chadskelton / requests-test

test of requests library

Contributors chadskelton

Last run failed with status code 1.

Console output of last run

Injecting configuration and compiling... Injecting scraper and running... <!DOCTYPE html> <html class='v2' dir='ltr' xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml' xmlns:b='http://www.google.com/2005/gml/b' xmlns:data='http://www.google.com/2005/gml/data' xmlns:expr='http://www.google.com/2005/gml/expr'> <head> <link href='https://www.blogger.com/static/v1/widgets/3597120983-css_bundle_v2.css' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'/> <meta content='width=1100' name='viewport'/> <meta content='text/html; charset=UTF-8' http-equiv='Content-Type'/> <meta content='blogger' name='generator'/> <link href='http://www.chadskelton.com/favicon.ico' rel='icon' type='image/x-icon'/> <link href='http://www.chadskelton.com/' rel='canonical'/> <link rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" title="Chad Skelton - Atom" href="http://www.chadskelton.com/feeds/posts/default" /> <link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="Chad Skelton - RSS" href="http://www.chadskelton.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss" /> <link rel="service.post" type="application/atom+xml" title="Chad Skelton - Atom" href="https://www.blogger.com/feeds/6083825495664061008/posts/default" /> <link rel="me" href="https://www.blogger.com/profile/16986292503424513742" /> <!--[if IE]><script type="text/javascript" src="https://www.blogger.com/static/v1/jsbin/3399642339-ieretrofit.js"></script> <![endif]--> <meta content='http://www.chadskelton.com/' property='og:url'/> <meta content='Chad Skelton' property='og:title'/> <meta content='Telling stories with data' property='og:description'/> <!--[if IE]> <script> (function() { var html5 = ("abbr,article,aside,audio,canvas,datalist,details," + "figure,footer,header,hgroup,mark,menu,meter,nav,output," + "progress,section,time,video").split(','); for (var i = 0; i < html5.length; i++) { document.createElement(html5[i]); } try { document.execCommand('BackgroundImageCache', false, true); } catch(e) {} })(); </script> <![endif]--> <title>Chad Skelton</title> <style id='page-skin-1' type='text/css'><!-- /* ----------------------------------------------- Blogger Template Style Name: Awesome Inc. Designer: Tina Chen URL: tinachen.org ----------------------------------------------- */ /* Variable definitions ==================== <Variable name="keycolor" description="Main Color" type="color" default="#ffffff"/> <Group description="Page" selector="body"> <Variable name="body.font" description="Font" type="font" default="normal normal 13px Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif"/> <Variable name="body.background.color" description="Background Color" type="color" default="#000000"/> <Variable name="body.text.color" description="Text Color" type="color" default="#ffffff"/> </Group> <Group description="Links" selector=".main-inner"> <Variable name="link.color" description="Link Color" type="color" default="#888888"/> <Variable name="link.visited.color" description="Visited Color" type="color" default="#444444"/> <Variable name="link.hover.color" description="Hover Color" type="color" default="#cccccc"/> </Group> <Group description="Blog Title" selector=".header h1"> <Variable name="header.font" description="Title Font" type="font" default="normal bold 40px Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif"/> <Variable name="header.text.color" description="Title Color" type="color" default="#333333" /> <Variable name="header.background.color" description="Header Background" type="color" default="transparent" /> </Group> <Group description="Blog Description" selector=".header .description"> <Variable name="description.font" description="Font" type="font" default="normal normal 14px Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif"/> <Variable name="description.text.color" description="Text Color" type="color" default="#333333" /> </Group> <Group description="Tabs Text" selector=".tabs-inner .widget li a"> <Variable name="tabs.font" description="Font" type="font" default="normal bold 14px Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif"/> <Variable name="tabs.text.color" description="Text Color" type="color" default="#333333"/> <Variable name="tabs.selected.text.color" description="Selected Color" type="color" default="#ffffff"/> </Group> <Group description="Tabs Background" selector=".tabs-outer .PageList"> <Variable name="tabs.background.color" description="Background Color" type="color" default="#141414"/> <Variable name="tabs.selected.background.color" description="Selected Color" type="color" default="#444444"/> <Variable name="tabs.border.color" description="Border Color" type="color" default="transparent"/> </Group> <Group description="Date Header" selector=".main-inner .widget h2.date-header, .main-inner .widget h2.date-header span"> <Variable name="date.font" description="Font" type="font" default="normal normal 14px Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif"/> <Variable name="date.text.color" description="Text Color" type="color" default="#666666"/> <Variable name="date.border.color" description="Border Color" type="color" default="transparent"/> </Group> <Group description="Post Title" selector="h3.post-title, h4, h3.post-title a"> <Variable name="post.title.font" description="Font" type="font" default="normal bold 22px Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif"/> <Variable name="post.title.text.color" description="Text Color" type="color" default="#333333"/> </Group> <Group description="Post Background" selector=".post"> <Variable name="post.background.color" description="Background Color" type="color" default="transparent" /> <Variable name="post.border.color" description="Border Color" type="color" default="transparent" /> <Variable name="post.border.bevel.color" description="Bevel Color" type="color" default="transparent"/> </Group> <Group description="Gadget Title" selector="h2"> <Variable name="widget.title.font" description="Font" type="font" default="normal bold 14px Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif"/> <Variable name="widget.title.text.color" description="Text Color" type="color" default="#333333"/> </Group> <Group description="Gadget Text" selector=".sidebar .widget"> <Variable name="widget.font" description="Font" type="font" default="normal normal 14px Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif"/> <Variable name="widget.text.color" description="Text Color" type="color" default="#333333"/> <Variable name="widget.alternate.text.color" description="Alternate Color" type="color" default="#666666"/> </Group> <Group description="Gadget Links" selector=".sidebar .widget"> <Variable name="widget.link.color" description="Link Color" type="color" default="#29aae1"/> <Variable name="widget.link.visited.color" description="Visited Color" type="color" default="#015782"/> <Variable name="widget.link.hover.color" description="Hover Color" type="color" default="#29aae1"/> </Group> <Group description="Gadget Background" selector=".sidebar .widget"> <Variable name="widget.background.color" description="Background Color" type="color" default="#141414"/> <Variable name="widget.border.color" description="Border Color" type="color" default="#222222"/> <Variable name="widget.border.bevel.color" description="Bevel Color" type="color" default="#000000"/> </Group> <Group description="Sidebar Background" selector=".column-left-inner .column-right-inner"> <Variable name="widget.outer.background.color" description="Background Color" type="color" default="transparent" /> </Group> <Group description="Images" selector=".main-inner"> <Variable name="image.background.color" description="Background Color" type="color" default="transparent"/> <Variable name="image.border.color" description="Border Color" type="color" default="transparent"/> </Group> <Group description="Feed" selector=".blog-feeds"> <Variable name="feed.text.color" description="Text Color" type="color" default="#333333"/> </Group> <Group description="Feed Links" selector=".blog-feeds"> <Variable name="feed.link.color" description="Link Color" type="color" default="#29aae1"/> <Variable name="feed.link.visited.color" description="Visited Color" type="color" default="#015782"/> <Variable name="feed.link.hover.color" description="Hover Color" type="color" default="#29aae1"/> </Group> <Group description="Pager" selector=".blog-pager"> <Variable name="pager.background.color" description="Background Color" type="color" default="#ffffff" /> </Group> <Group description="Footer" selector=".footer-outer"> <Variable name="footer.background.color" description="Background Color" type="color" default="transparent" /> <Variable name="footer.text.color" description="Text Color" type="color" default="#333333" /> </Group> <Variable name="title.shadow.spread" description="Title Shadow" type="length" default="-1px" min="-1px" max="100px"/> <Variable name="body.background" description="Body Background" type="background" color="#2d3037" default="$(color) none repeat scroll top left"/> <Variable name="body.background.gradient.cap" description="Body Gradient Cap" type="url" default="none"/> <Variable name="body.background.size" description="Body Background Size" type="string" default="auto"/> <Variable name="tabs.background.gradient" description="Tabs Background Gradient" type="url" default="none"/> <Variable name="header.background.gradient" description="Header Background Gradient" type="url" default="none" /> <Variable name="header.padding.top" description="Header Top Padding" type="length" default="22px" min="0" max="100px"/> <Variable name="header.margin.top" description="Header Top Margin" type="length" default="0" min="0" max="100px"/> <Variable name="header.margin.bottom" description="Header Bottom Margin" type="length" default="0" min="0" max="100px"/> <Variable name="widget.padding.top" description="Widget Padding Top" type="length" default="8px" min="0" max="20px"/> <Variable name="widget.padding.side" description="Widget Padding Side" type="length" default="15px" min="0" max="100px"/> <Variable name="widget.outer.margin.top" description="Widget Top Margin" type="length" default="0" min="0" max="100px"/> <Variable name="widget.outer.background.gradient" description="Gradient" type="url" default="none" /> <Variable name="widget.border.radius" description="Gadget Border Radius" type="length" default="0" min="0" max="100px"/> <Variable name="outer.shadow.spread" description="Outer Shadow Size" type="length" default="0" min="0" max="100px"/> <Variable name="date.header.border.radius.top" description="Date Header Border Radius Top" type="length" default="0" min="0" max="100px"/> <Variable name="date.header.position" description="Date Header Position" type="length" default="15px" min="0" max="100px"/> <Variable name="date.space" description="Date Space" type="length" default="30px" min="0" max="100px"/> <Variable name="date.position" description="Date Float" type="string" default="static" /> <Variable name="date.padding.bottom" description="Date Padding Bottom" type="length" default="0" min="0" max="100px"/> <Variable name="date.border.size" description="Date Border Size" type="length" default="0" min="0" max="10px"/> <Variable name="date.background" description="Date Background" type="background" color="transparent" default="$(color) none no-repeat scroll top left" /> <Variable name="date.first.border.radius.top" description="Date First top radius" type="length" default="0" min="0" max="100px"/> <Variable name="date.last.space.bottom" description="Date Last Space Bottom" type="length" default="20px" min="0" max="100px"/> <Variable name="date.last.border.radius.bottom" description="Date Last bottom radius" type="length" default="0" min="0" max="100px"/> <Variable name="post.first.padding.top" description="First Post Padding Top" type="length" default="0" min="0" max="100px"/> <Variable name="image.shadow.spread" description="Image Shadow Size" type="length" default="0" min="0" max="100px"/> <Variable name="image.border.radius" description="Image Border Radius" type="length" default="0" min="0" max="100px"/> <Variable name="separator.outdent" description="Separator Outdent" type="length" default="15px" min="0" max="100px"/> <Variable name="title.separator.border.size" description="Widget Title Border Size" type="length" default="1px" min="0" max="10px"/> <Variable name="list.separator.border.size" description="List Separator Border Size" type="length" default="1px" min="0" max="10px"/> <Variable name="shadow.spread" description="Shadow Size" type="length" default="0" min="0" max="100px"/> <Variable name="startSide" description="Side where text starts in blog language" type="automatic" default="left"/> <Variable name="endSide" description="Side where text ends in blog language" type="automatic" default="right"/> <Variable name="date.side" description="Side where date header is placed" type="string" default="right"/> <Variable name="pager.border.radius.top" description="Pager Border Top Radius" type="length" default="0" min="0" max="100px"/> <Variable name="pager.space.top" description="Pager Top Space" type="length" default="1em" min="0" max="20em"/> <Variable name="footer.background.gradient" description="Background Gradient" type="url" default="none" /> <Variable name="mobile.background.size" description="Mobile Background Size" type="string" default="auto"/> <Variable name="mobile.background.overlay" description="Mobile Background Overlay" type="string" default="transparent none repeat scroll top left"/> <Variable name="mobile.button.color" description="Mobile Button Color" type="color" default="#ffffff" /> */ /* Content ----------------------------------------------- */ body { font: normal normal 15px 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, sans-serif; color: #333333; background: #2d3037 none repeat scroll top left; } html body .content-outer { min-width: 0; max-width: 100%; width: 100%; } a:link { text-decoration: none; color: #29aae1; } a:visited { text-decoration: none; color: #015782; } a:hover { text-decoration: underline; color: #29aae1; } .body-fauxcolumn-outer .cap-top { position: absolute; z-index: 1; height: 276px; width: 100%; background: transparent none repeat-x scroll top left; _background-image: none; } /* Columns ----------------------------------------------- */ .content-inner { padding: 0; } .header-inner .section { margin: 0 16px; } .tabs-inner .section { margin: 0 16px; } .main-inner { padding-top: 55px; } .main-inner .column-center-inner, .main-inner .column-left-inner, .main-inner .column-right-inner { padding: 0 5px; } *+html body .main-inner .column-center-inner { margin-top: -55px; } #layout .main-inner .column-center-inner { margin-top: 0; } /* Header ----------------------------------------------- */ .header-outer { margin: 0 0 15px 0; background: #ffffff none repeat scroll 0 0; } .Header h1 { font: normal bold 60px 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, sans-serif; color: #015782; } .Header h1 a { color: #015782; } .Header .description { font: normal normal 30px 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, sans-serif; color: #015782; } .header-inner .Header .titlewrapper, .header-inner .Header .descriptionwrapper { padding-left: 0; padding-right: 0; margin-bottom: 0; } .header-inner .Header .titlewrapper { padding-top: 22px; } /* Tabs ----------------------------------------------- */ .tabs-outer { overflow: hidden; position: relative; background: #29aae1 url(//www.blogblog.com/1kt/awesomeinc/tabs_gradient_light.png) repeat scroll 0 0; } #layout .tabs-outer { overflow: visible; } .tabs-cap-top, .tabs-cap-bottom { position: absolute; width: 100%; border-top: 1px solid #2d3037; } .tabs-cap-bottom { bottom: 0; } .tabs-inner .widget li a { display: inline-block; margin: 0; padding: .6em 1.5em; font: normal normal 20px 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, sans-serif; color: #ffffff; border-top: 1px solid #2d3037; border-bottom: 1px solid #2d3037; border-left: 1px solid #2d3037; height: 16px; line-height: 16px; } .tabs-inner .widget li:last-child a { border-right: 1px solid #2d3037; } .tabs-inner .widget li.selected a, .tabs-inner .widget li a:hover { background: #01689c url(//www.blogblog.com/1kt/awesomeinc/tabs_gradient_light.png) repeat-x scroll 0 -100px; color: #ffffff; } /* Headings ----------------------------------------------- */ h2 { font: normal normal 18px 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, sans-serif; color: #8ce1f5; } /* Widgets ----------------------------------------------- */ .main-inner .section { margin: 0 27px; padding: 0; } .main-inner .column-left-outer, .main-inner .column-right-outer { margin-top: -3.3em; } #layout .main-inner .column-left-outer, #layout .main-inner .column-right-outer { margin-top: 0; } .main-inner .column-left-inner, .main-inner .column-right-inner { background: transparent none repeat 0 0; -moz-box-shadow: 0 0 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, .2); -webkit-box-shadow: 0 0 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, .2); -goog-ms-box-shadow: 0 0 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, .2); box-shadow: 0 0 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, .2); -moz-border-radius: 0; -webkit-border-radius: 0; -goog-ms-border-radius: 0; border-radius: 0; } #layout .main-inner .column-left-inner, #layout .main-inner .column-right-inner { margin-top: 0; } .sidebar .widget { font: normal normal 13px Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; color: #ffffff; } .sidebar .widget a:link { color: #29aae1; } .sidebar .widget a:visited { color: #015782; } .sidebar .widget a:hover { color: #29aae1; } .sidebar .widget h2 { text-shadow: 0 0 20px #000000; } .main-inner .widget { background-color: transparent; border: 1px solid transparent; padding: 0 0 15px; margin: 20px -16px; -moz-box-shadow: 0 0 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, .2); -webkit-box-shadow: 0 0 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, .2); -goog-ms-box-shadow: 0 0 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, .2); box-shadow: 0 0 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, .2); -moz-border-radius: 0; -webkit-border-radius: 0; -goog-ms-border-radius: 0; border-radius: 0; } .main-inner .widget h2 { margin: 0 -0; padding: .6em 0 .5em; border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; } .footer-inner .widget h2 { padding: 0 0 .4em; border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; } .main-inner .widget h2 + div, .footer-inner .widget h2 + div { border-top: 0 solid transparent; padding-top: 8px; } .main-inner .widget .widget-content { margin: 0 -0; padding: 7px 0 0; } .main-inner .widget ul, .main-inner .widget #ArchiveList ul.flat { margin: -8px -15px 0; padding: 0; list-style: none; } .main-inner .widget #ArchiveList { margin: -8px 0 0; } .main-inner .widget ul li, .main-inner .widget #ArchiveList ul.flat li { padding: .5em 15px; text-indent: 0; color: #ffffff; border-top: 0 solid transparent; border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; } .main-inner .widget #ArchiveList ul li { padding-top: .25em; padding-bottom: .25em; } .main-inner .widget ul li:first-child, .main-inner .widget #ArchiveList ul.flat li:first-child { border-top: none; } .main-inner .widget ul li:last-child, .main-inner .widget #ArchiveList ul.flat li:last-child { border-bottom: none; } .post-body { position: relative; } .main-inner .widget .post-body ul { padding: 0 2.5em; margin: .5em 0; list-style: disc; } .main-inner .widget .post-body ul li { padding: 0.25em 0; margin-bottom: .25em; color: #333333; border: none; } .footer-inner .widget ul { padding: 0; list-style: none; } .widget .zippy { color: #ffffff; } /* Posts ----------------------------------------------- */ body .main-inner .Blog { padding: 0; margin-bottom: 1em; background-color: transparent; border: none; -moz-box-shadow: 0 0 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-box-shadow: 0 0 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -goog-ms-box-shadow: 0 0 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-shadow: 0 0 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); } .main-inner .section:last-child .Blog:last-child { padding: 0; margin-bottom: 1em; } .main-inner .widget h2.date-header { margin: 0 -15px 1px; padding: 0 0 0 0; font: normal normal 18px Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; color: #ffffff; background: transparent none no-repeat fixed center center; border-top: 0 solid transparent; border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; -moz-border-radius-topleft: 0; -moz-border-radius-topright: 0; -webkit-border-top-left-radius: 0; -webkit-border-top-right-radius: 0; border-top-left-radius: 0; border-top-right-radius: 0; position: absolute; bottom: 100%; left: 0; text-shadow: 0 0 20px #000000; } .main-inner .widget h2.date-header span { font: normal normal 18px Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; display: block; padding: .5em 15px; border-left: 0 solid transparent; border-right: 0 solid transparent; } .date-outer { position: relative; margin: 55px 0 20px; padding: 0 15px; background-color: #ffffff; border: 1px solid #8ce1f5; -moz-box-shadow: 0 0 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, .2); -webkit-box-shadow: 0 0 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, .2); -goog-ms-box-shadow: 0 0 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, .2); box-shadow: 0 0 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, .2); -moz-border-radius: 0; -webkit-border-radius: 0; -goog-ms-border-radius: 0; border-radius: 0; } .date-outer:first-child { margin-top: 0; } .date-outer:last-child { margin-bottom: 0; -moz-border-radius-bottomleft: 0; -moz-border-radius-bottomright: 0; -webkit-border-bottom-left-radius: 0; -webkit-border-bottom-right-radius: 0; -goog-ms-border-bottom-left-radius: 0; -goog-ms-border-bottom-right-radius: 0; border-bottom-left-radius: 0; border-bottom-right-radius: 0; } .date-posts { margin: 0 -0; padding: 0 0; clear: both; } .post-outer, .inline-ad { border-top: 1px solid #8ce1f5; margin: 0 -0; padding: 15px 0; } .post-outer { padding-bottom: 10px; } .post-outer:first-child { padding-top: 10px; border-top: none; } .post-outer:last-child, .inline-ad:last-child { border-bottom: none; } .post-body { position: relative; } .post-body img { padding: 8px; background: #ffffff; border: 1px solid #cccccc; -moz-box-shadow: 0 0 20px rgba(0, 0, 0, .2); -webkit-box-shadow: 0 0 20px rgba(0, 0, 0, .2); box-shadow: 0 0 20px rgba(0, 0, 0, .2); -moz-border-radius: 0; -webkit-border-radius: 0; border-radius: 0; } h3.post-title, h4 { font: normal bold 24px 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, sans-serif; color: #015782; } h3.post-title a { font: normal bold 24px 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, sans-serif; color: #015782; } h3.post-title a:hover { color: #29aae1; text-decoration: underline; } .post-header { margin: 0 0 1em; } .post-body { line-height: 1.4; } .post-outer h2 { color: #333333; } .post-footer { margin: 1.5em 0 0; } #blog-pager { padding: 15px; font-size: 120%; background-color: transparent; border: 1px solid transparent; -moz-box-shadow: 0 0 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, .2); -webkit-box-shadow: 0 0 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, .2); -goog-ms-box-shadow: 0 0 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, .2); box-shadow: 0 0 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, .2); -moz-border-radius: 0; -webkit-border-radius: 0; -goog-ms-border-radius: 0; border-radius: 0; -moz-border-radius-topleft: 0; -moz-border-radius-topright: 0; -webkit-border-top-left-radius: 0; -webkit-border-top-right-radius: 0; -goog-ms-border-top-left-radius: 0; -goog-ms-border-top-right-radius: 0; border-top-left-radius: 0; border-top-right-radius-topright: 0; margin-top: 0; } .blog-feeds, .post-feeds { margin: 1em 0; text-align: center; color: #ffffff; } .blog-feeds a, .post-feeds a { color: #29aae1; } .blog-feeds a:visited, .post-feeds a:visited { color: #015782; } .blog-feeds a:hover, .post-feeds a:hover { color: #29aae1; } .post-outer .comments { margin-top: 2em; } /* Comments ----------------------------------------------- */ .comments .comments-content .icon.blog-author { background-repeat: no-repeat; background-image: url(data:image/png;base64,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); } .comments .comments-content .loadmore a { border-top: 1px solid #2d3037; border-bottom: 1px solid #2d3037; } .comments .continue { border-top: 2px solid #2d3037; } /* Footer ----------------------------------------------- */ .footer-outer { margin: -0 0 -1px; padding: 0 0 0; color: #ffffff; overflow: hidden; } .footer-fauxborder-left { border-top: 1px solid transparent; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0 0; -moz-box-shadow: 0 0 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, .2); -webkit-box-shadow: 0 0 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, .2); -goog-ms-box-shadow: 0 0 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, .2); box-shadow: 0 0 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, .2); margin: 0 -0; } /* Mobile ----------------------------------------------- */ body.mobile { background-size: auto; } .mobile .body-fauxcolumn-outer { background: transparent none repeat scroll top left; } *+html body.mobile .main-inner .column-center-inner { margin-top: 0; } .mobile .main-inner .widget { padding: 0 0 15px; } .mobile .main-inner .widget h2 + div, .mobile .footer-inner .widget h2 + div { border-top: none; padding-top: 0; } .mobile .footer-inner .widget h2 { padding: 0.5em 0; border-bottom: none; } .mobile .main-inner .widget .widget-content { 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class='cap-right'></div> </div> </div> <!-- corrects IE6 width calculation --> <div class='columns-inner'> <div class='column-center-outer'> <div class='column-center-inner'> <div class='main section' id='main' name='Main'><div class='widget Blog' data-version='1' id='Blog1'> <div class='blog-posts hfeed'> <div class="date-outer"> <h2 class='date-header'><span>Thursday, March 14, 2019</span></h2> <div class="date-posts"> <div class='post-outer'> <div class='post hentry uncustomized-post-template' itemprop='blogPost' itemscope='itemscope' itemtype='http://schema.org/BlogPosting'> <meta content='https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9ac0BDMZUL0/WEdm2M0NOyI/AAAAAAAAxdI/p0o9cwuhgVwGFqJ-tufrltAM1P7k52XPACLcB/s320/FSA-map.png' itemprop='image_url'/> <meta content='6083825495664061008' itemprop='blogId'/> <meta content='6240802453223175757' itemprop='postId'/> <a name='6240802453223175757'></a> <h3 class='post-title entry-title' itemprop='name'> <a href='http://www.chadskelton.com/2019/03/online-tableau-training-this-april.html'>Online Tableau Training this April</a> </h3> <div class='post-header'> <div class='post-header-line-1'></div> </div> <div class='post-body entry-content' id='post-body-6240802453223175757' itemprop='description articleBody'> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9ac0BDMZUL0/WEdm2M0NOyI/AAAAAAAAxdI/p0o9cwuhgVwGFqJ-tufrltAM1P7k52XPACLcB/s1600/FSA-map.