Can your iPad read to you?! Well, yes....with a little work

How to access accessibility features....as of Oct. 2016!

Today I took yet another stab at having my iPad read to me.

I'm a sucker for learning while listening...especially since I spend a lot of time in the kitchen: cooking, prepping, cleaning, putting away dishes, etc.

This turns out to be a perfect time for me to listen to recordings, videos or podcasts!

This morning I had kind of burned out on podcasts, I knew I had reading to do for my graduate class, and I wanted to try a trick I'd learned about from my co-workers at CAST (an accessibility in education non-profit): having my iPad read to me.

Anxiety, fear & work avoidance - the missing link

 Review of "Skill-Building Approaches to Anxiety-Fueled Work Avoidance"

I love this article.  

As an executive function coach, I've been focused on strategies with my new clients.   What app can I suggest to a young person?  What kind of grid can we make to help them plan their homework?  What accessible technology can I teach them?

In this flurry of reaching for the "right" tool to share or show (and worrying that I won't remember the "right" one for them in the moment!), I'm realizing that it's easy to overlook the more important, and, in my experience, the deeper and more intuitive side of executive function issues: the mental space that goes along with success or failure.    Because at the end of the day, what is procrastination, task avoidance, task initiation problems, or lack of planning?  According to this article, it's a challenge, struggle or deficit often coupled with anxiety.   

Here's my take on CLT & constructivism:

....it's a work in progress.

Cognitive Load Theory asks the intriguing question: is it ever helpful to withhold information from students?

This question matters to this debate because, in the end, this is at the heart of constructivism.  The idea is that students uncover information & principles through their own investigation - and thus "own" this information in a way that is completely different than if they had simply been told to memorize a rule or concept by rote.

For example, I've read about teaching elementary students about calculating volume not by teaching a formula, but by having them mess around with 3-D models of buildings, shapes made of 1 cm blocks, jars of different sizes filled with water, and by having them predict & calculate volume, and, when faced with unexpected results, find their own motivation to explore more, gather more data, and develop a rule on their own.

To me, that sounds mega-cooler than simply memorizing a formula.

Constructivism & Cognitive Load Theory: fight to the finish?

So, my most recent instructor had a bunch of readings on these two theories.  (If you bothered to read this post, I'm assuming you are some kind of education nerd like me and are somewhat familiar with these....if not...may I recommend wikipedia or...Wikipedia...?)

But in any event...in many of the articles I've read about these approaches, it seems like the authors are putting them in opposition to each other.  That there is a great debate about how to teach people and Only One May Prevail.  I get this for battling academicians out to make their reputations.  But for me as a teacher...I almost can't understand how I wouldn't use both...

Constructivism, as I understand it, is tied intimately to the project of sense-making or meaning-making.  As I get it, it involves presenting learners with a problem or discrepancy, and asks them to try to a) solve the problem and b) as a result of their observations and experiences, come up with general principals or theories related to the topic. (am I getting warm, oh studiers of educational theory?)

To me, this is very appealing.  It imagines learners as active participants as opposed to recipients of knowledge - not bank accounts where information may be deposited, but rather sovereign humans, with experiences and opinions and brains, who learn through their own analysis of their world.

Cognitive Load Theory, as I've encountered it thus far, is just a different animal.  It looks at how our brains work, particularly our two different kinds of memory, and how new things are (or are not) integrated with old things that we already know.

To me, this is also very appealing.  It draws its lifeblood from carefully controlled research and statistics, and interrogates some of our treasured notions of teaching.  It looks at how we actually process information and solve problems, and challenges us as teachers to justify why we are including each element - will it really help learners understand new material?

The Cognitive folks seems, so far, to be either dismissive or...carefully neutral around constructivist teaching.   Most CLT research has been completed around simple problems in the STEM fields with correct answers and easily-testable solutions.  I think this research has brought us tremendous insight...but does not encompass the all of teaching.

The $64,000 question these days is - what about complex, unpredictable problems?  What about problems for which the very method of solving them is unknown?  How can we prepare students for that?
And of course...innovation.  Can we prepare students for "creativity" or "innovation" or are those things a bit immune to teaching?

My answer, in the next post....

Digital tools for reading & writing

Resources?  You want resources?  We got resources!

