Blending Pedagogy and Technology for Deep Learning

Editor's Notes

• #2: This presentation is one I have given at the beginning of a workshop series designed to help faculty members solve problems they are experiencing in their traditional classrooms. I have presented this in the past using two styles. It can be given as a very formal presentation. I can also make it a little more informal and dynamic. Normally, I either know my audience well enough to judge which presentation style they would prefer or I can ask the person who invited me to conduct the workshop which style to stick to. In this instance, since we are moving straight thru this with no breaks, I am going to be a little daring and go for the more dynamic version. Feel free to interrupt me with questions or comments at any time.
• #3: I’m going to start off with a story. I once worked with a foreign languages faculty member on a classroom dilemma she was experiencing in one of her advanced literature classes: traditionally, she would ask literature students to memorize various passages of plays, poetry or novels that they were reading in her class. The problem was, students didn’t do a very good job on these assignments and she was so discouraged with their lack of progress that she was ready to abandon this course requirement altogether. But that really bothered her because this activity seemed very fundamental to her. So, I started out with her by asking: what is your goal with this activity? What are you trying to accomplish with it? The response I got went something like this: [Makes an offended, isn’t it obvious face]. Well, it is something that has always been done in foreign language lit classes. It is traditional. Why? I asked. [Make even more offended face. Splutter a little]. Well, as anglo-americans there are certain literary phrases that are part of our common language—like by any other name, a rose still smells as sweet, or beware the ides of March. We may not even know they are literary quotes but we understand them. As a foreign language teacher, I want students to be aware of similar cultural features of the Spanish language and understand their meaning and significance. Ok, I nodded. That seems fair, but still the students aren’t getting it.
• #4: One of the fundamental problems this activity had was that it was a straight memorization exercise. From the student perspective, they had one goal: memorize the assigned passage. They could do that, theoretically, without even understanding the words. They certainly did not seem to need to reflect on its importance, either to Spanish culture or to themselves. It did not require them to relate anything to anything else, either inside the course, to another discipline or even to their own lives. In short, to be honest, despite an admirable goal, this activity really would be meaningless from the POV of the students. So one of the first questions I asked the professor was: what are some of the other course goals that we can draw in to begin giving this activity a little more meaning so we can develop it into a deeper learning experience. Since this was a literature class, and specifically a drama class, one of the major course goals was to impart on the students a more complete understanding of the structure and evolution of Spanish drama and its impact in world drama. Since it was a language class, another primary goal was that the students should practice speaking Spanish. So we began with those broader goals to try to develop this surface learning activity into a deep learning activity.
• #5: One of the first issues I questioned was whether the students might be having trouble memorizing the material because they did not truly understand it, so I asked if the professor knew they did. She said she gave regular vocabulary quizzes on the last class day of every week based on the vocab in the reading from that week. I suggested that instead of waiting until the end of the week, she give ‘quizzes’ as the class went along. The problem with that was breaking flow of the class for lengthy vocab discussions or, worse still, English translations. A solution to that was to use clickers. Post the passage to be memorized, or other possibly difficult passages, into a power point along with multiple choice ‘answers’ that reword it into simpler Spanish everyone could certainly understand. Give the students clickers and let them quickly read the passage and its definitions and vote on the correct definition with the clickers. Then reveal the correct answer and the number of people who got it right. That keeps students engaged and helps make sure they are following the meaning of the lecture. Another solution was to write ‘one minute papers’ explaining the meaning of the passages in simpler Spanish and asking students to post/read their answers to check understanding.
• #6: The next issue we tackled with this exercise was: even if the students understand the words/translation, do they really understand what they mean? Can they relate them to anything they are already familiar with? Do the words resonate with them in any way? So, since all the students had laptops and there was wifi in the classroom, we decided to give the students some class time to work in groups, discuss the meaning of the passages and use the Internet to help them find/remember famous passages of anglo literature on similar themes. Then we decided to create a class blog where, after class, the students wrote a few paragraphs in Spanish describing how they personally relate to the passages and commenting, again in Spanish, on the reaction statements that other students wrote. Both these activities also satisfy one of the course goals that the students improve their speaking/writing ability by giving them more opportunity to practice speaking and writing Spanish.