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="234" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9ac0BDMZUL0/WEdm2M0NOyI/AAAAAAAAxdI/p0o9cwuhgVwGFqJ-tufrltAM1P7k52XPACLcB/s320/FSA-map.png" width="320" /></a></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> My next <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/online-tableau-training-telling-stories-with-data-tickets-58402191527?aff=bp">online Tableau training workshop</a> will be held this April over three Thursdays: <b>April 11, 18</b>&nbsp;and <b>25</b>. You can buy tickets <a href="https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/online-tableau-training-telling-stories-with-data-tickets-58402191527?aff=bp">here</a> or by clicking the button below:</div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/online-tableau-training-telling-stories-with-data-tickets-58402191527?aff=bp"><img border="0" data-original-height="44" data-original-width="257" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LvUj8JUjbt0/Wqqcp0uDfXI/AAAAAAABA3E/9Jm1-kfDgO8tjs0grYCOuBrgO5dq1tyTgCLcBGAs/s1600/eventbrite-button.png" /></a></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> Here are some <a href="http://www.chadskelton.com/p/workshops.html">testimonials</a> from people who've attended my earlier training sessions.</div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> <br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> If you can't make this workshop but would like to be alerted when the next one is scheduled, just <a href="http://chadskelton.us14.list-manage1.com/subscribe?u=f77761916f1d313badb1dc5da&amp;id=7b3df945be">add your name here</a>.</div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> <br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> If you have several people at your organization who need training in Tableau, I'm also available for <a href="http://www.chadskelton.com/p/excel-and-tableau-training-in-vancouver.html">onsite training</a>.</div> <br /> <div style='clear: both;'></div> </div> <div class='post-footer'> <div class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-1'> <span class='post-author vcard'> Posted by <span class='fn' itemprop='author' itemscope='itemscope' itemtype='http://schema.org/Person'> <meta content='https://www.blogger.com/profile/16986292503424513742' itemprop='url'/> <a class='g-profile' href='https://www.blogger.com/profile/16986292503424513742' rel='author' title='author profile'> <span itemprop='name'>Chad Skelton</span> </a> </span> </span> <span class='post-timestamp'> at <meta content='http://www.chadskelton.com/2019/03/online-tableau-training-this-april.html' itemprop='url'/> <a class='timestamp-link' href='http://www.chadskelton.com/2019/03/online-tableau-training-this-april.html' rel='bookmark' title='permanent link'><abbr class='published' itemprop='datePublished' title='2019-03-14T15:49:00-07:00'>3:49 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class='reaction-buttons'> </span> <span class='post-comment-link'> <a class='comment-link' href='http://www.chadskelton.com/2019/03/online-tableau-training-this-april.html#comment-form' onclick=''> No comments: </a> </span> <span class='post-backlinks post-comment-link'> </span> <span class='post-icons'> <span class='item-control blog-admin pid-1917174372'> <a href='https://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=6240802453223175757&from=pencil' title='Edit Post'> <img alt='' class='icon-action' height='18' src='https://resources.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif' width='18'/> </a> </span> </span> <div class='post-share-buttons goog-inline-block'> <a class='goog-inline-block share-button sb-email' href='https://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=6240802453223175757&target=email' target='_blank' title='Email This'><span class='share-button-link-text'>Email This</span></a><a class='goog-inline-block share-button sb-blog' href='https://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=6240802453223175757&target=blog' onclick='window.open(this.href, "_blank", "height=270,width=475"); return false;' target='_blank' title='BlogThis!'><span class='share-button-link-text'>BlogThis!</span></a><a class='goog-inline-block share-button sb-twitter' href='https://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=6240802453223175757&target=twitter' target='_blank' title='Share to Twitter'><span class='share-button-link-text'>Share to Twitter</span></a><a class='goog-inline-block share-button sb-facebook' href='https://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=6240802453223175757&target=facebook' onclick='window.open(this.href, "_blank", "height=430,width=640"); return false;' target='_blank' title='Share to Facebook'><span class='share-button-link-text'>Share to Facebook</span></a><a class='goog-inline-block share-button sb-pinterest' href='https://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=6240802453223175757&target=pinterest' target='_blank' title='Share to Pinterest'><span class='share-button-link-text'>Share to Pinterest</span></a> </div> </div> <div class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-2'> <span class='post-labels'> </span> </div> <div class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-3'> <span class='post-location'> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div></div> <div class="date-outer"> <h2 class='date-header'><span>Thursday, January 10, 2019</span></h2> <div class="date-posts"> <div class='post-outer'> <div class='post hentry uncustomized-post-template' itemprop='blogPost' itemscope='itemscope' itemtype='http://schema.org/BlogPosting'> <meta content='https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-a4pOskn5uSI/W5vpHQHeVYI/AAAAAAABIVE/rxTpObGuO4EhN27_17Ir0aASiA11UNJ9ACLcBGAs/s400/participation.jpg' itemprop='image_url'/> <meta content='6083825495664061008' itemprop='blogId'/> <meta content='8619350854485037959' itemprop='postId'/> <a name='8619350854485037959'></a> <h3 class='post-title entry-title' itemprop='name'> <a href='http://www.chadskelton.com/2019/01/five-ways-to-get-your-students-to.html'>Five ways to get your students to participate more in class</a> </h3> <div class='post-header'> <div class='post-header-line-1'></div> </div> <div class='post-body entry-content' id='post-body-8619350854485037959' itemprop='description articleBody'> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-a4pOskn5uSI/W5vpHQHeVYI/AAAAAAABIVE/rxTpObGuO4EhN27_17Ir0aASiA11UNJ9ACLcBGAs/s1600/participation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="531" data-original-width="640" height="331" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-a4pOskn5uSI/W5vpHQHeVYI/AAAAAAABIVE/rxTpObGuO4EhN27_17Ir0aASiA11UNJ9ACLcBGAs/s400/participation.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: right;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/usdagov/29506739023">U.S. Department of Agriculture / Flickr</a></td></tr> </tbody></table> <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TL;DR">TL;DR</a>:</b><br /> <br /> Over the years I've stumbled across a number of techniques for improving student participation in my classes that have worked really well. Here are the five key ones (you can click on each one to be taken to a more detailed description):<br /> <ol> <li><a href="http://www.chadskelton.com/2019/01/five-ways-to-get-your-students-to.html#point1">Explain why participation is important.</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.chadskelton.com/2019/01/five-ways-to-get-your-students-to.html#point2">Make sure students are prepared for weekly discussions.</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.chadskelton.com/2019/01/five-ways-to-get-your-students-to.html#point3">Have students self-report their participation marks.</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.chadskelton.com/2019/01/five-ways-to-get-your-students-to.html#point4">Get students to discuss a question in small groups first.</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.chadskelton.com/2019/01/five-ways-to-get-your-students-to.html#point5">Call on students at random.</a></li> </ol> <br /> <b>Full post:</b><br /> <br /> About five years ago, I was asked to take over a new course at <a href="http://www.kpu.ca/arts/journalism/faculty/chad-skelton">KPU</a>, the university where I teach: Introduction to Journalism.<br /> <br /> I was worried.<br /> <br /> Not because I didn't know the subject matter. I'd been a working journalist for more than 15 years.<br /> <br /> And not because I didn't know how to teach. At that point, I'd already been teaching for several years.<br /> <br /> The problem was that the Intro course had been designed by its previous instructor as a discussion course. Each week, students came to class and &#8212; facilitated by the instructor &#8212; discussed issues like journalism ethics and the business model for news.<br /> <br /> I had no idea how to teach such a course.<br /> <br /> In my many years of teaching, both at the university and my own&nbsp;private workshops, I always taught people how to <b><i>do</i></b> things. Whether it was how to build an interactive chart, or how to do a court search, my classes were always very hands-on and practical.<br /> <br /> Class participation was always a part of my other classes, but it wasn't the <b><i>point</i></b> of the class.<br /> <br /> I worried about how I would get my students engaged enough in discussions about journalism to fill up a three-hour class each week.<br /> <br /> Unfortunately, the first couple of times I taught the class, many of my worst fears were realized.<br /> <br /> I'd throw a discussion question out to the class &#8212; "So, when is it OK to use anonymous sources in a news story?" &#8212; and be met with stony silence. Sometimes, the one or two keeners in class would share their thoughts, but getting the rest of the students to take part was like pulling teeth.<br /> <br /> I'd occasionally pull the classic instructor trick of calling on a student who wasn't participating to share their thoughts. But doing that always seemed slightly mean &#8212; putting a student on the spot who wasn't prepared &#8212; and, regardless, it rarely elicited more than a shrug and a poorly thought out answer.<br /> <br /> I started to dread the days that I taught the Intro course. I suspect my students did too.<br /> <br /> But then things started to change.<br /> <br /> Almost by accident &#8212; an article here, a podcast there &#8212; I picked up a few ideas for how to improve student participation and gave them a test-run in my class. After some initial success, I got brave enough to experiment with some ideas of my own.<br /> <br /> Over time, the participation levels in my Intro class started to increase, gradually at first and then quite dramatically.<br /> <br /> What had once been three hours of painful, awkward silence became a spirited weekly discussion with students who were engaged and interested in the topic.<br /> <br /> Intro to Journalism is now one of my favourite classes to teach, one I look forward to every week.<br /> <br /> In the hopes it might be of some assistance to other instructors out there, below I share the five things I think made the biggest difference in improving participation in my class.<br /> <br /> While my experience is at the university level, I think most of these techniques could be easily applied to high-school classes and (with some modification) even lower grades.<br /> <br /> One big caveat: I'm a data guy so I feel it's important to note that I haven't subjected any of these techniques to rigorous analysis like a randomized controlled trial. My evidence in support of all of them is purely anecdotal and based entirely on a single course. Your results may vary.<br /> <br /> But getting students to participate more is such a common challenge in teaching that I thought these ideas were worth sharing.<br /> <br /> So, without further ado, here are my five tips for getting your students to participate more in class.<br /> <br /> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div> <br /> <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" id="point1"></a> <b><span style="font-size: large;">1. Explain why participation is important.</span></b><br /> <br /> If participation is a key part of your course (and especially if it's a component in a student's final grade), I think it helps to explain to your students <b><i>why</i></b>.<br /> <br /> Part of that explanation, of course, is personal: Participation is an important part of their own learning, to help them understand the course material better.<br /> <br /> But I also impress on students that we're all in this together: We're going to be together in this room for three hours every week and a lot of that time is going to be taken up by class discussion. If people don't participate, those three hours are going to go by <b><i>really</i></b> slowly. In contrast, if everyone participates and does their part, the hours will fly by and we'll all have fun. I find students really respond to that sense of common purpose.<br /> <br /> <br /> <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" id="point2"></a> <b><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null"></a>2. Make sure students are prepared for weekly discussions.</span></b><br /> <br /> A common problem in teaching is the "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_knowledge">curse of knowledge</a>": Teachers are such experts in their field that they have trouble remembering how daunting a topic can be to complete beginners.<br /> <br /> I was often guilty of this when it came to class discussions. Some topics are so commonly discussed among working journalists &#8212; the use of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_(journalism)#Anonymous_sources">anonymous sources</a>, <a href="https://gigaom.com/2012/08/22/no-metered-content-walls-wont-save-journalism/">newspaper paywalls</a> &#8212; that I expected students to already have opinions about them, or to be able to come up with an opinion on the spot.<br /> <br /> But, of course, a first-year student taking an introductory journalism course has, in most cases, never thought about these topics at all.<br /> <br /> If you want to have a meaningful class discussion about a topic, you need to make sure students have had some time to learn about the topic and reflect on it <b><i>before</i></b> class begins.<br /> <br /> The typical way to deal with this challenge is with weekly readings: Have students read an article or two on the topic before class so they're ready to discuss it.<br /> <br /> The problem, of course, is that many students won't do the assigned readings or, even if they do, will skim them in a way that doesn't prepare them to think deeply about the discussion topic.<br /> <br /> I use a couple of strategies to address that.<br /> <br /> First, each week, along with the assigned readings, I give students a single question about the readings. For example, I'll have them read <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/nov/15/toronto-star-was-right-to-pay-for-video-of-mayors-drunken-rant?CMP=twt_fd">an article</a> or <a href="http://j-source.ca/article/should-media-pay-for-news/">two</a> about paying sources for stories and then pose the question: "Under what conditions is it OK for a news organization to pay money to a source for a story?"<br /> <br /> Each week, students have to email me a very brief "weekly report" in which they answer &#8212; in at least two sentences &#8212; that week's question. I don't make the reports worth a lot of marks, but it's worth enough that students won't blow them off.<br /> <br /> The other technique I use are quizzes. Each week, I give students a brief, three-question multiple-choice quiz on that week's readings. The quizzes are designed to be super easy for students who've done the readings (i.e. "What is this reading about?") and super hard for those who haven't.<br /> <br /> Together, the report and the quiz make it hard to do well in the class without doing the readings. And it ensures students are adequately prepared to participate fully in class discussions.<br /> <br /> I often still spring some new questions on students in class &#8212; or get them to respond to a video or audio clip that they're seeing in class for the first time. But at least students are well prepared for that one, main question every week.<br /> <br /> <br /> <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" id="point3"></a> <b><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null"></a>3. Have students self-report their participation marks.</span></b><br /> <br /> This idea I stole from the instructor who taught the Intro class before me, and it's a great one.<br /> <br /> Instead of the instructor being responsible for keeping track of each student's participation marks, students report their own participation each week on a sheet of paper (<a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JlNx-5HogcLTYHuNgt0IaXvoxO5fpNbE/view?usp=sharing">here's an example</a>).<br /> <br /> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kKzMKWUXN7o/W5KyApokKPI/AAAAAAABH8M/9i5GyIMtk1skyRGNscdBsFbcjZ7-O3BGgCLcBGAs/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2018-09-07%2Bat%2B10.14.17%2BAM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="357" data-original-width="659" height="216" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kKzMKWUXN7o/W5KyApokKPI/AAAAAAABH8M/9i5GyIMtk1skyRGNscdBsFbcjZ7-O3BGgCLcBGAs/s400/Screen%2BShot%2B2018-09-07%2Bat%2B10.14.17%2BAM.png" width="400" /></a></div> <br /> I tell students they're expected to speak at least twice each class. They then give themselves a checkmark for each time they speak (up to a maximum of two).<br /> <br /> This idea was meant to solve one problem: In a large class, it's really hard to know every student's name at the start of the course.<br /> <br /> But I think it also solves another problem: It makes participation marks simple and transparent.<br /> <br /> Participation marks that are assigned by the instructor can often be a bit ambiguous. Are students being marked on how much they participated in class? On the quality of their in-class contributions?<br /> <br /> Worst of all, I think that very ambiguity can discourage some students from participating. Many students don't participate because they don't think they have anything valuable to say. If an instructor is going to ultimately decide whether your participation is "good" or "bad", it's too easy to convince yourself that you don't have anything "good" to say and not participate at all.<br /> <br /> And, from the instructor's perspective, even if some students have "better" things to say in class than others, you want all students to participate, not just the keeners.<br /> <br /> A self-reported checkmark system removes that ambiguity. Attend every class and speak twice each class? You're going to get 100% for participation. Simple.<br /> <br /> To avoid abuse, I put some basic parameters on what qualifies for a checkmark: It needs to be a contribution of at least a couple of sentences (ie. "I agree with what she said" doesn't count). I also remind students that there is nothing more obvious in class than someone who says nothing, so if they cheat and give themselves checkmarks when they don't deserve them, I'll notice.<br /> <br /> Finally, I recommend putting out the checkmark sheet at the end of class. If you bring it out at the break, some students will give themselves two checkmarks and then skip the second half of class.<br /> <br /> <br /> <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" id="point4"></a> <b><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null"></a>4. Get students to discuss a question in small groups first.&nbsp;</span></b><br /> <br /> It took awhile before I tried this one, but I've found it makes a big difference.<br /> <br /> Before we discuss a topic, or question, as a whole class, I have students discuss the question in smaller groups first.<br /> <br /> Using <a href="http://chir.ag/projects/team-maker/">this simple "team maker" tool</a>, I break the class into four or five groups and then give them 5 to 10 minutes to discuss the topic in their small groups. Then I open it up to a discussion of the whole class.<br /> <br /> This isn't typical "group work". Students aren't asked to present on behalf of their group or anything like that. The small-group discussions are simply meant as a warm up for the main event. But it works wonders.<br /> <br /> Shy students may think what they have to say isn't very interesting and so are reluctant to say it in front of 30 or more of their fellow classmates. But put them in a group of just five or six fellow students, and it's not nearly so intimidating to share their thoughts.<br /> <br /> And when that small group finds what they have to say interesting, it gives them the confidence to share their thoughts with the whole class later.<br /> <br /> The key, I think, is not to overdo it with the small group discussions. Five minutes is often plenty to get the ball rolling. It's also important to stress to students that just saying something in their small group doesn't count for a participation checkmark. They need to share it with the whole class for it to count.<br /> <br /> <br /> <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" id="point5"></a> <b><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null"></a>5. Call on students at random.</span></b><br /> <br /> This idea came from a <a href="http://www.econtalk.org/doug-lemov-on-teaching/">interview</a> with education expert Doug Lemov on the EconTalk podcast. At about the 18:00 mark, Lemov talks about using "cold calling" in an elementary-school class. Instead of asking a question and waiting for students to raises their hand, Lemov encourages teachers to just call on any student at random.<br /> <br /> The genius of cold-calling, according to Lemov, is that it forces all students, <i>even those not called upon</i>, to think about their answer. It's also a lot faster, because you don't have to wait for students to raise their hand before calling on them or &#8212; even worse &#8211; have no students raise their hand and then basically plead with your class for someone to answer the question.<br /> <br /> What's interesting about cold-calling is that it's a technique that's already used by most instructors, but poorly: Either out of desperation, when no one raises their hand. Or (somewhat) cruelly, to put a student who never participates on the spot.<br /> <br /> The key to making it work, I think, is consistency: To use it all the time, for every question.<br /> <br /> I jokingly tell my students that, instead of picking on the one or two students who never raise their hand, I instead pick on <b><i>everybody</i></b>.<br /> <br /> I'm also a bit more systematic in my approach.<br /> <br /> Partly because it takes me awhile to learn my students' names and partly because I don't trust myself to be completely fair in calling on students, each class I randomize the class list. (I <a href="https://support.office.com/en-us/article/rand-function-4cbfa695-8869-4788-8d90-021ea9f5be73">randomly</a> <a href="https://support.office.com/en-us/article/sort-data-in-a-range-or-table-62d0b95d-2a90-4610-a6ae-2e545c4a4654">sort</a> an Excel spreadsheet but this <a href="https://www.random.org/lists/">online list randomizer</a> works just as well.)<br /> <br /> Then &#8212; for every question &#8212; I start by calling on the three students whose names are at the top of the randomized list. Then, for the next question, I call on the next three. And so on. The first time I do this, I show students how I randomize the list on screen. Every time after that, it's secret, so students never know when they might be called on.<br /> <br /> While I start each class discussion by calling on students at random, after the first three students have been called on, any student can raise their hand and talk. And, in my experience, many do.<br /> <br /> I think that's because, fearing they might be called on, most students have prepared a response in their head. So, then, when they're not called on, they figure they might as well share their thought anyways and get their participation checkmark.<br /> <br /> Those are my five suggestions for how to get students to participate more.<br /> <br /> If you've got a trick to share, please add it in the comments. Note: To avoid spam comments, all comments on this site are moderated, so it may take awhile for your comment to show up.<br /> <br /> <br /> <div style='clear: both;'></div> </div> <div class='post-footer'> <div class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-1'> <span class='post-author vcard'> Posted by <span class='fn' itemprop='author' itemscope='itemscope' itemtype='http://schema.org/Person'> <meta content='https://www.blogger.com/profile/16986292503424513742' itemprop='url'/> <a class='g-profile' href='https://www.blogger.com/profile/16986292503424513742' rel='author' title='author profile'> <span itemprop='name'>Chad Skelton</span> </a> </span> </span> <span class='post-timestamp'> at <meta content='http://www.chadskelton.com/2019/01/five-ways-to-get-your-students-to.html' itemprop='url'/> <a class='timestamp-link' href='http://www.chadskelton.com/2019/01/five-ways-to-get-your-students-to.html' rel='bookmark' title='permanent link'><abbr class='published' itemprop='datePublished' title='2019-01-10T09:04:00-08:00'>9:04 AM</abbr></a> </span> <span class='reaction-buttons'> </span> <span class='post-comment-link'> <a class='comment-link' href='http://www.chadskelton.com/2019/01/five-ways-to-get-your-students-to.html#comment-form' onclick=''> No comments: </a> </span> <span class='post-backlinks post-comment-link'> </span> <span class='post-icons'> <span class='item-control blog-admin pid-1917174372'> <a href='https://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=8619350854485037959&from=pencil' title='Edit Post'> <img alt='' class='icon-action' height='18' src='https://resources.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif' width='18'/> </a> </span> </span> <div class='post-share-buttons goog-inline-block'> <a class='goog-inline-block share-button sb-email' href='https://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=8619350854485037959&target=email' target='_blank' title='Email This'><span class='share-button-link-text'>Email This</span></a><a class='goog-inline-block share-button sb-blog' href='https://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=8619350854485037959&target=blog' onclick='window.open(this.href, "_blank", "height=270,width=475"); return false;' target='_blank' title='BlogThis!'><span class='share-button-link-text'>BlogThis!