I work in a very hands-on area of study so naturally I have a hard time finding too many forms of digital teaching relevant. While the interwebs can be useful for helping students remember techniques that they've learnt in the workshop, the practical learning usually needs to happen in-house, in person, with steel toed boots on.
The timing of the Balkanized Internet article couldn't be more relevant. Just as the American FCC moves to make Internet access more expensive, more limited, and more specifically-oriented toward websites and services that are profitable for the ISP (regardless of their utility to or desirability for consumers) we are reminded that access to Internet and computing hardware is already polarised and becoming more so as ISPs limit access to the cables themselves to the poor, the rural, and the already-underserved. Of course!
Okay, Marc Prensky's Natives-Immigrants article is downright obscene. This Web 1.0 guy from 2001 pretending that his students are digital natives because they watched MTV? He was a passive consumer of TV from childhood just like everyone else. That making people play games to learn key skills, try to piece together learning out of hundreds of thirty-second sound bytes, and tolerate advice from an anthropomorphous paper clip was going to benefit more than four per cent of the population? Oh man. I've got a skill you might try to teach over the 'net, but probably shouldn't. We've learned that you really shouldn't have your only skills training for power tools come from videos. At the very least, if you're going to learn how to use your circular saw from YouTube make sure your flatmate is a First Aider. Or at least has an ambulance on speed dial. Oh the digital millennium. How clever we all thought we were.
I'm on board with the Critical Digital Pedagogy article's crux--the interwebs, the computers, the VoIP and video conferencing--these things are tools that can either facilitate or support learning. Ultimately we still learn the way we always did, but now we can do it from further away, or at least in the comfort of our own homes. For some things. If we want to.
Tuesday, November 28, 2017
Monday, November 27, 2017
November 15: Pedagogical Persona critical reflection
PC: Counterweight Flying Exercise. Challenged and maintained the interest of specific students for whom classroom exercise was relevant.
Tone was relaxed, playful, with a touch of snark that the students appeared to appreciate when they screwed up.
Did not appear to take safety as seriously as exercise indicated.
Did not attempt to engage the attention of the greater majority of the class, who spent most of the day standing or sitting around being annoyed with each other, not paying attention, and getting in the way.
NM: Semiotics Lecture.
The lecturer covered the topic's key points quickly but with warmth and humour. He sought repeatedly to relate the content to the assembled students' areas of study.
The lecture was fast and very light-touch. This was by necessity and design: the class was only an hour long, and it was an introductory overview for first years who may or may not have a genuine interest in the field of study.
Students were not afforded more than cursory opportunities to participate or contribute to the content of the lecture; questions posed to the group were either rhetorical or the lecturer answered them for himself before the students had a chance to digest the question. This may have been due to time constraints, but it felt as though the windows to invite the students to respond were largely perfunctory. He had no real desire to hear their thoughts or even check that they comprehended, which was all the more ironic in a class about communication and understanding.
The space was small, warm and airless. Students started nodding off at about the 40 minute mark. It was difficult to measure attention. Some people actually pay attention quite well when staring off into the middle distance, which I find disconcerting.
The lecturer's tone was warm and engaging but some content was objectionable and led to a palpable disconnect between him and the students. The lecturer referred to theatre as 'pretend' and indicated that the dual usage of the word 'play' to mean 'piece of theatre' and 'children's imaginative activity' was relevant and deliberate. I find the shared usage of this word frustrating and avoid it, as do many theatre and performance makers who find the term infantilising and trivialising. As a way to introduce semiotics it may have felt apt, but it was distracting and may have engendered distrust. Particularly among crafts makers, for whom much of their work and skill is decidedly not pretend.
The overall impression I received was that the tutor was ultimately disgruntled with the subject and found teaching this particular lesson trying. This may have developed out of a former enthusiasm for semiotics that was not shared by a class, or several classes' worth of students, but while he understood the material to a significant depth he didn't seem to have it in him to give much of a hoot about it. It was difficult to tell where this struggle originated, if his attitude today toward the subject caused or was caused by the miasma of apathy that hovered in the room.
