having their laptops out and open? If not, please put them away.
Will students be doing an activity on their computers? Have them wait until you have finished with your directions and answered any questions regarding the assignment before opening their laptops.
Be present. Whenever students are on their computers, move around the room. This helps you better monitor their learning and on-task behavior. Bonus: Students tend to ask more questions if you are in close proximity.
Consider your learning environment. Can you easily see every students’ computer screen? If not, consider rearranging.
For students on the Mac Side (We have dual platform laptops) – Use the Expose and Spaces options to easily see the windows a student has open. You can also see which programs are open by the small dot under the icon on the dock. For Windows – Observe which program windows are open in the task bar. Remember that there are ways of hiding the Mac dock and the Windows task bar, but it is good to know some of the things you can look for.
Be Aware. Familiarize yourself with the websites your students regularly use. Note: Recognize that you can’t know everything about technology, so it is ok to focus on a smaller number of sites that you know your students regularly use.
I realize that many of these strategies may seem like “gotcha” strategies. I informed teachers of these ideas so they are aware of some different options for classroom management and can choose what will work best for them and their students. Please feel free to add other ideas in the comments section.
I concluded the presentation with a quote that comes to mind whenever I think of bringing down the internet filters:
“With great power, comes great responsibility.”
-Stan Lee
As with everything, there are good and bad things about offering our students more access. Overall, I feel that this is a great opportunity to teach and learn with our students. We are now able to provide more guidance in order to better prepare them for the world beyond our school walls and the time when we can no longer protect them. It is my hope that they remember the lessons we have taught them about critically analyzing sources.
This is an ongoing process in my district and far from a smooth road. We are working our way through things for which there seems to be little precedent. I would love to hear from people who have undergone a similar process in their district, along with the challenges and rewards of that process. I may be posting here on the blog about our own experiences in the future. Please feel free to leave comments, questions, suggestions, or anything else that you think would be helpful in furthering our collaborative understanding.
Through my work with many students in the area of study skills, I have learned how helpful developing and stating a goal can be. With that in mind, I am posting my summer professional development goals.
Directions
Summer can be a great time for professional development. It is an opportunity to learn more about a topic, read a particular work or the works of a particular author, beef up an existing unit of instruction, advance one’s technical skills, work on that advanced degree or certification, pick up a new hobby, and finish many of the other items on our ever-growing To Do Lists. Let’s make Summer 2009 a time when we actually get to accomplish a few of those things and enjoy the thrill of marking them off our lists.
The Rules
NOTE: You do NOT have to wait to be tagged to participate in this meme.
Pick 1-3 professional development goals and commit to achieving them this summer.
For the purposes of this activity the end of summer will be Labor Day (09/07/09).
Post the above directions along with your 1-3 goals on your blog.
Title your post Professional Development Meme 2009 and link back/trackback to http://clifmims.com/blog/archives/2447.
Use the following tag/ keyword/ category on your post: pdmeme09.
Tag 5-8 others to participate in the meme.
Achieve your goals and “develop professionally.”
Commit to sharing your results on your blog during early or mid-September.
My Goals
Reading – Finish all the readings for my summer study tour to China & at least 2 of the PD books I’ve started but haven’t had a chance to finish.
Technology – Further develop my knowledge of using Twiiter, Diigo, Google Docs, Ning and Wikis in the classroom, along with the “fall of the internet filters.” The purpose of this will be to better flesh out the PD sessions I will be running on these topics in the fall.
Curriculum – Complete the development of the 1950s Unit for Modern American Studies using the Content Enhancement model. Gather and organize teaching resources in an easy to use format for those teaching MAS for the first time.
Over the past few months, I’ve been learning and connecting with other educators from around the world using Twitter. This has become a very valuable collaboration tool for me and I would like to share some more of the things I have learned along the way on how to effectively use Twitter.
According to a Nielsen report, 60% of people who sign up for Twitter fail to return to the website the following month. There has been much discussion and speculation about the reason behind this. Personally, I think a lot of it has to do with one simple thing: purpose.