Well, after a whole summer of researching & learning about how to make a writing class "safe for all brains" - one answer I came up with was...technology.   "Productivity Tools" (so-called) can allow students to add whatever supports are necessary for them without self-identifying as "disabled" or even "different."    The truth is...we all can use support for some aspect of our workload - why force students into a certain medicalized box in order to get the support they need?   Using technology allows for students to personalize HOW they learn.  

But what tools should I be using?

The truth is, there is an endless supply of tools to help students, and more (and better!) ones are being developed all the time.   Main areas to think about are reading, writing, brainstorming/pre-writing, attention/distraction support, vocabulary support for ELL students, and ways for students aural, instead of visual processing in reading & thinking (like using voice recorders to jot down ideas, screencast tools to demonstrate understanding, or text-to-speech tools to read).   These tools can instantly make your class more accessible...if you're willing to think about how to teach technology as well as your subject matter.  (I'll report back this semester, but from what everyone says, students can get a real kick out of working with some of these tools!)

So here's a great article to get you started.   It's mostly focused on tools that can be used as part of Google Drive/Chrome browser extensions (perfect for K-12 schools using Chromebooks....less perfect for a crazy diverse BYOD environment like Higher Ed), but if you like the concept, there are apps and programs that do most of this stuff that you can find simply by using any internet browser.

Enjoy!


18 Digital Tools and Strategies That Support Students' Reading and Writing

And here is one teacher's website with links to a gosh-darn plethora of useful tools (mostly Google or Chrome-centric!) to help with pre-writing, reading, research & editing.  Totally awesome:
 Inspired Writing by Dana Levesque

What can we learn from...pre-school teachers?!

review of Hybrid Pedagogy's "LEARNING FROM EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION: HIGHER ED AND THE PROCESS OF BECOMINg"

This article, remarkably, touches on a lot of concepts that I've been thinking about as a teacher lately.  These include issues like how to encourage a growth mindset, learning as risk taking (and how to encourage it), and how to bring aspects of affect into the classroom (i.e. how to care about students as whole learners, not just a set of skills- for of course skill growth and how one feels about oneself as a learner are deeply connected!).    While the authors compare the way a pre-k teacher might give a gentle hug to a student, they list "other ways to 'hold'" students by talking to students about their own concerns, goals and intentions, and "In these ways we hope to separate our care for them as persons from assignment grades or other elements of class."   Lovely. 

Another section that struck me was in their section about respecting students as human equals, with the idea that setting ourselves up as holders of knowledge doesn't make room for knowing and learning to be a two way street, and takes away students' ability to influence a course:

 It is almost as if we make a deal with students: we will give you information if you leave your self, who you are and what you otherwise care about, at the door (and we promise we’ll do the same). Learning will be better, we imply, if it’s not mixed up with actually being people.

Yikes.  And yet....as much as I base my thinking about education on non-"banking" principles, I've come to run a very transfer-based course.   My students need so much guidance around writing that I did not feel comfortable letting them "flounder" - pursuing the same old strategies that have led to failure in the past.  At the same time, although my course doesn't leave a lot of room for students to choose their own topics, I'm trying hard to more explicitly create room for their responses and experiences in their writing.  In the end, how the hell else can students have an opinion or form an argument if it's not based on some part of their own life experience?

[To deal with this problem,] teachers can minimize traditional forms of information transfer (lecture or videos). In their stead, we can create environments where students care about practicing, feel supported in practicing, and are challenged to practice both disciplinary and soft skills.

This to me is the real challenge.   In my online courses, I have had experiences where I care about practicing.  It is always where one of two things is happening: 1) a topic I feel passionately about or 2) knowledge that moves me forward in my profession (or both!).  This week I'm excited to learn video software, read new articles, and work on a research paper on supporting neurodiversity in a writing classroom because I feel thankful to be learning these things!  Anything that feels un-relevant immediately sparks up boredom, annoyance and resistance .  In this way, I think being a student myself, and reflecting on that experience, has been the best guide for me as a teacher.  Without empathy for their experience as learners, how can we design learning that makes sense to them!?

The link between AD/HD and executive function

A new post from the Beyond BookSmart blog about AD/HD and EF issues - A great explanation of how these issues are connected!

