The following article is a guest post from Diana Theisinger, a doctoral student in the Curriculum & Educational Technology program at the College of William & Mary. While originally posted here for K-12 teachers, I think you’ll see that there are important lessons for college and university faculty to be gleaned as well. Enjoy.
 
“Teachers committed to a multiliteracies pedagogy help students understand how to move between and across various modes and media as well as when and why they might draw on specific technologies to achieve specific purposes.” –Borsheim, Merritt, & Reed, 2008
 
So, what are multiliteracies anyway?
Back in 1996, the New London Group coined the term “multiliteracies” to describe an emergent phenomenon they were studying. It resonated with practitioners and researchers alike and has grown to command a significant following in the education community. If you haven’t heard of it, the multiliteracies framework will probably seem like pretty common sense. It’s the idea that our brains shift approaches, even if very slightly, when we encounter different types of media (or different cultural and social norms). For print, we use one set of literacy skills; for videos, another; and for our Facebook news feed, yet another.

A few examples: When I read print material—say an article on BBC.com—I’m reading for understanding, but I’m also doing a lot of thinking: What else do I want to know about this topic? Does the writer seem credible? Are the related links on the sidebar interesting to me? Should I bookmark this article for a future blog post? Conversely, when I watch an instructional video or a recipe demonstration, I switch to a different part of my brain. I’m trying to take mental notes or snapshots about what’s happening so I can replicate those events later. There’s not a lot of critical thinking I would do with most of the print media I encounter, but I am applying a specific, honed set of skills to the task of interpreting the video. Then, let’s consider my Facebook news feed—that’s a whole different unique set of skills. There’s the part of my brain that’s just interested in catching up on what friends are doing; the part of my brain that’s wondering if the latest viral post will pass the Snopes test; the part of my brain that’s trying not to react to a friend’s inflammatory political post; and the part of my brain that’s nagging me to get off Facebook and get back to work. That last part may not be directly related to multiliteracies, but I would argue the rest of those processes are related.
 
Now let’s broaden the perspective a little and think about what this looks like in the classroom. I’ve written previously that I don’t put much stock in the idea of “digital natives” and I think that’s an important point to keep in mind here (and a personal bias I’m disclosing for the critical reader). We need to set aside the assumption that kids who are in K-12 classrooms right now “grew up with the Internet” and therefore innately know how to use it for learning. Then, we need to confront the fact that we aren’t teaching them much about how to use digital tools for learning. Smartphones and tablets are nearly ubiquitous for a large portion of US society, so I’m not arguing whether kids know how to do things like download apps or find loopholes to get around firewalls. What I’m saying is that we need to move toward a paradigm where we explicitly teach kids, from elementary school to college, how to optimize digital tools and media to help them be more productive, learn more effectively, and complete tasks more efficiently.
 
How can I support my students in developing multiliteracies?
One way to do that is to view digital media through the multiliteracies framework. If we accept the assumption that kids do, in fact, need to be taught how to use digital tools for learning, then we can move forward with the premise that, just as we taught them to read print text when they were in early elementary school, we need to teach them how to make meaning from print media, podcasts, videos, mashups, tweets, and anything else they might encounter on the Web. Okay, maybe not anything they might encounter, but at least the things that might help them learn and do school-related tasks better, faster, and smarter.
 
Here’s what I think teachers need to know about multiliteracies to implement this framework in the classroom:

• Teach students how to be skeptical, critical, fact-checking readers. Tell them about the importance of finding multiple, reputable sources that support the same conclusion. Give them concrete examples of reputable sources. Show them this comic from xkcd.
• Teach students how to be skeptical, critical, fact-checking viewers, too. Critical reading isn’t just about reading. That’s the whole point of multiliteracies. A lot of us learn really well from watching—better than we learn from a textbook or a lecture. And, especially since the rise of the Flipped Classroom movement, there is so much instructional content online in video form. It’s great for students to know where and how to find reputable math and science tutorials. Not so great if they don’t know how to differentiate between the quality stuff and the junk.
• Show them how to use a variety of tools to reach diverse audiences. Borsheim (from the quotation at the top of this post) gives an example of this: “I asked students to adapt their traditional research paper into a media genre appropriate for reaching an audience outside the classroom. For example, one student, who wrote about issues related to healthy relationships, filmed and edited a short informational film intended for a teenage audience….The process of composing a traditional research paper and another type of text raised students’ awareness of the ways and reasons they might use media to reach audiences and achieve diverse purposes.” (p. 88)
• Similarly, train students how to use appropriate digital tools to make planning, writing, and collaborating easier. I’m a huge fan of Mendeley for organizing references and Google Docs for co-writing papers. But there are so many more options available and the choice of the right tool can be daunting. Help guide students toward smart choices.
• Encourage students to consider social and cultural perspectives and differences. Just as we'd teach them to consider bias in a global-warming report that was sponsored by a pro-oil lobbying group, we need to teach them to identify social and cultural bias: Is that really weird, or is it weird to me because it’s different and I don’t know what to make of it? How can I learn more about that? 
  ​ 

The key is to help students develop a robust set of literacy skills that will be applicable not only to what we currently conceptualize as media, but also to the next big thing as well. It really comes down to some of the same skills teachers have been trying to get students to master since the one-room schoolhouse days: think critically, ask smart questions, consider how specific examples fit into the big picture, and know how to communicate what you know.
 
How do you help students to develop these skills?
Please post your comments below.   

I recently enjoyed reading a post on the Faculty Focus blog by Maryellen Weimer called The Names We Give to Our Instructional Strategies. In the post she argues that we often throw around terms about teaching (e.g., active learning, cooperative learning, inquiry), but those labels don't always accurately capture what they are doing in class. The challenge is that these are often broad categories of learning activities rather than specific strategies.

Rather than try to untangle the challenge of delineating the differences between cooperative and collaborative learning (which Weimer has already done quite well), I'd like to attempt to describe different options for how to engage students in active learning experiences. To do so, however, requires settling on a definition of the terms.

Differing definitions of active learning

• According to the University of Michigan Center for Research on Learning and Teaching, active learning is, "a process whereby students engage in activities, such as reading, writing, discussion, or problem solving that promote analysis, synthesis, and evaluation of class content."
• According to the Teaching Commons at Stanford, "'Active learning' means students engage with the material, participate in the class, and collaborate with each other." 
• The Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning at the University of Illinois suggests that active learning, "refers to the teaching approaches, strategies and learning activities that promote active engagement with the material and lead to deep learning."

Clearly, different folks view active learning in a variety of ways. I think the key common feature is a high level of student engagement in the learning task in ways that promote higher-level cognitive processes. When we consider the first parameter, we can contrast active learning with more passive learning modes that would include attending to a lecture, watching a video, or listening to a presentation. For the second parameter, we can contrast active learning with taking notes (at least in the traditional sense rather than more active approaches) and answering recall level questions. 

Fortunately, this leaves us with a number of different ways to approach active learning in our courses. I've attempted to lay out a range of options in the Higher Education Learning Activity Types Taxonomy. In the following sections, we'll explore a few specific strategies according to three of the higher levels of Bloom's Taxonomy that encourage active learning for students. 

Active learning for "Application"
When students apply what they learn in class to different concepts from the course, domains, or authentic problems they have to translate or transform the knowledge in new ways. In this way, they are forced to shift from consuming the knowledge at a recall or "remember" level to a more active, applied level.

A number of different learning activities challenge students in this way. One of my favorite ways to facilitate this application of knowledge is through simulation and role-playing. When students are immersed in a task where they must consider multiple variables or perspectives as they apply their knowledge, they must grapple with the complexity of real-world situations. As novice teachers interact with virtual students in the mixed-reality teaching environment of TeachLivE, they have an opportunity to virtually practice their craft. For even more authentic application, students can also engage in field work or service learning experiences.

Active learning for "Analysis"
When students work with data - either data they generate or extent data - they engage in deep levels of analytical thinking. In terms of cognitive level, this is the 
third highest level in the taxonomy and can be challenging for students. In designing these kinds of learning opportunities, we need to be conscious of building in supports for students that can be gradually removed as they gain more experience. 