</span></a><a class='goog-inline-block share-button sb-twitter' href='https://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=8619350854485037959&target=twitter' target='_blank' title='Share to Twitter'><span class='share-button-link-text'>Share to Twitter</span></a><a class='goog-inline-block share-button sb-facebook' href='https://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=8619350854485037959&target=facebook' onclick='window.open(this.href, "_blank", "height=430,width=640"); return false;' target='_blank' title='Share to Facebook'><span class='share-button-link-text'>Share to Facebook</span></a><a class='goog-inline-block share-button sb-pinterest' href='https://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=8619350854485037959&target=pinterest' target='_blank' title='Share to Pinterest'><span class='share-button-link-text'>Share to Pinterest</span></a> </div> </div> <div class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-2'> <span class='post-labels'> </span> </div> <div class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-3'> <span class='post-location'> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div></div> <div class="date-outer"> <h2 class='date-header'><span>Tuesday, July 24, 2018</span></h2> <div class="date-posts"> <div class='post-outer'> <div class='post hentry uncustomized-post-template' itemprop='blogPost' itemscope='itemscope' itemtype='http://schema.org/BlogPosting'> <meta content='https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9ac0BDMZUL0/WEdm2M0NOyI/AAAAAAAAxdI/p0o9cwuhgVwGFqJ-tufrltAM1P7k52XPACLcB/s320/FSA-map.png' itemprop='image_url'/> <meta content='6083825495664061008' itemprop='blogId'/> <meta content='8268888956071405187' itemprop='postId'/> <a name='8268888956071405187'></a> <h3 class='post-title entry-title' itemprop='name'> <a href='http://www.chadskelton.com/2018/07/my-next-online-tableau-training.html'>My next Online Tableau Training workshop is this September</a> </h3> <div class='post-header'> <div class='post-header-line-1'></div> </div> <div class='post-body entry-content' id='post-body-8268888956071405187' itemprop='description articleBody'> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9ac0BDMZUL0/WEdm2M0NOyI/AAAAAAAAxdI/p0o9cwuhgVwGFqJ-tufrltAM1P7k52XPACLcB/s1600/FSA-map.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="234" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9ac0BDMZUL0/WEdm2M0NOyI/AAAAAAAAxdI/p0o9cwuhgVwGFqJ-tufrltAM1P7k52XPACLcB/s320/FSA-map.png" width="320" /></a></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> My next <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/online-tableau-training-telling-stories-with-data-tickets-47776156771?aff=bp">online Tableau training workshop</a> will be held this September over three Thursdays: <b>Sept. 13, 20</b> and <b>27</b>. You can buy tickets <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/online-tableau-training-telling-stories-with-data-tickets-47776156771?aff=bp">here</a> or by clicking the button below:</div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/online-tableau-training-telling-stories-with-data-tickets-47776156771?aff=bp"><img border="0" data-original-height="44" data-original-width="257" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LvUj8JUjbt0/Wqqcp0uDfXI/AAAAAAABA3E/9Jm1-kfDgO8tjs0grYCOuBrgO5dq1tyTgCLcBGAs/s1600/eventbrite-button.png" /></a></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> Here are some <a href="http://www.chadskelton.com/p/workshops.html">testimonials</a> from people who've attended my earlier training sessions.</div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> <br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> If you can't make this workshop but would like to be alerted when the next one is scheduled, just <a href="http://chadskelton.us14.list-manage1.com/subscribe?u=f77761916f1d313badb1dc5da&amp;id=7b3df945be">add your name here</a>.</div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> <br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> If you have several people at your organization who need training in Tableau, I'm also available for <a href="http://www.chadskelton.com/p/excel-and-tableau-training-in-vancouver.html">onsite training</a>.</div> <br /> <div style='clear: both;'></div> </div> <div class='post-footer'> <div class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-1'> <span class='post-author vcard'> Posted by <span class='fn' itemprop='author' itemscope='itemscope' itemtype='http://schema.org/Person'> <meta content='https://www.blogger.com/profile/16986292503424513742' itemprop='url'/> <a class='g-profile' href='https://www.blogger.com/profile/16986292503424513742' rel='author' title='author profile'> <span itemprop='name'>Chad Skelton</span> </a> </span> </span> <span class='post-timestamp'> at <meta content='http://www.chadskelton.com/2018/07/my-next-online-tableau-training.html' itemprop='url'/> <a class='timestamp-link' href='http://www.chadskelton.com/2018/07/my-next-online-tableau-training.html' rel='bookmark' title='permanent link'><abbr class='published' itemprop='datePublished' title='2018-07-24T09:58:00-07:00'>9:58 AM</abbr></a> </span> <span class='reaction-buttons'> </span> <span class='post-comment-link'> <a class='comment-link' href='http://www.chadskelton.com/2018/07/my-next-online-tableau-training.html#comment-form' onclick=''> No comments: </a> </span> <span class='post-backlinks post-comment-link'> </span> <span class='post-icons'> <span class='item-control blog-admin pid-1917174372'> <a href='https://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=8268888956071405187&from=pencil' title='Edit Post'> <img alt='' class='icon-action' height='18' src='https://resources.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif' width='18'/> </a> </span> </span> <div class='post-share-buttons goog-inline-block'> <a class='goog-inline-block share-button sb-email' href='https://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=8268888956071405187&target=email' target='_blank' title='Email This'><span class='share-button-link-text'>Email This</span></a><a class='goog-inline-block share-button sb-blog' href='https://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=8268888956071405187&target=blog' onclick='window.open(this.href, "_blank", "height=270,width=475"); return false;' target='_blank' title='BlogThis!'><span class='share-button-link-text'>BlogThis!</span></a><a class='goog-inline-block share-button sb-twitter' href='https://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=8268888956071405187&target=twitter' target='_blank' title='Share to Twitter'><span class='share-button-link-text'>Share to Twitter</span></a><a class='goog-inline-block share-button sb-facebook' href='https://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=8268888956071405187&target=facebook' onclick='window.open(this.href, "_blank", "height=430,width=640"); return false;' target='_blank' title='Share to Facebook'><span class='share-button-link-text'>Share to Facebook</span></a><a class='goog-inline-block share-button sb-pinterest' href='https://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=8268888956071405187&target=pinterest' target='_blank' title='Share to Pinterest'><span class='share-button-link-text'>Share to Pinterest</span></a> </div> </div> <div class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-2'> <span class='post-labels'> </span> </div> <div class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-3'> <span class='post-location'> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div></div> <div class="date-outer"> <h2 class='date-header'><span>Thursday, June 7, 2018</span></h2> <div class="date-posts"> <div class='post-outer'> <div class='post hentry uncustomized-post-template' itemprop='blogPost' itemscope='itemscope' itemtype='http://schema.org/BlogPosting'> <meta content='https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ena8oKLpRoQ/WxbR9ay5U3I/AAAAAAABDWY/eZIxH3uQbbkQ6UjuH4OeVGAA-WjZzvsFQCLcBGAs/s400/Screen%2BShot%2B2018-06-05%2Bat%2B11.09.20%2BAM.png' itemprop='image_url'/> <meta content='6083825495664061008' itemprop='blogId'/> <meta content='5150674474426555157' itemprop='postId'/> <a name='5150674474426555157'></a> <h3 class='post-title entry-title' itemprop='name'> <a href='http://www.chadskelton.com/2018/06/how-much-evidence-do-we-need-for-data.html'>How much evidence do we need for a data visualization "rule"?</a> </h3> <div class='post-header'> <div class='post-header-line-1'></div> </div> <div class='post-body entry-content' id='post-body-5150674474426555157' itemprop='description articleBody'> In a <a href="http://www.chadskelton.com/2018/06/bar-charts-should-always-start-at-zero.html">separate post</a>, I laid out some of my arguments for why I think most line charts should start at zero. I posted some of my initial thoughts on that topic on Twitter, which generated some really thoughtful replies.<br /> <br /> One of them, from Steve Haroz, noted that he knew of know evidence that people read non-zero-baseline bar charts any differently than non-zero-baseline line charts. And, furthermore, that we should be careful in talking about data visualization "rules" when our evidence for them is weak or nonexistent.<br /> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en"> <div dir="ltr" lang="en"> Rely on evidence. When there is little or none, don't claim that some absolute or universal rule exists. It's fine to say "maybe" or "I prefer".</div> &#8212; Steve Haroz (@sharoz) <a href="https://twitter.com/sharoz/status/999734337078812675?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 24, 2018</a></blockquote> <script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script> <br /> This led to a quite spirited discussion about whether data-visualization "guidelines" or "rules of thumb" that don't have any empirical research to back them up can still be valuable, or if we should stick primarily to those things that we have solid evidence for.<br /> <br /> Speaking personally, I didn't fully appreciate the gaps in data visualization research until I watched Robert Kosara's <a href="https://eagereyes.org/talk/how-do-we-know-that">excellent talk at the University of Washington</a>, "How Do We Know That?"<br /> <br /> The talk is based on Kosara's paper, <a href="https://eagereyes.org/papers/an-empire-built-on-sand">Empire of Sand</a>, which I now <a href="http://www.chadskelton.com/2017/04/data-visualization-reading-list.html">assign to my students</a> at the University of Florida.<br /> <br /> As Kosara points out, many of the things we think we know about data visualization have little empirical evidence to back them up. And other well-accepted "rules" may actually be wrong (for example, "chartjunk" may <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7141r6QQ2A">not be so bad after all</a>).<br /> <br /> Some rules are based on nothing more than the strong opinions of influential early writers in the field (like <a href="https://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/">Edward Tufte</a>&nbsp;and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Bertin">Jacques Bertin</a>) and have not actually been subject to peer-reviewed research.<br /> <br /> So where does that leave us as data visualization practitioners and teachers?<br /> <br /> It would seem obvious that we shouldn't teach "rules" that we know to be wrong. But what about the many areas for which there is little or no empirical evidence at all? Can theory replace research in some cases? Is a common practice worth teaching our students even if we don't know it to be true?<br /> <br /> Below, I've tried to collect some of my own thoughts on the matter as well as those of others who took part in the Twitter discussion.<br /> <br /> First, though, a big caveat about my own tweets: While I teach at a university and have (strong) opinions on how to teach data visualization, I'm an "instructor" not a "professor". I don't have a PhD and I'm not engaged in academic research myself.<br /> <br /> Let's get to the tweets!<br /> <br /> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"> <div dir="ltr" lang="en"> My argument is based more on encoding consistency, though, and prudence: if encoding is height, then it may be safer if height is proportional to numbers</div> &#8212; Alberto Cairo (@albertocairo) <a href="https://twitter.com/albertocairo/status/999740531193376769?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 24, 2018</a></blockquote> <script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script> <br /> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en"> <div dir="ltr" lang="en"> We don't know what visual cue people use or how they reason with it. Could be length. Could be area. Could be position of the top of the bar. And not clear why a point's distance from the x-axis is different from the length of a bar. There are plausible options, but no evidence.</div> &#8212; Steve Haroz (@sharoz) <a href="https://twitter.com/sharoz/status/999742358777458689?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 24, 2018</a></blockquote> <script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script> <br /> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en"> <div dir="ltr" lang="en"> That&#8217;s the key point! 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#2d3037; } /* Footer ----------------------------------------------- */ .footer-outer { margin: -0 0 -1px; padding: 0 0 0; color: #ffffff; overflow: hidden; } .footer-fauxborder-left { border-top: 1px solid transparent; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0 0; -moz-box-shadow: 0 0 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, .2); -webkit-box-shadow: 0 0 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, .2); -goog-ms-box-shadow: 0 0 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, .2); box-shadow: 0 0 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, .2); margin: 0 -0; } /* Mobile ----------------------------------------------- */ body.mobile { background-size: auto; } .mobile .body-fauxcolumn-outer { background: transparent none repeat scroll top left; } *+html body.mobile .main-inner .column-center-inner { margin-top: 0; } .mobile .main-inner .widget { padding: 0 0 15px; } .mobile .main-inner .widget h2 + div, .mobile .footer-inner .widget h2 + div { border-top: none; padding-top: 0; } .mobile .footer-inner .widget h2 { padding: 0.5em 0; border-bottom: none; } .mobile .main-inner .widget .widget-content { 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#ffffff; } .mobile .tabs-inner .PageList .widget-content .pagelist-arrow { border-left: 1px solid #2d3037; } .post-body img, .post-body .tr-caption-container, .Profile img, .Image img, .BlogList .item-thumbnail img { padding: 0 !important; border: none !important; background: none !important; -moz-box-shadow: 0px 0px 0px transparent !important; -webkit-box-shadow: 0px 0px 0px transparent !important; box-shadow: 0px 0px 0px transparent !important; } --></style> <style id='template-skin-1' type='text/css'><!-- body { min-width: 900px; } .content-outer, .content-fauxcolumn-outer, .region-inner { min-width: 900px; max-width: 900px; _width: 900px; } .main-inner .columns { padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 200px; } .main-inner .fauxcolumn-center-outer { left: 0px; right: 200px; /* IE6 does not respect left and right together */ _width: expression(this.parentNode.offsetWidth - parseInt("0px") - parseInt("200px") + 'px'); } .main-inner .fauxcolumn-left-outer { width: 0px; } .main-inner .fauxcolumn-right-outer { width: 200px; } .main-inner .column-left-outer { width: 0px; right: 100%; margin-left: -0px; } .main-inner .column-right-outer { width: 200px; margin-right: -200px; } #layout { min-width: 0; } #layout .content-outer { min-width: 0; width: 800px; } #layout .region-inner { min-width: 0; width: auto; } body#layout div.add_widget { padding: 8px; } body#layout div.add_widget a { margin-left: 32px; } --></style> <script type='text/javascript'> (function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['GoogleAnalyticsObject']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){ (i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o), m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m) })(window,document,'script','https://www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js','ga'); ga('create', 'UA-65863311-1', 'auto', 'blogger'); ga('blogger.send', 'pageview'); </script> <link href='https://www.blogger.com/dyn-css/authorization.css?targetBlogID=6083825495664061008&amp;zx=fda04688-4cd0-4d62-bd57-5baaf3a6b8f3' media='none' onload='if(media!=&#39;all&#39;)media=&#39;all&#39;' rel='stylesheet'/><noscript><link href='https://www.blogger.com/dyn-css/authorization.css?targetBlogID=6083825495664061008&amp;zx=fda04688-4cd0-4d62-bd57-5baaf3a6b8f3' rel='stylesheet'/></noscript> </head> <body class='loading'> <div class='navbar no-items section' id='navbar' name='Navbar'> </div> <div itemscope='itemscope' itemtype='http://schema.org/Blog' style='display: none;'> <meta content='Chad Skelton' itemprop='name'/> </div> <div class='body-fauxcolumns'> <div class='fauxcolumn-outer body-fauxcolumn-outer'> <div class='cap-top'> <div class='cap-left'></div> <div class='cap-right'></div> </div> <div class='fauxborder-left'> <div class='fauxborder-right'></div> <div class='fauxcolumn-inner'> </div> </div> <div class='cap-bottom'> <div class='cap-left'></div> <div class='cap-right'></div> </div> </div> </div> <div class='content'> <div class='content-fauxcolumns'> <div class='fauxcolumn-outer content-fauxcolumn-outer'> <div class='cap-top'> <div class='cap-left'></div> <div class='cap-right'></div> </div> <div class='fauxborder-left'> <div class='fauxborder-right'></div> <div class='fauxcolumn-inner'> </div> </div> <div class='cap-bottom'> <div class='cap-left'></div> <div class='cap-right'></div> </div> </div> </div> <div class='content-outer'> <div class='content-cap-top cap-top'> <div class='cap-left'></div> <div class='cap-right'></div> </div> <div class='fauxborder-left content-fauxborder-left'> <div class='fauxborder-right content-fauxborder-right'></div> <div class='content-inner'> <header> <div class='header-outer'> <div class='header-cap-top cap-top'> <div class='cap-left'></div> <div class='cap-right'></div> </div> <div class='fauxborder-left header-fauxborder-left'> <div class='fauxborder-right header-fauxborder-right'></div> <div class='region-inner header-inner'> <div class='header section' id='header' name='Header'><div class='widget Header' data-version='1' id='Header1'> <div id='header-inner' style='background-image: url("http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qo4P-KMI5mw/Vw3AOEifyiI/AAAAAAAApxk/e0FB44c_g00wqBaxvocPGfrnNIf-oOlzACK4B/s1600-r/commute-image-shifted-right-slightly-different.png"); background-position: left; width: 900px; min-height: 150px; _height: 150px; background-repeat: no-repeat; '> <div class='titlewrapper' style='background: transparent'> <h1 class='title' style='background: transparent; border-width: 0px'> Chad Skelton </h1> </div> <div class='descriptionwrapper'> <p class='description'><span>Telling stories with data</span></p> </div> </div> </div></div> </div> </div> <div class='header-cap-bottom cap-bottom'> <div class='cap-left'></div> <div class='cap-right'></div> </div> </div> </header> <div class='tabs-outer'> <div class='tabs-cap-top cap-top'> <div class='cap-left'></div> <div class='cap-right'></div> </div> <div class='fauxborder-left tabs-fauxborder-left'> <div class='fauxborder-right tabs-fauxborder-right'></div> <div class='region-inner tabs-inner'> <div class='tabs section' id='crosscol' name='Cross-Column'><div class='widget PageList' data-version='1' id='PageList1'> <h2>Pages</h2> <div class='widget-content'> <ul> <li class='selected'> <a href='http://www.chadskelton.com/'>Blog</a> </li> <li> <a href='http://www.chadskelton.com/p/about-me.html'>About</a> </li> <li> <a href='http://www.chadskelton.com/p/services.html'>Services</a> </li> <li> <a href='http://www.chadskelton.com/p/workshops.html'>Tableau Training</a> </li> <li> <a href='http://www.chadskelton.com/p/clients.html'>Clients</a> </li> <li> <a href='http://www.chadskelton.com/p/contact.html'>Contact</a> </li> </ul> <div class='clear'></div> <span class='widget-item-control'> <span class='item-control blog-admin'> <a class='quickedit' href='//www.blogger.com/rearrange?blogID=6083825495664061008&widgetType=PageList&widgetId=PageList1&action=editWidget&sectionId=crosscol' onclick='return _WidgetManager._PopupConfig(document.getElementById("PageList1"));' rel='nofollow' target='configPageList1' title='Edit'> <img alt='' height='18' src='https://resources.blogblog.com/img/icon18_wrench_allbkg.png' width='18'/> </a> </span> </span> <div class='clear'></div> </div> </div></div> <div class='tabs no-items section' id='crosscol-overflow' name='Cross-Column 2'></div> </div> </div> <div class='tabs-cap-bottom cap-bottom'> <div class='cap-left'></div> <div class='cap-right'></div> </div> </div> <div class='main-outer'> <div class='main-cap-top cap-top'> <div class='cap-left'></div> <div class='cap-right'></div> </div> <div class='fauxborder-left main-fauxborder-left'> <div class='fauxborder-right main-fauxborder-right'></div> <div class='region-inner main-inner'> <div class='columns fauxcolumns'> <div class='fauxcolumn-outer 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class='cap-right'></div> </div> </div> <!-- corrects IE6 width calculation --> <div class='columns-inner'> <div class='column-center-outer'> <div class='column-center-inner'> <div class='main section' id='main' name='Main'><div class='widget Blog' data-version='1' id='Blog1'> <div class='blog-posts hfeed'> <div class="date-outer"> <h2 class='date-header'><span>Thursday, March 14, 2019</span></h2> <div class="date-posts"> <div class='post-outer'> <div class='post hentry uncustomized-post-template' itemprop='blogPost' itemscope='itemscope' itemtype='http://schema.org/BlogPosting'> <meta content='https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9ac0BDMZUL0/WEdm2M0NOyI/AAAAAAAAxdI/p0o9cwuhgVwGFqJ-tufrltAM1P7k52XPACLcB/s320/FSA-map.png' itemprop='image_url'/> <meta content='6083825495664061008' itemprop='blogId'/> <meta content='6240802453223175757' itemprop='postId'/> <a name='6240802453223175757'></a> <h3 class='post-title entry-title' itemprop='name'> <a href='http://www.chadskelton.com/2019/03/online-tableau-training-this-april.html'>Online Tableau Training this April</a> </h3> <div class='post-header'> <div class='post-header-line-1'></div> </div> <div class='post-body entry-content' id='post-body-6240802453223175757' itemprop='description articleBody'> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9ac0BDMZUL0/WEdm2M0NOyI/AAAAAAAAxdI/p0o9cwuhgVwGFqJ-tufrltAM1P7k52XPACLcB/s1600/FSA-map.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="234" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9ac0BDMZUL0/WEdm2M0NOyI/AAAAAAAAxdI/p0o9cwuhgVwGFqJ-tufrltAM1P7k52XPACLcB/s320/FSA-map.png" width="320" /></a></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> My next <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/online-tableau-training-telling-stories-with-data-tickets-58402191527?aff=bp">online Tableau training workshop</a> will be held this April over three Thursdays: <b>April 11, 18</b>&nbsp;and <b>25</b>. You can buy tickets <a href="https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/online-tableau-training-telling-stories-with-data-tickets-58402191527?aff=bp">here</a> or by clicking the button below:</div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/online-tableau-training-telling-stories-with-data-tickets-58402191527?aff=bp"><img border="0" data-original-height="44" data-original-width="257" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LvUj8JUjbt0/Wqqcp0uDfXI/AAAAAAABA3E/9Jm1-kfDgO8tjs0grYCOuBrgO5dq1tyTgCLcBGAs/s1600/eventbrite-button.png" /></a></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> Here are some <a href="http://www.chadskelton.com/p/workshops.html">testimonials</a> from people who've attended my earlier training sessions.</div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> <br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> If you can't make this workshop but would like to be alerted when the next one is scheduled, just <a href="http://chadskelton.us14.list-manage1.com/subscribe?u=f77761916f1d313badb1dc5da&amp;id=7b3df945be">add your name here</a>.</div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> <br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> If you have several people at your organization who need training in Tableau, I'm also available for <a href="http://www.chadskelton.com/p/excel-and-tableau-training-in-vancouver.html">onsite training</a>.</div> <br /> <div style='clear: both;'></div> </div> <div class='post-footer'> <div class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-1'> <span class='post-author vcard'> Posted by <span class='fn' itemprop='author' itemscope='itemscope' itemtype='http://schema.org/Person'> <meta content='https://www.blogger.com/profile/16986292503424513742' itemprop='url'/> <a class='g-profile' href='https://www.blogger.com/profile/16986292503424513742' rel='author' title='author profile'> <span itemprop='name'>Chad Skelton</span> </a> </span> </span> <span class='post-timestamp'> at <meta content='http://www.chadskelton.com/2019/03/online-tableau-training-this-april.html' itemprop='url'/> <a class='timestamp-link' href='http://www.chadskelton.com/2019/03/online-tableau-training-this-april.html' rel='bookmark' title='permanent link'><abbr class='published' itemprop='datePublished' title='2019-03-14T15:49:00-07:00'>3:49 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class='reaction-buttons'> </span> <span class='post-comment-link'> <a class='comment-link' href='http://www.chadskelton.com/2019/03/online-tableau-training-this-april.html#comment-form' onclick=''> No comments: </a> </span> <span class='post-backlinks post-comment-link'> </span> <span class='post-icons'> <span class='item-control blog-admin pid-1917174372'> <a href='https://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=6240802453223175757&from=pencil' title='Edit Post'> <img alt='' class='icon-action' height='18' src='https://resources.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif' width='18'/> </a> </span> </span> <div class='post-share-buttons goog-inline-block'> <a class='goog-inline-block share-button sb-email' href='https://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=6240802453223175757&target=email' target='_blank' title='Email This'><span class='share-button-link-text'>Email This</span></a><a class='goog-inline-block share-button sb-blog' href='https://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=6240802453223175757&target=blog' onclick='window.open(this.href, "_blank", "height=270,width=475"); 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text-align: center;"> </div> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-a4pOskn5uSI/W5vpHQHeVYI/AAAAAAABIVE/rxTpObGuO4EhN27_17Ir0aASiA11UNJ9ACLcBGAs/s1600/participation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="531" data-original-width="640" height="331" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-a4pOskn5uSI/W5vpHQHeVYI/AAAAAAABIVE/rxTpObGuO4EhN27_17Ir0aASiA11UNJ9ACLcBGAs/s400/participation.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: right;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/usdagov/29506739023">U.S. Department of Agriculture / Flickr</a></td></tr> </tbody></table> <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TL;DR">TL;DR</a>:</b><br /> <br /> Over the years I've stumbled across a number of techniques for improving student participation in my classes that have worked really well. Here are the five key ones (you can click on each one to be taken to a more detailed description):<br /> <ol> <li><a href="http://www.chadskelton.com/2019/01/five-ways-to-get-your-students-to.html#point1">Explain why participation is important.</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.chadskelton.com/2019/01/five-ways-to-get-your-students-to.html#point2">Make sure students are prepared for weekly discussions.</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.chadskelton.com/2019/01/five-ways-to-get-your-students-to.html#point3">Have students self-report their participation marks.</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.chadskelton.com/2019/01/five-ways-to-get-your-students-to.html#point4">Get students to discuss a question in small groups first.