Category: General

Ideas for concurrent classroom teaching

I found this resource from what I think is an unusual source – Forbes. The article identifies the challenges of teaching in a concurrent classroom. As I understand what is meant by concurrent as compared with a hybrid classroom, in a concurrent situation some students are always FTF and some always online. This would be the way I have taught my Instructional Design and Technology grad classes and I admit I never thought about the unique challenges of this arrangement. Concurrent can be contrasted with hybrid which means students rotate between being FTF and online. This arrangement seems what many K12 schools are planning for the Fall in order to reduce the number of students present in the physical classroom. Some issues are likely the same so it is worth reviewing the Forbes article for educators facing a hybrid arrangement in the Fall.

Problems:

The major problem in a concurrent arrangement is described as inequality of attention. This results from the limitations and predictable failures of being online (forgetting to mute, sound dropping out) and educator failures (tendency to focus on students in front of you, drifting out of the view of the camera).

Solutions:

Use a flipped classroom approach for any block of teacher presentation longer than 10 minutes. So students receive information presentation and demonstrations via video. The author then describe what happens with working synchronously as talk less and smile more.

Make frequent use of output-oriented breakout tasks. Students both in the FTF and online work in teams (learn how to do this in your video environment) on short duration tasks with the requirement of reporting a solution of position

Alternate gaze – Remember to focus both on the camera and students in front of you. I know this is an issue from personal experience. The article recommends even finding ways to remind yourself to do this. Calling on students is another way to do this. Call on students both FTF and online.

Asynchronous presentations – have student groups create short presentations on assigned topics/issues. Store links to these presentations in Google docs (note skills that would have to be developed). Assign students to these different presentations and ask that they add questions after reviewing the content.

The article notes that these could also be argued to be reasonable ideas for traditional classroom instruction.

P.S. – I use a social bookmarking system called Diigo. An interesting feature (the social part) is that you can designate entries for access by the public. There is a way to offer access to a specific entry in this collection and that is what I have added below. The free Diigo extension must be installed to see the annotations of another Diigo user.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tedladd/2020/06/19/optimizing-concurrent-classrooms-teaching-students-in-the-room-and-online-simultaneously/#3d6dad1c3451

What you see when viewing a shared Diigo bookmark [with the Diigo extension] should look something like the following.

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Improving the educational value of online content

I have been waiting to generate this post until I felt certain educators would be providing at least some instruction at a distance this Fall. I have decided Fall instruction will not be like the Fall of 2019 and tools for teaching online are worth considering.

I understand that educators have been overwhelmed by suggestions for teaching at a distance. I want to limit what I add to one concept. I call this concept “layering” (explained here) which is my way of suggesting that educators should learn how to take existing online content (web pages and video) and add elements that guide the learner. Informational rich content is not necessarily prepared as learning resources. Adding elements such as questions and annotations to remember something already learned can improve understanding and application. Help the learner process the information to increase understanding and retention.

I am making some assumptions about the tools educators already have mastered. I assume that educators have learned to use a tool for managing learning and reaching students (a course management system of some type – Google classroom, SeeSaw) and video communication tools (Zoom, Google Meet). I would then suggest educators spend time with the type of tool I suggest here. The tools I suggest are versatile so that the investment of time educators and students commit translates into frequent applications. It makes sense to spend time on such tools before exploring other tools that might be used now and then.

There are several different layering tools and you need to learn a different one for video and for web pages. Here are my two suggestions.

InsertLearning – web page annotation

MoocNote – online video

For more on layering benefits and layering services

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Screen vs. Print

I am a very experienced screen reader. This has been the case for many years. Ironically, I am interested in the screen vs. print research and I have read much of this research. The screen vs. print issue seems to pop up frequently. [Example1, Example2]. I find my own reaction to be very different in several ways from the conclusions of this research. 

The literature, quickly summarized, finds an advantage for print reading over screen reading with a greater advantage for informational than narrative texts. I read nearly everything I read on a device. I strongly prefer to read on a device for informational text particularly when reading longer texts (books vs. journal articles). I understand the methodological danger in anecdotal research even when the case used as evidence is yourself so I have tried to think carefully about why I have come to ignore the research and stick with my preferences. 

