The 14 Best Resources on the Web for STEM Educators

It’s all over the news: STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) education ranks among the country’s most pressing needs. Countless news stories talk about the renewed national concern with educating students in the STEM fields, and policy initiatives such as Common Core push forward with new attempts to fill that gap. But just what is causing this emphasis? And what can be done to solve the problem?

Underscoring the Importance of STEM Education

Image via Flickr by marymactavish

Perhaps the greatest reason that creating a STEM-educated generation is so important is the fast-approaching gap of workers in STEM-related fields. The baby boomers, those Americans born in the post-WWII era, are retiring en masse over the next few years, and there is a dearth of qualified labor to replace them in the science and engineering fields.

Department of Commerce projections show that, in the coming years, STEM jobs will have one appropriately skilled individual for every 1.9 positions — an entirely unsustainable number. Without new entrants, America’s industrial, technological, and infrastructural continuance is in jeopardy.

The Advantages of Starting Early

Although math and science may seem the domain of “adult stuff,” the fact is that quality STEM education must begin at an early age. UC Irvine research shows that early math proficiency translates into later academic success.

Moreover, while the STEM disciplines might appear dense and less fun-oriented than some others, the foundational aptitudes that feed into excellence in math and science are creativity and ingenuity. These subjects can be made enjoyable and interesting for kids. However, prompt action is vital. Young brains are the most pliable they ever will be, giving children an advantage in knowledge absorption that will only fade with time.

14 Key Resources for STEM Educators

Acknowledging the need is well and good, but how, exactly, can educators help? One good start is by finding good information to incorporate into your STEM learning class modules. The resources listed below should provide a good start to anybody looking to accelerate lesson plans for their STEM class:

• MIT Open Courseware: As one of the world’s premiere educational institutes, with a focus on technology and engineering, MIT has a history of excellence. With the Open Courseware program, MIT has put that excellence into the hands of everybody, offering course materials for no cost. While college-level coursework may be too challenging for younger students, informed educators will be better able to design appropriate and challenging lessons to prepare their students.
• KoolLearning : Content mashups & powerful teacher tools, blended in dynamic online learning modules. Start with our curated Course Catalog for delivering courses as-is, customize our courses with teacher generated resources or any OER, or create a course from scratch. The KoolClassroom app within Office 365, KoolLearning blends a professional and consistent learning experience to students that is the best fit for them with the powerful Office tools that teachers already use.
• National STEM Video Game Challenge: Kids love video games, which are the fastest-growing entertainment field in the world. The link between video games and STEM skills is obvious. The National STEM Video Game Challenge encourages kids to work with educators to create games of their own. The process not only helps kids acquire useful skills, but also points out the ways that STEM learning can provide them with appealing jobs in the future.
• How-to-Geek: This website reads like many of the more popular list-based websites in vogue at the moment. But instead of listing “Top 10 Buffy Moments” or “The One Facebook Feature You Can’t Live Without,” How-to-Geek informs its audience on how to interact with technology in practical, everyday ways. Good lessons connect abstract academic ideas with real life. A study of How-to-Geek will help you make STEM learning come alive for your students.
• Tuts+: Moving to the next level in computer learning, Tuts+ lets users learn basic programming skills for free through its website. (It also offers more advanced learning services for a fee.) If your students express an interest in making their own computer software, this might be a good place to start them off.
• Wikiversity: Wikiversity takes the Wikimedia paradigm and applies it to education, encouraging educators to design online lessons allowing others to learn for free. Scouring its ranks will turn up hundreds of tutorials on STEM topics as well as a bewildering variety of other topics.
• Khan Academy: Khan compiles lessons, media, and resources for the full range of subjects, with an emphasis on the K-12 level, which ensures that the materials will be grade-appropriate. Get ideas for lessons for your students, or just brush up on your STEM skills yourself.
• PEOI: Professional Education, Testing and Certification Organization International (PEOI for short) is an organization that provides free post-secondary level education on a variety of topics, mostly related to tech and science. Again, some of this material is likely to be beyond the grasp of younger students, but it is useful both as a source of inspiration and as a no-cost way to better your own understanding of the subjects.
• Academic Earth: For those unsatisfied with just one online university, Academic Earth links together online learning resources from a variety of top universities in one convenient place. Video lessons themed around specific areas provide a useful resource for putting together a lesson of your own.

