This has been gnawing at me for about two weeks. In a webinar for UCGIS Alex Klippel of Penn State discussed his hybrid course on spatial analysis. I'd have called it a flipped class: students learned R online via Lynda and came to class to … well, not have a lecture. One of the biggest challenges for Klippel, and I appreciate his candor, was finding things for students to while they were in the classroom together! He knew he didn't want to lecture, but what sorts of exercises and activities would move the learning forward? How would they be implemented? I'm not aware of a repository of hands on spatial analysis activities for college students. If educators are moving toward flipping/hybrid geography and GIS courses (see also Peter August's work), perhaps we need one.
Klippel may be typical of today's college educators. We learned and taught using the old lecture method. The "sage on the stage" speaks, students listen, students read and perhaps do homework problems, and then there's a test. The good news is that the best of the K-12 and college educators are fighting that trend. They preach active learning, group learning, problem, project and inquiry based learning, genius hours and other techniques to have students "do" rater than passively sit (see this scary real life story of high school students).
I think geography and GIS education (among other areas) are at a turning point. We need to look even harder at this "doing" part of geography. We need to think through the best use of the time educators spend face to face with students and the time students spend face to face with one another.
This was driven home to me in the past year or two by a guest conductor of the Concord Band. I wish I recall who it was, and I'm sure I've heard the idea before, but somehow it hit home that evening as I sat in the third clarinet section.
The two hours my band rehearses together each week, he noted, is short and very special. It's probably far shorter than the time most of us practice during the week. And, it means it must be used to its highest potential. We need to use it to be better as a group. Thus, we should not be learning our individual parts during rehearsal, but rather, learning how our individual parts integrate with the other parts. We shouldn't be working on our individual intonation (playing in tune) but rather adjusting our intonation to match our section and the entire ensemble.
I'd realized some time ago that the best part of band rehearsal (and the subsequent concert) was when I finally fit my bit in with the rest of the ensemble. The only time I could even try it was at rehearsal. So, I'd often work up just a few tough measures with the goal of attempting to fit them in at the next rehearsal. Sometimes it took a few tries across a few rehearsals. I secretly hoped the director would run that part a few times and I sometimes requested just that. No matter how long it took, it was so exciting to "get it." I have been known to trust my arm in the air and say "Yes!"
Back to the classroom. A classroom experience should be just like band rehearsal. Each student would be preparing their homework (watching a video, building a data table, learning a skill) with the idea that they'd put it to work during that special time with their peers and instructor. While they might not have a "Yes!" moment at each meeting, they should know that was the goal toward which to strive.
Creating experiences that prompt that kind of cooperative learning is tough. There are many hands on exercises for younger students in geography. There are the classic puzzles that fit the shapes of the states together, the huge maps that lay on the floor, and the like. I even took a paper and pencil college exercise from PSU's Geography 20 (thanks Roger) about bus routing to a group of middle schoolers with great success. But now we need to bring the fun (and learning) of those techniques to high school and college, and frankly, to our (super dull PowerPoint driven) conferences.
My challenge to educators and those creating content for geography and GIS courses and conference presentations:
- Make fewer videos of how to run a buffer in ArcGIS and instead think about how to best use time in class when students and instructors are together
- Don't do a PowerPoint or give a demo at the next conference; have the attendees DO something to learn what you hope to teach. If you want to do a PowerPoint or a demo, put it out on the Web, you'll have a larger audience.
- Think hard about what can only (or best) be done face to face and save that for class. Everything else can be (and perhaps should be?) done in some form via the Internet.
Showing posts with label flipped classroom. Show all posts
Showing posts with label flipped classroom. Show all posts
Monday, October 13, 2014
Thursday, April 19, 2012
The State of the Flipped Classroom
I really love the idea of the "Flipped Classroom," where "lecture" is consumed at home and "homework" is done in class with the teacher at hand. It's one way to remove the "sage on the stage" and make the teacher the "guide on the side."
