Lightboards @ Ara #2

Two years ago, I blogged about the lightboard, installed at our Sullivan Avenue campus where our traditional trades training are based. 

This year, some modifications to now allow the lightboard to be 'synched' to the institute's 'video lecture capture' platform Panopto. This makes it easier to edit the lightboard video and to link it into Moodle.

As part of work on another book focused on TEL and its role in VET, especially to support 'distance learning' I did a search to see if there has been more work being done on looking at the efficacy of the lightboard for teaching and learning.

Two articles come up. 

1) Lubrick, M., Zhou, G., & Zhang, J. (2019). Is the future bright? The potential of lightboard videos for student achievement and engagement in learning. EURASIA Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, 15(8), em 1735. accessed via this link.

2) Rogers, Peter D. and Botnaru, Diana T. (2019) "Shedding Light on Student Learning Through the Use of Lightboard Videos," International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: Vol. 13: No. 3, Article 6. Available at: https://doi.org/10.20429/ijsotl.2019.130306

Both are positive on the contribution of lightboards to student learning. I have had misgivings about lightboards promoting the 'sage on the stage' teaching and learning model. However, used in a planned way, lightboards provide an ideal way to engage students with complex ideas. Disciplines like engineering, many trades, maths, sciences etc. have a visual language through the use of equations, formulae and drawing, Using the lightboard allows 'thinking to be made visible' while the teacher works through difficult and long calculations or explains difficult to grasp concepts using 'chalk and talk'.

As with all technologies, it is not what technology is used, but HOW the learning is extended, augmented, reinforced AFTER learners view the resource. So the lightboard helps produce an authentic resource for later deconstruction and discussion. It is the connection during and after the teacher expounds on the 'lightboard' captured visual, which is the key to ensuring learners are helped to grasp the principles being articulated. Students respond best to resources customised to their learning context and a lightboard provides the opportunity to replicate 'chalk and talk' without the chalk.

Lightboards @ Ara

After several years of development, Ara is now able to make use of a lightboard for recording instructional videos for students. The team which constructed the lightboard, used a variety of resources to put together the lightboard. An example from here , here  and here on a one button lightboard studio.

Last week there a short presentation with Mark Kingston from engineering at trades, demonstrating how he used the lightboard to support his teaching.

The rationale was to engage trades engineering / fabricating students with trade calculations. These students are often very math phobic due to poor experiences at school. Using the lightboard provides a resource that can be used by learners to repeat contextualised maths to nut out the nuances of trades maths. He has now produced over 30 videos and they are posted on YouTube.

Reflections on the outcomes. Anytime learning and useful with students who are not keen to ask questions in class and it is difficult to work out if they have understood the concept. Moving away from unit standards allowed more time for competency to be built up. The videos allow for a contextualised resource to be built up quickly, sometimes to meet just in time learning needs that have come up during a f2f session. Challenges have mainly been with the software. Keeping the glass clean on the lightboard is crucial and requires some elbow grease.

The lightboard’s original intent is to allow videos to be recorded of the tutor’s board work as they explain a concept. It is particularly useful for disciplines which have a high visual / kinaesthetic focus exampled by maths, engineering and trades subjects. The app ‘explain everything’ is capable of similar but does not allow for the teacher / tutor, apart from their voice over, to also be included.

I am more interested in how the videos recorded with a lightboard will be useful for learners to record their learning as well. Using the Thayer method in a more learning focused fashion will likely provide dividends. The method requires learners to ‘teach’ a topic after they have learnt concepts presented to them in a lecture. Using ‘explain everything’ is the 21^st version of using a chalkboard to write up equations. This approach, puts into practice, a concurrence of neuroeducation recommendations for learners to be able to 'teach' what they have learnt. See recently overviewed book on this blog, chapter on educating minds, for rationale.

For the current practice, tutors may record a ‘how to’ video using the lightboard. Learners use this resource to practice an attain fluency. Then they solve a slightly different problem and record their process on the app ‘explain everything’ (or similar). This provides a learning loop to be established, providing the tutor with evidence of students’ learning which may then also be archived in an eportfolio.