Compilations and Other Lists of STEM Resources

Of course, several other sites have compiled their own comprehensive resource lists. Here are six of the ones we find are the most useful:

• 50 Sources of Free STEM Education: This list from TeachThought compiles several places online to get educated on STEM topics, including a wide range of online universities and tutorials. Pillage them for lesson ideas, assign sites to your class, or just learn a thing or two yourself.
• The 10 Best STEM Resources for preK-12: This NEA list focuses on curriculum and development resources for primary and secondary school teachers. Ready-made lesson plans and exercises make class preparation a breeze.
• STEM to STEAM: Resource Roundup: Our friends at Edutopia have created an excellent curated compilation of STEM resources for educators and students alike. They range from long-form articles on the subject to pieces that involve integrated studies, humanities, and maker education.
• Top 10 Online STEM Resources for Advanced Students: Sometimes it can be hard to challenge more advanced pupils. This list by Engineering.com compiles resources for STEM professionals looking to brush up on the latest. If there’s a student in your section who just can’t seem to stop working ahead, perhaps challenging them with higher-level coursework like this can help keep them in the game.
• 7 STEM Apps for Higher Order Thinking: Graphite’s short list of apps is a great resource for teachers, parents, and students who want to integrate mobile technology and apps into their STEM curricula. Many of these apps are ideal for learning to develop a “higher order” understanding of scientific principles.
• The Ultimate STEM Guide for Kids: Compiled by mastersindatascience.org, this impressive list includes 239 “cool” sites related to science, technology, engineering and math. It includes STEM challenges and contests, career resources, philanthropic and government initiatives, games and apps, camps, and much more. It’s also organized according to age and grade level.

Technology, at the risk of creating a tautology, is the wave of the future. The societies that continue to prosper will be those that catch that wave and let it guide them going forward, innovating and transforming the world.

The exact methods to be used to encourage growth in the tech field are debatable, open to discussions on best-practice pedagogy and policy design. However, STEM education is an opportunity that we can’t let slip through our fingers. With careful planning and an eye to what future children want and need, we can maximize the nation’s STEM potential and build tomorrow together.

By Edudemic Staff 

Delivering Differentiated Instruction in Your Classroom

As the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development points out, today’s educators face a catch-22 — they must “help decidedly unstandardized students meet an expanding set of rigorous, standardized learning targets.” Fortunately, teachers have a solution to this dilemma in differentiated instruction.

A differentiated classroom accommodates the heterogeneity of students by tailoring instruction to each student’s backgrounds, interests, skill, and readiness levels. Read on to learn more about differentiated teaching, why it works, and how to implement it in your classroom.

Photo credit: Ethan Hein

Defining Differentiated Instruction

Carol Ann Tomlinson, author of “The Differentiated Classroom: Responding to the Needs of All Learners,” is the country’s preeminent scholar on differentiated instruction. Tomlinson definesdifferentiated learning as “ensuring that what a student learns, how he/she learns it, and how the student demonstrates what he/she has learned is a match for that student’s readiness level, interests, and preferred mode of learning.” She likens the reluctance to integrate modern knowledge of the learning process into the classroom to settling for a Model T instead of embracing 21st-century engineering.

Tomlinson identifies four curriculum-related elements that teachers can modify according to students’ needs: content, process, product, and affect. Each of these elements is defined below:

• Content: What teachers want students to learn and the methods whereby students access that content (e.g., online research).
• Process: How students make sense of the content.
• Product: How students show their understanding of a topic.
• Affect: The way students’ feelings affect the learning process. This theory contends that a positive affect toward learning facilitates academic growth.

The Empirical Basis of Differentiation

Neurological research on learning contributed to both the genesis and proliferation of the differentiation theory. Dr. Judy Willis, a neurologist, authored research on brain-based learning that proved seminal for the differentiation movement. As Edutopia highlights in its profile of her, Dr. Willis discovered that teaching with multiple learning modalities creates more dendritic pathways to access the information. In other words, diverse learning methods result in the storage of information in several places in the brain, creating powerful interconnections. In this way, the content is truly learned, not merely memorized.

Empirical support for differentiation doesn’t stop at neuroscience. Myriad studies show the efficacy of differentiated instruction in helping struggling readers, students with special needs, and gifted students. Further, the underlying assumptions of the differentiation theory dovetail with the theory of multiple intelligences.

Howard Gardner, a professor of education at Harvard, posited that nine different intelligences dictate a student’s capabilities and the ways in which he/she demonstrates learning. Differentiation embraces this theory, appealing to each student’s intelligences in pedagogy and assessment.

Implementing Differentiation in Your Classroom

In a 2010 post on the subject (updated last January), Rebecca Alber at Edutopia wisely identifies “start with the student” as the first step to implementing differentiated instruction. While the she encourages educators to comb through students’ files, stopping there could leave teachers with a myopically one-dimensional view. In addition to perusing students’ histories, teachers should also assess skill levels in a subject area through standardized test scores and other assessments. An assessment of students’ learning styles and interests can also help inform instruction.

Next, examine your curriculum to identify areas that you could modify to incorporate differentiation. After you identify what you want students to learn, select several concepts or skills that could easily be taught at varying levels of complexity. You can then brainstorm ideas for activities that incorporate that concept or skill. For instance, if your interest assessment reveals that you have a group of students intensely interested in sports, you might choose small group instruction for these students using math problems with sports themes.

