Information Design and Universal Design for Learning
The Work of Edward Tufte and concepts of Universal Design for Learning and their implications for ABE
Presenters: Akira Kamiya, Nancy Sheridan
Presentation Overview
Ever wonder how we can as educators make our lessons and presentations
more clear? I'm sure, that as students you all have had that "Aha" moment
where things all seemed to come together and made sense in a very clear and
simple way? How do we recreate these moments as a regular part of our plan
as opposed to a matter of chance?
In this workshop we’ll explore the principles of information design espoused by Edward Tufte, renowned author and thinker. Also, more broadly we’ll consider the concepts of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) as they apply to designing curriculum and lessons for ABE and ESOL students.
All too often we offer text or pictures in our instruction but very often without giving thought to why. Through new research on how our brains work while learning, we can now understand how to best structure technology and media to teach to all students. Traditional media and lessons have taught many and done pretty well. But with these new insights, we as educators can
not only reach more but on a deeper level.
By discussing and critiquing examples of good and bad educational/information designs, with consideration of the use of color, tables, graphs, font quality, and other media elements we will create new metrics for judging their usefulness as components of good learning material. We’ll include applications to ABE and ESOL.
Hands on activities will entail analyzing different types of information, re-formatting this information/data for maximum cognitive integrity and design universality so that we can become better consumers and producers of information for teaching and learning.
Handout Inventory
Agenda timeline
UDL Primer by akira
UDL Educator Checklist and Guidelines V1.0
UDL - Teach Every Student excerpt
Tufte Examples - primary source materials
Napoleon Army March
museum map
baseball sparklines with standard standings
japanese weather map
Time Line
10:15 start
Be showing FreedomWriters with CC video.
1) Individual Activity - Information Display reading -Akira and Nancy (15 min )
Semi guided viewing of Napoleon’s March map
Where did they start? How many started the march?
-Was the march sucessful?
- Was it very cold that winter? How cold?
- Did the weather affect the troops?
–What does this tell map us that most other maps do not?
(works as a good introduction to Basic Tufte concepts below)
2) Short Intro: Tufte and his Concepts – Nancy and Akira ( 20 min )
Edward Tufte Intro (5 min)
Born 1942 in Kansas City, Missouri
Professor emeritus of statistics, information design, interface design, and political economy at Yale University
Show his books
Edward Tufte is considered by many as the preeminent expert on information presentation and data display. He is the defacto guru for everyone from fledgling marketing professionals to grant hungry scientists. For him there is a science to how information is best displayed for the widest and deepest comprehension.
Beautiful Evidence, his most recent book is presented like a work of art and is a beautiful blend of text, statistical graphs, numeric data, illustration and photography, that is a "delight both by the wonder of the spectacle and the accuracy of expression". This quotation taken out of context was actually written by a colleague of Galileo's about his hand drawn observations of the sun and its mysterious and moving spots, but it’s equally applicable to the work of Tufte. More than a how to book on presentation skills Beautiful Evidence is more a meditation or deep appreciation for the work of others in their artistic or scholarly quest to make information clear and pure. The book is just a wonder to leaf through and peruse slowly as you take the data like a soothing bath. Items like the baseball stats become appreciated as deeply and as richly as a work by Picasso. It’s interesting to see how these concepts can be translated to education and training. How can we as teachers organize and present information so the learning is transparent and deep? Well, Tufte offers us some ideas!
Other Tufte examples of good information design (15 min)
View & discuss:
Japanese weather map,
floor plan/directions,
Visit his website where his books, course and artwork are described. www.tufte.org
Good/Solid Information/Instructional Designs:
Support thinking
Are clear thinking made visible
Appeal simultaneously to multiple cognitive styles
“Clear and precise seeing becomes as one with clear and precise thinking”
Be Concise / Precise / Make content primary
Princicples of Analysis and presentation of data
1) Show Comparisons, contrasts, differences
2) Show Causality, mechanism, explanation, systematic structure
3) Show Multi-Variate Data; that is show more than 1 or 2 variables
4) Integrate completely words, numbers, images, diagrams
5) Documentation: describe evidence. Provide detailed sources, show complete measurement scales, point out relevant issues or contrasts
6) Content is critical: Analytical presentations ultimately stand or fall depending on the quality, relevance and integrity of their content.
from page 127 Beautiful Evidence
Break (5 min)
3) Principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL): Akira (40 min)
Brainstorm activity:
What happens when we read then write?
Brain under learning: 3 Modules: Recognition / Strategic / Affective
Brain signals travel in different ways:
Hierarchical (two way) path: Senses to the Mind (Bottom Up) and Mind to the muscles (Top Down)
Distributed: "Imagine that all the processors are the same basic make and model, but each comes with a specialized attachment for blending dough, shredding cabbage, or performing another specialized task. Although each processor performs the same general function, their output is as different as piecrust is from coleslaw. By keeping a kitchen full of processors, a chef needn't switch the blade for each new task or worry about getting cabbage in the piecrust! In the brain, distributed processing provides a similar advantage. All the modules have the same basic structure, but the tissue in each region is fine-tuned to process one type of input extremely efficiently. This works more effectively than would "all-purpose" brain tissue that would have to adapt to each new task."
Individual ability depends on a variety of modules a breakdown in anyone areas can log jams the whole process.
See http://www.cast.org/teachingeverystudent/ideas/tes/
for a detail presentation of UDL.
Recognition networks help us to identify objects, such as coffeepots and cars,
Strategic networks enable us to act on these objects-reaching to pour, turning to steer.
Affective networks attach emotional significance to these objects and actions, influencing in a third way what we see and do.
All three processes are required for learning. A weakness in one area will affect the overall learning ability. Any weakness or strength will vary in degrees along a continum along which all students fall. So the concept of labeling a student learning disabled is actually misguided. It is not an either/or propostion. Its more that the traditional curriculum.
Differing teaching methods and media can work around various weaknesses or disabilities. So where traditional methods of text only based materials can limit information, learning technology can offer other avenues for learning to occur. See some example responses.
Example: DVD player with English subtitles. / Text to Speech Reader.
4) Planning for all Learners (40 min)
Demos of possible applications:
Demo-akira
Thinking Reader, DVD with captions on, PASCO motion sensor
MLK audio, video, text
Demo
Nancy ABE/ESOL examples of lessons and materials
5)Participatory Activity - CAST UDL Guidelines Matrix
(25 min )
Small Group Activity - Break up into groups of 4-5
Pick a row on the UDL Guidelines Matrix
Then use the Educator Checklist and see if you can brain storm and fill in possible solutions that you can use in the class room
Regroup and summerize
6. Evaluation and reflection time