Here are a couple of issues I use to bring some personal understanding to the difference between my perception of my own experience and what the literature seems to be suggesting. 

  • The research tends to focus on reading comprehension; read and then complete some measure of comprehension. Most of my reading I would describe as reading to write. I highlight and annotate heavily when I read. I find this far more practical to do on a device allowing me to search my annotations quickly and in some cases use the record of my highlights to provide a basis for creating an outline to be used in writing. The time I spend doing this kind of reading may influence my preferences. First, this type of reading is more interactive than the way one would read in preparation for a post reading assessment not allowing review. Perhaps the interactivity changes the nature of my reading in a way that avoids the skimming some see as the reaction of text on a screen. People read for different purposes (enjoyment, understanding). Reading to write as I define it seems similar to what I would describe as reading to study. I think if I were taking classes having the option of a print or digital textbook, I would prefer the digital version. The issue is not so much if I can remember something immediately or later. The issue is whether at a later time I can review effectively. 
  • I read a lot – probably averaging more than a couple of hours a day. I read many different types of material (books, journal articles, fiction, news) and I do nearly all of this reading on a screen. This has been the case for many years. I wonder about the impact of the amount of experience with online reading of long-form documents.
  • I like to change the size of fonts. I find the fonts in many print sources too small. I am older and I find it easier to read with speed with larger text. 

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Ethics and failed understanding

When I was doing the research for my previous post and doing some searches on my own content I came across this site.

What this site provides is a way to download at no cost, our textbook. You can get it as a pdf, mobi file, and a couple of other options. Going through the letters of appreciation (not to me) and the notes about it being provided under a CC option (creative commons), I could not help but become a little frustrated and a bit angry.

This content was stolen. Our book is sold through Amazon for $9. We sold previous versions of this book through first Houghton-Mifflin and then Cengage for well over $100. We opted out of that arrangement which was quite lucrative because we were unable to convince Cengage to go to a $29 model consisting of a paper Primer and a free web site. Through an arrangement that returned our copyright, we moved our Primer to Amazon ($9) and offer our supplemental resources at no cost on our own server. If you are interested in the logic for our model, search this site for book (I will tag this post so you can read our explanation). In short, there are advantages to our model that include lower cost, less dated content, and greater flexibility in what instructors can assign. This was not a decision we made intending to make more income and without the promotion of a major publishing company we receive a fraction of the income generated by our original paper textbooks.

I find it hard to believe that college students cannot afford to purchase this textbook for $9. Whatever anyone thinks of the cost of textbooks and what complaints one might have about this industry, these issues do not apply to us. Because this is a textbook intended for practicing teachers involved in graduate education and preservice teachers, I find it disturbing that people in this line of work would be so unethical as to steal a $9 book.

Maybe I am being too hard on the students who did this, but I assume they know or don’t want to know. This is a current book and not a book developed through a source of external support to warrant the phony creative commons representation that someone other than me has claimed for this work.

OK – end of rant. Just be honest and respect the effort and skill required to generate the content you use.

P.S. – The day I wrote this post I also responded to the site using a form that was provided. I kind of knew that if the site wanted responses in this fashion instead of via email I was unlikely to receive a response. I have not and the pirated book is still available.

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Search limitations

I have had this question about the power of search that I finally thought of a way to investigate. My question involves the power of search to locate content in sites that use a database backend. So, instead of independent web pages this would be systems that generate a web page on the fly by accessing a database to retrieve content as requested. Blogs work in this way. So do content management systems such as Concrete5.

I am guessing that the search spiders find the static front page of a blog or content management system, but would not necessarily trigger that source to pull up content from the database so that it could be indexed. My concern has been that resources I offer within a content management system are not going to be located when someone searches for something the stored content might address.