Finally, evaluate your role as an educator in a differentiated classroom. Tailoring instructional delivery methods is a critical component of differentiation. For example, a student’s learning profile might reveal that he/she learns best through audio or visual delivery and repetition, in which case you might provide supplemental video or audio notes for repeat listening.

Likewise, this approach requires educators to coordinate a number of logistics, as not all students will study the same subject or work on the same task on any given day. Develop a plan for students to access the requisite materials for their projects as well as the time and physical space allotted to each assignment.

Anecdotal Support for this Method

On Scholastic’s website, teaching expert Laura Robb discusses her classroom experience withdifferentiated reading instruction. Robb uses tiering in her instruction, which refers to modifying class experiences according to where students are so they can complete tasks that promote progress. One way she tiers is by tailoring how her students demonstrate what they’ve learned from their reading assignment. While some write a paragraph responding to the text, others design art projects or give performances demonstrating their knowledge.

Criticisms of Differentiation

Differentiated classrooms aren’t without their critics. Laura Pappano of the Harvard Education Letter says the primary criticism with this method is that it requires too much of teachers in that they must individualize everything. Mike Shmoker, an education consultant, contends that teachers are spread too thin as is, and differentiation simply isn’t tenable as a result.

Additionally, differentiated instruction operates on assumptions about a student’s readiness, skill level, etc. that may not prove correct. Inaccurate assumptions end up derailing the learning process and potentially creating chaos in the classroom. In Pappano’s article for the Harvard Education Letter, for example, math teacher Sherryl Hauser is quoted as saying that students complained when they saw their papers contained more problems than those of their classmates when she attempted differentiation.

While educators are nowhere near perfecting differentiated instruction, the benefits of the approach seem to outweigh the drawbacks. Differentiated instruction helps engage and motivate students in the classroom, thereby enhancing their learning. As Tomlinson puts it, “you could have an egg on toast every night for dinner, but to advance as a chef, you have to expand your ingredients.” Shortcomings notwithstanding, that’s exactly what differentiation can do for educators.

Teacher’s Guide to Digital Storytelling

Teaching critical thinking and creativity in writing can be a difficult task, but it is crucial in preparing students to meet the standards of the Common Core. Digital storytelling is a highly effective technique for doing so, as it requires a clear organization of thought, discipline, and problem solving skills — all of which can translate directly into more traditional essay writing. What’s more, digital storytelling has the added benefit of meeting other Common Core standards relating to proficiency in technical skills. In this article, we’ll take a deeper look at why digital storytelling is an effective approach for teaching writing, and how to do it best.

Photo credit: torres21

What is Digital Storytelling, and Why Do It?

Quite simply, digital storytelling is the act of using computer-based tools (desktops, laptops, tablets, cameras. and even smartphones) to tell a story. Used in the classroom, it is a lens that teachers and students can use to master the craft of storytelling and argumentative analysis. Digital storytelling might incorporate anything from storyboarding to script writing, revision, production and further editing.

From a writing perspective, digital storytelling will teach students how to navigate the writing and creative process, including brainstorming, constructing unique voices, narrating, and perhaps most importantly, structuring arguments in a compelling and logical manner. From a broader teaching perspective, the amount of work required for a digital project often necessitates partnership with another student, which will require teamwork, listening skills, organizational skills and time management skills to stay on top of production deadlines.

Perhaps the most exciting thing about digital storytelling is that it teaches so many fundamental skills using a medium in which students are already fundamentally interested — and, notably, one that will prove essential for them as they move up the academic chain and on to their careers. Digital storytelling techniques do not simply add to a student’s craft toolbox; they become a source for creativity itself when students are encouraged to get inventive with those tools. They might, for example, decide to use songs to tell a story, rather than simply as a soundtrack, learning to interpret lyrics and to construct emotive arguments as they go. Alternatively, they could try editing and splicing old creative commons footage together, a technique that requires good research skills, the ability to interpret the mood and tone of a photo, and the ability to piece a diversity of photos together into a cohesive narrative.

Here are a few creative digital storytelling assignment ideas to get you going.

