Truth be told, I decided to listen to the Hybrid Pedagogy Podcast because I couldn’t bring myself to read the entire article. I would much rather listen to a good discussion about pedagogy than to read about it on my own… In this episode of the podcast, host Chris Friend introduces us to Amy Collier who shares her beliefs about education and her strategies to overcoming standardization in the classroom. She introduces some similar concepts (like the different learning styles of students) and some new concepts (like “not-yetness”). Apparently, sometimes the best way to understanding is to spend time struggling with not understanding! For those of you who can’t bring themselves to read the article or listen to the podcast, here is a short 1:47 Powtoon I created to sum it up and to give you some insight on Amy’s way of Questioning Learning.
For those unfamiliar with Powtoon, it is a program to help create animated displays or mini videos that you can use to explain anything. The website gives an example as using it to evaluate a business. Although, there is somewhat of a learning curve to it and it can be time consuming depending on how much animation you wish to add, I found Powtoon to be extremely useful. It helped me explain exactly what I wanted to and the unique animations help emphasize the key points of the presentation. As a future math teacher, I initially thought that I wouldn’t have any use for this in a math lesson. However, after creating this short video, I can see many uses to it. One idea I had would be an animation to show division. You could show a number being decomposed into all of its factors through a short video. This would help any visual learners you have in a classroom. You could also narrate the video to help any mainly auditory learners. To any other kids in the class with different learning styles, this video can do no harm as it is a fun way to display new concepts. I am a fan of Powtoon and it’s ability to, like Amy, challenge the standardized (chalkboard & textbook) learning that we still experience today in math classes everywhere.
Anyway, enjoy!