Reflections from Flexible Learning Conference

Madison College, part of the Wisconsin Technical College System, graciously hosted the 3rd Annual Flexible Learning Conference in Madison recently. I was afforded the opportunity to represent my college, NWTC, by attending and presenting at the conference. After a few days of mulling over my notes and pondering how to use this opportunity to grow, I thought what better way than to share my experience with those not able to attend. With that, I give you my big three take-aways.

1) SOCIAL MEDIA is having a huge impact on higher education - Keynote Speaker Tanya Joosten, nationally recognized for her work on Distance Education and Technological Advancement, highlighted several compelling reasons that social media needs to be harnessed by instructors across our nation. Perhaps the image below is the most compelling reason to think of alternative communication means:

2005 PEW Data results

"Email is for OLD people" the survey found! That must mean I'm pretty old! You see, students today view social media as much more than a vehicle to connect with their friends or family. Today's students get their news, alerts, weather, research, and so much more from a variety of social media outlets. Yet, many instructors and institutions demand that the best vehicle for communication is email.

It's time to think outside the box and allow students to drive the vehicle. Ask them what platforms they use and devise a methodology to employ their strengths in your class. If your stuck in a rut, then consider backward design. Tanya facilitated a great pre-conference workshop on how vital backward design is in incorporating social media into your classes. While perhaps a daunting task, when framed in the proper order, social media can drive creativity and innovation.

Think about your course level outcomes and WHAT students must be able to do to meet them. Then, think about how you plan to assess those outcomes - what evidence do students need to show you. Finally, think about the content and interactivity that you can provide through a unique learning experience. What social media tools can you use, or encourage students to use, that will harness the power they have in their fingertips for good! Tanya provided a great definition for what is social media? "Social Media is a virtual place where people share; everybody and anybody can share anything anywhere anytime!" (Joosten, 2012, p. 6)

2) Passionate Educators Abound -  Through attending the #flexlearn2015 conference, I was quickly reminded of how passionate many educators are about meeting their students needs, going above and beyond was is outlined in their job description. Take Martha Schwer for example. An English instructor at Madison College, Martha teaches English Composition ONLINE to students that just have to 'take the class'! While a daunting class for in-person students, Martha has taken it upon herself to provide her students with a unique learning experience that engages them in a such a way that they don't even realize it's an online class.

Martha provided, shared, demonstrated, and beamed with positivity as she walked us through her course. Her liquid syllabus that incorporates videos, voice-overs, and explicit details and directions give her students the sense that she is a real human being, not some robot behind the computer in their online class. Her use of Voice Thread and Zaption to engage students in the learning process is nothing short of inspiring.

And then there's Trey Morales, psychology instructor at Madison College. His love for brain based learning and willingness to share engagement strategies that are tested and true was impeccable. Trey's presentation on the 4 rules that should drive instruction are spot on: Emotions Matter, Vision Matters, Movement Matters, and Novelty Matters.

Through a careful navigation and engaging presentation, Trey had us eating out of the palm of his hands as he incorporated all 4 of those rules. I couldn't help but think what Aristotle was thinking about Trey's words - after all "Educating the Mind without Educating the Heart is no Education at all!"

3) Teaching Is Not Easy -  Finally, among all the learning and innovation that was happening around me, I was reminded that teaching is not easy, nor is it for the faint of heart. Students are rapidly evolving, technology is busting at the seams, and educators feel the pressure of time and budgets suffocating their creativeness. And while many educators may feel doomed about their position, I was reminded that it is vital to connect with others. Making those new connections helps to harness the energy you feel may quickly fade.(Thanks Daniel, Sundi, and Trey.)

Teaching is the ultimate sacrifice. I am fortunate to work at an institution that believes in life-long learning and supports and my goals and aspirations. If we do not believe in life-long learning, how will our students ever believe that what we are teaching them is important? Enjoy the journey that teaching is and be daring to try new things. Model the creativity and innovation you wish to see in your students and you will be amazed at what they give you in return.

Do You Kahoot!?

Are you looking for a fun, interactive assessment tool to use with your students in your Flipped Classroom? Do you want to know if your students completed their pre-class assignment or reading? Would you like an item analysis for questions and topics your students are struggling with? If you've answered yes to any of these questions, then I have a great solution for you!