Tone was relaxed, playful, with a touch of snark that the students appeared to appreciate when they screwed up.
Did not appear to take safety as seriously as exercise indicated.
Did not attempt to engage the attention of the greater majority of the class, who spent most of the day standing or sitting around being annoyed with each other, not paying attention, and getting in the way.
NM: Semiotics Lecture.
The lecturer covered the topic's key points quickly but with warmth and humour. He sought repeatedly to relate the content to the assembled students' areas of study.
The lecture was fast and very light-touch. This was by necessity and design: the class was only an hour long, and it was an introductory overview for first years who may or may not have a genuine interest in the field of study.
Students were not afforded more than cursory opportunities to participate or contribute to the content of the lecture; questions posed to the group were either rhetorical or the lecturer answered them for himself before the students had a chance to digest the question. This may have been due to time constraints, but it felt as though the windows to invite the students to respond were largely perfunctory. He had no real desire to hear their thoughts or even check that they comprehended, which was all the more ironic in a class about communication and understanding.
The space was small, warm and airless. Students started nodding off at about the 40 minute mark. It was difficult to measure attention. Some people actually pay attention quite well when staring off into the middle distance, which I find disconcerting.
The lecturer's tone was warm and engaging but some content was objectionable and led to a palpable disconnect between him and the students. The lecturer referred to theatre as 'pretend' and indicated that the dual usage of the word 'play' to mean 'piece of theatre' and 'children's imaginative activity' was relevant and deliberate. I find the shared usage of this word frustrating and avoid it, as do many theatre and performance makers who find the term infantilising and trivialising. As a way to introduce semiotics it may have felt apt, but it was distracting and may have engendered distrust. Particularly among crafts makers, for whom much of their work and skill is decidedly not pretend.
The overall impression I received was that the tutor was ultimately disgruntled with the subject and found teaching this particular lesson trying. This may have developed out of a former enthusiasm for semiotics that was not shared by a class, or several classes' worth of students, but while he understood the material to a significant depth he didn't seem to have it in him to give much of a hoot about it. It was difficult to tell where this struggle originated, if his attitude today toward the subject caused or was caused by the miasma of apathy that hovered in the room.
Monday, November 6, 2017
November 8: Ways of Learning
Biggs And Collis Structure of Learned Outcomes: This looks and feels just like Bloom's taxonomy. How is it different? Very familiar, I'm comfortable with this one.
Costa and Callick: Critical Friend. This is fraught with peril. This does not describe a friendship, it describes maybe mentorship or just being a wiser and not-very-nice older sister. Anyone who has the ability to criticise you but who you can't give back a taste of their own medicine isn't a friend. Friendship must go both ways or it is disingenuous. I don't like this one, or trust the intentions of the authors. At best it is what I do at work--I am friendly and not in a position to grade the students, but I have helpful feedback and can be playful and silly with the students. I hope that they can grow to trust me. But I am not their friend.
Whitmore's Grow Model: we engaged with this to an extent at the beginning of class, and it is something I have to encounter periodically in professional appraisals and development. The idea of motivating a staff member to set clear, specific, measurable and time-bound goals is at the core of annual appraisal. The idea of finding or creating the willpower to achieve the objectives she has set is where it all falls down.
Caine and Caine: Brain-Based Learning. I'm not sure how I engage with this one. The author appears to indicate that he doesn't either. I guess at its core is a reminder that learners have brains too, and they're probably a lot like yours and need to be stimulated in the right way in order to not only learn, but retain, and have a drive to learn. Ask questions. Pose a challenging but not overwhelming learning environment. Allow the learner to have some autonomy in how and what they learn, if possible.
