My Flipping the Classroom blog (for my RRC course)

Flipping the classroom means reversing what the students traditionally do for homework and what they traditionally do in class. The case study I have chosen to blog about is my conduct of CIVL-1007 in the winter of 2014.

The students were internationally educated engineers with a wide variation in age, countries of origin, previous background in the subject area (project administration) and work experience. Flipping the classroom would have been a great approach:

• With such a diverse group, the pace of lecture is bound to frustrate all but a relatively narrow band of students. If I manage to hit the pace suited to the average student, the pace will be too fast for too many and too slow for too many as well.
• Each topic within the curriculum will have a different spectrum of prior learning within the student body. Classroom time can be spent setting up a continuously evolving series of partnerships between the students, with experienced students given the opportunity through personal storytelling to engage the weaker students in real life examples to illustrate the topic of the day.
• The Canadian construction industry places value on the soft skills of its workers, with further emphasis on workers who will participate actively in a cooperative environment. The flipped classroom provides a rich opportunity to develop those skills in the newcomer engineers before they attempt integration into the work force.

An important aspect of the flipped classroom would need to be the evaluation system put in place to both incentivize the students and provide the necessary feedback to me in designing the flow of the curriculum and maximizing the learning.

My Student Centred Learning blog (for my RRC course)

I presented three student centred learning workshop outlines on March 4, 2015 to climax my participation in “Advanced Instructional Methods” at Red River College. I was the first student to present (of a total of 13), and had not explicitly  included my “Outcomes” or my “Evaluation Strategy/Process” in what I showed the class. Feedback after the presentation and observation of the feedback given the other students was that this was a mistake.

Both the outcomes and the evaluations had been sent to the instructor the day prior to my presentation in fulfillment of the requirements of the assignment. I had overrun my assigned time on an earlier presentation, and did not want to repeat that error. My focus was on what form my student centred approach took for each of the three examples. Explaining this aspect of the workshops took all of my assigned presentation time.

One outcome of the immediate post-presentation feedback from the instructor and my fellow students was the instructor’s undertaking to look at the portion of my submission that had not formed part of my presentation, and to provide additional feedback on those outcomes and evaluation strategies, if needed.

An open question remains for me: Outcomes are independent of the approach used; evaluation strategies could also be independent – what is unique is the approach itself. Why emphasize the part of the workshop that is independent of the approach taken when what we are learning is how to successfully shift that approach?

My Webquest blog (for my RRC course)

The primary benefit I gained through preparing my webquest was that it further crystallized my thoughts on the who, what, where, when, why and how of the one hour workshop referenced therein.

The Zumal template is an excellent aid for forcing linear thinking about whatever topic is chosen. The advice offered at each stage describes very well what is to be written within each section of the webquest. Fortunately for me, I had already thought a lot about my chosen topic, and therefore did not feel constrained by the linearity of the template.

The advice did trigger ideas that would not otherwise have come to the foreground when they did (or at all). An example is my decision to include under “Evaluation” the idea of asking the lawyers (i.e. – students) what behaviour they would change as a result of the workshop: In effect, the template acted as a checklist of what I ought to include in such a workshop. Checklists can be a very fruitful way of catching omissions or gaps in one’s thinking.

Please know that I do recognize that the workshop as described is not the ideal webquest environment for my attendees. I included a webquest component into the hour as “Process” step #2, which feels not quite right when compared to choosing, for instance, a RRC course where the curriculum might be very well suited to a learner centred approach. My webquest is therefore a blend of demonstrating understanding and use of the webquest tool and exploiting that tool to further my company’s goal of working successfully with lawyers when the opportunity arises.

my thoughts on “ADAPTIVE ONLINE LEARNING” – by Steven R. Starks (for my RRC course)

The author of my chosen blog (Steven Starks) weaves referenced material into his theme of “adaptive online learning”. He sets the stage through two quotations from George Siemens (beware the broken hyperlinks) and his own framing: “The challenge for educators is to leverage (digital and social networks) in such a way that facilitates access to reliable sources of information while supporting knowledge creation and collaboration. So how do we achieve this?”.

He leads with knewton as an answer, and includes sufficient promotional information to wet our appetite. My surfing of knewton (I “joined” as part of my research) leaves me with the opinion that the founder (Jose Ferreira) has an exciting concept in “beta” stage (Jose’s characterization), and has attracted an impressive array of corporations willing to partner with him towards providing an actual service. Knewton’s positioning statement is “Every education leader needs an adaptive learning infrastructure.” The 7:27 trailer features a highly evolved learner centred application. The benefit to me was that knewton provides an excellent vision of a destination for adaptive online learning that will in all likelihood be achieved soon; if not through knewton then through others.

Steven includes a case study from Arizona State University’s remedial math course, with impressive statistics on improved outcomes. The University of Phoenix’s ambitious plans are cited, and an “incredibly engaging” TED talk by Sir Ken Robinson is posted. All of this adds up to Steven’s answers to the question he poses on achieving access to reliable sources while supporting knowledge creation and collaboration.

I agree with Steven’s claim that adaptive online learning “facilitates access to reliable sources” but question his claim that adaptive online learning supports “knowledge creation”. Knewton, in my view, does a much better job of highlighting the benefits of adaptive learning: dramatically improved outcomes.

Share this:

“He has said that the emperor is naked. And because the emperor is in fact naked, something extremely dangerous has happened: by his action, the greengrocer has addressed the world. He has enabled everyone to peer behind the curtain. He has shown everyone that it is possible to live within the truth. Living within the lie can constitute the system only if it is universal. The principle must embrace and permeate everything. There are no terms whatsoever on which it can co-exist with living within the truth, and therefore everyone who steps out of line denies it in principle and threatens it in its entirety…”

Vaclav Havel

“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.”

Steve Jobs

Atlas Shrugged

time for Ayn Rand

Entitlement

to be avoided

The Pursuit of Wisdom

a worthy goal

The Edge

Women have the edge when it comes to verbal sparring.