The Relationship Between Executive Function and ADHD in Children

UDL Redesign Part II: how "disabled" students can teach us to do better design!

Practice Positive Educational Thinking Poster

Barbara Graham Cooper wrote a wonderful dissertation about AD/HD students and college writing classrooms.   If you're interested in how our brains function (and dysfunction!), how AD/HD and other learning differences impact writing, and some history around AD/HD diagnosis and compositions studies, it's worth a read.

Here are some takeaways from Cooper's paper, "At the Brighter Margins: Teaching Writing to the College student with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder".

In this paper she does some great work: interviews current and former college students with AD/HD, digs into definitions of and research on AD/HD, and shares personal anecdotes, quotes and concepts that come right from the students.   Here are some of what I gleaned:

• There is a real lack of research into the issues of college students struggling with LD and AD/HD in particular.   
• A lot of college composition research looks into students who have been underserved or underprepared through social injustice, but there is less work around neurodiversity.
• AD/HD is great to study, because it is sort of a perfect storm of executive function issues.  (Executive Function or EF guides our ability to plan, manage time, act strategically and monitor or moderate emotions.). Students with AD/HD display a lot of the issues that I see in my students: smart students struggling to organize work, synthesize ideas, plan time, or generally turn their good ideas & understanding of a topic into a finished product.  OFten AD/HD students also have a specific learning disorder as well!
• It is not helpful to tell these students to "try harder"...trying is not the issue.
• What is helpful is structure & scaffolding.   Modeling well-done assignments, helping break down, plan & chunk out work, and providing templates and models are really helpful.  (See p. 176 in her article for more elaboration!)
• AD/HD students often are successful when they have found a system that works for them.
• They can "hyperfocus" when they are interested in a topic.

This paper helped me realize that when I talk about UDL, I mean that I specifically want to design for students with EF and LD issues (and also ELL).   Following the UDL concept of "predictable variability," it seems like designing a course with AD/HD students in mind would all students with EF issues (which is to say, more or less all of us :P ).  

This paper also really helped me understand AD/HD students (and my friends!). It doesn't just mean that they are easily distracted or hyper (common stereotypes), but rather that planning and pulling together their thoughts can be a challenge for them...and they have to work twice as hard as a more "middle of the road" person to get the same work done.  So while I might in the past have rolled my eyes at self-descriptors like AD/HD, now it makes me feel real respect for friends (and students) who feel so challenged by some of these tasks...but have managed to get advanced degrees, open their own businesses, etc.  And bringing fun, creativity and energy to the planet as they do it!   

UDL Re-Design Part I: The research begins, and How reading about AD/HD students can revolutionize the college writing classroom

Hi!  So this is Part I of my summer series about re-designing my Critical Reading & Writing course as a blended courses designed around universal design principles.   I am also researching a paper for my UDL course this summer on more or less the same topic.   I was worried at first that I wouldn't be able to find enough sources specifically about UDL & college composition, but I'm feeling optimistic now.   I"m realizing that I can use sources about UDL itself, UDL vs. the medical model, papers from the Landmark Institute (college specifically focused on learners with LD), papers on neurodiversity and online learning, and, best of all, there ARE some papers about college composition, LD & UDL!

I'm also trying to model the process for my students, so I'm trying to be conscious about annotating, note taking, and organizing my paper.   I'll see what kinds of tools I end up using, and perhaps sharing some of them here!

In terms of the papers I've found on UDL & college writing: some are fairly basic, merely describing UDL and laying out a few strategies.  However, I think I hit the goldmine when I discovered this doctoral thesis from 2008 (I'm looking for more recent stuff because of developments in thinking about executive function as well as technology!).   I have so much to say about this paper - not the least of which is that it is elegantly and engagingly written - something I realize I"ve been missing as I'm reading academic papers!   So grateful to Barbara Graham Cooper for this work she did - so far I can't find out anything else about her, which is a shame!

I"m going to try to lay out some big takeaways from this paper (clocking in at 300 pages, which I devoured!), but if you teach writing and are curious about her well-thought-out suggestions for supporting neurodiverse writers - dont' be intimidated!  Follow the link, download the file, and skip right to p. 176.   Cooper's "At the brighter Margin: teaching writing to the college student with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder."  (Just open the link on this page to download the file).