</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.chadskelton.com/2019/01/five-ways-to-get-your-students-to.html#point5">Call on students at random.</a></li> </ol> <br /> <b>Full post:</b><br /> <br /> About five years ago, I was asked to take over a new course at <a href="http://www.kpu.ca/arts/journalism/faculty/chad-skelton">KPU</a>, the university where I teach: Introduction to Journalism.<br /> <br /> I was worried.<br /> <br /> Not because I didn't know the subject matter. I'd been a working journalist for more than 15 years.<br /> <br /> And not because I didn't know how to teach. At that point, I'd already been teaching for several years.<br /> <br /> The problem was that the Intro course had been designed by its previous instructor as a discussion course. Each week, students came to class and &#8212; facilitated by the instructor &#8212; discussed issues like journalism ethics and the business model for news.<br /> <br /> I had no idea how to teach such a course.<br /> <br /> In my many years of teaching, both at the university and my own&nbsp;private workshops, I always taught people how to <b><i>do</i></b> things. Whether it was how to build an interactive chart, or how to do a court search, my classes were always very hands-on and practical.<br /> <br /> Class participation was always a part of my other classes, but it wasn't the <b><i>point</i></b> of the class.<br /> <br /> I worried about how I would get my students engaged enough in discussions about journalism to fill up a three-hour class each week.<br /> <br /> Unfortunately, the first couple of times I taught the class, many of my worst fears were realized.<br /> <br /> I'd throw a discussion question out to the class &#8212; "So, when is it OK to use anonymous sources in a news story?" &#8212; and be met with stony silence. Sometimes, the one or two keeners in class would share their thoughts, but getting the rest of the students to take part was like pulling teeth.<br /> <br /> I'd occasionally pull the classic instructor trick of calling on a student who wasn't participating to share their thoughts. But doing that always seemed slightly mean &#8212; putting a student on the spot who wasn't prepared &#8212; and, regardless, it rarely elicited more than a shrug and a poorly thought out answer.<br /> <br /> I started to dread the days that I taught the Intro course. I suspect my students did too.<br /> <br /> But then things started to change.<br /> <br /> Almost by accident &#8212; an article here, a podcast there &#8212; I picked up a few ideas for how to improve student participation and gave them a test-run in my class. After some initial success, I got brave enough to experiment with some ideas of my own.<br /> <br /> Over time, the participation levels in my Intro class started to increase, gradually at first and then quite dramatically.<br /> <br /> What had once been three hours of painful, awkward silence became a spirited weekly discussion with students who were engaged and interested in the topic.<br /> <br /> Intro to Journalism is now one of my favourite classes to teach, one I look forward to every week.<br /> <br /> In the hopes it might be of some assistance to other instructors out there, below I share the five things I think made the biggest difference in improving participation in my class.<br /> <br /> While my experience is at the university level, I think most of these techniques could be easily applied to high-school classes and (with some modification) even lower grades.<br /> <br /> One big caveat: I'm a data guy so I feel it's important to note that I haven't subjected any of these techniques to rigorous analysis like a randomized controlled trial. My evidence in support of all of them is purely anecdotal and based entirely on a single course. Your results may vary.<br /> <br /> But getting students to participate more is such a common challenge in teaching that I thought these ideas were worth sharing.<br /> <br /> So, without further ado, here are my five tips for getting your students to participate more in class.<br /> <br /> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div> <br /> <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" id="point1"></a> <b><span style="font-size: large;">1. Explain why participation is important.</span></b><br /> <br /> If participation is a key part of your course (and especially if it's a component in a student's final grade), I think it helps to explain to your students <b><i>why</i></b>.<br /> <br /> Part of that explanation, of course, is personal: Participation is an important part of their own learning, to help them understand the course material better.<br /> <br /> But I also impress on students that we're all in this together: We're going to be together in this room for three hours every week and a lot of that time is going to be taken up by class discussion. If people don't participate, those three hours are going to go by <b><i>really</i></b> slowly. In contrast, if everyone participates and does their part, the hours will fly by and we'll all have fun. I find students really respond to that sense of common purpose.<br /> <br /> <br /> <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" id="point2"></a> <b><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null"></a>2. Make sure students are prepared for weekly discussions.</span></b><br /> <br /> A common problem in teaching is the "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_knowledge">curse of knowledge</a>": Teachers are such experts in their field that they have trouble remembering how daunting a topic can be to complete beginners.<br /> <br /> I was often guilty of this when it came to class discussions. Some topics are so commonly discussed among working journalists &#8212; the use of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_(journalism)#Anonymous_sources">anonymous sources</a>, <a href="https://gigaom.com/2012/08/22/no-metered-content-walls-wont-save-journalism/">newspaper paywalls</a> &#8212; that I expected students to already have opinions about them, or to be able to come up with an opinion on the spot.<br /> <br /> But, of course, a first-year student taking an introductory journalism course has, in most cases, never thought about these topics at all.<br /> <br /> If you want to have a meaningful class discussion about a topic, you need to make sure students have had some time to learn about the topic and reflect on it <b><i>before</i></b> class begins.<br /> <br /> The typical way to deal with this challenge is with weekly readings: Have students read an article or two on the topic before class so they're ready to discuss it.<br /> <br /> The problem, of course, is that many students won't do the assigned readings or, even if they do, will skim them in a way that doesn't prepare them to think deeply about the discussion topic.<br /> <br /> I use a couple of strategies to address that.<br /> <br /> First, each week, along with the assigned readings, I give students a single question about the readings. For example, I'll have them read <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/nov/15/toronto-star-was-right-to-pay-for-video-of-mayors-drunken-rant?CMP=twt_fd">an article</a> or <a href="http://j-source.ca/article/should-media-pay-for-news/">two</a> about paying sources for stories and then pose the question: "Under what conditions is it OK for a news organization to pay money to a source for a story?"<br /> <br /> Each week, students have to email me a very brief "weekly report" in which they answer &#8212; in at least two sentences &#8212; that week's question. I don't make the reports worth a lot of marks, but it's worth enough that students won't blow them off.<br /> <br /> The other technique I use are quizzes. Each week, I give students a brief, three-question multiple-choice quiz on that week's readings. The quizzes are designed to be super easy for students who've done the readings (i.e. "What is this reading about?") and super hard for those who haven't.<br /> <br /> Together, the report and the quiz make it hard to do well in the class without doing the readings. And it ensures students are adequately prepared to participate fully in class discussions.<br /> <br /> I often still spring some new questions on students in class &#8212; or get them to respond to a video or audio clip that they're seeing in class for the first time. But at least students are well prepared for that one, main question every week.<br /> <br /> <br /> <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" id="point3"></a> <b><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null"></a>3. Have students self-report their participation marks.</span></b><br /> <br /> This idea I stole from the instructor who taught the Intro class before me, and it's a great one.<br /> <br /> Instead of the instructor being responsible for keeping track of each student's participation marks, students report their own participation each week on a sheet of paper (<a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JlNx-5HogcLTYHuNgt0IaXvoxO5fpNbE/view?usp=sharing">here's an example</a>).<br /> <br /> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kKzMKWUXN7o/W5KyApokKPI/AAAAAAABH8M/9i5GyIMtk1skyRGNscdBsFbcjZ7-O3BGgCLcBGAs/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2018-09-07%2Bat%2B10.14.17%2BAM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="357" data-original-width="659" height="216" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kKzMKWUXN7o/W5KyApokKPI/AAAAAAABH8M/9i5GyIMtk1skyRGNscdBsFbcjZ7-O3BGgCLcBGAs/s400/Screen%2BShot%2B2018-09-07%2Bat%2B10.14.17%2BAM.png" width="400" /></a></div> <br /> I tell students they're expected to speak at least twice each class. They then give themselves a checkmark for each time they speak (up to a maximum of two).<br /> <br /> This idea was meant to solve one problem: In a large class, it's really hard to know every student's name at the start of the course.<br /> <br /> But I think it also solves another problem: It makes participation marks simple and transparent.<br /> <br /> Participation marks that are assigned by the instructor can often be a bit ambiguous. Are students being marked on how much they participated in class? On the quality of their in-class contributions?<br /> <br /> Worst of all, I think that very ambiguity can discourage some students from participating. Many students don't participate because they don't think they have anything valuable to say. If an instructor is going to ultimately decide whether your participation is "good" or "bad", it's too easy to convince yourself that you don't have anything "good" to say and not participate at all.<br /> <br /> And, from the instructor's perspective, even if some students have "better" things to say in class than others, you want all students to participate, not just the keeners.<br /> <br /> A self-reported checkmark system removes that ambiguity. Attend every class and speak twice each class? You're going to get 100% for participation. Simple.<br /> <br /> To avoid abuse, I put some basic parameters on what qualifies for a checkmark: It needs to be a contribution of at least a couple of sentences (ie. "I agree with what she said" doesn't count). I also remind students that there is nothing more obvious in class than someone who says nothing, so if they cheat and give themselves checkmarks when they don't deserve them, I'll notice.<br /> <br /> Finally, I recommend putting out the checkmark sheet at the end of class. If you bring it out at the break, some students will give themselves two checkmarks and then skip the second half of class.<br /> <br /> <br /> <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" id="point4"></a> <b><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null"></a>4. Get students to discuss a question in small groups first.&nbsp;</span></b><br /> <br /> It took awhile before I tried this one, but I've found it makes a big difference.<br /> <br /> Before we discuss a topic, or question, as a whole class, I have students discuss the question in smaller groups first.<br /> <br /> Using <a href="http://chir.ag/projects/team-maker/">this simple "team maker" tool</a>, I break the class into four or five groups and then give them 5 to 10 minutes to discuss the topic in their small groups. Then I open it up to a discussion of the whole class.<br /> <br /> This isn't typical "group work". Students aren't asked to present on behalf of their group or anything like that. The small-group discussions are simply meant as a warm up for the main event. But it works wonders.<br /> <br /> Shy students may think what they have to say isn't very interesting and so are reluctant to say it in front of 30 or more of their fellow classmates. But put them in a group of just five or six fellow students, and it's not nearly so intimidating to share their thoughts.<br /> <br /> And when that small group finds what they have to say interesting, it gives them the confidence to share their thoughts with the whole class later.<br /> <br /> The key, I think, is not to overdo it with the small group discussions. Five minutes is often plenty to get the ball rolling. It's also important to stress to students that just saying something in their small group doesn't count for a participation checkmark. They need to share it with the whole class for it to count.<br /> <br /> <br /> <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" id="point5"></a> <b><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null"></a>5. Call on students at random.</span></b><br /> <br /> This idea came from a <a href="http://www.econtalk.org/doug-lemov-on-teaching/">interview</a> with education expert Doug Lemov on the EconTalk podcast. At about the 18:00 mark, Lemov talks about using "cold calling" in an elementary-school class. Instead of asking a question and waiting for students to raises their hand, Lemov encourages teachers to just call on any student at random.<br /> <br /> The genius of cold-calling, according to Lemov, is that it forces all students, <i>even those not called upon</i>, to think about their answer. It's also a lot faster, because you don't have to wait for students to raise their hand before calling on them or &#8212; even worse &#8211; have no students raise their hand and then basically plead with your class for someone to answer the question.<br /> <br /> What's interesting about cold-calling is that it's a technique that's already used by most instructors, but poorly: Either out of desperation, when no one raises their hand. Or (somewhat) cruelly, to put a student who never participates on the spot.<br /> <br /> The key to making it work, I think, is consistency: To use it all the time, for every question.<br /> <br /> I jokingly tell my students that, instead of picking on the one or two students who never raise their hand, I instead pick on <b><i>everybody</i></b>.<br /> <br /> I'm also a bit more systematic in my approach.<br /> <br /> Partly because it takes me awhile to learn my students' names and partly because I don't trust myself to be completely fair in calling on students, each class I randomize the class list. (I <a href="https://support.office.com/en-us/article/rand-function-4cbfa695-8869-4788-8d90-021ea9f5be73">randomly</a> <a href="https://support.office.com/en-us/article/sort-data-in-a-range-or-table-62d0b95d-2a90-4610-a6ae-2e545c4a4654">sort</a> an Excel spreadsheet but this <a href="https://www.random.org/lists/">online list randomizer</a> works just as well.)<br /> <br /> Then &#8212; for every question &#8212; I start by calling on the three students whose names are at the top of the randomized list. Then, for the next question, I call on the next three. And so on. The first time I do this, I show students how I randomize the list on screen. Every time after that, it's secret, so students never know when they might be called on.<br /> <br /> While I start each class discussion by calling on students at random, after the first three students have been called on, any student can raise their hand and talk. And, in my experience, many do.<br /> <br /> I think that's because, fearing they might be called on, most students have prepared a response in their head. So, then, when they're not called on, they figure they might as well share their thought anyways and get their participation checkmark.<br /> <br /> Those are my five suggestions for how to get students to participate more.<br /> <br /> If you've got a trick to share, please add it in the comments. Note: To avoid spam comments, all comments on this site are moderated, so it may take awhile for your comment to show up.<br /> <br /> <br /> <div style='clear: both;'></div> </div> <div class='post-footer'> <div class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-1'> <span class='post-author vcard'> Posted by <span class='fn' itemprop='author' itemscope='itemscope' itemtype='http://schema.org/Person'> <meta content='https://www.blogger.com/profile/16986292503424513742' itemprop='url'/> <a class='g-profile' href='https://www.blogger.com/profile/16986292503424513742' rel='author' title='author profile'> <span itemprop='name'>Chad Skelton</span> </a> </span> </span> <span class='post-timestamp'> at <meta content='http://www.chadskelton.com/2019/01/five-ways-to-get-your-students-to.html' itemprop='url'/> <a class='timestamp-link' href='http://www.chadskelton.com/2019/01/five-ways-to-get-your-students-to.html' rel='bookmark' title='permanent link'><abbr class='published' itemprop='datePublished' title='2019-01-10T09:04:00-08:00'>9:04 AM</abbr></a> </span> <span class='reaction-buttons'> </span> <span class='post-comment-link'> <a class='comment-link' href='http://www.chadskelton.com/2019/01/five-ways-to-get-your-students-to.html#comment-form' onclick=''> No comments: </a> </span> <span class='post-backlinks post-comment-link'> </span> <span class='post-icons'> <span class='item-control blog-admin pid-1917174372'> <a href='https://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=8619350854485037959&from=pencil' title='Edit Post'> <img alt='' class='icon-action' height='18' src='https://resources.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif' width='18'/> </a> </span> </span> <div class='post-share-buttons goog-inline-block'> <a class='goog-inline-block share-button sb-email' href='https://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=8619350854485037959&target=email' target='_blank' title='Email This'><span class='share-button-link-text'>Email This</span></a><a class='goog-inline-block share-button sb-blog' href='https://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=8619350854485037959&target=blog' onclick='window.open(this.href, "_blank", "height=270,width=475"); return false;' target='_blank' title='BlogThis!'><span class='share-button-link-text'>BlogThis!</span></a><a class='goog-inline-block share-button sb-twitter' href='https://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=8619350854485037959&target=twitter' target='_blank' title='Share to Twitter'><span class='share-button-link-text'>Share to Twitter</span></a><a class='goog-inline-block share-button sb-facebook' href='https://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=8619350854485037959&target=facebook' onclick='window.open(this.href, "_blank", "height=430,width=640"); return false;' target='_blank' title='Share to Facebook'><span class='share-button-link-text'>Share to Facebook</span></a><a class='goog-inline-block share-button sb-pinterest' href='https://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=8619350854485037959&target=pinterest' target='_blank' title='Share to Pinterest'><span class='share-button-link-text'>Share to Pinterest</span></a> </div> </div> <div class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-2'> <span class='post-labels'> </span> </div> <div class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-3'> <span class='post-location'> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div></div> <div class="date-outer"> <h2 class='date-header'><span>Tuesday, July 24, 2018</span></h2> <div class="date-posts"> <div class='post-outer'> <div class='post hentry uncustomized-post-template' itemprop='blogPost' itemscope='itemscope' itemtype='http://schema.org/BlogPosting'> <meta content='https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9ac0BDMZUL0/WEdm2M0NOyI/AAAAAAAAxdI/p0o9cwuhgVwGFqJ-tufrltAM1P7k52XPACLcB/s320/FSA-map.png' itemprop='image_url'/> <meta content='6083825495664061008' itemprop='blogId'/> <meta content='8268888956071405187' itemprop='postId'/> <a name='8268888956071405187'></a> <h3 class='post-title entry-title' itemprop='name'> <a href='http://www.chadskelton.com/2018/07/my-next-online-tableau-training.html'>My next Online Tableau Training workshop is this September</a> </h3> <div class='post-header'> <div class='post-header-line-1'></div> </div> <div class='post-body entry-content' id='post-body-8268888956071405187' itemprop='description articleBody'> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9ac0BDMZUL0/WEdm2M0NOyI/AAAAAAAAxdI/p0o9cwuhgVwGFqJ-tufrltAM1P7k52XPACLcB/s1600/FSA-map.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="234" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9ac0BDMZUL0/WEdm2M0NOyI/AAAAAAAAxdI/p0o9cwuhgVwGFqJ-tufrltAM1P7k52XPACLcB/s320/FSA-map.png" width="320" /></a></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> My next <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/online-tableau-training-telling-stories-with-data-tickets-47776156771?aff=bp">online Tableau training workshop</a> will be held this September over three Thursdays: <b>Sept. 13, 20</b> and <b>27</b>. You can buy tickets <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/online-tableau-training-telling-stories-with-data-tickets-47776156771?aff=bp">here</a> or by clicking the button below:</div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/online-tableau-training-telling-stories-with-data-tickets-47776156771?aff=bp"><img border="0" data-original-height="44" data-original-width="257" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LvUj8JUjbt0/Wqqcp0uDfXI/AAAAAAABA3E/9Jm1-kfDgO8tjs0grYCOuBrgO5dq1tyTgCLcBGAs/s1600/eventbrite-button.png" /></a></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> Here are some <a href="http://www.chadskelton.com/p/workshops.html">testimonials</a> from people who've attended my earlier training sessions.</div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> <br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> If you can't make this workshop but would like to be alerted when the next one is scheduled, just <a href="http://chadskelton.us14.list-manage1.com/subscribe?u=f77761916f1d313badb1dc5da&amp;id=7b3df945be">add your name here</a>.</div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> <br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> If you have several people at your organization who need training in Tableau, I'm also available for <a href="http://www.chadskelton.com/p/excel-and-tableau-training-in-vancouver.html">onsite training</a>.</div> <br /> <div style='clear: both;'></div> </div> <div class='post-footer'> <div class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-1'> <span class='post-author vcard'> Posted by <span class='fn' itemprop='author' itemscope='itemscope' itemtype='http://schema.org/Person'> <meta content='https://www.blogger.com/profile/16986292503424513742' itemprop='url'/> <a class='g-profile' href='https://www.blogger.com/profile/16986292503424513742' rel='author' title='author profile'> <span itemprop='name'>Chad Skelton</span> </a> </span> </span> <span class='post-timestamp'> at <meta content='http://www.chadskelton.com/2018/07/my-next-online-tableau-training.html' itemprop='url'/> <a class='timestamp-link' href='http://www.chadskelton.com/2018/07/my-next-online-tableau-training.html' rel='bookmark' title='permanent link'><abbr class='published' itemprop='datePublished' title='2018-07-24T09:58:00-07:00'>9:58 AM</abbr></a> </span> <span class='reaction-buttons'> </span> <span class='post-comment-link'> <a class='comment-link' href='http://www.chadskelton.com/2018/07/my-next-online-tableau-training.html#comment-form' onclick=''> No comments: </a> </span> <span class='post-backlinks post-comment-link'> </span> <span class='post-icons'> <span class='item-control blog-admin pid-1917174372'> <a href='https://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=8268888956071405187&from=pencil' title='Edit Post'> <img alt='' class='icon-action' height='18' src='https://resources.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif' width='18'/> </a> </span> </span> <div class='post-share-buttons goog-inline-block'> <a class='goog-inline-block share-button sb-email' href='https://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=8268888956071405187&target=email' target='_blank' title='Email This'><span class='share-button-link-text'>Email This</span></a><a class='goog-inline-block share-button sb-blog' href='https://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=8268888956071405187&target=blog' onclick='window.open(this.href, "_blank", "height=270,width=475"); return false;' target='_blank' title='BlogThis!'><span class='share-button-link-text'>BlogThis!</span></a><a class='goog-inline-block share-button sb-twitter' href='https://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=8268888956071405187&target=twitter' target='_blank' title='Share to Twitter'><span class='share-button-link-text'>Share to Twitter</span></a><a class='goog-inline-block share-button sb-facebook' href='https://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=8268888956071405187&target=facebook' onclick='window.open(this.href, "_blank", "height=430,width=640"); return false;' target='_blank' title='Share to Facebook'><span class='share-button-link-text'>Share to Facebook</span></a><a class='goog-inline-block share-button sb-pinterest' href='https://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=8268888956071405187&target=pinterest' target='_blank' title='Share to Pinterest'><span class='share-button-link-text'>Share to Pinterest</span></a> </div> </div> <div class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-2'> <span class='post-labels'> </span> </div> <div class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-3'> <span class='post-location'> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div></div> <div class="date-outer"> <h2 class='date-header'><span>Thursday, June 7, 2018</span></h2> <div class="date-posts"> <div class='post-outer'> <div class='post hentry uncustomized-post-template' itemprop='blogPost' itemscope='itemscope' itemtype='http://schema.org/BlogPosting'> <meta content='https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ena8oKLpRoQ/WxbR9ay5U3I/AAAAAAABDWY/eZIxH3uQbbkQ6UjuH4OeVGAA-WjZzvsFQCLcBGAs/s400/Screen%2BShot%2B2018-06-05%2Bat%2B11.09.20%2BAM.png' itemprop='image_url'/> <meta content='6083825495664061008' itemprop='blogId'/> <meta content='5150674474426555157' itemprop='postId'/> <a name='5150674474426555157'></a> <h3 class='post-title entry-title' itemprop='name'> <a href='http://www.chadskelton.com/2018/06/how-much-evidence-do-we-need-for-data.html'>How much evidence do we need for a data visualization "rule"?