Teaching Strategies

The topic for this Friday is Teaching Styles. Roz will be leading the session and will go over the results for a teaching perspectives inventory. Please bring the results to class.

This is just a space in case you have questions or comments on the different learning styles/intelligences that we discussed!

On day 5, we discussed learning styles and multiple intelligences. As there are many theories on both these issues, and both overlap, we spent the first 15 minutes discussing trends between the two, and how to incorporate activities for people with strong learning preferences in each category.

From there, Roz took the helm, putting a chart on the white board so that people could mark their preferences accordingly. (I think she’s going to post a photo!)

updated:

The next class is on different intelligences and learning styles. Roz and I will both be leading this session and would like for you all to take a learning styles inventory before hand. Roz will go over the results on Friday!

This is just a space in case you have questions or comments on the different educational psychology issues we discussed!

Pair Work

• Today made use of pair work, though it evolved into groups of four or five.
• Pair work is a good way to create an environment where students feel comfortable talking.
• Introduce a topic, ask students to discuss an issue in pairs, then ask each group to share something they discussed.
• This lets shy people participate without speaking to the group, or to feel good about what they’re going to say before announcing it, gets students comfortable talking, and lets them share varying opinions (as opposed to a large group, where people tend to find one perspective and focus on it).
• Today we used this in order to break up the lecture (after 10 minutes of lecture, we had a short break to share ideas). This helps with attention span, where research indicates people can focus for about 20 minutes without a break.
• We also used the pair work to move into group discussion. The first few breaks we used pair work to start sharing, and then once everyone was engaged, we moved to using the breaks for short class discussions.

PowerPoint Design

• Benefits of a text based presentation
  • Students don’t need to worry as much about taking notes
  • You can clearly state the points you want students to learn
  • Students can catch up if they weren’t there (don’t need the instructor)
  • Helps linear learners
• Benefits of image based presentation
  • Helps meet multiple learning styles (visual)
  • Makes use of Dual-Coding Theory (both visual and verbal to introduce a point at the same time)
  • Creates a puzzle (why this image?) that requires more attention than just the content
  • Can create a more powerful recall situation the next time they see the image
• Drawbacks of a text based presentation
  • Allows students to miss class or tune out
  • Encourages speaker to focus on what’s on the slide, rather than what the class is most interested in (or what it needs the most)
  • Appeals mostly to language based learners (to the exclusion of the others)
• Drawbacks of an image based presentation
  • Frustrating for non-visual learners
  • Lack of information that requires instructor to make sense of slides
  • Difficult to follow for linear learners

Any that you’d add?

Today’s PowerPoint is much more informative than the last ones, as an illustration of the strengths and weaknesses of different styles of presentations. Please see today’s “meta” post for more information on this topic.

Here is the information from the presentation:

Educational Psychology - Presentation Transcript

1. EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY February 13, 2009
2. Educational Psychology Studies how people learn in educational settings. Tends to focus on the classroom. May often focus on specific groups such as gifted students or those with disabilities.
3. An analogy perhaps? Educational Psychology : Psychology :: Medicine : Biology :: Engineering : Physics
4. Aspects We Won’t Address Today Individual differences (too much!) Social, moral, or cognitive development (we’ve touched on this!) Research methodology (we’ll talk about this later)
5. Four Important Ideas Behavioral Cognitive Social cognitive Constructivist Connectivist (a bonus!)
6. Behaviorism Ivan Pavlov’s classical conditioning (late 1890s) BF Skinner’s radical behaviorism (1930-1950s)
7. Behaviorism Focus on behavior outcomes Systematic rewards Operant Conditioning
8. Behaviorism How do you use this? When might it be useful?
9. Cognitivism The idea that traits, beliefs, memories, motivations, and emotions can determine how information in perceived, processed, stored, retrieved, and forgotten. Dual coding theory Cognitive load Spaced Learning Effect Mnemonics Problem solving as fundamental to learning Involves long term memory, mapping between problem and pre-existing schema
10. Cognitivism Allan Paivo’s Dual-Coding Theory (1970s-80s) John Sweller’s Cognitive Load Theory
11. Cognitivism How do you use this? When might it be useful?
12. Social Cognitivism (Social Learning Theory) Blends behavioral, cognitive, and social thinking Observational learning: watching others and change own behavior as a result of observation Last few decades: self-regulated learning and metacognition These both hypothesize effective learners are active agents who construct knowledge by setting goals, analyzing tasks, planning strategies, and monitoring understanding Those who are better at goal setting and self- monitoring have a greater intrinsic task interest and self-efficacy
13. Social Cognitivism (Social Learning Theory) NE Miller and J Dollard’s Social Learning Theory (1941) Albert Bandura (1977)
14. Social Cognitivism How do you use this? When might it be useful?
15. Constructivism Lev Vygotsky’s sociocultural learning focuses on internalization based on interaction with adults, more capable peers, and cognitive tools.
16. Constructivism Places emphasis on agency and prior knowledge of the learner and often on social/cultural determinants of the learning process Related to Piaget’s individual/psychological constructivism from social constructivism Learners socialized through social interactions within community of practice
17. Constructivism How do you use this? When might it be useful?
18. Connectivism George Siemens (2000s!) Learning in a digital age Builds on previous models Community of Learning
19. Connectivism How do you use this? When might it be useful?
20. Four Important Ideas Behavioral Cognitive Social cognitive Constructivist Connectivist (a bonus!)
21. MOTIVATION!
22. Motivation Internal state that activates, guides, and sustains behavior. Will, interest, intrinsic motivation, personal goals, belief about the causes of their success or failure
23. Motivation Bernard Weiner’s Attribution Theory: Focuses on students’ beliefs about their success level
24. Motivation Goals: Mastery goals increase ability and knowledge Performance approach goals strive for high grades and seek opportunities to demonstrate their abilities Performance avoidance goals driven by fear of failure and where abilities are exposed
25. Motivation Issues in motivation?

This is just a space in case you have questions or comments on the different taxonomies we discussed!

The meta from today:

• I wanted to do one variation on the group work from last time to show how the same type of activities can be changed to keep it interesting enough that students have to follow directions and pay attention to what is going on in the room. You can also modify any exercise in a number of ways, so this was one example. The first one focused on the abstract and the group work was a way to draw similarities across topics. The second group activity focused on each group learning about one model and understanding it enough to teach others. It was much less about trends.
• The reason that there was a focus on how each taxonomy could inform your teaching is because they were all fairly abstract. This was to help the learners who need concrete examples and reasons why.
• I’m not sure that I’ll do this or not since we tend to be in paper saving mode, but with students I might print out the collaborative handout and pass it out at the beginning of the next class as a quick refresher before moving on.
• We’ll do something different in the next class. I don’t want anyone to get too settled in.

The groupwork went so well in the last class that I wanted to do a slight modification in today’s. Lest anyone get too settled, we’ll do another type of activity next week.

Today’s main goal was for everyone to learn a little about taxonomies; enough so that you can think back on it later if there was something that struck you. The secondary goal was for everyone to be able to think through how these taxonomies could influence their teaching. If we’d had time for a 15 minute discussion, we would have focused on how these taxonomies could interplay in your teaching, and how you can pick the best ones to focus on for a given topic. If that’s interesting to you, feel free to start the discussion in the comments!

The group task of the day was for each group to learn about their taxonomy, to contribute to the “handout” for the class, and to discuss, as a group, three ways that you do (or can) use this understanding of learning to encourage a stronger learning environment. The concluding presentation included an explanation and one example of how these models could include your teaching.

You can find the handout here.