Transform Your Teaching

What do gaming, storytelling, and music have in common? Can they be used in innovative ways in our teaching practices? Join Rob and Jared as they begin a new series where they will explore how these seemingly uncommon applications in education could be used in innovative/common ways.
 
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What is Transform Your Teaching?

The Transform your Teaching podcast is a service of the Center for Teaching and Learning at Cedarville University in Cedarville, Ohio. Join Dr. Rob McDole and Dr. Jared Pyles as they seek to inspire higher education faculty to adopt innovative teaching and learning practices.

Narrator:

This is the Transform Your Teaching Podcast. The Transform Your Teaching Podcast is a service of the Center for Teaching and Learning at Cedarville University in Cedarville, Ohio.

Ryan:

Hello, and welcome to this episode of Transform Your Teaching. In today's episode, Dr. Rob McDole and Dr. Jared Pyles kick off a new series called Have You Tried... Where they explore some innovative teaching strategies.

Ryan:

Thanks for joining us.

Jared:

All right, Rob, it is time to start a new series. We have ended the previous one and as logic would dictate, we have to start a new one now. Otherwise we're just rudderless without any, any kind of direction or anything

Rob:

like without that. A sail.

Jared:

Exactly. We are we are rudderless. Although before this, there are plenty of one off episodes that are going to. Oh, yeah.

Rob:

They're gonna come.

Jared:

I guess not really one after the other, but still.

Rob:

But they're in the vein. They are in the vein, and we are coming upon a big rich mother load of of new content.

Jared:

It's like we have a treasure map and we're approaching the X

Rob:

That's right.

Jared:

On the treasure map. Yes.

Rob:

And today, have you tried? Dot dot dot.

Jared:

Dot dot dot. Which will fill in the blanks later.

Rob:

It. So we got some really good topics, and we're gonna do something a little bit different than we normally do. We're actually gonna discuss different topics each each episode. Yep. And we're going to also give examples of how we've tried something

Jared:

Correct.

Rob:

In our classes.

Jared:

Yes. The last episode of the series, spoiler alert, is called yes, we tried. Dot dot dot. So, yes, we're starting this because this unofficial slogan of our podcast is that we're inspiring faculty to try some innovative teaching strategies. Right?

Jared:

That's been our servant teaching, but also innovative teaching strategies. And sometimes servant teaching is innovative. So because innovative thinking leads to a growth mindset. It kind of stretches you, it makes you think, it lets you do some trial and error, which can be very scary at times, but it's healthy because it kind of lets you stretch your muscles a bit.

Rob:

Right. And I think to be clear with our audience, I think if you've listened to us anytime, you'll also know that innovative doesn't just mean new for new sake.

Jared:

Correct.

Rob:

Yes. We're trying to get to trying new things like you said, but maybe it's old stuff.

Jared:

Yeah. We're just to you.

Rob:

It's new to you. Right? Yeah. Right. So we may actually talk about things in the future like direct instruction.

Jared:

Yeah.

Rob:

And how does that fit in with active learning, Which it does, by the way.

Jared:

It also can help with that. We've talked about in the previous series about there's a generation shift going on with students. And I think it's important that we develop more effective ways or different ways of teaching this new generation because these generations are different. You know, students that are coming in are different. And it's important that we be able to adapt and having these different strategies in your back pocket, new or old, are useful because, you know, you may find that something that worked this year may not work again in three to four years.

Jared:

Right. So it's important to, you know, try those things out and and to try new things. And so what we're gonna talk about in this series, is we're gonna do some talk some different methodologies that that either as Rob, as you said, they either exist and they have existed for a long time or they're relatively new. But again, if like just like the old, I think it was one of networks, ABC or NBC, when they would run reruns, they'd be like, well, if you haven't seen it, it's new to you. Maybe this is that that's the type of perspective we need to take with these is it may not be new, but it could be new to you.

Rob:

Or someone may have thought about it or they may know about it, but they never thought about using it

Jared:

Right.

Rob:

In the way that we're going to.

Jared:

Right. So the first topic we're going to discuss in this series is gamification, and I am super excited about this. It's something that I've always wanted to put into practice myself, but never really found an avenue to put it in. As staying in, you know, language arts, I feel like it doesn't, although I use that excuse a lot. I used to use that excuse for competency based and all the stuff that we talk about that's innovative.

Jared:

I'm like, yeah, this doesn't fit in my field, but it it does. I just

Rob:

need to

Jared:

find a way of doing it. But why don't you define gamification, Rob?

Rob:

So when we talk about gamification here, we are definitely separating ourselves from game based learning.

Jared:

Yes.

Rob:

Let's be clear to our listeners. What we mean by gamification is the application of game design elements and game principles to learning activities. So this might be with the goal of increasing student motivation, engagement, and particular learning outcomes. So it's really rooted at activating the inspiration and the drive of students to compete. And that's where gamification comes in.

Rob:

You know, you're trying to get points maybe.

