GETTING MY STUDENTS READY FOR THE FALL – STEP THREE – HELPING THE AUDITORY LEARNERS

Over the past several weeks, I have posted blog entries to describe some of the material that I am producing this summer in preparation for the fall.  From what I can read, much of college education is becoming one huge Zoom session.  Zoom has its place and can be quite beneficial, but I believe we can do better than putting all our eggs in a Zoom basket.  To avoid that, though, we need to think deeply about the learning process.  We need to attack the educational challenges in a creative fashion.  All of the material I have discussed recently comes from ideas I have developed based on 49 years of teaching experience.  You can do that as well.  There is a lot more that we can do than just Zoom.  

That observation is especially true as we come to the reality that a considerable amount of our coverage is going to be distance learning for the foreseeable future.  Most of us have never experienced world-class distance learning which makes the fall especially daunting.  Ask yourself an essential question:  What would world class distance learning look like if that was your goal?  Once you can envision it, you can create it.

So far:

--On my July 22 blog posting, I wrote about suggesting the book Make It Stick to my fall students as an optional extra credit assignment to help them become better learners.  How can that not be a good idea?  I have had several students email me in thanks for the advice.

--On July 27, I described the “Guided Readings” I developed to help my students get more from their textbooks.  Why have them pay so much money if they are not able to learn (at least) the basic material in those chapters?  For students, reading the textbook needs to be more than a waste of time. 

--On August 3, I explained my use of “Retrieval Questions and Answers” to help students immediately follow up their textbook readings.  The students are given sequential questions (and their answers) to bring the important topics back up so they can make use of (and strengthen) their knowledge.

Today, I want to talk about auditory learners.  I have often thought that some of my students were held back from achieving their academic potential because they were auditory learners rather than visual learners.  Most learning experiences (books, written exercises, PowerPoint slides, and the like) focus on the information being seen.  In much of our teaching, knowledge enters through the eyes.  As the recent popularity in audiobooks seems to show, a considerable number of people absorb information by hearing.  Consequently, I think at least one learning product for each class should focus on auditory learning.  I want to have a supplement available that will be especially address the needs of those students. 

Plus, students love their phones and they love to multi-task.  In thinking about the fall, I wanted to include a learning exercise that took advantage of those personal preferences. 

Therefore, this semester, for every chapter, I am creating approximately 20 minutes of audio questions and answers.  I ask a question.  I pause for three seconds to give the students time to consider their response.  Then, I provide my answer.  I immediately move to what I view as the next logical question.  As I have said often, I like sequential learning.  For 20 minutes, it is just question-answer-question-answer, but it is all auditory learning.  Once again, as mentioned in my previous posting, I am obviously working on having students retrieve and use the information in many different ways.

I post the audio files on our learning management system (we use Blackboard).  The students can listen whenever they want to test their understanding.  Better still, they can download the app to their phones and listen while they do other things:  eat, exercise, take walks, and the like.  Every college student seems to struggle with time management.  Audio questions and answers can be an efficient use of free time – even listening for a few minutes as they walk to class helps them work on information retrieval. 

I needed to explain this to my students so, not surprisingly, I made a video.  I’ve become fond of the screen recording feature on PowerPoint for quick and simple messages to my students.  Below is the one that explains the audio questions and answers that will be available to them this fall. 

As always with these videos for my students, I have more than the goal of introducing them to a learning technique.  I am always trying to help the students become more confident and enthusiastic about the upcoming learning process.  These are scary times.  I cannot help them over every problem created by this pandemic, but I can help them have a wonderful learning experience.  I want to assure them that they will learn a lot in the fall and make a good grade.  There is a plethora of bad news in the world.  I think we as teachers should provide some encouraging news.

I don’t think I can send you the audio questions and answers but I will be glad to share the transcript if you drop me a note at Jhoyle@richmond.edu.

Here is the video explanation that I sent to my students.  Notice, I did not worry too much about being technically perfect.  I just want to get the message out to them.  They are students.  They are not bothered by glitches. 

https://youtu.be/JzJpTrumpn4

GETTING MY STUDENTS READY FOR THE FALL – STEP TWO – RETRIEVAL QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

I wrote a blog posting last week about a short video that I had made to introduce my students to the first step in my fall classes – Guided Readings.  (By the way, these videos were made with the Screen Recording function in PowerPoint.  That is a simple way to make and distribute short videos to your students.)

The idea behind Guided Readings was that students needed assistance in learning the essentials from their textbook so I developed PowerPoint Flash Cards to help them make the most of their readings. 

But – now what?  Even an excellent reading of the textbook is not a complete education.

In the marvelous book, Make It Stick – The Science of Successful Learning, the authors (Brown, Roediger, and McDaniel) stress the importance of retrieval.  The second chapter is even titled, “To Learn, Retrieve.” 

They assert, “Repeated retrieval not only makes memories more durable but produces knowledge that can be retrieved more readily, in more varied settings, and applied to a wider variety of problems.”  Or, as I describe the process, “Bring new knowledge up and make use of it.  Bring it up again and use it creatively.  Bring it up as often as possible and in as many different ways as possible.”  That statement might describe my teaching better than anything else.

So, after Guided Readings, I immediately prescribe a sequenced series of questions designed to see how much of the material I can get the students to retrieve and use in some way.  I write approximately 14 to 20 questions that come directly from the material they have just read.  However, each question requires them to retrieve the new information and make use of it. 

