Three Reasons to Ditch Technology in Your Flipped Classroom 08-21

What would happen if you were to arrive to your classroom, unplug the devices, turn off the
projector, and step away from the PowerPoint slides … just for the day?

What would you and your students do in class?

This was the challenge I presented to 100 faculty members who attended my session at the Teaching Professor Conference in St. Louis this past June. The title of the session was, “Using ‘Unplugged’ Flipped Learning Activities to Engage Students.” Our mission was to get “back to the basics” and share strategies to engage students without using technology.

Why Use “Unplugged” Strategies the Flipped Classroom?

Most of the conversations about the flipped classroom include discussions about technological tools. What video recording tool should I use? What tools are best for producing a podcast? What quizzing tool should I use to assess the pre-class work?  What types of clickers should I use in class to assess learning? With all of this focus on technology, why would we want to consider flipping a class without it? Here are three reasons:

1. To focus on the process. For many faculty, the “flip” means something more than how technology is used in and out of the classroom. In my work, for example, the FLIP is when you “Focus on your Learners by Involving them in the Process.” When you FLIP, you intentionally invert the design a learning environment so students engage in activities, apply concepts, and focus on higher level learning outcomes during class time.

This definition encourages us to think strategically about the learning experiences we are designing with our students so they can achieve the learning outcomes. The focus is not the technology. It’s the process. It’s the process of involving our students in applying and analyzing course content, making decisions, critiquing a topic, or evaluating a data set. It’s the process of creating something together to demonstrate understanding or to express ideas. Sometimes technology can help with this process, but sometimes it can become a distraction which could hinder the process.

2. To improve learning and retention. Scholars continue to analyze the pros and cons of technology in the classroom and its impact on student learning, retention, and engagement. For almost every study published on the advantages of technology, you can find another study on the disadvantages. Ultimately, the learning outcomes should inform how (or if) technology is used in the classroom.

It is interesting to consider how the findings of this recent study on taking notes by hand versus on a laptop has been shown to increase conceptual thinking (Mueller & Oppenheimer,2014). And, for those of us who use slides and videos in our flipped classrooms, it’s important to note the combination of images, text, videos, and our voice can be too overwhelming for some students, especially when they are introduced to new information. Using “unplugged” strategies in some of your lessons can reduce the cognitive load and help students remember what they’ve learned (Madda, 2015).

3. To enhance creativity and encourage real connections.

When I use unplugged strategies in my teaching, my students often say it’s “refreshing” to do something different. They often comment on how “tired” they are of slides and online discussion forums. When they disconnect from the devices, they tell me it helps them think of new ideas, and they appreciate the opportunity to connect with other students who are not distracted by a screen.
Likewise, when I use unplugged strategies in faculty development workshops, faculty often say that they appreciate the opportunity to put away their phones and laptops so they can make real connections with their colleagues (and get away from feeling obligated to answer emails!).

Flipping Faculty Development: Unplugged!

Speaking of faculty development, in my conference session, I wanted to engage faculty in the process of using “unplugged” tools in class to engage and involve students. To demonstrate how it can be done, and with the goal of “practicing what we preach” when it comes to faculty development, I flipped the session and placed faculty in the center of the learning experience.

The faculty participated in activities using five different “unplugged” tools: sticky notes, index cards, dice, a deck of cards, and poster paper. Each group was asked to analyze a case study using each of the tools and then brainstorm different ways these tech-free tools can be used in the classroom to increase student engagement and improve learning. I told workshop participants I would share their work in a Faculty Focus article and on my blog. As promised, here are some of their ideas:

Goal: To encourage students to ask more questions during class time.

Unplugged Tool: Dice

Strategy: Faculty member rolls the dice and the number rolled is the number of questions the students in the class must ask before class is dismissed.

Goal: To encourage students to analyze and prioritize information.

Unplugged Tool: Index cards

Strategy: Give students a case study. Ask them to individually decide which piece of information in the case is most important and write that information on an index card. Put students in groups and ask them to discuss and prioritize the cards from most to least important. Integrate their ideas into a class discussion.

Goal: To help students put information in an order.

Unplugged Tool: Sticky notes

Strategy: Give students a stack of index cards. Ask them to write each step of a procedure or process on the card and place the cards in the correct order from first step to last. Other groups can critique and change the order if needed. Use for class discussion.

For more unplugged teaching strategies created by the participants and to see the case studies, view my post on 25 Unplugged Strategies.

An important part of faculty development is to share ideas so we can all learn from each other. So, let’s keep the conversation going! What “unplugged” tools or strategies have you used in class to engage students and improve learning?