A Washington Post interview with Jonathan Bergmann, a chemistry teacher who has flipped his class and became a "flipped class" expert with a new book on the topic, highlights two key "lessons learned." One relates to the nature of the "lecture" consumed at home and the other to what subjects are most suited to flipping.
In most discussions of the flipped classroom the "homework," that is the "lecture" part of the learning, is described as "watching videos." But as Bergmann points out, video is not the only option.
The article also addresses one question I've had for some time: Can every academic subject be flipped successfully? I'm thinking about teaching geography and GIS in this model. Says Bergmann:
1) teach yourself what kriging is and how it works (I'd have college students do their own curation of content!)
2) state what resource you used to learn about the topic and explain how you found and selected it
Once the students arrived prepared for "Lab," they'd then tackle a kriging challenge with their peers and the instructor at their sides. I'd want to take that class. I'd even want to teach it!
A Washington Post interview with Jonathan Bergmann, a chemistry teacher who has flipped his class and became a "flipped class" expert with a new book on the topic, highlights two key "lessons learned." One relates to the nature of the "lecture" consumed at home and the other to what subjects are most suited to flipping.
In most discussions of the flipped classroom the "homework," that is the "lecture" part of the learning, is described as "watching videos." But as Bergmann points out, video is not the only option.
They don’t need to watch my video. You just need to learn the material. Students need multiple ways to access content. A kid would say, “Hello, Mr. Bergmann, do I have to watch the video? Can I read the textbook instead?” We said, “You can learn it any way you like.”Now that's a huge idea: The flipped classroom can give students multiple ways to learn the same material. How many ways can you learn to tape your bike's handlebars on the Web? I found videos (real life ones and animations), articles, step by step photo essays... The same is true for academic topics including how to multiply fractions! Bergmann explains that the teacher curates these, some of which may his or her own content, to provide a variety of options. Students can try one or more with the goal of understanding the topic well enough to try their hands at it the next day in class. I suspect this model has an added bonus: each student begins to learn about how he or she learns best! Via audio, video, text, interactive activities... That's very valuable! I'd even have older students periodically write essays reflecting on how they learn "best."
The article also addresses one question I've had for some time: Can every academic subject be flipped successfully? I'm thinking about teaching geography and GIS in this model. Says Bergmann:
We started it with the hard sciences, physics and math. It works for foreign language. But we’ve got some amazing teachers speaking at our conference who are English teachers. I always thought that would be harder, but they love it. I haven’t seen a whole lot of social studies and history, but there is a movement amongst them.My hunch is any subject can be flipped but... you need detailed course objectives, a bevy of curated "lecture" options and engaging in-class problem sets/challenges/activities. I want to see a college level GIS course that had this homework assignment:
1) teach yourself what kriging is and how it works (I'd have college students do their own curation of content!)
2) state what resource you used to learn about the topic and explain how you found and selected it
Once the students arrived prepared for "Lab," they'd then tackle a kriging challenge with their peers and the instructor at their sides. I'd want to take that class. I'd even want to teach it!
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
On Demand Learning
Why On Demand Learning?
One of my winter "chores" to tackle before spring was re-taping the handlebars on my road bike (LeMond Reno for those who care). As the weather got nicer I knew time was running out. The last time I needed to re-tape I cheated and had the guy at the shop do it, along with some other maintenance. This time, it was my turn. Several riders with more experience than I told me the same thing: watch some videos on YouTube and you'll be fine.
So, the afternoon before I planned to do the work I viewed four or five videos and read a few blog posts on the topic. I made sure to read the post from local legend Sheldon Brown. The videos had some contradictory thoughts, but the basics were the same. When in doubt, I'd go with Sheldon's way, I decided. The good news is: mission accomplished! My bike is set for its maiden ride of 2012, which should be any day now.
