Creating Significant Learning Environments
Brown-Martin discusses six key areas in his talk:
Context
Environment
Engagement
Technology
Assessment
Future
He concludes that revolution in education we need a revolution in society that is focused not on GDP and global competitiveness but on the real challenges faced by our children and their children in this century.
I always look forward to an opportunity to explore what we can do as educators to enhance the learning environment. The following are a list of videos, links to blogs/articles and related resources that were used in a workshop for the Emergency Nursing instructors are BCIT. It is always a privilege to spend time exploring learning and achievement with such a group of dedicated educators.
Not Suited for School But Suited For Learning
Generation Tomorrow – Eddie Obeng, Zeitgeist Europe 2013
Time Travellers in the 21st Century
John Seely Brown On Education
Seely Brown suggest that we focus on the following three key factors to bring our learning into the 21st Century:
Knowledge/information – Pull from the Internet.
Skills – Pickup with mentoring.
Disposition – Foster the idea that learning can be an adventure.
How to Change People Who Don’t Want to Change | The Behavioral Science Guys
The BS Guys recommend that:
When you are trying to influence people who need motivation don’t give them more information….Use questions to help them explore motivations they may already have.
The Head Won’t Go Where the Heart Hasn’t Been
If you really want to bring about change in people then you need to appeal their hearts and not to their heads. The sharing of more information or engaging in more rational discourse on its own doesn’t appear to help people to make significant change but an appeal to values, attitudes, and feelings first can motivate people toward making changes.
See more at:
https://www.harapnuik.org/?p=5461
Fixed Vs Growth Mindset = Print Vs Digital Information Age
If we really want to take advantage of all the opportunities that the digital information age offers, we need to move away from fixed mindset to growth mindset thinking.
See more at:
https://www.harapnuik.org/?p=3627
John Hattie: Visible Learning Pt1. Disasters and below average methods.
Hattie argues:
“short of physical and psychological abuse, almost anything you do in the classroom will positively impact student achievement…key is to figure out what promotes achievement…”
John Hattie, Visible Learning. Pt 2: effective methods.
Teaching effects that really make a difference – above .40
Positive Feedback: The PIPS Model
PIPS Model to providing effective feedback
P – Praise something specific
I – Improve – suggest ways
P – Positive overall praise
S – Supply an uplifting comment
I am not one to long for the “good ole days” because I believe that there has never been a better time to be a learner, to be an entrepreneur, or to be alive in general. You can fill in the “to be” section of that statement with so many things. Now, I need to qualify a few points. I am referring to living in the west and in particular Canada but despite the unconscionable social injustices we see throughout the world and in particular the third world there has never been a better time to be alive. Don’t take my word for this–just refer to Hans Rosling amazing Ted Talk The best stats you have ever seen.
The opportunities for a learner today have never been better. Virtually all the worlds information is available in the palm our hands on our mobile devices. We can learn all the time and everywhere. Social networking enables a learner to move out of isolation and to connect to so many others who are striving to learn about similar, related or dissimilar things. These learning communities are so crucial for the advancement of ideas. Steven Johnson in the RSA talk Where good ideas come from points to the European Coffee Houses in the Age of the Enlightenment and the Parisian Salons of Modernism as places were ideas “bumped” into each other and significant advances in society were born. Johnson also argues that these virtually connected communities will further advancement today because “chance favours the connected mind. ”
The connected world of the Internet has also put significant pressure on our traditional educational institutions. At all levels we are starting to see a shift toward more student centric form of education. We see many teachers experimenting with online, blended and technology enhanced learning because they have starting to recognize that the problem of the deliver of content has been solved by technology. It has never been a better time to be a teacher. Teachers now have the opportunity to focus on helping students to go much deeper and discern what can be done with all the information.
We truly live in an amazing time and it has never been a better time to be a learner. Are you embracing all the opportunities that the 21st Century has to offer?
It doesn’t take much encouragement for me to share my passion for using YouTube to enhance the learning environment. In the YouTube in the Classroom workshop at the Learning and Teaching Centre at British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT) on November 5, 2014 we explored using YouTube and other media to enhance the face2face, flipped, hybrid or blended and fully online settings.
The following are all the Youtube clips and related links used in the workshop:
YouTube in the Learning environment slide deck in PDF – YouTube-Learning environment.pdf
How to instructions:
Introduce a concept
Start at 4:00 minute
Introduce a context & bridge into the subject
Start at 15:01
Introduce the Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) for an online course
Introduce yourself and make a connection with students
Humor & comic relief
Introduce the main point of an argument
Introduce the main point of an argument – Bonus
Definition and Explanation
Explore Controversy
Flipped classroom assignment
Link to Visible Learning assignment page
Perhaps one of the best talks on learning & education – My favourite TED Talk
This just one of many TED talks that I recommend. If you go to TED.com and filter by “Most viewed” you will see Ken Robinson’s talks as well as Simon Sinek’s talk about Why and many more amazing talks.
My blog post The Power of Media in informal learning offers the insights that I have found in using media to help my two sons in their pursuit of becoming professional downhill racers.
Finally, to easily download video clips from youtube and embed them into your Powerpoint or Keynote programs (educational acceptable copyright permitting–check with your department or library) you can use the site clipconverter.cc
Enjoy!
