Day Nine Teaching Evening (and Extended Time) Classes

In more than one previous post, I shared tips for managing your class time in ways that minimize mental fatigue, promote engagement, capture and recapture attention to assist students in staying focused on learning. Interspersing active learning activities with short lectures/presentations is one of those strategies. Let’s think a bit more about those short lectures. Many of us choose to use various types of visual aids when lecturing. Today I thought we would review some practical tips for using PowerPoint (or other visual aids) to support those short lectures/presentations.

For years, PowerPoint pundits included recommendations such as:

• Don’t use full sentences on the slide, unless it is ONE sentence to prompt discussion (e.g., quote).
  
• Avoid distracting background graphics that make it difficult to read the text.
  
• Limit each bullet to one line of text with 6 or fewer words, and each slide to no more than 3 bullets.
  
• Choose one animation for making each bullet point appear (mixing animations is distracting).
  
• Use a font type and font size that is easy to read from any place in the room (usually a minimum of 24 pt).
  
• Select a template that is pleasing to the eye (i.e., color) and provides good contrast between the background color and the text. Research even shows that white on dark is better than dark on light.

When using text on our slides, these “rules” still make sense. However, since those early recommendations, PowerPoint has become ubiquitous. My guess is that you all use it to some extent. The “death by PowerPoint” criticisms that have surfaced in recent years often center around problems created by presenters who either ignore the above guidelines or follow them while creating and speaking from 75 slides!

Rightfully so, PowerPoint tips nowdays tend to focus on what is really needed….. effective, persuasive presentations. If PowerPoint is used to enhance that presentation, then the tips assume the above list of guidelines, and instead, address additional recommendations, such as:

• Start the presentation with an idea and a focus, not a PowerPoint slide.
  
• Use a minimum number of slides to convey the key points that fit the learning outcome and audience. Even in a long evening class, your short presentations might each include 1-3 slides because much of the content is contained in your lively discussion with the students. Remember, it is about THEIR learning. If adding a graph or chart will help the students remember the keypoint, fine, but more words…..no.
  
• Use a minimum number of words and more graphics/images/photos to illustrate what YOU are saying out loud. This helps your students because they don’t have to choose whether to read and write down what is on the screen OR listen to you! This keeps you from reading the slides and gives them a visual to anchor the ideas to! It helps you encourage spontaneous discussions, rather than feeling married to a scripted slide of text.
  
• Press CTRL-H to make the cursor invisible during the presentation (moving cursors are very distracting). If you need to see the cursor to point to something specific, press CTRL-A and it will appear again.
  
• Avoid dimming the lights; you want the focus to be on you, not the screen most of the time. Move around a lot while presenting and use a wireless mouse to advance any slides. PowerPoint is not the focus of your presentation, the content is, as it is being delivered by you and experienced by you and your students together.
  
• Provoke the class to think, come up with new ideas, provide examples, suggest solutions…throughout your presentation.
  
• If you are demonstrating a web site, it is best to use a free, virtual magnifying glass to enlarge the portion of the screen you are emphasizing (http://magnifier.sourceforge.net/ ) so that the text or image is large enough to see.

If you have worked most of your professional life on putting your ideas into words and reversing that process to turn into a visual person is a real challenge, you might like to borrow one of my books on visual presentations to get ideas. They are really great!

What other tips would you like to share with the rest of us on using PowerPoint effectively when “presenting” content to your students?

Day Eight Teaching Evening (or Extended Time) Classes

As you have all probably heard, the mission of BHC is to “provide the environment and resources for individuals to become lifelong learners.” One way we faculty can contribute to that mission is to assist students in learning how to learn on their own, how to function in the real world as a lifelong learner, how to manage personal and professional learning networks (especially in your discipline), how to select good resources from a sometimes overwhelming flood of amazing web-based tools and other sources of information. But, you say, I don’t have time to research and evaluate all of these tools and information sources to select what are best for my students!

An easy way to learn yourself without much time investment and help your students strengthen their lifelong learning skills is to engage them in doing some of the research. That process in itself shows students how you use your networking contacts to be a Master Learner (aka David Warlick), one who is engaged, active, inquisitive, skeptical, networked, connected and sharing. We can’t possibly know all, so we need to develop strategies for continuing our learning that fits into our busy lives. Engaging your students as partners in your learning network is key!

