Speed Learning

I recently read about an interesting classroom activity- speed learning.  The idea is similar to speed dating, but it involved students http://laufenberg.wordpress.com/2014/04/17/speed-learning-a-classroom-activity/

Students sit across from one other student.  They take turns coming up with questions and answering them.  A worksheet like This One from "A History of Anything," is helpful.

A quote from this blog:
"Outcomes of such an activity include: students become more conversational with their topics, students become more conversational with their classmates (on academic topics), an increased probability of connection with others and their learning, foster a more robust ‘thinking’ process with their own work and every voice is heard."

The great thing about this material is that it makes everybody responsible for the material, and even in a large classroom, no one gets to hang back and just listen.  Also, everyone gets practice in participating in an academic discussion.  I think it's a brilliant idea, and I can't wait to try it. 

FlipBoard in Education

I'm experimenting with a clever app, FlipBoard.

It is basically a way to easily create a magazine of content. It is snazzy, and easy to use on an iPhone or tablet, though magazines can also be viewed on the web.

I've found it to be a wonderful way to curate web-based articles and images. I could see the app being used as textbook replacement or even better, a student-authored text supplement.

Here is a video explaining how the app works:



And here are a couple screen shots of a sample magazine I started creating while preparing for a class session focused on Mozart:

It's an easy way to add interesting pictures or articles that you may not have time to discuss in depth in class, but provide complementary material.

It is easy to add contributors, and so students could also add relevant material to the class magazine. Some college courses have certain aspects of the class that are student led- for example in our course "Creating the Critical Listener," there is a standard body of works that is covered each semester, but as the course progresses, the students are encouraged to bring in their own musical selections for the class to analyze.  That material then becomes fair game for exams, etc.  Therefore, the course content changes each semester based on what music students bring into the classroom.

Flipboard would be a wonderful way to create a "text" for this aspect of the course, and would allow students have ownership in the course content. I could envision other students jumping on board and collaborating, posting links to additional material and engaging even outside the classroom.

The Rise of Free, Online Education, and why the Lecture Hall Still Matters

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Students today can learn so much without ever leaving their dorm rooms. They can watch lectures online from so many sources. In fact, when I am preparing to give a lecture, I often go to exactly these types of sources to refresh my memory and hopefully learn something new or get ideas about what works in a lecture.

But the fact that my students can learn the same material in the same way without coming to class means that something else should be in the classroom that they can't access themselves with an internet connection.  Asking students to sit and listen to information they can access themselves online is a waste of their time.

What the lecture offers that these wonderful online resources cannot is Face-time. It's the ability to engage, to discuss and exchange ideas. It's a chance to search out connections between the course material and its relevance to the lives of the students.

I once took an Ecology course, and the professor had us get up and physically move and represent Hadley Cells.  To this day, I remember what they are and how they move because of this lecture, and in a way that I wouldn't had I not experienced that interactive lecture.

Even though my course is a large enrollment course of 60 students, I am still going to try and bring an interactive element into our classroom next Friday.  We are covering two composers, and two operas, one a French Grand Opera and the other a German Romantic one.  I divided the class into 6 groups of 10, and each is responsible for enacting or presenting either the Composer, the Opera, or the Genre in a creative way next Friday.  The groups are already working on their assignments and seemed enthusiastic about the idea. Because they are performing, I am quite sure that they will more closely read their text regarding these subjects.  I think this probably just as good of a way of holding students accountable for the material as a quiz.

Data Analysis from Google Doc Study Guide Experi

I analyzed some of the data from our exams in 2301 to see if utilizing Google Docs (as a way for students to collaboratively prepare their own study guide) had any affect on exam scores. We have two sections for the course- one section was given a link and one was not.

 

Students who were given a link to the online study guide scored on average 5 points higher compared to those who were not, which may or not be statistically significant.  The sizes of the sections are different, and a number of other factors may have been at play. 

 

What is interesting is that people who were demonstrated to be "active users" of the collaborative guide (i.e., the ones who did the bulk of composing the guide) scored an average of 12 points higher than the overall average. I did this by keeping a log of those who signed in through Google.  Many users who used the guide logged in, but did so anonymously, so I only have this data for students who actually signed in. 

 

I thought that it may just be that the students who collaborated more were students who were simply high performers. So, I looked at their scores from the first exam, for which no online guide was provided to anyone.  I found that high scorers on exam 1 did not comprise the majority of interactive users of the online guide (perhaps because they felt their methods were working already). Within the group of "active users" who signed into Google, several failed the first exam but earned a high C or low B on the midterm.

 

This seems to indicate that the collaborative, student-authored guide is somewhat helpful overall (if not overwhelmingly so), and is most helpful to average students who interact with the guide to the highest degree.  It also indicated that it is not merely access to a study guide that improves performance, but rather the degree of interaction with relevant materials that is important. 

 

The thing I think is most interesting about the idea of a student-authored, collaborative study guide is that it puts the responsibility of the study guide on the students themselves, and hopefully curtails the idea that they "just" need to know what's on the study guide.

 

Because it did seem to be a helpful tool for students, both sections now have a link to the collaborative guide, and students are already actively creating the final study guide. I will also analyze data from the final exam and see if exam scores rise again amongst study guide authors.