Tag Archives: education

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braindump: further research on online education and/or kits

general pedagogy

https://stellar.mit.edu/S/course/ec/sp13/ec.717/courseMaterial/topics/topic6/readings/Penick_Where’stheScience/Penick_Where’stheScience.pdf (restricted to class) (ugh, I hate that I can’t share this article, it’s an excellent one. It’s from 1991, sheesh).
The basic idea is, this teacher started out doing a cool demonstration in class, however, when students went to do it themselves, they did the bare minimum needed to replicate it without much enthusiasm. Then, the teacher switched it up — he asked students to predict the outcome of the experiment, and also structured the demonstration such that the students themselves came up with some of the lab procedures, like adding water to acid very slowly, that the teacher would then try. The students then were very engaged and eager to figure out whether the experiment would work out like they thought.

How global is online education?

Wow, it really is really all around the world. This is exciting to me. They’re really at a scale where they can have pocket communities form on google hangouts.

http://learn.media.mit.edu/syllabus.html The Media Lab Learning Creative Learning class, which actually has a tremendous following and is really cool.
(g+ community: https://plus.google.com/communities/106132864609383396284)
http://llk.media.mit.edu/courses/readings/gears-v1.pdf

Gears, serving as models, carried many otherwise abstract ideas into my head. I clearly remember two examples from school math. I saw multiplication tables as gears […] I am sure that such assimilations helped to endow mathematics, for me, with a positive affective tone that can be traced back to my infantile experiences with cars.[…] First, I remember that no one told me to learn about differential gears. Second, I remember that there was feeling, love, as well as understanding in my relationship with gears. […] the “body knowledge,” the sensorimotor schemata […] It is this double relationship–both abstract and sensory–that gives the gear the power to carry powerful mathematics into the mind.

Wah, cool,
http://www.amara.org/en/videos/Vnr37rOH9i24
Crowdsourced video captioning and translation! This is excellent. I will often spend a long time typing up video transcripts just for my own reference, so cool to be able to not just have it for myself, and also a really convenient interface online. Now someone should just hook this up to those language learning programs online… ALSO. Why can’t I type things and the software automatically figure out where in the video it belongs? I think that is definitely a do-able thing.

I am particularly interested in session 2 (interest-based learning) and session 5 (open learning).
session 5 notes:

“how and when learn should be under control of learners” (well, maybe not below a certain maturity level) and “who participates” not limited
“we want to crack it open, what we’re learning, figure out how it works at fundamental level” “things that let us dive in and not just sit back and consume are incredible important” “also produce” “still hasn’t changed schools in which most learning still happens” “there is a strong notion of activism” “[teaching at university] I want to go, everyone gets an A today, if you still want to come back, great lets learn something”
(all of this conversation seems focused on university level)
are MOOCs example of what have in mind, do they fall short in some way?
do need to interrogate what mean by open (not slapping on a label)
letting anyone sign up for a class is huge, don’t want to diminish that at all
but do want to ask, is open enrollment sufficiently open?
never took a programming course, learned from being exposed to people way better than me
(me: i wish that were possible in the open source hardware community to the extent it is in the open source software community! how can we make that happen?)
idea of debugging ideas, all sorts of things in open learning,
often best way to learn, push yourself to maybe things start to break, 

toread: http://mako.cc/writing/unlearningstory/StoryOfUnlearing.html yay, pills. -.-

http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERM0811.pdf This reading is flaming awesome. 

It is unlikely that sufficient resources will be available to build enough new campuses to meet the growing global demand for higher education  

Open Educational Resources (OER) movement 

Light discovered that one of the strongest determinants of students’ success in higher education— more important than the details of their instructors’ teaching styles—was their ability to form or participate in small study groups. Students who studied in groups, even only once a week, were more engaged in their studies, were better prepared for class, and learned significantly more than students who worked on their own. 