For example, if your students are doing individual or small group projects, send them to one of the web sites listed below. Have them collaborate in choosing at least one tool to use that will assist them in their work for the project, and investigate and evaluate two others. Then, add to the rubric for the project that they are to report on their experience with their chosen tool by posting their mini-report to the class wiki. They should include, for example:

• Name of the tool (and URL)
  
• What the tool does
  
• Description of how the tool was used by their group to make their work more effective or efficient
  
• A rating of the tool and the criteria that they used to rate the tool
  
• A general recommendation of what types of work the tool is best suited for.

Web sites with links to dozens of tools:

• Organizing Your Digital Self (Maria Anderson, faculty member)
  
• Top 100 Learning Tools
  
• Web 2.0 Tools and Applications Index
  
• Carrie Delcourt’s Web 2.0 Highlights/Samples
  
• Internet for Classrooms
  
• Master List of Web 2.0 Tools

Our discussion of researching information sources will be discussed in one of our other “ideas.”

Day Seven Teaching Evening (or Extended Time) Classes

Today, I want to share with you a technology that is tailor-made for keeping students engaged, awake and involved. And BHC owns enough for all of your students…upt to 155 of them for your use! They are called clickers or “audience response systems.” They are about the size of a small calculator and are often picked up from the library in groups of 20-40 in a very cute basket that Charlet Key and her staff keep refreshed! Also in the basket is a receiver unit, a small device that looks like a flash/jump/USB drive. In addition, the program that makes them work is already installed on most instructor computers in the tech-equipped classrooms on the QC campus…look for a TurningPoint shortcut icon on the desktop and if there isn’t one there, just call the Help Desk to install it for you!

OK, first let me tell you how they work (print details here later).Then, we'll talk about ways you might find them useful for your evening classes.

1. Create a PowerPoint slideshow that includes some slides with multiple choice, true-false or other objective questions. These slides can be inserted into a regular set of slides, as well.
   
2. As you arrive to class, insert the receiver in the USB port of the computer (probably near the power button).
   
3. As students arrive to class, give each of the students a clicker for the evening.
   
4. Open your PowerPoint slideshow.
   
5. As you get to each question slide, ask the question and have the students press the numbered/lettered buttons on their clicker to indicate their answers. The receiver receives and combines anonymously all of the students’ answers.
   
6. Click your mouse and the computer will display the results of the composite answers in a bar graph on the screen.

Clickers can be used in a variety of engaging ways (see specific tips here).

• Take attendance
  
• Test review or mock exam practice (gives immediate feedback; best when asking application or other higher-order questions rather than recognition)


• Note: Using them for real quizzes or exams is not advised. Students worry about their reliability and will not view them as engaging for other activities.
  
• (Anonymous) quizzes on homework readings
  
• Anonymous quizzes on prior knowledge from last class or course
  
• Measure of current understanding of a concept or principle (Does the class understand it well enough to move on?)
  
• Measure of current understanding of a concept or principle (What misconceptions do the students have? Let’s resolve them!)
  
• Discussion warm-ups:
  
  
  • Stimulus for discussion on sensitive or controversial topics
    
  • Stimulus for discussion about different perspectives on a topic
    
  • Stimulus for discussion about potential solutions to problems or scenarios
  
  
• Practice in solving problems (Of several possible solutions, which is best? Why? discussions)
  
• Individual responses and level of confidence in it; turn to partner to discuss about question/problem presented; enter answer a second time
  
• Collect (anonymous) input about the class (Classroom Assessment Technique), such as when deciding about course policies or getting feedback on class activities
  

Good questions are key, of course. Our library has an excellent book with lots of sample questions for various purposes by Derek Bruff, Teaching with Classroom Response Systems: Creative Active Learning Environments (2009). He also has a blog: http://derekbruff.com/teachingwithcrs/

Have any of you tried clickers yet? I’d love to hear about your experience! (Hint: Click Comment button below)

DAY SIX Teaching Evening (or Extended Time) Classes

When discussing the prevention of mental fatigue strategies in Day Two, I introduced the idea of using “core content scaffolding, such as incomplete handouts, review sheets, worksheets, or other printed resources that students work with while listening or doing throughout the evening.” Today, I thought I would share some tips and resources for developing these types of documents/tools.

