Augmented Learning

Augmented Learning Podcast & Vlog Episode #54

Carl Condliffe — Tue, 26 Nov 2019 10:42:18 +0000

Carol Dweck with her book “Mindset” shaped the idea of a growth mindset, which really allowed us to explore this concept of failure. According to Dweck, In a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work—brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment. An approach like this views failure in a positive light, an opportunity to learn and further develop our skills, as opposed to thinking our abilities are fixed and beyond our capacity to change.
 
Today’s guest is Chris Desmond, an expert in getting uncomfortable. His podcast titled “Uncomfortable in Ok” is all about the uncomfortable things his guests have done or are in the process of doing. Stepping out of our comfort zone creates just enough good stress to ramp up your focus and drive, and it helps you respond positively to stress when unexpected things happen.
 
Uncomfortable is Ok on Facebook.
Chris Desmond on Twitter.
Subscribe to the Uncomfortable is OK podcast.

Augmented Learning Podcast & Vlog Episode #53

Carl Condliffe — Tue, 19 Nov 2019 07:23:41 +0000

Shaun is a teacher who experienced some challenges around burn out and mental illness early in his career. As Shaun came to discover different strategies and lessons to support himself throughout this time, he found himself becoming obsessed with the power of the mind and human potential.
 
This lead to the founding of Smile Teachers where Shaun collaborates with a range of experts to share the most powerful ways to cultivate self-love and positivity. Shaun and his team are passionate about changing lives so that we have inspiring and passionate educators who can make a positive difference in the world. Throughout this episode we spend some time talking about the challenges teachers and students face on a day to day basis and how we can go about filling our own buckets.
 
As part of Smile Teachers, Shaun runs a number of programmes and some amazing retreats. For listeners of the podcast he is offering $500 off his January retreat to Bali, all you need to do is mention this podcast episode. So if you haven’t booked in your Summer holiday yet, check out what is on offer at the retreat!
 
Follow Smile Teachers on Instagram.
Check out the Smile Teachers FaceBook page.

Augmented Learning Podcast & Vlog Episode #52

Carl Condliffe — Tue, 12 Nov 2019 08:41:55 +0000

Celia Fleck is a colleague I have worked very closely with across the last four years. She has become a great friend since our paths first crossed when Rongotai College joined the Sport in Education Project back in 2015. Since then we have had shared a number of podcast episodes, almost travelled the length of New Zealand, toured some amazing schools throughout Melbourne and served on the Board of Physical Education New Zealand together.
She is an inspiring educator who is true to her values and isn’t scared to tell it how it is (much like her former protege who was on the podcast recently!). She is also a great critical thinker who gives everything for the profession. It’s these qualities which recently had me thinking that Celia would make a great co-host! After a few discussions about what that could look like, she agreed to jump on board.
In this episode we talk about what she enjoys about podcasts, what she listens to, and what she is hoping to add to the Augmented Learning Podcast!
Follow Celia on Twitter.

Gratitude in Education

Carl Condliffe — Wed, 06 Nov 2019 21:48:30 +0000

I define gratitude as the act of acknowledging what we receive from others and being motivated to give back out of this acknowledgement.

Dr Kerry Howells

Gratitude is an important lesson to learn no matter what your age. A powerful action, it can be implemented within the classroom as a way of effectively teaching children how to be thankful for what they have and to be kind to others. Increasing their overall happiness and creating stronger relationships between them, it’s a key factor in evolving the culture.

If you’re a teacher and want to improve the culture within your classroom – a first step is educating your pupils on how they can have gratitude. An expression and attitude that they will have, there are many ways that you can teach it.

Three Strategies You Can Use to Implement Gratitude in The Classroom

1. Purchase books that promote gratitude

There is a wide variety of children’s books that talk about gratitude and how you can be more thankful/act kindly to those around you. From The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein to The Thank You Book by Mo Willems, the options are endless.

To help the process of implementing gratitude, try to convince your students to read these books or similar. You could do this by creating a reading club or by reading out sections of a book in a dedicated 15 minutes of story time each day.

2. Random Acts of kindness

At the start or end of the day, discuss with your students what random acts of kindness can do. Giving them ideas on what they can do either at home or at school, they will be able to make friends and learn the importance of being kind to others. Whether it’s a handwritten note, helping someone with their bags or sharing food / other goodies with their mates, it can be a great life lesson that will help them in the future.

