Category: Week 3 – Engaging the Imaginations of Digital Learners

Nowadays, the effectiveness of lectures seems to be decreasing as technology develops. Sitting in a classroom listening to a professor talking about a subject is not enough motivation for students to engage. Somehow the methods that were used for our parents to learn are no longer effective and they are killing the motivation for students to learn in the classroom. I personally think that it is not just one party to blame. I think this is an adaptation struggle, parties who participate int he educational system are having troubles adapting to the new contexts.

Students should feel motivated to learn, to understand that the courses they take in college, and the material they learn there, has been designed to somehow prepare them for the professional world. While society should eliminate as many barriers as possible for enrollment–For example, the article that describes Obama’s attempts to reduce the financial barriers–, students should also work hard to earn grades, and pass courses.

Similarly, the subjects of learnings, students, are no longer the students that the educational system was designed for. Current students have access unlimited information in their pockets. Students learn to solve problems and adapt through video games and digital applications. The peace of communications has increased exponentially and accordingly, their learning habits. We need to continue evolving and adapt to the new world, without discarding the previous successful methods of education.

Video games, and the mentality of those who excel at gaming, are under scrutiny from academics looking for helpful pointers. Video games foster learning, whilst keeping the player motivated, and have been touted as a good example to follow. To my mind however, video games still focus on rather well defined targets in boss battles and leveling up etc., and so the temptation to draw an analogy to traditional letter grades (A-F) still persists.

I would like to offer another fringe group who demonstrate a style of learning we should seek to emulate: musicians.

As artists, the targets musicians seek are not well defined. Instead, the vast majority of playing is aimless, unguided, and purely undertaken for the fun of it. Self-satisfaction is always paramount. Richard Feynman called it the ‘pleasure of finding things out’ and it is something artists do well, academics poorly. The musician’s journey involves much blind fumbling, and one must use one’s ears as guides (a challenge for visually oriented mammals like us). But that is half of the fun. Naturally in such a system, mistakes are not punished. Especially in an artist’s formative years, mistakes are actually the most powerful tool for learning, opening up new lines of thought or revealing hidden perspectives.

Further, good musicians seamlessly blend all four of the traditional learning styles such that learning is guaranteed!

1) Auditory; obviously

2) Linguistic; most teachers will tell you to sing what you want to play before even picking up an instrument, and instrumentalists spend most of their time trying to sound like vocalists.

3) Spatial; music theory contains bars, staffs, and what’s known as the ‘circle of fifths’, and music notation creates elaborate artworks that wouldn’t look out of place at a modern abstracts exhibit. Each written line a black and white masterpiece:

4) Kinesthetic; have you seen James Brown?

Finally, music is a collaborative art form. Working with others towards a common goal is the bedrock of any band or orchestra. Symphony requires the uncensored sharing of ideas, unwavering commitment to the cause, and impeccable communication skills. Such traits are all highly coveted in academia, but rarely worked upon.

I see a lot of promise in the style and emphasis that characterizes a musician’s education. It’s not perfect, however. There are still tedious scales, metronome practice, and Bono from U2. But mark my words, if we sow such musical seeds in higher education, we shall reap virtuosos.

I am afraid of the new development of teaching.  As the video Digital Media- New Learners of the 21st Century suggest, by 2020 people who do not know how to use media will be consider as illiterate. They show 5 stories in which they successfully use digital devices and technology gadgets to engage students into learning. Students understand the reasons for learning the lessons provided. A hands on, short-term applicable lesson.

I am going a little bit off from the main subject, because this readings got me thinking about how the development of technology, if not correctly applied in the classroom, are contributing to a less just world. I think this fact should be highlighted in the teaching designs because we should teach, and learn, that technology is a language that about half of the population do not even have access; and it is our duty, to develop and use these technology to facilitate access for it.

It is unstoppable the use of new technologies or games.  I taught using some truss-Bridges games, and they worked very well. they provide a more realistic understanding of the behavior of trusses once loaded and in use. I tried a little experiment, and I asked a lot of my uncles and similar aged people to try it. It surprising to see that for them, people who use their phone regularly and somehow hace some education, these games were not very intuitive to be played (as opposed to the students in my classroom).  If this happens with well-educated adults, we can imagine how the impacts scales when it comes to the more vulnerables of our societies.

