21st Century Universities #change11

Drs. Irvine & Code proposed an interesting challenge in their introduction this week, a question that I have been reflecting on for a few months.  Since October I have been catching up on my reading about the state of Higher Education.  A bleak picture is painted by many authors, not just in terms of the rapidly changing face of HE, but also the students who come out of our programs.  I see the outcomes yearly.  There are students who have poorly grasped even a fraction of what was offered to them.  They chose easy routes with instructors that posed no challenge, or they crammed/dumped to pass an exam.  Over the last few years, I've been radically altering my teaching in hopes of challenging and inspiring students.

But, to the challenge at hand.  The question revolves around "...  let the learner choose the delivery method they want for course enrollment."   It is an exciting proposition, but there is one flaw that I see, and it is a flaw I see with many new systems.  Do the students really understand their choices?  Do they really know which delivery system best suits them?  

 Please understand, I don't think University administrators know what is the best modality for students, and ultimately students will be their own best advocate.  Yet, you first have to lead the student to understanding how they learn; help them find the best fit for who they are as a person.  In my current version of the class Principles of Biology I (an introductory course for biology majors), I'm using the concept of a MOOC to help students become more independent learners and show them the power of learning networks.  Let me restate, I'm Leading Them to a new style of learning.  I've recognized that the majority of my students don't possess the skills to tackle learning by themselves.  Most of them have been taught as if they were children, and not adults.  Education has become a chore, and learning is many times lost.  So I've taken a middle road between the complete freedom of a MOOC and the structure of a class.  But what does this have to do with the challenge at hand?

How does the student learn which teaching modality works best for them?

New projects starting while others end #change11

I've been keeping up with information, but have not had a great deal of time recently to sit down and actively keep up this blog.  The Change 11 MOOC has inspired me, and this includes the presenters that I've gotten to watch.  So, now my redesigned Biology course is going live. 

This is a hybrid face-to-face / online class, and I'm using many of the MOOC concepts.  I've also invited friends to join and to send their students.  For those who are interested, the course syllabus can be found at https://sites.google.com/site/hybridbiol2107/ and the social network structure for the MOOC is at http://biogsu.org/oxwall/. 

I've actually referred to this in my notes as a pMOOC (for pseudoMOOC). 

Unlike the MOOC concept that depends on self-actualized learners, the pMOOC is designed to take students who are use to being spoon fed and move them throughout the semester to a more adult learning model (so a move from pedagogy to andragogy). 

Now that this has started, I can get back to some other things (getting everything running has been the worst part).

Goals #change11

Last weeks discussions regarding David Wiley's challenges to the MOOC participants, and Tony Bates webinar today, have really encouraged me to sit down and reflect on what I want to do in my classes.  Next semester I am presenting a Hybrid online/F2F class in biology.  This project is based upon an internal grant sponsored by our Center for Instructional Innovation.  Since joining the #change11 MOOC, I've had a lot of ideas about how to handle this class, and a lot of inspiration for other projects.  What follows is the basic ideas about the class.  This is still a work in progress.  But first, this class.

The Course:
The course is the first semester biology for our biology majors.  This is a heavy content class, with much of the content being required for later classes.  Students who do not take the time to incorporate foundational concepts tend to do poorly in later classes.

The Goal:

• Encourage students to become active, independent learners.
• Encourage students to learn the foundational concepts of biology.
• Encourage retention of the foundational concepts of biology.
• Encourage students to see the connections between different concepts of biology; to build in their mind a picture of the systems of living organisms.

Management:
The majority of students in this class are use to directive styles of instruction, and do not see themselves as independent learners.  The instructional management of this course will start off heavy, with additional resources provided to the students.  These resources will included online presentations, notes, links, and helpful hints.  As the semester continues, fewer instructor notes will be made available. Students will be asked instead to contribute notes, interpretations and content to the course wiki.

Framework:
The class is hybrid online/face-2-face, meaning that each week, students will come to the lecture hall for face-2-face time, but then the remaining time will be online work. 
Online work

• ePortfolio of work including a blog of daily activities.
• Comments on the blogs of other students.
• Access to online tutorials.
• Online quizzes based in a learning management system.
• Papers submitted for calibrated online review.
• Participation in webinars, online help sessions, and discussion boards.
• End of semester reflective paper (based on Prior Learning Assessments)

In class work

• Time in class will be mainly devoted to question and answers, mini-lectures (5 minutes on a specific topic), case studies, and activities (such as working with molecular models).
• There will be two assessments to determine comprehension and synthesis of information.

