TLT Symposium: Thoughts and Reflections

I had never attended this symposium before, so I really didn't have any idea what this event would actually be like. I planned which talks I would attend, woke up early, had a great breakfast, and looked forward to anything I might be able to learn during this symposium. I will say, I'm glad I attended this event for reasons I'll get into.

Firstly, the keynote speaker was phenomenal. Dan Heath almost immediately captured my attention when he started his introduction as he delved into ways to improve teaching as well as overcoming common challenges. Coincidentally (on purpose, I'm sure), the part that stuck with me the most was his emphasis on making your talks, knowledge, and overall delivery of information 'stick' with people by making your ideas unexpected yet simple. While this was overall interesting to listen to, it was not necessarily new information as if anything you try to teach doesn't stick, that you and your student have effectively wasted each other's time. What really stuck me was when Dan began discussing the "Curse of Knowledge." This concept I know all too well, both on my own end trying to share my ideas with others during talks or in my writing as well as trying to understand the material of some of my own peers. As a result, I try very hard to avoid these scenarios when I teach by learning the material with the students/peers I would be educating. I read what I plan out and dissect each word, each term, to make sure that enough information is present that people are able to refence idea's they're already familiar with. While I never got to listen to his explanations for Credible, Emotional, and Stories (although I lean their importance later), I still found Dan's talk on SUCCES(S) to be the most interesting part of the symposium. 

There were two other talks I thought were interesting. First, "Learning through the art of storytelling" discussed, well, using real stories as an effective teaching method. The main draw in using a strategy like this is upon listening to the real stories told by real people, students will become emotionally invested (remember Dan's 'E' in "SUCCES") in the material and as a result, both retain the material better and become storytellers themselves. This is done by storyboarding stories told by these speakers and having students identify key moments in the story in order to summon empathy within themselves. This was a very straight forward talk and an interesting method of teaching that I never really considered until now. 

Second, ending the final round of talks, I attended "Serious games and gamification: What has research shown us since 2014." Ever since I learned that my middle school began using World of Warcraft to teach story building and money management, I needed to know why people thought this was a good strategy for teaching. As an occasional gamer myself, while I know of ways in which certain games and platforms can be used to teach aspects of life and some skills, I always believed there were better ways to teach the same idea. If the game isn't focused on the 'learning' aspect of the experience, I believe that the core idea of what might be gained by playing games is ultimately lost. The talk delved into the pros of using games to teach, examining the use of intrinsic vs. extrinsic rewards, allowing students a safe place to fail and work at their own pace, as well as finding ways to tie concepts into real-world situations, among others. Despite this, along with the other cons mentioned in the talk such as having the game be a closed system, lack of control over content, and an inability to analyze the gameplay done by students, I remain unconvinced that games should be used as a serious way of trying to teach any school subject-type material. While certain games can certainly improve social skills, and other more difficult games teach aspects of mathematics or other subjects, in the end I still think that other, more conventional methods of teaching are more effective and less risky. I would be open in the future to more ideas like this, however.

That more or less wrapped up my experiences at my first TLT symposium. I'm glad I attended and got to listen to ideas and opinions from many successful teachers. The shark-tank-like event was particularly great, and I'm a little upset only one could be funded (I thought they were all great). I'm excited to bring what I experience into my AEE 530 class and discuss with my peers what they got out of this enlightening experience.

Reflect of 2019 Penn State Symposium for Teaching and Learning with Technology (TLT).

The cold weather seemed not affecting the heat of the symposium. I enjoyed the keynote speech with good bacon. The six tricks of a sticky idea were delivered with simple but unforgettable examples, and Dan is a master of manipulating words, for sure. In his speech, SUCCES is the results of Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional, and Stories. Without fancy terminology and complex definitions, the speech kindled the thoughts of how to effectively deliver the knowledge to the audience. The Next session I attended was Technology Hacks for Cementing Learning. The time was limited for a full introduction of all tech hacks updates, but applying IT in each step of teaching a course would reduce the stress of students and helping teachers create various modules that tracking students attention. Open Educational Resources (OER) innovation was the following session and it introduced several updated practices of applying open sources in teaching. The application of BBookX can create a textbook that fits a specific, new frontier subject. I was also interested in providing video materials to enhance the teaching procedure. After the exciting open innovation challenge, two presentations I went were both introductions of new technology: Kaltura which introducing video into a course for both teachers and students, and GIKS writing-to-learn tool which can help teachers and students to assess the learning.

Learning some new idea in a single day was great, but concerns accumulated while I reflecting the symposium afterward. The six tricks of making an idea sticky are quite helpful for teaching a concept or a fact, and it will be a challenge to apply them to all courses and disciplines. In a course needs critical logical reasoning, or a pure theoretical course, like math or statistics, the tricks may not help much to teach calculating equations. Besides, instructors need to pay their major attention to the knowledge that students need to learn. If a teacher spends too much time on designing an idea sticky, the class may turn to a sideway of amusing students instead of teaching. The technics introduced in the symposium are fancy at first glance, and I believe they will accelerate students' learning. However, my concern is whether fast learning is better than the conventional way of learning like reading? The social media spreads immediate news and messages that can be swallowed in seconds, gifs and short videos can stimulate brain within a minute, these are the new ways to access information but are they effective in learning all course and disciplines? New technics will make it easier to access knowledge for students, and students may be satisfied with finishing watching a video or completing a quiz, but never come back. Learning is never a once-for-all deal. The conventional ways of learning, like reading, may not excite learners as much as new tech does, but old-fashioned ways can slow minds down and let the learner digest information.