I want to contrast this "on demand" learning from typical classroom learning. I had a job to do that had to get done. I was motivated. And, as I'm finding more and more, the educational tools I needed were right at my finger tips. I just needed to find the authoritative ones and pick my way through the contradictions. In school, or in a GIS class, that kind of motivation is rarely available. Mostly, students are learning to do fractions so they can do fractions. In a GIS course students learn to create a buffer, to, well, create a buffer.
This is a great time in the evolution of education to embrace, at least in part, some amount of "On Demand Learning." I say that for a few reasons. First off, the concept of project-based or experiential learning is widely accepted and second, the learning resources are out there. Thirdly, and most important for the long term, learning how to learn with tools available (Web, library, fellow students, etc.) is a skill of life long learners.
Examples of On Demand Learning in Geography/Geospatial Education
Below are three examples of how an educator might include "on demand" learning within a geography or GIS course.
1) Project-based work - As individuals or teams tackle their chosen course or capstone project, there are multiple opportunities to learn new pieces of software, new programming languages or techniques or work with new data types. One aspect of the project may be to not only document that new software, a new language or new data was used but also to detail how the student/team learned of it and how to use it.
In one lesson I taught, the first assignment was "teach yourself this piece of software." The second one was "explain in 250 words how you did that and reflect on if it was successful." This assignment was as much about seeking out videos, tutorials and authoritative sources as it was about assessing one's own learning preferences.
2) Flipped classroom - If tomorrow's GIS lab is about linear referenced (dynamic segmentation), have the students learn on their own what it is, how it works, and the key vocabulary. Instead of assigning specific sections of a textbook or a well-known video, have them seek them out. The next day a quick quiz can assess what they learned and a discussion of which resources were most valuable might ensue, before tackling the lab itself.
3) Create the learning resource - There's no better way to master a concept then to teach it to someone else. Pair up students in the class and if they get stuck on a concept or procedure, have them ask their partner for help. The partner then must create a learning resource for their partner that is also a graded assignment for the course. (It might not be completed in real time, but over a week or longer.) It might be a video, a workflow diagram, or a short article. These can be collected for use by the current class, future classes and other students around the world.
Conclusion
In these times students need to be great users of on demand learning and the next generation of creators of future resources. By the way, I also used YouTube and other online learning resources in recent months to learn to snowshoe and make homemade yoghurt. I used it to diagnose a problem with my clarient. I was most proud to tell my repairman exactly which spring was broken, something I usually depend on him to both find and fix.
One of my winter "chores" to tackle before spring was re-taping the handlebars on my road bike (LeMond Reno for those who care). As the weather got nicer I knew time was running out. The last time I needed to re-tape I cheated and had the guy at the shop do it, along with some other maintenance. This time, it was my turn. Several riders with more experience than I told me the same thing: watch some videos on YouTube and you'll be fine.
So, the afternoon before I planned to do the work I viewed four or five videos and read a few blog posts on the topic. I made sure to read the post from local legend Sheldon Brown. The videos had some contradictory thoughts, but the basics were the same. When in doubt, I'd go with Sheldon's way, I decided. The good news is: mission accomplished! My bike is set for its maiden ride of 2012, which should be any day now.
I want to contrast this "on demand" learning from typical classroom learning. I had a job to do that had to get done. I was motivated. And, as I'm finding more and more, the educational tools I needed were right at my finger tips. I just needed to find the authoritative ones and pick my way through the contradictions. In school, or in a GIS class, that kind of motivation is rarely available. Mostly, students are learning to do fractions so they can do fractions. In a GIS course students learn to create a buffer, to, well, create a buffer.
This is a great time in the evolution of education to embrace, at least in part, some amount of "On Demand Learning." I say that for a few reasons. First off, the concept of project-based or experiential learning is widely accepted and second, the learning resources are out there. Thirdly, and most important for the long term, learning how to learn with tools available (Web, library, fellow students, etc.) is a skill of life long learners.
Examples of On Demand Learning in Geography/Geospatial Education
Below are three examples of how an educator might include "on demand" learning within a geography or GIS course.
1) Project-based work - As individuals or teams tackle their chosen course or capstone project, there are multiple opportunities to learn new pieces of software, new programming languages or techniques or work with new data types. One aspect of the project may be to not only document that new software, a new language or new data was used but also to detail how the student/team learned of it and how to use it.
In one lesson I taught, the first assignment was "teach yourself this piece of software." The second one was "explain in 250 words how you did that and reflect on if it was successful." This assignment was as much about seeking out videos, tutorials and authoritative sources as it was about assessing one's own learning preferences.
2) Flipped classroom - If tomorrow's GIS lab is about linear referenced (dynamic segmentation), have the students learn on their own what it is, how it works, and the key vocabulary. Instead of assigning specific sections of a textbook or a well-known video, have them seek them out. The next day a quick quiz can assess what they learned and a discussion of which resources were most valuable might ensue, before tackling the lab itself.
3) Create the learning resource - There's no better way to master a concept then to teach it to someone else. Pair up students in the class and if they get stuck on a concept or procedure, have them ask their partner for help. The partner then must create a learning resource for their partner that is also a graded assignment for the course. (It might not be completed in real time, but over a week or longer.) It might be a video, a workflow diagram, or a short article. These can be collected for use by the current class, future classes and other students around the world.
Conclusion
In these times students need to be great users of on demand learning and the next generation of creators of future resources. By the way, I also used YouTube and other online learning resources in recent months to learn to snowshoe and make homemade yoghurt. I used it to diagnose a problem with my clarient. I was most proud to tell my repairman exactly which spring was broken, something I usually depend on him to both find and fix.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Esri Announces Significant Upgrade to Educational Site License
On Jan 23, Esri sent an e-mail to its Educational Site License administrators which included details of "the most significant upgrade to the Esri Educational Site License Program in 20 years, at no additional cost." Why did Esri add in the new tools? "...because Esri president Jack Dangermond is committed to the success of educators at all levels who seek to cultivate the next generation of GIS users as well as a spatially literate citizenry."
What's new?
1. Addition of Esri® Community Analyst and the Business Analyst OnlineSM API to the Business Analyst Site License Add‐on, which is available at no cost upon request. (Available Jan 1)
2. Addition of ArcGIS Extensions (Available Jan 1)
ArcGIS Desktop Extensions
o ArcGIS Data Interoperability (teaching and research only)
o ArcGIS Data Reviewer
What's new?
1. Addition of Esri® Community Analyst and the Business Analyst OnlineSM API to the Business Analyst Site License Add‐on, which is available at no cost upon request. (Available Jan 1)
2. Addition of ArcGIS Extensions (Available Jan 1)
ArcGIS Desktop Extensions
o ArcGIS Data Interoperability (teaching and research only)
o ArcGIS Data Reviewer
ArcGIS Mapping and Charting Solutions
o Esri Defense Mapping
o Esri Aeronautical Solution
o Esri Nautical Solution
ArcGIS Server Extensions
o ArcGIS Data Interoperability (teaching and research only)
3. Addition of Esri Data products, delivered on DVD (Anticipated availability March 1, 2012)
Esri demographic and lifestyle data (entire United States, all geographies)
o Esri Updated Demographics
o Esri Consumer Spending
o Esri TapestryTM Segmentation
o American Community Survey (ACS)
o Census 2010
4. Addition of New Products/Services ("Early 2012" - no date given)
o ArcGIS Online subscriptions
o Esri CityEngine®—Advanced
ArcGIS Online is positioned this way:
I think that's a great idea - both for students and staff use. It may encourage instructors to seriously consider a flipped classroom model, where a module is assigned as "homework" and the "lab" is done in class. I hope Esri is thinking about how educators will be uploading their own "modules" to the LMS, to share with other educators, in the future.