While many of us found ourselves on Twitter out of curiosity, I believe those who stay and are able to find meaning in the chaos do so for a specific reason. My own reason is the opportunity to connect and collaborate with other educators. I finally decided it might be worth while to try out Twitter at an Instructional Coaching workshop. The presenter, Jim Knight, explained the potential of Twitter in the world of collaborative education. With this purpose in mind, I dove in.
I have many friends and family who have dabbled in Twitter. Mostly, this was to satisfy curiosity and and to see what all of the hubbub was about. They made an account and sat back to watch the “Twitter magic” happen…only it didn’t. The vast majority of my non-professional contacts have tweeted 5 times or less, have never written a bio, and still have the brown and light blue o_O icon as their profile picture. The other thing they don’t have? Purpose.
“What are you doing?” I believe this input prompt is misleading. Honestly, I really don’t care how many cups of coffee you’ve had today, how many times your dog threw up, what you had for lunch, or what you’re watching on TV (Sorry, American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance fans!). I see why the Twitter guys started out with this question. But to get anything meaningful out of this service, I believe more meaningful queries would be “What are you wondering?” or “What have you found worth sharing?” This is where the moniker, “follow ideas, not people” comes into play. Being on Twitter isn’t about who you follow. It’s about conversations involving your interests. It doesn’t have to be professional. I’ve seen some pretty interesting conversations about family cooking and dogs. Find an idea that interests you and that you are passionate about. If it’s worthwhile to you, I’m sure there are more people out there who feel the same and are willing to connect and share ideas.
So once you have a purpose and an idea you would like to follow, how do you go about finding people connected to that idea/purpose? First, you start with yourself. If you want to engage people in conversation, you need to let them know who you are and what you’d like to talk about. Go to the Settings option in the Twitter menu, then look over the information you have entered for your account profile. Now, I understand the trepidation many may have about putting too much information out on the net, especially on something you are just trying out. So please stay in your safety comfort zone, but do the following:
Name: Please put at least a real first name
More Info URL: If you have a public website of any kind (esp. if it is related to your Twitter purpose) please include that here.
One Line Bio: This is important! Please write 1-2 sentences or a list that tells something about you and what your purpose/interests are. By telling others the ideas you are interested in following, you will be able to easily connect to more like-minded people. Remember that you can always revise this later. This also helps people realize that you are not a spam account.
Location: How specific you would like to be is up to you. At the very minimum, I would include your country or state/province. Twitter is a global community and it’s fun to know how far your conversations can reach.
Now that you have let people know the types of ideas you are interested in, you need to add a picture. Yes, I said you need to add a picture… o_O By the way, the symbol on the default picture is an emoticon which means “bored, annoyed or awkward; concerned; ‘what?’ face.” Many people out there won’t follow someone who has this symbol because it is seen as a sign that the person isn’t serious about using Twitter to collaborate. It also helps people determine more easily if you are a spam account. Are you uncomfortable with putting a real picture out there? That’s ok. While some would disagree, I would argue that any picture is better than no picture. So feel free to use a cartoon likeness, your dog, something that represents your interests, or play with a photo of yourself in Photoshop or iPhoto. If you are using Twitter for professional purposes, I would highly recommend a real picture of yourself.
Now that you have a basic profile set-up, start writing a few tweets about your interests/purpose. You can include your thoughts, write about the kind of information or collaboration you are looking for, ask questions, include a few websites that you have found informative and helpful, etc. How much you tweet is up to you, but you want people to see that you are actively using the site when they take a look at your profile. This gives them more incentive to interact with you.
Now you are ready to find people who also follow the same ideas. Please remember that you do not need to follow everyone. It’s ok to be selective and to stop following someone if they’re not sharing the kind of ideas you are looking for. There are a few ways to do this.
If you know someone who actively uses Twitter for the same purpose, browse through their following list. Find a few people you think sound interesting and follow them. Then you can look through their following lists, and repeat the process. I prefer to use following lists instead of followers because they are less likely to be people who don’t share the same interest/purpose.
Use Twitter Search and input keywords related to your interest/purpose. Click on the profiles of people who have tweets that interest you and decide if they are engaged in the conversation you’re looking for. If you like the ideas they are discussing, then follow them. From there you can use the first step to branch out and find more people.
