Over the past few years, I’ve had the pleasure to co-facilitate a series of full-day Microsoft Technology Enriched Instruction workshops in colleges and universities around the world. TEI Workshops are designed to help college and university faculty find ways to integrate technology in their teaching in a way that both helps them to teach their content more effectively and to simultaneously find ways to engage their students in 21st century learning skills (21CLS). I also teach courses for novice and experienced K-12 teachers to develop these same skills.
 
The TPACK Game
These workshops and the classes I teach are very participatory, discussion-based, and action-oriented. By the end of the experience, each participant develops designs for their courses that integrate technology in some way to support teaching and learning. Despite the technology focus for the workshops and courses, one highlight is a simple sorting/matching game that can probably be easily adapted to a range of different learning activities and content foci.
 
In the context of the TEI workshop, this game is designed to help the participants match a content topic that they teach with learning activities and technologies that “fit” to create a powerful learning experience. In the game, participants are provided with blank white index cards, on which they write content topics for the courses they teach. We then provide them with a set of yellow pedagogy cards – each with a different type of learning activity (e.g., group discussion, simulation, demonstration, etc.). Finally, a set of green cards include different technologies that may be used in the classroom or online (e.g., presentation software, video recording, wikis, etc.).
 
Through a series of rounds, participants are directed to either randomly draw or strategically combine sets of cards (content, pedagogy, and technology) to learn to identify and generate good “fit” among the three. This is called the TPACK Game and was originated by Judi Harris, Punya Mishra, and Matt Koehler back in 2007 at the National Technology Leadership Summit. Punya provides a good history of the game along with other variations. This is always a favorite activity from the workshop. It generates great discussion, which often extends beyond the 1:15 minute time block that we allocate for it.
 
Considering new options
While this experience is focused on a particular learning goal with specific reasoning processes in mind, this kind of simple sorting game can be extremely helpful in two respects. First, as one Australian history professor noted, considering a range of different teaching approaches and learning activities helped him to consider new possibilities. It’s only human nature to fall into routines, but this game can help you to break out of your normal practice and consider new ideas. Another way it can be helpful is to consider new ways to use familiar tools. OneNote is one of the applications we work with in the workshop. Many of the Australian participants were already using OneNote for their own notetaking and organization. When they encountered this technology in the context of the TPACK game however, they began to see applications for group work – particularly research projects. There were similar insights related to the use of Skype and Padlet as well.

In my mind, however, these aren’t the primary benefits to the TPACK game. I think the most powerful aspect of the game is the conversations that are catalyzed as participants discuss their choices and alternatives. Groups often become quite animated as they discuss different possible combinations of content, pedagogy and technology. They share their unique experiences and insights as they discuss the cards they are dealt. It is in these collaborations that some of the most transformative new approaches are developed. In the academy, we often don’t have the forum to discuss our teaching practice. The TPACK game is one way to drive this discussion.

How else might we encourage these conversations on teaching practice in higher education?
Please post your comments below.  

Last weekend, I was catching up on my blog reading (as part of my personal learning network) when I came across a great post from Barbi Honeycutt on 5 Ways Students Say Their Role Changes in the Flipped Classroom. The post reports on her work with faculty and students at the Chapman University School of Pharmacy to design and implement a new curriculum using the FLIP model that Barbi has developed.
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One sentence in the article really jumped out at me: "The faculty and campus leaders have made it their mission to prepare Pharmacists, not just graduates." This idea implies a more active, applied approach to both coursework and learning in preparation for students to bring the skills and concepts to bear in their future careers. This is a core element of professional education programs like pharmacy, education or nursing. It strikes me, though, that this same kind of vision could (should?) be applied to any field. The flipped classroom offers students more opportunities to engage in this kind of work.

What does it mean to prepare students for their futures?
Author Daniel Pink wrote, "We need to prepare kids for their future, not our past." This was brought home to me in a really visceral way at a screening of the film, Most Likely to Succeed, as part of the William & Mary Homecoming celebration. One of the authors of the companion book and the producer of the film, Ted Dintersmith made a compelling case that we need to rethink school at all levels to help students find their passion, engage in deep work, and develop the kinds of collaboration and innovation skills that will serve them well in their future.

Co-author Tony Wagner and William & Mary alum (a double English and Physics double major no less), Dintersmith argues that “the core purpose of education [is to] teach the next generation the lessons needed to survive and thrive” (p. 21). What does this mean to you? What will students need to survive and thrive whether they go on to graduate school, enter the workforce or participate in community service? I don’t pretend to have all the answers, but what follows are a few ideas you might want to consider in your teaching.

How can we prepare students for an unknown future?

• Give them real problems, situations and cases to grapple with.
• Encourage them to “try on” different ideas, discuss their merits and limitations and above all, make mistakes.
• Provide them with an authentic audience (beyond their professor and classmates) for their work.
• Encourage them to communicate their ideas in flexible, engaging and substantive ways.
• Provide students with independent study opportunities (within courses as well as through dedicated independent study courses) to explore their own interests related to course content.
  
