Sadly, this is still an acceptable rubric for creating a digestible slidedeck, and it’s still being taught to teachers as an acceptable way to create a “Powerpoint” (more on professional development and the like later).
With regard to creating a good slidedeck, none do it better than Garr Reynolds, Nancy Duarte, and Jeff Brenman, all must-have names in your Blog Roll.
Students from years gone by (my sincerest apologies to my former pupils) would have likely seen a slide the likes of this, if they managed to stay awake for the intro:
Very unfortunate. This slide is the equivalent of using a crowbar and shovel to feed information to the kids. Painful and uninspiring. This slide does nothing to inspire curiosity. Nothing to evoke the one question that I want the students to develop on their own. Much like current textbooks, it tells them what to think and when to think it.
I will be the first to admit that my transformation is still a work in progress but I’m getting better. Here is a slide I gave to all of my classes this year (pre-algebra and advanced algebra) when the Apple App Store neared 1 billion downloads, and asked them to “Tell Me About It” (a regular feature in my class we will talk more about in future installments).
Lots of great discussions evolved from this one slide, whereas the other slide, from a former club 1-7-7 member, acted as a catalyst for absolutely zero. This slide's hook turned on their curiosity, and I had students watching the Apple website often to see how their initial calculations compared to reality. The discrepancies started some great discussions about our assumptions with the original calculations and what might have caused the differences. Now this slide might lose its luster a bit because the App Store already hit its mark.
I used to spend hours typing text and the students would spend hours copying. Mindlessness at its finest. Now, the heavy work isn’t the typing, but contemplating the right image or video...searching for the right photo or creating one of my own (Dan Meyer and I are cut from the same cloth in this respect). I’m now convinced that one good photo or one good video could do more for instruction than all of the text-filled slides used to accomplish. This new lens for viewing pedagogy turned me into a curious student myself. I can’t get away from looking for math in every nook and cranny. My wife wants to slap me sometimes, but I can’t get enough. If only I would have learned to get the hell out of the way sooner.
It's funny, but I had hoped to learn little pedagogical techniques like 1-7-7 from my teacher training, and at first was a little annoyed that that kind of explicit instruction was left out. Instead, my training emphasized the value of constructivism and problem posing - rather than being the "sage on the stage", it's important to create interesting problems that students can explore.
ReplyDeleteSpecifically in math, for example, using certain software, students can explore the properties of quadratics by changing around the coefficients and seeing how the graphs change OR by changing the graphs and seeing how the functions change.
Cool blog idea. I'll be following it while I start my first year of teaching here in Brooklyn.
Hey, Carl~
ReplyDeleteThanks for being the first person to comment on my blog! The techniques you hoped to learn but thankfully didn't, comprised the majority of my teacher training. It took me a while to unlearn how to do the song and dance in front of the students and get out of the way. Good luck on your first year teaching!
Just wow. I followed the link here excited to see a friend's first blog post and with the expectation of being entertained.
ReplyDeleteMission accomplished.
But that's just the start. I'm walking away educated, inspired, and more impressed than ever with your ability to engage an audience, invoke excitement with the written word, and perhaps most important, see the value of both that set of trees in front of us as well as the entire forest that lies behind them.
I don't doubt that this has great value for math teachers, but even neanderthal IT guys like me can...and will...use this. Thanks, Tony! Here's wishing you the best with this effort, and I look forward to more wisdom, charisma, and learning.
Jerry...you're too kind. The feelings of being inspired and educated are mutual, my friend.
ReplyDelete