</a> </h3> <div class='post-header'> <div class='post-header-line-1'></div> </div> <div class='post-body entry-content' id='post-body-5150674474426555157' itemprop='description articleBody'> In a <a href="http://www.chadskelton.com/2018/06/bar-charts-should-always-start-at-zero.html">separate post</a>, I laid out some of my arguments for why I think most line charts should start at zero. I posted some of my initial thoughts on that topic on Twitter, which generated some really thoughtful replies.<br /> <br /> One of them, from Steve Haroz, noted that he knew of know evidence that people read non-zero-baseline bar charts any differently than non-zero-baseline line charts. And, furthermore, that we should be careful in talking about data visualization "rules" when our evidence for them is weak or nonexistent.<br /> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en"> <div dir="ltr" lang="en"> Rely on evidence. When there is little or none, don't claim that some absolute or universal rule exists. It's fine to say "maybe" or "I prefer".</div> &#8212; Steve Haroz (@sharoz) <a href="https://twitter.com/sharoz/status/999734337078812675?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 24, 2018</a></blockquote> <script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script> <br /> This led to a quite spirited discussion about whether data-visualization "guidelines" or "rules of thumb" that don't have any empirical research to back them up can still be valuable, or if we should stick primarily to those things that we have solid evidence for.<br /> <br /> Speaking personally, I didn't fully appreciate the gaps in data visualization research until I watched Robert Kosara's <a href="https://eagereyes.org/talk/how-do-we-know-that">excellent talk at the University of Washington</a>, "How Do We Know That?"<br /> <br /> The talk is based on Kosara's paper, <a href="https://eagereyes.org/papers/an-empire-built-on-sand">Empire of Sand</a>, which I now <a href="http://www.chadskelton.com/2017/04/data-visualization-reading-list.html">assign to my students</a> at the University of Florida.<br /> <br /> As Kosara points out, many of the things we think we know about data visualization have little empirical evidence to back them up. And other well-accepted "rules" may actually be wrong (for example, "chartjunk" may <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7141r6QQ2A">not be so bad after all</a>).<br /> <br /> Some rules are based on nothing more than the strong opinions of influential early writers in the field (like <a href="https://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/">Edward Tufte</a>&nbsp;and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Bertin">Jacques Bertin</a>) and have not actually been subject to peer-reviewed research.<br /> <br /> So where does that leave us as data visualization practitioners and teachers?<br /> <br /> It would seem obvious that we shouldn't teach "rules" that we know to be wrong. But what about the many areas for which there is little or no empirical evidence at all? Can theory replace research in some cases? Is a common practice worth teaching our students even if we don't know it to be true?<br /> <br /> Below, I've tried to collect some of my own thoughts on the matter as well as those of others who took part in the Twitter discussion.<br /> <br /> First, though, a big caveat about my own tweets: While I teach at a university and have (strong) opinions on how to teach data visualization, I'm an "instructor" not a "professor". I don't have a PhD and I'm not engaged in academic research myself.<br /> <br /> Let's get to the tweets!<br /> <br /> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"> <div dir="ltr" lang="en"> My argument is based more on encoding consistency, though, and prudence: if encoding is height, then it may be safer if height is proportional to numbers</div> &#8212; Alberto Cairo (@albertocairo) <a href="https://twitter.com/albertocairo/status/999740531193376769?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 24, 2018</a></blockquote> <script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script> <br /> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en"> <div dir="ltr" lang="en"> We don't know what visual cue people use or how they reason with it. Could be length. Could be area. Could be position of the top of the bar. And not clear why a point's distance from the x-axis is different from the length of a bar. There are plausible options, but no evidence.</div> &#8212; Steve Haroz (@sharoz) <a href="https://twitter.com/sharoz/status/999742358777458689?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 24, 2018</a></blockquote> <script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script> <br /> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en"> <div dir="ltr" lang="en"> That&#8217;s the key point! There&#8217;s elegance, Bertin-style retinal variables, etc., and then there&#8217;s the actual psychology, cognition, etc., and there are still big gaps in our knowledge of the latter.</div> <!DOCTYPE html> <html class='v2' dir='ltr' xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml' xmlns:b='http://www.google.com/2005/gml/b' xmlns:data='http://www.google.com/2005/gml/data' xmlns:expr='http://www.google.com/2005/gml/expr'> <head> <link href='https://www.blogger.com/static/v1/widgets/3597120983-css_bundle_v2.css' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'/> <meta content='width=1100' name='viewport'/> <meta content='text/html; charset=UTF-8' http-equiv='Content-Type'/> <meta content='blogger' name='generator'/> <link href='http://www.chadskelton.com/favicon.ico' rel='icon' type='image/x-icon'/> <link href='http://www.chadskelton.com/' rel='canonical'/> <link rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" title="Chad Skelton - Atom" href="http://www.chadskelton.com/feeds/posts/default" /> <link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="Chad Skelton - RSS" href="http://www.chadskelton.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss" /> <link rel="service.post" type="application/atom+xml" title="Chad Skelton - Atom" href="https://www.blogger.com/feeds/6083825495664061008/posts/default" /> <link rel="me" href="https://www.blogger.com/profile/16986292503424513742" /> <!--[if IE]><script type="text/javascript" src="https://www.blogger.com/static/v1/jsbin/3399642339-ieretrofit.js"></script> <![endif]--> <meta content='http://www.chadskelton.com/' property='og:url'/> <meta content='Chad Skelton' property='og:title'/> <meta content='Telling stories with data' property='og:description'/> <!--[if IE]> <script> (function() { var html5 = ("abbr,article,aside,audio,canvas,datalist,details," + "figure,footer,header,hgroup,mark,menu,meter,nav,output," + "progress,section,time,video").split(','); for (var i = 0; i < html5.length; i++) { document.createElement(html5[i]); } try { document.execCommand('BackgroundImageCache', false, true); } catch(e) {} })(); </script> <![endif]--> <title>Chad Skelton</title> <style id='page-skin-1' type='text/css'><!-- /* ----------------------------------------------- Blogger Template Style Name: Awesome Inc. 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default="#222222"/> <Variable name="widget.border.bevel.color" description="Bevel Color" type="color" default="#000000"/> </Group> <Group description="Sidebar Background" selector=".column-left-inner .column-right-inner"> <Variable name="widget.outer.background.color" description="Background Color" type="color" default="transparent" /> </Group> <Group description="Images" selector=".main-inner"> <Variable name="image.background.color" description="Background Color" type="color" default="transparent"/> <Variable name="image.border.color" description="Border Color" type="color" default="transparent"/> </Group> <Group description="Feed" selector=".blog-feeds"> <Variable name="feed.text.color" description="Text Color" type="color" default="#333333"/> </Group> <Group description="Feed Links" selector=".blog-feeds"> <Variable name="feed.link.color" description="Link Color" type="color" default="#29aae1"/> <Variable name="feed.link.visited.color" description="Visited Color" type="color" default="#015782"/> <Variable name="feed.link.hover.color" description="Hover Color" type="color" default="#29aae1"/> </Group> <Group description="Pager" selector=".blog-pager"> <Variable name="pager.background.color" description="Background Color" type="color" default="#ffffff" /> </Group> <Group description="Footer" selector=".footer-outer"> <Variable name="footer.background.color" description="Background Color" type="color" default="transparent" /> <Variable name="footer.text.color" description="Text Color" type="color" default="#333333" /> </Group> <Variable name="title.shadow.spread" description="Title Shadow" type="length" default="-1px" min="-1px" max="100px"/> <Variable name="body.background" description="Body Background" type="background" color="#2d3037" default="$(color) none repeat scroll top left"/> <Variable name="body.background.gradient.cap" description="Body Gradient Cap" type="url" default="none"/> <Variable name="body.background.size" description="Body Background Size" type="string" default="auto"/> <Variable name="tabs.background.gradient" description="Tabs Background Gradient" type="url" default="none"/> <Variable name="header.background.gradient" description="Header Background Gradient" type="url" default="none" /> <Variable name="header.padding.top" description="Header Top Padding" type="length" default="22px" min="0" max="100px"/> <Variable name="header.margin.top" description="Header Top Margin" type="length" default="0" min="0" max="100px"/> <Variable name="header.margin.bottom" description="Header Bottom Margin" type="length" default="0" min="0" max="100px"/> <Variable name="widget.padding.top" description="Widget Padding Top" type="length" default="8px" min="0" max="20px"/> <Variable name="widget.padding.side" description="Widget Padding Side" type="length" default="15px" min="0" max="100px"/> <Variable name="widget.outer.margin.top" description="Widget Top Margin" type="length" default="0" min="0" max="100px"/> <Variable name="widget.outer.background.gradient" description="Gradient" type="url" default="none" /> <Variable name="widget.border.radius" description="Gadget Border Radius" type="length" default="0" min="0" max="100px"/> <Variable name="outer.shadow.spread" description="Outer Shadow Size" type="length" default="0" min="0" max="100px"/> <Variable name="date.header.border.radius.top" description="Date Header Border Radius Top" type="length" default="0" min="0" max="100px"/> <Variable name="date.header.position" description="Date Header Position" type="length" default="15px" min="0" max="100px"/> <Variable name="date.space" description="Date Space" type="length" default="30px" min="0" max="100px"/> <Variable name="date.position" description="Date Float" type="string" default="static" /> <Variable name="date.padding.bottom" description="Date Padding Bottom" type="length" default="0" min="0" max="100px"/> <Variable name="date.border.size" description="Date Border Size" type="length" default="0" min="0" max="10px"/> <Variable name="date.background" description="Date Background" type="background" color="transparent" default="$(color) none no-repeat scroll top left" /> <Variable name="date.first.border.radius.top" description="Date First top radius" type="length" default="0" min="0" max="100px"/> <Variable name="date.last.space.bottom" description="Date Last Space Bottom" type="length" default="20px" min="0" max="100px"/> <Variable name="date.last.border.radius.bottom" description="Date Last bottom radius" type="length" default="0" min="0" max="100px"/> <Variable name="post.first.padding.top" description="First Post Padding Top" type="length" default="0" min="0" max="100px"/> <Variable name="image.shadow.spread" description="Image Shadow Size" type="length" default="0" min="0" max="100px"/> <Variable name="image.border.radius" description="Image Border Radius" type="length" default="0" min="0" max="100px"/> <Variable name="separator.outdent" description="Separator Outdent" type="length" default="15px" min="0" max="100px"/> <Variable name="title.separator.border.size" description="Widget Title Border Size" type="length" default="1px" min="0" max="10px"/> <Variable name="list.separator.border.size" description="List Separator Border Size" type="length" default="1px" min="0" max="10px"/> <Variable name="shadow.spread" description="Shadow Size" type="length" default="0" min="0" max="100px"/> <Variable name="startSide" description="Side where text starts in blog language" type="automatic" default="left"/> <Variable name="endSide" description="Side where text ends in blog language" type="automatic" default="right"/> <Variable name="date.side" description="Side where date header is placed" type="string" default="right"/> <Variable name="pager.border.radius.top" description="Pager Border Top Radius" type="length" default="0" min="0" max="100px"/> <Variable name="pager.space.top" description="Pager Top Space" type="length" default="1em" min="0" max="20em"/> <Variable name="footer.background.gradient" description="Background Gradient" type="url" default="none" /> <Variable name="mobile.background.size" description="Mobile Background Size" type="string" default="auto"/> <Variable name="mobile.background.overlay" description="Mobile Background Overlay" type="string" default="transparent none repeat scroll top left"/> <Variable name="mobile.button.color" description="Mobile Button Color" type="color" default="#ffffff" /> */ /* Content ----------------------------------------------- */ body { font: normal normal 15px 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, sans-serif; color: #333333; background: #2d3037 none repeat scroll top left; } html body .content-outer { min-width: 0; max-width: 100%; width: 100%; } a:link { text-decoration: none; color: #29aae1; } a:visited { text-decoration: none; color: #015782; } a:hover { text-decoration: underline; color: #29aae1; } .body-fauxcolumn-outer .cap-top { position: absolute; z-index: 1; height: 276px; width: 100%; background: transparent none repeat-x scroll top left; _background-image: none; } /* Columns ----------------------------------------------- */ .content-inner { padding: 0; } .header-inner .section { margin: 0 16px; } .tabs-inner .section { margin: 0 16px; } .main-inner { padding-top: 55px; } .main-inner .column-center-inner, .main-inner .column-left-inner, .main-inner .column-right-inner { padding: 0 5px; } *+html body .main-inner .column-center-inner { margin-top: -55px; } #layout .main-inner .column-center-inner { margin-top: 0; } /* Header ----------------------------------------------- */ .header-outer { margin: 0 0 15px 0; background: #ffffff none repeat scroll 0 0; } .Header h1 { font: normal bold 60px 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, sans-serif; color: #015782; } .Header h1 a { color: #015782; } .Header .description { font: normal normal 30px 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, sans-serif; color: #015782; } .header-inner .Header .titlewrapper, .header-inner .Header .descriptionwrapper { padding-left: 0; padding-right: 0; margin-bottom: 0; } .header-inner .Header .titlewrapper { padding-top: 22px; } /* Tabs ----------------------------------------------- */ .tabs-outer { overflow: hidden; position: relative; background: #29aae1 url(//www.blogblog.com/1kt/awesomeinc/tabs_gradient_light.png) repeat scroll 0 0; } #layout .tabs-outer { overflow: visible; } .tabs-cap-top, .tabs-cap-bottom { position: absolute; width: 100%; border-top: 1px solid #2d3037; } .tabs-cap-bottom { bottom: 0; } .tabs-inner .widget li a { display: inline-block; margin: 0; padding: .6em 1.5em; font: normal normal 20px 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, sans-serif; color: #ffffff; border-top: 1px solid #2d3037; border-bottom: 1px solid #2d3037; border-left: 1px solid #2d3037; height: 16px; line-height: 16px; } .tabs-inner .widget li:last-child a { border-right: 1px solid #2d3037; } .tabs-inner .widget li.selected a, .tabs-inner .widget li a:hover { background: #01689c url(//www.blogblog.com/1kt/awesomeinc/tabs_gradient_light.png) repeat-x scroll 0 -100px; color: #ffffff; } /* Headings ----------------------------------------------- */ h2 { font: normal normal 18px 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, sans-serif; color: #8ce1f5; } /* Widgets ----------------------------------------------- */ .main-inner .section { margin: 0 27px; padding: 0; } .main-inner .column-left-outer, .main-inner .column-right-outer { margin-top: -3.3em; } #layout .main-inner .column-left-outer, #layout .main-inner .column-right-outer { margin-top: 0; } .main-inner .column-left-inner, .main-inner .column-right-inner { background: transparent none repeat 0 0; -moz-box-shadow: 0 0 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, .2); -webkit-box-shadow: 0 0 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, .2); -goog-ms-box-shadow: 0 0 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, .2); box-shadow: 0 0 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, .2); -moz-border-radius: 0; -webkit-border-radius: 0; -goog-ms-border-radius: 0; border-radius: 0; } #layout .main-inner .column-left-inner, #layout .main-inner .column-right-inner { margin-top: 0; } .sidebar .widget { font: normal normal 13px Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; color: #ffffff; } .sidebar .widget a:link { color: #29aae1; } .sidebar .widget a:visited { color: #015782; } .sidebar .widget a:hover { color: #29aae1; } .sidebar .widget h2 { text-shadow: 0 0 20px #000000; } .main-inner .widget { background-color: transparent; border: 1px solid transparent; padding: 0 0 15px; margin: 20px -16px; -moz-box-shadow: 0 0 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, .2); -webkit-box-shadow: 0 0 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, .2); -goog-ms-box-shadow: 0 0 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, .2); box-shadow: 0 0 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, .2); -moz-border-radius: 0; -webkit-border-radius: 0; -goog-ms-border-radius: 0; border-radius: 0; } .main-inner .widget h2 { margin: 0 -0; padding: .6em 0 .5em; border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; } .footer-inner .widget h2 { padding: 0 0 .4em; border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; } .main-inner .widget h2 + div, .footer-inner .widget h2 + div { border-top: 0 solid transparent; padding-top: 8px; } .main-inner .widget .widget-content { margin: 0 -0; padding: 7px 0 0; } .main-inner .widget ul, .main-inner .widget #ArchiveList ul.flat { margin: -8px -15px 0; padding: 0; list-style: none; } .main-inner .widget #ArchiveList { margin: -8px 0 0; } .main-inner .widget ul li, .main-inner .widget #ArchiveList ul.flat li { padding: .5em 15px; text-indent: 0; color: #ffffff; border-top: 0 solid transparent; border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; } .main-inner .widget #ArchiveList ul li { padding-top: .25em; padding-bottom: .25em; } .main-inner .widget ul li:first-child, .main-inner .widget #ArchiveList ul.flat li:first-child { border-top: none; } .main-inner .widget ul li:last-child, .main-inner .widget #ArchiveList ul.flat li:last-child { border-bottom: none; } .post-body { position: relative; } .main-inner .widget .post-body ul { padding: 0 2.5em; margin: .5em 0; list-style: disc; } .main-inner .widget .post-body ul li { padding: 0.25em 0; margin-bottom: .25em; color: #333333; border: none; } .footer-inner .widget ul { padding: 0; list-style: none; } .widget .zippy { color: #ffffff; } /* Posts ----------------------------------------------- */ body .main-inner .Blog { padding: 0; margin-bottom: 1em; background-color: transparent; border: none; -moz-box-shadow: 0 0 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-box-shadow: 0 0 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -goog-ms-box-shadow: 0 0 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-shadow: 0 0 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); } .main-inner .section:last-child .Blog:last-child { padding: 0; margin-bottom: 1em; } .main-inner .widget h2.date-header { margin: 0 -15px 1px; padding: 0 0 0 0; font: normal normal 18px Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; color: #ffffff; background: transparent none no-repeat fixed center center; border-top: 0 solid transparent; border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; -moz-border-radius-topleft: 0; -moz-border-radius-topright: 0; -webkit-border-top-left-radius: 0; -webkit-border-top-right-radius: 0; border-top-left-radius: 0; border-top-right-radius: 0; position: absolute; bottom: 100%; left: 0; text-shadow: 0 0 20px #000000; } .main-inner .widget h2.date-header span { font: normal normal 18px Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; display: block; padding: .5em 15px; border-left: 0 solid transparent; border-right: 0 solid transparent; } .date-outer { position: relative; margin: 55px 0 20px; padding: 0 15px; background-color: #ffffff; border: 1px solid #8ce1f5; -moz-box-shadow: 0 0 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, .2); -webkit-box-shadow: 0 0 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, .2); -goog-ms-box-shadow: 0 0 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, .2); box-shadow: 0 0 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, .2); -moz-border-radius: 0; -webkit-border-radius: 0; -goog-ms-border-radius: 0; border-radius: 0; } .date-outer:first-child { margin-top: 0; } .date-outer:last-child { margin-bottom: 0; -moz-border-radius-bottomleft: 0; -moz-border-radius-bottomright: 0; -webkit-border-bottom-left-radius: 0; -webkit-border-bottom-right-radius: 0; -goog-ms-border-bottom-left-radius: 0; -goog-ms-border-bottom-right-radius: 0; border-bottom-left-radius: 0; border-bottom-right-radius: 0; } .date-posts { margin: 0 -0; padding: 0 0; clear: both; } .post-outer, .inline-ad { border-top: 1px solid #8ce1f5; margin: 0 -0; padding: 15px 0; } .post-outer { padding-bottom: 10px; } .post-outer:first-child { padding-top: 10px; border-top: none; } .post-outer:last-child, .inline-ad:last-child { border-bottom: none; } .post-body { position: relative; } .post-body img { padding: 8px; background: #ffffff; border: 1px solid #cccccc; -moz-box-shadow: 0 0 20px rgba(0, 0, 0, .2); -webkit-box-shadow: 0 0 20px rgba(0, 0, 0, .2); box-shadow: 0 0 20px rgba(0, 0, 0, .2); -moz-border-radius: 0; -webkit-border-radius: 0; border-radius: 0; } h3.post-title, h4 { font: normal bold 24px 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, sans-serif; color: #015782; } h3.post-title a { font: normal bold 24px 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, sans-serif; color: #015782; } h3.post-title a:hover { color: #29aae1; text-decoration: underline; } .post-header { margin: 0 0 1em; } .post-body { line-height: 1.4; } .post-outer h2 { color: #333333; } .post-footer { margin: 1.5em 0 0; } #blog-pager { padding: 15px; font-size: 120%; background-color: transparent; border: 1px solid transparent; -moz-box-shadow: 0 0 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, .2); -webkit-box-shadow: 0 0 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, .2); -goog-ms-box-shadow: 0 0 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, .2); box-shadow: 0 0 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, .2); -moz-border-radius: 0; -webkit-border-radius: 0; -goog-ms-border-radius: 0; border-radius: 0; -moz-border-radius-topleft: 0; -moz-border-radius-topright: 0; -webkit-border-top-left-radius: 0; -webkit-border-top-right-radius: 0; -goog-ms-border-top-left-radius: 0; -goog-ms-border-top-right-radius: 0; border-top-left-radius: 0; border-top-right-radius-topright: 0; margin-top: 0; } .blog-feeds, .post-feeds { margin: 1em 0; text-align: center; color: #ffffff; } .blog-feeds a, .post-feeds a { color: #29aae1; } .blog-feeds a:visited, .post-feeds a:visited { color: #015782; } .blog-feeds a:hover, .post-feeds a:hover { color: #29aae1; } .post-outer .comments { margin-top: 2em; } /* Comments ----------------------------------------------- */ .comments .comments-content .icon.blog-author { background-repeat: no-repeat; background-image: url(data:image/png;base64,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); } .comments .comments-content .loadmore a { border-top: 1px solid #2d3037; border-bottom: 1px solid #2d3037; } .comments .continue { border-top: 2px solid #2d3037; } /* Footer ----------------------------------------------- */ .footer-outer { margin: -0 0 -1px; padding: 0 0 0; color: #ffffff; overflow: hidden; } .footer-fauxborder-left { border-top: 1px solid transparent; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0 0; -moz-box-shadow: 0 0 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, .2); -webkit-box-shadow: 0 0 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, .2); -goog-ms-box-shadow: 0 0 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, .2); box-shadow: 0 0 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, .2); margin: 0 -0; } /* Mobile ----------------------------------------------- */ body.mobile { background-size: auto; } .mobile .body-fauxcolumn-outer { background: transparent none repeat scroll top left; } *+html body.mobile .main-inner .column-center-inner { margin-top: 0; } .mobile .main-inner .widget { padding: 0 0 15px; } .mobile .main-inner .widget h2 + div, .mobile .footer-inner .widget h2 + div { border-top: none; padding-top: 0; } .mobile .footer-inner .widget h2 { padding: 0.5em 0; border-bottom: none; } .mobile .main-inner .widget .widget-content { margin: 0; padding: 7px 0 0; } .mobile .main-inner .widget ul, .mobile .main-inner .widget #ArchiveList ul.flat { margin: 0 -15px 0; } .mobile .main-inner .widget h2.date-header { left: 0; } .mobile .date-header span { padding: 0.4em 0; } .mobile .date-outer:first-child { margin-bottom: 0; border: 1px solid #8ce1f5; -moz-border-radius-topleft: 0; -moz-border-radius-topright: 0; -webkit-border-top-left-radius: 0; -webkit-border-top-right-radius: 0; -goog-ms-border-top-left-radius: 0; -goog-ms-border-top-right-radius: 0; border-top-left-radius: 0; border-top-right-radius: 0; } .mobile .date-outer { border-color: #8ce1f5; border-width: 0 1px 1px; } .mobile .date-outer:last-child { margin-bottom: 0; } .mobile .main-inner { padding: 0; } .mobile .header-inner .section { margin: 0; } .mobile .post-outer, .mobile .inline-ad { padding: 5px 0; } .mobile .tabs-inner .section { margin: 0 10px; } .mobile .main-inner .widget h2 { margin: 0; padding: 0; } .mobile .main-inner .widget h2.date-header span { padding: 0; } .mobile .main-inner .widget .widget-content { margin: 0; padding: 7px 0 0; } .mobile #blog-pager { border: 1px solid transparent; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0 0; } .mobile .main-inner .column-left-inner, .mobile .main-inner .column-right-inner { background: transparent none repeat 0 0; -moz-box-shadow: none; -webkit-box-shadow: none; -goog-ms-box-shadow: none; box-shadow: none; } .mobile .date-posts { margin: 0; padding: 0; } .mobile .footer-fauxborder-left { margin: 0; border-top: inherit; } .mobile .main-inner .section:last-child .Blog:last-child { margin-bottom: 0; } .mobile-index-contents { color: #333333; } .mobile .mobile-link-button { background: #29aae1 url(//www.blogblog.com/1kt/awesomeinc/tabs_gradient_light.png) repeat scroll 0 0; } .mobile-link-button a:link, .mobile-link-button a:visited { color: #ffffff; } .mobile .tabs-inner .PageList .widget-content { background: transparent; border-top: 1px solid; border-color: #2d3037; color: #ffffff; } .mobile .tabs-inner .PageList .widget-content .pagelist-arrow { border-left: 1px solid #2d3037; } .post-body img, .post-body .tr-caption-container, .Profile img, .Image img, .BlogList .item-thumbnail img { padding: 0 !important; border: none !important; background: none !important; -moz-box-shadow: 0px 0px 0px transparent !important; -webkit-box-shadow: 0px 0px 0px transparent !important; box-shadow: 0px 0px 0px transparent !important; } --></style> <style id='template-skin-1' type='text/css'><!