Learning research demonstrates that using handouts that are incomplete help students develop note-taking skills, manage their learning in and out of class, and support good study habits. Sometimes these tools are called templates, interactive study guides, word pictures, concept maps, outlines, or job aids. The purpose of each one is to help students stay focused on the activities of the evening while learning the core concepts or principles being emphasized, their structure and relationship to each other, and perhaps their varied applications to real-world problems. They also serve as excellent review tools prior to exams or job aids when trying to replicate a procedure or problem-solving sequence, in part because they can provide a visual anchor for later recall (Almost all students are visual learners these days!).

Perhaps one of the least visual of these options is an outline, given to the students near the beginning of class. The outline could delineate the core material to be emphasized that evening. Many words, phrases, or other key points are left blank, however, to be filled-in by the students as they experience the content in many different ways throughout class. Adding minimal numbers of text boxes or circles to demonstrate relationships makes for an interesting adaptation of the incomplete outline; these are often called interactive study guides. Email me if you’d like an electronic copy of Tom Cyrs chapter “Communicating with Word Pictures” to see lots of examples. I know sometimes we spend so much time trying to put our ideas into words, we find calling on our visual capabilities a challenge!

More visual, but no less troublesome to create than an outline is a basic concept map, again with many missing words/phrases or details on the various nodes of the map. These are quite simple to create using the drawing tools in Microsoft Word or free Web 2.0 tools such as FreeMind or Mindomo. Take a look at some Mindomo examples that Maria Anderson, a math instructor at Muskegon Community College, has created for her students and for the rest of us. Notice that when you see a “paper” symbol next to any of the nodes, you can hover your mouse over it to see her explanatory notes pop up. A more detailed icon near a node represents a link to another page (with perhaps another level of the concept map!). These are fun for students to develop too!

Finally, job aids can be built during class under your guidance, but be used more AFTER class (in their complete state) while doing homework or practicing. Job aids do what they imply, assist us in remembering what is important when doing a complex, infrequent, often-changing or solitary job/task. It helps us track our progress in improving while doing the tasks. It can even help in doing peer review of our colleagues as they practice doing the task. Job aids provide that scaffolding that we have been talking about until the job/task has been done so often and so well that the job aid is no longer needed. An incomplete job aid that is built during an evening class will be more effective since it is developed by each student on his own or in collaboration with his small group at various junctures during class. I have two books (written by Allison Rossett) on developing effective job aids for improving performance if this idea is useful for your type of learning outcomes and you’d like to see examples.

You may want to create a simple interactive study guide/concept map/outline/job aid for each lecture, for each core topic or one for the entire evening. In all cases, leave plenty of white space near the various elements of it so that students can take additional notes, as desired.

Have any of you used incomplete outlines, worksheets, etc. in your classes? How? Why? Tips?

DAY FIVE

I have mentioned using small group work several times in the first four “ideas” as an effective approach for breaking up the long hours of class, promoting student engagement and reducing mental fatigue, etc. The fifth “idea” here will answer some of your questions about how to do this effectively. Of course, several variables that affect that decision are the size of the class, the physical arrangement of the classroom and how much flexibility you have to change it, and the types of tasks that you want the small groups to work on. We’ll discuss each of these briefly in a moment, but first let me share with you some research findings about in-class small group work and student learning.

1. Peer teaching and student-led discussions are superior for learning compared to teacher-led discussions, even if the teacher provides the discussion questions. Why?

a. Preparing to teach and explain promotes more learning than hearing the explanations of others.

b. Constructing thought-provoking questions demands analysis of the readings.

c. Accepting responsibility for helping each other learn is motivating and gets students to class!

2. Using small groups regularly reduces absenteeism (students feel more accountable to their group).

3. Each student talks more in small groups than in whole-class discussions:

a. They ask more questions of each other when confused.

b. They work harder to explain and help those who are confused.

c. They offer positive feedback to each other.

d. They feel compelled to work toward having the meeting stay on track.

4. Heterogeneous groups are more successful than homogeneous ones. Use exam performance, learning style inventories, your first-day “getting to know them” surveys, or ??? to distribute groups evenly, or do random assignment such as birthdays between January and March. Natural group formations may work well too, e.g. all students at a DL site, the same employer or time zone.

5. Learning facts is not necessarily better than in non-group learning environments, but motivation is higher, students are more curious about the course content, and they develop deeper thinking skills.