Gardner: Multiple Intelligences. This seems silly. It lacks substance, either because Gardner's thinking lacked substance or because Bob Bates didn't take it particularly seriously. It doesn't help people learn what they signed up to learn, certainly, and doesn't appear to have a whole lot of use in the classroom if ultimately you have specific concepts and skills you wish to teach to everyone. Yes we can appreciate that everyone has their aptitudes and range of interests, but how can we tune each intelligence toward learning the thing that needs to be learnt? ("The answers to questions of this nature are not easy." HA!)
Montessori: The Absorbent Mind. I can take a lot of the advice to heart: people thrive where there is order and everything has its place. Facilitate learning rather than dictate teaching. I think the workshop is a much saner place now that we have a tool room. Everything has its place--it may not be the most specific place, but it is much more specific than it used to be, and the space makes more sense. Things don't get lost as easily. I also appreciate my permission to encourage students to make mistakes and learn from them. It's difficult for the students to appreciate just how beautiful a feeling that can be.
Bruner: Discovery learning. Ask students what they want to learn. Help them learn it. Figure out if they understand it. Ask them what they want to learn tomorrow. Great for drop-ins. Not great if the students don't actually want to learn what you are tasked with teaching them, but never mind.
Vygotsky: Zone of Proximal Development. Break the concept down into smaller chunks, and allow the learners to feed them to themselves, or get students who other students pick things up from easily to help feed it to them. Makes concepts sound a lot like soup.
Costa and Callick: Critical Friend. This is fraught with peril. This does not describe a friendship, it describes maybe mentorship or just being a wiser and not-very-nice older sister. Anyone who has the ability to criticise you but who you can't give back a taste of their own medicine isn't a friend. Friendship must go both ways or it is disingenuous. I don't like this one, or trust the intentions of the authors. At best it is what I do at work--I am friendly and not in a position to grade the students, but I have helpful feedback and can be playful and silly with the students. I hope that they can grow to trust me. But I am not their friend.
Whitmore's Grow Model: we engaged with this to an extent at the beginning of class, and it is something I have to encounter periodically in professional appraisals and development. The idea of motivating a staff member to set clear, specific, measurable and time-bound goals is at the core of annual appraisal. The idea of finding or creating the willpower to achieve the objectives she has set is where it all falls down.
Caine and Caine: Brain-Based Learning. I'm not sure how I engage with this one. The author appears to indicate that he doesn't either. I guess at its core is a reminder that learners have brains too, and they're probably a lot like yours and need to be stimulated in the right way in order to not only learn, but retain, and have a drive to learn. Ask questions. Pose a challenging but not overwhelming learning environment. Allow the learner to have some autonomy in how and what they learn, if possible.
Gardner: Multiple Intelligences. This seems silly. It lacks substance, either because Gardner's thinking lacked substance or because Bob Bates didn't take it particularly seriously. It doesn't help people learn what they signed up to learn, certainly, and doesn't appear to have a whole lot of use in the classroom if ultimately you have specific concepts and skills you wish to teach to everyone. Yes we can appreciate that everyone has their aptitudes and range of interests, but how can we tune each intelligence toward learning the thing that needs to be learnt? ("The answers to questions of this nature are not easy." HA!)
Montessori: The Absorbent Mind. I can take a lot of the advice to heart: people thrive where there is order and everything has its place. Facilitate learning rather than dictate teaching. I think the workshop is a much saner place now that we have a tool room. Everything has its place--it may not be the most specific place, but it is much more specific than it used to be, and the space makes more sense. Things don't get lost as easily. I also appreciate my permission to encourage students to make mistakes and learn from them. It's difficult for the students to appreciate just how beautiful a feeling that can be.
Bruner: Discovery learning. Ask students what they want to learn. Help them learn it. Figure out if they understand it. Ask them what they want to learn tomorrow. Great for drop-ins. Not great if the students don't actually want to learn what you are tasked with teaching them, but never mind.
