Classroom Geeks

Aaron and I are going to be speaking up at the Monterey CUE conference on “presentation technology” in a few weeks–using SmartBoards, ACTIVBoards, PowerPoint, LCD projectors, etc., in the classroom. We’re working on the presentation, putting together the PowerPoint and everything, and keeping our audience in mind, of course: CUE geeks (no offense!), with some tech sophistication.

In preparation for that talk, I offered to deliver the same presentation to teachers at my school, and a little too late realized my mistake: my local teachers are a completely different audience, and require a completely different talk, strategy, slideshow, etc. Even then, I ended up giving two separate presentations, one for the Middle School teachers, and one for the Lower School teachers. Let me tell you about it…

The first Presentation Technology talk was for the Middle School, a voluntary, after-school meeting for any of our 6th-8th grade teachers. I’d emailed them all, and sent out a reminder, and dragged over a basket of goodies and a cooler full of Perrier, Frappacinos, and Diet Cokes for them… One person showed up, and it wasn’t even a teacher–it was our Student Support Services Coordinator, who wanted to know what the technology could do for our students with special needs. We pulled some chairs together and I ran the show on my laptop while we chatted informally, which turned out to be a nice, pleasant way of running the session. What a lousy turnout, though.

The second talk was for the Lower School teachers, who were gathering in the library for one of their usual staff meetings. I was first on the agenda, so while they happily munched on crackers and grapes, I conducted a more formal presentation this time, clicking through the slides (mostly graphics, not much text), and pointing out some of the potential benefits to incorporating this technology–even on a limited basis–in their teaching. Lots of interest, lots of laughs, a good give-and-take, a great Q & A session, and by the end of it all, a good number of teachers leaning over to their colleagues and saying “You know, I could totally use that for…”

So why such big differences between the two experiences? Why was one meeting brilliant, and the other a bust? I’m trained as a scientist so I’ve got multiple working hypotheses on this:

• One meeting was required. The fact that the session for the Lower School teachers took place during their regularly scheduled meeting was obviously a big factor in attendance.
• The 6th grade teachers already use presentation technology. That removes a third of my audience for the Middle School session right there.
• Middle School Teachers were busy getting ready for parent conferences the following week. Okay, maybe I’ll buy that.

What else? Any ideas?

Some of our Upper School teachers are able to find time to attend sessions like this, but it’s a problem across the whole school: How do we find time in a busy day that we can use to expose our teachers to the cool things that technology can do for them?

I don’t know if there’s ever a good time to ask teachers–overworked, underappreciated, underpaid–to give up some of the precious time to check out the stuff that geeks just salivate over naturally… but I’ve had pretty good luck at my school so far. Best case scenario is that you steal a little time from one of those Staff Development Days that has the unfortunate tendency to be a little dreary; people are MORE than happy to come hang out for a little while. Anything but another motivational speaker, please!

But I’ve had some luck with the teachers I work with. Most of our hands-on workshops happen after school, 3:15-4:15 or so, and we typically get 8-15 people attending from our faculty of 120+, which isn’t bad considering it’s all voluntary. I don’t skimp on the refreshments–I figure it’s the least I can do to honor my guests. Bottled Starbuck’s frappacinos, chips, candy, an ice chest full of sodas and bottled water… Maybe someday I’ll have the courage to ask my tech director to compensate me for the grocery bill.

Today, though, was a surgical strike. Bring your lunch and hang out in a dark room for fifteen minutes while I run through my favorite features in the new Leopard OS X. I’m shameless: I sent out an email to the school last week, sent out a reminder email yesterday, and targeted individuals that I thought might enjoy it.

Next thing you know, there’s a roomful of people hanging out and watching 3-way iChats and the gee-whiz Time Machine interface. It was great!

Tomorrow, I’ve got an afterschool presentation to the Middle School on “non-interactive whiteboards,” a warm-up for the presentation at the CUE conference in Monterey in a few more weeks…

Well it looks like we might have to take a week off from the podcast, the cold that I’ve been fighting has settled in my throat and the only thing I can get out is a modest croak. Makes teaching a little difficult, fortunately we’re doing a lab most of this week and I only need to give some instructions at the beginning of the period. In the past I’ve used al manor of tricks to keep on teaching. If, like me, your using a microphone to record your lectures you can use some computer speakers to amplify your voice. You could also write up your lecture but that is a good deal of work. So far I’ve just been whispering, but if things aren’t better by Monday, I’ll be getting the speakers out!

AAron

2 F’s and 2 C’s

I suppose it isn’t everything that needs to get reduced to viewing through the eyes of some arbitrary filter. “2 F’s and 2 C’s” is the title of this post, and it immediately brings to mind grades on a report card–maybe that’s not a surprising assumption in an education blog. But Fs and Cs is just a cute allusion to a world view, the world of grades at school, and that’s not really what this post is supposed to be about.

No, this is about the 2 F’s and 2 C’s that, at least at this stage of the game for me, are vital to the learning process. The 2 F’s and 2 C’s are what drive me in the classroom, that drive whatever activity I have on the web, and–it occurs to me–what drives most educational processes, including the the heady mix of pleasure and pain that occupies the minds of my students most of the time. Understand these, and you the whole learning process becomes clear.

2 F’s and 2 C’s

1. Content
I don’t want to go into any great length about this, but it’s clear that for anyone’s class, website, or learning experience to be of any value, there needs to be *some* sort of content contained therein. Otherwise, we’re just babysitting. The form of the content varies wildly, of course–from learning the names of colors and the alphabet, to throwing a ball, to learning Riemann sums, to dancing–but there’s always some sort of content being explored, and new neural pathways being formed. This is what we do.

2. Fun
It’s important, though, that this learning experience have some degree of fun associated with it. A colleague of mine a few years ago, Mel Schram, was especially successful with at-risk, hard-to-teach students because he was willing to sacrifice a little of his content for having a little more fun in his science classroom. “If I can get them to have some fun in the process, then maybe I can teach them a little something along the way. But if they’re not having any fun, well… I’ve lost them from day one.” I thought that was a remarkably profound thought, but then again, he established his authority at the beginning of the school year by taking a large club and smashing a hole in one of his classroom tables, so… take maybe his advice should be taken with a grain of salt.

And maybe not all classes have to be absolutely “fun,” but they certainly need to be rewarding in some way. Otherwise, what’s the point?

3. Feedback
Everyone needs feedback: evaluation, comments and notes on what one is doing well, and what one needs to alter or improve. We get this in our daily lives from hundreds of places, but as teachers, the most obvious feedback comes in the form of our students’ reactions to us in the classroom. Facial expressions, whining, laughter, test performances, all give us indications of how we’re performing for our students in the classroom.

And of course, our students rely on us for feedback, and they, too, receive this in lots of different ways. To my way of thinking, it’s vital that students get feedback from us, early and often. Name your process–class discussions, homework, quizzes, essays, portfolios, tests, presentations–and that’s where the evaluation (and thus, the feedback) happens. Without that feedback, learning becomes random.

4. Coffee
Okay, maybe this is just me, but none of this happens without serious doses of artificial stimulant. I don’t know if you’re doing betel nuts, mate, coca leaves, or Coca-Cola, but caffeine has become a fact of life for me and for a surprising number of my students. I’m not saying this is a good thing, but I’m not much use to anyone in the morning without a mug of Peet’s desperately clutched in one hand.

That’s just the way it is, that’s all I’m saying!

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Thanks for checking in on us. We’ll see you around…!