In a traditional Cartesian educational system, students may spend years learning about a subject; only after amassing sufficient (explicit) knowledge are they expected to start acquiring the (tacit) knowledge or practice of how to be an active practitioner/professional in a field 

 “productive inquiry”—that is, the process of seeking the knowledge when it is needed in order to carry out a particular situated task

SXSWEDU

The recorded audio is now online http://sxswedu.com/audio, and I’m guessing they won’t have recorded video

Online Learning
toread: http://www2.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/tech/evidence-based-practices/finalreport.pdf
“US Department of Education
Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning
A Meta-Analysis and Review of Online Learning Studies”

I listened to two talks, which you can find if you go to the “audio” site and look up the titles. Some notes:

  • Project Based Learning: The 8 Essential Elements http://schedule.sxswedu.com/events/event_EDUP14902
    mostly “hey supply chains are actually difficult” and the actual implementation of a donorschoose but hyperlocal supply granting program instituted in El Paso, Texas
  • MOOCs: Hype or Hope? http://schedule.sxswedu.com/events/event_EDUP16136
    this is a big mess, e-commerce took 10 years: amazon is there, but what was in-between, cosmos delivered candy bars in the middle of night, …
    this is the phase we’re in: people are going to try weird stuff, it’s not going to make any sense, but we’re trying, that transformation is happening.
    change: not only matriculated students, now global. MOOCs are changing the concept of matriculation.

====
some talks i picked out to listen to in the future:

sadly does not appear to be online 

Project Based Learning: The 8 Essential Elements
http://schedule.sxswedu.com/events/event_EDUP14902

The Double Bottom Line for Education Entrepreneur
http://schedule.sxswedu.com/events/event_EDUP14819
This panel will discuss social entrepreneurship in education and look at examples of education social ventures that have successfully scaled.

Tinker Tailor Solder Ply: Why Makers Rule in EDU
http://schedule.sxswedu.com/events/event_EDUP15386
Hear how makers are helping kids unlock their creativity while applying their STEM know-hows — and, in doing so, shaping how we rethink the value and purpose of an education.
==

Nation in Decline: Why We Suck At Science & Math
http://schedule.sxswedu.com/events/event_EDUP13045

Meet the Educational Stars of YouTube
http://schedule.sxswedu.com/events/event_EDUP15569

Breaking the Mold: New Models for Learning (K-20)
http://schedule.sxswedu.com/events/event_EDUP14826

The Magic of Making: Engaging Students As Makers
http://schedule.sxswedu.com/events/event_EDUP15925
We’ll look at the importance of creating makerspaces in schools, developing a community of practice around engaging kids as makers, and how online tools can enhance and extend the value of making to the broader community.

Think Outside the School: Learning is Everywhere
http://schedule.sxswedu.com/events/event_EDUP15382
 How can we use social technology to foster peer-learning and to recognize knowledge acquisition regardless of where it takes place?

Based on the case studies of the Mozilla Open Badge project and E-180,

Digital Harbor Foundation
http://schedule.sxswedu.com/events/event_OEEDU0139
will share our experience designing a Common Core aligned tech and maker curriculum that helps place kids in real world paid internships.

Peer-to-Peer Marketplaces, Meet EdTech
http://schedule.sxswedu.com/events/event_EDUP7234
they also allow their educators to earn meaningful income by teaching online

Open Education: Still a Chasm to Cross
http://schedule.sxswedu.com/events/event_EDUP8716

The Problem Finders: Design Thinking Across School
http://schedule.sxswedu.com/events/event_EDUP13846
learn about new techniques for getting the best ideas, language use, and higher order thinking out of students.

Not Another Zombie Idea: Customizable, Open Digital Content Transforming Learning
http://schedule.sxswedu.com/events/event_EDUP990511
 also the future of concept-based (bite-sized) learning leveraging multiple modalities (text, videos, exercises,interactive learning objects) that will help students and educators transform learning experiences.