Here is how I tested my concern. I recently switched from content stored as individual web pages to the same content stored in Concrete5 (a content management service). I did this so I would not have to continue paying for Dreamweaver to add content to my existing site or to modify existing content. Blogs (e.g., this WordPress site) allow a user to save content as pages instead of posts. These pages can be linked and thus can provide the same functionality as a site constructed page by page using an authoring environment such as Dreamweaver. Blogs and content management systems now provide access to themes and other features that make content creation far easier than used to be the case. If your content is fairly standardized (most pages look the same) and require only the presentation of content (text, video, images), why invest in an approach that allows far more flexibility but at the cost of efficiency and funds? There may be an answer to my question – searchability.

Anyway, my server presently contains redundant versions of book resources one in the form of independent web pages and the other in a database enabled content management system. What I realized was that I could do was conduct a search on a paragraph from this content (both sources) and see what was returned. Google advanced search allows you to search for an exact phrase (see second image) which I copies from a page within the database-based system. The same paragraph appeared on the original page-based site created with Dreamweaver. Instructors may have used this same technique when concerned that students have copied content from the web to include as part of their own writing.

The results of the search confirmed my concern. The search located the page with the target paragraph, but not the same content from the active content management system.

I am now trying to figure out how to promote my content when it can no longer be located through search.

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Online learning vs. remote instruction

The requirement to end the year teaching students at home left many administrators and educators struggling for answers. There was not much time to plan (perhaps what ended up being declared a week for Spring break) and many obstacles to overcome – homes without broadband access and young students (and parents) lacking skills with the delivery tools that were selected. Teachers might also have not spent much time with the tools they were expected to use or at least didn’t have the depth of experience necessary to troubleshoot the inevitable problems that arose.

Some districts simply gave up and called it good for the year. Parents complained of the additional demands they faced and the challenge of finding a way to supervise their children if they were able to work. Districts reported a high rate of no shows. Many were frustrated.

All of the issues aside, I hope educators and administrators have gained some insights as we may be facing the same situation in the Fall and not finding a way forward will not be an option.

As the year ends, I hope administrators query teachers and parents to find insights into what were productive tactics and that these positive experiences can be shared. I found this article from EdSurge that identified a source I had not considered. The article was titled How online learning research can improve remote instruction. My initial reaction was puzzlement as I missed the point. For some, teaching students at home is not novel. There are some students who learn at home online and some who work with students in this fashion. These students and educators have committed to this form of teaching/learning for a variety for reasons, but this commitment has resulted in tactics that work for such circumstances. Certainly, everyone involved has made a commitment to the approach and there are not issues of bandwidth, hardware, or experience involved. These are different issues. What might be helpful from what has been a niche approach at the K12 level are the experiences that been found useful.

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Equity and technology use

The pandemic and related requirements that students learn from home have brought to my attention issues I thought we had moved past. My reference here is to data I have read locally (Minneapolis ara) about the numbers of students unable to participate in online efforts because of the lack of access. Schools had recognized this issue and made mobile hot spots available to families in need so students could meet homework assignments, but the more general expectations that are now in place revealed more need than schools could meet.

We have written a textbook since the middle 1990s and have included comments about equity. Looking at the history of our coverage, I can see a timeline of what we used as “marker variables”. In the early days, the marker was easily quantifiable and was reflected in the student to computer ratio. So, we would compare schools with a high proportion of students qualifying for free and reduced lunch with schools with few students needing this assistance. You would see values like 10:1 and 5:1. What would seem to happen was that the government would recognize such disparities and step in with subsidies such as the e-rate. The next marker was again quantitative and might be the proportion of school computers with Internet access. Soon, most schools were wired and we started to talk about issues such as 1:1 initiatives and more qualitative indicators such as the type of classroom tasks students participated in and the staff available to support educators.

The next disparity involved assumptions about whether homework could require Internet access and the proportion of families with high-speed access by income level or some other variable. I thought we had kind of moved beyond the quantitative differences to focus on the kinds of free-time home activities students focused on or the types of home devices (phone, tablet, computer) relative to equity variables.

My surprise was that the pandemic seemed to indicate I had to back up along my assumed timeline with families claiming that children could not connect to complete assignments. PEW provides some data relevant to this issue. A chart based on these data appears below and PEW also writes that 25% of children in homes with less than 30K in income do not have access to a computer.

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