the problem of learning in the post-course era by randy bass

the Problem of Learning in the

Post-Course Era

Randy Bass, Georgetown University

MAALT-SEALLT ConferenceMarch 11,2010

What’s the problem?

Writing technologies

Wikis

blogsmicroblogging

Social bookmarking

Data visualization

Video conferencing

Social networking

Virtual worlds and serious games

Online chatrooms

E-portfolios

Digital storytelling

Self-assessment practicesTask-based

instruction

Non-linear learning

Multiple modalities

Authentic audience

From static to dynamic learning

learning environments perpetually in motion

a deeper sense of cultural understanding and 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:

• First-year seminars and experiences

• Learning communities• Writing intensive courses• Collaborative assignments• Undergraduate research• Global learning/ study abroad• Internships• Capstone courses and projects

Outcomes associated with High impact practices

• Attend to underlying meaning• Integrate and synthesize• Discern patterns• Apply knowledge in diverse

situations• View issues from multiple

perspectives• Gains in Skills, knowledge, practical

competence , personal and social development

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 responsescourses 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)

2/16/10 16

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

How do we make classroom learning more like participatory culture?

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 development2/16/10 18

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?

The Formal Curriculum

InformalLearning

Participatory culture

High impact practices

Experiential Co-curriculum

2/16/10 20

the end of the course as a bounded experience

John Seely Brown: Practice to Content

content

practice

The Formal Curriculum

InformalLearning

Participatory culture

High impact practices

Experiential Co-curriculum

2/16/10 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

NOVICE MIRACLE EXPERT

product product

Connecting Intermediate Processes to Practice

Bass & Elmendorf, 20092/16/10 26

NOVICEprocesses

EXPERTpractice

LEARNINGprocesses

LEARNINGprocesses

How can we better understand these intermediate processes?

How might we design to foster and capture them?

evidence of process


LEARNINGprocesses

2/16/10 27

NOVICEprocesses

LEARNINGprocesses

EXPERTpractice

evidence of

Process

LEARNINGprocesses

LEARNINGprocesses

“Thin slices” of online discussion or blog

Traces of collaborative practice

Micro-reflections on the cutting room floor

ePortfolio samples: drafts, reflections


#1: Social Pedagogies and a Large Lecture Course

Foundations of BiologyBIOL-103

1st year Biology course

250 students

science majors& pre-meds

Heidi Elmendorf, Georgetown University

Learning and Feedback from

Multiple Perspectives

Flexibility with knowledge

in open-ended contexts

Deep

enin

g Di

scip

linar

y

Und

erst

andi

ng

Sense of Personal and

Intellectual Significance

Student Learning Goals (Students develop…)

A Sense of Audience and Voice

SocialPedagogies

Participatory learning

Course Design Elements 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

•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.

Prof Elmendorf’s Instructions to her Students for the Discussion Board

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 thinkingWays of acting (practice)Ways of talkingA sense of identity

Embodied

Not just knowing, but the experience of knowing (and coming to know)

Social Pedagogies and an Introductory Writing Class

Writing, Invention, MediaHUMW-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

CORE

Important

Worthwhile

Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe,

Understanding by Design

What is worth knowing and doing?

What is important to know and do?

What is a core or enduring understanding?

CORE

Important

WorthwhileOpening Day exercise:

Writing in school?

Writing on the Web?

HUMW011: Writing, Invention, Media

Core Values of Writing in School: Week One

Cor

e

Impo

rtan

tW

orth

whi

le

Core Understandings--writing in school (week one)

Core Understandings--digital, Writing on the web (week one)

Networked research group


Yahoo Pipes

Participatory Culture and Formal Learning

Student team

Student team

Student team

Shared course blog or teacher / tutor space

Any mechanism for aggregating, feeding, filtering, tagging…

Rajagopalan Balaji, Capstone Course in Engineering (University of Colorado)

(Design competition)

70+ students 12 teams two projects

Central RSS feed

Team blogs

Central RSS feed

Team blogs

Teacher watches, coaches

(key source of capture for intermediate processes)

thin slices of practice

reflective judgment

embodied learningIf we are to connect courses to the “holistic self-portrait” of the learner, then we not only to link out but in..

Designing for the post-course era

Learning and Feedback from

Multiple Perspectives

Flexibility with knowledge

in open-ended contexts

Deep

enin

g Di

scip

linar

y

Und

erst

andi

ng

Sense of Personal and

Intellectual Significance

Student Learning

Goals

A Sense of Audience and Voice

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”

“Successful Open Business Models on the Web” (e.g. Journalism, Music)

Aggregate

Filter

Connect

Tim Kastelle

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

AGGREGATE

FILTER

CONNECT

COURSE ERA

POST-COURSE ERA

Sir Ken Robinson, “How Education Kills Creativity”

ted.com

Sir Ken Robinson, “How Education Kills Creativity”

ted.com

“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.”

Randy Bass

contact (for slides, follow up):

[email protected]