  

This shift in thinking needs to happen at both the K-12 and higher education level. It isn’t an easy shift to make, but nothing important ever is. And it’s hard to imagine anything more important than helping to increase our capacity as a nation and world to solve the complex problems and unique opportunities in the modern world.

Need some inspiration? Watch the film trailer, buy the book, or host a screening for your school.

How do you help your students prepare for their futures?
Please post your comments below.   

This semester, we have the pleasure of hosting Dr. Jane Hunter from Western Sydney University at William & Mary. Jane does amazing work in researching teachers' efforts to integrate technology in K-12 schools to create High Possibility Classrooms. As part of her visit, we've been touring a number of K-12 schools so that she can get a sense for how teachers in the U.S. enhance teaching and learning with technology.
It's so interesting to pop into different teachers' classrooms to see how they've filled and designed their physical learning spaces. Over the last two days we've visited:

• a high school computer lab with bright, natural light, space to spread out and work on the walls
• a first grade classroom with multiple areas for different kinds of work, including areas for kids to work on the floor, on beanbags, are at a table
• a middle school makerspace complete with woodworking machinery, a computer etching machine, computers, and a range of building materials
• a high school government classroom with inspiring images, pictures of students and school events, and college pennants

In seeing all these different kinds of learning spaces, it became clear to me how much the furniture, arrangement, tools/resources, and decorations communicate what is valued and emphasized in the classroom. For example, in the first grade classroom above, it was clearly important to the teacher that the students be comfortable and have freedom within their space. In the high school classroom, the photos on the walls communicated the teacher's amazing rapport with and support for the students in his class.

What do our learning spaces communicate?
It made me wonder what our learning spaces communicate to students in higher education. What does a lecture hall with the chairs bolted to the floor in long, tiered rows say about interaction and collaboration? What does a space with flexible, easily arranged furniture communicate? What does a seminar room with mismatched chairs and writing and scratches on the table communicate? This also works the other way too. It’s key for the space configuration to match or fit the instructional approach. A lecture actually works better where all students can easily see the front of the room – like in a lecture hall. 

A few years ago, I was at a university in Sweden for a workshop. It was a high profile event, and the organizers had arranged a beautiful, modern, high-tech space for the session. Each seat offered multiple power outlets, a network connection, and even a handy place to perch one's drink. The room was accented with beautiful Scandinavian wood paneling. There was only one problem. While the workshop was designed to be highly collaborative and interactive, the learning space was one of those steeply tiered lecture halls.

As the attendees filed in, we scrambled around the building looking for a more suitable room to support the interactivity we had designed for the workshop. We held the opening session in the original room. The participants seemed engaged, if a little distant.

Following the coffee break (Swedes know how to serve a proper coffee break!), we moved the workshop to a non-descript, but large and flexible room. We had arranged the tables in the room to seat five participants and positioned them in a way so that they would easily be able to see not only the front of the room, but also each other. The whole tenor of the experience changed from the beautiful but rigid initial space.

How can we tailor the learning space to our teaching?
Unlike our K-12 teaching brethren, college faculty typically don't have their "own" classroom. This means that we can't really decorate the room or even permanently arrange the space. In fact, we often have little choice or control in where we teach. What, then, can we do to tailor the space to the kind of learning experience we want to create?

1. Create great visuals. While we can't put up posters or other decorations in our classrooms, we can employ great visuals. We can do this by creating engaging presentations or even printed transparencies. We can also use colors and graphics even on the whiteboards or chalkboards. I fondly remember a history professor of mine at Notre Dame that drew elaborate multicolored maps painstakingly on the chalkboard prior to class. These visuals communicated a kind of excitement and richness that wasn't lost on the students.
2. Bring in your personality. We also communicate to our students by bringing our quirks, interests, and passions into the learning space. I have a colleague who distributes "agendas" for each class with relevant cartoons and graphics as a way to pique students' interest before class even begins. I had another colleague with a great sense of humor. He regularly showed brief videos, cartoons, or even humorous newspaper clippings to illustrate points from his lecture.
3. If it's possible, arrange the furniture. I'm fortunate enough to teach in a building with modular furniture on wheels that can easily be rearranged in a number of different ways. For a more formal approach, I can arrange the room in neat rows. If I have designed a gallery walk experience, I push all the chairs off to the side and arrange the tables around the perimeter of the room. For small group work, I push together pairs of tables. It's easy in my current space, but I managed to do some arrangements even with less flexible furniture.
   
4. Find interesting space on campus. Most campuses have some innovative classroom spaces. At William & Mary, we have an amazing digital media center and classroom. I haven't taught there yet, but I'm planning for it. We also have access to the Jim and Bobbie Ukrop Innovation and Design Studio. Sometimes, it can be difficult to secure the exact classroom space you want. I suggest offering nice chocolates to whoever schedules the space.

What does your ideal learning space look like?
Please post your comments below.   

