Webinars

The Webinar I attended was through the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. It was called Memory in the Classroom. I attended this webinar on January 31^st, 2013 at 4:30pm. I have never previously attended a webinar and it was a very interesting experience. I like how I can be in my PJs in the comfort of my own home, but still learning. I also like how it is interactive and I can type a question to have the presenter answer. However, other than the ability to ask questions, it doesn’t seem that much different than watching a video. I have been doing a lot of research about flipped classrooms lately and this seems comparable. The downside to a webinar versus a video is that you have to be watching at a specific time. Videos are available whenever you want to watch them. I think that I am still much more likely to attend a professional development session through a webinar or a video rather than having to go somewhere.

I do not think my third graders would respond well to instruction delivered in this way. I found myself multi tasking and getting distracted during the presentation. I could imagine that my students would get distracted as well. Unless you make them take a quiz or do some kind of response there is no accountability for paying attention and learning. Also, the webinar format is mimicking actual direct instruction in a classroom minus the human contact. My students do not do well when I am talking at them for any length of time. I think that they need the human contact of me walking around and checking in on them. I also think that this kind of instruction is for the school day. Making them attend a webinar after school would just be adding to their school day. It would be different if it were a flipped classroom situation and the direct instruction were done at home and the practice and small groups were done in school.

            I learned a lot of really interesting things from this webinar. They gave us several strategies to help increase our students’ focus and memory. She emphasized the importance of making lessons emotionally meaningful for the students. We learned some brain anatomy and how the hippocampus helps us keep memories. When we are stressed out, we do not store memories at all! So the presenter gave us ways to stop the build of stress. Some of these include yoga, deep breathing, laughter, reading, and music. Getting up and moving will help improve memory as well as increase focus. Reading a list of words, then covering them and recalling them, and then checking your work greatly increases your memory. Also, practicing balancing on one foot and looking around the room will improve your memory. These are all tactics that I would like to try with my students.

            While listening to and watching the presentation I was reading along with the chat of all the teachers attending the webinar. One was saying that she had an antsy kiddo in her math class that she couldn’t deal with. So she challenged the kid to jump throughout the whole lesson. And they had to jump as long as they possibly could while still listening to the instruction and paying attention. My first reaction is that my kids wouldn’t pay attention if they were jumping, but now I really want to try it.

            In a situation of professional development for myself and other teachers I wouldn’t change anything about the format of this webinar. If I were presenting this to my third graders it would need to be much more interactive. I might say a few things and them require them to discuss something on the chat wall. Then say a few more things and put out a survey or have them write down their ideas to be turned in the next day. And I would definitely need some form of summative assessment at the end to ensure they are retaining the information I have presented.

I think that I would definitely attend a webinar again. It is a really great way for teachers with a limited amount of time and money to gain new knowledge and continue to be life-long-learners. There are so many free webinars out there for us to take advantage of. When I was looking for a webinar to do this assignment on, I found several others that I signed up for, just to learn something new.  I will continue to seek out webinars as a source of new information to help myself become a better teacher.