Jared:

Yeah. Level up. Yeah.

Rob:

You're trying to level up. You're you're trying to incentivize this quick little dopamine hit. Ah, I got success. Boom. Let's go.

Rob:

And you're applying that to something small or maybe you're applying it to something on a large scale.

Jared:

That's also done with badges. I mean, if you think about badging as a huge thing in education and has been for, I don't know how long, Rob, several decades at least.

Rob:

It's a form of gamification.

Jared:

Right. It's a form of gamification, right, doing this idea of badging. And you could look at a lesser extent like those PD completion certificates you get at the end of those really long PD sessions where you're like, I just need to get my CEU credits or whatever.

Rob:

I remember in kindergarten. Maybe you I don't know if you had this, but when I kindergarten You didn't? No. Well, you missed out.

Jared:

I was too I was too smart.

Rob:

I had a kindergarten teacher who everybody's name was on the board, so it wasn't a bad thing to have your name on the board. Uh-huh. What you were looking for was to get two stars Oh. Next to your name. Yes.

Rob:

And the way you got two stars is you behaved, you you followed the class rules. Yeah. Before nap time. Mhmm.

Jared:

Right? Before you had nap time in kindergarten? Yeah. Wow.

Rob:

If you made it through nap time without causing us you know, you stayed on your mat.

Jared:

Yeah.

Rob:

Mhmm. You know, not only did you get a second star, but you'd wake up and it'd be a little smiley face sticker on your hand. Yeah. Not a sticker, but a stamp. It was a stamp.

Rob:

You get a little smiley face stamp on your hand. Okay. So you'd wake up and oh, there'd be the smiley face and you look up at the board and your name had two stars next to it. And if your name had two stars, she'd come around and she'd give you the little pet chocolate milk. You got to choose between chocolate milk and whole milk.

Rob:

Yeah. And you get a cookie, one of those, like, daisy cookies with the hole

Jared:

in the middle,

Rob:

you stick it on your finger and you

Jared:

eat it.

Rob:

Yeah. Mhmm. See? That's gamification.

Jared:

That I have so many questions. Is that is

Rob:

game Jacob's saying, no, it's not. He's saying that's not gamification.

Jared:

That that is gamification, but now I'm picturing the teacher navigating children and trying to get their hands free to stamp them without waking them up.

Rob:

Oh, it was something else.

Jared:

I can't did you have to sleep with your hand elevated so that she could come by

Rob:

like We just an assembly slept on these little mats. I mean

Jared:

My second grade teacher, Mrs. Purdue, did a spelling chart like that.

Rob:

Oh, okay.

Jared:

Where if you got perfect, a 100% on your spelling test, you got a sticker. And it was like those grids that had the real long, you know, I only missed one spelling word that entire year. So my sticker, my row of stickers was vacant on just one square.

Rob:

Oh, I bet that ate you up.

Jared:

It did. To this day, I will always spell friend correctly, but I spelled it wrong in second grade.

Rob:

And lost that square.

Jared:

And lost that one hat. I would have been perfect. And it just haunted me. Man. Mrs.

Jared:

Purdue. It's rough. She's great.

Rob:

Well, moving on. Why don't you Alright. Take the next

Jared:

So we're also gonna talk about music as a tool, which is also really interesting. And so we've defined it as all uses of music in the design, cognition, and facilitation of educational content across all modalities. Basically, it's if you're using music in your class as background noise or that's the first thing you went to when you were talking about music as a tool. It's like using it as ambience or background noise to facilitate learning. I immediately went to for memorization, like the ABC song or one of our favorite groups that we had the kids listen to and we listened to it as well.

Jared:

It helped us as well as this group called the Risers, which did songs with memory verses, like scripture.

Rob:

It like Like slugs and bugs.

Jared:

Yeah. I mean, like, stuff like that where, like, you use music as an instrument to no pun intended. Yeah. I know. Music is an instrument to memorize or to remember things.

Jared:

And, like, if you talk to my daughters and ask them to name the presidents, they can do it in a sing song format. So there's things like that where but but using music as a tool, in, like, the background noise or using it to memorize or to facilitate content, you know, to set the stage, to set a mood, something like that. That's what we're talking about with that with that series.

Rob:

So we'll have a lot of different connections with music as a tool because it is, I think, the applications when we looked at the research were quite wide and diverse. So that's why we're just saying music as a tool. So the next one is pretty recognized, and and I think people do it naturally. But in terms of focusing on it, I don't know we've ever done that in our podcast series at all, and that's storytelling. Mhmm.

Rob:

Although I've been accused of it on multiple multiple occasions, and our dear listeners have been spared whether they realize it or not for many of my stories that Jacob so rightly edits

Jared:

Eloquently.

Rob:

And eloquently edits out of the podcast, it is still probably one of the most important tools for someone to use. And we know that from, you know, what doctor Barbara Oakley talks about because she says, metaphor is one of the best learning strategies that you can use

Jared:

Mhmm.

