Science Wednesday

Time for science in the time of pandemic

Of the challenges that face us during this pandemic, balancing a full time job with young children at home has to be right up there on the difficult list. Listening to my friends and colleagues, bravely managing that tight-rope act, I looked for something I could do to help.  I remembered an idea that arose out of frustration over the thin science in our sons’ elementary curriculum – Science Wednesday.  We did small scale science projects at home on Wednesdays, after school.  Little experiments and kitchen sink inquiries designed to spark my sons’ interest and get them thinking about the natural world around them. I dug through an old hard drive and, miraculously found the ideas and notes for it, recorded way back.

The Zoom session

With the help of my friend, Beth Wilbur, we put together a rough plan. We’d invite the children of our friends, colleagues, and family to join us, once a week (on Wednesday mornings) for a live Zoom session.  During that time, we’d review their results from the previous week and introduce the next activity to come. We’d begin with the experiments I’d used in the past, since I knew they were do-able and didn’t require fancy tools. As a test, Beth and I ran the experiments ourselves, taking notes on potential problems and photos to document our results. We came up with a template for a “Grown-up Guide” (for the parents), which included a list of required items, an outline of the plan, and a few guidance photos for each experiment.

Once we were confident we had two, easy-to-reproduce experiments, we started outreach. Very quickly, our “class” size numbered over ten – enough to get started. It was gratifying to hear the parents’ response to the idea – a bit of excitement, mixed in with a large portion of relief.

The group consisted of ages ranging from 5 to 13. Quite the spread and quite the challenge. After the first two sessions (“Water Transport in Celery” and “The Naked Egg”), it became clear that, if we aimed for the 8-10 year olds, the older kids would figure out their own extensions and adaptations, while the younger kids were happy to come along for the ride.

Two weeks into things, with 20 kids signed up, I decided to reach out to my biology-teacher friends. After all, they could do a much better job than I ever could and they’d have even more creative ideas. My request came right at the time most of them were trying to figure out how to teach their own classes online, so I kept the ask to just one session and I’d manage all the technology, handouts, and communication. Biology educators are the most generous souls and this was no exception. Soon we had a group of some of the best high school, AP, and college biology teachers in the country thinking about at-home experiments the kids could try. Here’s our star-studded line-up:

• Nancy Monson, Opposable Thumbs (How your hand works)
• Eric J. Simon, Amazing Red Cabbage Juice (pH)
• Peggy O’Neill Skinner, Seed Germination (A closer look at beans)
• Diane Sweeney, The Blubber Glove (Hot or Not?)
• Brad Williamson, Marine Microfossils (from Iowa!)
• Carol Williamson, Pollinators in Your Backyard
• Alyssa Wood, Penny Dirt (Copper oxide and malachite)

The kids were terrific and their results impressive. With each experiment, they caught onto the question and came up with their own answers, often extending their effort to include artful drawings, short video clips of their observations, and added investigations into something new that occurred to them. For example, a few of the kids planted the seedlings they sprouted on damp paper towels and then proceeded to watch them grow over weeks. They brought new tools to the table – digital thermometers, ziplock bags, flashlights, new ways to label, and methods to align a small magnifying glass to their iPhones in order to get a better look at the microfossils. Click on the photo gallery below to see these young scientists at work!

 

Working without your thumb

Digital thermometers to confirm precise temperature

A flash light to reveal the insides of a “naked” egg

Ziplock bags to hold the blubber

Magnifying glass taped to a camera lens for finding microfossils

Marine microfossils discovered

Labeling each experimental condition with the object in question

Using a window for labeling and light

Measuring water transport in celery

Pennies tallied

Alyssa’s diagram of penny dirt

Modeling the human hand

 

Eric J. Simon

The educators were pretty darned creative too.  Not only did they devise fabulous inquiry ideas, but they experimented themselves and found refinements or adaptations that saved time-pressed parents from extra trips to the grocery store. Their educator superpowers were on prime display and each week I’d be impressed all over again by a new innovation or a creative way to inspire enthusiasm from a Zoom window.  Carol Williamson encouraged the kids to hold up their pollinator grid to the camera if they had something they wanted to share. Peggy Skinner suggested taping their seed germination bags to the wall, at eye-level, so that they could easily

Alyssa Wood

check in on progress each day. Eric Simon drew acid-base analogies that brought home the concept of pH. Brad Williamson tickled their imagination by showing the original site of the marine microfossils samples we sent to them by mail – in Iowa!  Alyssa Wood brought home the concept of penny dirt (aka copper oxide) and brilliant blue malachite by showing photos of the statue of liberty and wearing a lady

Peggy O’Neill Skinner

liberty head dress during the Zoom session. Nancy Monson upped their investment in the question of opposable thumbs by showing delightful photos of chimpanzees, pandas, and possums. Carol Williamson urged the kids to explore gardens, playgrounds and nearby parks looking for pollinators and then document what they found.