Vygotsky: Zone of Proximal Development. Break the concept down into smaller chunks, and allow the learners to feed them to themselves, or get students who other students pick things up from easily to help feed it to them. Makes concepts sound a lot like soup.
Friday, November 3, 2017
November 1: Constructive Alignment
Gist: If you want people to learn a thing, ensure that the process of teaching them that thing involves doing the thing, or engaging with it. Best example: if you seek to teach someone to drive a car, do so in the car, with them driving it. People don't learn to drive by listening to a lecture, and they don't demonstrate automotive competence or ability through a written test. The mode of teaching, the environment for learning and the method of assessing should all relate back to the intended learning outcome. ILO: student becomes better driver. Mode of teaching should be hands-on and practical. Environment for learning should allow the student to practice under realistic conditions. Method of assessment should be a demonstration of practical competence.
I'm not sure how well this can really apply to the more theoretical philosophies which may not have obvious applications. Maybe I'm missing something? It's all well and good to teach chemistry though opportunities to do your own practical demonstrations of chemical interactions and behaviours, but how do you do the same without a practical objective? How do you, for instance, teach Introductory Philosophy, the stated goal of which is to just provide the student information, and the only real point of assessment is to ensure that the content was absorbed? Can this be taught with Constructive Alignment? Or is the suggestion of CA that in order for learning to be meaningful the student must engage more thoroughly, and the desired learning outcome is not "to be full of facts" but to have some meaningful engagement with the facts, for the student to apply one or some of the concepts to something else in her life? (Ahh, the authors reject the idea of a class existing to 'cover' a topic.)
Of course it is a valid way to teach teaching. The whole point of raising issues, sending part-time learners back into their classrooms to explore them, try them out, and feed back on them is to help them engage critically with their practice, and hopefully improve upon it. It is absolutely applicable to This class. I can also see it being useful to much of what we do in drama school, where we train students rather than teach in the traditional sense.
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In class we discussed some of the concerns I raised above. The idea of meaningful engagement with the facts is more advanced than the original text-writers indicated. At the BA level students should be able to identify, describe and explain concepts that have been imparted to them in class, but while they may as individuals be able and willing to engage in higher-level criticism and synthesis within the subject, it is not within the parameters of a BA to expect or assess this level of engagement. Sometimes you stop at Identify. When you get to the MA you may critique and analyse. When you reach PhD level you may theorise and create.
I'm not sure how well this can really apply to the more theoretical philosophies which may not have obvious applications. Maybe I'm missing something? It's all well and good to teach chemistry though opportunities to do your own practical demonstrations of chemical interactions and behaviours, but how do you do the same without a practical objective? How do you, for instance, teach Introductory Philosophy, the stated goal of which is to just provide the student information, and the only real point of assessment is to ensure that the content was absorbed? Can this be taught with Constructive Alignment? Or is the suggestion of CA that in order for learning to be meaningful the student must engage more thoroughly, and the desired learning outcome is not "to be full of facts" but to have some meaningful engagement with the facts, for the student to apply one or some of the concepts to something else in her life? (Ahh, the authors reject the idea of a class existing to 'cover' a topic.)
Of course it is a valid way to teach teaching. The whole point of raising issues, sending part-time learners back into their classrooms to explore them, try them out, and feed back on them is to help them engage critically with their practice, and hopefully improve upon it. It is absolutely applicable to This class. I can also see it being useful to much of what we do in drama school, where we train students rather than teach in the traditional sense.
----
In class we discussed some of the concerns I raised above. The idea of meaningful engagement with the facts is more advanced than the original text-writers indicated. At the BA level students should be able to identify, describe and explain concepts that have been imparted to them in class, but while they may as individuals be able and willing to engage in higher-level criticism and synthesis within the subject, it is not within the parameters of a BA to expect or assess this level of engagement. Sometimes you stop at Identify. When you get to the MA you may critique and analyse. When you reach PhD level you may theorise and create.
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