Using Technology to Develop Learner Profiles

"What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child," George Bernard Shaw once said.

I could not agree more. The best teachers stimulate students’ minds, and satisfy their quest for  knowledge.  Technology per se does not make us great teachers, but if used strategically as a tool it can make us better and more effective. Any technology that is used in the classroom needs to serve the development and deepening of student understanding.The problem is that not all students learn the same way. No matter how much experience I have it continues to blow my mind how different the learning needs of my students are. Even more extraordinary is the different rate at which my students learn. For me this has always been an argument for personalizing instruction. Learner profiles are an effective way to personalize a classroom in a systematic and effective manner.

I started implementing learner profiles almost two years ago, but it took me awhile to get better at it. The turning point was reading Barbara Bray’s and Kathleen McClaskey’s book How to Personalize Learning. It has become my number one go-to book when it comes to student learning. There is so much in this book that is helpful to us teachers. Still, my favorite takeaway continues to be their discussion of learner profiles. McClaskey and Bray use the framework of UDL (Universal Design for Learning) to create such a profile. The idea is to look at how students access learning, engage with it, and lastly express their learning.  

What makes learner profiles so powerful is that it really does away with any stereotype we may have of our students. I noticed for example that I stereotyped my strongest students. I chuckled when I realized that I had somehow expected that they were immune to idleness and always found learning easy and stimulating. Not so! I learned that one of my most gifted learners struggled to get started on a new project.

This is now my second year of using learner profiles as suggested in How to Personalize Learning. How did I go about it? I started out with a survey based on what I read in the book and for this I used a simple Google Form. After my students took the survey, I created a Google spreadsheet. I then launched formMule, a simple Add-on that sends targeted, personalized emails from a Google Sheet. I did this as I wanted my students to have continued access to their own responses. I created an email template using formMule and formMule did the rest (it isn’t called mule for nothing!). If you are interested in learning more about formMule here is a tutorial.

Last year my students used their responses to help them decide on their topic for Genius Hour. But this is not all I have used learner profiles for. My other use is creating a class learning snapshot.  This helps with designing the methods and materials I need to reach every single one of my students. As recommended by Bray and McClaskey I choose four diverse learners in order to cover as much of the learning spectrum as possible. I then make a chart in which I record what these four students reported about their own learning. Thus I cover their strengths, talents, interests, challenges, preferences and needs. In a final step I look everything over and write a reflection on what instructional strategies may be appropriate in order for all diverse learners to be able to access, engage with, and express learning.

To be honest I still struggle quite a bit with how I use learner profiles in my instruction. It is not easy to always adjust my instructional strategies to the needs of all my students, but it’s well worth the effort, because getting to know my students better is so rewarding. There might be an even greater reward, though, and that is that students get in touch with their own learning.

Submitted by Elke Sommers, German Teacher at Brookfield East and Brookfield Central

Canvas Discussions: Get students using discourse with each other - even at home!

I always want my students to be using academic and science discourse in my class as much as possible. I’d also love to be able to sit at each small group conversation to hear what students are saying. It’s such a window into their understanding and thinking!

Luckily, Canvas has a “Discussion” option that helps make this possible. It is easy, efficient, and can get students “talking” even outside their current class hour.

Let’s start by looking at a discussion I use early in the school year when we learn about how slowly molecules move in a cold substance.

Students read an article and completed the following:

• Write 3-4 sentences summarizing what it's about.
• Write 1-2 sentences connecting what you read in the article with science facts you've learned. (i.e. explain something in the article with science concept you've learned)
• Then write one curiosity question you now have.
• Post your answer in your discussion group.
• Finally, respond to at least one other student in your group. Your response should comment on something specific in the post. Please do not simply say vague statements such as "I agree."
• If there is a mistake in the student's post, point it out and explain the correction.
• Comment on the curiosity question with another question, an article you found, a video, a related question, a personal experience, etc.