New technology is always welcomed in the classroom, but they are just vehicles that deliver knowledge. We should not evaluate a teaching and learning process just based on how "fancy" of a class. By the way, advanced technology means a high investment of equipment in classrooms and some times the extra cost of students. This may also lead to educational inequity between students or schools, especially in developing countries.

In general, applying new techs in teaching and learning is exciting for all participants, while we should keep in mind that teaching and learning procedures are designed and built for the learners, not for showing new techs.

Is there a cost? A critical reflection of TLT Symposium

As I continue to turn over the ideas and technology presented at the Teaching and Learning with Technology (TLT) symposium, I always have some point of concern. The keynote speaker gave the traits of "sticky" ideas, among them being simple, unexpected and concrete(sensory). My concern is rooted in technology magnifying the two latter, potentially at the detriment of the first. In other words, it seems that technology main be applied and cause shock and ah without bringing the learner to question. The questioning or huh moment as the keynote phrased it, is why unexpected is listed as a trait. Also, in trying to make an idea concrete by not only using sensory language but engaging multiple senses with multimedia or virtual reality(a favorite in the innovation challenge) is there not a risk of loosing the learner to sensory overload? In a sense, taking in all the details of the trees while missing the forest which is that learning goal we should be focused on helping our students achieve.

To clarify, I am not against integration of technology into teaching environments. I am merely cautioning that, as with all things, it can be mis- or over-applied producing unwanted effects. Most of the ideas presented in the innovation challenge as given in 5 min showed great potential to fall into the pitfalls mentioned above. This may be due merely to the brevity of the presentations not allowing for the full rational design to be articulated. There were technologies showed cased that touched on this idea of being careful and intentional in technology application. The first which comes to mind is the presentation on teaching design with addictive manufacturing (3-D printing). During the discussion of the learning goals for the 3-D printing courses at different levels (freshmen, upperclassmen and graduate students), the speaker made it clear that he needs to help students to see a 3-D printer as a manufacturing tool and active research area, not just a novel piece of tech. for printing figurines. Thus, he recognizes the ah and glitz of 3-D printing, but works to guide his students past that to learn its practical applicability in design as well as its limitations. This example speaks to the awareness of pitfalls mentioned above and intentionally structuring the course to avoid them.    

How can we use technology to help students review a course’s foundational knowledge?

Yesterday, March 16^th, I attended Penn State’s 2019 Symposium for Teaching and Learning with Technology (TLT; search “#TLTSym” on social media). It was a great day, with an awesome keynote presentation and a full day of sessions focused on how different technologies can be applied to transform education!

One of the sessions that I attended was “Creating digital content to engage students in prerequisite review”. I had selected this TLT session because many of the courses I have been a student in built upon knowledge from previous entomology, biology, chemistry, leadership, or other courses. It was important to recall information from these courses in order to understand the new class’s material. Most of the time, if I or another student needed to review something from a previous course, we would look back at our notes, presentations, or other materials from those classes. I also believe that courses I may lead in the future will also rely on prerequisite material, at least at some level. I was interested in seeing what types of digital content could be created to facilitate students’ review of material and the processes for making them.

Prior knowledge has been shown to predict student achievement and the depth of prior knowledge plays a role in future success. New knowledge is also influenced by prior knowledge and each student in a class comes in with a different background. The process for creating prerequisite review material should start by identifying the content to include. In other words, you need to decide what the students in your class need to know beforehand in order to succeed. The TLT session I participated in started with a simple, yet profound exercise for deciding this – answering three questions:

1.      What are 1-3 objectives that you expect students to have met before starting your course?

2.     What do you expect students to be able to do with this knowledge?

3.     How will you know what the students know?

Once you have outlined your objectives and expectations for incoming students, and you know how you can evaluate their competency of each area, you can begin to create review content that reaches these goals. As demonstrated in the TLT session, review modules in a class can consist of three parts:

1.     Content: videos and text that explain the prerequisite concepts, embedded with questions based on this material for self-testing.

2.     Practice Problems: a quiz consisting of 5-8 questions per objective (and drawn from a larger pool of questions) that students can take an unlimited number of times within the first two weeks of the course. The highest score on the quiz is retained and makes up 50% of the student’s grade for the prerequisite review assignment.

3.     Summative Assessment: a quiz, taken only once and either in class or at a testing center, that makes up the remaining 50% of the student’s grade for the prerequisite review assignment.

Since the Content is the most extensive part of the review module, I’m going to spend a lot of time describing it here. Content is created in a Kahn Academy (https://www.khanacademy.org/) like-style, using videos that can be recorded at Penn State’s One Button Studio (https://onebutton.psu.edu/). Other university systems or libraries may have resources available, or be able to obtain them for this purpose too.