Rob:

Especially for recall. Right? So Yes. When you stick something in someone's mind, if you have a metaphor that goes with it, it's so much easier to recall that. Mhmm.

Rob:

So thus, all the stories that we remember as children like, you know, Goldilocks and the three bears or the Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf, Little Red Riding Hood.

Jared:

Yes. You know? Teachings fables.

Rob:

Yeah. So a lot of those stories that that teach those kinds of nuggets or pieces of wisdom that are practical in many times

Jared:

Mhmm.

Rob:

Or in many ways. But you could also use it to teach very complex or abstract content. So we're we're we're really gonna look at that. And when we talk about stories, it really involves using your personal story as well, and then anecdotes that really engage and help to share knowledge. So, you know, not just telling a story for story's sake, but Sure.

Rob:

Being able to put the two together. And anytime you can share something from your own life that parallels or connects with the content that you're trying to teach, I think it has huge impact on students.

Jared:

Yeah. Agreed. I'm looking forward to that as well. And then our last one we're gonna talk about in this series is mind mapping, which Rob and I have talked about many times on this podcast. We're gonna put it specifically in the lens of instruction, and we're defining it as a visualization tool used in instruction that can be applied by learners to generate ideas, take notes, organize thinking, and develop concepts.

Jared:

If you're a K-twelve teacher or it could be even in higher ed now, a big way of doing this is through the good old graphic organizer. That's a very popular way of mind mapping where you give students an opportunity to visually show the connection between things or how things compare, how things contrast. But we're gonna look at that more specifically in this series and talk about how it actually works with the brain and why is it so effective.

Rob:

And kind of like when we come back to these things as we work with them, I think it's probably understood that we're also going to weave in AI Yep. In terms of how can we use these things. You know, we've we've talked about using Suno, right, to create music when we talk about music as a tool. Because it's really easy. You could actually put in, you know, actual ideas for lyrics, have ChatGPT or something come up with lyric set Yep.

Rob:

On a particular type of content, and maybe it's a story. Maybe you tell a story based on the content and then ship it over to Suno, give it the lyrics and say, give me this style of music, hear the lyrics, make the song. Right? Yeah. So for those of you who don't know what Suno is, Suno is a really cool little app.

Rob:

You can get at it at suno.com, I believe. That's sun0.com, and it allows you to create music based on prompts. And so, you know, if you do the one that you pay for, you got a lot more opportunity to develop your own kinds of music in many different styles. So anything from Gregorian chant to, you know, some sort of

Jared:

Gregorian chant? Yeah. I'm yeah. I need to I really need to get into this thing. I gotta get on this Internet thing.

Rob:

You know, the techno jazz or something. I I don't know. But really cool tool. It'll make a song for you, especially with lyrics that you give it in in a minute or less, maybe two minutes depending on how how long your your stuff is.

Jared:

I'm intrigued. May I have Yeah. Try I will. But, yeah, you can fit generative AI into storytelling, which that would be interesting because, you know, if you're having, you know, storytelling, like you said, is based on personal experience. I'm curious about maybe you could put a story that you write into generative AI and have it refine it and make it more clear.

Jared:

Because that's what I tend to do sometimes with my texts is I throw it in and say, okay, here's my goal of this. Help me get there better. What can I take away? And stuff like that. Maybe using it as an editor of your stories would be useful.

Jared:

And of course, gamification. That would be fun to try out with. Even using either generative AI to plan or have it then you could gamify something with generative AI and have it be the facilitator or whatever. I was actually talking to my sister the other day about how she's listening to a podcast on Dungeons and Dragons, the, you know, the game with all the different dice and stuff like that. And she mentioned that they're starting to use generative AI in there as the dungeon master or the storyteller in that.

Jared:

And now you're seeing people use that more and more as a way of, like, facilitating that. They're using generative AI to gamify games pretty much, you know, and they're using it in that aspect.

Rob:

Yeah, they're adding onto them.

Jared:

D and D as the kids call

Rob:

it. That's old. That's old stuff.

Jared:

It is old. Anyway, so yeah, we're gonna start with gamification in this series. Really excited about it. Really excited to have our friend and podcast alum, Doctor. Daniel Singletary, now that he's done with Boise.

Jared:

He's gonna come back and talk us through gamification, and he made a point. It was really funny. He's like, I want to make sure we make it clear that gamification and game based learning are different. So we're gonna talk about

Rob:

We're allow him to that. V Daniel Singletary. V Daniel. V Singletary.

Jared:

V Doctor Daniel Singletary. Alright. Looking forward having for that. Yeah.

Ryan:

Thanks for listening to this episode of Transform Your Teaching. If you have any questions or comments, we'd love to have a conversation with you about our new series, Have You Tried? You can reach out to us via LinkedIn, or you can connect with us at ctlpodcastcederville dot edu. Finally, don't forget to check out our blog at cedarville.edu/focusblog. Thanks for listening.