Tag Archives: Lesley Examples

TeachLive: Using Immersive Simulations to Practice Being a Teacher

Posted on by

Lesley Graduate School of Education (GSOE) faculty members Maureen Creegan Quinquis and Susan Patterson are wrapping up a successful year piloting TeachLive, a new immersive technology to prepare teachers for classroom experience. TeachLive (produced by Mursion) allows faculty to guide teacher candidates through several types of classroom situations from behavior management to practicing for parent-teacher conferences.

To learn more about this initiative, rewind to the summer of 2016.  Faculty members Maureen Creegan Quinquis and Susan Patterson, collaborating with GSOE Dean Jack Gillette wrote a grant proposal to the Department of Education (DESE) to allow Lesley students to gain access to a new technology tool that blends an immersive experience with live action by an actor. They wrote a proposal detailing the elements of teacher preparation that immersive virtual reality could most effectively address. Specifically, it provides students with experience in:

  • Classroom management
  • Parent-teacher/community relationships
  • Special education practice, particularly developing skills in differentiation
  • Job interview practice

Lesley was awarded the grant for equipment and services in August 2016, allowing GSOE to offer this experience for candidates in initial licensure programs. The equipment for the program is situated in a dedicated space in University Hall. Faculty schedule time with their students to interact with virtual students. Faculty introducing the tool have work closely with students on the preparation, the live simulation itself, and then debriefing after the simulation—all of which are essential components to learning from an immersive simulation.

In Fall 2016, Elementary/Creative Arts in Learning and Elementary and Middle/High School students began working with two of the simulation scenarios:

  1. a classroom setting of 8th graders with a variety of personalities and levels of knowledge;
  2. a parent teacher conference where the teacher is speaking with family members about their child’s progress or presenting a serious issue to the family.
image from http://www.rdmag.com/article/2016/04/simulation%E2%80%99s-teaching-moment

image from http://www.rdmag.com/article/2016/04/simulation%E2%80%99s-teaching-moment

The faculty members report that in addition to providing the space to “practice” with simulated students, there is a real benefit to being able to also pause the simulation to debrief specific moments or to step back from the situation.  As Professor Creegan Quinquis notes, “If I have a group of students who have been working on differentiated ways to present a lesson; they can all be in the room fishbowl style– they can watch each other to try and present the lesson. If the student candidate suddenly freezes– he/she can say “pause” and then ask for help or let someone else step in, or we can have a discussion right there in the room. You get to practice it several time.  What’s interesting is how much like real life it is. You have this experience of feeling like it’s really happening…The beauty of this is that they can make mistakes and have a safe space to practice” …before ever getting in front of real students.

Lessons learned from running our first online Design for User Experience course

Posted on by

Today’s post is by Lisa Spitz, Lesley Assistant Professor and consultant for the College of Art and Design’s bachelor’s program in design for user experience.

In Fall 2, 2016 we ran our first course in the Design for User Experience program, Typography 1. 10 students signed up for the course. Excitement ensued. And then I started looking into the class roster. Of the 10 students, just 1 was a Design for UX student. The remaining students represented a mix of Business, Counseling, and Psychology programs. As a new program in an entirely new category for Lesley, I realize that it takes time to market and enroll new students. Nonetheless, I was a bit disappointed by the turn out. I didn’t question the applicability of the content to individuals “outside the field”. Principles of good typography is something anyone can benefit from. But I was worried about the complexity of the learning activities I’d planned and the Adobe software that was required to complete them.

What I learned over the subsequent 8 weeks is the importance of being flexible and the benefit of testing a course with individuals outside your domain. Let’s start with the latter point. For those familiar with Universal Design for Learning or Inclusive Design, it’s a bit like that. If you can make your course “work” for individuals outside your program, chances are it will work better for those inside your program as well. I’m not talking about “dumbing down” content or removing requirements. I’m talking about adding instructional supports to make the course content and expectations clearer. Here are a few ways I made that happen while the course was still in flight:

Providing better prompts
As a typography course, students were expected to create several designs and critique the work of their peers. However, journal entries revealed that students lacked the confidence to do so and some even felt hypocritical critiquing their peers’ work. The original critique questions I’d provided assumed they could judge which design was best (or worst) and give concrete recommendations on what to do next. But students were not sure how to assess the work of their peers. How would they know which was best? They certainly could tell which one they liked, but could not articulate why it was better. So, I went back to the drawing board and made the questions more personal. “What words would you use to describe this?”; “What is being emphasized?”; “What interests you about the design?” Etc. These questions were easier to answer. They required students to respond based on what they saw and how they felt, not what they deemed to be “good” or “bad”.

