Play with Learning

What students want

After an eleven year break from formal regular lecturing, I have started a final year module at the University of Bradford. I’m really pleased to be working so closely with students again: I’ve always found it tremendously exciting to be surrounded by people with so much talent and potential.

My years out of academia have changed my perspective on lecturing and I am very conscious that I cannot predict the needs of students; so I started my session on Friday with some questions to the group. For me, it feels like going back to school, and no bad thing.

As well as asking them what it was they wanted to learn from the module entitled Creative Media EnterpriseI, and what they wanted to take away from it in terms of skills and experiences, I asked them what they wanted it to be like. Their responses were enormously illuminating. I have distilled them into single words for the purposes of the Wordle below.

what students want

The two desired characteristics that really stand out are informality and intimacy. I’m talking to final year students, adults, already experienced in many ways and so their desire to be treated as equals is perfectly understandable and valuable. I’d like to think that part of the informality that they request suggests a desire to contribute, to participate, to collaborate (characteristics that they also mentioned).

They didn’t use the word ‘intimate’ in the activity, that’s my one word interpretation of their longing for small group work. There are sixty students taking the class and you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to recognise that only limited learning will take place when the whole group are involved. They know as well as I do that adult learning takes place most effectively through discussion and a full lecture theatre isn’t conducive for that.

I’ll do my best to incorporate the other features they want although, rather like gameplay, the sessions may not necessarily be fun but I hope there will always be rewarding.

Perhaps more interesting, was the list of things that they didn’t want.

what students do not want

This is a very sobering reflection of their educational experiences to date and a real challenge for me to avoid. Tackling some of these issues will be easier than others. Some of them are unavoidable.

Still, I think seeking to understand where the students are is a good start. I’m expecting to learn as much from them as the other way around.

What are your desires for learning? How do these comments compare to your own experiences?

 

Childhood & Family articles

Special needs students and their teachers are the victims of a “muddled” approach to schooling, says Leicester Uni http://j.mp/qB5qcd

Socioeconomic status as child dictates response to stress as adult according to University of Minnesota http://j.mp/qDZRZ8

Parents are forgetting how to play with their children, study shows – article from The Guardian last year http://j.mp/jdoiSR

Teenage web habits: slaves to social networking but not so keen on apps, according to article in Guardian http://bit.ly/qiXS0f

Infants Learn To Transfer Knowledge By 16 Months, OSU Study Finds http://j.mp/lPOAsG

Surprisingly useful advice from Vodafone Digital Parenting Magazine http://j.mp/lhRvrM via @darrenbristow

Supportive home learning experiences in the early years boost low-income children’s readiness for school. From NYU. http://j.mp/j3JmWs

Being born & raised in a city is associated with greater lifetime risk for anxiety & mood disorder. From Nature. http://j.mp/jrjGpu

The quality of preschoolers’ social interactions is influenced by the ethnicity of the playmate. From Montreal Uni. http://j.mp/m8AxNQ

Parents prefer media content ratings system in national study led by Iowa State Uni http://j.mp/jS7Psd

How parents communicate with teenagers on mobiles gives insight into relationship according to study http://j.mp/mrfR5l

New study suggests that kids who eat sweets are *less* overweight than those that don’t. http://j.mp/lUbKlO

Informal daycare may harm kids’ cognitive development, Chicago Uni study finds http://j.mp/jLBYP7 (pdf)

One-Fifth of Grandparents Use Social Networks [STUDY] from @mashable http://j.mp/jjiX1i

Teens still learning to plan ahead from Child Development journal http://j.mp/kzyUhz

Youth cybercrime linked to friends’ influence from Michigan State University http://j.mp/iBAKm3

Apple promotes iPad for school

There’s a new TV ad from Apple extolling the potential of the iPad in classrooms.

A few months ago Edudemic posted this list of 50 Innovative Ways to Use an iPad in School.

What do you think? Does the iPad represent revolutionary technology for all teachers and students or simply another tool in the arsenal of the enthusiastic ones?