The process is carefully scripted. 

--First, I include all of the retrieval questions for this section of the material. 

--Second, I then repeat those same questions but this time with the answers. 

I refer to this as a, “Wash, Rinse, Repeat” assignment.  I want the students to read the questions and see how many they can answer.  Then, they are directed to scroll down to the answers and immediately check their work.  They are told to note questions that they missed or where they had no answer.

I instruct them to go back to the top of the page and go through the questions again to see how many more they can answer this time.  Hopefully, if they do this entire loop two or three times, they will feel comfortable with all the answers.

--They first used the Guided Readings to pull out the essentials from the textbook. 

--They then use the Retrieval Questions and Answers to help organize, solidify, and expand their knowledge and understanding. 

I like to think that I am developing distance learning for my students using a structure that makes logical sense.

Last week on this blog, I offered to provide a chapter of Guided Readings and many people took me up on that offer. 

This week, if you would like to see an example of Retrieval Questions and Answers, drop me an email at Jhoyle@richmond.edu.  Always glad to share.

Here is the video that I used to explain my Retrieval Questions and Answers to my students.  It is less than 7 minutes.  I hope you will watch it.  

https://youtu.be/vyTOjn0zFVo

 

TWO WORDS FOR BETTER TEACHING

Greetings!!   I trust you are ready for a wonderful new school year.   At this time of the year, I always feel like I can leave my mistakes from the previous semester behind and start anew with refreshed hope and enthusiasm.  

To celebrate the new year, I wanted to discuss two words that I believe can make anyone a better classroom teacher.    Not immediately, but over the course of a semester or two.   I am not sure that anything works immediately.   Progress has to be slow and steady.

**

Word One

Back in August of 2014, I wrote a blog entry that mentioned the following article from The Chronicle of Higher Education.  

http://chronicle.com/article/Confuse-Students-to-Help-Them/148385/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

I just think the importance of confusing students cannot be over-emphasized and is worth a second look.

I define “lecturer” as someone who does 80 percent or more of the talking in class.    If you have read this blog over the past few years, you know that I was a lecturer for the first 20 years of my teaching career.   I eventually changed to the Socratic Method because I found lecturing to be frustrating.   One of my biggest irritations was that on those rare occasions when the lecture was especially clear, student learning would fall off.   I would explain some complicated topic and the students would all nod their heads in vigorous agreement and then they would fail my tests.   That just irritated me to death especially because I did not understand why.   That is the reason I am now bald.

In one paragraph, the article from the Chronicle explains why clarity does not work so well in education:

"It seems that, if you just present the correct information, five things happen," he said. "One, students think they know it. Two, they don’t pay their utmost attention. Three, they don’t recognize that what was presented differs from what they were already thinking. Four, they don’t learn a thing. And five, perhaps most troublingly, they get more confident in the ideas they were thinking before."

Confusion, within reasonable parameters, has the exact opposite effect on the students.   They realize they don’t know everything.   They start paying closer attention.   They start looking for differences between what they thought they knew and what is being discussed.   They start adding knowledge and understanding.   They begin to reject incorrect notions that they had previously held.  

Obviously, I don’t mean “unplanned confusion” where everyone winds up lost in the wilderness.   I mean “planned confusion” where you start attacking what the students thought they knew.    I tell my students that their knowledge is like Swiss cheese.   It looks solid to them but it is really full of holes and my role is to point out those holes so we can fill them.  

As a result, in my own classes, I have a common saying:   “I’m paid enough to ask you questions.   I’m not paid enough to give you any answers.”   That irritates the students because they are used to a system where clear conveyance of information has always been the goal.   But, from my vantage point, they learn a whole lot more and get better grades if I can get them confused.

Word One:   “Confusion” – as you get ready for the spring semester, don’t worry so much about being clear and understandable.   Plan some confusion.

**

Word Two

My Dean bought our faculty the book Make It Stick – The Science of Successful Learning.   I have not finished reading the book yet but one of their very strongest points is that learning is greatly enhanced by the process of retrieval.   The authors talk about this over and over.

I was so taken with the idea of retrieval that I sent the following note to my spring students along with several suggestions on how they could go about retrieving information on a regular basis.

“I have recently been reading a book titled Make It Stick – The Science of Successful Learning, by Brown, Roediger, and McDaniel.   As you might imagine, I am always deeply interested in how to help people learn more effectively.   I have found this book to be very insightful.   One of the things the authors say frequently is that reading material over and over is not very helpful in getting it you’re your memory.  According to them, it is the retrieval of information that really solidifies learning.”

It is like exercise at a fitness center.   You put the information into your brain and then you pull it out and use it.   Then, you pull it out again and use it.   Every time you do this, the understanding becomes stronger.  

So, as I get into my planning for the spring semester, I am going to work on more ways to force/encourage my students to retrieve the information from their brains.   I am working on building that more into the class experience.   One of the questions I like to ask (which again often irritates the students – irritation is apparently one of my goals) is:   How did we answer this type of question just 48 hours ago – heck, that’s not so long ago, surely you remember how to figure this out.”  

Word Two:   “Retrieval.”  

**

When I talk with folks about teaching, they often seem to believe that massive changes would have to be made to get any improvement.   Nah, I don’t believe that.   I think if you focus on two simple words like “confusion” and “retrieval” for a semester you might be surprised by how much deeper the learning goes.