5 R’s Notetaking
This morning I’ve highlighted a strategy you might share with your students… How to use it:
Based on the Cornell note-taking system from Walter Pauk 5 R’s Note Taking Record – Reduce – Recite – Reflect – Review
0 Comments
This past week, in our professional learning community on reflective practice, Jeannine Dolen (nursing instructor) raised an issue that has plagued all of us, “Just how do you get students to do the required readings before class?” Jeannine was concerned that many of her students did not prepare for class, expected the instructor to summarize the salient points, and often never even bothered to buy the required texts. From this starting place (Jeannine provided relevant readings, a muse/scenario and a few questions to guide our discussion) our little group dove into some pretty big questions about instructor and student roles, the nature of the reading process, and how we might incentivize and scaffold student reading. The context With so many of our instructors moving to a flipped classroom approach to teaching (expecting students to familiarize themselves with important learning prior to synchronous lessons so that class time can be spent on synthesis and application), it has become even more important that students take ownership of their learning and come to class ready to work. This means completing all the assigned readings, viewings and activities. It can also put the instructor in a precarious spot. She may have developed a wonderful lesson plan with time allotted for breakouts, collaborative problem solving using shared documents, and class discussion–but if the students come unprepared, the lesson plan goes out the window. The instructor feels obligated to “deliver the goods” and revert to a less active, more lecture-type lesson and the students who actually have done the readings feel like the synchronous lesson is really not the best use of their time. So why aren’t they reading/preparing? We want to help most of our students take ownership of their learning (we’ll never get all!). We’d like to create a classroom environment where our students learn very quickly that they need to be prepared so we can all participate in active lessons that engage and challenge rather than merely repeat or summarize. And yet, for all of our exhortations and encouragements, students still come to class unprepared. If I reflect back on my undergraduate days, I don’t think I was a whole lot different. I often came to class unprepared. In my case it was immaturity, an overcommitment to other activities (sports?), employment responsibilities, and the feeling like I could get away with it–and still pass the course. And I hated shelling out big bucks for texts that were haphazardly referred to, or were the latest edition from a professor who found a way to supplement his academic income. And this may also be the case for many of our students. However, for our students we might also add concerns of child rearing and family obligations, competing interests, stress, and time management. And there may be one other factor to consider. Perhaps they are reading, but not really reading! I remember being a first or second-year student at the U of A, working through psychology texts with my handy highlighter! I’d grab my favourite colour and then sit down, coffee at hand, and attack all that dense text. Soon that overpriced compendium of information and academic wisdom was a sea of colour! Whole pages were yellow, pink or green and there was little that was left unmarked. Everything seemed important! And, if I stepped back to see what emerged as being the most important, it seemed to be the words: and, but, next, however – the words actually linking ideas. These words stood out because they were not highlighted! Eventually I learned to read the text several times first to get the bigger picture, then think about the dominant themes or important concepts to be learned, before returning to the text with my highlighter to sagaciously and sparingly apply colour only to the essential points, perhaps annotating in the margin with a relevant question or a connected thought. There is a difference between superficially reading (quickly skimming through texts) and really reading (making connections and comprehending). Many of the students we work with at NorQuest may have challenges in reading closely and connectedly. They have come to the college with uneven experiences in schooling and may not like to read or even know how to read - for learning. Perhaps they have struggled in junior high or high school, or perhaps they’ve come to Canada with limited English skills. And, as instructors we often forget about that. Sometimes we can misread our students because they seem to have excellent spoken proficiency, which masks their academic shortcomings. We can have delightful conversations with them about the weather, hobbies and their work. However, written work–especially academic texts–calls for a much broader vocabulary and a deeper understanding of language and language patterns. Working through readings, constantly looking up words and terminology and even translating these new terms into your home language, can be exhausting and overwhelming. And if the instructor hardly ever refers to these readings, seldom quizzes you on them, or will simplify them for you, why bother? However, this hard labour of wrestling with academic texts and professional language is precisely what all of our students need. It is in reading the texts, watching the videos, making notes, and asking how it all fits together, that the students truly learn. And we can’t do that for them. But we can