Randy Bass, Georgetown University
the Problem of Learning in the Post-Course Era MAALT-SEALLT Conference March 11,2010
What’s the problem?
Wikis blogs
Online chatrooms
microblogging
Writing technologies
Social networking
Data visualization
Video conferencing
E-portfolios
Task-based instruction
Non-linear learning
Multiple modalities Authentic audience Selfassessment practices
learning Social environments bookmarking Virtual worlds perpetually in motion and serious a deeper sense of games From static to Digital cultural dynamic storytelling understanding and learning language learning
Wikis blogs
Online chatrooms
microblogging
Writing technologies
Social networking
Data visualization
Video conferencing
E-portfolios
Task-based instruction
Non-linear learning
Multiple modalities Authentic audience Selfassessment practices
learning Social environments bookmarking Virtual worlds perpetually in motion and serious a deeper sense of games From static to Digital cultural dynamic storytelling understanding and learning language learning
Wikis blogs
Online chatrooms
microblogging
Writing technologies
Social networking
Data visualization
Video conferencing
E-portfolios
Task-based instruction
Non-linear learning
Multiple modalities Authentic audience Selfassessment practices
learning Social environments bookmarking Virtual worlds perpetually in motion and serious a deeper sense of games From static to Digital cultural dynamic storytelling understanding and learning language learning
Wikis blogs
Online chatrooms
microblogging
Writing technologies
Social networking
Data visualization
Video conferencing
E-portfolios
Task-based instruction
Non-linear learning
Multiple modalities Authentic audience Selfassessment practices
learning Social environments bookmarking Virtual worlds perpetually in motion and serious a deeper sense of games From static to Digital cultural dynamic storytelling understanding and learning language learning
The Post-Course Era
“You know. It was taught as a Gen Ed course and I took it as a Gen Ed course.� Georgetown student, end of first year, focus group: reflecting a particular course in which, he claimed, he was not asked to engage with the material.
High Impact Practices (National Survey of Student Engagement--NSSE)
•
First-year seminars and experiences
•
Learning communities
•
Writing intensive courses
•
Collaborative assignments
•
Undergraduate research
•
Global learning/ study abroad
•
Internships
•
Capstone courses and projects
High Impact Activities and Outcomes
High Impact Practices:
Outcomes associated with High •
First-year seminars and experiences
•
Learning communities
•
Writing intensive courses
•
Collaborative assignments
•
impact practices
•
Attend to underlying meaning
•
Integrate and synthesize
Undergraduate research
•
Discern patterns
•
Global learning/ study abroad
•
•
Internships
Apply knowledge in diverse situations
•
View issues from multiple perspectives
•
Gains in Skills, knowledge, practical competence , personal and social development
•
Capstone courses and projects
High Impact Practices (National Survey of Student Engagement--NSSE)
•
First-year seminars and experiences
•
Learning communities
•
Writing intensive courses
•
Collaborative assignments
•
Undergraduate research
•
Global learning/ study abroad
•
Internships
•
Capstone courses and projects
So, if high impact practices are largely in the extra curriculum (or co-curriculum), then where are the low-impact practices?
formal curriculum = low-impact practices ?
Are we then entering the “post-course era�?
2/16/10
13
If the formal curriculum is not where the high impact experiences are then there are three options (1) Make courses higher impact (2) Create better connections between courses and the high impact experiences outside the formal curriculum (3) Start shifting resources from from the formal curriculum to the high impact (experiential) curriculum
All of the above‌
Range of responses courses designed as inquiry-based and problem-driven
Using social tools at scale
Design courses for depth and engagement (writing intensive, project-based, team-based, etc)
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Participatory Culture How do we make classroom learning more like participatory culture?
Features of participatory culture Low barriers to entry Strong support for sharing one’s contributions Informal mentorship, experienced to novice Members feel a sense of connection to each
other Students feel a sense of ownership of what is being created Strong collective sense that something is at stake
Jenkins, et. al., The Challege of Participatory Culture
Six Characteristics of high impact practices AND features of participatory culture Features of participatory
culture (on the Web) Low barriers to entry Strong support for sharing one’s contributions Informal mentorship, experienced to novice Members feel a sense of connection to each other Students feel a sense of ownership of what is being created Strong collective sense that something is at stake
High impact experiences
(co- curriculum)
Attend to underlying
meaning
Integrate and synthesize Discern patterns Apply knowledge in diverse
situations
View issues from multiple
perspectives
Skills, knowledge, practical
competence , personal and social development
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Looking from the Web in‌ How do we make formal learning environments more like informal learning? How do we make classroom learning more like participatory culture?
