Making Lectures Less Painful
http://www.duq.edu/cte/teaching/lecture-strategies.cfm
As every good teacher know, students have a very short attention span (specifically 10-15 minutes according to Sally Brown and Phil Race). However, we cannot seem to cut out lecturing entirely from our lessons because it is one of the most time efficient ways to get information across and students need to hear the correct information the first time so they are not practicing false information. Brown and Race are suggesting that teachers break their lectures into mini-lectures. These would include short 10 to 15 minute lectures that would keep students engaged by using anecdotes and stories to help students make a connection to the material and remember it better. In between these mini-lectures, you could do group work, think-pair-share, discussion, or worksheets. Students have less to digest at a time and will most likely be able to retain the information better. The authors call these mini blocks that will save your voice and engage student learning.
Palloff and Pratt also encourage the use of mini lectures in the online classroom setting. They of course take on a different look because they are in fact online classes. They discourage the practice of posting lectures and notes because the students look at it as “just one more thing to read”. Instead, they suggest “that lectures begin and end with questions; the beginning questions help frame the lecture as a way of trying to make sense of a topic, and the ending questions encourage the students to continue the inquiry. They also give out the idea that teachers could assign the mini lectures for the students to do and then form the discussion questions themselves. I think this makes students take responsibility for the content and their learning. When they get directly involved, it becomes more meaningful and is remembered better.
“Logging on to Staff Development”
This article discusses the some ideas that the Mobile County Public School District used to teach their staff to use technology effectively. The School District received a grant call Enhancing Education Through Technology, EETT, or E2T2. The purpose of the grant is to teach students to use technology efficiently, but you can not really do a good job of teaching students something that the teacher herself does not really understand. EETT put guidelines into the grant to use 25% of the money for staff development.
The school district decided that they would encourage teachers to take online classes put on through the grant. The teachers would take them for continuing education credit or graduate credit. They would also receive other incentives such as new personal computers. The district also had the instructional technology teachers take the classes along with the classroom teachers so that they would have someone close to direct their questions to and to get help from before they fell behind.
The school district also saw the need to offer other options for professional development since not all teachers would be on board with taking an online class. “Since teachers, like students, have different learning needs, we have not focused all our resources on online courses. However, despite being convenient in terms of time and accessibility, online courses are not for everyone. While some teachers can learn effectively via solitary study, others need more face-to-face interaction to better absorb information.” To remedy this situation, they offered a blended approach much like we have here in our program, workshops, and on-site consultations.
So, by having the opportunity the train the staff at Mobile County Public School District, the district equipped their staff to effectively teach using technology and then could meet the standard in the NCLB act that says that students should be technologically literate by the age of eighth grade.
Palloff and Pratt discussed some of the obstacles faced by teachers trying to meet together to receive training or to meet together to discuss new ideas. This idea of having the school provide online classes to train teachers is very effective. They are expected to teach using technology and to have their students able to use it as well. What better way to learn how to do something well than to be immersed in it? That what these teachers are able to do while engaged in their online class.
Logging on to Staff Development. Bush, Gloria, T H E Journal, 0192592X, Jun2005, Vol. 32, Issue 11.
“Helping to Make Online Learning Less Isolating”
Oddyssey Charter High School is the high school curriculum made available to students solely online. The students still attend their school in the building, but go to an area where they do all their classes online. The teachers at OCHS thought that the students were not getting enough social interaction time, so they started using Facebook groups for their classes to interact. They found that there was no incentive for the students to join the group and they could not regulate a lot of what was going on their or insure the safety of their students because the students controlled the privacy settings on their own pages. After giving Facebook a try, the teachers turned to Ning, a site where they had more control and the students were safer so their parents were more apt to allow them to join in the conversation. The students participated in discussions of different topics, shared photos, and helped the teachers plan the upcoming units. They also formed groups to help each other study. These functioned as online learning communities where the students asked questions, discussed topics of study and presented each other with information for the class.
“There were three main goals of the the success of the Ning project. The first was to create an environment where students could collaborate without interference from outside influences. The next was to address social isolation by providing a place for students to discuss their personal and academic experiences with peers. The third was to employ dynamic technologies that students were utilizing outside of school as a way to motivate them towards school.”
I see this as a very positive example of how we can begin to implement these types of technologies into our instruction to help form learning communities for our students. They are already spending a great deal of time online statistically, so we should be looking for a way to tap into that interest. I love that these students formed groups to help each other study for tests and assignments. What a great way to build skills that are so necessary for the workplace!
“Towards the Learning Profession”
This article is about learning communities and they positive impact they can have on teachers when done in the right way. This as a study done in England with two different schools in both a rural area and a metropolitan area. The schools had good reviews and low teacher turnover. They were picked for this case because of these points as well as their commitment to professional learning communities.
The study and article focused on what made these schools succeed in what they do. They found that these schools were using learning communities to better the teachers and in turn the instruction. The teachers had an open policy with each other and welcomed others to come into their classroom to observe and make suggestions for change. The lead teachers were able to do this in a tact way to make everyone feel good about it. It wasn’t done to make anyone look bad or get in trouble by administration. They all simply wanted to be better teachers. One teacher stated “no one now would flinch in you walked into their lesson…What we try and work here is a no-blame culture – you’re going to screw up sometimes but that’s fine and let’s look at strategies to support you.” All the people in the group respect the lead teachers and want their input. It is a very non-threatening environment where everyone can get better.
I think this is a great way for the lead teachers to conduct a learning community. Everyone should feel as if they are equal contributors and have something to give to the group. The leaders should also make everyone understand what the point of the group is and to make sure that the objective is reached. No one wants to waste precious time on things that don’t matter. If all the participants in the group feel as if it matters and they are not being taken advantage of, they will be much better participants and the group as a whole will be more productive.
“The Power of Two”
This article showcases a casual learning community that two principals in the same district have made for themselves. They realized that they were spending a fair amount of time setting up and facilitating learning communities for the teachers, but wanted a safe and non-judged place for themselves to discuss areas of concern as well as ideas for solutions. The principals were from an elementary school and a high school, but were able to see their likeness more than their differences to make this work for them.
Neither of the men had a lot of free time or wanted to be wasting time with something invaluable, so they committed to a set schedule of once a month meetings for a one to two hour block of time. They also made a commitment to not spend their time whining. They wanted to leave each meeting on a positive note and with at least one new idea to try, so they were responsible to stop the other from whining and turn the conversation to be more proactive.
Both principals expressed how much this learning community has helped them to be better at their jobs. They take ideas and suggestions from each other and try to implement them into their school to make it the best it can be. Both men also saw big improvements in the areas of staff communication and teacher reviews because they took the time to make changes and make these things run as smoothly as possible and give the teachers what they need as well. I think this was a great idea for the principals to do and I applaud them for taking initiative to find time in their busy schedules for improving their schools. They showed that they really did care about the quality of their school and made changes to fix problems.
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LaDarrah Krogh 