-- body { min-width: 900px; } .content-outer, .content-fauxcolumn-outer, .region-inner { min-width: 900px; max-width: 900px; _width: 900px; } .main-inner .columns { padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 200px; } .main-inner .fauxcolumn-center-outer { left: 0px; right: 200px; /* IE6 does not respect left and right together */ _width: expression(this.parentNode.offsetWidth - parseInt("0px") - parseInt("200px") + 'px'); } .main-inner .fauxcolumn-left-outer { width: 0px; } .main-inner 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class='cap-right'></div> </div> </div> <!-- corrects IE6 width calculation --> <div class='columns-inner'> <div class='column-center-outer'> <div class='column-center-inner'> <div class='main section' id='main' name='Main'><div class='widget Blog' data-version='1' id='Blog1'> <div class='blog-posts hfeed'> <div class="date-outer"> <h2 class='date-header'><span>Thursday, March 14, 2019</span></h2> <div class="date-posts"> <div class='post-outer'> <div class='post hentry uncustomized-post-template' itemprop='blogPost' itemscope='itemscope' itemtype='http://schema.org/BlogPosting'> <meta content='https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9ac0BDMZUL0/WEdm2M0NOyI/AAAAAAAAxdI/p0o9cwuhgVwGFqJ-tufrltAM1P7k52XPACLcB/s320/FSA-map.png' itemprop='image_url'/> <meta content='6083825495664061008' itemprop='blogId'/> <meta content='6240802453223175757' itemprop='postId'/> <a name='6240802453223175757'></a> <h3 class='post-title entry-title' itemprop='name'> <a href='http://www.chadskelton.com/2019/03/online-tableau-training-this-april.html'>Online Tableau Training this April</a> </h3> <div class='post-header'> <div class='post-header-line-1'></div> </div> <div class='post-body entry-content' id='post-body-6240802453223175757' itemprop='description articleBody'> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9ac0BDMZUL0/WEdm2M0NOyI/AAAAAAAAxdI/p0o9cwuhgVwGFqJ-tufrltAM1P7k52XPACLcB/s1600/FSA-map.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="234" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9ac0BDMZUL0/WEdm2M0NOyI/AAAAAAAAxdI/p0o9cwuhgVwGFqJ-tufrltAM1P7k52XPACLcB/s320/FSA-map.png" width="320" /></a></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> My next <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/online-tableau-training-telling-stories-with-data-tickets-58402191527?aff=bp">online Tableau training workshop</a> will be held this April over three Thursdays: <b>April 11, 18</b>&nbsp;and <b>25</b>. You can buy tickets <a href="https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/online-tableau-training-telling-stories-with-data-tickets-58402191527?aff=bp">here</a> or by clicking the button below:</div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/online-tableau-training-telling-stories-with-data-tickets-58402191527?aff=bp"><img border="0" data-original-height="44" data-original-width="257" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LvUj8JUjbt0/Wqqcp0uDfXI/AAAAAAABA3E/9Jm1-kfDgO8tjs0grYCOuBrgO5dq1tyTgCLcBGAs/s1600/eventbrite-button.png" /></a></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> Here are some <a href="http://www.chadskelton.com/p/workshops.html">testimonials</a> from people who've attended my earlier training sessions.</div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> <br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> If you can't make this workshop but would like to be alerted when the next one is scheduled, just <a href="http://chadskelton.us14.list-manage1.com/subscribe?u=f77761916f1d313badb1dc5da&amp;id=7b3df945be">add your name here</a>.</div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> <br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> If you have several people at your organization who need training in Tableau, I'm also available for <a href="http://www.chadskelton.com/p/excel-and-tableau-training-in-vancouver.html">onsite training</a>.</div> <br /> <div style='clear: both;'></div> </div> <div class='post-footer'> <div class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-1'> <span class='post-author vcard'> Posted by <span class='fn' itemprop='author' itemscope='itemscope' itemtype='http://schema.org/Person'> <meta content='https://www.blogger.com/profile/16986292503424513742' itemprop='url'/> <a class='g-profile' href='https://www.blogger.com/profile/16986292503424513742' rel='author' title='author profile'> <span itemprop='name'>Chad Skelton</span> </a> </span> </span> <span class='post-timestamp'> at <meta content='http://www.chadskelton.com/2019/03/online-tableau-training-this-april.html' itemprop='url'/> <a class='timestamp-link' href='http://www.chadskelton.com/2019/03/online-tableau-training-this-april.html' rel='bookmark' title='permanent link'><abbr class='published' itemprop='datePublished' title='2019-03-14T15:49:00-07:00'>3:49 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class='reaction-buttons'> </span> <span class='post-comment-link'> <a class='comment-link' href='http://www.chadskelton.com/2019/03/online-tableau-training-this-april.html#comment-form' onclick=''> No comments: </a> </span> <span class='post-backlinks post-comment-link'> </span> <span class='post-icons'> <span class='item-control blog-admin pid-1917174372'> <a href='https://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=6240802453223175757&from=pencil' title='Edit Post'> <img alt='' class='icon-action' height='18' src='https://resources.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif' width='18'/> </a> </span> </span> <div class='post-share-buttons goog-inline-block'> <a class='goog-inline-block share-button sb-email' href='https://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=6240802453223175757&target=email' target='_blank' title='Email This'><span class='share-button-link-text'>Email This</span></a><a class='goog-inline-block share-button sb-blog' href='https://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=6240802453223175757&target=blog' onclick='window.open(this.href, "_blank", "height=270,width=475"); 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text-align: center;"> </div> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-a4pOskn5uSI/W5vpHQHeVYI/AAAAAAABIVE/rxTpObGuO4EhN27_17Ir0aASiA11UNJ9ACLcBGAs/s1600/participation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="531" data-original-width="640" height="331" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-a4pOskn5uSI/W5vpHQHeVYI/AAAAAAABIVE/rxTpObGuO4EhN27_17Ir0aASiA11UNJ9ACLcBGAs/s400/participation.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: right;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/usdagov/29506739023">U.S. Department of Agriculture / Flickr</a></td></tr> </tbody></table> <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TL;DR">TL;DR</a>:</b><br /> <br /> Over the years I've stumbled across a number of techniques for improving student participation in my classes that have worked really well. Here are the five key ones (you can click on each one to be taken to a more detailed description):<br /> <ol> <li><a href="http://www.chadskelton.com/2019/01/five-ways-to-get-your-students-to.html#point1">Explain why participation is important.</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.chadskelton.com/2019/01/five-ways-to-get-your-students-to.html#point2">Make sure students are prepared for weekly discussions.</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.chadskelton.com/2019/01/five-ways-to-get-your-students-to.html#point3">Have students self-report their participation marks.</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.chadskelton.com/2019/01/five-ways-to-get-your-students-to.html#point4">Get students to discuss a question in small groups first.</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.chadskelton.com/2019/01/five-ways-to-get-your-students-to.html#point5">Call on students at random.</a></li> </ol> <br /> <b>Full post:</b><br /> <br /> About five years ago, I was asked to take over a new course at <a href="http://www.kpu.ca/arts/journalism/faculty/chad-skelton">KPU</a>, the university where I teach: Introduction to Journalism.<br /> <br /> I was worried.<br /> <br /> Not because I didn't know the subject matter. I'd been a working journalist for more than 15 years.<br /> <br /> And not because I didn't know how to teach. At that point, I'd already been teaching for several years.<br /> <br /> The problem was that the Intro course had been designed by its previous instructor as a discussion course. Each week, students came to class and &#8212; facilitated by the instructor &#8212; discussed issues like journalism ethics and the business model for news.<br /> <br /> I had no idea how to teach such a course.<br /> <br /> In my many years of teaching, both at the university and my own&nbsp;private workshops, I always taught people how to <b><i>do</i></b> things. Whether it was how to build an interactive chart, or how to do a court search, my classes were always very hands-on and practical.<br /> <br /> Class participation was always a part of my other classes, but it wasn't the <b><i>point</i></b> of the class.<br /> <br /> I worried about how I would get my students engaged enough in discussions about journalism to fill up a three-hour class each week.<br /> <br /> Unfortunately, the first couple of times I taught the class, many of my worst fears were realized.<br /> <br /> I'd throw a discussion question out to the class &#8212; "So, when is it OK to use anonymous sources in a news story?" &#8212; and be met with stony silence. Sometimes, the one or two keeners in class would share their thoughts, but getting the rest of the students to take part was like pulling teeth.<br /> <br /> I'd occasionally pull the classic instructor trick of calling on a student who wasn't participating to share their thoughts. But doing that always seemed slightly mean &#8212; putting a student on the spot who wasn't prepared &#8212; and, regardless, it rarely elicited more than a shrug and a poorly thought out answer.<br /> <br /> I started to dread the days that I taught the Intro course. I suspect my students did too.<br /> <br /> But then things started to change.<br /> <br /> Almost by accident &#8212; an article here, a podcast there &#8212; I picked up a few ideas for how to improve student participation and gave them a test-run in my class. After some initial success, I got brave enough to experiment with some ideas of my own.<br /> <br /> Over time, the participation levels in my Intro class started to increase, gradually at first and then quite dramatically.<br /> <br /> What had once been three hours of painful, awkward silence became a spirited weekly discussion with students who were engaged and interested in the topic.<br /> <br /> Intro to Journalism is now one of my favourite classes to teach, one I look forward to every week.<br /> <br /> In the hopes it might be of some assistance to other instructors out there, below I share the five things I think made the biggest difference in improving participation in my class.<br /> <br /> While my experience is at the university level, I think most of these techniques could be easily applied to high-school classes and (with some modification) even lower grades.<br /> <br /> One big caveat: I'm a data guy so I feel it's important to note that I haven't subjected any of these techniques to rigorous analysis like a randomized controlled trial. My evidence in support of all of them is purely anecdotal and based entirely on a single course. Your results may vary.<br /> <br /> But getting students to participate more is such a common challenge in teaching that I thought these ideas were worth sharing.<br /> <br /> So, without further ado, here are my five tips for getting your students to participate more in class.<br /> <br /> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div> <br /> <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" id="point1"></a> <b><span style="font-size: large;">1. Explain why participation is important.</span></b><br /> <br /> If participation is a key part of your course (and especially if it's a component in a student's final grade), I think it helps to explain to your students <b><i>why</i></b>.<br /> <br /> Part of that explanation, of course, is personal: Participation is an important part of their own learning, to help them understand the course material better.<br /> <br /> But I also impress on students that we're all in this together: We're going to be together in this room for three hours every week and a lot of that time is going to be taken up by class discussion. If people don't participate, those three hours are going to go by <b><i>really</i></b> slowly. In contrast, if everyone participates and does their part, the hours will fly by and we'll all have fun. I find students really respond to that sense of common purpose.<br /> <br /> <br /> <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" id="point2"></a> <b><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null"></a>2. Make sure students are prepared for weekly discussions.</span></b><br /> <br /> A common problem in teaching is the "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_knowledge">curse of knowledge</a>": Teachers are such experts in their field that they have trouble remembering how daunting a topic can be to complete beginners.<br /> <br /> I was often guilty of this when it came to class discussions. Some topics are so commonly discussed among working journalists &#8212; the use of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_(journalism)#Anonymous_sources">anonymous sources</a>, <a href="https://gigaom.com/2012/08/22/no-metered-content-walls-wont-save-journalism/">newspaper paywalls</a> &#8212; that I expected students to already have opinions about them, or to be able to come up with an opinion on the spot.<br /> <br /> But, of course, a first-year student taking an introductory journalism course has, in most cases, never thought about these topics at all.<br /> <br /> If you want to have a meaningful class discussion about a topic, you need to make sure students have had some time to learn about the topic and reflect on it <b><i>before</i></b> class begins.<br /> <br /> The typical way to deal with this challenge is with weekly readings: Have students read an article or two on the topic before class so they're ready to discuss it.<br /> <br /> The problem, of course, is that many students won't do the assigned readings or, even if they do, will skim them in a way that doesn't prepare them to think deeply about the discussion topic.<br /> <br /> I use a couple of strategies to address that.<br /> <br /> First, each week, along with the assigned readings, I give students a single question about the readings. For example, I'll have them read <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/nov/15/toronto-star-was-right-to-pay-for-video-of-mayors-drunken-rant?CMP=twt_fd">an article</a> or <a href="http://j-source.ca/article/should-media-pay-for-news/">two</a> about paying sources for stories and then pose the question: "Under what conditions is it OK for a news organization to pay money to a source for a story?"<br /> <br /> Each week, students have to email me a very brief "weekly report" in which they answer &#8212; in at least two sentences &#8212; that week's question. I don't make the reports worth a lot of marks, but it's worth enough that students won't blow them off.<br /> <br /> The other technique I use are quizzes. Each week, I give students a brief, three-question multiple-choice quiz on that week's readings. The quizzes are designed to be super easy for students who've done the readings (i.e. "What is this reading about?") and super hard for those who haven't.<br /> <br /> Together, the report and the quiz make it hard to do well in the class without doing the readings. And it ensures students are adequately prepared to participate fully in class discussions.<br /> <br /> I often still spring some new questions on students in class &#8212; or get them to respond to a video or audio clip that they're seeing in class for the first time. But at least students are well prepared for that one, main question every week.<br /> <br /> <br /> <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" id="point3"></a> <b><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null"></a>3. Have students self-report their participation marks.</span></b><br /> <br /> This idea I stole from the instructor who taught the Intro class before me, and it's a great one.<br /> <br /> Instead of the instructor being responsible for keeping track of each student's participation marks, students report their own participation each week on a sheet of paper (<a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JlNx-5HogcLTYHuNgt0IaXvoxO5fpNbE/view?usp=sharing">here's an example</a>).<br /> <br /> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kKzMKWUXN7o/W5KyApokKPI/AAAAAAABH8M/9i5GyIMtk1skyRGNscdBsFbcjZ7-O3BGgCLcBGAs/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2018-09-07%2Bat%2B10.14.17%2BAM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="357" data-original-width="659" height="216" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kKzMKWUXN7o/W5KyApokKPI/AAAAAAABH8M/9i5GyIMtk1skyRGNscdBsFbcjZ7-O3BGgCLcBGAs/s400/Screen%2BShot%2B2018-09-07%2Bat%2B10.14.17%2BAM.png" width="400" /></a></div> <br /> I tell students they're expected to speak at least twice each class. They then give themselves a checkmark for each time they speak (up to a maximum of two).<br /> <br /> This idea was meant to solve one problem: In a large class, it's really hard to know every student's name at the start of the course.<br /> <br /> But I think it also solves another problem: It makes participation marks simple and transparent.<br /> <br /> Participation marks that are assigned by the instructor can often be a bit ambiguous. Are students being marked on how much they participated in class? On the quality of their in-class contributions?<br /> <br /> Worst of all, I think that very ambiguity can discourage some students from participating. Many students don't participate because they don't think they have anything valuable to say. If an instructor is going to ultimately decide whether your participation is "good" or "bad", it's too easy to convince yourself that you don't have anything "good" to say and not participate at all.<br /> <br /> And, from the instructor's perspective, even if some students have "better" things to say in class than others, you want all students to participate, not just the keeners.<br /> <br /> A self-reported checkmark system removes that ambiguity. Attend every class and speak twice each class? You're going to get 100% for participation. Simple.<br /> <br /> To avoid abuse, I put some basic parameters on what qualifies for a checkmark: It needs to be a contribution of at least a couple of sentences (ie. "I agree with what she said" doesn't count). I also remind students that there is nothing more obvious in class than someone who says nothing, so if they cheat and give themselves checkmarks when they don't deserve them, I'll notice.<br /> <br /> Finally, I recommend putting out the checkmark sheet at the end of class. If you bring it out at the break, some students will give themselves two checkmarks and then skip the second half of class.<br /> <br /> <br /> <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" id="point4"></a> <b><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null"></a>4. Get students to discuss a question in small groups first.&nbsp;</span></b><br /> <br /> It took awhile before I tried this one, but I've found it makes a big difference.<br /> <br /> Before we discuss a topic, or question, as a whole class, I have students discuss the question in smaller groups first.<br /> <br /> Using <a href="http://chir.ag/projects/team-maker/">this simple "team maker" tool</a>, I break the class into four or five groups and then give them 5 to 10 minutes to discuss the topic in their small groups. Then I open it up to a discussion of the whole class.<br /> <br /> This isn't typical "group work". Students aren't asked to present on behalf of their group or anything like that. The small-group discussions are simply meant as a warm up for the main event. But it works wonders.<br /> <br /> Shy students may think what they have to say isn't very interesting and so are reluctant to say it in front of 30 or more of their fellow classmates. But put them in a group of just five or six fellow students, and it's not nearly so intimidating to share their thoughts.<br /> <br /> And when that small group finds what they have to say interesting, it gives them the confidence to share their thoughts with the whole class later.<br /> <br /> The key, I think, is not to overdo it with the small group discussions. Five minutes is often plenty to get the ball rolling. It's also important to stress to students that just saying something in their small group doesn't count for a participation checkmark. They need to share it with the whole class for it to count.<br /> <br /> <br /> <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" id="point5"></a> <b><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null"></a>5. Call on students at random.</span></b><br /> <br /> This idea came from a <a href="http://www.econtalk.org/doug-lemov-on-teaching/">interview</a> with education expert Doug Lemov on the EconTalk podcast. At about the 18:00 mark, Lemov talks about using "cold calling" in an elementary-school class. Instead of asking a question and waiting for students to raises their hand, Lemov encourages teachers to just call on any student at random.<br /> <br /> The genius of cold-calling, according to Lemov, is that it forces all students, <i>even those not called upon</i>, to think about their answer. It's also a lot faster, because you don't have to wait for students to raise their hand before calling on them or &#8212; even worse &#8211; have no students raise their hand and then basically plead with your class for someone to answer the question.<br /> <br /> What's interesting about cold-calling is that it's a technique that's already used by most instructors, but poorly: Either out of desperation, when no one raises their hand. Or (somewhat) cruelly, to put a student who never participates on the spot.<br /> <br /> The key to making it work, I think, is consistency: To use it all the time, for every question.<br /> <br /> I jokingly tell my students that, instead of picking on the one or two students who never raise their hand, I instead pick on <b><i>everybody</i></b>.<br /> <br /> I'm also a bit more systematic in my approach.<br /> <br /> Partly because it takes me awhile to learn my students' names and partly because I don't trust myself to be completely fair in calling on students, each class I randomize the class list. (I <a href="https://support.office.com/en-us/article/rand-function-4cbfa695-8869-4788-8d90-021ea9f5be73">randomly</a> <a href="https://support.office.com/en-us/article/sort-data-in-a-range-or-table-62d0b95d-2a90-4610-a6ae-2e545c4a4654">sort</a> an Excel spreadsheet but this <a href="https://www.random.org/lists/">online list randomizer</a> works just as well.)<br /> <br /> Then &#8212; for every question &#8212; I start by calling on the three students whose names are at the top of the randomized list. Then, for the next question, I call on the next three. And so on. The first time I do this, I show students how I randomize the list on screen. Every time after that, it's secret, so students never know when they might be called on.<br /> <br /> While I start each class discussion by calling on students at random, after the first three students have been called on, any student can raise their hand and talk. And, in my experience, many do.<br /> <br /> I think that's because, fearing they might be called on, most students have prepared a response in their head. So, then, when they're not called on, they figure they might as well share their thought anyways and get their participation checkmark.<br /> <br /> Those are my five suggestions for how to get students to participate more.<br /> <br /> If you've got a trick to share, please add it in the comments. Note: To avoid spam comments, all comments on this site are moderated, so it may take awhile for your comment to show up.<br /> <br /> <br /> <div style='clear: both;'></div> </div> <div class='post-footer'> <div class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-1'> <span class='post-author vcard'> Posted by <span class='fn' itemprop='author' itemscope='itemscope' itemtype='http://schema.org/Person'> <meta content='https://www.blogger.com/profile/16986292503424513742' itemprop='url'/> <a class='g-profile' href='https://www.blogger.com/profile/16986292503424513742' rel='author' title='author profile'> <span itemprop='name'>Chad Skelton</span> </a> </span> </span> <span class='post-timestamp'> at <meta content='http://www.chadskelton.com/2019/01/five-ways-to-get-your-students-to.html' itemprop='url'/> <a class='timestamp-link' href='http://www.chadskelton.com/2019/01/five-ways-to-get-your-students-to.html' rel='bookmark' title='permanent link'><abbr class='published' itemprop='datePublished' title='2019-01-10T09:04:00-08:00'>9:04 AM</abbr></a> </span> <span class='reaction-buttons'> </span> <span class='post-comment-link'> <a class='comment-link' href='http://www.chadskelton.com/2019/01/five-ways-to-get-your-students-to.html#comment-form' onclick=''> No comments: </a> </span> <span class='post-backlinks post-comment-link'> </span> <span class='post-icons'> <span class='item-control blog-admin pid-1917174372'> <a href='https://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=8619350854485037959&from=pencil' title='Edit Post'> <img alt='' class='icon-action' height='18' src='https://resources.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif' width='18'/> </a> </span> </span> <div class='post-share-buttons goog-inline-block'> <a class='goog-inline-block share-button sb-email' href='https://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=8619350854485037959&target=email' target='_blank' title='Email This'><span class='share-button-link-text'>Email This</span></a><a class='goog-inline-block share-button sb-blog' href='https://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=8619350854485037959&target=blog' onclick='window.open(this.href, "_blank", "height=270,width=475"); return false;' target='_blank' title='BlogThis!'><span class='share-button-link-text'>BlogThis!