Search for related hashtags. Hashtags are words that are preceded by the “#” symbol. Their purpose is to make it easier to search posts related to that idea. For example, I am currently able to follow the protests in Tehran by searching for the hashtag #iranelection. There are also scheduled chats such as #educhat and a growing number of professional conferences such as #TED, #NECC, & #GLS09. Anyone who is talking about this subject can include a designated hashtag in their post so others can see it and be part of the conversation. You can learn more about hashtags here.
Check out services such as WeFollow. Look up topics that are related to your interest/purpose and find people to follow that interest you.
Once you have a few people you’re following, feel free to jump right in or watch and get a feel for how people use Twitter. It is still a good idea for you to keep posting questions, resources, etc. to help people decide if they want to follow you. Feel free to “retweet” good ideas that other people have written. Just be sure to give them credit by starting the post with “RT” (short for “retweet”) and then writing their @name, followed by their post. See an example here. Or you can write “via” and their @name at the end of your post. See an example here. You want to be sure you credit the ideas of other people. RTs from others also give you a chance to find more people with the same interests/purpose. Just click on their @name and it will take you directly to their profile.
Once you feel comfortable, start responding to other people’s posts. Answer their questions, provide resources, and comment on their ideas. To reply, you can hit the reply button on their tweet or type their Twitter name into your dialogue box with the “@” symbol in front. Feel free to include hashtags if they are appropriate.
You can also respond privately by using the Direct Message feature on the right hand side. Just click on the “Direct Message” link. Then choose the person you want to communicate with from the drop down menu, type your message, and send. Please note that you may only send Direct Messages to people you follow and follow you back.
If you have a website you would like to share, but the URL is way too long to include in a 140 character tweet, you can use a service such as TinyURL.com to shorten the URL. Also, many Twitter clients provide a URL shortening service. I am currently using Tweetie. All I have to do it type my tweet, and then hit option+command+s to automatically short the URL. It’s very handy.
A note on spam: If you gain followers who have a limited, non-existent, or general bio, only a few tweets, tweets that are all about advertising (such as how to gain 3,000 followers in a week), or they follow 5,000 people and only 100 follow them back, then they are more than likely a spam account. It is best to block these by going to your follower page and hitting the “Block” button by their name.
I hope these tips will help you find the “Twitter magic” and put it to good use. If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to let me know. I’ve been trying to find the best way to describe this unique service and the best way to help people get started in leveraging its use. I’d love to hear from you. Thanks!
This past winter I had the opportunity to attend a workshop with Organization of American Historians distinguished lecturer, Dr. Lendol Calder. This is the first place where I came across the strategy called Book In An Hour. Since then I’ve tried to find additional internet resources on this strategy, but they appear to be few and far between. I know other people would find it useful, so I decided to write up the strategy and post it here on the blog. If you know of additional resources or ways to adapt this strategy, I would enjoy hearing from you.
What: TheBook In An Hour strategy is a jigsaw activity for chapter books. While the strategy can take more than an hour depending on the reading and presentation method you choose.
Why: While many teachers view this activity as a time saver, I view it as a way to expose students to more literary and historical materials than I might have been able to do otherwise. There are many books that I would love my students to read, but I know that being able to do so is not always my reality. This strategy gives me an avenue to expose them to additional literature and other important historical works without taking much time away from the other aspects of my courses. It also provides opportunities for differentiation. This strategy can be adapted to introduce a book that students will be reading in-depth. Instead of jigsawing all of the chapters, use the same strategy with only a few selected chapters to create interest and engagement.
Procedures:
Decide if you are going to divide students up into groups or jigsaw with individual students. If you are using groups, I recommend making them heterogeneous or creating them in a way that subtly facilitates differentiation. I also encourage you to give each student in the group a role (facilitator, recorder, reader, questioner, creative designer, whatever fits the needs of your adaptation of the strategy).
Divide the book into sections. You can either break it down so each group/individual has approximately the same reading load (these sections can be randomly assigned) or differentiate and assign sections based on reading skills. Be sure each student has their assignment written down somewhere. You could write the chapter assignments for each group on large note cards or bookmarks, hand out a direction sheet that includes the assignments, have students write them down, etc .
Hand out the reading sections to groups/individuals. Some teachers choose to take apart the actual books, rebinding them so students only have the section they are assigned.
