Michael Taylor

I get occasional comments for being old school but I use PowerPoint (or other) often.  And, they are not just backdrop images to make a TED style lecture palatable. I include pics, bullets, embedded videos, review questions, etc. These are my reasons and benefits:

• They keep me on track.  I tell a lot of techncial war stories, which while interesting, are sometimes diversionary, and can eat up a lot of valuable class time. Slides keep the students and myself focused on essential coverage in a highly orchestrated manner.
• For technical courses, slides are wonderful for displaying sequencial screenshots that illustrate
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I suspect each has its purpose.  A 5 question test can be a useful memory retention exercise with recently recently presented content by helping students committ the right information to memory vs content that is not as important.  A 20 question test is a better assessment of broader sets of content.   But even a 20 question test can be manipulated to be learning tool.  By careful attention to a progressive question sequence, a teacher can build a kind of dvidiing line between what a student knows vs what they don't know.  Subsequent tests would then be used to see if the student has moved that line.

You might enjoy this LinkedIn submission. 

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-like-work-netflix-nishant-bhajaria

If you wonder how the best companies develop a healthy culture of innovation balanced by priorities this slidedeck link has some relevant and candid bullets.  The link is the start of a short dicussion on leadership within context vs leadership by control, but is part of a much larger slidedeck on Netflix's expectation of new employees.

https://www.slideshare.net/reed2001/culture-1798664/80-The_best_managers_figure_out

One of the takeways for me is that if a subordinate fails to get a job done to my satisfication, before I blame the subordinate, I should determine whether a properly communicated the context. 

Reply to maureen HALDERSON's post: Thanks...not sure I can get a bunch of geeky male tech heads to dance, but if I did, it would be certain to 'go viral'.  :-)

Outside of class, most of my students work. The biggest challenge to the flipped classroom  has been a reluctance to enage content until after they have been to class and found out how little they know.  With all of their other challenges, there is little motivation to do so otherwise.   However, I am considering an attempt at 'change management' to flip their habits.  I will call them content teasers....to help them acquire the habit of 'previewing' the class content, as opposed to 'studying' it for long lengths of time.   I see two options for this:

• Video introduction
• Discussion forum

This content teaser would be… >>>

Before taking this course, I had not considered the impact of the different lecture modes and stategies for using them more effectively.  I also had been using a live 'interactive' lecture/demonstration and was able to see more clearly why this often does not work as intended.

I personally like classes that are lively and sometimes bordering on boisterous.  There is fine line between happy involvement and a party and I sometimes have to manage that with redirection.  At the other extreme, I have never received what I consider a good instructor rating from a quiet class, which may help explain my preference.  For a quiet class, I know that I have to prod, so I will sometimes ask why no one has asked me a question about _____________________ (I mention something specific and relevant).  Again, silence.  Again I ask, 'seriously, don't you want to know?'......more silence and then… >>>

You do need to know why, so I think that some kind of contact is necessary, not to beg, but to gather info and show concern:

1) does she consider group work to be wasted time and therefore a waste of tution expense?

2) does she have a behavior disorder (anxiety/panic) that is exacerbated by group interaction?

3) is there someone in her group that makes her uncomfortable?

4) did she receive a text message about a family member who died?

The list could go on, but until you have the right info, it is hard to make a judgement… >>>