6. Adult learners want: Relevant topics Things to be practical To be self-directed To have choices To build on or relate to their own experiences To practice, reflect, and share
8. Three things that motivate us: Autonomy Mastery Purpose Daniel Pink, Drive
9. Painting the picket fence "Tom said to himself that it was not such a hollow world, after all. He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it–namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. If he had been a great and wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would now have comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is OBLIGED to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do."
10. What do you teach that is fun? What do you really look forward to teaching?Be the person who most wants to be there.
11. Where is my focus? Is it on the material? Or is it on the learner?
13. Strategies for Active Learning Engage participants from the start Encourage discussion Create an environment that makes people feel good about participating Let participants learn from one another Trust your participants Work with a co-instructor
15. Create a learning community in the session Think of the session not just as individuals learning but as a community collaborating Create a safe and comfortable environment Help people connect (with one another, with the topic, with you) Organized flexibility Let them DO… discussion/activities, etc.
16. Active learning examples Discussion Storytelling Pair share Snowball fight Scavenger hunt Jeopardy Question sharing Top 10 lists Bingo Book club approach Teach mini lessons Essay contest Speed dating Postcard follow-up
17. Snowball Fight Here’s how it works: participants write their questions down on sheets of paper, crumple the papers into snowballs, and toss their snowballs at others in the class. Everyone retrieves a snowball, unravels it, reads the question, and attempts to respond.
18. How to get students to find and read 94 articles before the next class Rather than handing students a syllabus with a list of articles they should read, students were asked to find, read and summarize articles for class. Michael Wesch
22. Storytelling "When facts become so widely available and instantly accessible, each one becomes less valuable. What begins to matter more is the ability to place these facts in context and to deliver them with emotional impact. And that is the essence of the aptitude of Story - context enriched by emotion." Daniel Pink, A Whole New Mind
28. The 3 things that motivate us: Autonomy Mastery Purpose Daniel Pink, Drive
29. Adult learners want: Relevant topics Things to be practical To be self-directed To have choices To build on or relate to their own experiences To practice, reflect, and share
30. The golden rule of facilitating learning Do unto others as you would have them do unto you
Welcome! Thank you so much to K-LIRT and SCKLS for inviting me. This is one of my favorite topics and it’s great to be with a group of like minded people – people who also enjoy thinking about instruction and how to make it really effective. My topic is active learning. Active learning is the opposite of lecture. It’s getting participants in instructional sessions engaged and taking charge of their own learning. Mel Silberman – was an education professor – frequently associated with active learning
Get people thinking about what you are saying and how it relates to their own experience.
Anyone read Daniel Pink’s book Drive –the subtitle is the surprising truth about what motivates us – it’s a book about motivation – spends a lot of time looking at motivation in the workplace, but also in educational settings. The opposite of autonomy is compliance. And since they sit at different poles of the behavioral compass, they point us toward different destinations. Control leads to compliance; autonomy to engagement. the desire to get better and better at something that matters.Do students see the purpose of an assignment? Do they see how it connects to bigger picture?
Pink refers to the Tom Sawyer effectTom has to whitewash fence and gets other kids to do itBy making them think it’s funadding a sense of autonomy and mastery to an otherwise dreary task can turn something that is work into playfulness.When we consider this.. the tom sawyer effect… how does it impact instruction we provide?
One of the things I often hear is people saying they don’t have enough time to include interactions because they have so much material to cover. A good instructor is not driven by getting through a certain amount of material, but is driven by constantly trying to gauge the experiences of each learner — letting people make mistakes and figure out answers, helping people build their confidence. It’s what makes teaching so challenging, but also what makes each class a unique and interesting experience.Banking education – Paolo Freire“banking” concept of education, in which the student was viewed as an empty account to be filled by the teacher. He notes that, “it transforms students into receiving objects. It attempts to control thinking and action, leads men and women to adjust to the world, and inhibits their creative power”(not new – Rousseau, Dewey)
On the yellow sheet of paper describe a class you going to teach or want to teach. Describe the topic briefly. Now as we go on… keep jotting things down on that paper, Think about ways to incorporate active learning strategies into the class. Ex of the workshops I recently attended – saw the same presentation done 4 times around our region. The change I saw when just a bit of interaction was added.
Bell work Less sage on the stage and more guide on the side
John Keller’s model of learner motivationA = attention – grab the participant’s attention, make them curious and interestedR = relevance – help participants see the relevance of the topic to their work or life – link to their interestsC = confidence – create opportunities for the participants to build their confidence regarding the topicS = satisfaction – participants should leave the training session feeling SATISFIED – they should feel like they have accomplished something
so that everyone becomes a trainer-teacher-learner and no one holds back on asking questions for fear of appearing stupid.
ZohoCreator helped pull it all together in an online database that was easily accessible for the class members. The topic was online anonymity and you can see the product of the student work here.
One year at the Arizona Library conference, a colleague and I hosted a 2.0 Bingo game to introduce people to web 2.0 terms. We recruited people on the fly and ended up with about 17 players, standing in a circle in the exhibit hall. We had used a free online tool to generate Bingo cards, which included terms like Flickr, blog, wiki, etc. We took turns calling out terms. Individuals in the group then defined the term or talked about how they had used the tool. Someone in the group was able to define each of the terms. The only one that was new to all of the participants was Slideshare. Players marked the terms off on a card as they were defined, until finally someone filled a row and shouted, “Bingo!” We continued until 3 prizes were given away. Everyone seemed to have fun and I think people learned new things, too. It’s definitely a technology learning technique I’ll use again.
A coworker and I met recently to plan an instruction session for a 101-level class. All we had to work with was the time constraint (the stereotypical 50 minutes) and a very vague assignment that required the students to write a research paper. We talked about our objectives. We talked about how to accomplish those objectives. The process was slightly complicated by the fact that we didn’t know exactly what their assignment was (despite asking the professor), nor did we know how much library instruction the students had already received.After some discussion, we eventually decided to wing it. Using an idea from Designs for Active Learning: A Sourcebook of Classroom Strategies for Information Education, we decided to go to the class armed only with some index cards. Our plan was to put the students into groups, ask them what THEY thought they needed to know about using the library successfully, and create the lesson with their input.We were both quite pleased with the results of the session. The students seemed engaged, and we covered many of the same topics we would have covered if we had come in with a script. In discussing the session later with another coworker, however, our coworker expressed concern that we hadn’t covered certain topics. In her opinion, we were failing the students by not preparing them for every possible scenario.Sometimes instruction is more about what you leave off the lesson plan. No student will ever remember everything from a single instruction session, and our primary goal was to show the students that we were approachable, flexible, and willing to adapt to their needs. I felt that they left the classroom without that dazed look students get when we rapidly tick through a list of canned and planned scenarios. In my mind, that’s a success.
A = attention – grab the participant’s attentionR = relevance – help participants see the relevance of the topic to their work or lifeC = confidence – create opportunities for the participants to build their confidence regarding the topicS = satisfaction – participants should leave the training session feeling SATISFIED – they should feel like they have accomplished something
Get people thinking about what you are saying and how it relates to their own experience.