In my opinion, the coolest technology used in the content creation example during the TLT session was a Lightboard. While you can record PowerPoint presentations, be shown in front of a greenscreen, or write on a chalk or whiteboard while being videotaped, there is evidence that videos made using Lightboards increase student engagement with the video (1). This is because a Lightboard is a large, clear pane of glass that you can stand behind and write on while recording. The recording is converted to a mirror image, so that students can see your face and the content you’re sharing with them simultaneously! This format simulates instructor presence. See it in action at this link (https://mediacommons.psu.edu/faculty/lightboard/) or by clicking play below:

Each content video is 5-10 minutes long, once edited using Adobe Premier or another software, and they are also interactive. At intervals throughout each video, the presentation of content is broken up with a self-testing quiz, which mimics a clicker quiz that students might have in class. This is done using H5P (see an example here: https://h5p.org/interactive-video), but other applications may have this function as well.

The Content portion of the module should also contain information about how the material in each module relates to the current course, to help students make and retain connections in what they are learning. Instructors can also include examples of learning strategies that students can use throughout the course as a part of their prerequisite content.

Students in the example used during the TLT session have the first two weeks of class to complete the prerequisite review assignment. However, they are encouraged to use distributed practice by instructor-set goals and incentives within this time frame. An example of this might be “complete half of the Content by X date and you’ll get X number of points toward the assignment”. This way, students review and learn a little at a time, and at their own pace to an extent, instead of cramming everything at once before the deadline. During this time, they are also learning new material as a part of the current course. Then, they can complete the Practice Problems potion of the review for one week, before taking the Summative Assessment at the end of the first two weeks of class.

I really like this outline and set of methods for engaging students in prerequisite review. Technology is becoming more widely accessible and students are interested in using it. It seems like it could take a lot of time to create the Content and access to resources could be a potential challenge to this as well. However, the benefits of the review to student learning would be worth the effort and then, once established, modules could be reused/adapted from year-to-year. I’ll look forward to seeing how other instructors use these types of technologies to facilitate prerequisite review in their classes, and incorporating it in my own future courses as well! 

If you have any thoughts or suggestions, please post a comment below. Additionally, if you’re interested in learning more about the annual TLT Symposium or attending the event next year, please visit the event website: https://symposium.tlt.psu.edu/

1.     Stull, A. T., L. Fiorella, M. J.Gainer, and R. E. Mayera. 2018. Using transparent whiteboards to boost learning from online STEM lectures. Computers and Education, 120, 146-159. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2018.02.005

How robots and artificial intelligence are taking over the classroom! (Professional Development Reflection - Isamar)

How robots and artificial intelligence are taking over the classroom

Past Saturday I arrived at the Penn Stater Conference Center expecting to develop my teaching skills through a series of presentations by experts in the field. I had not seen the agenda before arriving. Good thing I didn't have any idea on what to expect because the first talk by the keynote speaker discussed everything from turkeys, chickens and why washing your hands is important! I couldn't stop laughing but at the same time, it made me think about the reason behind every study and how to use data to teach and impact people. Also, it gave me a new podcast to listen to on my morning commute!

Some standard topics I thought would be included in a teaching and learning symposium would be making lesson plans, effective teaching and classroom management. To my surprise, the topics were full of tech-savvy teachers using innovative techniques in their classrooms to enhance the learning experience. Robots and artificial intelligence were a hot topic throughout the day. Two out of the three proposals in the open innovative challenge included these topics.

One particular proposal in the challenge that caught my attention was "Faulknerbot", a chatbot modeled after the writer William Faulkner. In this case Aaron Mauro, an English professor at PSU, developed a chatbot with the purpose of applying conversation based content discovery. Instead of going to the library or searching the web for Faulkner content, you can just chat with an online version of him! Imagine how fun and engaging this could be for students. The chatbot was programmed with not only Faulkner's written works but also many of his interviews. There was a suggestion from the audience to create a "Syllabus chatbot" that could answer questions regarding office hours, assignments and other syllabus topics quickly instead of having to e-mail the professor. 


Another interesting proposal from an Economics Professor, introduced the idea of using robots as learning devices for students. However, this was the second time during the symposium that the robot topic was introduced. One of the talks I attended was from Dr. Ronald Arkin from Georgia Tech. His research focuses on human-robot interacton and how this could help early stage parkinson patients. This technology could also be applied in the classroom for students with disabilities or even as an ethical mediator between graduate students and advisors. 

Needless to say, my day was full of surprises (in a great way!). My mind was exposed to innovative and out-of-the-box ideas on how to engage students in learning. As a Mechanical Engineer, I had never looked at robots or A.I. in the teaching and learning environment. Usually these technologies are introduced in engineering or computer science courses. However, now I can see how they could be applied to everyday teaching on all subjects. Robots or A.I. shouldn't be seen in any way as a replacement of the teacher but as a tool for the teacher. I wouldn't call this is a robot takeover, but a teaching and learning takeover!

Written by Isamar Amador a graduate student in Agricultural and Biological Engineering at Penn State