Digital Storytelling Lesson Ideas

1. Dream Scenes. Have students write a narrative essay about what they’d like to be when they grow up. Then have them draw digital pictures to animate their vision and put it all together in a YouTube video.
2. Animated Personal Narrative. Teach students how to write a personal narrative. Then help them turn that narrative into a storyboard, and finally have them put it altogether in an xtranormal animation.
3. Google Story. You know those (tear jerking) Google Ads, like the one that uses Gmail to tell a father’s story about his love for his daughter? Teach your students the epistolary format, and then have them write a Gmail story of their own, to be compiled via video or compressed into an illustrated PDF. Alternatively, use this Google search Parisian love story as inspiration. Have students brainstorm plotlines, write an outline, and flesh it out with the magic of Screencast-O-Matic and Google search.
4. Historical Slide Show. Have your students pick a favorite figure from history and write their biography. Then have them scour the web for Creative Commons images that are relevant to their project, distill the biography down into its essential parts, and put it all together in a shareable Slideshare presentation.
5. Book Trailer. Who needs a run-of-the-mill book review when you could have a book trailer? Trailers should help students practice their critical reading and analysis skills, while also developing their constructions of arguments and use of rhetoric as they battle to convince their classmates to read their book next.
6. How To Guide. Every student has a secret talent. Have students describe theirs in a straightforward YouTube video, laying out each step in logical sequence. This is an especially effective lesson for more hands-on students who struggle with writing and need a more intuitive connection to a physical skill as they learn to lay out steps logically.
7. Two Sides of the Story. Sick of the regular old persuasive essay? Assign students a controversial topic. Then have them research arguments supporting both sides, and put it all together in a video, presentation, or infographic that must devote air time to articulating a clear thesis for both sides of the story.
8. Family or Community History Project. Send your students out to interview and record members of their family or community about their past. Then challenge them to put this together into a podcast, video, or newscast, reviewing all that’s come before.

Further Resources

There are numerous digital storytelling guides available online, and more crop up each day. For a comprehensive rundown of resources, we recommend Educational Technology Director Karen Schrock’s excellent site as well as this guide from Educators Technology. We also recommend a number of TeachThought’s guides, including this guide to digital storytelling apps, this breakdown of ten tools for student-centered expression. This collection of digital storytelling rubrics from the University of Houston School of Education is also a helpful resource for evaluating student performance on these unique projects.

Telling Stories in a Student’s Language

Digital storytelling is the best of all worlds. It combines a teacher’s need to impart important lessons about critical thinking, analytical writing and creativity with a student’s natural aptitude for the apps and tools they use every day. In fact, it encourages students to see those tools as more than what they offer on the surface, and instead to find creative uses for cutting edge technology. Together, these skills will help a student thrive in academia and far beyond.

5 Creative Ways to Help Students With ADHD Thrive in the Classroom

Recently, the NY Times ran an excellent article entitled: A Natural Fix for ADHD. In this piece, Dr. Richard Friedman, Professor of Clinical Psychiatry and Director of the Psychopharmacology Clinic at Weill Cornell Physicians, explores the neuroscience behind ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). In so doing, Friedman attempts to reframe our understanding of just what ADHD is, and how much more nuanced our approaches for treating it need to be.

Photo credit: Mararie

ADHD in the Classroom Has Long Been a Controversial Topic

On the one hand, advocates of pharmaceutical interventions like Ritalin and Adderall point to the substantial scientific and anecdotal evidence confirming that ADHD medications help students concentrate in the classroom and better manage their workloads at home. Many teachers consider these medications essential in terms of classroom management, as untreated students with ADHD can derail class discussions and require the teacher to devote enormous wells of energy just to keeping the class in line. (That said, it should be noted that ADHD manifests in many forms and affects quieter students at high rates as well; in fact, ADHD can take an even more serious toll in this case, as it often goes undiagnosed for much longer). For these reasons, it is not uncommon to hear teachers, parents, and even students themselves refer to ADHD medications as a “miracle.”

However, take a scroll through the comment section of any article written in support of these medications, and you are bound to see many commenters offering stories of inappropriate medication use. ADHD is often used as a catch-all diagnosis for all perceived behavioral issues, as it is easier to prescribe medications without probing further into root causes of outwardly displayed symptoms. Many parents and students describe feeling pressured into taking medication, and often lower resource students aren’t given any outside support beyond the prescription. When these students become adults, they describe feeling like they were pathologized for brain chemistry that was out of their control.

And yet every teacher, counselor, and administrator knows the frustration that ensues when a student clearly has ADHD and a family dismisses the medication route out of hand. Many counselors feel that treating ADHD with medication is just like treating depression, anxiety, and any other condition that arises in the brain.

Is there a compromise to be made here by stitching together a pharmaceutical, behavioral and pedagogical approach customized to suit the unique needs of the individual student? The answer to that is a clear yes — but in order to get to what that approach might look like, we first must begin with a deeper look at ADHD itself.

The Neuroscience Behind ADHD

ADHD may sound like a singular diagnosis, but it actually falls into three different subtypes. For students who mostly exhibit symptoms of inattentiveness, studies indicate that the neurotransmitter norepinephrine is at the root of the problem; that is, these students have variations in their norepinephrine transport genes that make it so that the amount of norepinephrine circulating in their systems is different than that of neurotypical control subjects.

