your hybrid classroom: will you change your paradigm? social media, 21st century skills, web2.0

Your Hybrid Classroom:Will You Change Your Paradigm?

Michelle Pacansky-Brockemail: brocansky@gmail.comblog: http://mpbreflections.blogspot.com

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When you open your life to hybrid teaching, your

classroom walls are no longer learning barriers.

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This is an opportunity to change the world.

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Will you embrace a new paradigm?

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Or will you recycle the past?

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How does this prepare 21st C Leaners?

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Rethink Your Paradigm

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Taminator on FlickrHaaaley on Flickr8

New Society. New Generation. New Skills.

A Student’s Life Outside the “Classroom”

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• Socialize face-to-face and online • 95% of 18-24 year olds use a social network (70% daily)

• Increasingly more create & share online content • 45% share videos online (YouTube)• 42% contribute content to wikis• 37% contribute to blogs • 35% use podcasts

• Have immediate access to information• 86% own a cell phone• 51% own a hand held internet device

Source: Smith, Salaway, Borreson Caruso. ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and IT, 2009. http://www.educause.edu/ecar

Participatory Learning is Commonplace

“Since the current generation of college students has no memory of the historical moment before the advent of the Internet, we are suggesting that participatory learning as a practice is no longer exotic or new but a commonplace way of socializing and learning. For many, it seems entirely unremarkable.”

The Future of Learning Institutions in a Digital Age by Cathy N. Davidson and David Theo Goldberg with the assistance of Zoë Marie Jones. From the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Reports on Digital Media and Learning. MIT Press: Cambridge, Massachussets, 2009.

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What will your hybrid learning paradigm look like?

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teaching without wallsoffers global learning opportunities

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How does a major news “story” change when shared by a blogger reflecting from

her home in Haiti vs through a major newspaper?

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What “news” do we learn about through global blogging that we don’t learn about

through mass media sources?

Whose voices are excluded?Whose are included?

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Blog about that!

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collaborative learning demands a collaborative learning environment

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crafting collaborative, interdisciplinary learning projects

http://voicethread.com/share/334997/

VoiceThread.com

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crafting collaborative, interdisciplinary learning projects

http://voicethread.com/share/85497/

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voice discussions about relevant media (TV, movies, websites, songs)

http://voicethread.com/share/68467/

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voice discussions about movies viewed in class

Some AdvicePrepare to relinquish some of your power

Envision yourself as the facilitator of a community of learners

• a community is a group of people with a common interest

• your role is to facilitate the successful achievement of your students’ learning objectives (as defined by you)

Be flexible but firm

• establish policies (late work, missed class sessions, exam make-ups, etc.) and include them in your syllabus

• be human and understand when emergencies occur, bend when things aren’t working but enforce your policies in an effort to be fair to those who uphold them

Use your students as resources

Reward yourself for taking risks, even if they fail...

• risk taking is paramount to innovation

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Tips for a Successful StartConsider a pre-class email to all students with syllabus attached

• Articulate your class philosophy (prepare them for something different)

• Identify all technologies that will be used

• Identify dates/schedule of in-class/online meetings

Week One: Laying the Foundation for SuccessIn your first unit, include:

F2F: Syllabus overview, explain relationship btw technology & learning

OL: An online ice breaker to begin building community. You participate too! And be sure each student is engaged/replied to at least one time.

Poll students: “Who does not have internet at home?”

• Communicate on-campus computer lab hours to students without internet access at home. This is “transportation to class.”

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Identify What isn’t Working and Try Something New

• My instructional problem:

When teaching an art history survey class, understanding significant contributions made by women artists is an important outcome, yet only one important outcome. Students can spend countless hours memorizing information about artists’ lives that is not relevant, losing critical time for fostering other key skills (like visual analysis).

• I want my students to understand the contributions made by women artists.

• I don’t want to tell them what they should know.

• I want my students to critically identify which achievements are significant and then explain why.

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My Experiment: The Wiki Challenge• Bridge between the classroom and virtual learning space

• Rotate students to summarize class discussions on wiki

• My role: evaluate and guide the wiki content

• We used the student-generated wiki content as (some of) the content students were assessed on

• Places a critical priority on in-class discussion

• Students used books and mobile devices to access content in class

• Students become content creators, take ownership of quality

• Learning becomes active, relevant and focused24

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Wiki - “homepage”

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Wiki - sample “Artist’s Life” Page

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Wiki - sample “Artist’s Life” Page

Wiki Challenge - Outcomes1. Fosters 21st century skills

• collaboration (working in groups in class to identify achievements)

• problem solving

• critical thinking

• find, select, evaluate information

2. Promotes student-centered learning, formation of knowledge (vs. memorization of information delivered by instructor)

3. Worth the experiment!

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Experiment.

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Take this opportunity to change your learning

paradigm...

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for your students.

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“Insanity: doing the same thingover and over again

and expecting different results.”

- Albert Einstein

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“Information is not knowledge.”

- Albert Einstein

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Michelle Pacansky-Brockemail: mpb@teachingwithoutwalls.com

blog: http://mpbreflections.blogspot.com