Students then read their assigned sections. If you are using groups, it seems to be better to allow them to read their section together in class. There are several methods you can implement as students read to improve comprehension and to help them prepare to present their information to the rest of the class. If they are in a group, they may read together and complete the set of tasks you give them while doing so. They may also read individually, with set times to stop and complete the group tasks before reading more. The tasks that you can have students complete as they read include asking questions (since they only have part of the story…this is also a great opportunity to work with students on asking higher level questions), identifying plot, setting, characters, chronology of events, significant events, cause/effect, compare/contrast, documented evidence (in historical scholarship and other research readings), items related to a theme or focus question, presentation ideas, and anything else that fits your purpose. Students can record their findings on a teacher-created template, notebook paper, index cards, or anything that works for you. Lendol suggested using big paper, 12″ x 18″ or larger. The paper is placed in landscape position and the left side is folded in about ¼ of the of length of the paper. Below is a diagram of how he set it up for his students. Note: In the questions section, students can be directed to use a number of responses or prompts such as “I wonder if…”, make predictions, ask about missing prior events/knowledge, ask leveled questions (using a structure such as Bloom’s Taxonomy), etc.
The paper is folded to create the sections, and the front becomes a flap that folds over.
Have students create their presentation. You can give them a specific format, or leave the choice up to them. Options include (but certainly are not limited to): skits, posters, cartoons/comics, movies, Keynote or PowerPoint presentations (please not just slides to be read…students should present!), song playlist or soundtrack that highlights themes, events, characters, etc. You can incorporate technology and have students create a webpage, wiki, blog, Glog, Wordle, podcast, and more. The sky is the limit for ways the information can be brought together. Do whatever best fits your class and your purpose.
Have students present their information, using your selected method, to the other students in the class. Be sure that there is a way for students to interact and get answers to their question. They need to see the whole picture when everything is done.
It is a good idea to have a whole class conversation on the themes or focus question for the book. Direct the conversation to meet your needs and discuss how the book fits in to your overall unit plan. It is good to be sure students understand why this book was important enough to study. You can also have charts to be filled out as a class (poster style or on the white/chalkboard) that include topics such as historical events, themes, characters, plot, setting, timeline, cause/effect, compare/contrast, etc.
You can let the final discussion or presentations be your method of assessment for the book, or you can have students complete a synthesis activity using numerous writing styles and prompts or other methods you find useful.
I suggest obtaining student feedback on Book In An Hour, especially the first few times you use it, so you may better tweak it to the learning needs of your students. This is an interesting strategy that has the potential to motivate students to read the entire book on their own. Again, if you have ideas for other adaptations, questions or other feedback, please feel free to comment. I’d love to hear how this works in your classroom.
A special thanks to Dr. Lendol Calder for introducing me to this strategy. Dr. Calder’s website on the practice of “Uncoverage” of history can be found here.
Whether you are an Instructional Coach, a peer coach, or a teacher, higher level questioning is something that we all think about in one form or another. In the conversations I’ve heard about critical thinking, Bloom’s Taxonomy is almost always referenced. As a quick background knowledge review, here is the recently revised version of Bloom’s Taxonomy.
Searching for the attribution info. Any leads would be appreciated.
As teachers, we work to to ask higher-level questions and help our students stretch their minds and develop higher-order thinking skills. However, as a teacher this can sometimes sound a lot easier than it actually is. I believe it takes time and practice to develop this teaching skill. As Instructional Coaches, we need to have the tools to assist our teachers in their quest to continually develop and refine these important skills. I would like to put forth some suggestions on how to coach teachers on this area, but they are by no means comprehensive. I would appreciate any feedback or thoughts in the comments area.
Classroom Observations – This is one of the first places to start. Coaches need to get a baseline of where their teachers currently are so they can differentiate the best approach for each individual. Multiple observations are preferable, but any observation in which classroom discussion takes place will suffice. Be sure that you are aware of the purpose of the discussion, so you can best gauge which levels of questioning are appropriate.