In contrast, students with the hyperactivity-impulsivity ADHD tend to have fewer dopamine receptors. As Dr. Friedman describes it in his NY Times article, dopamine is a part of our brain’s reward pathway, so with fewer receptors available, students with this kind of ADHD need more stimulation in order to keep their minds’ from wandering. By blocking the reuptake of dopamine, stimulants like Ritalin and Adderall keep the levels of dopamine high in the brain, while a nonstimulant like Strattera blocks the reuptake of norepinephrine. In this way, all three medications (and medications like them) help students to focus.

(Wondering what the third subtype of ADHD is? A combination of the previous two.)

When ADHD Was an Evolutionary Advantage

Look up any definition for ADHD (from WebMD to the DSM-IV) and you will find a laundry list of oft-repeated symptoms: easily distracted; has trouble maintaining attention; disrupts class; fidgets; always on the go; blurts out answers; butts into conversations. The list goes on.

But while these symptoms may be clear, there is less agreement on just how to interpret them. For instance, when Stephen Tonti spoke about his ADHD at TEDxCMU, he argued that attention “deficit” is a misnomer, as people with ADHD can hyperfocus when the task at hand interests them. Instead, he locates the heart of his difficulty in selecting something to apply that full attention to, and argues that what he experiences is a difference in cognition rather than a disorder. He is, in his own words, “attention different.”

In his NY Times piece, Dr. Friedman focuses on the tendency of the ADHD-brain to seek out novel experiences. In so doing, he argues that ADHD was once evolutionarily adaptive, pointing to a recent study of the Ariaal, a mostly nomadic tribe in Kenya with a recently splintered and settled subgroup. The study found that nomadic men with a dopamine receptor variant related to ADHD were more likely to be well-fed, while those with the variant in the settled splinter tribe were gaunt. Friedman hypothesizes that ADHD is adaptive for a dynamic environment, in which novelty-seeking and a short attention span actually keep nomads aware of their surroundings and make them better hunters. In contrast, ADHD becomes problematic in a more sedentary culture where activities like school, farming, and selling goods require more sustained focus.

This explanation gels with a critique often raised by ADHD advocates: that it is not the ADHD-brain that is problematic, but an overly regimented school environment constructed for an industrial age with a high need for workers and bureaucrats. Still, whether you agree with that statement or not, this is the system we have right now, and students with ADHD will need to navigate it both here and as they enter the work world. What’s more, teachers must have the ability to teach their classes without constant interruptions.

5 Creative Approaches

1. Get Hands-On

Many students with ADHD work best with hands-on learning. As such, to appeal to their learning style, it is often better to “do” rather than “tell.” Whether it’s engineering their own popsicle stick building, manipulating blocks, typing on a computer, drawing illustrations for a class book, putting science into action in the lab, participating in a Maker Fair, or getting to be the “teacher for the day,” hands-on activities are sure to engage and build confidence.

That said, it’s important not to assume that all students with ADHD will be kinesthetic learners, and to engage students in the modality that most speaks to them. We recommend having your student take this learning styles quiz to give you a grounding for developing customized approaches.

2. Vary the Routine

If we know that students with ADHD are novelty-seeking, why not use that to our advantage? Keep lectures as short as possible, and rotate students often through activities. While it is important to keep students with ADHD organized with a structure you have provided, changing the routine up once in awhile will be a nice surprise and will help prevent boredom. Encouraging students with ADHD to pick up extracurricular activities can also be useful, as it will allow students to hyperfocus with their passions and also to nibble at many different tasks throughout the day.

3. Incorporate Movement Into Your Lesson Plans

If you’ve determined that your student with ADHD is a kinesthetic learner, there are many creative ways to incorporate movement into the classroom. When reviewing questions for an upcoming test, try tossing a ball to students you want to call on rather than addressing them by name. Acting out great scenes from history will embed facts and dates deeply into student minds, as will turning letters and sounds into characters and acting out their characteristics as you are teaching a class to read. And never underestimate how fun it can be to simply get out of that desk, stretch, and do a little dance break!

4. Teach Mindfulness

Teaching mindfulness in the classroom is becoming an increasingly popular technique, and one that can be particularly helpful for students with ADHD — although a student with ADHD may need intensive, individual coaching in this area. In so doing, it can help to have reminder words that you can say to let a student know when it might be time to pull back for a moment, reflect, and draw on the mindfulness techniques you’ve covered previously.

5. Create a Tutoring Program

All students deserve a customized, student-centered learning experience, but students with ADHD will need extra attention in developing sets of tools and strategies for navigating the classroom. Smaller class sizes would be ideal here, but since class size is beyond teacher control, it can be more useful for teachers to advocate for a tutoring or mentoring program for the school. With one-on-one attention, students with ADHD will have someone there for them to help provide structure and stay on top of their progress, while also translating the neurotypical classroom experience for them, and helping them to develop the skillsets they need to operate well in school and beyond.

