Where the real learning lives

In my many years of education I have always understood this social institution to be all about the learner and the learning process. Societal expectations of K-20 education are high and are high staked. As many recognize, education has been greatly influenced by business practices and this week I have experienced this directly. Teachers are on the front line of the learning experience, we see, experience, respond to and interact with the learner in an intimate way. Therefore we have information and a perspective that those who do not teach cannot completely understand, interpret, or make decisions about. And yet, I believe K-20 education is increasing being driven and directed by individuals who are removed from this experience. State boards of education may not have any educators assigned to them. Federal mandates related to classroom experiences may not be reviewed or supported by teachers. So this week I attend EDUCAUSE, the largest higher education IT conference in the world (I think). As I purused the schedule I was excited about the variety and scope of the topics - so much to learn! But I quickly realized that there were few, if any, sessions delivered by faculty. I knew faculty attended, but I was hard pressed to find faculty-driven sessions. How can IT adequately and appropriately understand and make decisions about T&L without the active, committed, and engaged involvement of faculty and students? This is not a new question - but we must continue to ask and persist in making sure our voice is heard as well as that of our constituency: our students.

Affordances of nature and not technology

Nature gets it right when it comes to affordances. Things work for a reason the way they were designed to and pretty much only fail when man attempts to alter that inherent intention. This thought re-surfaced when I attended Margaret Bamberger's lovely birthday party and then read her most recent blog post. We (and I use we collectively because we all make choices about what we do) use technology in teaching and learning for reasons that may or may not relate to an intrinsic affordance. In higher education little if any technology is designed for learning.. ok, simulatons, games, and tutorials, but really most are tools for processing, recording or processing information. I don't suggest that technologies be re-designed, but I do recommend that we think about the affordance of a technology before we jump on a popular bandwagon and use a tool for its novelty. Let's follow in an expert's footsteps and provide fertile conditions for seeds to germinate.

Change: By You and Me

Jane Goodall’s wisdom “change happens by listening and then starting a dialogue with the people who are doing something you don't believe is right” is a challenge, yet is a wise strategy for reasonable action given how many people in the world don't feel that they are heard or know where to start to make a difference. Stephanie Summerville's story of her unintended contribution to a change of mind should make us all be conscious that opportunities to trigger change are all around us, all of the time. This week a lovely international group of which I am a member had a very intense email discussion over the value and strategy of The Girl Effect. Is this a worthwhile effort? Does it diminish women? Is it an effective strategy to instigate global change, at a personal level? What do these sound bite videos help us learn anyway? Well, I say.... if we wait to create the perfect, politically correct, acceptable message, we'll never make any change. Google 'make a difference' that should inspire all of us. And if you are an aging baby boomer, thinking about what's next, check into Encore, helping us think about making what's next an opportunity for bliss.

OK for learners too

When I became an academic, I thought my job was to seek answers and make them public - the more people who had access, the more valued the work would be. I quickly learned that the rewards have been most traditionally situated in elitism and limited access: the more prestigious and expensive a journal, the more valued the published works. Peter Suber has given me hope for the realization of my naivety. I know this is not a new, novel, or revelatory idea, but he speaks so reasonably about Open Knowledge being a strategy for "testing and validation of knowledge claims." I want to go further in this thought. Considering the value of the learner's public sharing of knowledge, I believe we do them a disservice when we collect works, grade them, and discard or file them. Making work public does more for understanding our own thought processes, strengths, and weaknesses than any grade can do. Let's share the richness of our experience as educators, whose work is public, with our students and provide them opportunities to push their knowledge to others - and learn about themselves in the process.

Expert ... novice learners, do they know who they are?

When I started teaching adults many years ago, I did so with the assumption that (a) they wanted to learn and (b) they took a position that they were novices. Over the course of time, I have learned that not everyone wants to learn, at least not just for the sake of learning. And I have learned that learners are less willing/able and perhaps justified in taking the role of novice in a formal learning experience. For me, the shift of roles accompanied the increasing access to information that provides any or all of us to think we know something about a lot of things. Early in my career I looked at novice vs. expert learning and the processes and expectations (at that time) are very different. It occurs to me that perhaps it is useful to provide ways to help students determine their level of expertise (I don't think grades, degrees, certifications, or even portfolios truly accomplish this) and be more conscious of how we approach learning and teaching interactions given the perceptions if not truthful realities of learner expertise.

I have run across the Dreyfus Model that provides a framework for a continuum of how people think as they move along their degree of knowledge. In my recent work examining storytelling as instructional method, I found this interesting post about the ancient game of Go in which Sorin Gherman, a programmer, applies the Dreyfus Model to Go. This post interest me because Sorin uses stories to illustrate levels of expertise. In an informal conversation with a pilot a few weeks ago, I found that Southwest Airlines uses storytelling in the interview process to determine the level of expertise of potential pilots.

Oftentimes, faculty will have students reflect on what they have learned in a course, but it occurs to me that students don't get the benefit of the larger personal journey they are taking, or where they lie on a continuum of expertise. I don't believe that such continuum is empirical, measurable or finite, but after thinking about the Dreyfus model, I do think helping students see where they are in their ability to know is valuable.

Ron Abel references education as a institution (Innovation, Adoption and learning impact: Creating the future of IT)in his response to the Spelling’s Report and he points out the challenges of a social system that exists because of its function to preserve heritage and stability, while faced with ongoing change. Abel argues that “When society exerts a new pressure, such as increased emphasis on and revenues for research, the higher education system responds in a way that considers its core values and mission. And so it will be with increasing pressures for accountability.” Technology in formal education is a target for change, because it changes so often; a in its internet-based persona, it is a new addition to higher education. The Internet only began to be accessible to almost all faculty and students in the mid- to late 1990’s.So it has only been 10 years since we really have dealt with funding of technology and supportive infrastructure, much less what we should be using if for. Abel argues that we must not just how we do what we are doing, but change the very thing we are doing. Although Ablel digresses into a discussion of standards (as per the IMS project, a membership-driven organization with a small degree of member diversity, due to the expense of membership), he does raise issues that should be considered when planning strategically. Learning theory, social network analysis, informal and non-formal learning, learner needs and preferences, and the ongoing expectation by educational consumers that their will be some form of instruction should be a starting place for considering how we intend to use, develop, support, build, retire, alter, evaluate technology for learning. See some materials that are attempting to support efforts in this direction.

Learning Intelligence

Carol Dweck's research about children's ability to 'grow' their intellectual capacity should be no surprise. Attention is a key component of learning, and if we attend to how our brain works, it would follow that we would increase our capacity to learn. Surely higher education can benefit from a similar tactic in helping college students. In Texas, many universities struggle with retention and graduation rates. If we were to follow Dr. Dweck's proven success with 4th graders, we might be able to better engage and retain students who drop out, transfer, or prolong graduation for as long as possible. But helping students use their abilities to learn is but one solution. Instructors and instructional designers must also learn these basic principles so that course designs support, nurture, and mirror what students come to understand about their mental abilities.