As you can see, this discussion post includes students:

• Reading
• Connecting to content learned in class (applying knowledge from class to new scenario)
• Asking a question (a science practice standard)
• Reading (another student’s post)
• Comment on another student’s post. (there is not much science discourse happening here… but it’s one of the first discussions. You’ll see another example that includes more science discourse below).

Other ideas for discussion topics. (Sorry - all examples are science specific…)

• Give students a “what if’ scenario. They have to answer the “what if” using information they have learned in class.
• Example: What if the cell membrane were not permeable to oxygen? How would cells be impacted? Which organelles specifically would be impacted and why?
• Example: If your body did not have a circulatory system, how would it be affected?
• Give students a debatable question. They have to support their answer with content learned in class. 
• Example: Which is the most important organelle for a cell?
• Example: Which part of the engineering process is most important?
• Give students a review question. This is just to help you see where they are at. You wouldn’t necessarily have students respond to each other, but having it as a discussion lets students see others’ responses.
• Example: What is the “glue” that holds together a covalent bond?
• Example: Which state of matter do atoms/molecules move the most?
• Have students write an analogy. Students can respond to each other. You can have the student's response include content from class as support for their critique of the analogy.
• Example: What is an analogy that represents the levels of organization?
• Example: What is an analogy that represents the Law of Conservation of Matter?
• Have students find an article that relates to a current topic. Students should attach article, summarize it, explain how it connects to class, and write one curiosity question.
• Have students find an interesting video that relates to content learned in class. Students have to summarize what the video shows and why they chose it. Students have to watch two other videos and reply to the student who posted their favorite video stating why they like this video the best.

Things I’ve learned:

• Have a due date for initial responses and a second later due date for all responses.
• SHOW students how to post and respond to each other. Also show how to view the rubric. 
•  Here is video of me explaining this to my students.


• Here is video about posting, responding, and viewing the rubric. 
• Be specific about what you expect them to include in their initial posts and responses - otherwise (at least with 8th graders) you get very general comments.

Now, how do you set up a Canvas discussion? See steps below.

1. Click Discussions from your course homepage. (Your homepage might look different than mine.) 
2. Click “+Discussion”
   
3. Type in a Discussion Title and directions for students.
   
4. Options (see picture above for where these are) - which I like to choose and why: 
• Select “Allow threaded replies.” This puts replies indented under initial posts, which keeps things a little organized. 
• Select “Users must post before seeing replies.” This means that students can’t see what others have written until they write and submit their own post first. 
• “Graded” depends on if you want to grade this or not. Grading discussed further below.
• “Allow liking” This is up to you. I have used it in the past and haven’t really noticed students using it. But that doesn’t mean they don’t - I just don’t look for it.  
5. Group Discussion - I like to separate my house into 10 random groups. (My house has about 105 students.) This allows students to interact with others who are not in their science class. I call this group “Discussion group.” You have to make these groups ahead of time. (See the little hand clicking on the group discussion and selecting a group in pics below.) 
6. If you selected that this is a graded assignment, you have grading options. Some grading options include: Complete/Incomplete - this is simply where you can look at each and mark them as complete without giving a grade. Points - you can attach a rubric for this. (those are the only two I really use).
7. Select a due date and date available. Adding a due date helps the assignment show up in the students “To Do.” Adding a date available prevents students from completing the assignment before you’d like them to. It also makes the discussion unavailable if you fill in the “until” portion. This is good if you want a hard deadline for the discussion.
8. Then click “Save” or “Save and Publish” depending on if you want the discussion published right away. Remember, if you have the “Available From” in the future, you don’t have to worry about students seeing the discussion before you want them to (or before it’s done). 
9. If you chose to have this discussion be graded by points, you have the option of adding a rubric. 
   
   
   

Rubric example: 

If you are using a rubric, below is how I grade students on their replies to other students. This includes a little additional credit where students could earn above a 100% in the “exceeds” expectations. Or you could have this be an A+ versus an A. 

