EDTC 6104 Individual Project | Interactive Lecture Workshop Proposal

For my EDTC 6104 Individual Project, I created and submitted a project proposal on the topic of “Interactive Lectures,”  which focuses on the use of digital tools and personal devices to engage and include students in class lectures. My proposal was accepted to the Northwest 5 Consortium (NW5C)  a one-day workshop on “Digital Humanities/Digital Pedagogies,” hosted by Collins Library at the University of Puget Sound.  The workshop included a mix of presentations and hands-on workshops by and for faculty, educational technologists, and librarian attendees. I gave my original workshop at this consortium on Wednesday, July 27, 2016, and using that experience, feedback from participants, and the ISTE Coaching Standards, revised and improved my proposal to be resubmitted at a future conference.

The Argument for Interactive Lecture Tools

There is a strong argument for using interactive lecture tools, and at a small liberal arts colleges, student success and learning, especially for marginalized students, is high priority. Annie Murphy Paul in “Are College Lectures Unfair”  argues that lecture style classes are biased against certain groups of students such as  young women, students of low socioeconomic background, or students of color; these students ultimately do not perform as well in lecture style classes as compared to wealthier, white, and male students (Paul, 2015). She highlights the use of interactive lecture tools as a means to increase student learning for all students and help decrease the gap for marginalized students. Murphy Paul states:

“Yet a growing body of evidence suggests that the lecture is not generic or neutral, but a specific cultural form that favors some people while discriminating against others, including women, minorities and low-income and first-generation college students. This is not a matter of instructor bias; it is the lecture format itself — when used on its own without other instructional supports — that offers unfair advantages to an already privileged population.”

The data is clear; students, all students that is, perform better on high stakes assignments and assessments when given consistent opportunities to contribute to and interact with a traditional lecture style format. In fact, while only 66 out of 100 students pass a traditional lecture course, 78 of 100 students pass an active learning course that utilizes interactive lecture tools (such as Pear Deck or Poll Everywhere) to engage students (Freeman, 2014).

PearDeck cites multiple sources (including “Are College Lectures Unfair”and “Active learning increases student performance in science, engineering, and mathematics”) to highlight the effectiveness of it’s use:

PearDeck also teamed up with NYC Department of Education Office of Innovation & EdTech iZone and Johns Hopkins University to study the efficacy of Pear Deck in the classroom:

With these arguments for both Pear Deck and all interactive lecture tools in mind, I began designing and revising my presentation to train educators to use these tools successfully in their classes.

Constructing the Proposal

When planning for this  original workshop in July, my main concerns centered on length of the conference, access to the digital resource, and the mixed experience of audience members. Given a ninety minute workshop time, determining how many digital resources to introduce that allow maximum “play” time without overwhelming our audience with too many resources was key. Audience members did need a Gmail account and are required to allow certain tools to access their data- this piece was included in the original workshop proposal. Finally, my workshop is geared towards faculty and educational technologists, however a majority of attendees were librarians.

After creating and delivering this workshop, I redesigned it with the intention of

• Sharing my experience and recommendation for the members of my learning circle, several of whom are creating similar workshop proposals.
• Delivering a stronger version of this workshop to faculty members at the University of Puget Sound in a future on-campus training.
• Possibly submitting the proposal to a larger higher education conference in Spring 2017.

ISTE Coaching Standards 3

The ISTE Coaching Standards were one of the guiding factors in evaluating the effectiveness of my original workshop proposal and assisted in the revision of my proposal. I created the following chart to review each coaching standard, questioned how it could strengthen/apply to my proposal, and what areas needed to change because of it.

Five Characteristics of Professional Development

Using my experience giving this workshop in July, feedback given by participants, and knowledge of effective professional development gained through my EDTC 6104 course (neatly summarized by Karen Johnson’s awesome “5 Things Teachers Want from PD, and How Coaching and Collaboration Can Deliver Them—If Implementation Improves” article via EdSurge), I revised my workshop using the following guidelines:

• Length
  • Original Workshop: 90 minutes
  • Revised Workshop: 60 or 90 minutes
    • Part of my presentation was arguing for device use in the classroom while creating a sense of commonality to issues and trials faculty face when allowing or denying device use. From there, I transitioned into encouraging device use as a tool and resource by having students interact with a lesson using their devices (encouraging control and classroom management).
    • In the future, I would shorten this introduction and focus more on giving faculty experience using the tool. A sixty minute session would allow faculty to have the above conversation while experiencing two digital resources (PearDeck and Go SoapBox). A ninety minute session would allow faculty to edit a previous lesson using a resource of their choice with support from Educational Technologists. This would require faculty to view an introduction to the workshop and to come with a lesson in hand (blended learning).
• Active and Engaged Learning
  • Original Workshop:
    • Presentation, no blended or flipped elements.
    • Tools chosen: Pear Deck, Go Soapbox
  • Revised Workshop:
    • Blended elements: attendees will be able to view an overview of the workshop beforehand and will be assigned to come to the presentation with a lesson, device (or can check out a device as indicated in the pre-workshop survey)preferable PowerPoint, in hand that they want to add interactive lessons to.
    • Tools:
      • Pear Deck and Go Soapbox were chosen because they allow faculty to edit and revise past lessons without completely overhauling them. I assumed most faculty would buy into interactive lecture tools if it allowed minimal effort (not creating whole new lessons) to achieve their goals (student engagement). I chose a tool that allows for extended interaction and options but does cost money (Pear Deck) as well as a free option that has more limited features (Go Soapbox).
        • PearDeck does have a free trial period where faculty can edit 5 previously made presentations (made with PowerPoint, Google Slides, or uploaded as PDFs).
      • Both tools will be used to deliver the presentation so faculty can experience both the student and teacher side to each tool (incorporating active elements).
•  Content Knowledge Needs
  • Content Objectives:
    • My main objective is encouraging faculty to use a digital resource that increases student engagement and learning and creates a more forward thinking digital learning environment. The following standards align with my objective:
      • ISTE Coaching Standard 3a:
        • Model effective classroom management and collaborative learning strategies to maximize teacher and student use of digital tools and resources and access to technology-rich learning environments.
      • ISTE Coaching Standard 3f:
        • Collaborate with teachers and administrators to select and evaluate digital tools and resources that enhance teaching and learning and are compatible with the school technology infrastructure.
  • Common Misconceptions:
    • Faculty tend to adopt an “all or nothing” model to personal device use in class. We will begin each training with a discussion of these models, why they feel necessary, and offer alternatives to those models with tips on how to manage them (seen in the presentation).
• Teacher Needs
  • Digital Classroom Mangagement:
    • We will model best practices and give tips about using interactive lecture tools, including the types of questions we ask, number of questions we ask, freezing screens or putting away devices when needed, etc. We want to encourage faculty to use but be able to limit device use when needed.
    • Accessibility (revised workshop only):
      • Closed caption Introduction
      • Takeaways populated to attendees’ Google Drives
      • Alternatives to PearDeck (which cannot be used with Screen Readers, though it does put content at the classroom right in front of the students), such as Go Soap Box, Plickers, and Go Everywhere
      • Accessibility benefits of using interactive tools allow students who already use devices for accessibility reasons to continue to do so in a structured way. PearDeck puts content at the classroom right in front of the students, as does other interactive tools).
    • FAQ (revised workshop only)
• Collaborative Participation
  • Original Workshop: no extension or possibilities for future collaboration. Collaboration to discuss cellphone use policy, but no opportunity to build/create anything.
  • Revised Workshop: Use of Takeaways (allows interaction), opportunity to collaboratively write a new in-class device use policy, opportunity to collaborate with faculty and Educational Technologists to revise a lesson (instructed to bring a lesson to revise in new workshop proposal) using an interactive digital resource.

Project Artifacts

Complete Workshop Proposal:

• PDF of Proposal & FAQ
• Piktochart Version of Proposal & FAQ
• PDF of Piktochart Version
• Link to Piktochart Version
• Individual Proposal Pieces (embedded in proposal above):
  • Takeaways of interactive slides
    • Takeaways are a feature of Pear Deck where at the end of an interactive lesson, the slides and responses to interactive pieces are pushed to a participant’s Google Drive.
  • Presentation Slides
    • Does not include interactive pieces- see above.
  • Introduction Video (with captions)
  • Workshop Introduction Survey
  • Workshop Feedback Survey

Resources