Digital learning is somewhat taking place of conventional teaching practices. The conventional classroom settings are changing and digital pieces of equipment are taking place of conventional blackboard. Students are getting inclined into learning outside of a classroom. Laptops, the internet, mobile phones are getting access to students inside a classroom. It’s mostly on the students how they use this digital access. However, people have mixed perception to digital education or digital means. For examples, there are people who are called video game addicts, but none are called textbook addicts. Even people appreciate when you become a textbook addict. However, every video game is about solving a problem, sometimes real life problems. The solution of a video game can help a gamer to think about related real life issues and coming up with solutions to those problems. The idea of video games could be very effective if applied in a classroom setting. For example, in the video games, to uncover the next level, the first level needs to be completed successfully. If classes are designed such that every step is related to the next step and students have an urge to unveil the next level, the learning will be maximized.

Digital learning is not confining learning inside a class room. Learning has become mobile because of this. People can learn anywhere because of this. You don’t need to be in a classroom to learn. Use of software, videos have reduced the necessity of physical presence in a classroom.

Nowadays, we live in a world full of information that involves innovation, new technologies, sources and techniques; emerging so fast, that sometimes can be overwhelming. Constantly, I feel intrigue and confusion about which is the right method to apply. Often, questioning my self among all the universe of sources, which one should I use?  Moreover, I feel big pressure to take advantage of technology, to be creative and adapt to the “digital era” that we are facing.

What I have learned, is that perfection does not exist. Mentioned that, there are no right or bad way to do things. Each person is different, so, maybe someone can adapt quicker to technology, or maybe someone have better creative skills and can innovate easily. It is a fact that we are living a new culture of learning and it is revolutionizing the way to do it. In order to survive, the real challenge is to be aware of your own skills, talents, and detect the best fit for yourself.

Gamification, blogging, lectures, tests, experiences and such, are just few of the tools and sources that can be used to encourage the brain to absorbe information and keep the motivation and interest to learn. However, as professors our role is to use them smartly to promote engagement among our learners.

With teaching and learning there are no black or white answers. Invest wisely your time and find your own way (innovate), and take advantage of your own skills to be part of the learning revolution.

About the Author

Sofia Rincon Gallardo Patino, is a foodie, traveler collector and love outdoors sports.

The advantages about lecture in Robert’s post: “Four things lecture is good for” totally make sense. But learning from lecture in classroom seems passive for me. It’s a teacher’s responsibility to set up a class with logical arrangement. Then during the lecture, students should follow the teacher’s lead to move from point to point. The size of the class is always large and the teacher cannot stop for every question the students have. If you get confused for one point, you are forced to continue with the lecture which may lead to more confusions. During primary school, classroom with lectures seems fine for me. When I entered middle school, I felt more efficiency by learning from textbook and reference books all by myself. Because I can follow my lead instead of the teacher’s. I am not saying we should all quit from classes, of course I still need help from teachers to solve some problems that I cannot figure out all by myself. My idea is to use the lecture less in class and give some assignments about pre-view before class. And then let the students raise questions instead of the teacher.

The story about Tom, who was diagnosed with diabetes, is a great example for learning outside of the classroom. Tom gained both medical information and emotional support from a website called Diabetes Daily. Compared with the booklets and pamphlets given by the hospital, the website provided more comprehensive information about every aspect of diabetes. Instead of thinking in a doctor’s way, the website gives tons of lectures from a patient’s view. The doctor might have told Tom what diabetes is, what he should do, how this illness is going to change his life. But all this information seems dry! Things changed when Tom got the information from the websites because one question lead to another, he could find the answers step by step with his own pace. I had similar experience when I prepared GRE. A forum with more than ten thousand members shared the notes, study plans, experiences in examinations, etc. It’s far more interesting than taking a tutorial class which always last for more than 3 hours full of lectures. However, there still are some problems for how this kind of forum work. For the patients, it’s hard for them to tell whether the specific medicine works. It would be a better idea to confirm with the doctors. And also for GRE examinee, I still need a teacher to give the official correct answers.

Most of the learning process always start with a lecture and then the Q&A part. Now days, online course, blogs and forums all give tons of useful information. It might be a good idea to follow your own lead first to learn. And then go to the lectures for your questions to gain deeper understanding.

