Today’s TED 2013 share is Sugata Mitra’s Build a School in the Cloud. Mitra is this year’s TED Prize winner and for good reason. His use of cloud computing in providing an enriched and dynamic learning environment for students in India is inspiring. The model of collaborative education, Self Organized Learning Environments (SOLE) empowers students to collaborate and take control of their learning journeys. Check out the talk below and enjoy this nugget of inspiration from TED!
Tweak Your Slides
Musings on how presentation design will change the world.
Tag Archives: education
Tweak Your Teach: Design Thinking for Educators Vol. 2
My exposure to design over the past four years–TED’s mission of spreading ideas through the marriage of technology, entertainment, and design; the work of those who work towards the cause for cinematic presentations, and the work of instructional design folks like Julie Dirksen–has definitely impacted my approach to building and revising my courses. I am in the process of reworking the online version of Professional Communication and Presentation and redoing my on campus lectures for the course, so, the design treat I found in my inbox on Monday couldn’t have come at a better time.
Source: Renato Ganoza via Compfight cc
The creators of the Design Thinking for Educators Toolkit, Riverdale School and design firm IDEO, have released volume 2 of this amazing resource. This new volume of the toolkit icludes a basic introduction to what design thinking is, a streamlined process for using design thinking to improve the educational experience (whether it’s curriculum, space, process/tool, or systems-based), and a new workbook feature that takes educators through the design process. The workbook provides educators with a framework for completing short-term or long-term projects both individually and in groups. Download this superteacher resource at the Design Thinking For Educators website.
.
Tweak Your Teach: The Teaching Portfolio
I am excited to continue working on Tweak Your Teach and the rest of my blog in the new year. I’ve just updated the site to include a teaching porfolio section that I will be adding to and growing over the next few weeks. What exactly is a teaching portfolio and what is its purpose?
According to Rutgers University’s Center for Teaching Advancement & Assessment Research, a teaching portfolio is a “flexible document” that details a teacher’s “teaching responsibilities, philosophy, goals and accomplishments.” This traditionally print document contains the breadth and scope of an educator’s experience and includes three major areas:
1. Teaching Responsibilities (What I do)
2. Teaching Philosophy and Statement of Competency (Why I do it)
3. Evidence of Effective Teaching (Proof that I do what I say)
A strong portfolio is dynamic–it changes constantly and includes both specific goals and measurable data indicating those goals have been met. More than proof of concept, a dynamic teaching portfolio shows an educator what he or she has accomplished and what he or she still needs to grow. There are several excellent print guides as well as examples available. One of the most highly recommended is The Teaching Portfolio: A Practical Guide to Improved Performance and Promotion/Tenure Decisions.
However, several comprehensive guides to the portfolio process that don’t cost a penny come from reputable educational institutions like Rutgers. Two of my favorites are A Guide to the Teaching Portfolio by the University of New Hampshire and the very comprehensive and useful guide from the Center for Effective Teaching and Learning at the University of Texas at El Paso.
As I begin this process, I have many great examples to draw from, but find the approach to the standard portfolio to be a bit stale. I am working on ways to make it more dynamic and interactive, drawing from my design skills to further enhance how usable this is as a tool for me and for others. I’ve added a few preliminary elements to the portfolio section, the most recent of which is my teaching philosophy. I’ve truncated this down from two pages to one, but would definitely like to add specific goals to the end. This draft focuses on my self-definition as a “super-teacher.” I began using this term several years ago when I saw a stark difference between those who teach because they cannot do something in their field and those who teach because teaching IS their field. Those are the super-teachers, at least the ones who call teaching their bliss and work towards the betterment of education for all. Check it out in the new teaching portfolio section under “About Me.”
Are you a teacher? What’s your philosophy on teaching? What do you draw inspiration from?
Tweak your Teach: Dr. Tae’s Building a New Culture of Teaching and Learning
I am working on a new section to the blog that focuses specifically on education. In keeping with the tweak theme, I’ll be posting new articles under the category ” Tweak your Teach.” If you read this blog, you know, I am committed to the “tweak” in all its forms. Tweak your slides, your speech, your life, and definitely your teaching. At no time has this final point been more important in American education than now. Dr. Tae is one of my favorite educators.
Dr. Tae uses storytelling, simple truths, and skateboarding to present his case for a new culture of learning at TEDxEastSidePrep
His 30 minute talk, “Building a New Culture of Teaching and Learning” is inspirational and a must watch for superteachers. In this inspiring talk, Tae ses humor, impeccable logic and evidence, and the testimony of educators as well as weaving in his own personal and professional anecdotes to convey a simple and very sticky message:
School sucks, especially in science and math.
Tae then explains that the problem is not mutually exclusive to secondary schools. The entire educational model–from elementary to university level is broken. But why is the system broken? The problem begins in secondary schools. Firstly, schools do not hire great teachers because the focus is on certification and not qualification or quality. Further, the structure of schools is broken. Our students are given a fixed and finite amount of time in which to learn something and their performance is based on grades, which are coercive by nature. I had this experience–Mr. Feldman, my high school physics teacher is one of my most memorable teachers–because he was so completely awful. He demeaned students who were not already great at math and science and showed complete contempt for the entire experience of teaching his students. He taught me that physics sucks and that I am not smart enough to understand it. Definitely NOT the goal of education. This is a product of the standardized test driven model of education we inherited after the industrial revolution. The problem is compounded in universities, which have become a depersonalized experience, where the culture of open discourse and the exchange of ideas are considered burdens to the more “important” work of research.
So, what is Tae’s solution? Skateboarding. No, really, skateboarding. Tae then reveals a very simple truth.
To learn something properly, you work your ass off until you get it right. That’s it.
Schools are in complete opposition to this model. Schools don’t give students open time to master a skill; in school, students are motivated via coercion, but true learning must be self-motivated and guided by responsible mentorship; in school, students often turn to cheating (because what matters is the grade, not true learning), but according to Tae, real learning cannot be cheated. Mr. Feldman’s counterpart was Dr. Earls, a published author and authority in humanities, who pushed me to take control of my learning, who helped me to see the place education could have in my life, and who truly cared about empowering her students to be more than they already were or are.
Tae’s model of education is wonderfully idealistic–when I first encountered this talk two years ago, I was and am still stoked to know there are teachers committed to a renaissance of teaching and learning. Ultimately, Tae’s solution involves more than just a restructuring of the education system; it is the creation of a culture of education where each of us takes a role in teaching others, whether formally trained or not.
I think it’s important that you watch the video, dear reader, so I won’t rehash everything (even though I really want to). Instead, I’ll focus on just a few key points from each of the major segments of Tae’s talk.
All of us can share and teach. It is our responsibility to distribute and share what we know. We can all be great teachers; we can share our knowledge freely and really change our world. Knowledge should not be selfish. Teaching and learning are part of our cultural habits. They should not just be something we do in school. Share what you know. Watch Dr. Tae’s talk and be inspired to Tweak your Teach!
TED Educators: John Wooden and Dave Eggers
John Wooden on true success
As an erstwhile college sports fan (I really only paid attention when I was in school), I don’t know much about the greats of college sports lore, apart from the once great Steve Spurrier. So, one must forgive my lack of know how about the late John Wooden, arguably the best college sports coach of all time. Once I watched this talk though, I realized his true impact as a coach came not from wins and championships, but from his understanding of the true meaning of success–hard work, a positive impact on the world, and always doing one’s best.
Dave Eggers’ wish: Once upon a school
One of my favorite facets of TED is the TED prize, which is awarded each year to one idea that would benefit from the kind of exposure and support the TED organization has the ability to offer. Dave Eggers recounts the story of 826 Valencia, an after school program that pairs writers with students in a unique tutoring experiment. Eggers’ enthusiasm, humility, and passion for helping others inspires the superteacher in me to do more.
Link of the day: redesigning apple crapple
I ran across this link from the New York Times Learning Network. As one who has fallen victim to the “apple crapple” as one listener of Studio 360 referred to visuals like “ apples, ABCs, 123s, one-room schoolhouses with bells on top” (New York Times), I think I’m ready to take a cue from 360 Design and rethink my visual representations of teacher.
360 Design has created an entire campaign around the idea of connecting dots and fostering learning journeys. I am so stoked!
Design in digital education
So, part of being a teacher, at least a good one, is a healthy bit of complaining. I don’t mean complaining about course loads or workplace politics or noisy cube neighbors. I complain about the disconnect between the online learner and the online teacher; I complain about the pervasive shift away from teachers who are creative problem-solvers towards teachers who are mere task masters, trapped and demoralized by a system that focuses much more on results than it does on an enriching learning experience for students. I’ve referred to Ken Robinson’s “Bring on the Learning Revolution” (once to my own detriment and at the expense of my “reputation”) in the conversations I have with superteachers. Although his first TED talk “Schools Kill Creativity” is definitely the more popular of his two takes on the state of education, it’s in his second talk that he brings up the idea of fast food education, a one size fits all assembly line model of educating the masses, that like one too many cheeseburgers, deteriorates and destroys the quality of the educated, while at the same time reinforcing the idea that teachers are merely there to dole out grades, to check off on work completed without criticism.
I spent several hours last night networking with a fellow superteacher, who feels shackled and constrained by his school’s insistence on checklists. He teaches art to elementary schools students and actually has to warn his students that he is going to teach differently and act differently when an administrator stops by to ensure items are checked off. He is thinking of moving on to something else. He loves education and working with kids, but feels education has been coopted by other interests and concerns.
I believe this disconnect is most prevalent in the online environment. Although this not entirely absent in the traditional classroom context, in a physical classroom, the teacher’s role is more clearly defined (even if it is just task master) and the student has a clearer sense of what the process of being educated requires (active participation, immersion in course concepts, thorough study, analysis, discussion, revision, and self-reflection). Recently, our department has been working ways to make online feedback more dynamic. We’ve begun using Jing to record audio feedback to student work. I listened in to many of my colleagues recording their feedback and I was definitely pleased by the enthusiasm and dynamism this approach engenders. I can only imagine what it would be like as a student to receive verbal feedback from a teacher, to hear a teacher’s sense of encouragement and willingness to help.
As I perused design-thinking.alltop.com for some inspiration today for another post on photography, I ran across this article from The Design Thinking Network on the place of design in digital education. Adopting design-centered approach, meaning drives each intentional decision, and each decision made is meant to creatively solve another pedagogical challenge in both the live the virtual classroom, has enabled me to tweak my class to the needs of my students as opposed to stick with a routine/pattern/structure that works best for me. Keith Hampson asserts that design is even more important in the online learning environment than it is in the physical classroom because the mediums being used but that most online learning systems fail to take design into account when creating content and software. The online experience is a design-based experience. Every day we are bombarded with both good and bad design. Consider how many pinterest boards you visit each day. How many websites you Stumble Upon, and how many blog, magazine, and news articles you read. Hampson sees this as an opportunity to use design in a design-saturated environment. Similarly, the Design Thinking for Educators organization is committed to bringing the design process into the classroom. If you haven’t checked out this amazing resource for 21st century conceptual approaches to education, you are missing out. Thanks to Alex Rister for the share!
I truly believe design-centered thinking (problem solving, ideation, troubleshooting, radical ideas) can save education. What do you think? What will help move education in the right direction?
Tweak your Image: The Visual Resume Final Project
Yesterday was the last day of an awesome class. I always love teaching–let me repeat that, I love it, even when the class is kicking my ass, giving me tons of resistance, and making me work work work to find ways to get them engaged. But, sometimes, I just love them a little more…I am human after all.
I cannot express how much I will miss Charlie, Matt, and the rest of their amazing class! P.S. I am not flipping the bird here, just trying to keep my beard on!
The last two days of class are slotted for the visual resume project. Now, you may think I am being trendy for moving in the direction of the flashy, supplemental visual resume, or maybe my choice is redundant. Who needs a visual resume if they have a solid conventional resume or cv? Truth be told, I started doing this for two reasons.
One is purely selfish–I wanted to create my own visual resume; I generally can find no better excuse for doing something myself than asking my students to do it. The second reason stems from my previous final project, a self-reflective creative exploration of the student’s learning journey. While amazingly successful (I loved grading iMovie renditions of “Santeria,” original songs, video games, and gorgeously designed Keynotes), it failed to fill an important void in my students’ education. I never understood how to write a resume, nor how to make myself attractive to employers except by painful trial and error. My students currently do not get valuable instruction on building a professional persona. As other courses in their programs discuss resumes, I am prevented from doing so (to avoid redundancy). So, how could I integrate a bit of self-reflection, practical practice with that professional image, and one last challenge to BE CREATIVE into one assignment?
The answer was the visual resume. I am often amused by the way this project unfolds in class. Oftentimes, the results are completely polarized. I get either amazing, impeccably designed, well-developed visual resumes that would wow even the most doubtful of employers; well-developed, designed, but still somewhat formulaic attempts (incredible! Could the visual resume already be formulaic?); or quickly and haphazardly designed attempts at squeaking by with a passing grade. People either love or hate this assignment. Those who love it are eager for a chance to express a small bit of their vision; those who hate it say they just can’t do it or they aren’t creative or they don’t want to talk about themselves). One student spent the majority of yesterday’s class yelling at his laptop, muttering not quite so softly (I have teacher ears; I hear all) about how torturous this project was.
At the time, it annoyed me, but then I considered how much I gripe about how dissatisfied with my own visual resume I am, how torturous it is for me to make revisions to it that I am satisfied with, and how completely horrendous my latest cover letter was before deep slash and burn by the one and only Alex Rister.
What Alex and I did after the "Beards Rule" Presentation.
All of this has led to a deeper empathy (maybe) for the task I put before my students. It’s not easy for me to be satisfied with a project I’ve worked on for 8 months now. Can I really expect them to fall in love with the idea over the course of, at best, two days, and at worst as in today’s class, one day? In an effort to answer these questions, I am going to chill for a moment, let go, and accept my visual resume as it is. There are aspects of it I quite like, despite feeling entirely unsure of what picture it paints of me. It is a representation of my versatile talents, interests, and those completely bizzarre aspects of my personality I can’t squeeze into the spaces between my education and my memberships on a CV. And that is something to be proud of. Truly.