Problem-based learning experiences are a robust way to engage students in analytical thinking. Often anchored in real-world problems and cases, these experiences require active learning, often in a collaborative context. Engaging students in inquiry and research is another approach. Even the lowest levels of inquiry experiences in which the instructor determines the question, scope and process for inquiry demand active learning on the part of students. The degree to which students are challenged to frame the question, process, and output from an inquiry experience only increases active learning.

Active learning for "Creation"
Creation is the highest cognitive level in the revised version of Bloom's taxonomy. Learning activities situated at this level require students to create new products that demonstrate their understanding. It is in this space that students create new knowledge and share it with others.

One powerful creation learning activity type is for students to develop a model. Whether it be a physical 2-D or 3-D representation of a course concept or a conceptual model that explains relationships, developing a model is a flexible and high yield strategy in your courses. Teaching others is the learning activity that is the most sophisticated in terms of cognitive level in the Higher Education Learning Activity Types taxonomy. I see it as a particularly robust and challenging active learning strategy because in teaching others, they must first deeply understand their topic, determine how best to present their understanding to help others learn the material, organize their ideas in a logical and digestible way, determine how to best convey the information, and prepare any materials and strategies to instruct their classmates. 

How do you define and engage students in active learning?
Please post your comments below.   

In the last couple of posts, we've been exploring the planning process for teaching in higher education. I began with discussing the need to understand the big picture for the course to identify the key concepts and foci. From there, we can develop clear and effective learning goals. If we were to go right from this point to selecting and sequencing learning activities, however, we'd be forgetting one key piece of the instructional puzzle - our students. Unless we consider the unique experiences, characteristics, and goals of our students, we may just be spinning our wheels.

While research faculty may be able to operate independently of students as creators of new knowledge, for the vast majority of us in higher education, our purpose is to play a part in developing the next generation of biologists, anthropologists, mathematicians, exercise physiologists, etc. The development of our students is absolutely central to our mission as academics. Why then don't they figure more deliberately in the planning process?

I believe that we should consider our students from multiple angles in our planning process. In this post, I offer ideas on how we might consider where students are in their programs, the common misconceptions and challenges they typically encounter in our courses/disciplines, and the defining characteristics they bring to the classroom.

Who are you and why are you here?
I vividly remember my experience as an undergraduate student at the University of Notre Dame in a class called Basics of Film. As a history major, I was interested in the course primarily as an elective that sounded interesting to me.  It was my first time taking a course as an elective that was a program requirement for another major. It was a rude awakening. While interesting to me, in identifying thematic and technical elements of silent films from the 20's, I quickly realized I was out of my depth. I was much more familiar with Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese than I was Akira Kurosawa or Federico Fellini.

If you teach 100 or 200 level courses, you're likely to encounter students like me in your courses. We may be interested, but we won't likely bring the same level of commitment to the course than a major in your program. That's not to say that these students can't contribute in powerful ways to the classroom community. When we recognize this continuum of commitment, though, we can ensure that elements of the course will appeal to the range of students in our courses. We can differentiate the content in a variety of ways to ensure that the majors are properly challenged without overwhelming the "dabblers" or "searchers" that often comprise a significant proportion of our classes.

Based on my experience...
Once you've taught a particular class a few times, it can be fairly easy to identify the course topics, concepts or skills that most students tend to struggle with. We can also begin to predict the common misconceptions that students bring with them to class. While all students are different, it's been my experience that the general "pain points" in a class are pretty predictable from one group of students to the next.

So, knowing this, what do you do about it? If you can identify at least some of these issues in advance, you have the opportunity to confront them proactively and with gusto. For example, if you know that students have difficulty grasping a particular concept as presented in the course textbook, it can be helpful to have ready a brief video clip, animation or simulation to illustrate the point in a different way. Similarly, if you know that a particular skill you plan to teach requires considerable repetition on the part of the students, you can build this practice into the syllabus. While you probably can't anticipate all the areas where your students will struggle, for each one that you can prepare in advance for, the better off you and your students will be.