Alternatively, you could create a kindness corner / whiteboard that has blank pieces of paper on it. Students can then write any random acts of kindness that they have recently performed. Once the tree is full, you can go through them and discuss with your pupils about how it made them feel.

3. Gratitude journals

Another great way that you can educate pupils about gratitude is through a gratitude journal. Put 10 or 15 minutes aside each day and ask your students to write down exactly what they are thankful for. Setting the tone for the day ahead, it will help them to reflect on what makes them happy and all that they can have gratitude for.

What Gratitude Might Look Like in The Classroom

Now more than ever, a classroom can be a hive of resentment, envy or a dangerous sense of entitlement – despite the state of the world. To step away from these toxic behaviours, gratitude can be taught as a way of appreciating everything that they have – rather than focusing on the negatives which is often easier.

Once gratitude becomes a mainstay in the classroom, it will be a stepping stone to transforming the way that each of the students acts with each other, teachers and when they are at home. A gratitude-filled classroom will have students that are helping each other, even in the smallest of ways, that are appreciative of what they have and that are far happier with the environment overall.

Kindle Book Giveaway – Actionable Gamification

Carl Condliffe — Tue, 05 Nov 2019 20:38:45 +0000

In today’s podcast episode with Charlie Lloyd, we mentioned giving away a copy of Yu Kai Chou’s book titled Actionable Gamification. This is hands down, the best book on Gamification available and if the topics Charlie and I covered in his episode were of interest to you, this is the book to read! Scroll down for information about how to enter.

Actionable Gamification: Beyond points, badges and leaderboards.

Here is the Amazon summary of the book:

The new era of Gamification and Human-Focused Design optimizes for motivation and engagement over traditional Function-Focused Design. Within the industry, studies on game mechanics and behavioral psychology have become proliferate. However, few people understand how to merge the two fields into experience designs that reliably increases business metrics and generates a return on investment. Gamification Pioneer Yu-kai Chou takes reader on a journey to learn his twelve years of obsessive research in creating the Octalysis Framework, and how to apply the framework to create engaging and successful experiences in their product, workplace, marketing, and personal lives. Effective gamification is a combination of game design, game dynamics, behavioral economics, motivational psychology, UX/UI (User Experience and User Interface), neurobiology, technology platforms, as well as ROI-driving business implementations. This book explores the interplay between these disciplines to capture the core principles that contribute to good gamification design. The goal for this book is to become a strategy guide to help readers master the games that truly make a difference in their lives. Readers who absorb the contents of this book will have literally obtained what many companies pay tens of thousands of dollars to acquire. The ultimate aim is to enable the widespread adoption of good gamification and human-focused design in all types of industries.

How to enter

Entering is simple. Open up the show page in your podcast app. Scroll to the bottom and click the button “Write a Review”. Tap the stars (5 of course!) to rate, add a title, then a quick review of the podcast.

Before you hit submit, take a screenshot of the review and email it to me via carl@augmentedlearning.co.nz.

Augmented Learning Podcast & Vlog Episode #51

Carl Condliffe — Tue, 05 Nov 2019 07:38:44 +0000

If you’re a regular listener you’re no doubt aware of my former obsession with video games and gamification. This stemmed from time spent gaming as a young teacher where I would get flown around the world playing FIFA competitively for tens of thousands of dollars (which is small time compared to what the younguns are playing for these days). This fascination lead me down a path of exploring gamification in education, a passion that has again earned me lots of fun travel to speak about how we can motivate and engage our learners through the use of game mechanics in the classroom.

Todays guest makes what I do look like small time gamification. Charlie is a Science teacher who is gamifiying his classes at another level. Through the use of powerful narrative, his students are exploring scenarios and solving problems in a way that simply couldn’t be done in a traditional classroom. His commitment to the cause is really a sight to behold and the stories he shares with us today will really challenge your perception of what a learning environment can look like.

If anything that we discuss today interests you, please check out our free Introduction to Gamification course. You can access this course here. In addition to this, we mention a book called Actionable Gamification. I promised I would give a copy of this book away, but i’m going to make you work for it! If you want to go into the draw for this book, what you have to do is, leave a review of the podcast on iTunes, take a screenshot, and send that screenshot through to me at carl@augmentedlearning.co.nz. Easy as that!

Follow Charlie on Twitter.

Check out Charlie’s YouTube page.