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Restoring pedagogical sanity ... and I would encourage others to keep it going.

Video games can mitigate defensiveness resulting from bad test scores, study suggests 04-15

Image credit ; Shyam's Imagination Library

One of the worst feelings a student can have is receiving a bad grade on an exam, whether it's a test they prepared well for or didn't prepare at all. The prevalence of video games in today's society helps mitigate some of the effects felt by students from those low test scores by reaffirming their abilities in another area they deem important.

Video game players can get temporarily lost in alternative worlds, whether it's transforming into the ultimate fighting machine or the greatest athlete on the planet. But no matter the game, the goal is to find a way to put the empty feeling of the bad test at school behind him by reaffirming his excellence in his favorite video game. It's a scene that plays out all across the country, and one that has received criticism at times for placing too much emphasis on the game and not enough on schoolwork.

But John Velez, an assistant professor in the Department of Journalism & Electronic Media in the Texas Tech University College of Media & Communication, says that may not always be the case. In fact, his research suggests those who value video game success as part of their identity and received positive feedback on their video game play were more willing to accept the bad test score and consider the implications of it, something that is crucial for taking steps to change study habits and ensure they do better on future exams.

Conversely, those who do not value success in video games but received positive video game feedback were actually more defensive to having performed poorly on a test. They were more likely to discredit the test and engage in self-protective behaviors. Regardless, the results seem to throw a wrench into the theory that video games and schoolwork are detrimental to each other.
The key, however, is making sure those playing video games after a bad test are not doing it just as an escape, but making sure after playing video games they understand why they did badly on the test and what they need to do to perform better on the next one.

"People always kind of talk about video-game play and schoolwork in a negative light," Velez said. "They talk about how playing video games in general can take away from academic achievement. But for me and a lot of gamers, it's just a part of life and we use it a lot of times to help get through the day and be more successful versus gaming to get away from life.

"What I wanted to look into was, for people who identify as a gamer and identify as being good at games, how they can use playing video games after something like a bad exam to help deal with the implications of a bad exam, which makes it more likely they will think about the implications and accept the idea that, 'OK, I didn't do well on this exam and I need to do better next time.'"

Negative results, positive affirmation Velez said past research suggests receiving negative feedback regarding a valued self-image brings about a defensive mechanism where people discredit or dismiss the source of the information. Conversely, the Self-Affirmation Theory says that affirming or bolstering an important self-image that is not related to the negative feedback can effectively reduce defensiveness.

"If you're in a bad mood, you can play a good game and get into a good mood," Velez said. "But I wanted to go deeper and think about how there are times when you are in a bad mood but you are in a bad mood for a very specific reason. Just kind of ignoring it and doing something to get into a good mood can be bad. It would be bad if you go home and play a video game to forget about it and the next time not prepare better for the test or not think about the last time you did badly on a test."

For the research, Velez was interested in two types of people -- those who identify as placing importance on good video game play and those who do not. How good they were at playing the game was not a factor, just that they identified as it being important to their identity or not.

Participants in the research were administered a survey to assess their motivations for video-game play and the importance of video games to their identity. They were then given an intelligence test and were told the test was a strong measure of intelligence. Upon completing the test, participants were given either negative feedback on their performance or no feedback at all.

That negative feedback naturally produces an amount of defensiveness for anyone regarding their performance, regardless of the importance they put on being successful at video games.

Participants then played a generic shooting video game for 15 minutes that randomly provided positive or no feedback to the player, and players were told the game was an adequate test of their video-game playing skills. Participants then completed an online survey containing ratings of the intelligence test and self-ratings on intelligence.

What Velez discovered was those who place importance on being successful at video games were less likely to be defensive about the poor performance on the intelligence test.

"Defensiveness is really a bad thing a lot of times," Velez said. "It doesn't allow you to think about the situation and think about what you should have done differently. A lot of times people use it to protect themselves and ignore it or move on, which makes it likely the same thing is going to happen over and over again."

It's the second discovery that Velez didn't expect, the result where those who performed badly on the intelligence exam and don't identify as video game players became even more defensive about their intelligence exam result. Instead, they were more likely to use the positive video game feedback as further evidence they are intelligent and the test is flawed or doesn't represent their true intelligence.

"That was like this double-edged sword that I didn't realize I was going to find," Velez said. "It was definitely unexpected, but once you think about it theoretically, it intuitively makes sense. After receiving negative information about yourself you instinctively start looking for a way to make yourself feel better and you usually take advantage of any opportunities in your immediate environment."

Changing behavior A common punishment administered by parents for inappropriate behavior or poor performance in school has been to take away things the child enjoys, such as television, the use of the car, or their video games.