Students here are typically...
I've been teaching at the College of William & Mary for the last ten years. It didn't take me that long to begin to understand a general profile of the students here. While all the students are clearly individuals, with their own unique experiences, traditions, and challenges, I have certainly come to understand a bit about our undergraduate population. From my perspective at least, William & Mary students are high achievers, both in the classroom and through a number of intensive extra-curricular activities. They care. A lot. The Tribe produces an inordinate number of students who pursue opportunities in the Peace Corps, Teach for America, service trips over Spring break, etc. They are engaged globally with more than half the students studying abroad at least once. They seek out opportunities for both faculty- and self-directed research opportunities. Based on the knowledge of my students, I draw on these characteristics to engage them in the learning. I try to bring in social justice and ethical dimensions of the concepts we explore. I also attempt to bring in more global research into courses and examples from teachers in other countries.

At different institutions, this profile may look different. When you get to know your students and understand their passions, responsibilities, and challenges, the more you can leverage the positive elements and mitigate some of the challenges in their learning.

How do you leverage your knowledge of your students in planning a course?
Please post your comments below.

Like many (all?) universities, we’re feeling increasing pressure to fill seats in courses – particularly electives. At the same time, we’re trying to more strategically reach out to practicing professionals in the field to attract them to enroll in courses as non-degree seeking students. While some faculty may bristle at this notion of academic entrepreneurship, I’m energized by the opportunity to expand the reach, relevance and impact of my teaching. The challenge is: how do we attract students and those outside our programs to our elective course offerings? One answer may be through the development of course trailers.

How selecting electives is like choosing a movie
For box office films, the trailer is carefully designed to attract an audience. Using various excerpts from scenes of the film and spanning only about two minutes, producers must carefully determine how to pitch or position their film for viewers. This requires them to carefully identify the target audience so that they can construct the trailer using elements that would appeal to that demographic. At the same time, they also try to capture the essence of the film in a way that convinces viewers that they should buy their tickets.

In some ways, selecting elective courses is similar to choosing a movie from the marquee – or, more accurately from Rotten Tomatoes. Students must choose from a range of interesting possibilities with a limited budget. Unfortunately, students don’t often have the flexibility in their schedules to take multiple electives, so they think carefully about what they select. When confronted with different possibilities, they will most likely select the option that is most interesting and engaging to them. Just as a written review of a movie in the newspaper only tells you so much about the movie, a written course description only goes so far. A trailer is a powerful way to attract an audience for a movie – or a course.

Examples of course trailers
A number of colleges, universities, departments and individual faculty members have begun to produce course trailers. Some are simple and developed by faculty on their own while others are professionally produced. While production value can be important, just like the courses themselves, the content, organization, and delivery is the key to an effective course trailer.

In many cases, trailers are designed to feature new courses or to highlight professional learning opportunities for non-degree seeking students. For example, the Harvard College Program in General Education offers a number of course trailers. One of my favorites is Dilemmas of Equity and Excellence in American K-12 Education. I like this trailer because it does a great job of piquing the viewer’s interest in the topic, highlighting key features of the how the course will be delivered, overviewing key course topics and assignments. I especially like the “testimonial” from a student from the course. While it provides a great deal of information, it still pulls you in and makes you want to sign up.

I also really like this trailer for a new summer course on Design Thinking from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. It has exceptionally good production quality that many of us can only dream of. However, we mortals can at least deconstruct the content elements of the trailer that we could incorporate in our own work.

Finally, for more basic production quality, take a look at this trailer for Francophone Literature and Culture: Americanness in Francophone Literature Course Trailer. While not as “slick” as some others, I think it provides a good vision for what can be easily developed using a video camera and free editing software, or perhaps just on iMovie on an iPad. It still helps to position the course well and encourage students to enroll.

Five tips for developing your own course trailer

1. Clearly articulate and form your trailer around the key takeaways from your course. What do you hope students will remember from your course five years from now? What do you hope they will talk with their roommates about over coffee? What will surprise and inspire them? These are the ideas you want to put front and center in your trailer.
   
2. Keep it short. While video professionals can produce engaging trailers that span three or four minutes, one to two minutes is what you should aim for in terms of run time. It’s easier to make a really engaging, inspiring, and interesting one-minute video than a four-minute one.
   
3. Vary the visuals. While it’s easiest to just set up a camera and go the “talking head” route, it’s probably the least engaging form of video. Even in very basic video editors (e.g., iMovie, MovieMaker), it’s fairly easy to incorporate still images or other video clips in a project. 
   