Augmented Learning Podcast & Vlog Episode #50

Carl Condliffe — Tue, 29 Oct 2019 08:44:39 +0000

First of all, thank you for the support and feedback across the last 50 episodes. I haven’t been as consistent as I hoped since the podcast launch, and at times considered pulling things right back. But I’m glad I persevered and I’m very grateful to have hit this milestone. We’ve got a big announcement in the coming weeks around some changes and additions to the podcast which I think is going to make the podcast significantly better and help bring you even more stories of amazing educators, leaders and influencers.

But, it’s time to introduce todays guest. If you consume my content on a regular basis, you will know I talk about this person a lot, and hold them in very high regard. She has had a massive influence on my career, more so than I think she actually realises.

One thing each and every one of us share, is the fact that we have leaders in our lives. Regardless of where you find yourself, or what stage of life you’re at, leaders will play a big part in shaping your day to day. Some of us even have the privilege of leading others, and if you’re one of those lucky people I have no doubt that your leadership is shaped in some part by a leader who has had a really positive impact on you.

Prue Kelly is that leader for me. She was my very first Principal as a teacher and I quickly established she was someone I could always go to for support. She took a risk on me on more than one occasion, and despite the mistakes I made or difficulties I found myself in, knew she would always go into bat for me.

Leadership to me, is making those people around you better. Prue cared immensely about her staff, and she fostered a rich learning environment that I’m still yet to see replicated elsewhere. We touch on this towards the end of the podcast, but her annual hand written Christmas letters to every single staff member showed her strong leadership, and passion for growing better people.

Critical Success Factors of a Flipped Classroom

Carl Condliffe — Tue, 29 Oct 2019 01:18:52 +0000

Defining flipped learning

flipped learning is a pedagogical approach that can be defined by taking direct instruction, and moving it from within the classroom, to outside of the classroom. To imagine this, picture a traditional classroom with a teacher at the front of the class “chalking and talking”. Now take that instructional process and allow students to digest the same (or similar) content any time they want, on any device they have, as many times as they like. This is flipped learning.

There are a few key features of all flipped classrooms and learning environments. Think of these key features as critical success factors. If you aren’t looking to incorporate these aspects in your flipped classroom, then you will find it hard to gain traction using this method.

1. Teaching your students and their parents about flipped learning

Our students and their whanau have expectations of what learning should look like. These expectations are generally based on the way they were taught when they were at school. For most parents, this is going to look like a very traditional approach where the teacher stands up at the front of the class and “teaches” content. Hopefully your current students have experienced more modern approaches to learning, but nevertheless you still have to take the time to inform your students and parents about the new approach you’re taking with them. This could be a simple letter home describing the new processes, or you could create a flipped video for your parents! As long as you are outlining what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and how it’s going to improve student outcomes then the approach you take doesn’t really matter. But, be prepared for pushback from parents that are used to doing things a certain way.

I have also found that you need to teach your students how to watch the videos you provide. Our kids operate in high distraction environments. They like to “multitask” and think they can do this successfully. By having them minimise these distractions, and show them why they should be pausing the video and replaying where necessary, and providing them with a good note taking process (such as a WSQ sheet), you’re setting them up for success in a flipped learning environment.

2. Repurpose your classroom time

The power of the flipped classroom doesn’t come from having lots of cool videos to show your students at home. It comes from being able to repurpose your classroom time. Because students have digested key content outside of your lessons, you’re now free to focus on much more authentic and meaningful learning experiences that leverage higher order thinking tasks.

Before flipping I spent far too much time chalking and talking with my classes. We would focus on the remembering and understanding of key content, and never really arrive at a point where we could create, evaluate and analyse (where the magic happens). Creating these magic moments and learning experiences is not easy, and too many educators simply leave this component to chance. If you really want to serve your students and have them benefit from a flipped learning environment, your priority needs to be on explicitly planning out repurposed lessons that are authentic, meaningful, leverage higher order thinking skills, and elicit high levels of engagement from your students. This is by no means an easy task and requires a heavy time investment from you, confidence in your curriculum knowledge, and awareness of the students you teach.

3. An understanding that the teacher is no longer the holder of all knowledge.

Flipped content is not limited to your own videos. While there is a lot to be said about student engagement from your own videos, it’s not always necessary or possible to create your own. The sooner you’re able to embrace an attitude that you are not the holder of all knowledge in the classroom, the sooner you can focus on the things that matter – like developing high quality connections and relationships with your students. A quick YouTube search will open up a wide variety of video content by experts on almost any topic you need. Alternatively, you could use a service like My Study Series which provides access to targeted video content and automated quizzing for almost every single Achievement Standard at Level 1, 2 and 3.