We decided to end the sessions with the arrival of summer – always better to leave them wanting more, right? A few good lesson emerged from all of this:

• Keep the live sessions short and punchy (attention spans and enough Zoom already…)
• It was helpful to begin each session the same way, with a familiar patter, and a map with red stars to indicate where in the world the students lived (Luca lives in Sweden!)
• Activities with an end-product seem to foster creative flourishes (those models of the human hand!)
• It’s helpful to have a few experiments that continue, beyond a week (e.g. germinating seeds) to give the students headroom for more exploration
• Even though the plan here was to give parents a break, most of the parents stayed nearby during the Zoom sessions and got involved in the investigations themselves, which only added richness
• Flexibility was key – you can’t get your hands on dried beans? No problem, try pumpkin or sunflower seeds!  No white vinegar in the house? Cider vinegar will work!
• It took kids awhile to warm up to speaking in the Zoom sessions, but by the end, they all wanted to share and many of them brought other, related items to show to the teachers and to each other

And can I just say again how fabulously creative these teachers are?  I’ve had the good fortune to work with biology educators for my entire professional career and they never cease to amaze me.

Thanks, everyone.  That was fun.

W.I.P. Photos

Do you know about Work-In-Progress (WIP) photos? This is, apparently, a widespread phenomenon in the art world. The idea is to capture images of your progress, as you work, and share the photos with other artists. What a simple idea – loaded with insights about how we learn.

In June of this year I started work on the largest mosaic I’d ever attempted. My plan was to work a big field of one-color background in order to gain proficiency on a particular cutting and laying technique. Other mosaic artists I knew encouraged me to share my “WIP photos” and so I decided to give it a try. At first it seemed like a small thing – take a few snaps while you work, upload and share. But I quickly realized, there’s more to it than that.

In order to take photos as you work, you must make a conscious decision about when to stop and document. What are the appropriate/best inflection points? What are those – when does a plan detour, what are the guidepost moments, what are the best places to reveal decision-making? I soon realized that stopping to take the photo means that I pause the work, stand back from it, take a breather and – ultimately – notice something that would have gone unnoticed without the interruption.

There are useful lessons in framing the shot. What should I include? Tools, supplies, fixatives, measurement devices? Should I clean up the workspace before the shot or is there something useful in the messiness?  It’s helpful to take a few shots at a distance, to gain perspective and maybe see a part of the room, then take a few close-up to reveal details.

When the project is complete, you discover that the WIP photos tell a story. From planning, to inception, through execution – as I flip through those photos, the decisions and trade-offs I made along the way are available to me – and to others.

 

What My Stepmother Has Taught Me About Learning

Yup, my 75-year old stepmother.

In my work with teachers and learners of all stripes, I read extensively, listen carefully to experts, and experiment with methods to most effectively coach the smart use of computer technology, social media, and online interaction in learning.  My goal is to arrive at useful principles that inform teaching and learning. But lately, I’ve realized that some of the my best material comes out of paying attention to my stepmother’s experience with her iPad.

To back up, she started three years ago with a desktop PC. That was a complete and utter failure. Not intuitive, unreliable, subject to mysterious update requirements and outages, and tethered to a room she rarely occupied. But everything changed when she got her iPad.  Here are a few of the things I’ve learned from her:

Power of Portable. The fact that she could access the tablet where ever she was – in the kitchen (for a recipe), in bed (to read the headline news), in the living room (to look up the name of that movie on television), in the car (for directions).  Lesson: The value of computing power when and where you need it.

Consider All Tool Options.  The red magnetic case I purchased for her came with a stylus. I would have never purchased a stylus for her (because I don’t use one with my iPad), but it turned out the stylus was a breakthrough. A germ thing?  A connection to a familiar tool (pen)?  The pressure or size of her fingers not working reliably?  Maybe all three, but the stylus turned out to be key.  Lesson: Avoid the mistake of assuming everyone shares your preferences.