Recently, an op-ed piece in the New York Times had Twitter all aflutter. In Lecture Me. Really., Molly Worthen, Assistant Professor of History at the University of North Carolina, argues that although lecturing has been widely criticized in higher education circles, there is good reason to utilize this approach, at least in the humanities. In the piece, Worthen quotes Monessa Cummins, the chairwoman of the classics department at Grinnell College, stating that in the humanities, a lecture “places a premium on the connections between individual facts. It is not a recitation of facts, but the building of an argument.”
Worthen goes on to argue that the challenge of actively listening and processing information is a valuable and often under-developed skill for college students. She states, "Absorbing a long, complex argument is hard work, requiring students to synthesize, organize and react as they listen." The approach challenges students to effectively take notes in a way that helps them to engage with and internalize the material. Although I often write about active learning strategies and the importance of varying teaching strategies, I think Worthen has a point.

False dichotomy
As I've begun reading more in the scholarship of teaching and learning, I've picked up on a pretty striking bit of either/or thinking. It seems that folks who favor the lecture on the one side and proponents of active and problem-based learning on the other have created a false dichotomy. Why do we have to be proponents of only one approach? Why can't we incorporate both forms of learning activities where they make sense in service of student learning?
To be too dogmatic for any approach to teaching and learning limits our thinking and can put greater emphasis on a teaching approach than on student learning. The neuroscience research upon which Universal Design for Learning was developed suggests that to continually privilege any particular learning activity is a disservice to the diversity of our students' varied learning styles and preferences. I think we can systematically find ways to remain pedagogically neutral and determine the best "fit" of learning activity type based upon the learning goals and needs of our students.

Strategies for integrating lecture with more student-centered approaches
Lecture can include more than one voice. We often think of lecture as a 50-minute monologue by the professor. Indeed, this may often be the case. It doesn’t have to be this way, however. The lecturer can build in regular Q&A activities during the lecture. In larger lecture classes, she can utilize polling software like Poll Everywhere to elicit student feedback or check for understanding. Students can also be prompted for small and large group discussions based around instructor or student-created prompts. This back and forth between the lecturer and the students can greatly enhance the lecture.
Start with your learning goal to determine what approach(es) makes sense. Some topics and learning goals lend themselves to the lecture format. For example, an introduction or setting of the stage can be a natural opportunity for a lecture. Similarly, when the professor hopes to illuminate subtle or nuanced connections between ideas, a carefully designed lecture can be most effective. When application of concepts is required or when the professor hopes to promote divergent ideas related to the topic, lecture would be less effective.
Introduce a topic with shorter duration lectures. In some cases, 50 minutes of listening and taking notes, even when part of the goal is for students to develop the focus and self-discipline required to engage in the lectures, may be a bit much. One way to compromise is to develop shorter-duration lectures, intermixed with more student-centered learning activities like engaging in a brief case study or to provide the space for reflection.
Incorporate multiple representations for longer lectures. When we do need to leverage longer lectures, we can appeal to diverse learning styles and preferences by incorporating multiple representations of the content (UDL Principle I). This can be as simple as using slides that incorporate visual links or representations to the content you are discussing in the lecture. You can also embed video clips, simulations, and other forms of media to provide students with additional ways to engage with the content.
Incorporate multiple means of expression during and after lectures. The other half of UDL is to provide students with multiple ways for action and expression with the content. This can be achieved through intermixing some of the student-centered learning activities described above.  Students can also be offered multiple ways to synthesize material from the lecture. This can be achieved through some form of student response, debate or discussion, or through the development of a model.
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In the end, how we design the learning experience in our courses shouldn’t be driven by a laser-like focus on a particular teaching approach any more than it should be driven by a particular technology. What should drive all our decisions in the classroom is student learning.

How do you incorporate lecture with other approaches in your teaching?
Please post your comments below.   

​On a recent trip, I flew out of JFK in New York. As we passed over the surrounding waterways, there were a number of ships of all shapes and sizes underway. I noticed that each ship, whether big or small, fast or slow, created its own unique wake; or the path or course of anything that has passed or preceded.
I’m not typically prone to deep philosophical thoughts at 30,000 feet, but I got to thinking that as we go through life, we all create our own unique wakes in relation to the people we encounter. As faculty members we stir up “water” in a variety of ways. We, of course, impact and influence our students. We interact with colleagues and staff members. We also participate in our local communities. When we consider all the people we encounter, it can be helpful to ask “who’s in my wake?”

We all leave a trail
I remember a history professor I had as an undergrad who always used to say, “We read for our degree.” He clearly and consistently communicated the value of reading deeply and broadly to expand our knowledge. A professor in my Masters program provided me the space, flexibility and extra time in his course for me to find direction in my emergent career path. I had a professor in my Doctoral program who epitomized work-life balance. While he was a serious scholar, he was never too busy to share a joke with one of the housekeepers, inquire after a sick family member, or buy a poor graduate student a cup of coffee.
I also had a professor who “motivated” us by belittling students who offered incorrect answers to the questions he posed. I was frustrated by the professor who didn’t bother to provide a single word of feedback on a semester-long project that I’d poured my heart and soul into. I sat through a 15-student seminar course with a professor who never bothered to remember our names.
We all leave a wake. How do we want our students and colleagues to remember us? What can we do today to be a positive influence and inspiration for those with whom we interact? Here are a few ideas:





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Who has had a positive impact on your own learning?
Please post your comments below.