How Dual Coding With Teachers changed the way I present

How Dual Coding With Teachers changed the way I present

It was early 2019 that two things happened at about the same time.  First, Edu-twitter was exploding with Oliver Caviglioli inspired graphics, and I was reading about Cognitive Load Theory, and planning to present on it at a conference.   I ordered "the book" (Dual Coding With Teachers) but continued with my presentation after being inspired by the graphics I saw on twitter.   My walls of text were transformed into the following slides.

After Dual Coding With Teachers arrived I analysed my slides agains the advice in the book, and saw the following problems with my slides:

• The fear of white space: Information was pushed right to the edges of the slides.
• The urge to cram lots of information in: There was too much information across the slides.
• The urge to be 'artistic': There was not a clear grid, and the slides were too random in the placement of information.

I already had my key content, but this needed to be rationalised, so I went about changing my slides in the following ways:

• Clarify purpose: Figure out exactly what it is that you want to communicate to the target audience.
• Organise sequence: Cull irrelevant and duplicated points, group ideas, and fit these ideas into a narrative.
• Align content: Fit the information into a grid
• Restrain design: Ensure that colours, images and text are consistent, and leave plenty of white space.

The result was that the original six slides were condensed into one slide shown below.  When I presented on this slide I discussed most of the information on those original six slides, but in a more coherent way which didn't overwhelm the audience with slide fatigue.

I originally thought that Dual Coding with Teachers would help me to improve the design of my presentation slides, which it did, but it provided more than that.  The process of organising information simply and visually helped me to clarify the information I wanted to share, in both my own thoughts, and within the presentation.

If you haven't purchased a copy of Dual Coding with Teachers yet, I can't recommend it highly enough. I think it has value for anyone who presents information in any profession.

Dan (@dan_braith)

More notes about notes

More notes about notes 

In my first blog I wrote about using note sheets for teaching year 8 earth science, rather than have students copy out notes for themselves.  

After this initial success, tried the Same method when teaching Newton's 2nd law of motion to a year 10 class, and it did not go as well as I had hoped. Students, for the most part, appreciated not having to copy out the notes. However, it was clear to me that students were more confused than when I last taught the same lesson last year using PowerPoint. So what happened? 

After speaking to some students after the lesson, their feedback was that they missed having time to process information and then having the information explained by the teacher. On my reflections of this I think that the note sheets (in the format I am using) work when element interactivity (complexity) is low, but don’t work in the same way when element interactivity is high.

If we contrast a year 8 lesson on igneous rocks with a year 10 lesson on Newton’s Second Law then I think you’ll see what I mean.

In a year 8 lesson on igneous rocks  students learn that igneous rocks form from the cooling of magma or lava, that there are two types of igneous rocks depending on where the rock formed (above or below the surface of the Earth), and that these two types can be identified by crystal size.  There is also very little prior knowledge needed to access this content.

In a year 10 lesson on Newton’s Second Law students learn that the acceleration of an object  is proportional to the size of the net force acting on that object, and inversely proportional to the mass of the object.  Students also need to solve questions using the F=ma equation and rearrange the equation to solve for mass and acceleration.  In addition to this students need at least the following prior knowledge: understand acceleration, understand Newton’s First Law, know what a force is, and know how proportionality and inverse proportionality work.

A lesson on Newton’s Second Law clearly has more parts (elements) that interact and support each other (interactivity) as students learn.  An advantage that using PowerPoint provided in this circumstance is that it requires information to be broken down into what can be presented on one slide.  Using PowerPoint I will usually have students copy down notes, and then I’ll spend some time explaining, discussing and questioning before moving onto the next slide.

By using a note sheet instead, I attempted to cram all of those discussions into one longer discussion at the start of the lesson. As students started to answer a set of (what I thought were) well crafted questions I was seeing repeated misunderstandings from lots of students.  I simply attempted to explain too much complex information in too short a time-frame.

So, for a lesson where element interactivity is high, the PowerPoint method was superior because there is a limit to how much information can go on one slide, and so allows for a stepped and structured approach.

In general I am keen to move away from having students spending valuable teaching time copying notes, but my current note sheet method is not up to the task of effectively teaching content with high element interactivity.  Over the next few weeks I’ll be rethinking how I approach such content in the classroom.

Back to the drawing board!

Dan (@dan_braith)

A note about notes

A note about notes

I've been teaching for three full years now, and it feels like I’m starting to find my feet.  A least it feels like I have some head space to start and share some of the ways I have been reflecting and (hopefully) improving my teaching practice.

After doing some reading about Cognitive Load Theory last year (find a link to a presentation I created here), one of the areas of teaching I wanted to improve was enabling schema acquisition.  In physics and chemistry this has come more naturally to me (I have a maths and engineering background); I have improved my worked examples and sharpened my explanations.  However, I found this focus on schema acquisition more difficult in non-mathematical science topics. 

For non-mathematical topics the resources available to me have been various PowerPoint presentations where students take their own notes, but I was dissatisfied with this approach.  Students were spending a significant amount of time in class taking notes and I had no real way of examining their thinking as this was happening.  There was also a difference in how quickly students were taking notes, with those who finished quickly getting (even more) bored.  Finally, students who struggled to write clearly were being penalised when the time came to study and revise from their notes.

After a tweeting a question last year I decided to trial giving students a copy of the notes that they would usually write down, and replace that time with processing of information provided.  Below is an example of a notes sheet from a year 8 lesson on Igneous Rocks.  I have provided the previous PowerPoint presentation, and the replacement notes sheet that I replaced them with.

Previous PowerPoint Notes

Replacement notes sheet

When I created the notes sheet I have a number of aims, which were:

1. One lesson of information onto two A5 pages (printed side by side on A4). This reduced printing, keeps me focused on the key information, and allows students to glue the notes page into their exercise books.
2. Rewrite the PowerPoint notes in paragraph form because I want students to have to carefully read, and it allows the explanations in the notes to be clearer.
3. Remove extraneous information from slides, so that students are only presented with the information that I want them to learn.
4. Provide a number of questions which start with simple comprehension questions and build to questions which probe for understanding.

When using the notes sheet in a lesson on Igneous Rocks I used the following lesson sequence:

• Quick-fire review questions from previous lesson
• Start with a short 2-3 minute video on igneous rocks
• Hand-out notes sheets and provide some explanations that are not in their notes, and discuss some images of igneous rocks (on PowerPoint), which would take about 10 minutes.
• Students work on questions in their exercise books, leaving space to glue the notes sheets later.  During this time I am walking around the classroom checking student answers, asking for elaborations, and checking for understanding.
• Students spend some time in groups inspecting various igneous rock samples, filling in a table in their exercise books. Students are using what they have learned to determine if the rock sample is intrusive or extrusive.  During this time I am moving between groups discussing the rocks with them.
• End of lesson.

It’s early days, but what I am seeing is students engaging with the content in a way that I wasn’t when presenting information by PowerPoint. I am also able to see what students are thinking by their written answers to questions, and then provide immediate feedback.  In addition to this I’m also seeing a reduction low-level disruption (from students who have finished copying the notes quickly).

I hope you find this blog post useful!

Dan (@dan_braith) 

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