Educator Workshops

The landscape of teaching is constantly changing, with new technologies and research being integrated each year into curricula and pedagogies. In the age of COVID-19, particularly, teachers need to be agile and flexible, able to teach effectively in a range of environments. Jake can work with single or groups of teachers to develop skills in the realm of multimodal teaching. While each organization is different, and workshops are all tailored to each client, you’ll find a few examples below of available workshops that Jake can bring to your organization. Workshops last 90 minutes (though we adjust if scheduling requirements dictate), and pricing is based on the size of the learner group, which can range from an individual workshop up to 12 individuals. contact us to get a quote.

Creating Edu-Media with Your Phone

Mobile technology has reached a tipping point where anyone with a smartphone has the equipment to create quality media. The obstacles are then the knowledge and skills to film and edit the media, and understanding and implementing a strong multimedia pedagogy.

This workshop involves a hands-on creation of a multimedia product that you can walk away with. We encourage attendees to bring projects from work or life that they already need or want to create. We use the process of making this media as a way to examine how to apply these workflows and pedagogies in action

Mayer’s 12 Principles of Multimedia Learning

Richard Mayer’s 12 principles for multimedia learning are a powerful set of guidelines informed by an extensive evidence base, and they are beginning to be given out to instructional designers and teachers all over the country. But how exactly do we implement them? What are the systems behind them? and How do we make tradeoffs when principles come into conflict with each other?

This workshop involves a brief lecture, then we’ll jump in front of a few cameras and try out implementing these principles in action. Afterwards, we’ll review the footage and discuss the results of our efforts, and how we can creatively apply them across all learning experiences.

Storyboarding for Educators

Storyboarding is a powerful tool that is widely used in the animation, film, and television worlds to great effect. As a Visual/Audio script, it can not only be an excellent aid to development and production of edu-media, it also forces the teacher to take acknowledge multiple channels of communication (Visual and Audio channels), taking advantage of natural cognitive efficiencies. But how do you make a storyboard? In which situations would you use one? How is it useful?

This workshop involves a brief lecture on what storyboards are and how they’re used in different disciplines. Jake will then create an example storyboard, before guiding teachers in creating their own storyboards. If there is time, we will examine how storyboards are used as on-set scripts when creating media, such as during filming or building animations.

Shakespeare in the Classroom

Teachers need to be light on their feet: it is not enough to just know the concepts your teaching in and out- a teacher must communicate to their learners effectively and nimbly adapt their strategies when needed. This requires a sort of “dual-awareness” of both the content and logistics of the lesson, as well as the needs of the learners and cues to provide on-demand support. Oddly enough, this cognitive-action closely mirrors the skills that actors use to perform Shakespearian soliloquies. This experimental workshop aims to develop teacher’s presentational abilities through exposure to the same processes actors go through when developing their own performance.

This workshop involves pre-memorizing a short, pre-supplied Shakespearian sonnet or monologue (~30s - 1minute). For the first thirty minutes of the workshop, we’ll sit down and analyze our text before getting up and repeatedly performing that monologue to a small group with coaching and a variety of prompts, after which we’ll sit back down and discuss what we found. *This workshop is limited to 4 participants.