Currently, my classes are a blended design with traditional lecturing sprinkled with online and collaborative learning elements. Each year they shift a little more on the blended continuum towards the ‘all technology’ end from the illustration provided by Bates in Teaching in a Digital Age (Chapter 9-Click to view). My goal is not to reach the end of the line, but to find that sweet spot where I feel that I am providing the best experience for each of my students. The biggest changes I have noticed as the shift to the right has been occurring is increased educational engagement, ownership over one’s own learning, and better performances and retention of learning. I do not yet think though that I have found the sweet spot, but I know where I want to go, and now it’s just a matter of making those extra tweaks!
First of all, a little background is needed on what I consider to be a couple major changes that I have incorporated into my classes over the last several years. And, interestingly enough, what I think are some of the biggest game changers do not involve technology at all, and this is why I’m not just moving along the spectrum because “yay technology”, low-tech can be impactful as well, but technology has been providing me with better means of making education more personalized and tailored to each student.
Photo Credit: kellyhogaboom Flickr via Compfight cc
Let me introduce you to the interactive notebook! In each of my classes, students have a notebook. The first page is a table of contents, and after that, each lesson gets two pages (and only two). The right hand page is input which is where notes and information from class goes, and the left page is output, where students think about what they learned, make connections, create illustrations or organizational diagrams, come up with mnemonics, whatever it is they need to do to help transition their learning from short-term memory to long-term. We use the cornell style of note-taking on our input pages. It’s not so simple as just to tell students this is how we’re doing things from now on…a lot of work has gone into training students how to take proper notes, to write a concise summary for each lesson, to devise questions they should be able to answer from each class, how to best make connections with material. Students must colour-code their notes as well. I have learned each semester how to better help my students get the most out of their notebooks, but what I love is that I almost write no notes on the board. My students must listen and process. I have seen student achievement increase quite significantly in some cases, and there is a strong correlation between the quality of ones notebook and their performance. I’ll get back to this shortly.
Another change I introduced at the same time I went to these interactive notebooks was making the majority of our work cumulative. I really reinforce that we learn for mastery, not just to see how well they can cram their short term memory. We review and revisit material throughout the entire semester. This repetition has improved learning immensely and I love seeing students who struggled with something at first get it due to us not ever simply ‘moving on’.
Now, in order to support students with these demands, I tell them that we have no homework for the semester with the exception of their notebooks. Commit to the learning process and I will commit to giving you class time for our work. I also make most Fridays a day to attend to what students need to do. Many of my students take a MOOC as their independent study project for the semester and many use Friday’s for this purpose, but others know what they have been struggling with and they will form collaborative groups and they go over things, they quiz each other, students will be at the whiteboard teaching each other, we will spend part of the day doing review games like science Pictionary or Taboo. It’s wonderful to see. What I have really seen is myself and my students change the focus to the learning process. Once they are trained on how to learn, they can pick up the content easily at any point in their lives.
I really wish I had some pictures of my students notebooks to include in this blog so you can get a visual, but I know most of my students do not throw them out or burn them at the end of the semester because they become so personal to them. I know of other teachers who do similar style notebooking, and a teacher who I follow on Twitter (@thebiospace) does interactive notebooking with her students and here is a page that shows the data on student performance before and after implementing an interactive notebooking style (you have to click through the haiku deck to see it).
All of this I have discussed is low-tech and I mentioned that I have been moving to increase technology and still want to increase our usage, so what have I done and where do I want to go? Well, the most obvious things are having students participate in MOOC’s, and we use various tools and apps for projects, and as each semester goes by I find new things that we incorporate in. But with my students becoming more independent, they tap into resources more on their own, I just give them the time and encouragement to seek their own resources and along with their own engagement I do not see students misusing the technology.
Where I still want to go, is that my students have become more reflective and I really push the idea of community learners (John Green’s TEDTalk really inspired me on this), and I also want to provide students with opportunities for meaningful learning and I think, rather I know, technology can aid me on these fronts.
In terms of technology and reflection and community, I envision myself having an online classroom presence. I don’t know yet exactly the logistics of it all, but my current vision is having my own personal website dedicated to science and learning, particularly catering to my classes. On this site I would include videos and helpful resources pertaining to my classes, I would have my own blog and musings about science and just my life in general (that’s that relationship building piece), and I also think I want to get my students blogging about their learning and I could include these on the site as well for that community and reflective piece. My students are becoming more aware of their learning and include it in their notebooks and in discussion with their peers, but the audience is narrow and I would like them to expand their thoughts to the entire class.
My science instruction has also moved to more meaningful activities, and I have become big on tools such as arduino’s which are affordable ways to allow students to really perform investigations that they just can’t do otherwise and can bring in coding and very multi-disciplinary approaches to learning. I have a couple of Backyard Brains kits that my students use to do investigations in neuroscience. I want my students to do real science, and then even use technology to collaborate with other science classes around the province and maybe further and have other classes peer review articles and mimic the true scientific process! Aaahh…I’m so excited!! This is how I know I’m in the right line of work. Friday night, the start of a week of holidays, I was planning this stuff all out!
I found this one particular quote from Chapter 9 of Bates’ Teaching in a Digital Age to be quite meaningful to me:
I have found that students need the most instruction in how to learn, why learning is fun and important, how to collaborate with others, etc. This is what I focus on in my face to face time. We of course learn content along the way, but we can move through the course faster and retain better. I’d say that focus on the process, and the content comes naturally! My focus is on generating a love for learning in students, and once you do that, they figure out the answers to the questions on their own.