</span></a><a class='goog-inline-block share-button sb-twitter' href='https://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=8619350854485037959&target=twitter' target='_blank' title='Share to Twitter'><span class='share-button-link-text'>Share to Twitter</span></a><a class='goog-inline-block share-button sb-facebook' href='https://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=8619350854485037959&target=facebook' onclick='window.open(this.href, "_blank", "height=430,width=640"); return false;' target='_blank' title='Share to Facebook'><span class='share-button-link-text'>Share to Facebook</span></a><a class='goog-inline-block share-button sb-pinterest' href='https://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=8619350854485037959&target=pinterest' target='_blank' title='Share to Pinterest'><span class='share-button-link-text'>Share to Pinterest</span></a> </div> </div> <div class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-2'> <span class='post-labels'> </span> </div> <div class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-3'> <span class='post-location'> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div></div> <div class="date-outer"> <h2 class='date-header'><span>Tuesday, July 24, 2018</span></h2> <div class="date-posts"> <div class='post-outer'> <div class='post hentry uncustomized-post-template' itemprop='blogPost' itemscope='itemscope' itemtype='http://schema.org/BlogPosting'> <meta content='https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9ac0BDMZUL0/WEdm2M0NOyI/AAAAAAAAxdI/p0o9cwuhgVwGFqJ-tufrltAM1P7k52XPACLcB/s320/FSA-map.png' itemprop='image_url'/> <meta content='6083825495664061008' itemprop='blogId'/> <meta content='8268888956071405187' itemprop='postId'/> <a name='8268888956071405187'></a> <h3 class='post-title entry-title' itemprop='name'> <a href='http://www.chadskelton.com/2018/07/my-next-online-tableau-training.html'>My next Online Tableau Training workshop is this September</a> </h3> <div class='post-header'> <div class='post-header-line-1'></div> </div> <div class='post-body entry-content' id='post-body-8268888956071405187' itemprop='description articleBody'> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9ac0BDMZUL0/WEdm2M0NOyI/AAAAAAAAxdI/p0o9cwuhgVwGFqJ-tufrltAM1P7k52XPACLcB/s1600/FSA-map.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="234" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9ac0BDMZUL0/WEdm2M0NOyI/AAAAAAAAxdI/p0o9cwuhgVwGFqJ-tufrltAM1P7k52XPACLcB/s320/FSA-map.png" width="320" /></a></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> My next <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/online-tableau-training-telling-stories-with-data-tickets-47776156771?aff=bp">online Tableau training workshop</a> will be held this September over three Thursdays: <b>Sept. 13, 20</b> and <b>27</b>. You can buy tickets <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/online-tableau-training-telling-stories-with-data-tickets-47776156771?aff=bp">here</a> or by clicking the button below:</div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/online-tableau-training-telling-stories-with-data-tickets-47776156771?aff=bp"><img border="0" data-original-height="44" data-original-width="257" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LvUj8JUjbt0/Wqqcp0uDfXI/AAAAAAABA3E/9Jm1-kfDgO8tjs0grYCOuBrgO5dq1tyTgCLcBGAs/s1600/eventbrite-button.png" /></a></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> Here are some <a href="http://www.chadskelton.com/p/workshops.html">testimonials</a> from people who've attended my earlier training sessions.</div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> <br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> If you can't make this workshop but would like to be alerted when the next one is scheduled, just <a href="http://chadskelton.us14.list-manage1.com/subscribe?u=f77761916f1d313badb1dc5da&amp;id=7b3df945be">add your name here</a>.</div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> <br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> If you have several people at your organization who need training in Tableau, I'm also available for <a href="http://www.chadskelton.com/p/excel-and-tableau-training-in-vancouver.html">onsite training</a>.</div> <br /> <div style='clear: both;'></div> </div> <div class='post-footer'> <div class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-1'> <span class='post-author vcard'> Posted by <span class='fn' itemprop='author' itemscope='itemscope' itemtype='http://schema.org/Person'> <meta content='https://www.blogger.com/profile/16986292503424513742' itemprop='url'/> <a class='g-profile' href='https://www.blogger.com/profile/16986292503424513742' rel='author' title='author profile'> <span itemprop='name'>Chad Skelton</span> </a> </span> </span> <span class='post-timestamp'> at <meta content='http://www.chadskelton.com/2018/07/my-next-online-tableau-training.html' itemprop='url'/> <a class='timestamp-link' href='http://www.chadskelton.com/2018/07/my-next-online-tableau-training.html' rel='bookmark' title='permanent link'><abbr class='published' itemprop='datePublished' title='2018-07-24T09:58:00-07:00'>9:58 AM</abbr></a> </span> <span class='reaction-buttons'> </span> <span class='post-comment-link'> <a class='comment-link' href='http://www.chadskelton.com/2018/07/my-next-online-tableau-training.html#comment-form' onclick=''> No comments: </a> </span> <span class='post-backlinks post-comment-link'> </span> <span class='post-icons'> <span class='item-control blog-admin pid-1917174372'> <a href='https://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=8268888956071405187&from=pencil' title='Edit Post'> <img alt='' class='icon-action' height='18' src='https://resources.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif' width='18'/> </a> </span> </span> <div class='post-share-buttons goog-inline-block'> <a class='goog-inline-block share-button sb-email' href='https://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=8268888956071405187&target=email' target='_blank' title='Email This'><span class='share-button-link-text'>Email This</span></a><a class='goog-inline-block share-button sb-blog' href='https://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=8268888956071405187&target=blog' onclick='window.open(this.href, "_blank", "height=270,width=475"); return false;' target='_blank' title='BlogThis!'><span class='share-button-link-text'>BlogThis!</span></a><a class='goog-inline-block share-button sb-twitter' href='https://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=8268888956071405187&target=twitter' target='_blank' title='Share to Twitter'><span class='share-button-link-text'>Share to Twitter</span></a><a class='goog-inline-block share-button sb-facebook' href='https://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=8268888956071405187&target=facebook' onclick='window.open(this.href, "_blank", "height=430,width=640"); return false;' target='_blank' title='Share to Facebook'><span class='share-button-link-text'>Share to Facebook</span></a><a class='goog-inline-block share-button sb-pinterest' href='https://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=8268888956071405187&target=pinterest' target='_blank' title='Share to Pinterest'><span class='share-button-link-text'>Share to Pinterest</span></a> </div> </div> <div class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-2'> <span class='post-labels'> </span> </div> <div class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-3'> <span class='post-location'> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div></div> <div class="date-outer"> <h2 class='date-header'><span>Thursday, June 7, 2018</span></h2> <div class="date-posts"> <div class='post-outer'> <div class='post hentry uncustomized-post-template' itemprop='blogPost' itemscope='itemscope' itemtype='http://schema.org/BlogPosting'> <meta content='https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ena8oKLpRoQ/WxbR9ay5U3I/AAAAAAABDWY/eZIxH3uQbbkQ6UjuH4OeVGAA-WjZzvsFQCLcBGAs/s400/Screen%2BShot%2B2018-06-05%2Bat%2B11.09.20%2BAM.png' itemprop='image_url'/> <meta content='6083825495664061008' itemprop='blogId'/> <meta content='5150674474426555157' itemprop='postId'/> <a name='5150674474426555157'></a> <h3 class='post-title entry-title' itemprop='name'> <a href='http://www.chadskelton.com/2018/06/how-much-evidence-do-we-need-for-data.html'>How much evidence do we need for a data visualization "rule"?</a> </h3> <div class='post-header'> <div class='post-header-line-1'></div> </div> <div class='post-body entry-content' id='post-body-5150674474426555157' itemprop='description articleBody'> In a <a href="http://www.chadskelton.com/2018/06/bar-charts-should-always-start-at-zero.html">separate post</a>, I laid out some of my arguments for why I think most line charts should start at zero. I posted some of my initial thoughts on that topic on Twitter, which generated some really thoughtful replies.<br /> <br /> One of them, from Steve Haroz, noted that he knew of know evidence that people read non-zero-baseline bar charts any differently than non-zero-baseline line charts. And, furthermore, that we should be careful in talking about data visualization "rules" when our evidence for them is weak or nonexistent.<br /> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en"> <div dir="ltr" lang="en"> Rely on evidence. When there is little or none, don't claim that some absolute or universal rule exists. It's fine to say "maybe" or "I prefer".</div> &#8212; Steve Haroz (@sharoz) <a href="https://twitter.com/sharoz/status/999734337078812675?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 24, 2018</a></blockquote> <script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script> <br /> This led to a quite spirited discussion about whether data-visualization "guidelines" or "rules of thumb" that don't have any empirical research to back them up can still be valuable, or if we should stick primarily to those things that we have solid evidence for.<br /> <br /> Speaking personally, I didn't fully appreciate the gaps in data visualization research until I watched Robert Kosara's <a href="https://eagereyes.org/talk/how-do-we-know-that">excellent talk at the University of Washington</a>, "How Do We Know That?"<br /> <br /> The talk is based on Kosara's paper, <a href="https://eagereyes.org/papers/an-empire-built-on-sand">Empire of Sand</a>, which I now <a href="http://www.chadskelton.com/2017/04/data-visualization-reading-list.html">assign to my students</a> at the University of Florida.<br /> <br /> As Kosara points out, many of the things we think we know about data visualization have little empirical evidence to back them up. And other well-accepted "rules" may actually be wrong (for example, "chartjunk" may <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7141r6QQ2A">not be so bad after all</a>).<br /> <br /> Some rules are based on nothing more than the strong opinions of influential early writers in the field (like <a href="https://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/">Edward Tufte</a>&nbsp;and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Bertin">Jacques Bertin</a>) and have not actually been subject to peer-reviewed research.<br /> <br /> So where does that leave us as data visualization practitioners and teachers?<br /> <br /> It would seem obvious that we shouldn't teach "rules" that we know to be wrong. But what about the many areas for which there is little or no empirical evidence at all? Can theory replace research in some cases? Is a common practice worth teaching our students even if we don't know it to be true?<br /> <br /> Below, I've tried to collect some of my own thoughts on the matter as well as those of others who took part in the Twitter discussion.<br /> <br /> First, though, a big caveat about my own tweets: While I teach at a university and have (strong) opinions on how to teach data visualization, I'm an "instructor" not a "professor". I don't have a PhD and I'm not engaged in academic research myself.<br /> <br /> Let's get to the tweets!<br /> <br /> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"> <div dir="ltr" lang="en"> My argument is based more on encoding consistency, though, and prudence: if encoding is height, then it may be safer if height is proportional to numbers</div> &#8212; Alberto Cairo (@albertocairo) <a href="https://twitter.com/albertocairo/status/999740531193376769?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 24, 2018</a></blockquote> <script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script> <br /> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en"> <div dir="ltr" lang="en"> We don't know what visual cue people use or how they reason with it. Could be length. Could be area. Could be position of the top of the bar. And not clear why a point's distance from the x-axis is different from the length of a bar. There are plausible options, but no evidence.</div> &#8212; Steve Haroz (@sharoz) <a href="https://twitter.com/sharoz/status/999742358777458689?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 24, 2018</a></blockquote> <script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script> <br /> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en"> <div dir="ltr" lang="en"> That&#8217;s the key point! 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class='cap-right'></div> </div> </div> <!-- corrects IE6 width calculation --> <div class='columns-inner'> <div class='column-center-outer'> <div class='column-center-inner'> <div class='main section' id='main' name='Main'><div class='widget Blog' data-version='1' id='Blog1'> <div class='blog-posts hfeed'> <div class="date-outer"> <h2 class='date-header'><span>Thursday, March 14, 2019</span></h2> <div class="date-posts"> <div class='post-outer'> <div class='post hentry uncustomized-post-template' itemprop='blogPost' itemscope='itemscope' itemtype='http://schema.org/BlogPosting'> <meta content='https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9ac0BDMZUL0/WEdm2M0NOyI/AAAAAAAAxdI/p0o9cwuhgVwGFqJ-tufrltAM1P7k52XPACLcB/s320/FSA-map.png' itemprop='image_url'/> <meta content='6083825495664061008' itemprop='blogId'/> <meta content='6240802453223175757' itemprop='postId'/> <a name='6240802453223175757'></a> <h3 class='post-title entry-title' itemprop='name'> <a href='http://www.chadskelton.com/2019/03/online-tableau-training-this-april.html'>Online Tableau Training this April</a> </h3> <div class='post-header'> <div class='post-header-line-1'></div> </div> <div class='post-body entry-content' id='post-body-6240802453223175757' itemprop='description articleBody'> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9ac0BDMZUL0/WEdm2M0NOyI/AAAAAAAAxdI/p0o9cwuhgVwGFqJ-tufrltAM1P7k52XPACLcB/s1600/FSA-map.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="234" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9ac0BDMZUL0/WEdm2M0NOyI/AAAAAAAAxdI/p0o9cwuhgVwGFqJ-tufrltAM1P7k52XPACLcB/s320/FSA-map.png" width="320" /></a></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> My next <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/online-tableau-training-telling-stories-with-data-tickets-58402191527?aff=bp">online Tableau training workshop</a> will be held this April over three Thursdays: <b>April 11, 18</b>&nbsp;and <b>25</b>. You can buy tickets <a href="https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/online-tableau-training-telling-stories-with-data-tickets-58402191527?aff=bp">here</a> or by clicking the button below:</div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/online-tableau-training-telling-stories-with-data-tickets-58402191527?aff=bp"><img border="0" data-original-height="44" data-original-width="257" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LvUj8JUjbt0/Wqqcp0uDfXI/AAAAAAABA3E/9Jm1-kfDgO8tjs0grYCOuBrgO5dq1tyTgCLcBGAs/s1600/eventbrite-button.png" /></a></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> Here are some <a href="http://www.chadskelton.com/p/workshops.html">testimonials</a> from people who've attended my earlier training sessions.</div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> <br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> If you can't make this workshop but would like to be alerted when the next one is scheduled, just <a href="http://chadskelton.us14.list-manage1.com/subscribe?u=f77761916f1d313badb1dc5da&amp;id=7b3df945be">add your name here</a>.</div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> <br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> If you have several people at your organization who need training in Tableau, I'm also available for <a href="http://www.chadskelton.com/p/excel-and-tableau-training-in-vancouver.html">onsite training</a>.</div> <br /> <div style='clear: both;'></div> </div> <div class='post-footer'> <div class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-1'> <span class='post-author vcard'> Posted by <span class='fn' itemprop='author' itemscope='itemscope' itemtype='http://schema.org/Person'> <meta content='https://www.blogger.com/profile/16986292503424513742' itemprop='url'/> <a class='g-profile' href='https://www.blogger.com/profile/16986292503424513742' rel='author' title='author profile'> <span itemprop='name'>Chad Skelton</span> </a> </span> </span> <span class='post-timestamp'> at <meta content='http://www.chadskelton.com/2019/03/online-tableau-training-this-april.html' itemprop='url'/> <a class='timestamp-link' href='http://www.chadskelton.com/2019/03/online-tableau-training-this-april.html' rel='bookmark' title='permanent link'><abbr class='published' itemprop='datePublished' title='2019-03-14T15:49:00-07:00'>3:49 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class='reaction-buttons'> </span> <span class='post-comment-link'> <a class='comment-link' href='http://www.chadskelton.com/2019/03/online-tableau-training-this-april.html#comment-form' onclick=''> No comments: </a> </span> <span class='post-backlinks post-comment-link'> </span> <span class='post-icons'> <span class='item-control blog-admin pid-1917174372'> <a href='https://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=6240802453223175757&from=pencil' title='Edit Post'> <img alt='' class='icon-action' height='18' src='https://resources.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif' width='18'/> </a> </span> </span> <div class='post-share-buttons goog-inline-block'> <a class='goog-inline-block share-button sb-email' href='https://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=6240802453223175757&target=email' target='_blank' title='Email This'><span class='share-button-link-text'>Email This</span></a><a class='goog-inline-block share-button sb-blog' href='https://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=6240802453223175757&target=blog' onclick='window.open(this.href, "_blank", "height=270,width=475"); return false;' target='_blank' title='BlogThis!'><span class='share-button-link-text'>BlogThis!</span></a><a class='goog-inline-block share-button sb-twitter' href='https://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=6240802453223175757&target=twitter' target='_blank' title='Share to Twitter'><span class='share-button-link-text'>Share to Twitter</span></a><a class='goog-inline-block share-button sb-facebook' href='https://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=6240802453223175757&target=facebook' onclick='window.open(this.href, "_blank", "height=430,width=640"); return false;' target='_blank' title='Share to Facebook'><span class='share-button-link-text'>Share to Facebook</span></a><a class='goog-inline-block share-button sb-pinterest' href='https://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=6240802453223175757&target=pinterest' target='_blank' title='Share to Pinterest'><span class='share-button-link-text'>Share to Pinterest</span></a> </div> </div> <div class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-2'> <span class='post-labels'> </span> </div> <div class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-3'> <span class='post-location'> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div></div> <div class="date-outer"> <h2 class='date-header'><span>Thursday, January 10, 2019</span></h2> <div class="date-posts"> <div class='post-outer'> <div class='post hentry uncustomized-post-template' itemprop='blogPost' itemscope='itemscope' itemtype='http://schema.org/BlogPosting'> <meta content='https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-a4pOskn5uSI/W5vpHQHeVYI/AAAAAAABIVE/rxTpObGuO4EhN27_17Ir0aASiA11UNJ9ACLcBGAs/s400/participation.jpg' itemprop='image_url'/> <meta content='6083825495664061008' itemprop='blogId'/> <meta content='8619350854485037959' itemprop='postId'/> <a name='8619350854485037959'></a> <h3 class='post-title entry-title' itemprop='name'> <a href='http://www.chadskelton.com/2019/01/five-ways-to-get-your-students-to.html'>Five ways to get your students to participate more in class</a> </h3> <div class='post-header'> <div class='post-header-line-1'></div> </div> <div class='post-body entry-content' id='post-body-8619350854485037959' itemprop='description articleBody'> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-a4pOskn5uSI/W5vpHQHeVYI/AAAAAAABIVE/rxTpObGuO4EhN27_17Ir0aASiA11UNJ9ACLcBGAs/s1600/participation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="531" data-original-width="640" height="331" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-a4pOskn5uSI/W5vpHQHeVYI/AAAAAAABIVE/rxTpObGuO4EhN27_17Ir0aASiA11UNJ9ACLcBGAs/s400/participation.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: right;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/usdagov/29506739023">U.S. Department of Agriculture / Flickr</a></td></tr> </tbody></table> <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TL;DR">TL;DR</a>:</b><br /> <br /> Over the years I've stumbled across a number of techniques for improving student participation in my classes that have worked really well. Here are the five key ones (you can click on each one to be taken to a more detailed description):<br /> <ol> <li><a href="http://www.chadskelton.com/2019/01/five-ways-to-get-your-students-to.html#point1">Explain why participation is important.</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.chadskelton.com/2019/01/five-ways-to-get-your-students-to.html#point2">Make sure students are prepared for weekly discussions.</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.chadskelton.com/2019/01/five-ways-to-get-your-students-to.html#point3">Have students self-report their participation marks.</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.chadskelton.com/2019/01/five-ways-to-get-your-students-to.html#point4">Get students to discuss a question in small groups first.</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.chadskelton.com/2019/01/five-ways-to-get-your-students-to.html#point5">Call on students at random.</a></li> </ol> <br /> <b>Full post:</b><br /> <br /> About five years ago, I was asked to take over a new course at <a href="http://www.kpu.ca/arts/journalism/faculty/chad-skelton">KPU</a>, the university where I teach: Introduction to Journalism.<br /> <br /> I was worried.<br /> <br /> Not because I didn't know the subject matter. I'd been a working journalist for more than 15 years.<br /> <br /> And not because I didn't know how to teach. At that point, I'd already been teaching for several years.<br /> <br /> The problem was that the Intro course had been designed by its previous instructor as a discussion course. Each week, students came to class and &#8212; facilitated by the instructor &#8212; discussed issues like journalism ethics and the business model for news.<br /> <br /> I had no idea how to teach such a course.<br /> <br /> In my many years of teaching, both at the university and my own&nbsp;private workshops, I always taught people how to <b><i>do</i></b> things. Whether it was how to build an interactive chart, or how to do a court search, my classes were always very hands-on and practical.<br /> <br /> Class participation was always a part of my other classes, but it wasn't the <b><i>point</i></b> of the class.<br /> <br /> I worried about how I would get my students engaged enough in discussions about journalism to fill up a three-hour class each week.<br /> <br /> Unfortunately, the first couple of times I taught the class, many of my worst fears were realized.<br /> <br /> I'd throw a discussion question out to the class &#8212; "So, when is it OK to use anonymous sources in a news story?" &#8212; and be met with stony silence. Sometimes, the one or two keeners in class would share their thoughts, but getting the rest of the students to take part was like pulling teeth.<br /> <br /> I'd occasionally pull the classic instructor trick of calling on a student who wasn't participating to share their thoughts. But doing that always seemed slightly mean &#8212; putting a student on the spot who wasn't prepared &#8212; and, regardless, it rarely elicited more than a shrug and a poorly thought out answer.<br /> <br /> I started to dread the days that I taught the Intro course. I suspect my students did too.<br /> <br /> But then things started to change.<br /> <br /> Almost by accident &#8212; an article here, a podcast there &#8212; I picked up a few ideas for how to improve student participation and gave them a test-run in my class. After some initial success, I got brave enough to experiment with some ideas of my own.<br /> <br /> Over time, the participation levels in my Intro class started to increase, gradually at first and then quite dramatically.<br /> <br /> What had once been three hours of painful, awkward silence became a spirited weekly discussion with students who were engaged and interested in the topic.<br /> <br /> Intro to Journalism is now one of my favourite classes to teach, one I look forward to every week.<br /> <br /> In the hopes it might be of some assistance to other instructors out there, below I share the five things I think made the biggest difference in improving participation in my class.<br /> <br /> While my experience is at the university level, I think most of these techniques could be easily applied to high-school classes and (with some modification) even lower grades.<br /> <br /> One big caveat: I'm a data guy so I feel it's important to note that I haven't subjected any of these techniques to rigorous analysis like a randomized controlled trial. My evidence in support of all of them is purely anecdotal and based entirely on a single course. Your results may vary.<br /> <br /> But getting students to participate more is such a common challenge in teaching that I thought these ideas were worth sharing.<br /> <br /> So, without further ado, here are my five tips for getting your students to participate more in class.<br /> <br /> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div> <br /> <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" id="point1"></a> <b><span style="font-size: large;">1. Explain why participation is important.</span></b><br /> <br /> If participation is a key part of your course (and especially if it's a component in a student's final grade), I think it helps to explain to your students <b><i>why</i></b>.<br /> <br /> Part of that explanation, of course, is personal: Participation is an important part of their own learning, to help them understand the course material better.<br /> <br /> But I also impress on students that we're all in this together: We're going to be together in this room for three hours every week and a lot of that time is going to be taken up by class discussion. If people don't participate, those three hours are going to go by <b><i>really</i></b> slowly. In contrast, if everyone participates and does their part, the hours will fly by and we'll all have fun. I find students really respond to that sense of common purpose.<br /> <br /> <br /> <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" id="point2"></a> <b><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null"></a>2. Make sure students are prepared for weekly discussions.