====


EdX
Some thoughts on expectation management versus just getting courses up and out there:
http://electronicsdesigner.blogspot.com/2012/06/mit-6002x-circuits-and-electronics.html

“Given the prestigious name of the institution and their reputation for ground-breaking methods developed in the Media Lab, my expectation was that, as part of the transition to on-line delivery, they would have taken time to prepare a clear and thorough presentation of the subject, taking academic lectures to a whole new level.”
“I’m afraid the lectures have the feeling of “oh bugger, I forgot to prepare anything, I will do it as I go along”. You can get away with this in real lectures, but for video presentation then I’m afraid it isn’t good enough.” … “With all the resources of MIT, it must surely be possible for someone to digest these lectures and present them in the form of mostly pre-made slides

Developing Countries
One of the stories that was exciting to me about 6.002x was a university prof or student in another country who was like, hey, I will take this and make it an after-school program, because this topic isn’t really taught at my university (or something like that). I think MIT’s model of hands-on learning (mens et manus) is definitely gaining momentum (not MIT-driven, of course, but still). E.g. Skoltech, SUTD, and based on my own conversations with people such as +David Li, China’s government is interested in supporting makerspaces.

Is this actually true though?
Perhaps.
http://www.rovingbandit.com/2011/09/higher-education-in-developing.html

Are universities good candidates for foreign aid? Blattman thinks so;

Foreign aid’s educational blind spot http://chrisblattman.com/2011/09/03/7358/

Second, the aid community are on top of primary education like an overzealous mother. Tertiary education is pretty much ignored. The MDGs are both a cause and en effect of this sad state of affairs. 

http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20100918074103941

The United Nations is to focus more strongly on higher education in developing countries, Qian Tang, UNESCO’s newly-appointed Assistant Director-General for Education, said in Paris last week.

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education designathon, liveblog (ish) – hands-on activity resources for teachers

look! it’s a woodie flowers, who as it turns out really dislikes massively open online courses (MOOCs).

chilling at the designathon
http://www.edudesignathon.com/
lots of cool people and ideas being thrown around (mmm… throwing people)
you can read all about prof. flower’s agenda against MOOCs in the tech & the faculty newsletter
http://web.mit.edu/fnl/volume/243/flowers.html
http://tech.mit.edu/V132/N42/fnl.html

kittens! from education arcade talk

people gave talks. 
==
e..g the educational arcade one, some notes:
why do goats and animals continue to play dangerous games that can end in death? play must be advantageous if this behavior wasn’t selected out by evolution/
4 freedoms of Play
freedom to experiment, freedom to fail, freedom to try on identities, freedom of effort (can play intensely or at a relaxed pace)
exact opposite of
4 freedoms of school

educational games are not “grand theft calculus,” tricking people to learn calculus by giving something the skin of a game
==

Then we did a lot of research into my recent problem of finding hands-on activities for primary school kids.
A teacher there mentioned, there lots of message boards where half the activity is teachers looking for a specific activity to fit a specific curriculum standard
e.g. http://learningcenter.nsta.org/discuss/default.aspx?tid=fIPYH6I51D8_E

This is my fourth year teaching but my first year at a new school. I am having a hard time trying to find labs for my students to do. I am in a regular room that is not made for a science class. I do not have bunsen burners or gas. I looked in the chemistry chemical cabinet and there are really not many chemicals.

Wah, this is cool way to not bother busy teachers, lurking on teacher forums 🙂

  • july and august: good times to get teachers to notice new things, when they take a break / do professional development workshops / reflect on their lessons
  • scale: must do it through professional societies (american association of physics teachers, etc.)
The Head of the MIT Department of Physics was also there and he is so awesome. He specifically said he is trying to figure out how to increase the numbers of people from underserved communities coming into STEM. %lt;3
Anyway, Turns out there’s an excellent site specifically for finding science and math hands-on activities, (perhaps more oriented at least for the lower grades), at

Our research notes here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HEDoIiyxYJlqWxNQMds2i14_Ak0v7xLwAYfM23iV_j0

talking to teachers!
hi michelle

So, we decided the issue we were trying solve (collecting resources like how2today and observationsblog and connecting them to teachers) was approximately solved by howtosmile.org (probably busy teachers want a fully-fleshed out lesson plan anyway), and we split up to work on different things.

I’m going to make a drawing robot and go ahead and throw together a demo online education with real-life kits thingamabob.