• Exceeds expectations: Student hits all "meets expectations" guidelines. Student goes ABOVE AND BEYOND by bringing in new ideas from CITED resources(Articles or videos from the web) and relates the resource to the discussion. 
• Meets expectations: Student responds to one other student thoughtfully. Student shows knowledge of content. Student asks a question, brings in new ideas, or challenges an idea someone has. If critiques other student, includes specific corrections that should be made. 
• Mostly meets expectations: Student responds to one other student and response shows knowledge of content. In this response, the student asks a question, brings in new ideas, or challenges an idea someone has. Response includes some vagueness or lack of completeness. 
• Somewhat meets expectations: Student responds to one other student. Responses are a bit lacking in thought or content. Response is vague and do not keep the discussion moving. Approaches expectations: Student responds to one other student. Response is minimal, such as "I agree." 
• Does not meet expectations: Student does not respond to any other students by the deadline.

By Lisa Camponeschi, Science Teacher at Pilgrim Park Middle School

Multimedia Design Principles

Offering multiple modes of content delivery (UDL: Representation) is a critical component of personalized learning. Creating or using existing video as a content delivery method or to supplement learning gives students that extra resource to be successful in reaching your learning outcomes. If you are thinking of creating your own video, or plan to use existing video, there are ten design principles you should adhere to, or look for, to ensure the videos are having the greatest educational impact. 

Analyze or create your videos using these 10 multimedia design principles:

1. Coherence Principle.

This principle states that learners learn better when extraneous words, pictures, and sounds are excluded rather than included. In other words, less is more. Carefully choose what elements are necessary and leave out elements that are not.

2. Signaling Principle.

When lying out your video story be sure that simpler concepts precede complex ones. This ensures that learners are not cognitively overloaded. Important parts of the learning content should be highlighted, underlined, or bolded etc. This helps students process and remember essential parts of the learning content.

3. Redundancy Principle.

When creating multimedia in a course, it is important to remember that learners prefer only 2-3 multimedia elements at once. It is better to include graphics and narration or animation and narration rather than more than an abundance of elements (ie. on-screen text, graphics, animation, as well as narration).

4. Multimedia Principle.

Learners prefer to learn better from words and pictures rather than from words alone. The inclusion of graphics is very important.

5. Spatial Contiguity Principle.

Studies show that learners need corresponding words and pictures to be presented near each other rather than far from each other on the screen. This simple alignment effectively increases the impact of learning and lessens confusion.

6. Temporal Contiguity Principle.

This principle states that learners prefer it when corresponding words and pictures are presented simultaneously rather than successively.

7. Segmenting Principle.

Personalized learning should offer flexibility in pace. Learners learn better from a multimedia-infused lesson when it is presented in user-paced segments rather than as a continuous unit. Suitable breaks in between the flow of information is necessary to make sure that the learner takes some time to process what he or she is reading.

8. Pre-Training Principle.

The benefits of creating pre-training opportunities benefit all types of learners. This principle states that learners benefit from a multimedia lesson when they know the names and characteristics of the main concepts. Introduce new concepts, names, and titles of essential topics on the first few screens to make sure that learner feels comfortable with the idea of moving forward.

9. Personalization Principle.

This principle states it is better to include audio in conversational style rather than formal style. Not only does this put the learner at ease, it increases their attention as well. Simply stated, videos should be created as informal and not forced.

10. Voice Principle.

Learners prefer narration in a friendly human voice rather than a machine voice. So even if machine generated narration is available it is better to create a voice-over narration to make sure that learners remain engaged and are suitably inspired to listen and learn.

Each principle is linked to a video illustrating the design principle in action.

Submitted by Suzanne Riesen, Math Teacher at Brookfield Central High School

Resources:

https://elearningindustry.com/10-design-principles-using-multimedia-in-elearning

YouTube Videos by Bucky Dodd