Redesigning Critical Reading & Writing: blending, gamifying, universally designing....

Hi kids, I'm back!

I had a pretty intense injury this spring where I broke 3 fingers (dispersed among both hands), and so I'm still hunting and pecking instead of touch typing.  Please excuse typos!

I'm also diving in to applying what I learned, which means re-designing my writing/reading course to a) function as a blended course (giving working students more options to participate & scaffolding online work)
b) attempting to use this format to incorporate universal design principles - I want to try to figure out how to make my course accessible & friendly to my ridiculously wide range of students.  All Brains Welcome!  (more on this later).
c) attempt to gamify to increase options for student choice in the intensity and content of their work, and to reward affective, non-grades-based achievements (badges, here I come!).
d) attempt to incorporate fun technologies into my assignments to give all different kinds of students ways to express themselves.  (see b).

I'll be researching and writing about this process all summer...interested to see where it takes me and what kinds of roadblocks I run into .... watch as I model a growth mindset!

Do you know of anyone who has run a cool, tech-focused, engaging, or universally-designed writing class?  Especially for college students?  Let me know in the comments!

Tools for teachers - End-of-Semester round up of my favorite teaching tools!

Hi all!

I'm doing a "tool roundup" of current favorite web teaching & collaborating tools..

As a non-tenure track professor, I often feel I don't have the time to go and investigate new teaching tools.  The reward-benefit ratio felt unbalanced - especially if I was looking for something to quickly use in class.  However, taking this instructional design course has helped push me to learn new tools - to my delight, it hasn't been that hard* and actually really *fun* (a word I don't always associate with adjunct composition teaching :/  ).   Can't wait to think about how to integrate some of these into next year's classes!

 *I also learned that for almost any purpose, there is someone out there who has put together a pros/cons or top 10 list of tools JUST for that purpose!

Here's my current faves:

1.  Google docs suite
Why'd you use it: why wouldn't you?!

Some potentially dicey political thoughts...

I just posted about my friend Katie Raddatz's amazing work with mobile technology in her writing classroom.  For any of you that aren't writing teachers, know that the kinds of creativity, engagement and collaboration that are happening in her classroom are, like, lightyears ahead of what most writing teachers are able to offer (including ME!)

I think one takeaway for me is the amount that individual teachers are pushing things forward in terms of technology in higher ed.

One thing that's really sad for me is often how invisible this is within the institution.  In some ways, yes, it's true, invisibility buys us freedom to experiment.  And Katie did receive institutional support in terms of classroom resources.

However, all of her learning - playing with the iPad, consulting with other experts, reading and experimenting, is totally outside of what she's paid for as a non-tenure track (NTT) instructor.  That's right - she did this learning and prep unpaid.

 And for all the work she did and all the cool pedagogical work that's happening in her classroom, not only will Katie not be eligible for a raise or promotion (there is no designated career path for NTT faculty), but just like me, we aren't guaranteed work from semester to semester, (often losing classes because of enrollment at the last minute) and definitely not paid a Boston-level living wage.  Neither of us know if there will be work for us in the fall, and if so, how much.   Doing this kind of development might make us more "marketable" and sure, could lead to more or different kinds of work, (and clearly Katie's been recognized for her expertise within our university) but there's no built-in way to recognize instructors for doing stuff like what Katie's doing - and a lot of us are still living paycheck to paycheck - but still innovating just because we love it so freaking much.  


 How bass-ackward is that, higher ed?

How to engage students in first-year college writing course? - with iPads, of course!

Just completed an interview with my amazing and talented co-worker Katie Raddatz.  A few years ago she took the initiative to start learning about mobile learning and using iPads in her class.

Now, she has a whole cart full of iPads that she uses with her students, and it has transformed her teaching and their engagement in the classroom.

Check out key takeaways and illustrations of how she uses some apps here, at her Prezi: https://prezi.com/uy6s_q--ycl1/ipads-in-the-critical-reading-and-writing-classroom/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

For the full conversation, where we discuss how she got started, barriers she encountered, how she dealt with roadblocks, and how it's transformed her writing pedagogy, check out this interview with Katie on my YouTube channel.