</span></b><br /> <br /> A common problem in teaching is the "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_knowledge">curse of knowledge</a>": Teachers are such experts in their field that they have trouble remembering how daunting a topic can be to complete beginners.<br /> <br /> I was often guilty of this when it came to class discussions. Some topics are so commonly discussed among working journalists &#8212; the use of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_(journalism)#Anonymous_sources">anonymous sources</a>, <a href="https://gigaom.com/2012/08/22/no-metered-content-walls-wont-save-journalism/">newspaper paywalls</a> &#8212; that I expected students to already have opinions about them, or to be able to come up with an opinion on the spot.<br /> <br /> But, of course, a first-year student taking an introductory journalism course has, in most cases, never thought about these topics at all.<br /> <br /> If you want to have a meaningful class discussion about a topic, you need to make sure students have had some time to learn about the topic and reflect on it <b><i>before</i></b> class begins.<br /> <br /> The typical way to deal with this challenge is with weekly readings: Have students read an article or two on the topic before class so they're ready to discuss it.<br /> <br /> The problem, of course, is that many students won't do the assigned readings or, even if they do, will skim them in a way that doesn't prepare them to think deeply about the discussion topic.<br /> <br /> I use a couple of strategies to address that.<br /> <br /> First, each week, along with the assigned readings, I give students a single question about the readings. For example, I'll have them read <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/nov/15/toronto-star-was-right-to-pay-for-video-of-mayors-drunken-rant?CMP=twt_fd">an article</a> or <a href="http://j-source.ca/article/should-media-pay-for-news/">two</a> about paying sources for stories and then pose the question: "Under what conditions is it OK for a news organization to pay money to a source for a story?"<br /> <br /> Each week, students have to email me a very brief "weekly report" in which they answer &#8212; in at least two sentences &#8212; that week's question. I don't make the reports worth a lot of marks, but it's worth enough that students won't blow them off.<br /> <br /> The other technique I use are quizzes. Each week, I give students a brief, three-question multiple-choice quiz on that week's readings. The quizzes are designed to be super easy for students who've done the readings (i.e. "What is this reading about?") and super hard for those who haven't.<br /> <br /> Together, the report and the quiz make it hard to do well in the class without doing the readings. And it ensures students are adequately prepared to participate fully in class discussions.<br /> <br /> I often still spring some new questions on students in class &#8212; or get them to respond to a video or audio clip that they're seeing in class for the first time. But at least students are well prepared for that one, main question every week.<br /> <br /> <br /> <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" id="point3"></a> <b><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null"></a>3. Have students self-report their participation marks.</span></b><br /> <br /> This idea I stole from the instructor who taught the Intro class before me, and it's a great one.<br /> <br /> Instead of the instructor being responsible for keeping track of each student's participation marks, students report their own participation each week on a sheet of paper (<a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JlNx-5HogcLTYHuNgt0IaXvoxO5fpNbE/view?usp=sharing">here's an example</a>).<br /> <br /> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kKzMKWUXN7o/W5KyApokKPI/AAAAAAABH8M/9i5GyIMtk1skyRGNscdBsFbcjZ7-O3BGgCLcBGAs/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2018-09-07%2Bat%2B10.14.17%2BAM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="357" data-original-width="659" height="216" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kKzMKWUXN7o/W5KyApokKPI/AAAAAAABH8M/9i5GyIMtk1skyRGNscdBsFbcjZ7-O3BGgCLcBGAs/s400/Screen%2BShot%2B2018-09-07%2Bat%2B10.14.17%2BAM.png" width="400" /></a></div> <br /> I tell students they're expected to speak at least twice each class. They then give themselves a checkmark for each time they speak (up to a maximum of two).<br /> <br /> This idea was meant to solve one problem: In a large class, it's really hard to know every student's name at the start of the course.<br /> <br /> But I think it also solves another problem: It makes participation marks simple and transparent.<br /> <br /> Participation marks that are assigned by the instructor can often be a bit ambiguous. Are students being marked on how much they participated in class? On the quality of their in-class contributions?<br /> <br /> Worst of all, I think that very ambiguity can discourage some students from participating. Many students don't participate because they don't think they have anything valuable to say. If an instructor is going to ultimately decide whether your participation is "good" or "bad", it's too easy to convince yourself that you don't have anything "good" to say and not participate at all.<br /> <br /> And, from the instructor's perspective, even if some students have "better" things to say in class than others, you want all students to participate, not just the keeners.<br /> <br /> A self-reported checkmark system removes that ambiguity. Attend every class and speak twice each class? You're going to get 100% for participation. Simple.<br /> <br /> To avoid abuse, I put some basic parameters on what qualifies for a checkmark: It needs to be a contribution of at least a couple of sentences (ie. "I agree with what she said" doesn't count). I also remind students that there is nothing more obvious in class than someone who says nothing, so if they cheat and give themselves checkmarks when they don't deserve them, I'll notice.<br /> <br /> Finally, I recommend putting out the checkmark sheet at the end of class. If you bring it out at the break, some students will give themselves two checkmarks and then skip the second half of class.<br /> <br /> <br /> <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" id="point4"></a> <b><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null"></a>4. Get students to discuss a question in small groups first.&nbsp;</span></b><br /> <br /> It took awhile before I tried this one, but I've found it makes a big difference.<br /> <br /> Before we discuss a topic, or question, as a whole class, I have students discuss the question in smaller groups first.<br /> <br /> Using <a href="http://chir.ag/projects/team-maker/">this simple "team maker" tool</a>, I break the class into four or five groups and then give them 5 to 10 minutes to discuss the topic in their small groups. Then I open it up to a discussion of the whole class.<br /> <br /> This isn't typical "group work". Students aren't asked to present on behalf of their group or anything like that. The small-group discussions are simply meant as a warm up for the main event. But it works wonders.<br /> <br /> Shy students may think what they have to say isn't very interesting and so are reluctant to say it in front of 30 or more of their fellow classmates. But put them in a group of just five or six fellow students, and it's not nearly so intimidating to share their thoughts.<br /> <br /> And when that small group finds what they have to say interesting, it gives them the confidence to share their thoughts with the whole class later.<br /> <br /> The key, I think, is not to overdo it with the small group discussions. Five minutes is often plenty to get the ball rolling. It's also important to stress to students that just saying something in their small group doesn't count for a participation checkmark. They need to share it with the whole class for it to count.<br /> <br /> <br /> <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" id="point5"></a> <b><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null"></a>5. Call on students at random.</span></b><br /> <br /> This idea came from a <a href="http://www.econtalk.org/doug-lemov-on-teaching/">interview</a> with education expert Doug Lemov on the EconTalk podcast. At about the 18:00 mark, Lemov talks about using "cold calling" in an elementary-school class. Instead of asking a question and waiting for students to raises their hand, Lemov encourages teachers to just call on any student at random.<br /> <br /> The genius of cold-calling, according to Lemov, is that it forces all students, <i>even those not called upon</i>, to think about their answer. It's also a lot faster, because you don't have to wait for students to raise their hand before calling on them or &#8212; even worse &#8211; have no students raise their hand and then basically plead with your class for someone to answer the question.<br /> <br /> What's interesting about cold-calling is that it's a technique that's already used by most instructors, but poorly: Either out of desperation, when no one raises their hand. Or (somewhat) cruelly, to put a student who never participates on the spot.<br /> <br /> The key to making it work, I think, is consistency: To use it all the time, for every question.<br /> <br /> I jokingly tell my students that, instead of picking on the one or two students who never raise their hand, I instead pick on <b><i>everybody</i></b>.<br /> <br /> I'm also a bit more systematic in my approach.<br /> <br /> Partly because it takes me awhile to learn my students' names and partly because I don't trust myself to be completely fair in calling on students, each class I randomize the class list. (I <a href="https://support.office.com/en-us/article/rand-function-4cbfa695-8869-4788-8d90-021ea9f5be73">randomly</a> <a href="https://support.office.com/en-us/article/sort-data-in-a-range-or-table-62d0b95d-2a90-4610-a6ae-2e545c4a4654">sort</a> an Excel spreadsheet but this <a href="https://www.random.org/lists/">online list randomizer</a> works just as well.)<br /> <br /> Then &#8212; for every question &#8212; I start by calling on the three students whose names are at the top of the randomized list. Then, for the next question, I call on the next three. And so on. The first time I do this, I show students how I randomize the list on screen. Every time after that, it's secret, so students never know when they might be called on.<br /> <br /> While I start each class discussion by calling on students at random, after the first three students have been called on, any student can raise their hand and talk. And, in my experience, many do.<br /> <br /> I think that's because, fearing they might be called on, most students have prepared a response in their head. So, then, when they're not called on, they figure they might as well share their thought anyways and get their participation checkmark.<br /> <br /> Those are my five suggestions for how to get students to participate more.<br /> <br /> If you've got a trick to share, please add it in the comments. Note: To avoid spam comments, all comments on this site are moderated, so it may take awhile for your comment to show up.<br /> <br /> <br /> <div style='clear: both;'></div> </div> <div class='post-footer'> <div class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-1'> <span class='post-author vcard'> Posted by <span class='fn' itemprop='author' itemscope='itemscope' itemtype='http://schema.org/Person'> <meta content='https://www.blogger.com/profile/16986292503424513742' itemprop='url'/> <a class='g-profile' href='https://www.blogger.com/profile/16986292503424513742' rel='author' title='author profile'> <span itemprop='name'>Chad Skelton</span> </a> </span> </span> <span class='post-timestamp'> at <meta content='http://www.chadskelton.com/2019/01/five-ways-to-get-your-students-to.html' itemprop='url'/> <a class='timestamp-link' href='http://www.chadskelton.com/2019/01/five-ways-to-get-your-students-to.html' rel='bookmark' title='permanent link'><abbr class='published' itemprop='datePublished' title='2019-01-10T09:04:00-08:00'>9:04 AM</abbr></a> </span> <span class='reaction-buttons'> </span> <span class='post-comment-link'> <a class='comment-link' href='http://www.chadskelton.com/2019/01/five-ways-to-get-your-students-to.html#comment-form' onclick=''> No comments: </a> </span> <span class='post-backlinks post-comment-link'> </span> <span class='post-icons'> <span class='item-control blog-admin pid-1917174372'> <a href='https://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=8619350854485037959&from=pencil' title='Edit Post'> <img alt='' class='icon-action' height='18' src='https://resources.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif' width='18'/> </a> </span> </span> <div class='post-share-buttons goog-inline-block'> <a class='goog-inline-block share-button sb-email' href='https://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=8619350854485037959&target=email' target='_blank' title='Email This'><span class='share-button-link-text'>Email This</span></a><a class='goog-inline-block share-button sb-blog' href='https://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=8619350854485037959&target=blog' onclick='window.open(this.href, "_blank", "height=270,width=475"); return false;' target='_blank' title='BlogThis!'><span class='share-button-link-text'>BlogThis!</span></a><a class='goog-inline-block share-button sb-twitter' href='https://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=8619350854485037959&target=twitter' target='_blank' title='Share to Twitter'><span class='share-button-link-text'>Share to Twitter</span></a><a class='goog-inline-block share-button sb-facebook' href='https://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=8619350854485037959&target=facebook' onclick='window.open(this.href, "_blank", "height=430,width=640"); return false;' target='_blank' title='Share to Facebook'><span class='share-button-link-text'>Share to Facebook</span></a><a class='goog-inline-block share-button sb-pinterest' href='https://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=8619350854485037959&target=pinterest' target='_blank' title='Share to Pinterest'><span class='share-button-link-text'>Share to Pinterest</span></a> </div> </div> <div class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-2'> <span class='post-labels'> </span> </div> <div class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-3'> <span class='post-location'> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div></div> <div class="date-outer"> <h2 class='date-header'><span>Tuesday, July 24, 2018</span></h2> <div class="date-posts"> <div class='post-outer'> <div class='post hentry uncustomized-post-template' itemprop='blogPost' itemscope='itemscope' itemtype='http://schema.org/BlogPosting'> <meta content='https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9ac0BDMZUL0/WEdm2M0NOyI/AAAAAAAAxdI/p0o9cwuhgVwGFqJ-tufrltAM1P7k52XPACLcB/s320/FSA-map.png' itemprop='image_url'/> <meta content='6083825495664061008' itemprop='blogId'/> <meta content='8268888956071405187' itemprop='postId'/> <a name='8268888956071405187'></a> <h3 class='post-title entry-title' itemprop='name'> <a href='http://www.chadskelton.com/2018/07/my-next-online-tableau-training.html'>My next Online Tableau Training workshop is this September</a> </h3> <div class='post-header'> <div class='post-header-line-1'></div> </div> <div class='post-body entry-content' id='post-body-8268888956071405187' itemprop='description articleBody'> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9ac0BDMZUL0/WEdm2M0NOyI/AAAAAAAAxdI/p0o9cwuhgVwGFqJ-tufrltAM1P7k52XPACLcB/s1600/FSA-map.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="234" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9ac0BDMZUL0/WEdm2M0NOyI/AAAAAAAAxdI/p0o9cwuhgVwGFqJ-tufrltAM1P7k52XPACLcB/s320/FSA-map.png" width="320" /></a></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> My next <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/online-tableau-training-telling-stories-with-data-tickets-47776156771?aff=bp">online Tableau training workshop</a> will be held this September over three Thursdays: <b>Sept. 13, 20</b> and <b>27</b>. You can buy tickets <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/online-tableau-training-telling-stories-with-data-tickets-47776156771?aff=bp">here</a> or by clicking the button below:</div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/online-tableau-training-telling-stories-with-data-tickets-47776156771?aff=bp"><img border="0" data-original-height="44" data-original-width="257" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LvUj8JUjbt0/Wqqcp0uDfXI/AAAAAAABA3E/9Jm1-kfDgO8tjs0grYCOuBrgO5dq1tyTgCLcBGAs/s1600/eventbrite-button.png" /></a></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> Here are some <a href="http://www.chadskelton.com/p/workshops.html">testimonials</a> from people who've attended my earlier training sessions.</div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> <br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> If you can't make this workshop but would like to be alerted when the next one is scheduled, just <a href="http://chadskelton.us14.list-manage1.com/subscribe?u=f77761916f1d313badb1dc5da&amp;id=7b3df945be">add your name here</a>.</div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> <br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> If you have several people at your organization who need training in Tableau, I'm also available for <a href="http://www.chadskelton.com/p/excel-and-tableau-training-in-vancouver.html">onsite training</a>.</div> <br /> <div style='clear: both;'></div> </div> <div class='post-footer'> <div class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-1'> <span class='post-author vcard'> Posted by <span class='fn' itemprop='author' itemscope='itemscope' itemtype='http://schema.org/Person'> <meta content='https://www.blogger.com/profile/16986292503424513742' itemprop='url'/> <a class='g-profile' href='https://www.blogger.com/profile/16986292503424513742' rel='author' title='author profile'> <span itemprop='name'>Chad Skelton</span> </a> </span> </span> <span class='post-timestamp'> at <meta content='http://www.chadskelton.com/2018/07/my-next-online-tableau-training.html' itemprop='url'/> <a class='timestamp-link' href='http://www.chadskelton.com/2018/07/my-next-online-tableau-training.html' rel='bookmark' title='permanent link'><abbr class='published' itemprop='datePublished' title='2018-07-24T09:58:00-07:00'>9:58 AM</abbr></a> </span> <span class='reaction-buttons'> </span> <span class='post-comment-link'> <a class='comment-link' href='http://www.chadskelton.com/2018/07/my-next-online-tableau-training.html#comment-form' onclick=''> No comments: </a> </span> <span class='post-backlinks post-comment-link'> </span> <span class='post-icons'> <span class='item-control blog-admin pid-1917174372'> <a href='https://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=8268888956071405187&from=pencil' title='Edit Post'> <img alt='' class='icon-action' height='18' src='https://resources.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif' width='18'/> </a> </span> </span> <div class='post-share-buttons goog-inline-block'> <a class='goog-inline-block share-button sb-email' href='https://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=8268888956071405187&target=email' target='_blank' title='Email This'><span class='share-button-link-text'>Email This</span></a><a class='goog-inline-block share-button sb-blog' href='https://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=8268888956071405187&target=blog' onclick='window.open(this.href, "_blank", "height=270,width=475"); return false;' target='_blank' title='BlogThis!'><span class='share-button-link-text'>BlogThis!</span></a><a class='goog-inline-block share-button sb-twitter' href='https://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=8268888956071405187&target=twitter' target='_blank' title='Share to Twitter'><span class='share-button-link-text'>Share to Twitter</span></a><a class='goog-inline-block share-button sb-facebook' href='https://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=8268888956071405187&target=facebook' onclick='window.open(this.href, "_blank", "height=430,width=640"); return false;' target='_blank' title='Share to Facebook'><span class='share-button-link-text'>Share to Facebook</span></a><a class='goog-inline-block share-button sb-pinterest' href='https://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=6083825495664061008&postID=8268888956071405187&target=pinterest' target='_blank' title='Share to Pinterest'><span class='share-button-link-text'>Share to Pinterest</span></a> </div> </div> <div class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-2'> <span class='post-labels'> </span> </div> <div class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-3'> <span class='post-location'> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div></div> <div class="date-outer"> <h2 class='date-header'><span>Thursday, June 7, 2018</span></h2> <div class="date-posts"> <div class='post-outer'> <div class='post hentry uncustomized-post-template' itemprop='blogPost' itemscope='itemscope' itemtype='http://schema.org/BlogPosting'> <meta content='https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ena8oKLpRoQ/WxbR9ay5U3I/AAAAAAABDWY/eZIxH3uQbbkQ6UjuH4OeVGAA-WjZzvsFQCLcBGAs/s400/Screen%2BShot%2B2018-06-05%2Bat%2B11.09.20%2BAM.png' itemprop='image_url'/> <meta content='6083825495664061008' itemprop='blogId'/> <meta content='5150674474426555157' itemprop='postId'/> <a name='5150674474426555157'></a> <h3 class='post-title entry-title' itemprop='name'> <a href='http://www.chadskelton.com/2018/06/how-much-evidence-do-we-need-for-data.html'>How much evidence do we need for a data visualization "rule"?</a> </h3> <div class='post-header'> <div class='post-header-line-1'></div> </div> <div class='post-body entry-content' id='post-body-5150674474426555157' itemprop='description articleBody'> In a <a href="http://www.chadskelton.com/2018/06/bar-charts-should-always-start-at-zero.html">separate post</a>, I laid out some of my arguments for why I think most line charts should start at zero. I posted some of my initial thoughts on that topic on Twitter, which generated some really thoughtful replies.<br /> <br /> One of them, from Steve Haroz, noted that he knew of know evidence that people read non-zero-baseline bar charts any differently than non-zero-baseline line charts. And, furthermore, that we should be careful in talking about data visualization "rules" when our evidence for them is weak or nonexistent.<br /> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en"> <div dir="ltr" lang="en"> Rely on evidence. When there is little or none, don't claim that some absolute or universal rule exists. It's fine to say "maybe" or "I prefer".</div> &#8212; Steve Haroz (@sharoz) <a href="https://twitter.com/sharoz/status/999734337078812675?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 24, 2018</a></blockquote> <script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script> <br /> This led to a quite spirited discussion about whether data-visualization "guidelines" or "rules of thumb" that don't have any empirical research to back them up can still be valuable, or if we should stick primarily to those things that we have solid evidence for.<br /> <br /> Speaking personally, I didn't fully appreciate the gaps in data visualization research until I watched Robert Kosara's <a href="https://eagereyes.org/talk/how-do-we-know-that">excellent talk at the University of Washington</a>, "How Do We Know That?"<br /> <br /> The talk is based on Kosara's paper, <a href="https://eagereyes.org/papers/an-empire-built-on-sand">Empire of Sand</a>, which I now <a href="http://www.chadskelton.com/2017/04/data-visualization-reading-list.html">assign to my students</a> at the University of Florida.<br /> <br /> As Kosara points out, many of the things we think we know about data visualization have little empirical evidence to back them up. And other well-accepted "rules" may actually be wrong (for example, "chartjunk" may <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7141r6QQ2A">not be so bad after all</a>).<br /> <br /> Some rules are based on nothing more than the strong opinions of influential early writers in the field (like <a href="https://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/">Edward Tufte</a>&nbsp;and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Bertin">Jacques Bertin</a>) and have not actually been subject to peer-reviewed research.<br /> <br /> So where does that leave us as data visualization practitioners and teachers?<br /> <br /> It would seem obvious that we shouldn't teach "rules" that we know to be wrong. But what about the many areas for which there is little or no empirical evidence at all? Can theory replace research in some cases? Is a common practice worth teaching our students even if we don't know it to be true?<br /> <br /> Below, I've tried to collect some of my own thoughts on the matter as well as those of others who took part in the Twitter discussion.<br /> <br /> First, though, a big caveat about my own tweets: While I teach at a university and have (strong) opinions on how to teach data visualization, I'm an "instructor" not a "professor". I don't have a PhD and I'm not engaged in academic research myself.<br /> <br /> Let's get to the tweets!<br /> <br /> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"> <div dir="ltr" lang="en"> My argument is based more on encoding consistency, though, and prudence: if encoding is height, then it may be safer if height is proportional to numbers</div> &#8212; Alberto Cairo (@albertocairo) <a href="https://twitter.com/albertocairo/status/999740531193376769?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 24, 2018</a></blockquote> <script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script> <br /> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en"> <div dir="ltr" lang="en"> We don't know what visual cue people use or how they reason with it. Could be length. Could be area. Could be position of the top of the bar. And not clear why a point's distance from the x-axis is different from the length of a bar. There are plausible options, but no evidence.</div> &#8212; Steve Haroz (@sharoz) <a href="https://twitter.com/sharoz/status/999742358777458689?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 24, 2018</a></blockquote> <script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script> <br /> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en"> <div dir="ltr" lang="en"> That&#8217;s the key point! There&#8217;s elegance, Bertin-style retinal variables, etc., and then there&#8217;s the actual psychology, cognition, etc., and there are still big gaps in our knowledge of the latter.</div> Injecting configuration and compiling... Injecting scraper and running... <html> <head> Traceback (most recent call last): <title>502 Bad Gateway</title> File "scraper.py", line 13, in <module> </head> soup = BeautifulSoup(htmlpage) <body> <h1>502 Bad Gateway</h1> TypeError: 'module' object is not callable <p>Certificate verification error for bweb.kwantlen.ca: hostname &#x27;bweb.kwantlen.ca&#x27; doesn&#x27;t match either of &#x27;*.kpu.ca&#x27;, &#x27;kpu.ca&#x27;</p> </body> </html>

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susan
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