Assessing Ourselves: What do Students Think about About

Democratic Pedagogy

#demoped

A Naturalist View of Epistemology

Dewey

Peirce James Morris

William James & Radical Empiricism

#demoped

Teaching students not WHAT to think but HOW to think

We have something to learn from diversities of perspectives

Shared experiences create greater impacts than intellect alone

Truths are relational and situated observation

Pragmatism is a mediator and reconciler

Understanding wholes by their parts

James and Democratic Teaching

• From A Pluralistic Universe:– Learning is a dialogic ACT that requires interactive

PRACTICE– “ I must deafen you to the importance of talk by

showing you” (129-132).• Learning without consciousness of learning is

an act of growth

Dewey’s Epistemology

We interact with the world through self-guided activities.

We learn best in hybrid environments that include both realized content and shared experiences

We learn best through negotiation of community practice, both successes and failures.

The Crux of the Matter

Democratic learning is contingent on awareness of a diversity of points of common

interest as well as the change that occurs through “meeting the new situations produced

by varied intercourse.” ✔

Dewey’s Pedagogy (1897)

“If education is life, all life has, from the outset, a scientific aspect, an aspect of art and culture, and an aspect of communication.”

Language

Culture Science

Networked connections cultivate shared meaning-making

“do-ing” NOT “be-ing”

#demoped

A Dewey Word Cloud?

Applications of Dewey

Well, sorta…..

Kolb’s Experiential Learning (1984)Concrete

Experience

Reflective Observation

Abstract Conceptualization

Active Experimentation

#demoped

Critical-Democratic Teaching

• Freire-Shor (1970s-80s)• Feminist (1980-90s)• Transformative (hooks, 1990s)• Dialogic (Searle, 1990s)• Service-Learning (1990s-2000s)• Constructionist (Papert/Turkle, 2000s)

21st Applications of #Demoped

Crowd-Sourcing elements of learning Interactive Lectures Flipped Teaching Dialogics Transparency Digital Literacies

#demoped

Summary of #demoped

• Networked learning• Community-driven (aligned) – Assignments AND Assessments

• Students are Stakeholders• Reflective• Experiential• Rhizomatic

Stories from the FieldSelfe (2004): “range of literacies that students bring to the classroom: literacies practiced in the home, the community, the church, & online; literacies dependent on oral, visual, & aural performances; literacies based on multiple languages,

cultures, & contexts” (Writing New Media). • Strategy: Flipped Script; shared authority• Texts: Interactive lectures (PPT/Prezi/PowToon)• Outcomes: Application, Analysis, Synthesis

Stories from the Field

Lunsford (2005): students want their work to have value…something others might want to

borrow, share, cite, or even steal!• Strategy: crowd-sourced, public assignments

that re/mix content• Texts: blogs, wikis, pod-vlogcasts• Outcomes: synthesis/creation, evaluation

Stories from the Field

Wysocki (2012): digital writing is social writing.Creating agency through experiential learning:

– Observe experience– Record it succinctly– Organize it rhetorically– Present it creatively

• Strategy: collaborative, group writing• Texts: Wikis, G-docs, info-graphics, videos• Outcomes: application, evaluation, creation

FYW Reflective Project

• Context: Case Study. FYW course• Purpose: Measuring students’ attitudes toward

democratic, multimodal writing assignments• Participants: 15 FY students; STEM majors; 18-19 yrs

old; 14 self-ID’ed male; 1 self-ID’ed female; digital natives

• Instrument: mixed method survey, follow-up conversations

#demoped

FYW Project

• A Note (caveat, proviso!)– LO’s were explicit and transparent– Student voices were included in LO’s– Post-Final Grades

• Survey– Six overarching Qs about their learning

experiences in this course, using #demoped as frame

– Likert Scale and Open-Response

FYW Project

• Crowd-sourced, Vlog-cast100

9387

#demoped

FYW Project• 14 students: My writing improved in this course.– (1 neutral)

• 100%: I learned new ways of writing from the multimodal assignments.

• 14 students: Discussion engendered participation– (1 neutral)

• 14 students: I increased my digital literacy.– (1 neutral)

FYW Qualitative Results

• The vlog-cast helped me realize that writing comes in different forms.

• The MM writing assignments helped me internalize the learning outcomes

• I now prefer writing with multimodalities• Learning in this class will benefit me in future

courses.

#demoped

STEM Writing

A. Autonomous LearningHow each student is given responsibility which provides collaborative control over the class discussions and topics learned.

#demoped

STEM Writing

B. Experimental Learning and How it Transfers to Engineering courses

Students are given the opportunity to learn in ways that are specific to them. It eliminates complacency in learning and caters to individualism when a student is in control of what they take away from a lesson.

#demoped

STEM Writing

C. Success of this class model is based on equal contribution from each participant.

Though my experience was a pleasant one, not all will be due to reliance on students to lead and take charge of the learning environment. Not all students are going to want to be in control of their own learning experience. Some may just be too accustomed to being told how and what to learn

#demoped

STEM Writing

• Recovering Women in STEM (special topics class) – A Wiki created by student-

scholars to remember influential women in STEM.

– The objective of this research project was to be a resource for students and teachers to promoting STEM.

#demoped

STEM WritingWiki: collaborative – Edited (Google Doc)– Roles of students– Presentations at Women’s

History Month• Used the wiki to coordinate

the banquet• Panel presentation

#demoped

Failing Forward• What happens when not everyone

participates in democratic learning?– Helping others along– Good and bad experiences

(learning from it)– Service learning (adding value)

• How do students negotiate with each other in choosing writing assignments?

DWMA Pilot

• Ongoing Case Study (two courses)• Strategies:– Crowd-sourced midterms– Micro-studies designed by community– Multimodal text constructions– Co-authoring opportunities

• Democratic/Digital/Aligned• Measuring Students’ Attitudes

Upper Division Writing

• 75% positive about writing in digital spaces• 50% prefer MM writing to print writing• 25% think likely MM writing will not be valued

as a skill in their job.

DWMA Pilot

Blogging

Twitter

Other Socia

l Media

Vlog-cast

s

Podcasts

YouTube0

20

40

60

80

100

Pilot Qualitative Results• MM is all about re/mixing content• MM is a recognized trend, like it or not• MM is in addition to text (digital comm)• MM is revolutionary way to communicate

What’s Next

• Digital, Democratic Community of teacher-student scholars – Rhizomatic

• Leave us your information for updates on the development of the community!

• www.demoped.rhetoricmatters.org

#demoped

Wrapping it Up

Let’s make our own Word Cloud.

#demoped

Q&A

• #demoped• Workgroup• Peer-to-Peer• demoped./rhetoricmatters.org

#demoped

Resources

• Dewey, John (1897) ‘My pedagogic creed’, The School Journal, Volume LIV, Number 3 (January 16, 1897), pages 77-80. http://infed.org/mobi/john-dewey-my-pedagogical-creed/.

#demoped