You can contact Katie at Kathleen.Raddatz@umb.edu

Update: my plan for group collaboration this semester

In an earlier post, I lamented how poorly things worked the last time I tried group assignments in my course (and got some helpful feedback in the comments section!  thanks!). In another post, I talked about new insights I've gained learning about different kinds of collaboration by being a learner myself.  

Here's how I've tweaked things for this semester!

 For one class, I've scaled WAY back on the the group aspect of their third paper.  The groups are going to be "consultancy groups" - groups of people working on the same paper topic, and most of their time together will be devoted to (somewhat structured) activities around discussing the readings or completing peer reviews.

Against Collaboration

Collaboration and group assignments are often touted as the keys to good, forward-thinking pedagogy - especially in an online environment.  However, instructors may need to think more deeply about when and how they assign group projects.  

The belief in classroom collaboration is often based off the idea that learners will need to collaborate "in the workplace" - but are instructors and instructional designers thinking clear-headedly about the differences between a classroom and collaboration in the real world?

Correcting punctuation or culture-shaming?: working with students who don't speak Standard English at home

This week I'm grading papers (ha ha, of course I am - I'm always grading papers these days!) - and one or two papers gave me pause.   These are papers written by some of the strongest students in my class - insightful, engaged & creative papers written by African American women in my class.  In their papers I see them doing the very things that I dream students will do: engage critically with the topic, deeply analyze and weave in our course readings, and, most important, make a real, clearly articulated argument that follows through their papers.  In terms of a grade, they both definitely pass and qualify to use these papers to represent them in the writing proficiency assessment at our school.  But...both of these papers are filled with grammatical issues that stand out to me like a sore thumb....and make it clear to me that a reader could easily dismiss the analytical work in their papers simply because of some non-standard English sentences.

Web collaboration and critical thinking: Hypothes.is and annotation 2.0

Back to report on the intersection of pedagogy & technology -fun!
Props to Bonnie Stewart for turning me on to this cool technology...

I'm not sure whether to populate this post with abundant links, videos & screenshots, or just to wax rhapsodic about collaborative annotation in general...maybe I'll start with the second and insert the down at the bottom - scroll down if at some point you want to see what some of this stuff actually looks like!

So what is collaborative annotation? Well, if you're not a writing teacher, one might ask: "what is annotation."

The answer is - many things, but in a nutshell, it is the notes that one makes on a text.   So simple - but as many of us know, can be such a powerful tool.

Productive Failure & instructional design

A few weeks ago, as part of my introduction to instructional design course, I got introduced to blogger & instructional designer Cathy Moore.   If you are deeply interested in how people learn, and what powerful, interactive e-learning can look like, you'll find her blog completely addicting.  She offers some basic, simple tools for corporate instructional design that seem so intuitive and non-painful (and heck, maybe even empowering!) for the learner that I can't believe that's not how all elearning is done.

One post, however, is one of those ideas that starts out rolling around in my brain, gathering weight and heft like a snowball as time goes on.  It's the idea of productive failure.  Check out her post about it here.

Here's the basics: the traditional idea of scaffolding education says: structure your teaching in an "I do, we do, you do" fashion -

Group work: why the humanities still matter...

I love justifications for my teaching from the business world!

For example, I heard one interview with an expert who had written a book about how business schools needed to update and change.  What's the ONE THING he said he wished business school grads had (but often don't?)...wait for it...

Writing abilities!

Oh yeah, I"m relevant, that's right, uh huh...  :)

But seriously, folks...today another article caught my eye about team work, describing interesting findings about what makes teams work.

Review of Screencast tools for teachers

I didn't write this one....but this guy spent a lot of time analyzing different screencast tools specifically for teachers.    It's nice to have all of these in one place  - I've heard of a lot of these tools, but didn't realize they all effectively did the same thing (although I feel like a bit of a tool for not figuring it out before now!).  Now I know that Camtasia and Captivate are really, really expensive screencast tools. 

Spoiler alert: if you are just starting out and looking for free tools, he recommends Screencast-O-Matic hands down.

https://andrewdouch.wordpress.com/2014/02/13/the-best-screencasting-software-for-teachers/

Thinking about Group Work - grappling with challenges

Partly inspired by attending workshops with instructional designers, this semester I"m launching (for the second time) a major group project to go along with their final essay in my face-to-face class at the end of the semester.  This week's readings gave me a lot of food for thought  about how to do it better (last semester I 'd say I had a 50% success rate and lots of "dissatisfied customers" - including both suckers & free riders) - and still more questions.   Wondering if y'all instructors out there had any insights?

