A new pedagogy is emerging… and online learning is a key contributing factor — from contactnorth.ca
Excerpt:
THREE EMERGING PEDAGOGICAL TRENDS
Underlying these developments are some common factors or trends:
1. A move to opening up learning, making it more accessible and flexible. The classroom is no longer the unique centre of learning, based on information delivery through a lecture.
2. An increased sharing of power between the professor and the learner. This is manifest as a changing professorial role, towards more support and negotiation over content and methods, and a focus on developing and supporting learner autonomy. On the student side, this can mean an emphasis on learners supporting each other through new social media, peer assessment, discussion groups, even online study groups but with guidance, support and feedback from content experts.
3. An increased use of technology not only to deliver teaching, but also to support and assist students and to provide new forms of student assessment.
It is important to emphasize that these are emerging pedagogical trends. More experimentation, evaluation, and research are needed to identify those that will have lasting value and a permanent effect on the system.
…
Impact on Student Learning
Student learning is the other key component of an emerging pedagogy, with their success as the goal of all our efforts.
- What new demands are student making in terms of how they want to be taught and assessed and what are your responses?
- What new roles are students taking in their online or hybrid learning and how has this changed your teaching practice?
- What new strategies for and areas of student support are being built into course structures to facilitate effective online learning?
Hi Daniel,
I arrived here via Steve Wheeler’s blog.
Thanks for posting. I’m gathering together my own thoughts about the current wave of disruption, and emergent pedagopgy. And I thought I;d try to work some of them out here.
I do wonder how emergent, new, or paradigm shifting it is. We have precedents for almost all of the innovations, in some form. Sure the technology is different, but lot;s of the fundamentals are the same. And the absence of previous iterations from the conversation is problematic I think..
We can trace correspondence courses back to the 1750’s, distance degree courses for the less well off to the 1850’s, and close analogies that actually worked well, in theory and practice, from the middle of the last century – Swedish Distance Learning in rural environments, Australia’s School of the Air over cb, tge Open University.
All providing non traditional experiences, all centred around catering to student contexts, many relying on large degrees of sytudent autonom,y, and all achieveing their ends to greater or lesser degrees.
Traditional classrooms have already warped, altered and changed in pretty much the same ways as the current tech trend is asking them to, manyu times over. There is much about what is happening now that is not new.
When you talk about new demands, new straegies, and moves towards open and flexinble learning, these are things that are already with us, and have been for quite some time.
Traditional education has already encounvtered, engaged with and produced them, sometimes from without, sometimes from within.
This is less a revolution, than a wheel that’s already turned several times.
I;d also add that lots of the theory basis for the currrent changes have been with us for a hugely long time. Constructivism has a nearly century long history in one form or another. Constructivism, ala Papert has been with us since the sixyties in some form. And some form of discovery, or inquiry, or problem based learning has been with us since the fifties.
The current candidtaes for teaching theory are hugely based on these core ideas. Many of them were the silver bullet game changers of their era. None of them changed the game in the ways claimed. All of them are to be found in greater or lesser degrees in current teaching practice.
I’d argue that we are not lookiong so much at something that is new, as something that is an iteration of projects we have already engaged in. Some worked well ( OU, School of the Air) some badly – unguided discovery learning for novices. Some have had their success replicated, some have had their failures replicated.
If we want to avoid replicating failure, and we should, changing the face of the conversation to one that actively reflects the iterative nature, and history of both theory and practice are key.
Hello Keith —
Thank you very much for taking the time to post this comment.
First of all, as I just posted on Steve’s blog:
I just wanted to be sure your readers knew that that piece was from contactnorth.ca — http://www.contactnorth.ca/trends-directions/evolving-pedagogy-0/new-pedagogy-emergingand-online-learning-key-contributing.
I was highlighting that blog posting on my blog (http://danielschristian.com/learning-ecosystems/2014/02/06/a-new-pedagogy-is-emerging-and-online-learning-is-a-key-contributing-factor-contactnorth-ca/) because I liked how it proposed that learners have expectations…and those expectations are changing. Faculty members can’t control these changes, but will likely need to adapt to them if they are to maintain the students’ focus, attention.