There are different types of data forms that can be used for observation. One is p. 9 of Jim Knight and the Kansas Coaching Project’s Mini-Coaching Manual Effective Questioning: Empowering Teachers to Ask Powerful Questions version 2.0. In this method, the coach dictates the questions that the teacher is asking. The coach can then categorize those questions or, better yet, do so alongside the teacher. Forms from Coaching Classroom Management can be modified to fit your needs. You can, of course, also create your own forms.
Common Vocabulary – Before working with another teacher on specific skills, be sure that you both have a common vocabulary from which to draw. I have found that educational jargon can vary depending on grade levels, content, and region. This just keeps everyone on the same page. Bloom’s Taxonomy is often a common starting point where I work. However, I have found that it is easier to use a simplified system put forth by Knight and the Kansas Coaching Project (see Effective Questioning Manual above).
Know: Questions that prompt students to demonstrate that they can remember information they have learned.
Understand: Questions that prompt students to demonstrate that they comprehend the implications of the information they have learned.
Apply: Questions that prompt students to extend their knowledge and understanding to new situations or settings.
Elements of Higher-Level Questioning – Here is a list of elements to consider and discuss when collaborating with your teacher, a peer, or in your own self-study.
Opportunities to Respond – How often does the teacher ask questions or give students a chance to respond to the topic at hand?
Levels of Questions- Can the teacher match specific questions with the appropriate instructional level for that lesson? Do teachers understand when certain levels of questioning are the most appropriate? Lower level question are important. They help teachers and students scaffold and prepare for other questions that require deeper thought.
Frequency – How often does the teacher ask each level of question? Do they almost only ever ask Level 1 or Level 3 questions? Do the questions they ask match goals of their curriculum?
Wait Time – How long does the teacher wait…….after asking their question? This is absolutely crucial to eliciting better student answers. Remember that students need time to process their answers, especially for higher level questions. Strategies such as Think-Pair-Share can help students do this. It is also important to “train” students to know that you expect an answer. The silence may bother you as a teacher, but remember that it also bothers your students. Use this to your advantage.
Wording of Questions – How does the wording of a question impact student answers? Does the question elicit a one-word or yes/no answer? Does the question have a definate right or wrong answer? Are there a multitude of ways to answer a question “correctly?” Does the question require students to provide evidence to support their opinion? There is no one type of question students should be asked, but how does the wording impact the outcome?
Use of Background Knowledge – The concept of background knowledge and scaffolding is essential for students to connect to knew learning. Strong neural pathways in the brain are created by connecting to pathways that already exist, much like a system of roads. The more background knowledge students have to draw upon (content related or not) the better answers they can devise. Consider structuring higher-level thinking activities so students can draw on that background knowledge to make stronger learning connections.
Student Responses – How students respond to the teacher’s questions can tell you a lot about the discussion norms in a classroom. Are they respectful of other’s answers? Do they intelligently contradict one another with evidence? Do they answer at all? Is there a broad spectrum of the class involved in the conversation or is it just 2 or 3 students? How easily can the teacher recognize and redirect students when needed?
Teacher’s Response – The answers a teacher gets can depend a great deal on how the teacher responds to student answers. I’ve seen many different approaches to this, but which is the right one for the teacher you are collaborating with? The teacher’s responses can cause students to keep their mouths closed or inspire them to deeper and more creative ways of thinking.
Possible Collaboration & Development Ideas: Here is a list of things you can do with your collaborating teacher to consider the use of higher-level questions in the classroom.
Sit down with an example list of questions or a list of questions that a teacher has asked in class. Collaborate with the teacher to identify the level of each question. You can have a conversation on any of the observable points above and how student answers would change as the questioning method changes.
Write out possible discussion questions ahead of time. This doesn’t mean that the teacher needs to stick to the exact list, though some may find that method useful. The point is to consider what you want students to think about before entering into the discussion. What is the purpose of the discussion? This helps the teacher to guide the conversation more artfully and elicit better responses from students.
Strengthen the teacher’s ability to “go with the flow.” Discuss and/or reflect on the teacher’s ability to direct the conversation and coax better answers out of students. How does this work for each of you? (It can be different) How do you adapt your questions to get to the purpose of the conversation?
Develop classroom activities with other teachers in which students identify and develop higher level questions. Afterall, we learn best by teaching!
Wordle Reference Tool – This Wordle was created using a list of verbs related to the top three levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy. The purpose of the Wordle is to help teachers brainstorm class discussion questions or activities. While the focus of this post is on classroom discussion, these verbs can be used to create a myriad of classroom activities and assessment options for students.
A note about community: Classroom community is paramount to the willingness of students to take academic risks. How comfortable are students with trying out new ideas and making mistakes in a classroom? If students have differing opinions, how does the teacher facilitate respectful conversation? I believe that this can have a large impact on the types of classroom discussions teachers are able to have.
I am continually looking for ways to help my teachers and myself grow in this important area of teaching. If you have any suggestions, resources or ideas, please feel free to leave comments. I would apprecaite hearing from you.
Additional Resources:
The Big Four Ning – A year round learning network to support Instructional Coaches, Classroom Teachers and Educational Leaders. Created by the Kansas Coaching Project.
Mini-Coaching Manuals – Downloadable in PDF format on the Big Four Ning under the “Coaching Manuals” section. In particular, I studied the “Effective Questioning” 2.0 manual for this post.
The following is a link to an interesting talk by David Perry, a video game developer. In it, he discusses several very interesting ideas about video games and how they are developed. If gaming is a topic that interests you or you want to understand its massive appeal and hold on some of our students, this talk is a worthy 21 minutes of your time. Note: This presentation was given in 2006, so the statistics are much more dramatic now. For example, World of Warcraft no longer has 5.5 million players. As of October 2008, it had 11 million!
I find the idea intriguing that video game developers are focusing on emotion, purpose, meaning, understanding, and feeling. The emphasis is not on the graphics and technology, but rather how you get players emotionally involved and connected to the content. Video games can be challenging, long, complex, and require a great deal of new learning to reach accomplishments. And people pay for this. Game developers are focused on how to get players to want more. Isn’t this how we want students to view our content? So what educational notions have game developers been using to engage their “learners” in new content? What can we take away from this as educators and re-emphasize in the classroom?
I’ve been researching this topic for a little over a year. Almost all of what I’ve found comes directly from or is influenced by James Paul Gee, University of Wisconsin – Madison. If you have any other resources, I would greatly appreciate it if you would send them my way. After reading several papers and parts of his book, What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy, these are some of the ideas I’d love to discuss more with people and be sure I’m including in my own teaching:
Fact Fetish vs. Ways of Thinking – Games deeply immerse players in their world so they think like the character/profession they are playing. Educators can immerse students in their content fields so they can begin to think like scientists, historians, mathematicians, chefs, writers, etc. The focus is not on a list of facts, but rather the context in which decisions are made.
Set a Purpose – Games have very specific goals. Players know exactly what they need to accomplish to be successful and when that happens. We should tell our students exactly what they need to accomplish to be successful in our school. This doesn’t mean we have to give them a formula on how to be successful (this can dampen creative thinking) but we do need to tell them what direction the bulls eye is in and what it looks like. They will much closer to the target that way.
“Real World” Relevance - Players take on an identity, immersing themselves in the attitudes, values and actions of that identity (Worried about blood gushing violence? Remember that 83% of games have NO mature content – see Ted Talk above). Each skill taught in a video game has a specific purpose and application. Learning out of context is difficult and has poor retention. Instruction manuals, while still included, are not the main way to learn your way around a new game. Directions are built directly into the game and appear as they are needed. They are learned in context. As teachers, we should “maximize the context” so students can better retain what we want them to learn.
Problem Solving – Playing video games means you are problem solving. We should value the problem solving mind-set gaming develops in our students and use it to our advantage in the classroom.
Performance BEFORE Competence -Schools sometimes stress competence before performance. An example of this would be a student reading a textbook and then maybe being allowed to DO the chemistry. In the gaming world, this concept is often is reversed on its head. Players get to be immersed in the new learning, freely making mistakes (aka learning!) until they get things to work. Inquiry Science is the school example that comes to mind when I consider this idea.
Cyles of Expertise – This involves a student learning a skill, practicing it until it becomes automatic, and then circumstances shifting so the student has to adapt the skill to succeed in the new situation. This is a very important real world ability that games constantly employ.
Fishtanks & Sandboxes – Gee uses the terms “Fishtanks” and “Sandboxes” to describe safe and effective learning situations. In gaming, these two tools are often used as tutorials or in the first few levels of a game, allowing the players to grasp new ideas in a non-overwhelming environment. A “Fishtank” is a simplified version of a complex system, such as studying the ecosystem of a real life fish tank before progressing on to an actual pond, lake, or ocean. The major variables are contained in this learning experience, but in a simplified way so students (or players) don’t become overwhelmed.
A “Sandbox” is an experience that is much like the real part of the game, only the risks are mitigated. This allowed the players to learn in an environment where the consequences of mistakes don’t prevent them from wanting to continue with the game. Gee says “You can’t expect newcomers to learn if they feel too much pressure, understand too little, and feel like failures.” (Learning by Design).
In gaming, players can save at certain points to avoid having to start all over from the beginning. Our larger educational system is often lacking these safeguards to motivation. If a student fails a math class, they have to retake the entire class, rather then specifically focusing on their skill deficiencies. As I’m sure we’ve all seen, this can kill motivation and desire to learn in our students. This is one reason Mastery Learning can be such an effective and powerful method. The question for me is, how to best implement Mastery Learning on a classroom scale?
One of Gee’s most thought provoking quoes for me is “They [players/students] need always to see failure as informative and part of the game, not as a final judgement or as a device to forstall creativity, risk taking, and hypothesizing.” (Learning By Design)
Choice & Differentiation – Video games used to be very rigid in the choices they gave to players. The levels in old games consisted of the same screen and the game just got harder and faster. Later you could progress through the levels going in a straight line, wherever the game led (think original Super Mario Brothers). Today, we have “non-linear” games in which players can choose when, where, and how to accomplish their goals in worlds that can take literally hours to walk your character across. There are even Google Map pages dedicated to the terrain of games such as World of Warcraft. I could write a great deal just on the topic of choices presented to players, but for now I will merely present you with the thought that games are now being developed and played that no longer have an “end.” Choice is a large part of the massive success of these games. I’m not saying that teachers need to give students infinite choices, but how much choice we are offering is something to ponder.
Pleasantly Frustrating – Known to educators by the jargonish phrase, “Zone of Proximal Development.” This is the idea that what is being learned is not so challenging it cannot be accomplished, but is not so easy that it is boring. Some call it “learning on the edge.” Video games use this concept very well, manipulating the feelings of players so they just can’t turn off the game. They are ALMOST to the next level, boss, goal, etc. and they want to keep going. The player gets immediate feedback and can see how they are progressing towards their goal, especially when they fail. They learn what they did wrong and try a different approach or work on perfecting their new skill until they get it right. I think teachers can make interesting gains with their students when this idea is consciously incorporated into lessons.
Group Work – Games have come a long way from 2-player pong. MMORPGs (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games such as World of Warcraft) can have upwards of 25 people (sometimes hundreds) working on the same objective, in the same place, at the same time. Coordination and teamwork, anyone? In these types of games, students are building skills that include organization, time management, teamwork, and more. Many teachers try to emphasize these things in the classroom.
The traditional view of gaming is far from the active society of the classroom. We picture a teenage boy sitting alone in the basement, not talking to anyone. The reality of gaming is that it has been extensively developed through product testing, marketing, etc. into a community experience that uses some of the best aspects of effective educational practice. Video games can be useful to us beyond the games themselves. The ideas and theories behind them re-emphasize what we know to be good teaching. We want to hook our students into our content and keep them wanting more. Video games are a good example of how to accomplish this.
Special Thanks to the World of Warcraft Guilds: Vanguard of Vek’nilash & Conviction of Mok’Nathal
I am currently developing an optional presentation on this topic for my staff. I decided to blog about the various points to help solidify my thoughts (that’s why this is so long! The presentation, at only about 15 minutes, won’t be). If you have any comments or questions on the relevence of gaming in the classroom, please feel free to comment. I’d love feedback on how to make sure the information in this presentation is relevent to the classroom. I previously did another presentation on Modern Gaming Culture, which focused on how students interact with the now very social world of video games. Thank you!!
Now that you have let people know the types of ideas you are interested in, you need to add a picture. Yes, I said you need to add a picture… 
