Online Learning - Potential for Reaching Thousands

I found this very interesting TED talk this morning by Daphne Koller from Stanford University. She speaks about the power of online learning to reach thousands of people who otherwise do not have access to education opportunities, as well as the capabilities of the online learning environment. Coursera is the social entrepreneurship company she helped develop that works with the universities to sponsor the courses she is referencing.

Koller gives a great argument for using technology to not only reach more students, but provide personalized curriculum and feedback and expand the creativity and thinking of students via the online environment. Online learning can bring active learning and formative assessment and ignite student creativity and learning rather than just giving them information.  Her approach is that universities should be providing this content free so that anyone can change their lives, expand their minds, and make the world a better place. While listening to her, I saw a direct connection to online professional development, which is something I am currently interested in and focused on in my work and doctoral research. A way to reach a much wider audience, provide the opportunity to learn, practice, and get personal feedback.

As a believer in the power of technology and online learning, I have to say I agreed with all her points, though I question how all of this can be done for free, another component she stressed.  Free courses and access would definitely bring more students to the courses, as evidenced in her talk, but doesn't someone have to pay the people who are instructing the courses and developing the courses?  There is a lot of production that goes into these courses, especially with the interactivity, assessments, and videos, so I guess that's where I just question the feasibility.  As someone who designs and creates online professional development courses, I know I can't provide what I do for free because let's face it, I have to eat and pay my bills and it takes a great deal of time and effort to develop online courses. I absolutely agree online learning and courses are where we should be focusing to provide learning opportunities for all, not just those who are able to afford an education.  But, I do need to figure out how free is going to be paid for - because nothing is truly free, is it?

I've provided the video of Koller's talk below.  She makes some excellent points and has numbers and examples to show the power of the technology. I'd be interested to hear your views on how this type of online learning can in fact be offered free. My guess is there are grants involved. It would be nice to consider ways, without a big corporation or grants, to provide these types of opportunities free.

The Flipped Classroom Revisited

I posted an article a while back about my thoughts on the flipped classroom: Math Anxiety and the Flipped Classroom.  In this post, I basically expressed my concern that many teachers are using the flipped model to continue the same traditional way of teaching - lecture and homework, and merely switching where these things happened. If this is how the model is being used, especially in math, it is not going to improve student learning because it's the same old thing. My hope was that those embracing this model were truly doing something different - really using the class time to connect with their students, provide collaborative learning experiences, engaging in real-world applications, projects and extending the learning to make connections - not just reviewing homework. In short, teaching DIFFERENT in the classroom - where the classroom becomes a student-centered learning experience, not just a regurgitation of what they saw/learned in the online 'lecture'.

That's my hope.  I am still on the flipped fence. But...since I am inundated with articles about the flipped classroom model, I have actually succumbed to reading them rather than ignoring them, and have been pleasantly surprised more often than expected. There are people out there offering great examples of how this flipped model, if done right, can change the learning experiences for students for the better. I thought I would share a few of those articles below because they have at least given me some hope that not everyone thinks an online lecture is the answer or the way to 'integrate technology' appropriately. They also provide some great ideas and strategies if you are considering this model.

Catlin Tucker wrote a great blog post entitled Flipped Classrooms: Beyond the Videos where she gives three suggestions on how to make this model work.  Her point is that everyone is focusing on the online lectures or videos, when in fact the idea behind this is that you can use so many different avenues to help students learn and you are not confined to lectures or worksheets.  The classroom, flipped or not, can be about using all possible resources to help students understand, be creative, apply what they are learning. It's really more about flipping the students than the classroom - engaging students in learning rather than having them be passive receivers of knowledge.

Brian Bennett, Jason Kern, April Gudenrath and Philip McIntosh wrote a series on the flipped classroom, but their last post in the series, The Flipped Class: What Does a Good One Look Like? outlines what a good flipped classroom should look like. What you will notice when you read the article is that the classroom culture is student-centered, involves active student engagement and collaboration, where students are learning in context using real-world applications of concepts. There's no 'sit and get' the information - it's an active, participatory learning environment.

 An article just posted by Kyle Stokes entitled "Why Good Teachers - Not Good Videos - Are the Key to the Flipped Classroom"` reiterates the point Catlin Tucker made, that it's not the videos but the quality of the teacher.  The video is not the magic of the flipped model, rather it's what happens in the classroom. Brian Bennett in his post entitled Redesigning Learning in a Flipped Classroom talks about how the classroom and the way a teacher thinks and structures that time has to be completely rethought.  The role of the teacher is entirely different because you are learning along with your students in class time rather than doling out the information. A good flipped classroom is NOT easy - it requires thought, planning, engaging activities, real-world activities, questioning, listening, collaboration...

I have hope, or at least more hope than before.  I still worry a great deal about math classrooms, as I think there is more of a tendency to rely on the lectures (i.e. Khan Academy) as the magical fix to improving students math abilities. But - there are at least people talking and sharing ideas on how to use this model effectively. May that trend continue.

YouTube for teachers

There is now apparently a community site for teachers on YouTube, designed to help teachers integrate videos into classroom instruction.  The tech integration part of me is really excited by the idea - it sounds like YouTube is putting some thought behind the site as well, by including tips on organizing and using the videos to help students and spark discussion and providing ways for teachers to create their own page and identify specific videos for learing. I couldn't find information on where these videos are coming from, so I am a bit skepticle about the quality, but I see this as pretty promising support for teachers, especially as there is the inclusion of a community forum where folks can post teaching ideas and ask questions.

Being curious, I had to check out the site YoutTube.com/teachers I just did a quick look - will have to explore later, but it has a way to search and organize videos, crand offers suggestions for use in your room, let's you create your own channel.  I definitely see potential - kind of fits in to that idea I had in a previous post that we should be modeling appropriate use of social media.  Anyway, I will explore more, but hopefully some of you still in the classroom will also explore and send in some feedback.

I will just share the video clip they have right on the landing page because it's cool and it's Ellen!

Changing the math classroom - computers first, then the teacher

Gareth Cook's article "From desktop to desk: A compelling way to teach math - flipping the classroom" caught my eye as it mentions Khan Academy and how the approach of using the computer to 'lecture and teach' and then using the classroom with a teacher to help students might be an alternative way to improve math achievement.  I have been reading about the Khan Academy lately, so this forced me to delve a bit further this morning.

I have looked at a couple of the videos and they seem to be mostly how-to type videos, though Khan's voice and the way he talks is very compelling - definitely kid friendly. .You get the sense that he 'gets where you are coming from' and he explains things in a very conversational way and at their level. The practice problems are based on a gaming principal of earning 'badges' as you progress and get correct answers, even though the problems themselves are very much just skill based (at least from the ones I sampled). Students can track their own progress, teachers can track students progress.  And it's free.

So, I get it - it's on-demand teaching, albeit direct teaching, that can help students with math skills (and actually it's not just math - there are other subjects as well).  The video library is vast. In this age of standardized testing this is a great resource, and the fact that it's free makes it even more attractive. It's very thoughtfully done and clearly well thought out. As a student or parent or teacher, this is a great resource and clearly the Khan Academy is having an impact in the educational market.

But, there is a part of me that wants to just rebel against this - it seems to simply be taking the traditional lecture and putting it in digital format.  Students are still relatively passive - watching, rewatching if necessary, practicing and getting rewarded if they perform well.  They practice problems, get instant feedback, have goals that motivate them to succeed, have support if they get stuck. Very much a traditional classroom experience but on the computer.

However....the constructivist in me wants to scream and shout and say STOP!!!!  I want kids with their hands-on the math - using technology to discover, not sit and get the information. 

Rather than a video that tells them what slope is and how to calculate it, why not a dynamic software activity that relates a real-context situation to slope and gives meaning to the term and what the calculation of slope actually means to the situation? Maybe what I really want is a happy medium - a combination of this lecture format with the ability for students to do the math (and not skill just skill practice)....hands on technology that lets students play and explore the math concepts and their meaning, versus just their algorithm.

There must be a better use for technology than just taking our traditional classroom lecture and moving it to a digital format.  Unfortunately, I think until we get away from the push for standardized testing as the only measure of student achievement, this type of technology usage is what will permeate the educational market.