4. Leverage social proof. Like in the example from Harvard above, a student’s perspective on the course can be very valuable for other students. If they hear from another student about their takeaways and what they liked about the course, they will be more likely to enroll themselves. 
   
5. Project Enthusiasm. None of these tips will make much difference if you don’t project passion and excitement for your course. Nothing will help sell your course more than your own enthusiasm.

For more tips and ideas, take a look at Duke University’s great resource for faculty on best practices for creating course trailers.

I've started to develop a trailer course I’m teaching in the fall. I've realized that this process has helped me clarify my purpose and key aspects of the course. It's also inspired me to raise the level of creativity and commitment to delivering an engaging and student-centered course. I'm sure it won't win any awards, but I hope it will intrigue and inspire my students.

Have you developed a trailer for a course you teach? If so, please share a link in the comments below.

"The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding."
- Leonardo da Vinci

When we engage students in the study of key concepts and ideas in our disciplines, our ultimate goal is for them to develop their own understandings, not just of the concept, but also how it relates to others. As students develop mental models, they can better understand complexity, relationships, and characteristics of a concept or idea. In this way, they build cognitive schema that helps them make sense of new information more efficiently and effectively.

Key features of the strategy
Building conceptual, virtual or physical models requires deep understanding on the part of the students. This activity would be much more effective as a culminating activity rather as an approach to helping students develop their understanding. This kind of work reflects the highest level of Bloom's taxonomy - creation. In some cases, you may want all students to develop a similar model of the concept at hand. In other cases, you might encourage them to develop their own unique understandings. Models can be presented in single dimensional form (on paper or digitally) or in simple or complex digital forms. Regardless of the format, the key for this type of learning activity to be effective is for it to provide students with an approach that helps them to develop rich, content-based understandings of the focal concept.

Examples and Variations
The most common way students may be challenged to build a model is by creating a concept or mental map. Nilson (2010) offers a number of variations of both concept and mental maps in higher education. While concept maps tend to be more linear and text-based, mental maps may include more visual and organic formats. Students in an ecology course can develop a rich model of environmental and human influences on a particular ecosystem. Students in economics can develop models of interdependency in the global economy. Students in history can demonstrate cause and effect relationships between different historical events.

Design thinking is a hot topic in education from elementary school to continuing professional education in a wide variety of industries. Interest in design thinking in higher education has exploded in recent years. At the Mason School of Business at the College of William & Mary, Michael Luchs teaches a course on Sustainability Inspired Innovation and Design. In the course, students build their understanding of the interactions between people, environment, culture and economy through an iteractive design process. In interdisciplinary teams, Luchs encourages students to use empathy and creative thinking to develop a model for how companies can rethink their products and services through a sustainability mindset. To learn more about this project and Luchs' approach to design thinking, see Episode 6 of the Luminaris Podcast.

Building models is no longer limited to conceptual or theoretical approaches. We can all remember creating physical representations of the solar system using various size spheres, wires, and labels. Emerging technology opens up new opportunities. With the diffusion of 3-D printing in education at all levels, students can create physical models to express their understanding or test their ideas. At Austin Community College's Architectural and Engineering CAD Department, students in an advanced mechanical class work over the course of the semester to design and then fabricate their own twin valve engine. Through an iteractive design process in the computer aided design (CAD) software and the 3-D printer, students can design, fabricate, test, and iterate. In this way, they develop a rich and authentic understanding of the design and manufacturing process in ways that far surpass what could be accomplished without the 3-D printer.

Connections to 21st Century Skills and Technologies
Building a model is a challenging way to encourage students to construct knowledge of a topic - an important dimension of 21st century learning design (21CLD). The development of a conceptual or physical model can also be considered a form of skilled communication. In either of these skills, students have to not only deeply understand the content, but also take on a reflective stance for deep learning.

Digital technologies provide students with powerful means to develop their models. Whether it is through concept mapping software (e.g., Mindmeister), computer aided design software (e.g., AutoCAD), or 3-D printing,  digital tools can augment and extend the types of models that students can develop in their courses.

How might you challenge students to develop conceptual or physical models in your classes?
Please post your comments below.