Psychology & Neuroscience articles

NCSU research: Study Shows Sports Can Help Communities Recover From Disaster http://j.mp/o0bzkz

Distract Yourself or Think It Over? Two Ways to Deal with Negative Emotions from Association for Psychological Science http://j.mp/l37Fnm

Too much choice is a bad thing – Journal of Public Economics http://j.mp/kJXbgT

Snooze you win? It’s true according to Stanford reseasrch http://j.mp/iCsjtQ

The sharing of stories or information may be driven in part by arousal according to new study. http://j.mp/jCeDqH

Text message support for smokers doubles quit rates. From the Lancet. http://j.mp/k9CmP7

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs key to wellbeing but order unimportant – University of Illinois http://j.mp/lfSR5O

Practising a little can make lasting impact on brain according to study from McMaster Uni. http://j.mp/kTz1Dz

Being born & raised in a city is associated with greater lifetime risk for anxiety & mood disorder. From Nature. http://j.mp/jrjGpu

Multi-tasking not all it’s “cracked up” to be? Stanford Study shows? bit.ly/16ko3N

Learning Styles: The Cognitive Side of Content by Johnny Holland http://j.mp/izrUDk

Teens still learning to plan ahead from Child Development journal http://j.mp/kzyUhz

Youth cybercrime linked to friends’ influence from Michigan State University http://j.mp/iBAKm3

Social Justice articles

Upwards social mobility reduces stress – Journal of Epidemiology & Community Heath http://j.mp/nJfdO9

UC Research Points to Best Practices to Reduce Recidivism http://j.mp/pQCNVc

Socioeconomic status as child dictates response to stress as adult according to University of Minnesota http://j.mp/qDZRZ8

High technology, not low taxes, may drive states’ economic growth. Penn State research. http://j.mp/iqX536

Death by Poverty? The effect of wealth and education on mortality. Study by Mailman School http://j.mp/jiAGoT

Prisoners give their time back to community in pioneering project #timebanking http://tiny.cc/hu2d3

More evidence that the tax & benefit changes are hitting the poor hardest. From the Institute For Fiscal Studies http://j.mp/iDaUat

Youth cybercrime linked to friends’ influence from Michigan State University http://j.mp/iBAKm3

Media for learning

workshop

I’ve had the pleasure of working with Head teachers, Principals and education officers in the West Bank this week as part of my work with Karen Ardley for UNRWA.

We talked about the relative strengths and weaknesses of the media available to us for the leadership development programme we’re putting together.  Some of the points are (inevitably) similar to my thoughts on multiplatform formats.

Achieving the right blend is important for a number of reasons:

• Fitness for purpose

Maximising the capabilities of media: Recognising that human experiences might be best communicated through video, while complex theoretical ideas lend themselves to print.

• Accommodating learning preferences

Understanding that our attitudes towards learning are different and that providing ‘something for everyone’ is more likely to engage our audience across the piece.

• Reinforcement

Offering multiple perspectives and varied experiences of the same point helps learners absorb, remember and contextualise information and ideas.

• Texture

The programme will take many hours to complete and the issues are complex and challenging, a varied blend helps to create ‘texture’ in the experience.  This texture helps maintain interest and motivation.

It was a fascinating discussion; I’ve summarised the ideas below.

We recognised that such an activity is fraught with ambiguity.  It is hard to disentangle the medium from the means.  Likewise some characteristics are dependent on use context.  Still, it provided a useful catalyst for the group as we considered the most effective way of distributing content across media.

What do you think?

Rapid content development

writing workshop

I am very privileged to be working on a project with the UN at the moment.  I am helping to develop a leadership programme for Head teachers. What makes this project particularly exciting and important is that these are Principals from schools inside Palestinian refugee camps.

UNRWA supports nearly 700 schools across the Middle East for refugees that have been stateless for more than 70 years in some cases.  Whatever one thinks of the politics, no-one can deny the deplorable conditions that hundreds of thousands of children live in.  Like many around the world, the Agency believes that education is the key to change, and in the absence of support from the countries that host the camps, it has committed to providing schools for the young people.  The project I’m working on complements another being developed for teachers and together they are the heart of an ambitious reform strategy for educational provision.

I’m in Beirut with a friend and colleague, Karen Ardley, working with a team of writers comprising Palestinian Head teachers and School Supervisors.  It is a powerful learning experience for me both in terms of the context and our way of working.

We’re rapidly prototyping content.