What You Call Things Matters.  Unfortunately the basic architecture of the internet and her computing device are complete mysteries to my stepmother – and, quite honestly, she really doesn’t want to know.  For the most part, that’s ok. But occasionally her lack of understanding trips her up. For example, comprehending the difference between connecting to the internet via a nearby wireless source versus cellular data; the concept of storing documents/photos/videos online; or the mystery of “cookies”.  When she stumbles on these gaps, I’ve found it’s best to construct an analogy that has nothing to do with computing. A similar situation carved from her other interests in life. And in the conversation, completely avoid the use of acronyms and techie terms. Lesson: Meet the learner where they are.

The Fluster Factor.  When things go wrong for my stepmother and her tablet (and they do, oh lordy, they do), I’ve discovered that it’s unwise to intervene immediately. By the time she calls me, she’s been at it for awhile, trying to figure it out on her own. She’s flustered. Upset, frustrated, and ready to chuck the whole thing in the garbage. My strategy has been to suggest she put it away and we’ll talk about it tomorrow. Give her a chance to recover her composure and get some distance from it. Once we do go at it again (typically over the phone), it helps for me to have my iPad in front of me and walk through the situation right along with her. That way I can attempt to translate the diagnostic information she’s providing.  It was only when I had my iPad in hand that I could correctly connect her lament that “Google won’t come up” to the fact that the icon for her browser had disappeared from the task bar. Lesson: Best to solve problems with cool heads and calm psyches.

Reflection and Pride. Over time I’ve learned to remind my stepmother of what she’s mastered. When a new problem crops up or there’s a new function she wants to learn, I start by reminding her of the path she’s been on and asking her for insight on her achievement . “Remember when you started with the iPad and you were nervous about using the camera?  Those photos you took of your grandson’s soccer game last week were quite good – how did you take that action shot?” When she reflects on her success, she inevitably comes up with some insight that would have never occurred to me (for instance, it was important to her picture-taking to completely remove the iPad cover to lighten it and find a way to steady her hands). I’ve noticed that she likes to bring the iPad (with its bright red cover) with her to events – in part to take photos, but also to let people know that she has one  – and uses it. She takes tremendous pride in mastering this piece of 21st century equipment (as well she should) and wearing her accomplishments like a badge of honor is deeply rewarding for her. Lesson:  Attagirls and reflection on successes deepens satisfaction and leads to insights.

Personal Motivation.  I repeatedly made the mistake of introducing a new app to her because I thought she’d like it. I finally figured out (doh) the importance of leading with the need and then introducing the app as the solution. My stepmother wanted to talk with her friend in the U.K.  Perfect vehicle for introducing Skype.  Her desire to communicate with her friend carried her through the difficulty of learning a new application and persevering to figure things out. She doesn’t think in terms of VoIP or of Skype, she thinks in terms of the blue button that allows her to talk with Sue. Lesson:  A learner will persist longer and with more diligence if they are motivated by what is important to them.

So, there you have it. I’m grateful for the chance to learn right along with her.

An Online Course in Person

Al Filreis and ModPo students at The Center for the Book gathering.

Something unusual was going on at The Center for Book in San Francisco yesterday. In a museum devoted to the fine art of print book making, a group of 60 people, who’d never met before, gathered over their common interest in an online course.

Modern & Contemporary American Poetry (better known as “ModPo”) is an introductory poetry course, taught online by Dr. Al Filreis. The winner of numerous teaching awards, Filreis is Director of the Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing and Faculty Director of the Kelly Writers House at University of Pennsylvania. In 2012 he introduced the ModPo course, through Coursera, and 42,000 students showed up. Since then, he and his graduate students have offered the course every year, refining and adjusting the ways they knit together that many students, spread all over the globe.

Meet-ups like yesterday offer a perfect peek into the tools and methods they leverage to create the feeling of an intimate and personal learning experience with 42,000 people.

[I took the course in 2012 and blogged about it here and here]

Invitations prior to the event went out via Twitter (@ModPotPenn), Facebook and email (once you’ve enrolled in the course, you are a member of the ModPo community). There were about 60 people in attendance, with Al and his crew who video-recorded our meet-up (for later use in the ModPo 2016 course).  Before they started taping, he invited each person there (all 60 of us) to share our name and connection to the course.

What a range – high schoolers, high school teachers, physicists, office workers, software engineers, and retirees. There were two mother-daughter pairs and one dapper, older gent who came with his daughter. The daughter, Kate, took the course last year and “brought her father along, as she knew he would be interested.” When she introduced her Dad and I nearly fell off my chair – it was David Perlman. David Perlman of science journalism fame! For those of you who don’t know him, Perlman is a lauded science reporter for the SF Chronicle.  He is now 94 years old and is still reporting.  Turns out, before he took on the science beat, he covered the obscenity trial over Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” in 1957.

But back to the gathering. In advance of the event, Filreis had sent us all links to two poems – Joanne Kyger’s When I used to focus on the worries and Larry Eigner’s Bookshelf.  We proceeded to do a “close read” of them both.  This is a method that Filreis and his graduate students employ throughout the online course, delivered via video recorded sessions and, on occasion, live webcasts from the Kelly Writers House. He kicks it off with a little background on the poet and then reads the poem aloud. Then he assigns lines, words, or inflection points to particular people. Although I’ve watched this process many times, when taking the course myself, I was quite taken with the way it played out in this setting. Afterall, there were 60 of us and we aren’t graduate students!  Here’s how it goes… “Becky, I’m going to ask you to talk about the first two lines in just a minute and then, after that, Carolyn, I’d like to hear what you have to say about the use of the pronoun ‘he’ in the third line, then we’ll circle over to Jack and see what he thinks of the way that stanza holds together.  Ok, Becky – tell me what you think.”  By doing it this way, Filreis controls the way it plays out. He also gives each person invited to share a few minutes to prepare, to think about it.  

Here’s a snippet, recorded on my iPhone, to give you a feel for his approach.

ModPoRecording

Filreis clearly has a map to the poem, his own interpretation, in his head, and he nudges us through it. Line by line, word by word. When you are sharing your ideas, he’ll pull it out of you. “What about that phrase?  And who does that remind you of? What does that line “there’s a different slant” make you think of?” He’ll often say something like, “that’s a really interesting interpretation – tell me more about that.” Turns out, he confessed to us, he learned this method of teaching from therapy. And once he said that, it all fell into place for me – of course. These ModPo sessions do feel amazingly similar a therapy session.  

But it’s not as though there is just one interpretation he’s attempting to press us all into. There were competing ideas, not everyone agreed – discussion ensued, just as it should be.

It’s quite impressive to see how well this worked. Here we were, a big group of amateurs (some he knew, many he didn’t), and we moved our way through those two poems in the most satisfying manner. I had read them in advance, and liked them both, but I left the session with new insight and respect for both poets. Not one interpretation of them, but shades of meaning, insights into possibilities, and so much respect for the power of word choice, spacing, rhythm, and the nature of the poems.

By the end of the session, we’d all offered our thoughts, shared ideas, and there was this frisson of enthusiasm, excitement, zest for the poems (and the poets) we’d just read.  Something that could have never been achieved solo (at least for me).

These close reading sessions work very well in the online course but I definitely had a richer appreciation for the process after seeing it in action  face-to-face. When I enroll in ModPo ’16, I’ll have a much deeper understanding and connection to this pedagogical approach.

It’s also clear that the course development team have really learned to leverage the platform and an array of tools to provide a well functioning sandbox for community.  Community and connection feel alive and well in ModPo.  And the rich tapestry of the ModPo membership only serves to deepen that feeling of connection. In attendance at the meet-up was a young woman from China who happened to be on vacation in San Francisco, got the word about the event, and showed up. Could that same strength of connection arise from a course in biochemistry or law?  I hope so, but there’s no denying that poetry offers a unique doorway to the exploration of the individual, relationships, values, and the connections between us.

Taking a moment here to recognize and revel in the myriad methods this course presses into service. Print and digital, synchronous and asynchronous, in person and virtual, listening and speaking, contemplating and sharing. That’s a key lesson we’re learning in this world of online education isn’t it? Hybrid works. The best of each approach, use the right tool for the job, no one right answer, blend your methods and make a custom concoction to fit the unique challenges and concepts of your material.

And only connect.

Retrieval Practice and Ed Tech

From July 18,2014 NYT, Sunday Review

Last month, the NYTimes ran an education article entitled How Tests Make Us Smarter, by Henry Roedigger [July 18, 2014]. The basic idea put forth in the article was that frequent testing begets frequent retrieval of the tested information; the more often we attempt to retrieve information as we learn it, the more sophisticated mental structures we create around it, the better it sticks.

Roedigger’s piece sent me off on a hunt for the original research cited in the article.  That led me to this article authored by Jeffrey Karpicke and Janell Blunt (Purdue University):

Retrieval Practice Produces More Learning than Elaborative Studying with Concept Mapping, [January 2011]

Their research points to the conclusion that testing provides retrieval practice and, as such, works as a memory modifier – it strengths the information in the learner’s brain, making it more likely to be recalled later. In their article, Karpicke and Blunt cite the researcher, Robert Bjork, a cognitive psychologist at UCLA who has, hands-down, the best lab name I’ve ever heard, “The Learning and Forgetting Lab”. Bjork is well-known in education circles for coining the phrase “desirable difficulties”. His cog psych research points to the conclusion that roughening up the learning path (“desirable difficulties”) leads to greater retention and comprehension. The practice conditions that produce desirable difficulties are spacing (distributing practice over time), interleaving (for example, mixing in equal parts tutorials and practice problems), and testing (retrieval).  Bjork talks about the “study-study-study-TEST” model versus the (preferred) “study-test-test-test” model. I’ve blogged about Bjork’s work previously.  Here is a good explanation of his research, When and Why Introducing Difficulties and Errors Can Enhance Instruction, Courtney Clark and Robert Bjork (UCLA)

The key take-home in both Bjork’s and Karpicke’s work is the importance of using testing as a learning tool instead of just as an assessment tool. Frequent, low-stakes, formative testing, companioned with timely feedback, allows learners to strengthen their retrieval and rehearse the correct information.

With this research base in mind, the next natural step is to address the practical question of how best to provide regular retrieval practice? How to encourage practice that enhances learning in the classroom and doesn’t add to the feeling of being tested to death. To my mind, that’s where educational technology comes in. With tablets or laptops in the hands of each student in a wired classroom, educators can construct lesson plans around frequent, low-stake performances that provide regular feedback.  For instance, reflective blog posts, short student presentations, practice problems, and peer-to-peer teaching in small groups.

The interesting thing about this way of looking at educational technology, is that it doesn’t drive the change – it becomes a facilitating tool.  First you want to improve teaching/learning, next you examine what the educational literature tells us about what works, and then you look for the tools to help drive that change.

An Irrigation System Comes with a Teaching/Learning Lesson

New garden installation.

We’ve recently installed a new front garden – a nice bevy of native and drought-tolerant plants, along with a bit of functional hardscape (I’m learning the landscaping terminology) in the form of a meandering pathway to the front door. In addition to improving the patches on all sides of our home, it’s turned out that this garden project has awarded other benefits – useful lessons in teaching and learning and a well-timed reminder of how incredibly difficult it is to do this education stuff right.

Our guide on this project, Liz Simpson, is an experienced landscape designer, who specializes in native plants.  I’ve worked with her on and off for the last six months, planning, sketching, preparing the soil, etc. and have found her delightful to work with – flexible, clear-thinking, and imaginative. In an attempt to marshall the budget on this project, I volunteered to be the laborer, along with my husband. That meant that we did the sheet mulching (see earlier post), the soil preparation, the digging and planting, and, eventually, the installation of a drip irrigation system.  Needless to say, there was a lot to learn.

The actual installation took place over a three-day period – 197 plants and lots of mulch.  Liz was there the whole time, overseeing the work, making sure we plopped the plants in the right places and heaving the flagstones into place herself, with the help of two, strong-backed helpers. It was all hard work, no doubt about it, but we got it done and were very happy with the results.

Irrigation system parts.

Then came the irrigation system.  These are drought-tolerant plants, but they do need some water, and given our current complete lack of rainfall in California, the drip system was called for. Liz brought over all the gear – tubing, emitters, brackets, couplers, goof plugs (my personal favorite) – and gave me a thorough tutorial on how to assemble the bits and pieces into a working system.  It’s a bit like a tinker toy operation.  The parts are designed to fit together, snap in place, and be flexibly positioned so that each plant has its own wee stream of water delivered right to its root ball.

Paper plan.

Liz had carefully assembled all of the components of a productive teaching and learning experience for me.  She would explain, demonstrate, and give me resources – then I would be on my own for the ultimate assessment – a properly installed system.  I listened carefully to Liz’s “lecture”, watched her as she “demonstrated”, consulted the overall irrigation paper plan (“textbook”), and felt confident in my ability to complete the job.

Sound familiar?  Bet you know where I’m going with this.

Two days later, we set out to install the thing. It quickly became apparent that this was going to be harder than I’d thought.  There were elements that weren’t covered in my “lesson”, nuances to the execution that were eluding me. For one thing, the black, mainline hose turned into a serpent creature, taking on unforetold behaviors, roiling in unexpected directions and just generally being a pain in the ass. Furthermore, in what order should we work – should I lay out the hose first, stake it down, and then punch holes for the emitters?  Or is it better to install each emitter as you worked, laying out the hose in small segments? Complicating the whole enterprise was the fact that the “punch and insert” action required to add the emitters was extremely difficult – first, you have to get the hole just right (straight on, not at an angle) and then, when you push in the emitter, the hose sort of collapses on you, failing in the face of all that pressure and pushing (I distinctly heard it mocking me).  What’s more, everything has a proper orientation that must be remembered – right side in, path of water to plant, uphill versus downhill. What had, at first, sounded like a pretty straight-up affair was quickly turning into a Herculian task that I felt less and less qualified to complete. My fingers and hands fatigued quickly and we opted for a tag-team approach, I’d punch the hole, my husband would come along behind and land the emitter (later, it became apparent that was a very bad plan).