Informal Learning Participatory culture
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The Formal Curriculum
High impact practices Experiential Co-curriculum
20
the end of the course as a bounded experience
John Seely Brown: Practice to Content content
practice
Informal Learning Participatory culture
2/16/10
The Formal Curriculum
High impact practices Experiential Co-curriculum
23
Three Challenges Intermediate processes (“thin slices”
of practice)
Reflective judgment, uncertainty Embodied learning
Thin Slices Participatory learning + Web 2.0 tools Student work is in process, in practice— not just in summative work
Connecting Intermediate Processes to Practice
NOVICE
MIRACLE
product
2/16/10
Bass & Elmendorf, 2009
EXPERT product
26
Connecting Intermediate Processes to Practice
LEARNING processes
NOVICE processes
LEARNING processes
EXPERT practice
LEARNING processes
How can we better understand these intermediate processes? 2/16/10
evidence of process
How might we design to foster and capture them? 27
Connecting Intermediate Processes to Practice
LEARNING processes
NOVICE processes
LEARNING processes
“Thin slices” of online discussion or blog
LEARNING processes
Traces of collaborative practice
evidence of Process
EXPERT practice Microreflections on the cutting room floor ePortfolio samples: drafts, reflections
#1: Social Pedagogies and a Large Lecture Course Heidi Elmendorf, Georgetown University Foundations of Biology BIOL-103
1st year Biology course
250 students
science majors & pre-meds
nd al a e rson nc f Pe gnifica i se o Sen ctual S lle Inte
Student Learning Goals (Students develop…)
A Sense of Audience and Voice
Participatory learning
Course Design Elements
Social Pedagogies
Readings & On-line Conversation Class & Think-Pair-Share Lab & Partnered Inquiry Problem Sets & Group Effort
around Authentic and Challenging Problems
Research Paper & Shared Steps Exams & Room for Uncertainty Heidi Elmendorf, Georgetown University
Prof Elmendorf’s Instructions to her Students for the Discussion Board
• Communicate about the reading. One of the best ways to learn something is to talk about it. Air your bafflement, express your wonder, ask your questions, try out a new idea of your own…And while I hope you will talk often about biology this semester with your classmates, I want to be sure you have an official forum for these conversations – and that you are rewarded for the effort you will expend having them.
Holding Conversations
Online Conversation
Jose Feito, on the importance of “not knowing”
“The theme of not-knowing [has] emerged as a key factor in the maintenance of a truly collaborative intellectual community within the classroom. In order for a shared inquiry to proceed productively, the participants must be able to regularly acknowledge their lack of understanding, offer partial understandings, and collectively digest the resulting discourse. Not-knowing is characterized by a group’s ability to defer meaning, tolerate ambiguity, hold divergent perspectives, and postpone closure. In order to develop, it requires a relatively non-judgmental classroom atmosphere, but not an uncritical one.”
Jose Feito, St. Mary’s University (Moraga, California, U.S.A.)
Michael Smith & Ali Erkan, Ithaca College Using Wiki’s to teach history
Students work in collaborative teams
to write history wiki-texts on subjects that interest them in historical context
Michael Smith & Ali Erkan, Ithaca College
Not just about knowledge to be acquired, but
Ways of thinking
Embodied
Ways of acting (practice) Ways of talking A sense of identity Not just knowing, but the experience of knowing (and coming to know)
Social Pedagogies and an Introductory Writing Class Writing, Invention, Media HUMW-011
1st year writing course
20 students
Gen Ed
Randy Bass, Georgetown University
Humanities & Writing 011 First-year required writing course Section theme: “Writing, Invention, Media” Core concept: “writing is a social act” Core theme: Changes modes of learning, the
participatory culture of Web, and the nature of the University
Worthwhile Important
What is worth knowing and doing?
What is important to know and do?
CORE What is a core or enduring understanding? Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe, Understanding by Design
HUMW011: Writing, Invention, Media
Opening Day exercise: Writing in school?
Worthwhile Important
CORE Writing on the Web?
Core Values of Writing in School: Week One
Core Important Worthwhile
Core Understandings--writing in school (week one)
Core Understandings--digital, Writing on the web (week one)
Networked research group
Networked research group Yahoo Pipes
Networked research group
Participatory Culture and Formal Learning
Student team
Student team
Any mechanism for aggregating, feeding, filtering, tagging‌
Shared course blog or teacher / tutor space
Student team
Rajagopalan Balaji, Capstone Course in Engineering (University of Colorado) (Design competition) 70+ students
12 teams
Central RSS feed
Central RSS feed
Team blogs
two projects
Teacher watches, coaches (key source of capture for intermediate processes)
Team blogs
Designing for the post-course era
thin slices of practice reflective judgment embodied learning If we are to connect courses to the “holistic selfportrait� of the learner, then we not only to link out but in..
A Sense of Audience and Voice
nd al a e rson nc f Pe gnifica i se o Sen ctual S lle Inte
Student Learning Goals
PRACTICE: Features of Participatory Process
• Help students create markers of certainty and uncertainty • Provide opportunities for relearning • Design opportunities for meaningful reflection on Practice and integration of experience
Tim Kastelle University of Queensland, “Successful Open Business Models”
Tim Kastelle “Successful Open Business Models on the Web” (e.g. Journalism, Music)
Aggregate Filter Connect
Tim Kastelle, “Successful Open Business Models” “Successful Open Business Models” (higher education) • Aggregate • Information resources • Filter • Knowledge (what knowledge is worth knowing) • Scholarship (peer review) • Graduates (employability) • Connect • Ideas, experiences, people
Shift in How We Add Value
AGGREGATE FILTER
CONNECT
Shift in How We Add Value
COURSE ERA
AGGREGATE FILTER
CONNECT
POSTCOURSE ERA
Sir Ken Robinson, “How Education Kills Creativity”
ted.com
Sir Ken Robinson, “How Education Kills Creativity” “What we need is a new conception of human ecology, one in which we start to reconstitute our conception of the richness of human capacity.”
ted.com
Randy Bass contact (for slides, follow up): bassr@georgeotwn.edu