I’ve worked on lots of projects where the content has had to be polished and signed-off before being passed to web developers.  It’s an approach that causes all kinds of problems – the disconnect between content and presentation is potentially catastrophic, the transfer from one format to another can change meaning and emphasis and the late arrival of material reduces the time for any type of meaningful testing. They are the reasons we’re doing this differently.

Using WordPress I’ve build a website very quickly.  The standard Dashboard offers familiar word processing functionality and its Widgets and Plug-ins deal with all of the complicated interactions and add some ‘bells and whistles.’ Through it, I’ve provided a highly flexible platform to develop content immediately.  The team is writing straight to screen (albeit to a private site at this stage).

Working in this way means that the whole team, split across the five territories or ‘fields’, can see the programme as it develops.

This methodology is raising its own challenges: It is hard to share content that you know isn’t finished, it’s easy to become distracted by appearance and lots of opinions can cause paralysis, but these are issues in any project – our approach merely brings them to the surface.

We’ve worked hard during this week’s workshop to establish an atmosphere of trust and common purpose that will sustain a writing process which exposes work-in-progress to ‘public’ scrutiny.  The benefits of this vulnerability is content that draws on the expertise of the community, a clear sense of progress and material that is visible from the start.

We’re all hoping that when the programme launches next year, the improved leadership in schools will transform the lives of children across the Middle East.  It’s a project not lacking in ambition.

Psychology & neuroscience articles

A selection of the articles thatI’ve seen about psychology and neuroscience recently:

Morality

Changes in brain circuitry play role in moral sensitivity as people grow up – UChicago News http://j.mp/ih8rrU

Violent video games reduce brain response to violence and increase aggression according to Uni Missouri http://j.mp/j7jSPs

Relationships

Don’t Believe Facebook; You Only Have 150 Friends : NPR http://j.mp/ljMBjP

The way Facebook changes relationships by Benjamin Cohen from C4 news http://j.mp/k0T0re

Happiness

Autonomy, not money, makes us happy according to APA study http://j.mp/liSDNx

Income Disparity Makes People Unhappy – Association for Psychological Science http://j.mp/mTEDxF

Lack of relationships, education top list of common American regrets according to Illinois study http://j.mp/k5kZUm

According to research from Ohio, young adults get self-esteem boost from debt http://j.mp/lr3s30

Expertise

Expertise insulates against bias. Research from Virginia http://j.mp/jLZ8NS

Viewers Look To TV Characters To Advise How To Talk About Sexual Health. Research from Ohio http://j.mp/itDcsG

Miscellany

7 things not to forget about change http://j.mp/iuxvuH

Psychology & neuroscience: are we in a golden age or victims of neuromania? http://ow.ly/5nBrn

Testing Improves Memory from Association for Psychological Science http://j.mp/lrPY1p

Childhood articles

Some of the articles about children and childhood that I’ve seen in the last few weeks:

Parents & preschool

Wanted: More Playful Parents http://j.mp/mII7ph

Supportive home learning experiences in the early years boost low-income children’s readiness for school. From NYU. http://j.mp/j3JmWs

Parents prefer media content ratings system in national study led by Iowa State Uni http://j.mp/jS7Psd

Usage

Coney center reports on children and media: joanganzcooneycenter.org/Reports.html

Young adults struggle with online political participation. From Penn State U http://j.mp/mTGyLk

According to research from Ohio, young adults get self-esteem boost from debt http://j.mp/lr3s30

Good youth programs help teens learn to think strategically according to study at Illinois http://j.mp/mEATwz

Suffering

Social justice articles

Some of the articles about social justice that I’ve noticed in the last couple of weeks:

Not quite one person, one vote. Stanford paper on democratic discrepancies http://j.mp/kNIRg6

So much for digital democracy: New Berkeley study finds elite viewpoints dominate online contenthttp://j.mp/jaw6vm

Prisoners give their time back to community in pioneering project http://tiny.cc/hu2d3

Death by Poverty? The effect of wealth and education on mortality. Study by Mailman School http://j.mp/jiAGoT

UK pupils ‘held back by poverty’ tiny.ly/U4v6

Income Disparity Makes People Unhappy – Association for Psychological Science http://j.mp/mTEDxF

Lifelong gap in health between rich and poor set by age 20 according to study by McGill Uni http://j.mp/kMymHF