Welcome to KAHOOT! Create, play, and share fun learning games for any subject, for all ages, for FREE! Kahoot gives users the ability to create an interactive, game-based assessment. Similar to playing trivia at Buffalo Wild Wings, Kahoot asks participants to answer questions correctly in a timely manner. The quicker you know the answer, the more points you are awarded. Use pictures, videos, and generate your own questions and answers. Download game results to analyze your students' progress or how well a question was written.

Kahoot is redefining formative assessment in the 21st century classroom! Check out my video tutorial below for directions on how to create your first Kahoot, or use this attached file!

Opportunities For Growth

"Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny!" ~ C.S. Lewis

Each and every one of us controls our destiny. We control our thoughts, our emotions, and our reactions to difficult times and situations. For many, when faced with adversity, dwelling on the negative comes naturally. We tend to find what's wrong with a situation and pick it apart. However, to change our habits means we must change our beliefs. Education and educators tend to be no different. If we are to grow as professionals, we must be willing to throw out the half-empty glass and exchange it for optimism and hope!

Opportunities For Growth, or OFG's as I like to call them, are all around us. We have the unique opportunity to change our mindset in every challenge and circumstance we face. Rather than pick apart a new initiative, we can choose to find the OFG built within the framework of that very initiative. For example, how many of us approach professional development as an opportunity to learn and grow? How many of us are willing to take risks to learn from our mistakes?

If we are to foster a growth mindset in our students, we must be willing to first foster a growth mindset within ourselves. My initial exploration into flipped learning was driven as an opportunity to better use the time I had with students. The opportunity for growth far outweighed any drawbacks I could think of or read about. Wouldn't you know that my students continued to find ways to grow with in my math classes and thrive using a new teaching concept. Oddly enough, my students started to turn in their assignments through photos, video, graphic organizers, and via email. They were willing to try something new because they saw the risk I took and felt comfortable enough to do the same.

Undoubtedly, education today is filled with obstacles to overcome. We are faced with increased class sizes, increased PD requirements, increased accountability, and so much more. However, if we take a moment to sit back and reflect, perhaps the increased demands are asking us to grow! We have an opportunity to change the face of education as we know it - to be a proactive culture that fosters creativity, innovation, and growth. The next time you are faced with adversity, find the OFG!

Is It Working?

For many teachers/instructors in education, change can be a daunting task. Students are evolving at a quick pace and instruction as we know it has been drastically changed. Gone are the days when lecturing for hours on end, or even a class period, is an effective mode of teaching. Teachers/instructors have been charged with finding ways to engage students on a continuous basis through student-centered, hands-on activities that give students the opportunity to demonstrate their skills and learning! Thus, plenty of teachers/instructors have turned to Flipped Learning and Flipped Classrooms!

Proven to be a highly effective instructional strategy, Flipped Learning has given teachers/instructors an edge in creating those authentic learning opportunities in their classes. As those opportunities continue to grow, teachers/instructors are now faced with evaluating their effectiveness to know if students truly obtained the skills necessary to show they've mastered a competency!

While many teachers/instructors can use their 'gut' feeling to measure their students level of engagement, the data will tell the story! Data is such an invaluable tool that many teachers/instructors struggle with. For most, data is an opportunity to PROVE that learning has occurred! But really, data needs to be used to drive IMPROVEMENT. Data does not give us the answers, rather it gives us the questions to drive students and our opportunities for growth and improvement.

The most important data a teacher/instructor can use comes from effective use of formative assessments. Whether we are facilitating small-group discussions, playing Kahoot, or giving a quick 'quiz', we are gathering data that will tell us what our students do and do not know about the pre-class work that was assigned. Only then can we accurately meet ALL of our students needs by adapting what we have to meet them where they are at. Similarly, when we construct activities that ask students to be creative and innovative, we are measuring how well they understand what was given to them prior to class! These opportunities for students to display what they learned and how they can apply that information are what 'traditional' classrooms often miss!

Inevitably, most students will ask "Why do I need to do this if it doesn't count?" Fortunately at Northeast Wisconsin Technical College, we are not only charged with making sure students acquire a specific set of technical skills, but Employability Skills as well. The greater Green Bay, WI area expects that our graduates obtain both technical skills and Employability Skills to help foster collaborative working environments, While many teachers/instructors struggle with formally measure the Employability Skills, Flipped Learning and Flipped Classrooms present a great opportunity to foster and measure those Employability Skills.

Rather than building in weekly Employability Skills assessments and targets for students, Flipped Learning and Flipped Classrooms give teachers/instructors an opportunity to specifically identify what Employability Skills they are measuring with each activity. At NWTC, we encourage instructors to build in those skills into their rubrics so that students understand and value how important working collaboratively is. Or valuing differences among classmates and accepting personal accountability for being on time and coming prepared!

At any rate, Flipped Learning and Flipped Classrooms have several options to measure if students are learning. As with many options, the accountability falls back on teachers/instructors to make sure they are using those tools to measure effectiveness and evaluate student learning. The power is in your hands - how will you use it?

Setting the Bar Too High???

"Set a goal SO BIG that you can't achieve until you GROW into the person who can." ~Unknown

Education holds a rather unique position in the development and growth of students. Educators are responsible for delivering content and competencies while simultaneously fostering critical thinking, problem solving, creativity, innovation, and analyzing skills. While educators at many levels have ventured into flipped learning to varying degrees, the greatest truth from all educators is the desire to spend more time with students. As flipped learning provides this desired time, educators are then faced with evaluating the use of the time, student engagement, and the expectations of student learning.

When asked "how do I know if the bar is set to high in my flipped class", I had to chuckle a little at the notion of students not being pushed too hard. Can an educator really push students to hard? While it might be easy to simply say YES, the really answer lies within the approach instructors take in getting students to do what they think may be impossible. As educators, we must realize that what students believe about themselves as learners matters. We must be willing to push them beyond what they think they are capable of and helping them understand that not every challenge they face will be easy,

Likewise, we must also be willing to teach them that it's okay to fail at something in school. To fail (First Attempt In Learning) is part of the learning process - to learn from their mistakes and make changes is how we foster critical thinking, problem solving, and analyzing skills in our students. Let's think about this notion for a moment - imagine you are going to get blood drawn from a hospital. Would you be excited to know that the nurse drawing your blood is doing so for the first time? Or what about the sub-contractor building your house - would it put you at ease to know he's learning how to frame the house for the first time?

You see, education is suppose to be about learning - making mistakes in practice to be able to perform in the crunch. If we are expecting students to be perfect on the first attempt, then why aren't they already out in industry, putting their skills to use. As educators, we must be willing to allow our students to make mistakes at appropriate times, and teach them how to become creative and innovative in fixing their mistakes. We want our students to grow into people that can make changes based on evidence they've witnessed or mistakes they've made.

Ironically, many of our educational systems are too focused on grades, rather than the content to be learned. How do I know? I am reminded of my days as a high school math teacher in Lomira, WI where it was decided that the minimum percentage to pass a class was going to move from 60% to 70%. You can imagine the uproar that ensued from students and parents alike that raising the bar was nor fair for anyone involved. Low and behold, one year after implementation, the number of students failing classes was actually less than prior years. You see, students knew they needed to work just a little harder to meet the bare minimum to pass a class! Students know where the bar is set and will do what they need to get there.

Don't ever be afraid to set your bar high! As we are preparing students to meet the demands of tomorrow's work force, we prepare them for jobs that may not even exist yet. Through fostering opportunities to be creative, innovative, problem solvers, critical thinkers, and analyzers, we give them opportunities to be successful in an arena that is always changing!

Individualized Professional Development

"Change is difficult, not changing is Fatal!"

Much of 21st century education philosophy urges instructors/teachers to meet the needs of their students by creating authentic learning experiences. To do so, one must take the time to understand their students, their needs, learning styles, and talents. As many instructors/teachers have become excellent at adapting their content and lessons, institutions and educational systems as a whole are lagging behind in providing a similar experience for their instructors/teachers. 

I can only imagine how many hands would be raised if asked, "How many of you recently sat through a school-wide training, that offered very little practical use to your professional development needs?" Institutions across America feel the need to prescribe 'canned' professional development to all instructors/teachers to ensure the same content and message are delivered. What if that message isn't needed by EVERYONE? What happened to the exact message we are preaching to instructors/teachers about creating unique learning experiences? Shouldn't the same apply to adults?

Clearly, the answer is yes - we must do a better job of meeting our instructors/teachers needs. While the answer is easy to see, the solution is a greater challenge that all learning institutions must be willing to tackle. Individualized Professional Development requires a great deal of collaboration, brainstorming, communication, planning, knowledge of instructor/teacher needs, and TRUST! As learning institutions begin to explore and implement Individualized Professional Development, students will begin to see and feel the impact on their educational success.

Individualized Professional Development may look at feel different across learning institutions, however, the main goal should always be to identify opportunities for growth, while supporting instructors/teachers in a growth mindset. In order to identify and support a growth mindset, learning institutions must create a culture of reflection, evaluation, and growth. Too often, institutions of learning and instructors/teachers are too concerned about looking 'good' in the eyes of the stakeholders (i.e. Administrators, principals, parents, students, accrediting bodies, etc.) We must make a dramatic shift in looking at deficiencies as opportunities for growth!

One of the greatest examples of a growth mindset can come from sports. How many top-notch athletes do you see that don't look at how to improve? Most athletes identify their areas of weakness and build them into strengths. Instructors/teachers ought to have the same mindset - what am I not good at and how can I improve? Only then can instructors/teachers begin to create a unique, Individualized Professional Development plan.

Perhaps one of the greatest tools to instructors/teachers in improvement will be through instructional coaches. Instructional Coaching fosters a rapport between coach and instructor/teacher, creating a safe learning environment, and opening the door for opportunities of growth. The instructional coach becomes and outside eye and ear in the classroom to aid the instructor/teacher in identify strengths and opportunities for growth in a collaborative nature. Provided the instructional coach remains unbiased - a non-evaluative observer - an Individualized Professional Development plan will begin to unfold over time.

So what's the dilemma? Time and resources continue to be stretched. Yet, Individualized Professional Development will only foster instructors/teachers to become reflective practitioners. If it's good for our students, then it needs to be good for our instructors/teachers. I fear this is only going to become of greater need as funding and state laws alter whom is deemed eligible to be an instructor/teacher (sorry, I'm from Wisconsin!) Just as Ghandi once said, "Be the change you wish to see in the world."  

Students Don't Do Optional?

At many colleges across the nation, much discussion is being had regarding student responsibility and self-motivation in achieving the highest 'grade' possible in any given course. As the majority of students in higher ed are adults (by age only!), many instructors believe the responsibility for learning falls squarely on the shoulders of the student. While one can argue that not many employers would hire an unmotivated student, the purpose of this blog will take a different spin by looking at what instructors can do to promote learning in their courses.

As you are reading this, there is inevitably an instructor somewhere on the globe assigning a massive reading assignment to his or her students, "Please read pages 45 - 110 by Monday!" Many students will skim through the reading, trying to grasp at what main highlights, while some students will read the entire selection and take copious notes to be well prepared for class. And of course, there any many that will never pick up the book or even go and buy it, know all too well the instructor will fail in checking whether students read the text or not.

Many of the struggles regarding 'optional' for students comes in the form of lack of engagement with 'optional' assignment by the instructor. We've all encountered the above instructor, only to come to class to either hear our instructor lecture about what we just read, or never assess what we learned from the material we read - not just simply giving us a quiz to 'prove' we learned. Even an elephant can tell you how to climb a tree!

Therefore, the challenge falls solely on the instructor to find and create unique opportunities for using the optional assignment to show students how valuable and important the information was. For instance, using any number of text protocols in small group discussions provides students an opportunity to reflect in a wide variety of ways; assumptions author made, arguments against the author's words, agreements with the author, and aspirations on how the information can be used in students' lives. That's a small sample of questions that engage students in their reading. Providing case studies or hands-on application of material learned prior to class will ensure that students WANT TO do optional to be prepared for class and the 'FUN' activities that are designed.

While it's often easy to point the finger of blame at someone else -  in this case students - we must often take a long, hard look at what we are doing to help students progress in their learning. Are we providing the best learning environment for students and modeling the expectations we have set forth? The challenge is to push students to ask the difficult questions, to be willing to wrestle with the difficult task, and to face adversity head on, overcoming anything thrown at them. We must teach our students to problem solve, think critically, analyze, and evaluate more frequently to prepare them for what the world has to offer!