The Pedagogy of the 21st Century

What to Ask Students the First Day

"I found it very useful to ask for students to write on first day or class:

1."what I hope to learn and take from this course."

2. Likewise ask them their short term goal for taking this class and long term goal.

3.Lastly I ask them in the student profile on a scale 1-10 what is there experience with the subject matter to date.

Theses three questions have increased student focus and appreciation for course greatly for me as the teacher as well as te students seeing whats really important to them and focus on the gain and usefulness of course for the student."  Bryon Parffrey

What to Say to a Discussion Disrupter

"Definitly you want to difuse the situation and not disrepect the student. You could also say " I appreciate your comments".  -Erik Hontz

Dealing with Discussion Disrupters

"I often have a gorilla or two in my class and dealing with them is probably the biggest challenge I face in my classes. Usually I just thank the gorilla for their commentary and say due to time I need to cut this discussion short and keep moving, but I would be happy to further discuss during break time. I've never once had someone want to talk on break." Cymi Jung

Instructor Training Key to Future of Programming

New research
on learning styles
changing education

   Instructor quality is key to the future of programming, Julie Coates told participants at the 2013 Advanced Programming Institute in Fort Lauderdale this spring.  And the key to instructor quality is for your teachers and presenters to understand more about learning and learning styles.

   “New research on learning styles is changing education,” she noted.  “Whether you are doing continuing professional education, contract training, workforce development, or avocational leisure courses, instructor quality is at the heart of what we do in this business.” 

   She said the recent interest in completion rates is sweeping the education field, and that continuing education will be evaluated moving forward in large part based on completion rates, even for noncredit courses. 

   “You are going to see programs advertising their completion rates, and then backing those numbers up with data,” she predicted. 

   “An important new role for programmers in continuing education is boosting instructor quality through training about learning styles,” she stated.  She premiered a module on learning styles that LERN will incorporate into the Institute curriculum. 

   Three new and emerging aspects of learning styles right now are understanding 1) how the brain works, 2) gender, and 3) neurological differences such as Asperger’s.

   Without understanding the brain, gender and neurological differences, instructors cannot help their students learn and complete, she noted.  By understanding more about learning styles, instructors will be able to help their participants learn more and boost completion rates.  “Increased instructor quality means enhanced program quality, a win-win for both your program and your customers,” she said.

   Coates teaches online courses on Gender in the Classroom, and on Students with ASD (Asperger’s). Her latest book, The Pedagogy of the 21^st Century, features chapters on understanding learning styles.

 

Coates helping participants take a gender characteristics quiz at the 2013 Advanced Programming Institute in Fort Lauderdale. Males and females have different learning styles based on gender, but some 20% of one sex have the gender characteristic of the opposite sex, research shows.

Female and male brains formed before birth
   Gender differences in the brain are formed well before birth. Coates keeps finding more research literature that confirms the neurological origin of gender behavior.  She cited research by Israeli scientists Reuwen and Anat Achiron that if you do a regular ultrasound examination when a woman is 26 weeks pregnant, you can distinguish a female brain from a male brain.

Here’s the source. Reuwen Achiron, Shiomo Lipitz, and Anat Achiron. Sex-related differences in the development of the human fetal corpus callosum: in utero ultrasonographic study. Prenatal Diagnosis, 2001, 21:116-120. This in utero study confirmed the findings of a previous anatomical study in which investigators examined the brains of babies which had died before birth. See: M. de Lacoste, R. Holloway, and D. Woodward, "Sex differences in the fetal human corpus callosum," Human Neurobiology, 1986, 5 (2):9

State of Programming in 2013

State of Programming in 2013
   In his opening remarks at the 2013 Advanced Programming Institute, William A. Draves outlined the major current forces in continuing education right now.  They are:

New economy
   The new knowledge based economy requires an entirely different set of skills and workforce competence than the old industrial and office economy. Innovation, collaboration, technology, managing from a distance, and data analysis are just a few of the emerging skill sets.   

Gen Y
   The largest generation in human history at 80 million, Gen Y is not just the primary audience for continuing professional education right now but a leading generation whose needs and characteristics will largely be reflected in the next 2-3 generations as well.  Gen Y has a distinctly different learning style from previous generations.

Blended learning
   Every in-person or face-to-face offering will need to be hybrid or blended very soon. The combination of online and in-person will make for superior learning, as well as be more cost effective than the purely traditional classroom model.

From same to different
   In the old economy, programs sought to find common hot topics and offer them.  While some common topics will continue to be a source of programs, more organizations will seek to distinguish themselves by offering different programs, rather than the same ones, from the competition.

Info to education
  Seminars, one time offerings and other information based courses will continue to go into decline.  Education or curriculum based programming, which packages information into a more complete and comprehensive whole, will continue to increase.

New delivery
   Old formats may die. Seminars have already died as a popular format.  Online courses already can be predicted to be half of all offerings in this century.  Gaming is on the horizon.  New delivery formats will emerge and take hold by around 2020. 

Great networking over the meals.

 

Top Ten Most Advanced Programming Strategies

From LERN's 2013 Advanced Programming Institute, here's an exclusive report.

With the external marketplace changing rapidly, continuing education has to create new programs to respond to the new economy and new workforce needs, participants at the 2013 Advanced Programming Institute were told.

   Here’s the Top Ten most advanced programming strategies being employed by the most successful programmers right now.
1.Creating original online certificates
2.Transitioning all in-person courses to blended or hybrid
3.Creating a curriculum for specific niches
4.Moving from market share to customer share
5.Analyzing sales by your 7 primary market segments
6.Spending more time, and more resources, in researching new high dollar programs
7.Creating one new programming area a year with a potential for $100,000 in income over three years.
8.Offering both in-person courses and online courses on the same topics, seeing the choice of format as complementary rather than competing.
9.Selectively partnering with a few organizations to create a “new pie” with a win-win financial outcome for both parties.
10.Using advisory boards for brainstorming and feedback on ideas. Advisory boards composed of the 2% of cutting edge professionals often point to new and emerging trends before the competition finds them.

Participants held small group discussions outside on the patio, a special treat.