• #7: That helped. Now the students had a better understanding of the passages they had to memorize—they could relate them to previous knowledge and to their own lives. But, still, the end goal was nothing more than having the students memorize the passages and the instructor was open to more modification of the activity so that the students would really make these Spanish passages part of their own culture. Because she was open to more ideas, the first issue we considered was one related to how the passages the students had to memorize were staged or acted out by actors. Since this was a drama class, one of the concepts the professor wanted to emphasize when discussing these passages was how they were presented—what they looked like—because students often forget the visual aspect of drama when reading it. To help with this, the professor had still images—photos—of various players performing these passages that revealed interesting staging techniques. The problem was, the students could only see these images in class. If they missed class, they missed the opportunity to see them. And sometimes the students complained they couldn’t see the details of the images the professor was discussing from the back of the room or what have you. A solution to this was to create a video lecture. The video included full screen views of the pictures shown in class, audio of the instructor discussing the images and the staging techniques they showed and highlights of the details the professor was calling attention to. This had multiple benefits: the students could re-watch this part of the lecture as many times as it took to understand it; they could better see the images since they were close up on their own screen; and the professor could include additional images that she didn’t have time to discuss in class and ask the students to write responses commenting on how these staging techniques worked/how they impacted the audiences’ perception of the play.
• #8: After deciding to work on those videos, we did a little more brain-storming. We were working with passages from plays. So, we dared to imagine the students doing more than just memorizing the passage and regurgitating it as part of an exam. We imagined teams of students actually performing the parts of the plays that contained the passages. That seemed like a big dream because the students were Spanish majors, not drama majors. We also imagined the students maybe re-writing the plays into a more modern version (since they were medieval and renaissance plays). But again this was a big dream since the students were, again, Spanish majors, not creative writing majors. But, the idea of doing either or both of those things was irresistible because doing so would really drive the students to internalize some of the major concepts about staging and dramatic structure that the class emphasized. So, we decided to try it.
• #9: Since this project was going to ask the students to do something they didn’t really know firmly how to approach and since there were certain significant obstacles (like a lack of a stage with discovery spaces or trap doors or even curtains, and a very small budget—only that which the professor could offer out of her own pocket), we decided this project could best be approached as a problem based activity. The students were given the question: how can you produce XYZ assigned scene with the classroom as your stage and with a props/costumes budget of $50? They were given specific expectations for the quality of the final production, assigned specific roles (actor, set designer, costume designer etc) and told to video tape each step of the process as well as the final production. They also had to keep a group blog of their brainstorming results.
• #10: Now, the main problem was that the students weren’t drama majors, as I already said. They needed help to work out how to stage the scene they were assigned. In many classes, if the students are challenged with a task that they do not know how to approach, they might collaborate with other students or professors within the college that are more knowledgeable on the topic. In this case, the professor wanted to ensure any interaction on this project happened in Spanish so the students would also be practicing their language skills. Unfortunately, none of the drama professors or students spoke Spanish to help in this process. But, in the college where this story takes place, the foreign languages department did have a sister-college relationship with the Universidad de Merida in Mexico. So, the professor called a colleague in that college and asked if any of their drama students would be willing to speak to her class on Skype about tricks to produce these scenes on a low budget. Turns out they were happy to do that, especially since one of the plays was the basis for a play that is traditionally produced in Mexico every Halloween, so it was one they had all played in multiple times. Those students had even written and produced a modernization of the play, so they could give ideas on that too.
• #11: This was a lot of work, no denying it. But the end results were impressive. The faculty member got a lot of material she could reuse in future classes. She also got the reputation for being the professor students wanted to take. Most importantly, she got students that really knew their stuff. In fact, a few years after this class, I was walking in the mall with this professor when one of the students in this first class saw her across the mall. He had played the part of Don Juan—a staring part--in one of the productions. Upon seeing her, he did not smile, nod politely, wave or say hello. Instead, from across the mall he did this: Calmate pues vida mia, reposa aqui y un momento, olvida de tu convento, la triste carcel sombria. No es verdad, angel de amor, que en esta apartada orilla mas pura la luna brilla y se respira mejor. Etc, quoting the passage that he had learned for that class with perfect dramatic presentation. Now that’s retention!
• #12: We’re not all Spanish teachers or drama teachers here, obviously. But hopefully this story has given you some ideas on how you could use technology and pedagogy that encourages deep learning to enhance your classroom and/or solve some of the issues you are experiencing in your classroom teaching. Don’t hesitate to think about using any of these tools just because you don’t know how to create a video or podcast or webpage or use Moodle. That is something I can help you learn. Its super easy. Trust me. Just think about how these tools might help you.