Nowadays, there are a lot of great new technology, software,  and apps that can be used to create learning games or interactive course content. This increased gave the instructors and developers an easy way to visually design their courses. However, they must look at the best way to achieve the simplicity and efficiency of visually pleasing and professional content presentation. When developing a learning game or any interactive course content we need to learn more about how students receive, process, retain the information, and hopefully retrieve it when needed. Theories of learning—specifically those based in cognitive sciences and the study of how knowledge is acquired—contribute to our understanding of how materials can be presented for effective learning and performance. Also, We need to look at the content it self and how to chunk it and organize it so it’s not overwhelming for the students, or if it’s not providing the students with all information they need to learn. To achieve the set of goals a learning game or interactive learning content needs to meet, a team of subject experts,  instructional designers, and graphic designers have to play their part in this process.

Let say you need to develop an interactive course content for an engineering class, then you will need a subject expert in the content you are covering, this individual is in-the-know about what needs to be included in course. The instructional designer, on the other hand, will utilize instructional design principles and learning theories to achieve the learning goals and fill the knowledge gaps. Then the graphic designer will be in charge of all the graphs and animations, which will be used to develop this content.

 

 

 

All of the reads for this week were pretty interesting and I greatly enjoyed reading each of them. One thing that I found common in all of these readings was how technology could affect the teaching-learning process. There were some pretty good examples of how technology could be utilized in pedagogical practices, in fact, technology seems to be inevitable in today’s world. On one hand, I am both impressed and amazed to see how technology and digital learning offers immense potential to bring great changes to the teaching-learning process while on the other hand, I ask myself, “Are we ready to embrace the change?”

http://georgeberlin.indiemade.com/gallery/image/embrace-change

We constantly hear and talk about all these wonders that technology could bring in education. However, how often do we actually bring technology in our classrooms? Some of us still have so much love for the overhead projector that we really aren’t ready to even adopt PowerPoint or other multimedia presentation tools in our classrooms. We would rather have our students turn in their homework assignments on paper than submit them online. We don’t want our students to bring their digital devices in classrooms and would rather like them take notes on their notebook using a pen/pencil because we think our students get distracted from the lectures.

The truth of the matter is that we do like to see the change but we ourselves aren’t ready yet to take the initiative to bring the change. In other words, we are too lazy to put additional efforts to change something that’s already out there-packaged and ready for us to use. Think about how often do professors want to change their style of teaching or even the syllabus or lecture notes when they have so much other things to worry about? However, this doesn’t mean that everyone is the same but there are only a few who really put in efforts and show dynamism in pedagogical practices.

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/72690981461698794

Every idea or concept can have positive and negative sides. If we only think about the negative aspects, we can never move forward. We really need to build some courage to face the challenges and be ready to embrace the changes. As the old saying goes,

“Old ways won’t open new doors.”

 

 

 

(This pic is unrelated to the story below!! Just want to share that there is a sunflower festival in Beaver Dam farm. I just went there last weekend. It was soooo beautiful :D. The sunflower is huge!! I brought my selfie stick and took so many beautiful selfie there!)

http://www.chronicle.com/blognetwork/castingoutnines/2012/02/13/four-things-lecture-is-good-for/

At the first week of this semester, I was lucky to have an opportunity to give two guest lectures on Intro Fluid Mechanics.  Last week I’ve asked a few students for their feedback as this is the 4th time in my life to teach.  Surprisingly, they said it was good and easily understood though a couple of students hoped I could go through the examples slower. Their positive feedback really give  me tons of confidence and encouragement to become a teacher in the future. When I was preparing my lecture, I tried to recall how I learned the similar material as I was in college.  However, I know that this might not be sufficient, because my audience are American rather than Taiwanese….

Remember the first TED talk we watched in class, the professor mentioned that he noticed students aimed to getting by the course instead of learning new knowledge. I think this phenomena is much more serious in my country; that is, most of Taiwanese students aim to excelling at exams due to intense peer pressure. I know it because I was one of them. For example, when doing a homework problem, I was pretty good at obtaining the solution. But I wouldn’t spend time on thinking about its physical meaning which is actually more important than the solution itself. On the other hand, from my 3-yrs experience as a TA at Tech, I noticed that American students tend to ask “Why?!” even though they already got the answer. Therefore, I keep in mind that in a lecture I should help students to understand and relate the physics they learn  to their daily lives or whatever they have known. I think if not doing that, the lecture will become “information transfer” as described in the reference.