The Verdict

Students with ADHD are highly intelligent and packed with potential, just as long as they are given the resources they need to thrive. That may mean medication, but that also means working hard to find customized teaching and behavioral strategies as well. In the end, only a nuanced, multi-pronged approach will prove effective — all the more so when those approaches are backed up with a diverse support network.

By Leah Levy

The Power of Storytelling in eLearning

by Jennifer Neibert

NOVEMBER 13, 2014

Feature

“What would happen if we took a deep breath, stepped away from the storyboard, and crafted a fascinating narrative to guide our learners? One that our learners felt and experienced on an emotional level; that elicited a response to go, or change, or do; and above all, that resulted in the meaningful change we’re really seeking—now that’s a powerful tale!”

Before diving into this article, stop and think for a moment about the last time you saw a film or documentary that impacted you in some way. Then, think about what made it so. Perhaps it was the scenery or location. Or maybe the characters seemed relatable, compelling, or provocative. It might be that you just needed a simple distraction or escape from the day-to-day. Regardless of your choice, and regardless of why you made that choice, the most likely reason is actually quite obvious when you get right down to it—the impact came from the story. (In case you’re wondering, my response is Muscle Shoals, the “incredible true story of a small town with a big sound.” Aside from the amusement of trying to comprehend Keith Richards and the awe-inspiring acts that made music in this small Alabama town, it is the story that evoked such emotion and resonated with me.)

As instructional designers and eLearning developers, we often get caught up in the intricacies of our work—learning objectives, evaluation methods, style guides, and so on. And yes, all of these details are central to what we do, but what would happen if we took a deep breath, stepped away from the storyboard, and crafted a fascinating narrative to guide our learners? One that our learners felt and experienced on an emotional level; that elicited a response to go, or change, or do; and above all, that resulted in the meaningful change we’re really seeking—now that’s a powerful tale!

Why are stories so important to learning?

Let’s frame the discussion about the importance of stories to learning by thinking about a common situation faced by many eLearning developers—compliance training—and how two companies might develop their respective solutions.

In revamping its onboarding training, Acme Corporation decides there’s no time like the present to redevelop their required annual compliance training. The instructional design team outlines the content—company history, regulations, penalties, statistics, procedures, forms, and checklists. After a few brainstorming sessions, they’ve gathered pages and pages of content and feel really good about where things are heading.

Meanwhile, Widgets Inc. is also hard at work making updates to their compliance training. The difference is, they’ve decided to tap into the power of storytelling. They, too, gather relevant content, but their course design is not solely focused on delivery of facts and figures. Rather, they build a story with a clear beginning, middle, and end. They intersperse elements such as conflict, tension, contrast, and dialogue. They even segment their audience and craft stories that are most relevant to each sub-group. Ultimately, their approach can help learners think differently, feel differently, and, perhaps most importantly, act differently when faced with a potentially challenging situation in the future.

So, what’s the bottom line? Is Widgets Inc. “right” because they used a story and Acme Corporation “wrong” because they didn’t? Like many decisions we face as instructional designers and eLearning developers, the answer isn’t so rigidly dichotomous. In fact, stories can be a useful tool to help us convey content in the appropriate context, which can go a long way in explaining all those shades of gray in the spectrum between white and black. Here’s why:

• Humans crave connections with other humans. And as learning professionals, we are charged with building the experiences that support those connections.
• Emotions help form connections. If we can develop compelling stories that engage our audiences, then we increase the likelihood that learners will remember critical content and perform correctly when the time comes.
• Learners are always asking, “WIIFM” (What’s In It For Me?). This one is key. Regardless of your approach, if you don’t make it abundantly clear what’s in it for them, then you’ve already lost your learners.

Wait a minute … I’m no storyteller

Believe it or not, you can be a storyteller! And the best news is, it really doesn’t take much more than a bit of inspiration and good old-fashioned creativity to get started.

The easiest way to start building storytelling into your learning is to introduce characters and scenarios that require your learners to make decisions and see the consequences of their choices. By providing learners with a safe space to experience consequences, and giving them genuine, consequence-based feedback, they will be better equipped to make decisions in the real world. The most simplistic story design has a beginning (to introduce the lesson), middle (to give the learner a problem and allow him to discover the solution), and end (to recap and provide a conclusion).

Beyond simple scenarios, you can introduce two characters—a protagonist, who is striving to meet a goal, and an antagonist, who has a different goal. Though it may seem somewhat restrictive, the classic three-act structure can guide the characters through the story. Using realistic dialogue and creating a sense of urgency or tension are keys to crafting compelling narratives. An obvious example here comes straight from recent headlines. Your nurses aren’t just working the night shift; they’re the ones on duty when a patient comes to the ER reporting a high fever and muscle aches—“I’ve just returned from visiting my family in West Africa,” he shares. Now, the focus is most certainly on proper infection-control procedures.

The hero’s journey, common in myths and fairy tales, is a more involved structure where our main character accepts a call to adventure and, with the help of a supernatural force, he journeys from the known to the unknown facing seemingly insurmountable challenges at every step. Just when it seems all hope is lost, the hero emerges a victor and returns from the journey to impart his wisdom to mankind. Though this structure might well be too complex for our purposes, we can hope that our learners walk away from our courses with a similar level of confidence and keen insights about their own realities.

Three keys to the power of storytelling

Above all, the power of storytelling is realized when you:

• Make it personal. Again, it’s all about the learner as he constantly asks, “What’s in it for me?” Never lose sight of this goal!
• Make it relevant. We all wish for more hours in the day to get more accomplished, and no one wants to feel his or her time has been wasted. If a particular situation or scenario isn’t relevant to your learners, then refrain from underscoring the irrelevance with needless stories. Instead, concentrate on writing compelling content and building engaging learning experiences that are appropriate for your learners.
• Make it about the learning. Storytelling is just one tool in your ever-expanding toolbox—it isn’t the tool. Focus on what your learners need to know, what they need to do, and how you can best support their journeys from point A to point B.

10 Ways to Get Student-Centered Learning Right

Photo credit: Francisco Osorio

If there’s been a single educational buzzword with traction over the past few years, “student-centered learning” certainly tops the charts. From the TED stage to experimental classrooms, an increasing number of thought leaders, schools and teachers are advocating a handover of the learning experience to the students who must do the learning.

To seasoned educators, the basic concepts that undergird student-centered learning won’t strike them as particularly new. After all, Paulo Freire’s famous critique of the “Banking Model of Education” — the model in which knowledge is a resource that students passively withdraw from the bank (teacher) without active engagement — made waves all the way back in the early 70s. Even earlier in the 20th century, John Dewey, Carl Rogers, and Maria Montessori advocated for student-driven learning, while Theodore Sizer’s 1987 book, Horace’s Compromise, advocated for collaborative learning.

And yet, while student-centered learning did take off in some places (often in private schools), it has only recently begun to take firm hold in public schools. This may be due in part to the renewed influence of educational reformers and an increased urgency to fix a struggling education system. However, the influence of the Common Core’s tough critical thinking requirements can’t be underestimated, as well as the spread of technology that is increasingly making personalized learning a reality.

If we accept the premise that student-centered learning can be a highly effective strategy for many kinds of classrooms and school populations, how can we ensure it is implemented effectively, with intelligence, and without the rigid dogma that so often leads to the failure of so many sweeping educational reforms?

It Starts With Definition

At its most general, student-centered learning is an educational experience that is driven by its students. This can manifest in many different ways. In student-centered learning, students might choose what they want to learn within a set range of topics, lead their own discussions after doing research online, or complete a mixture of online classes and independent study. Student-centered learning can encompass (but is in no way limited to or defined by) project-based learning, active learning, and collaborative learning. As a personalized form of learning, student-centered approaches can mean many different things, as long as they employ that essential pivot from teacher- to student-lead learning. The core goals are to motivate and interest students and to foster critical thinking skills that employ active rather than passive engagement in the classroom. For a deeper look at what student learning is — and what it can be — we can’t recommend this guide from the Education Writers Association highly enough.

How to Make It Work

Using a struggling New Hampshire school as a case study, the recent Atlantic article, “What Happens When Students Control Their Education?” provides an excellent review of what proponents see as the benefits of student-centered learning and critics see as weaknesses. Here are the key takeaways for overcoming obstacles and successfully making this shift in your classroom or school.

1. Turn Teachers into Facilitators and Coaches

Critiques of student-centered learning often focus on the unruliness that may result when a teacher is no longer firmly in control. But a true student-centered approach in no way means taking the teacher out of the process. Rather, the teacher remains key as a coach and facilitator — the person who puts the structure in place and then makes sure it is maintained as students move within it. This is different from traditional approaches, in which the structure in itself can often feel like an end rather than a mean, but, when done correctly, it should not be a free-for-all.

Importantly, the teacher should also act as a guide to deeper insights, whether that means refereeing so that every person’s input is heard and not just that of the most vocal students, or asking students probing questions at the right moment to prompt them into thinking deeper. This kind of intervention is key in ensuring students move beyond the simple gathering of information via Google search to ingesting and examining it at a deep, integrative level.

2. Push Students to Apply Their Knowledge

Similarly, it is important that the guiding doesn’t stop at discussion and analysis. As the next step in the learning cycle, it is crucial that students then apply their knowledge in new settings. Students should again drive this process, whether it’s determining what kind of projects or further investigations they would like to do, or it’s choosing from a number of choices a teacher has provided. This can also be combined with collaborative learning as a group project.

3. Give Teachers the Resources and Support They Need

When student-centered approaches don’t work, it’s often because teachers are simply given a bunch of new jargon to imbibe that is indecipherable from previous jargon, and then are sent out into the wilds of the classroom. Schools that are interested in implementing student-centered approaches should provide ample professional development opportunities, workshops, and mentoring on the subject. This should cover both the deeper philosophical shift at hand as well as specific, concrete lesson plans and coaching techniques. Teachers should also be given training on using individualized classroom devices like iPads to foster a personalized learning environment.

Keep in mind that supporting teachers is also about finances. A 2012 study by the Center on Reinventing Public Education found that new student-drive programs worked best in schools that reallocated resources in that direction. Even better were schools that generated revenue through private-public partnership — though that financing approach, of course, comes with its supporters and detractors.

4. Establish Rules

Similarly, teachers should take the time to explain the coming changes to their students before implementing them. In doing so, they should of course gather student input, but they should also set boundaries — including the crucial point that this is not about “doing whatever you want” so much as it is “asking your most burning questions” and “exploring topics in which you’ve always been interested.” Students will need to fully buy-in to the idea in order for it to be successful.

When leading a discussion group in particular, teachers may want to experiment with setting and enforcing firm moderating rules that still put the students in charge without letting a minority of vocal students dominate or derail the discussion. These rules can be set by students up front. Alternatively, you might try having one student become the teacher for a session, putting all of the research on the topic at hand onto the student’s plate, and then having them lead the discussion, with each student stating what they’d like to comment about beforehand, and the student determining whether or not they find the comment relevant for discussion. This is a very regimented approach, but it can be highly effective in keeping chatty or unruly classes on track, while still putting control of the discussion firmly in student hands.

5. Change the Feedback Process

With a student-centered learning approach, grades should no longer be the primary learning metric. Comments and in-depth discussion can be far more useful in terms of learning, especially on written assignments. However, many students will still need a more concrete approach, and schools will still need a way of tying competency to Common Core standards. The New Hampshire school featured in The Atlantic article addressed this problem with “competency matrices,” which detailed a number of skills students should master in each class, ranked on a scale of 1 to 4. This allowed the school to provide much more comprehensive and useful feedback than a simple letter grade, but could still be easily translated into traditional grades for transcripts.

Alternatively, in flipped classrooms that have students doing the bulk of their knowledge intake on their own time, quizzes and tests are still relevant and useful, especially in terms of gathering highly specific data to pinpoint where a student needs help. Feedback here can come not only in terms of a number grade, but also with a requirement that the student re-approach questions they missed until they demonstrate proficiency. Overall, tracking growth in a student-centered classroom is crucial to ensure learning is still on track.

6. Get the Families on Board

Student-driven learning requires an increase in student accountability and motivation. In theory, a student-centered approach will intrinsically draw these qualities out of students. In practice, many students will need coaching and support at home, especially in younger grades. Parents may also need education themselves in just what a student-centered approach is to ensure there is maximum buy-in at home.

7. Offer Extended Learning Opportunities

Student-centered learning isn’t bounded by a school’s cinder block walls. Whether it’s time in a Maker studio, online courses or an externship or shadowing opportunity for a motivated student who wants to see what life is like outside of academia, giving students the chance for multi-modal, experiential learning is an effective way to broaden minds and teach specific skills — all while putting student choice at the forefront.

8. Re-Define the Metrics of Success

While increased test scores will certainly remain an important measure for student-centered schools (at the very least, in terms of funding), it is essential that the definition of success is broadened to include increased graduation and college enrollment rates, as well as any other indications of improvement. This point applies beyond student-centered changes, and is important to keep in mind for any major shift to an educational approach.

9. Localize the Approach to the Most Appropriate Content

Big educational reforms often fail when there is complete orthodoxy about how they are implemented, as well as a universal application to areas for which the given reform may not be the most effective strategy. As such, keep in mind that a student-centered approach may not be the best strategy for every kind discipline or subject area, nor for every student population. The Common Core standards can often be a great navigation tool in terms of determining appropriate areas for a student-centered approach, especially for areas that put a strong emphasis on critical thinking.

10. Divide the Principalship

As some schools are finding, student-driven education may very well require a rethinking of the principal role. In the New Hampshire school, the single principal was replaced with two deans, one in charge of building management and the other in charge of curriculum and instruction. At least throughout the long transition process, this seems essential for ensuring such a monumental shift in approach is given the resources and attention it deserves.

What Do You Think?

Student-centered learning represents an important, fundamental, and exciting shift in education. But it is still evolving, and it is not without its detractors. What have your experiences been so far? What has worked for you, and what hasn’t? How would you like to see your school or district better support throughout this transition? Let us know in the comments below and also throughTwitter@Edudemic!

By Leah Levy