 Here's my questions: After this week's readings in my instructional design course about group work & best practices, I'm going to implement a bunch of these

Instructional goals, critical thinking & creativity

This week our chapter in the DCC book was all about identifying instructional goals. 

When I first saw this, I was frankly a little appalled...the examples included things like performance measures and instructions on how to interact with customers in service jobs. In short, these kinds of "objectives" quickly brought back all my worst experiences with learning -

Who's doing the online teaching in higher ed? My Story

I don't know how representative my experience was, but it definitely makes me want to know more about how e-learning is happening in higher ed, and who is doing it, and how much support they have.

So context: I was in my second year of teaching.  That fall, I'd finally gotten what felt like a stable teaching job: 3 sections at my alma mater, benefitted, in the union.  I spent a lot of time that fall developing a curriculum, learning about my students & developing my teaching tools for English 101 - and learning how to grade 70+ papers in a week, six times a semester.  In December, I learned that I wouldn't be offered any course for the spring semester starting January.

Faculty vs. Administrators: starkly different views of online learning

 Summary & review of Inside Higher Ed's  "Conflicted: Faculty and Online Education, 2012"

June 21, 2012

Steve Kolowich

 

"Faculty members are far less excited by, and more fearful of, the recent growth of online education than are academic technology administrators, according to a new study by Inside Higher Ed and the Babson Survey Research Group."  Thus begins a fascinating article about faculty and administrator attitudes towards online learning. 

This week I dove DEEP into the Horizon report about higher ed futures & the accompanying links to "further reading" articles...and was by turns fascinated, curious, excited & appalled by what I read.    (See my first reactions here).

I'm still trying to synthesize some of my reactions to the report - there's SO MUCH in it.  However, I was particularly curious about one idea in it that sent me looking for more information: the idea that higher ed faculty are very conflicted about the idea of online education.  I have my own ambivalence about online teaching, and so I was really curious about how generalized these ideas/thoughts/prejudices were.   This was reported in the 2012 Babson report, and I used Google to find the article above to explain this idea further (the entire Babson Report is like a small novel!)

So here's the data they found, after surveying thousands of faculty (3/4 of whom were "full-time" - a somewhat problematic term...does that mean tenured, tenure track, or contingent non-tenure track with 1-3 year contracts?)

• 58% of faculty said the future of online teaching filled them with more fear than excitement (while this number was *much* lower for faculty that actually teach online)
• 2/3 of all faculty responding said that they believed students learned less online than in a traditional classroom. (And  40% of online teachers also felt this way) 
• "Asked whether their institutions were “pushing too much online,” nearly 30 percent of faculty respondents agreed, and another 30 percent declined to disagree, giving a neutral response. "
• Adjunct professors were more optimistic: 52% said they were more excited than fearful about online teaching, although, dismally, this may be because it allows them to pack even more teaching into their busy lives.
• There is significant concern about pay: "About 30 percent of faculty respondents believe their institutions pay fairly for online teaching, with 31 percent disagreeing and the rest remaining neutral."
• Interestingly (and perhaps unsurprisingly?!), administrators had a pretty different take on online education: " 80 percent said the online boom excited more than frightened them" and 79% disagreed that they were "pushing too much online"
• Completely unsurpisingly (to me) was this statement: "The greatest difference was on the subject of pay, with 58 percent of administrators submitting that their institutions compensate online instructors fairly (nearly twice as high as the proportion of instructors who believe this to be true)." 

So....what do we have here?  

First Response to the NMC Horizon Report 2016 for Higher Education

Table of Contents for 2016 NME Horizon Report 

 Hi!  Welcome to this blog.  I'm excited to share my thoughts about teaching, learning and thinking here!

This week I'd like to talk about the NMC Horizon report for Higher Ed 2016...which echoes a lot of similar reports & forcasts I've heard about at other venues (education conferences, etc.).

I'd like to share my perspective on this coming at this from where I sit: as a higher ed teacher, with a position that's fairly representative of the majority of today's higher ed instructors.