By hook or by crook, we finished the first half of the system and decided to call it a day.  Not only were we both wiped out, I thought it wise to ask Liz to review our work, just to make sure we were on track, before starting the second half.

When she arrived to check out our progress, I could tell by the look on her face that our performance had not met the grade. We failed the assessment. In fact, we were destined for remedial work. In addition to improper hose placement, incorrect distances (emitter to plant) we had installed every single emitter backwards. Yup, you heard me, backwards.

Good grief.  Ok, let’s just review for a minute.  Liz had done everything that a teacher should do with a naive student:

1.  Explanation. She explained the content, using language the learner understood, giving clear examples, making helpful analogies.

2.  Demonstrate.  She demonstrated the method for me, then had me do one with her watching (“watch one, do one”).

3.  Reference.  She left me with a detailed description in print for reference, should I need it.

So, what went wrong?  A dissection of this mess-up is kind of interesting, actually (that is, when I can get over the humiliation of being so colossally mistaken).  First, let’s take a look at the emitter:

Drip system emitter.

Liz’s description was to insert the red side into the hose and the black side would face out.  Couldn’t be easier, right? Not only that, but if you look at the structure of the beast, you can clearly see that the red side is fashioned to accept the water flow and the black side is crafted to “emit” water. But somehow, I got it in my head that the black side would go in to the mainline hose …it matched with the black of the hose, it made a continuous color whole, whatever.  That was the model I had in my head.  And even though she left me a correctly completed example and it was written down on the printed irrigation plan (in words, not pictures, I should point out), my misconception was firmly established and I proceeded to install each and every emitter with the black side in and the red side out. Wow.

I suspect that a picture might have made a difference for me.  Either a photograph or a colored diagram, showing insert A to B here, in this way.  Why the actual physical model of a properly completed one didn’t serve that purpose completely baffles me.

It’s also worth taking a moment to ponder why I didn’t more carefully scrutinize the structure of the emitter itself. If I’d studied its functional design and reasoned my way toward a complete understanding of why the red side goes in, I suspect that would have helped. I suspect that understanding the orientation – as opposed to memorizing the color scheme in a garanimals approach – might have worked. But it did not occur to me to do that. Does that have to do with my lack of experience in building/assembling? Or is is a lack of native how-to sensibility?

What’s more, I suspect the number of details to keep track of got in the way; as if my brain could only hold onto so much information and just plowed ahead with its own managerial method. As we worked the logic of my approach felt more and more rationalized.  Of course, this is the way to do it!

Interestingly, when Liz came to inspect the work, undoubtedly taking pity on us, she stayed for the rest of the morning and we finished the remaining circuit all together. This allowed lots of ongoing observation and regular check ins.  “Do you mean, like this?”  “How deep exactly should the hose be buried?”  “Where do you put your thumb when you punch the hole?” The opportunity to watch her in action over a sustained period made a significant difference – wrestling with the main line hose, tapping in the brackets, how she kept her tools nearby, the way she positioned her body in relation to the hose when punching the emitter hole. I gained a much deeper and more practical insight into the proper method, not to mention the hard-to-explain-in-words nuances of the approach. It also allowed me to ask context-specific questions and get the answers when I needed them.

So, bottom line, our little exercise in irrigation underscores a couple of important education reminders:

• Pictures really make a difference.
• We hang onto our misconceptions with a death-grip.
• The apprentice model really works.

Now.  If I can just remember….red in.  black out.

Learning Feels Different

I grew up surrounded by music teachers. My mother was a piano teacher and her father, my grandfather, taught violin, guitar, and piano. They both taught students in their living quarters so my own home and my grandparent-visits were woven through with the sounds and sights of music lessons. The line up of nervous children waiting their turn, the dissonant sound of songs not quite mastered, the ritual tones of fitful tuning, the repetition and nervous laughter. If you’ve ever heard “Tuna Fish” pounded out on the piano keyboard by a well-meaning eight-year-old, well, you’ll know just what I mean.