I also liked how it suggested that the learner needs to own more of their learning — a move towards more of a heutagogical practice and self-determined learning. (Article from Lisa Marie Blaschke at http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/1076 is relevant here).
Secondly, there is much that is not necessarily new — I like your reference to a wheel that’s already turned several times. It makes me think of a graphic from a recent presentation (that everyone in higher ed should review) — presentation at http://www.innovationexcellence.com/blog/2014/02/14/re-invent-the-future/ and snapshot of the graphic at http://danielschristian.com/learning-ecosystems/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/ReinventYourFuture4-StephenVanBelleghem.jpg
With that said, I have it that the technologies that have been developed and are developing in front of our very eyes ARE changing the game and are changing the balance of power and control and are requiring different strategies to engage students.
For example, we at Calvin College are working on a project re: remote presence. How best to effectively engage and address the remote learner while at the same time addressing the F2F learner is tricky…and we may not have the tools we need at this point in time. I can envision a future, for example whereby students can choose which camera they want to utilize to drop in on a F2F lecture/classroom (or which robot they want to drive to drop in on a class). They can select a camera that views the professor, zoom in on an area of the whiteboard, or view the entire class (no PTZ allowed here).
Another example of not yet having the tools we need can be found in what I’m calling Learning from the Living [Class] Room. It involves the convergence of the telephone, the television, and the computer. I can imagine a future whereby lifelong learners choose what they want to learn, when they want to learn it. They bring up a learning “channel” (which is really an app) and they watch a lecture up on a larger “TV” screen. They interact with other students via their mobile devices at the same time. Such a setup may draw upon several learning theories and practices, but the bottom line is that the learner will have more choice…more control.
Thanks again Keith for your thoughts here!
Daniel
Hi Daniel,
thanks for the thoughtful and detailed response.
And thanks for the encouraging worda about my post.
I;d agree that we are looking at new tools, and probably helping to drive their development by envisioning new techniqyes, experiences, and possibilities to explore that will require new tools, or combinations of tools.
What I don;t think is new, or revolutionary, or, honestly, very much talked aboiut is that the pedagogies these are currently based on are not new, and that lots of this has been done, already, in numerous forms, times and contexts.
I think of Salman Khan arguing that recorded lectures that students can replay in their own time will revolutionise learning. And I think of the time I spent in the eighties recording OU lectures on a VCR. And the I think of what else OU brings to the table. Peer connections ands study groups, face time with tutors, well bundeled support materials, and tutorial support.
I think of Sebastian Thrun telling us that there will be only ten Universities in 50 years time, and it reminds me of the International Cirrespondence Colleges and their 900’000 plus enrollment in 1906. No. I’ve never heard of the International Correspondence Colleges either.
MOOCs = correspondence course bubble of the 20’s.
I look at current disruptions. xMOOCs for example, and it strikes me that the lessons they haven’t learned from the Open University are the ones taht will probably be central in making them function.
What;s happening now may involve new tools, but it dpoesn;t involve that many new pedagogies. Sure, we’ll have to change, adpat, alter and evolve. But we will use many of the same ideas, theories, and past experiences to formulate how we should evolve. We have the same cognitive limits, the same psychlogy of motivation, the same reltionship to the content of feedback, the same desires for utility, achievability, the same stremngths and frailties we alws had.
I can number on one hand the amount of edtech theorists in the MOOC field I’ve ever heard mention distance learning.
Ditto constructivism, or Papert. Or correspondece schools. I;ve heard none mention the School of the Air, despite the fact that it’s pretty much a MOOC, except on radio waves, and with 7 decades of success behind it, rather than two years of….well. Are MOOCs successful?
Great comments here Keith — thanks!
I hear what you are saying especially the part that said: “We have the same cognitive limits, the same psychlogy of motivation, the same reltionship to the content of feedback, the same desires for utility, achievability, the same stremngths and frailties we alws had.”
Couple other thoughts/questions I wanted to insert here:
— Do you think technologies such as IBM’s Watson will be influential in the teaching and learning space?
— Will those affect how we teach? Learn?
I think the parameters you mentioned will still hold true. But I do wonder if such AI-based technologies will help faculty members and teachers out by sharing some of the load…and students can get in touch with a human expert when they need to.
Thanks again Keith,
Daniel
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