Original critique language:Critique_Before

Revised critique language: 
Critique_After


Creating more explicit directions
As a visual learner, one of the biggest challenges I faced when creating my own online course is finding ways around the “wall of text”. To explain an activity requires quite a bit of documentation. Aside from using all video or images, there’s almost no way around it. And when confusion arises, the tendency is to double down with more explanation. Instead, I took a step back, added images, cut text, and used more headings and bulleted lists – detailing process, specifications and steps for completion.

Original assignment description: (click for full size image)
direction_before_crop
Revised assignment description: (click for full size image)
directions_after_crop
Personalizing the feedback process
As students submitted their design work each week, I used the Assignment Tool to provide feedback. Originally, I defaulted to the WYSIWYG editor and took to writing what I thought worked/didn’t work and needed improvement. However, it felt as if some of my feedback was getting lost in translation. Again, the wall of text. Midway through the course I switched to video. Instead of writing a single piece of feedback, I recorded my screen as I looked at each of their design options and spoke about their use of typography in great details. If I’d have typed that feedback out, it would have been a novel. But to record it took just a few minutes. Students appreciated the new format and commented on how incredibly helpful it was.

All of these changes required a great deal of flexibility on my part. I ended up re-writing each week’s content before it went live; I added images to show, not tell; I created videos that demonstrated how to do the assignments; I offered up 30 minute 1:1 time slots to address individual challenges; and I gave feedback that was personal and specific. In the end, I had students comment on their appreciation for typography and design. But more importantly, I witnessed their transformation. When week 1 started, students proclaimed themselves unable to be creative. When week 8 finished, they professed the ways in which they were using their new knowledge of good typography to impact their professional and academic lives. As for myself, I still have some work to do within the course curriculum – but am confident that the results will be even better the next time around.

Giving Students Access to Film Footage and 3D Models to Enhance the Studio Experience

Posted on by

Matt Nash, Chair of Video and Animation at the College of Art and Design, received a $2,500 Academic Technology Innovation Grant in Fall 2016 for the purchase of professionally-produced data assets for students to use in Digital Filmmaking and Animation and Motion Media courses. The data assets are raw film footage and 3D models, which will be edited and manipulated by students in courses that focus on concepts of 3D animation, editing theory, advanced technical proficiency, audio design and other aspects of post-production.

Two sets of digital assets were purchased through the grant: professional produced film footage ($1,050) and 3D animation models for Autodesk MAYA ($950). The grant award also includes the purchase of portable hard drives ($500), which will store the assets that will be available for check out by faculty and students.   The acquisition of these sets of video assets allows the Animation and Digital Filmmaking faculty to focus on their primary pedagogical goals without the distraction of creating and managing assets that are outside the learning outcomes.

The Teaching and Learning with Technology committee reviewed the proposal and found it aligned with the criteria for grant funding including:

  • Funding request is primarily to purchase hardware or software
  • The hardware or software represents innovative use of technology to advance teaching and learning
  • Priority is given to projects that would have a direct impact on students

If you are interested in applying for an Academic Technology Innovation Grant and would like more information, please email tech.grant@lesley.edu.

Animal Minds: Exploring Animal Cognition, Emotions and Experience

Posted on by
Gay Bradshaw at sanctuary with dog.

Gay Bradshaw at sanctuary with dog.

Gay Bradshaw has recently designed and taught Animal Minds: Exploring animal cognition, emotions and experience, a new online course for Lesley University, focusing on the exciting new field of trans-species psychology. Trans-species psychology reflects science’s understanding that humans and animals have common capabilities to think, feel, dream, aspire, and experience consciousness. While neuroscientists knew that elephants, orcas, dogs, cats, parrots and all other vertebrates share with humans the same brain structures and processes, it was Gay’s discovery of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in free living elephants that galvanized the new field. Similar to humans subjected to violence, abuse, and war, elephants are vulnerable to the trauma caused by widespread poaching, culls, and shrinking habitats. Animal Minds uses trans-species psychology as a lens to explore animal minds and the effects of stress and trauma.