One might infer from this research that taking video games from the child might actually be doing them harm by not allowing them to utilize the tool that makes them feel better or gives them an avenue to understand why they performed poorly in school and how they must do better.
Velez, however, said that's not necessarily the case.

"I don't think parents should change their practices until more research is conducted, particularly looking at younger players and their parents' unique parenting styles," Velez said. "The study simply introduces the idea that some people may benefit from some game play in which they perform well, which may make it easier for them to discuss and strategize for the future so they don't run into this problem again after playing."

Velez said the study also introduces specific stipulations about when the benefits of video-game play occur and when it may actually backfire.

"If parents know their child truly takes pride in their video-game skills, then their child may benefit from doing well in their favorite game before addressing the negative test grade," Velez said. "However, there's the strong possibility that a child is using the video game as a way to avoid the implications of a bad test grade, so I wouldn't suggest parents change how they parent their children until we're able to do more research."

Therein lies the fine line, because the study also suggests receiving positive feedback on video games doesn't necessarily translate into a better performance on a future exam. Velez said the common idea is that defensiveness prevents people from learning and adapting from the feedback they received. Those who are less defensive about negative self-information are more likely to consider the causes and precursors of the negative event, making it more likely a change in behavior will occur. But this was not a focus of this particular study and will have to be examined further.

Velez said he would also like to identify other characteristics of video-game players who are more likely to benefit from this process compared to increased negative defensive reaction. This could be used to help identify a coping strategy or lead to further research about parenting strategies for discussing sensitive subjects with children.

"What I want to get out of this research is, for people who care about gaming as part of their identity, how they can use video games in a positive way when dealing with negative things in life," Velez said.

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Bringing up the children. can we just shift from praise for achievement, effort,To, a learning reaction...It helps.... 01-010

The Stanford professor who pioneered praising kids for effort says we’ve totally missed the point.

It is well known that telling a kid she is smart is wading into seriously dangerous territory.
Reams of research show that kids who are praised for being smart fixate on performance, shying away from taking risks and meeting potential failure. Kids who are praised for their efforts try harder and persist with tasks longer. These “effort” kids have a “growth mindset” marked by resilience and a thirst for mastery; the “smart” ones have a “fixed mindset” believing intelligence to be innate and not malleable.

But now, Carol Dweck, the Stanford professor of psychology who spent 40 years researching, introducing and explaining the growth mindset, is calling a big timeout.

It seems the growth mindset has run amok. Kids are being offered empty praise for just trying. Effort itself has become praise-worthy without the goal it was meant to unleash: learning. Parents tell her that they have a growth mindset, but then they react with anxiety or false affect to a child’s struggle or setback. “They need a learning reaction – ‘what did you do?’, ‘what can we do next?’” Dweck says.

Teachers say they have a “growth mindset” because not to have one would be silly. But then they fail to teach in such a way that kids can actually develop growth mindset muscles. “It was never just effort in the abstract,” Dweck tells Quartz. “Some educators are using it as a consolation play, saying things like ‘I tell all my kids to try hard’ or ‘you can do anything if you try’.”
“That’s nagging, not a growth mindset,” she says.

The key to instilling a growth mindset is teaching kids that their brains are like muscles that can be strengthened through hard work and persistence. So rather than saying “Not everybody is a good at math. Just do your best,” a teacher or parent should say “When you learn how to do a new math problem, it grows your brain.” Or instead of saying “Maybe math is not one of your strengths,” a better approach is adding “yet” to the end of the sentence: “Maybe math is not one of your strengths yet.”

The exciting part of Dweck’s mindset research is that it shows intelligence is malleable and anyone can change their mindset. She did: growing up, she was seated by IQ in her classroom (at the front) and spent most of her time trying to look smart.

“I was very invested in being smart and thought to be smart was more important than accomplishing anything in life,” she says. But her research made her realize she could take some risks and push herself to reach her potential, or she could spend all her time trying to look smart.

She and other researchers are discovering new things about mindsets. Adults with growth mindsets don’t just innately pass those on to their kids, or students, she says, something they had assumed they would. She’s also noticed that people may have a growth mindset, but a trigger that transports them to a fixed-mindset mode. For example, criticism may make a person defensive and shut down how he or she approaches learning. It turns out all of us have a bit of both mindsets, and harnessing the growth one takes work.

Researchers are also discovering just how early a fixed and growth mindset forms. Research Dweck is doing in collaboration with a longitudinal study at the University of Chicago looked at how mothers praised their babies at one, two, and three years old. They checked back with them five years later. “We found that process praise predicted the child’s mindset and desire for challenge five years later,” she says.