o Esri Defense Mapping
o Esri Aeronautical Solution
o Esri Nautical Solution
ArcGIS Server Extensions
o ArcGIS Data Interoperability (teaching and research only)
3. Addition of Esri Data products, delivered on DVD (Anticipated availability March 1, 2012)
Esri demographic and lifestyle data (entire United States, all geographies)
o Esri Updated Demographics
o Esri Consumer Spending
o Esri TapestryTM Segmentation
o American Community Survey (ACS)
o Census 2010
4. Addition of New Products/Services ("Early 2012" - no date given)
o ArcGIS Online subscriptions
o Esri CityEngine®—Advanced
ArcGIS Online is positioned this way:
ArcGIS Online enables your faculty members to incorporate meaningful GIS use in large‐enrollment classes with minimal impact on their workload or your institution’s IT staff or infrastructure. In addition, your subscription to ArcGIS Online will allow faculty and students to publish intelligent web maps and make them widely available without requiring in‐house server infrastructure and technical expertise.5. Revamp of web‐based Virtual Campus courseware breaking courses into 2-4 hour modules accessible via a new learning management system (LMS). (Release concurrent with ArcGIS 10.1 release)
I think that's a great idea - both for students and staff use. It may encourage instructors to seriously consider a flipped classroom model, where a module is assigned as "homework" and the "lab" is done in class. I hope Esri is thinking about how educators will be uploading their own "modules" to the LMS, to share with other educators, in the future.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
A Geographer Looks at EdTech - Part 6 - Khan Academy
--- This post is the sixth in a ten part series examining top 2011 trends in education technology in the context of GIS and geography education. ---
The sixth theme Audrey Watters identified in her top ten list of ed tech for 2011 is the rise and popularity of Khan Academy. She details the non-profit's beginnings and details its free repository of math and science videos. She goes on to note its growth to include exercises, rock star tech and education hires, more funding and all the buzz its had in the media.
Part of the buzz around Khan Academy is about how videos might be used as homework. The vision of the "flipped classroom"(IE post) involves students watching videos (or being introduced to new material in other ways) at home and then doing what used to called "homework" at school with peer and teacher support. Khan didn't invent that vision, but helped market it.
I love the ideas behind Khan Academy but am not so naive to think they will solve all our education challenges in math or other areas. I like these aspects of the Khan vision:
- Bite-sized, homey videos that can be watched again and again
- Open model means videos are under a Creative Commons license and Khan-used tools are open source
- Real educators are building out an arts and history curricula
- The flipped classroom means student have help at hand in "the doing" part of learning, not he passive part (aka the lecture)
- Non-profit status can help limit too rapid growth and hopefully mis-use of government funding
So how do the ideas of Khan Academy relate to geography and GIS education? That was a jumping off point of my keynote at the NEARC Edu event (IE post) this year. I imagined a flipped GIS course that had no lectures. Instead, students watch videos, read tutorials, etc. at "home" and do "labs" during class. Those labs, I'd imagine would be noisy raucous places where students work together and interact, unlike the deathly quiet ones I've seen. Is the geography community ready to build its library of videos for such a vision? Do they already exist?
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Infographic: The Flipped Classroom
Last week I gave the opening remarks at the NEARC Educators Day event. All I did was ask a lot of questions. The first one was: "What is the flipped classroom?" The first answer I received was frankly wrong. Some of the educators at that event had not run into the hubbub about the Khan Academy and other flipped efforts.
So, for those educators and other others who are still a bit shaky on the idea, I offer this easy to follow infographic from Knewton. I feel strongly the flipped classroom concept is interesting and valuable and worth considering but agree it is not THE solution to all education challenges we currently face.
I am very interested in how this idea is/could be used in geography/GIS education.
Created by Knewton and Column Five Media
So, for those educators and other others who are still a bit shaky on the idea, I offer this easy to follow infographic from Knewton. I feel strongly the flipped classroom concept is interesting and valuable and worth considering but agree it is not THE solution to all education challenges we currently face.
I am very interested in how this idea is/could be used in geography/GIS education.
Created by Knewton and Column Five Media
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