Gay collaborated with eLearning and Instructional Support to design her course. Various topics covered in the course are presented through voice-narrated video lectures, readings, and other visual and audio media. Course concepts are illustrated with a diversity of species, including elephants, great apes, orcas, parrots, reptiles, fish, and farmed animals. Also threaded throughout the course is a critical fieldwork component through which students experience, study and reflect on direct contact with animals in the field. Course learners connected with local organizations such as animal shelters and sanctuaries where they engaged in hands-on work with animals in need. In addition to study questions that explored course topics, students reflected on the course content in relation to their field experience in the Animal Accompaniment Blog. The blog also served as a virtual community space for ongoing sharing and conversation with classmates.

About Gay Bradshaw:
Gay holds doctorate degrees in ecology and psychology, and has published, taught and lectured widely in both the U.S. and internationally. She is the author of Pulitzer Prize-nominated Elephants on the Edge: What Animals Teach us about Humanity, an in-depth psychological portrait of elephants in captivity and in the wild. She is the Executive Director of The Kerulos Center, based in Oregon where she cares for The Tortoise and The Hare Sanctuary. Kerulos is a grassroots, collaborative, and non-profit organization which builds and maintains cross-disciplinary and international programs seeking to empower individuals and groups to create a world in which animals live in freedom and dignity.

For more information about the Animal Minds course or Gay Bradshaw, please contact elis@lesley.edu or John McCormick (jmccormi@lesley.edu)

Instructional Continuity: Communicating with Your Students

Posted on by

The early months of 2015 saw record-breaking snowfall in the Boston area, causing wide-spread school closings. What do you do when you need to cancel class or the university is closed for inclement weather or a flu outbreak? How do you ensure that your students don’t fall behind?

In this first post in our Instructional Continuity series, we’ll explore some ideas and strategies faculty have used for communicating with students and replicating classroom discussions during school closures.

Synchronous Communication
Class has been cancelled but you and your students are still available to meet, albeit remotely. The solution? How about a conference call? You can use a free conference call number (such as freeconferencecall.com) to connect with all of your students at once.

I scheduled a conference call during which we talked in real-time about some of the course content; I explained several concepts, and gave the students opportunities to discuss them.  It wasn’t perfect, of course, but students later told me they were glad there were ways for us to keep in touch during all those snow cancellations.

Donna Halper
Business Management and Communication

Looking to step up the technology a bit? Try scheduling an online meeting via Skype for Business (Lync). Skype for Business allows you to create an online meeting where you may communicate with your students, present information, or share your screen.

Please note that in the case of widespread power outages students may have limited internet and/or phone access. If this is the case you may want to try some asynchronous options.

Asynchronous Communication
Instead of meeting in real time, you may choose to hold your conversations asynchronously. Unlike a synchronous tool, asynchronous activities take place when it is convenient for each person. Some ideas for asynchronous communication include email and online discussions.

Email is a great way to keep in touch with your students. You may send emails to all of your students, groups of students, or individual students.

Some students could not come in [because of the weather], but class was never cancelled. For students who could not make the commute I gave alternate assignments via email.
Lynette Cassel
Expressive Therapies GSAS

Use the Send Email tool in myLesley to send messages to your students without ever leaving the course.

Looking to have a more in-depth conversation? The myLesley Discussion Board allows you to replace or enhance classroom discussions in a digital format. Discussions can serve as an online meeting place, a place for collaboration, or a way to demonstrate the understanding or application of course material.

I assigned students a reading response in the course discussion board.  They were responsible for exploring a movement therapy concept in the theme of movement observation.  After completing the readings I had them move through these themes on their own, look for visual images that reflected their experience and post these images into the discussion board.  They had to post these images with a description of their body experience and how that shaped their understanding of the concept.  They then had to respond to at least 2 other peer comments.
Valerie Blanc
Expressive Therapies GSAS

Looking for more ideas? Visit Planning for Instructional Continuity for guidelines on creating an emergency plan for your course. And stay tuned for next week’s Instructional Continuity blog post.