help them develop some of the skills and acquire the mindset that might help them persevere. I often think of this situation like the work my daughter does in providing physiotherapy support. If we keep giving our students crutches (recap lectures and summary sheets) and we fail to push our students to get active (application exercises, problem solving activities), we are actually part of the problem. So, what are the reading skills that need to be encouraged and scaffolded? What do good readers do? When I worked as a literacy consultant for secondary teachers at Elk Island Public Schools, I was blessed to work with a team of educators in supporting the development of effective literacy practices across the school district. As a support and frame, the team highlighted eight thinking skills students need when interacting with and learning from with various texts (print, oral and visual). These skills or processes were built upon the work of Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis, and incorporated elements from William Brozo, Kylene Beers, and many other reading gurus. Readers are more engaged and successful in learning when:
As educators, we need to consider how we might challenge our students to develop and use these thinking skills when we assign readings, podcasts and you tube clips. We also need to ask ourselves how we can prepare them for such assignments, scaffold them through the meaning-making process and challenge them to make applications and develop insights. References Beers, G.K. (2002). When kids can’t read, what teachers can do: A guide for teachers 6–12. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Brozo, W.G., & Simpson, M.L. (2006). Content literacy for today’s adolescents: Honoring diversity and building competence (5th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Harvey, S., & Goudvis, A. (2007). Strategies that work: Teaching comprehension for understanding and engagement. Portland, ME: Stenhouse. The Future of Faculty In the past few weeks, I have been part of a NQ Futurist group tasked with opening up conversations and getting feedback regarding the future of teaching and learning at NorQuest. More specifically, gauging how ready our instructors are for the rapidly changing nature of post-secondary education. It was kinda fun. I ended up working with a small group (Heather, Justine, Farah and Rasoul) and we did some reading and research, considered the various scenarios that were already part of the Reimagine Higher Education document and tried to design an interactive workshop that might also secure meaningful data and suggestions. Then our little group went “on the road” (digitally) and did seven presentations in two weeks, reaching a sizable number of NorQuesters (126 responded in the Mentimeter polls!) All the same, I think we broadsided some instructors. Very early in our presentation, we asked participants to gauge how ready they were for current and emerging trends in post-secondary learning. For many, who focus mainly on supporting their students on a daily basis, the terms may have been a bit unfamiliar. I thought I might use this MMM to tackle these terms and provide helpful, reader-friendly links for those who want to know more. (No dry research articles in this lot!) Overall Trends https://thebestschools.org/magazine/current-trends-online-education/ Personalized Learning As the name suggests, this kind of learning allows students to complete an individualized or “customized” course/study that adapts and adjusts in light of their prior learning and experience, their specific learning strengths and needs, and their program and professional goals. This is a major shift from the standardized, one-size-fits-all courses and programs that most of us have encountered in post-secondary or at least, undergraduate education. For a better understanding of how personalized learning might look at the college level check out these links:
Students as Co-Creators This idea takes personalized learning and agency to the next level. From what I could learn, this approach asks students to help frame and build their own educational programs. Initially it reminded me of a couple of courses I designed for myself when completing my doctorate. My supervisors had to step aside from being the “experts” and facilitate my learning through coaching and check-ins while I tackled concepts and models that were unfamiliar to them. However, these co-creations seem to be more of an instructor-student collaborative study that has connections to research and designs for learning. While students collaborate with other students and instructors to do research In the process they learn and get credit for it. Moreover, there are co-creator programs that involve partnerships with organizations or industries. Although I could find could find many “references” to the idea of student co-creation being employed at a college level, I had a tough time finding short, summary-type articles on this. Instead, I pass on to you several examples of programs that use a co-creation model.
Online Facilitation Online facilitation is nothing new. We’ve been taking and hosting online courses for a couple of decades already. What is new is the extent to which we are now teaching online (it’s 2020!) and they way in which online teaching has evolved in terms of course design, flexibility, student engagement, OERs, interactivity, assessment, synchronous and asynchronous delivery, and online platforms, tools, and apps. Here’s a few articles and links that explore the advantages and disadvantages of learning in this way and some of the recent developments in online facilitation.