Though I lacked the native talent of my matriarchal lineage, growing up without learning to play an instrument just wasn’t an option. I started with the piano, but my instrument of choice was guitar. I learned mostly by imitating others and through sporadic lessons. Once I’d left home my guitar stayed with me but it mostly hung out under my bed, collecting dust. Occasionally I’d feel the itch to play, pick it up and quickly put it back when I realized how rusty I’d become and how little I remembered.

Recently I decided to pick up the thread. By luck I found a very good guitar teacher, Wayne Anderson, who is a perfect match to my ambition (gentle, non-intimidating, and relaxed). We meet once a week for 30 minutes.

It didn’t take long for it to feel familiar again – the comfort of the instrument’s wooden swell on my lap, the companionship of working a pattern out in my head, and the dull ache on the fingertips of my left hand.

But what was completely unfamiliar and a delightful surprise is how guitar teaching has changed.  Wayne’s approach to my lessons, as facilitated by digital tools, is a completely different animal to the way my mother and my grandfather taught.

Pitch Lab’s tuner screen shot.

The differences begin with the most commonplace of lesson openers – tuning the instrument. Wayne introduced me to a number of apps for my iPhone. After looking them over, I downloaded a free, easy-to-use app from Pitch Labs. Flawless, no-sweat tuning, every time.

Next up, there are no books. Gone are the color-coded Schwann’s piano books, clutched nervously in sweaty fingers with scribbled annotations in the margins as the lesson proceeds. Wayne has a laptop and printer in our small cubicle of a practice room. When we’re working on a new piece, he finds the guitar tabs or sheet music online and prints it out for me. Voila.

As we work together to figure out the piece, assess the timing, and decipher the picking technique he searches for a YouTube video of the song, as played by the songwriter. Bob Dylan, Antje Duvekot, Leonard Cohen, the Avett Brothers, and Joan Baez regularly visit my practice cubicle.

When we’re working on a particularly tricky element we make use of the recording option on my cell phone. Last week, for example, I was struggling with Travis picking. After many failed attempts, I was finally getting it. Wayne gestured to my phone, suggesting I might want to capture this, while the going was good. I propped the phone up on the music stand, pressed record, and did my bit. Back at home, practicing, if I fumbled (which I did regularly), I could just pull out my phone and hear myself picking the right way. I can also recorded Wayne playing and, and in so doing, take my teacher home with me.

On my own I’ve found countless (and I mean thousands and thousands) of excellent instructional videos.  Really good guitar teachers, showing you step-by-step, how to play non-trivial songs on the guitar like Blackbird or Freight Train (seriously, do a search). Often the video production values are so good they’ll show you the right and left hand on a split screen or the musical tabbing along with playing top-to-bottom. Videos are, of course, endlessly patient. I play, stop, rewind, and fast-forward them as needed.

My teacher also makes use of software called Scorch as a teaching device. He bought the software, I have the free plug-in. Wayne will create a scorch file from a piece of sheet music and share it with me. With my plug-in, I can play the song on my laptop and control the speed, slowing it down to match my learner’s pace, and play along with it. Huge.

I haven’t even touched on the various ways to record tracks, edit sound recordings, and write music (I’m so not there yet), but even at my amateur state I can see that teaching and learning music has fundamentally changed.

 

 

 

 

 

History and Future of (Mostly) Higher Education

FutureEd

The History and Future of (Mostly) Higher Education MOOC (#FutureEd) has begun.  We’re now in week #2 (of six weeks) and, so far, it’s been a real eye-opener. Cathy Davidson (Duke University, author of Now You See It) is our ring leader, instructor, coach, and provocateur.  The course, like education itself, is made up of many moving parts.  There are the videos – short segments featuring Cathy, so far explaining the historical context for the conversation; the readings; the online forums – lively conversation; the personal assignments – optional, depending on how you are taking the course; and, of course, the myriad other social connections made through Twitter, Facebook, Wordles, and the blogs of the enrolled students.

The goal of the course is to thoroughly explore our American education system, which was primarily designed to prepare workers and leaders for the industrial age, and strategize together, as a community, about how we can change that to fit the era we live in now – the information age.

Until today my pleasure in the course has been mostly private.  I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the readings and the videos, done some exploration in the Forums, wrote a short entry on my favorite teacher (Mrs. Hirschfelder – chemistry) and certainly, I’ve done a lot of mulling and processing.  But today, I was able to take that private mulling to a whole new level with a terrific group of fellow thinkers and FutureEd travelers in the virtual world.  My friend and colleague Liz Dorland (Chimera Cosmos in Second Life; @ldinstl_chimera) organized a group of FutureEd study group to meet and discuss the course as avatars in Second Life.

