Toby's blog

Active learning is using hands-on activities to help engage students in classwork rather than having them listen to more traditional teaching, like listening to lectures and watching videos. Game-Based Learning is great if a teacher wants to include active learning in their classroom. For example, a teacher can play a game with dice and have students actually rolling the dice. This might be great for counting practice in math with young students, so they could roll the dice and then count the number of dots on the dice. Another great thing about using games in learning is that the amount of difficulty/challenge level is easily changed, depending on how much the teacher prefers to challenge their students. Sometimes passive learning can be too broad, which may leave some students that are ahead of others less stimulated, and students who need more support, overwhelmed. This is why game-based learning would be great for a classroom with many different levels of students, because a game can be easily changed to make it more or less challenging in order to accommodate the students’ needs.

For example, ESL classrooms usually have many different learning levels, which means that passive learning may be overlooking students’ needs. A word matching game of some sort would be great for ESL students because the level can be easily changed by changing the difficulty of the vocab words. In this way, students’ needs can be met more precisely, and that’s why game-based learning is great for different level students. 

[Professional advice]: Effective use of Game-based learning
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-X1m7tf9cRQ

[Image]:
https://sphero.com/blogs/news/how-to-teach-computational-thinking-in-classroom

Have you ever been watching TV, and the signal is constantly interrupted? It’s frustrating, and you try everything to get the signal more clear, banging on the remote, banging on the TV, turning it off and on again- basically anything because the glitching and lagging are driving you insane. For this reason, exactly, videos in the classroom need to run smoothly to ensure students are actually learning from them, instead of being distracted by the glitches, speech lagging, or poor jump cuts… etc. In some of my history classes, we would watch short news clips with updates on what was going on in the world. The videos however were always grainy, glitchy, and sometimes wouldn’t even work. If the video doesn’t work, first of all, it’s a waste of time and leaves students just sitting there. Second of all, the poor video quality made it impossible to pay attention to what the news reporter was even saying, and instead, we all just laughed at the funny glitches. 

If a teacher wants their students to actually pay attention to the video’s contents, there should be limited issues and good resolution, so that there are no other distractions for the students to get sidetracked on. All I remember from my history class videos are the mistakes in the videos, and I barely remember any of the actual current event stories we watched. It was just a fun time for us to see the video but could have been a great way for us to learn about current events. If teachers ensure that their videos are to the point and of good quality, they can ensure their students are getting the most from them, too. 

★ Tip: How to change the quality of a video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezjGJ_GTBlo

[Image]:
https://newyorkschooltalk.org/2020/09/straight-from-the-trenches-parents-report-what-really-happened-during-nycs-first-days-of-school/

I think that giving students projects throughout the year is really important to help them not only use their critical thinking but also to help them collaborate with other students. Collaboration helps students engage with one another and be more creative with their learning. For example, if there was a section where students could lead their own learning, I think that making a video would be a great way for them to teach other students. I also remember that when I was taking Communications in middle school, we had to create a video tutorial about something. It could be as silly as how to cut an apple but had a list of things we needed to incorporate. That class remains one of my favorite classes to this day because it was such a stress-relief to be creative in the classroom, and I had so much fun with my classmates making a funny tutorial video. I think students might be reluctant at first because it may seem like a lot of work, but since students are much more tech-savvy these days than I was in middle school, I’m sure making a video would be more fun than burdensome. It might also be a better way to get on their level and help them show what they have learned in a way they can better communicate, rather than through something like a slideshow. Overall, I think that students would greatly benefit from making videos if you can encourage them and show them that they can have fun while collaborating with their peers.

[Image]: https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/effective-teaching-strategies/recoup-exam-points-creating-video-missed

Often times when I watch an information video on Youtube, I see sketchnoting being virtually shown as the speaker is talking. I never really thought about the benefits of it, and how it could be actually applied in the classroom. Since visuals can help students retain information and engage them better, I think that sketchnoting is a great tool to use in the classroom. I think it would be difficult to use it for every class, since some classes may require faster note-taking and a visual sketch, even done afterwards, might be difficult to render, for example, English language class- how could someone sketch something besides an alphabet letter? I think that if the teacher uses sketchnoting rather than having students come up with it by themselves unless it is a mini project or way to engage the students, the teacher using sketchnoting would be more valuable. They could print out the notes, or use it on a slide and have students copy it, or also just see it for the visual aspect. I also think that it could be a good resource for having students look over their notes after class, and make sketches so they can retain the information and see it again in a different way. Overall I think sketchnoting could be a great resource for teachers to use either on their slides or maybe as printouts or after note-taking comprehension tasks to engage students and help them retain information learned with a visual queue. 

[Image]: https://www.sumcumo.com/en/sketchnotes-tips-and-tricks

I think that screencasting can be really useful in education, especially right now because of the pandemic. Students may need a recording of a lecture, or more explicit directions, which then screencasting would come in handy. I also think that in the classroom screencasting could be used for a number of things. One example is chemistry or something math-related where there is a formula involved. Students could download an example of the teacher’s work using the formula, and watch it over and over instead of having to take notes, copy everything down, but miss what was being taught. If students can watch the tutorial an unlimited amount of times, it may help them learn easier, and really understand the concept.

For example, when I was learning chemistry, it was confusing to watch the teacher speed through things on the board, try to take notes, and then try to do it by myself at the same time. I think if the teacher had provided a way for us, students, to see the lesson again at home while we were practicing chemistry by doing our homework, it could have helped us learn a lot easier and faster. A lot of the time I felt like I was just reading my textbook again and again, and in the end, teaching myself, when actually if the teacher had provided a recording of the lesson, I could have learned from the teacher directly as it should be. Screencasting could also be great for things like language learning. For example, being able to watch the instructor underline the word, while listening to it, or circle and object and connect it to the word, could be helpful. I think screencasting would be most beneficial for at-home learning and recalling information or studying for a test.

Here, I took a screencast of a video I made for cooking. I think this is a good example of what can be done and saved for students to look at again after the lesson.

[Image]:
https://www.qualitymatters.org/qa-resources/resource-center/articles-resources/screencasting

This week, I enjoyed designing the poster on Canva. It was both interesting, engaging, and made me think more creatively, too. I think that using tools like Canva can be a great way to help engage students, both by having them use Canva, and also using Canva in your own teaching. If students can use something like Canva to talk about what they learned, maybe like a presentation poster, they can better visualize their learning and use another part of their brain instead of just listening and writing, lecture style. Students have a lot of different learning styles, so what might work for one student, may not work as well for another. For example, physical movement can be really helpful for students who start to lose focus looking at slide after slide. On the other hand, lecture-style might work well for students who memorize things well. Since students learn so differently, it’s important to incorporate different ways to engage them, like using Canva for assignments.

Canva can also be a great tool to use for teachers because it can help students to stay more engaged by having a more interesting visual to look at. I thought about the PowerPoint slide and how too much information can be just overwhelming and distracting, and how using the proper background and visuals can help engage students and better their learning. For example, instead of just talking about what something looked like, using it in a poster to facilitate engagement and something for the eyes to look at, visualize, and memorize could be really helpful for a lot of students who learn by seeing things rather than just hearing about them.