Live long and prosper
Great post! I love that you addressed the different things that you do in your classroom that are not necessarily tech-based that are enhancing your students’ learning! One of the science teachers in my building started using interactive notebooks recently and the students absolutely LOVE them, they were used for the Chemistry Departmental that was still open book as they had everything they needed and did not have all the “extra” their notebooks normally contain. [Insert sound of pages constantly flipping, the sound of the (old) Chem 30 departmental]. Do you let your students choose any science-based MOOC or do you narrow down the topics for them? And which site do you have them sign up for them?
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Thanks Kara! My students have used either edx or coursera, and I give them some guidelines in terms of which courses they take, such as in Health Science they had to select a course related to health, but that still offers a really wide variety of courses. There were courses on ethics and law, human anatomy, nutrition, using code to analyse spread of diseases, etc. There was something for everyone! Also, they have to have me approve the course since there’s such a wide range of difficulty and time commitments, but I don’t think any students felt too restricted.
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I’m interested in your interactive notebooks. I need to spend some time with students developing this skill. As you say, it’s definitely not instinct! In your experience, do you think there is a way that they could take notes of the same quality on a handheld device? Or would they need a word processor on a laptop? Also wondering if there is any benefit to handwriting or typing depending on the student’s preference. Thanks for sharing!
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Hi Sarah! I actually believe that hand written notes are more valuable than typed, whether it be on a word processor or a handheld. When we end up typing we can go faster and so we end up just mindlessly typing and record far too much whereas when handwriting we really need to process and be succinct and use our own words so it’s a much more mindful process.
It’s also very difficult to format and organize while typing on the fly and this can be done much easier while handwriting, and it’s easy to quickly throw in valuable sketches. I have some students who actually take their notes and they type them out later and add in visuals from the internet as well and reorganize and I have no problem with this!
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Reading this constantly had me reflecting on my own science practices in the classroom and provided me with some great pointers, ideas, and, quite frankly, inspiration – it sounded like everything I would want it to be. The interactive notebooks are a very interesting idea and really lend themselves to scaffolding learning. I’ll have to try them out as I like how it puts more onus on the students reflecting on their learning. Maybe I missed it, but do you assess these, if so, how?
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Thanks Logan, I can’t imagine myself really doing anything other than interactive notebooking…always tweaking, but I think the core idea is great. I do assess them, not frequently, because for the most part I think my students see the value and it just becomes part of their practice regardless. I had one student come back this year from first year university saying they have just continued the practice and have found biology a breeze because of it.
When I assess, I basically use a checklist style format. Have you colour-coded/used highlighting for your notes…check. Have you asked appropriate questions that you should be able to answer based off of the material…check. The one thing I really look for and stress the most is deep, insightful thought and connections. I also encourage my students on fridays to review what we learned for the week and go through their notebooks as a group and critique and share and offer input, etc.
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I am using my own version of interactive notebooks for word work and I really like it. I would like to try and carry it over into other subject areas. My sister uses interactive notebooks for all her science classes and I know she loves it. She suggested using Phet Simulations as an introduction. I could see using Aurasma to bring notes to life maybe through a video or website.
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Hey Andrew, it is awesome that you are so excited and fired up about your teaching. The interactive idea sounds very interesting. I enjoyed the John Green Ted Talk. I think Arduino would be great for students to test hypotheses . The Backyard Brain Kit sound fascinating. I wish my son could have been in your classes. I think the exciting things you are doing would have captured and held his interest. Your post inspired me. 🙂 Thanks, angela.
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Thank you! Having a parent wish their child to be in a particular teachers class is a major compliment so I appreciate your kind words. The backyard brain kits are pretty neat, and next year I want to try and order the parts (much cheaper from the website than already made kits) and have my students build them themselves to learn a bit about electronics at the same time and it’s always just more fun to look at something knowing you constructed it!
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Dear Andrew, I am going to ask for a full day of prep – just so that I can pop next door and see your classes in action! I was aware of your “interactive notebook” system, but didn’t know the details. So brilliant! I think I could make that work for Psych 20 or Law 30 … such CONTENT rich classes that the students forget about the learning and just panic about memorizing. I believe that you are SO close to that blended learning sweet spot. I have witnessed the enthusiasm that the students have for your classes (hey – I’ve witnessed YOUR enthusiasm a million times – such as acting out cell interactions with funny puppet voices 🙂 … you’ll find it – I don’t doubt that for a second 🙂 . Keep up the amazing work, my friend!
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Thank you for such kind words Nancy! Law and Psych are perfect classes for it! You wouldn’t even have to train the students, they know the routine!
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Laura – It sounds like you may have used cayenne pepper instead of chili powder? Chili powder is a dark red seinanosg blend, which consists of mild red pepper, cumin, and a few other spices. 😦
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disse:Esse vestido era um dos meus desejos da coleção passada da Antix!Acabei comprando a saia mullet (que também era desejo) com essa escp!aamFitou lindo em voce!=*
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13 noviembre 2012 (23:01)Esto tiene muy buena pinta…Conozco las cremas de Taller Amapola, son estupendas, naturales 100%, frescas…Conozco los diseños de Sara, son limpios, cuidados, elegantes…Buen equipo habéis formado.Mucha suerte
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