6. Higher amounts of structure are needed if learners have little prior knowledge and little experience working in task-oriented groups.

7. Ideal group size in face-to-face groups is 5-6 and in virtual groups is 4, unless the virtual groups are only discussing, in which case up to 10 is workable.

Now, knowing these things about effective groups, you can think about your classroom situation and how these research findings fit. For example, if you teach in an auditorium with immovable, tiered seating, groups of 5-6 may not be feasible. Perhaps four would work, so that two can turn around to the two behind them. Perhaps your room has tables and chairs, but they all face forward and the room is not big enough or there isn’t time enough to move them for every class. Again, if two sit at each table, how about having them turn around their chairs to form a group of four? The point is, you want enough in each group so that if one is absent, you still have a group! And you want the group large enough for many tasks you might give them to draw on the expertise and points of view of several students.

Now, there may be times where you just want students to turn to one other person, discuss something for 2-3 minutes, and then share; in this case, you don’t need a larger group. But if you can see value in having students work through study questions together, practice applying course concepts to real-world scenarios or problems, produce a number of mini-deliverables on a large-scale project, or other learning activities in which groups are ideal and need blocks of time to do these tasks, small group work is possible to do in an evening class or extended time class. Plus, for all the reasons cited in the research and the positive impact small group work can make on keeping students engaged when in class for 2-4 hours or more, they are worthwhile!

If your students do not have much experience working effectively in groups, you may want to provide some group scaffolding for them, at least until they have had a chance to learn how to do it effectively and efficiently. Consider reviewing our “Groups and Virtual Teams” resource for additional guidelines on how to accomplish this.

Day Four: Teaching Evening (or Extended Time) Classes

Let’s consider an additional major factor (listed on Day Two) that affects students’ attention and engagement, nutrition. Of course, overall nutrition affects the brain also, things like enough iron, vitamins, calcium, and fiber. But here we are going to discuss how what and when your students eat the day of class can make a major difference in their ability to stay awake, focused and able to learn for several hours at the end of the day.

Brains need proteins, carbohydrates and fats to produce energy that can be draw upon while learning. However, not any type of protein, carb or fat will do. Some of these actually make a person drowsy or prevent the right kind of proteins, carbs and fats from doing their job! Consider these facts and then read more about it at http://www.askdrsears.com/HTML/4/T040400.ASP

1. Students who arrive hungry, in general, are likely to be irritable, restless, apathetic, sad, unmotivated, and less able to recall earlier learning or apply new learning to problem-solving tasks. Hunger contributes to mental fatigue, as discussed in Day Three. This goes for skipping breakfast before an extended morning class, as well.
   
2. Eating habits such as eating a large meal before class or eating a high-carbohydrate/low protein meal may solve the hunger problem, but makes your students drowsy and lethargic. Chocolate, pastries, bean burritos, sunflower seeds, bananas, dairy products, spaghetti with heavy sauce, and fattier meats tend to relax the brain and are ideal in the evening if you are trying to wind down!
   
3. Omega-3 fatty acids are important to general brain health. Foods such as eggs, flax or canola oil, salmon or tuna, soybeans, walnuts or pumpkin seeds, wheatgerm, and almonds are excellent sources of these healthy fats.
   
4. Best foods for pre-class eating before an evening class include:
   
   1. A lower-calorie, light meal, such as a salad with tuna, vegetables, and dressing made with canola oil, stir-fried vegetables on brown rice, or even yogurt and fresh fruit.
      
   2. A more filling, but nutritious meal such as a PB&J sandwich on whole grain bread and an apple and glass of milk.
      
   3. Complex carbohydrates such as fruits like apples or oranges (not fruit juice), whole grain cereals (e.g., oatmeal) or whole-grains (not wheat, but whole wheat, brown rice), and as little refined sugar as possible (e.g, colas, candy, pastries).
      
   4. Proteins containing tyrosine amino acids, such as seafood, turkey, tofu, lentils, peanuts (or peanut butter), tuna, salmon. These proteins wake up the brain, rather than relax and wind it down.
      
   5. When eating both energy-producing proteins and carbs, eat the protein BEFORE the complex carbohydrates.
      
   6. Avoid nicotine, artificial sweeteners, hydrogenated fats in prepared foods, alcohol, junk sugars and white bread before class.

What suggestions do you have for the “brain friendly food list” that you might provide to your class to take turns bringing for snacks?