4. The ability to check student understanding and progress

Simply put, if your students aren’t digesting the content you’re providing them, what is the point of all this? You need to know whether your students are engaging with the content, that they understand what they are watching, and that they are making progress in the classroom. I encourage teachers to incorporate this critical success factor into your repurposed classroom time. I like to check student understanding through three different methods. 1) Small group discussions. As soon as students enter into a repurposed classroom lesson, they begin discussing the latest video with their group. They will highlight anything they didn’t understand and generate some key questions. 2) Each group then presents a key question to the remainder of the class. As a teacher I sit back and watch the students collaborate together and discuss answers. This is some of the richest student lead work I have seen in my classes. 3) Finally, I put together some teacher lead focus questions. This ensures that I am comfortable students are progressing at the pace I need them to be. The responses and engagement from each of these three steps will generally determine the next steps in the learning journey.

5. Have high expectations of your students

If you’ve managed to implement a number of these critical success factors, you’re likely seeing positive results already. However, I can guarantee you it’s not all smooth sailing. You will encounter push back, you will have students who struggle with access to devices and the internet, and you will have students who simply don’t get the required work done. My advice here is to reaffirm your student expectations and make sure you keep them high.

Put consequences in place for students who don’t do their part. Ensure your expectations are always clear and visible. Maintain constant communication with whanau. Praise students who are performing well.

One of the best outcomes of a flipped learning environment are the stronger student-teacher relationships. You spend more time working alongside them and helping them find their path on the learning journey. Having high expectations of your students will ensure these relationships continue to develop and blossom, with student confidence growing at the same time.

A flipped approach is no silver bullet, nor is it an easy approach to implement. But if you’re able to consider the five critical success factors mentioned in this post, you will be well on your way to establishing yourself as a confident flipped educator, with students more likely to embrace the method. If you haven’t done so already, please sign up for our Introduction to Flipped learning course by clicking on the button below!

Augmented Learning Podcast & Vlog Episode #49

Carl Condliffe — Tue, 22 Oct 2019 09:15:39 +0000

In today’s episode I chat with Dale Sidebottom from Energetic Education.

I love books. I love reading them, listening to them, recommending them and giving them away. I love the story that is woven in your imagination when you read them. And I love that there is nothing you can experience in life, that somebody hasn’t already experienced before, and written about it in a book.

Another person that shares my passion for books, is Dale. Hes no stranger to the podcast or the work I do, and I am fortunate enough I get to learn from him and work with in some form or another every day. We decided to do something different this time around, and that was record a podcast episode about our passion for a good book!

We share our thoughts on five or six books that aren’t necessarily educational focused, but can give great life lessons that will still be applicable in the classroom. Through the books we share, Dale and I dive into a number of themes throughout the episode include productivity, mental health, happiness, goal setting and philosophy.

Books we talk about in the podcast:

I will always write back by Martin Ganda and Caitlin Alifirenka.

Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh.

10X Rule by Grant Cardone.

The Bullet Journal Method by Ryder Carroll.

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho.

Check out Dale via Energetic Education and also his new Jugar Life Daily Mission Cards!

Augmented Learning Podcast & Vlog Episode #48

Carl Condliffe — Mon, 14 Oct 2019 17:00:58 +0000

Today we’re talking to Sam Forward from Ellesmere College in Christchurch. I have been fortunate enough to develop a nice friendship and working relationship with Sam over the last few months. We both attended the Japan Sports Forum spending a few weeks exploring Tokyo and I was quite impressed with Sam’s no nonsense approach and ability to apply a critical lens to many of the situations and engagements we found ourselves in. This critical approach is an important skill both in life and probably more importantly in front of our students where we should be role modelling this as much as possible.

We spend a little time recapping our trip to Japan, discussing the differences between New Zealand and Japanese approaches to Physical Education and Sport. But most of our discussion is related to Sam’s experiences as an Across School Lead Teacher for his Ngā Mātāpuna o te Waihora Kahui Ako.

Sam is a passionate educator who adds tremendous value not only to the Physical Education community, but to teaching across New Zealand in General.

Follow Sam on Twitter.