Micro Credentialing
A micro-credential is a certification or badge of assessed learning. It allows students and employers the flexibility to take small and targeted studies to develop a specific skill or competency without having to spend time in a comprehensive program. Micro-credentials can help prospective students effectively address learning gaps or continuing employees acquire immediately required training. In post-secondary, These credentials can be bundled to provide equivalencies for courses and programs. At this moment, many Canadian colleges and Universities are using microcredentialing to attract more part-time students and are looking at how to make these micro-credentials transferrable from institution to institution. Here are some more detailed explanations of micro credentialing from some institutions you may know:
HyFlex Learning At our Teaching and Learning Day last Friday, Jenni Hayman shared the HyFlex approach to course design. Unfortunately, I had to run my own session so I was unable to attend! However, with a little surfing on the net, I was able to gain a better understanding of this approach. HyFlex courses allow students to choose how they want to participate in their courses. One day they might attend class in person, another they could choose to join synchronously online, and on a third day they might watch the class asynchronously when it was more convenient. It is the “hybrid” or “blended” approach taken to another level of flexibility. HyFlex allows students to choose when and how they might go through their course, allowing students to stay engaged (f they have self-discipline). However, HyFlex requires a lot! Instructors must become very familiar with their program outcomes and to be extremely adaptive using in-person and online strategies and structures to construct a learning experience that is complex (multi-layered and varied) yet consistent in learning expectations and overall assessment. More information on the HyFlex approach is here:
Virtual and Augmented Reality Virtual and augmented reality is something that our college has been experimenting with for a little while. In the Innovation Studio, we had a VR set up where nursing students could put on the VR goggles and attend to a patient in a hospital setting virtually. On the other side of the retractable wall, students learned about human body systems by using the Z Boards, which allowed students to explore various parts of the body through 3-D interaction. This fall, NorQuest is investigating VR models and systems with an eye to helping students learn professional judgement through simulated interactions. More information on how VR and AR are changing the face of education can be found here:
This past Friday we had our third Faculty Talking Circle. About 20 instructors joined in on the online conversation in Teams. We’ve been using Martin Brokenleg’s “Circle of Courage” as a thematic organizer for these sessions and so, after having sessions on belonging and mastery, we came to the session on independence. We used the following questions to spark both discussion and reflection:
It was interesting to hear the experiences of colleagues from around the college and learn about their efforts to support and sustain their learners in the face of our current situation. One of our instructors said that her students had entered the program with the expectation of a certain amount of hours of face-to-face instruction, these students did not sign up for a distance or online program; they knew that their success was dependent upon the contact and community of regular classes. So she and her department were endeavoring to provide as much synchronous teaching as possible. She wanted to give each student every chance to succeed. Another of our instructors, this one from corrections, shared that a big part of his job is simply trying to restore some confidence in students that have been told they can’t learn and have been ignored or dismissed every time they asked a challenging question. At this point our corrections instructors do not have online access to their students as the rest of our college does, and the extra time has led to a great deal of reflection and recalibration as they anticipate returning to their classrooms. Overall, it was a very rich discussion with a variety of perspectives. We explored:
What became very clear is that our students need scaffolding and support as they develop confidence and competence in their chosen field of study. Many of our NorQuest students have often had to overcome a number of challenges just to get to college. Our student population has its fair share of: new immigrants, economically disadvantaged, international students, single parents, students with learning challenges, and students returning to school after a long hiatus in the world of work.
And how can we do this? Well, there are a number of ways:
|
AuthorJeff Kuntz Ph.D. ImagesExcept where indicated, images used in the blog posts are personal photos, images from NorQuest College or images from Pixabay. Pixabay is a vibrant community of creatives, sharing copyright free images, videos and music. https://pixabay.com/ Archives
March 2024
Categories
All
|