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braindump, education (online, and IRL elementary school)

what are engineer (the design process is being taught in weston field elementary)

education designathon is tomorrow
woodie flowers will be speaking there! i still have like a hero worship thing going on from my FIRST robotics days.

once i dreamed of talking to woodie flowers about education and such
then i failed to grad school, or at least my super-specific version of grad school ^^; (MIT 2.007x)… eheh strategic failure
maybe it’s for the best, because i’m super excited for the future now! as opposed to stressed o__o
or maybe that is the soda talking
i wish them all the best, i hope it doesn’t turn out to be a lot of talk and indecision and less doing

anyway
oh also as i mentioned i am co-teaching lessons in a 4th grade science classroom
the teachers are super nice for letting us do this x.x
also learning a lot about pedagogy
the difference between doing a demonstration (e.g. a chemical reaction) and asking students to predict what will happen and then letting them do it (mystery novel! there’s suspense!)

1) hands-on online blah mouthtwister thing
to make this happen logistically:

  • live dirt-cheap (pika… ~$1.5k for three months. oh man, i can go there and eat all the portobello mushrooms! okay to be fair i just want to live at MITERS all the time but maybe that is okay, also there is a waitlist so if i don’t get in then my living costs go way up, oh dear)
  • affiliate self with shop: done (TAing job, again where being female was a plus… mixed feelings, but it should be super fun!)
  • earn money (contract work? essess.com, other places)
  • convince friend to come work on this near full-time with me, work out logistics (in progress)
    it’s a childhood friend who is a senior at cornell (she’s doing a M’Eng – PhD thing, so I only have her for the summer :3), and does meche and ee and bio things, i am super excited!
    plot twist: she is also super-awesome at piano and improv, which means by summer’s end i should be one step closer to my goal of being a hobo playing piano in bars in europe
  • feed ourselves during the summer (http://entrepreneurship.mit.edu/fsa accelerator program? only pays MIT students) 
  • ? get the word out (http://info.p2pu.org/projects/propose/ peer-to-peer university)
technically:
pedagogically:
  • read read read. 
  • http://learn.media.mit.edu/about.html
    One of the big challenges of online learning is to scale the expert. In the studio model of learning, which is pretty much how things work at the Media Lab, more experienced students and faculty will review and critique your work. That is hard to move online. But we’ll try. As part of the course, we will organize a studio review session in which Mitch and Natalie will invite some of the online students to present and discuss their work and give them feedback.
  • … we didn’t build a shiny new platform. Our platform is the web and we like things distributed and open. We also wanted to create a model that is easy to replicate for anyone. We use off-the-shelf Google+ tools, like Hangouts and Google+ communities; and open source software like the Mechanical MOOC (github). You have no excuse not to build a course like this yourself!
reading:

Although initiatives by MIT, Harvard and other leading universities such as Coursera, Edx, Udacity are generating a lot of of buzz, I strongly believe it will be startups led by young students themselves rather than old brick-and-mortar colleges and universities that will be responsible for changing the way students learn.

From my own observation, universities running these programs are fundamentally limited, because their first priority must always be to the real-life students they are serving, and more often than you might think there are staffing issues in answering real-life students’ questions, let alone the questions of a gazillion people of varying backgrounds online. responsiveness — i don’t see that happening in a top-down fashion. perhaps as universities change? how do you motivate students to help other students? a stack-exchange-esque platform?

This is what I think: People are taking these courses because for many it is the only way to learn about interesting topics like robotics or machine learning. Take a video of a Stanford professor talking about a hot topic and people will eat that up. That does not necessarily mean that we have unlocked the power of online education. I also doubt it will give any value to a Stanford student who can sit in the real classroom.

2) elementary school projects
Wah! I get to teach this term as part of D-Lab Education at Weston Field School, which has a long history of working with the Kasiisi project / partnering with schools Kibale National Park in rural western Uganda. Thus, I’ve been doing a lot of research into hands-on projects for kids, which is more fun than I thought it would be. 
==
Holy hexapods, there was a sxsw conference about education:
That was this week. A ton of interest in hands-on learning on the schedule there. XD; SUCH A FAD. Well, looks like I need to wait a few days for the videos to be up.
==
oh, and briefly, i’m making a writeup on rapid-prototyping tools, so for my reference: