Activity 3a, 3b, 3c resources how all posted
All the activities corresponding to the techniques that have been employed by Australian VLab Centre of Excellence staff to engage stakeholders during our remote Weather Discussions and Training Sessions have been posted
These include activities 3a, 3b and 3c. I hope you will have an opportunity to listen to the short video's. These are now in .mov and .mp4 format
Please work through the 7 questions. We would welcome your feedback.
Cheers Bodo
Thanks to Roro and Pat for your positive and insightful feedback
Actually, credit for my clear voice must go to my mum who encouraged me to speak clearly and not to mumble when I was a wee lad. My mum did some training in acting during her postgraduate studies so she also emphasized the importance of modulating the voice to express excitement, suspense etc.. I think presenters could learn a lot from studying good acting techniques - a great excuse for Trainers / Facilitators to watch the great movies of the present and the past !!!
One thing that has helped my group organization / presentation skills for blended classroom / remote sessions a lot is being the eldest in a big family with 7 brothers and 4 sisters. I was forever organizing the family excursions. It was important to enthusiastically advertise the latest excursion and to act as a motivated and well organized "tour guide". This was often in the face of some opposition from family members who wanted to watch TV (The Simpsons etc.) instead. So it motivated me to develop techniques that were "inclusive" - always thinking about what activities the individual family members could enjoy during the excursion
In reply to more specific comments;
Yes, sometimes when I make pauses for questions a lingering silence follows. In traditional classroom settings this is easily solved. I simply say to the class: "Time is ticking away, and if you don't respond to the question then the session will go into your lunchbreak. I REALLY don't want this to happen ....". That works wonders !. For remote and classroom audience it is important to gently prompt the audience with hints in presenting a reasonable answer. If this does not work then I will present the solution, with the reasoning supporting the answer. This reinforces the learning, as it may be possible that I did not explain the topic sufficiently earlier on in the presentation
Multiple choice questions are great for encouraging "shy" students, as well as students from cultures where teacher-student classroom interaction is not so prominent. It permits a student to express him/herself in perfect anonymity, and that is a big help.
Thanks Pat for your recommendations regarding "evaluation of Regional Focus Group meetings". Thanks Roro for your feedback pertaining to the usefulness of providing video/ppt "pre-course resources"
Hello Bodo,
concerning 3b question I can say from my experience.I took part in all types of trainings:1)remote audience,2) blended (classroom +remote audience) and 3) blended (classroom +remote audience+local presenter in the classroom). Usually I attend 1) type and like it very much because I could attend alone independent from audience. It means that I can listen carefully and memorize material or do exercises quickly and better.But of course I cant discuss with my colleagues immediatelly if something is not clear.
Type 2) is also quite popular but it is necessary to have good local stakeholder who could connect presenter and audience. It means that stakeholder should know the material, knows presenter as person(with his/her+ and-) and also keep eyes on atmosphere in the classroom. Cons: too big resposibility on stakeholder who could navigate the session to wrong direction.
3) type. It is the most hard way for presenter. It depends on his/her experience very much! Pros-he rules all participants and feels how things are going on and could manage all lecture as he wishes. But...too much business in one time:look at chat box, at remote audience tools, classroom reaction and make presentation. Very big challenge! but if somebody chooses this way, it means that he/she has the highest level of trainer:)
Izolda from very sunny but cold Vilnius
I echo Izolda on type 3 (classroom +remote audience+local presenter in the classroom): it is hard and maybe unfair to the classroom audience to see the presenter's attention been split into two audiences: at least it requires a lot of preparation, and in my opinion the classroom audience must be the priority audience. The online listeners will be served after classroom needs are taken care of.
I have attended a few such webinars as an online participant: the ones from ECMWF were quite nice to follow, with good visuals on slides, and clear presenter voice. I could get out some important knowledge from the presentations. However, I didn't feel like being a part of a classroom audience, but instead a remote observer.
As mentioned by Vesa in the message above, ECMWF has started to broadcast lectures that are part of the training programme. We have a classroom full of students at ECMWF and the presenter tries to keep the people in the classroom engaged, at the same time she/he has to talk to a remote audience. This is not so easily achievable but it is a way to reach out to more people who would miss on the training programme.
I have tried during a WMO training activity, to have one of my colleague giving a webinar, while I was sitting with the students in a remote location. This was a really nice experience, as I could look at the students and understand how much they could follow and whether there were difficult parts in the lecture that I could explain again after the webinar was over. I think webinars are a really efficient tools to be able to reach out to wider audiences, and if possible having a facilitator local to the students will translate a webinar in an efficient and effective way of teaching.
Thanks for the great feedback Anna, Vesa and Izolda,
Engagement of Classroom and Remote audience by a single presenter is indeed quite a challenge. I have found this during the blended Classroom / Remote Advanced Satellite Meteorology lectures. During these lectures and the prac session I had to engage 31 students and also up to 10 remote attendees.
I saw this as a great challenge and a few "tricks" helped me a lot in facilitating the session. Firstly, the presentation and the remote chat box was presented on the screen in the classroom. This way all the students could see the comments from the audience. I asked the students in the classroom to prompt me whenever a new comment was posted = classroom engagement. In my "running commentary" I always identified action / comments in the classroom to the remote audience - ie. students raising hands, students alert and enthusiastic etc. In other words I passed on the "mood" of the classroom to the remote audience = fostering group awareness. Whenever a question was posed to the audience I would first present an answer from the remote audience for discussion, then an answer from the classroom, then an answer from the remote audience, then an answer from the classroom etc. = inclusive interaction mode. In order to have more freedom within the classroom I had a remote microphone (attached to my shirt pocket). that way I could rove around the classroom unencumbered. The movement of the lecturer adds life to the classroom and prevents "clandestine" iphone activities" by certain students.... The Prac session was actually quite easy as I explained the activity at the beginning and then left the audience to work on this in pairs of two. I would rove around the class and students would sometimes prompt for clarification on certain parts of the activity etc.. I would pass these comments on to the remote audience. I would also keep a careful eye on comments from the remote audience during this. The remote audience became more interactive once they noticed that I was giving feedback to the classroom students. At a pre-arranged time I would resume the coordination of classroom and remote audience as we discussed the solution.
I have added a picture below - the "Cloud Drift Wind" and "Rapid Scan Satellite Imagery" lectures
Hi, Bodo,
your explanation shows that you are very experienced in the most difficult way of lectures! I like your suggestions- 1)to put chat box on the wall screen (then you share your observation duties with audience), 2)remote microphone makes you more flexible, 3)good point-remote participants feel a part of audience when they get your answers in chat box and 4)you talk with them showing whats going on in the classroom.
Thanks!
Thanks for the feedback Izonda
I would love to have webcam connection with the remote audience also. That would further improve the "connectedness" between classroom and remote audience. However, we have bandwidth issues here in RAV which makes this very difficult. When we try to engage the webcam it affects the audio etc..
So we have to work around this as best as we can....