Our FutureEd study group meeting in Second Life

There were nine of us to join the cozy campfire circle on the Tufts University island, many of us meeting for the first time (here are a few more pictures of the gathering).  We hailed from Pennsylvania, Missouri, California, Washington, Belgium, Scotland, Brazil.  Fellow travelers and adventurers in education.  We talked about our experience thus far in the course, the ideas in the FutureEd videos, other MOOCs we’ve taken (or started, rather), connectivism, immersiveness, the advantages of small group meetings, differences in education traditions between the U.S. and other countries represented by the group, oculus rift, advantages/disadvantages of online learning….in other words, we covered a lot of ground in one hour.

It was a terrific group of smart people, looking to connect and deepen their understanding.  If that sounds like something you’d like to try – join us.  We  plan to meet every Monday at noon SLT (Pacific time).  And here is the SLurl for our starting location (we will take some field trips as well). If you have questions about setting up SL and getting in to join us, comment below and we’ll figure it out together.

The Second Time Around

This time around, I know where to sit.

I’m heading out to my ceramics class for the second time.  Because I have a fairly precise idea of my route and how long it took the last time, I leave the house allowing enough time, taking previous traffic patterns into account. When I arrive, I know the best and safest place to park (having been advised at the first class). I make my way into the building, up the stairs, a quick visit to the bathroom, and right to the studio.

I recognize my fellow students, nod hello, store my bag on one of the hooks, and don an apron from the supply nearby. I know where the clay is kept and which board to use for wedging. I pick out an open table area and start to work, applying the procedures demonstrated to us in the first class.

I pause for a moment and realize how much more fun and interesting – less stressful – learning feels tonight.

When learning something new, the second time through gives us such a measurably different experience.  You have a context, you see the whole, you can better estimate the time it will take, you feel less lost, you feel less anxious.

This post from Annie Murphy Hall talks about the added expertise an older adult brings to a learning situation.  Apparently researchers report that older people (as in over 65 years of age) show less variability in their cognitive performance over 100 days of testing than younger people.  The researchers cite “learned strategies” – their problem solving ability, along with a balanced daily routine and stable mood.  I would add that, due to their years of experience, they are more likely to have faced a similar problem and can retrieve a solution (or a partial one) that makes for approaching this new cognitive task as if it were the second time.  Easier.

What Else am I Learning?

Think on this a minute.  Can you come up with a scenario where the skills you acquired learning one thing, helped you do another?  For instance, did learning how to ride a bike help you learn how to ski?  Did learning how to tie your shoes help you to learn how to braid your hair?

This week I watched this happen with two people learning to work with social media and virtual worlds.  In one case, the person had previously worked with Blackboard Elluminate (running regular webinars).  I went into the virtual world of Second Life with her and she took to it like a duck to water.  All that pesky troubleshooting around sound issues in Second Life?  Not a problem.  She had the whole “triage” problem solving method down cold.  As in….first check your computer volume (on mute?), then your headset (plugged in the right way?), then your computer sound preferences (set to the right thing?), then SL preferences….and so on.  I didn’t have to explain a thing.  You wouldn’t think that a webinar platform like Elluminate and a 3D virtual world like Second Life would have all that much in common!

In another instance it was someone learning how to use Pixton. She had never used the comic creation tool before but because she was a photographer, she quickly grasped the notion of frames and layout.  In addition to that, Pixton has these somewhat confusing case-sensitive tool buttons where you only see the tool buttons that relate to what you are doing. In other words, you see a different set of buttons if you’ve clicked on a character than if you clicked on a speech bubble. Many people get muddled with these.  But not in this case.  As we worked further, it became clear that this person was transferring an understanding of case-sensitive tools that she earned using Photoshop.

Fascinating. In addition to the pleasure in seeing media skills transfer from one situation/tool to another, there’s another, harder to describe, benefit that seems to come along for the ride. I observed that my friend in the first scenario was just more patient, more resilient with the Second Life technical issues because she’s been there before.  She’d seen similar technical problems through to a positive conclusion, and that gave her the confidence to press on.  She possessed the certain knowledge that, eventually, she’d figure it out.

When I’m working with learners on new skills or concepts, all too often they just seem to give up – abandon ship – before they get to the fun part. Perhaps one way to diffuse this tendency is to reassure them – online tool use and technical problem solving are a cumulative things.  The more you do, the more you can do.