In a follow-up, the kids who had more early process praise—relative to person praise—sought more challenges and did better in school. “The more they had a growth mindset in 2nd grade the better they did in 4th grade and the relationship was significant,” Dweck wrote in an email. “It’s powerful.”
Dweck was alerted to things going awry when a colleague in Australia reported seeing the growth mindset being misunderstood and poorly implemented. “When she put a label on it, I saw it everywhere,” Dweck recalls.

But it didn’t deflate her (how could it, with a growth mindset?). It energized her:

I know how powerful it can be when implemented and understood correctly. Education can be very faddish but this is not a fad. It’s a basic scientific finding, I want it to be part of what we know and what we use.

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Children who sleep more get better grades 12-31

Children who sleep more get better grades.

Sleep plays a fundamental role in the way we learn. Emerging evidence makes a compelling case for the importance of sleep for language learning, memory, executive function, problem solving and behaviour during childhood.

A new study that my colleagues and I have worked on illustrated how an optimal quantity of sleep leads to more effective learning in terms of knowledge acquisition and memory consolidation. Poor quality of sleep – caused by lots of waking up during the night – has also been reported to be a strong predictor of lower academic performance, reduced capacity for attention, poor executive function and challenging behaviours during the day.

Many adolescents are sleep-deprived as they gain less sleep than the average recommended level – around nine hours for this group. But due to school commitments, teenagers are required to wake up early at a set time even if they have not achieved the optimal number of hours sleep.

Along with these early start times, teenagers also experience pubertal phase delay – meaning pubertal teenagers will sleep even less due to biological factors. Combined with late night activities, this can have a significant negative effect on the quality of sleep and therefore their behaviour during the day.
Insufficient and poor quality of sleep appear to be pervasive during adolescence. These can have various consequences such as an excessive daytime sleepiness, poor diet and in turn impairments in cognitive control, risk-taking behaviour, diminished control of attention and behaviour, as well as poor emotional control.

More sleep versus better sleep

In a recent study involving 48 students between 16 and 19-years-old recruited through an independent sixth form college in central London, my colleagues and I at the Lifespan Learning and Sleep Laboratory at UCL examined the link between sleep, academic performance and environmental factors.

Our results showed that the majority of the teenagers achieved just over seven hours of sleep, with an average bedtime at 11.37pm. Our study showed that a longer amount of sleep and earlier bedtimes – measures of sleep quantity – were most strongly correlated with better academic results obtained by the students on a number of tests taken at school. In contrast, measures that were indicative of sleep quality were mostly linked with students’ performances on verbal reasoning tests and on grade point averages on tests at school.

So it appears from our results that "longer sleep" is more closely related to academic performance, while "good night sleep" is more closely related to overall cognitive processing.

Why teens are getting less and less sleep

Our study also confirms findings from previous research showing that teenagers are getting at least two to three hours less sleep than is needed for their optimal brain development and a healthy lifestyle.

There are several modern lifestyle factors that have shown to impact on sleep. We found that consumption of energy drinks and coffee, and social media use half an hour before habitual bedtime were strongly associated with poorer sleep.

Our study has also shown that the negative impact of poor sleep on academic functioning is not always matched by a realisation of this fact by students themselves, therefore they may have little motivation to alter bad sleep habits. Unlike for adults, adolescence is a crucial time because of continual changes in the brain – so sleep is particularly important for a teenager’s health.

Conditions that can impact sleep

There is an added complexity to the sleep patterns of children with developmental disorders, despite the fact that they are more likely to suffer from sleep problems. So far, we have examined sleep, and cognitive and behavioural functioning in children with Down Syndrome, Williams Syndrome and ADHD. All our studies show that sleep has a very important impact on cognitive and daytime functioning of children with these conditions.

When we examined levels of sleep biomarkers – melatonin and cortisol – in children with Williams syndrome, a rare genetic disorder, it revealed that they had elevated levels of cortisol and dampened levels of melatonin. High cortisol and low melatonin levels before bedtime were strongly linked with delayed sleep onset – taking around 50 minutes in comparison to the typical 20 minutes to fall asleep.
Since cortisol is often described as a stress hormone, high levels of this hormone before bedtime may potentially cause sleep problems including difficulty in relaxing and falling asleep. This is an important result to consider before a child is prescribed a melatonin supplement – which might not be necessary to help solve their actual sleep problem.

The effects of the sleep disturbances extend beyond the individual. Parents of children with developmental disorders often experience heightened levels of stress and sleep problems because they are kept awake by their children.

All this shows how crucial it is for teenagers to get the right amount of sleep – otherwise it could have long-term impacts on their health and on their grades.

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