Student Assessment:

• 1/3 of the student's final grade is determined by the performance in lab.  The instructor has very little influence over lab, so this is something I will have very little control over.
• Students will receive points for daily blog activity starting during the first week and proceeding through the 15 weeks of he semester.  I should note that points are awarded on "sound participation."  What this means is that the student has posted a reflection on the topic, the post is intelligible and logical.
• Students will receive points for the completion of online quizzes.
• Students will receive points on in class assessments.
• Students will receive points for the end of the semester reflective paper and all calibrated peer reviewed papers.

Course Assessment:
Qualitative studies have never been my strong suit, so I'm working on ways to evaluate the effectiveness of the course.  Some of the assessments will include:

• Survey of Student Satisfaction
• Review of Student Participation and Survey by external observer
• Comparison of results of standard departmental questions between sections.

This is the current scheme of the course.  Comments welcome.

Opening statements on Open Content #change11

The work of David Wiley as an innovator and advocate are impressive, especially his current work on open textbooks.  The expense of textbooks is a topic that is dear to my heart, for as a science educator, I see the burden placed on students.  I guess it is one of the reasons I provide all of the lab materials to the students free of charge.  Of course, this makes me consider about opening up this material as open content.

I have yet to get through all of the sources provided, but my first concern regarding open content would be the quality of the material.  What is the review process?  Who are the reviewers?  What is the review criteria?  These would be my first questions (which of course may already be answered in the sources provided by David Wiley).

As to the challenge put before us, I would say that is two fold.  First is to provide and help students find open source material to further their biology education.  Even with a starting point provided, students often explore links and other sources when reviewing materials online.  As such, they become actively engaged in the material, which is a positive result.  For example, online games that allow you to look up answers through search engines provides a great example of becoming actively engaged in learning.

The second part is to encourage students to produce open content of what they have learned, be it a video, blog, song, or whatever creative outlet sparks their interest.  With varying levels of success, I have had students prepare videos on specific topics.  The greatest success was with a group of medical microbiology students who made videos on the immune system (some of their content is still available on our campus iTunesU site, if you can find it).  In the future, I would like to let them work through their own creative outlets, but still convey some accumulated knowledge.

This is just a brief introduction.  I need to consider this weeks challenge in more detail before I start building a map or other resource.

Collective Learning - Final Thoughts #change11

After my epiphany regarding collective learning, I've taken a chance to rethink my views on the topic and Professor Littlejohn's work.  Due to meetings, I was unable to attend the presentation on Friday, and hope to view it later this week.

First, collective knowledge is a reality.  No human holds the sum total of all knowledge, so we have to use external sources of knowledge to supplement our understanding of topics.  In the sciences, collective knowledge has been tapped for centuries, as can be seen with the correspondences between intellectuals and scientists since the 1600s (and earlier if you keep going).  In our modern world though, there seems to be disparity between academic disciplines in how, when, or even if, collective knowledge is tapped.

During a meeting on Friday, I had an opportunity to talk to people from English and Art about collective learning.  It was agreed among them that they preferred to work alone.  Collective learning, if any, was relegated to conferences and meetings.  From reading Professor Littlejohn's work, it seems that this is also the case in business and corporate collective knowledge.  I also realized that in academic settings, this can also be the case.  It can be amazing how many faculty members (both new and older) don't know how a university is administered.  There are at times some strange misconceptions that could be solved simply by asking.

This brings us to my first key in Collective Learning:  ask questions.  I feel we have built a culture that really does not like to ask questions, that it is seen as some type of weakness to look for knowledge from those around you.  Even my students are at first hesitant to ask questions, but it is the fastest way to access collective knowledge.  If one person doesn't know, they may at least know someone or some reference that can provide the information.  Does asking a question show a lack of knowledge, yes, but it also shows that you are cognizant of your lack of knowledge and are actively trying to correct that lack of knowledge.

My second key in Collective Learning: ask for feedback.  Culturally, we are also afraid of criticism, and this leads us to the self-destructive path of trying to be a lone wolf in our work.  Instead of going over to a colleague and saying "could you look this over for me?", we will sit alone and go over the work again and again until we convince ourselves that it is perfect.  This comes for a meeting I just had (about an hour ago) with a student over a lab paper, and then another about a test.  Instead of getting feedback from an external source, both just convinced themselves that their work or knowledge was perfect only to find out that it was not at the expected level.  We tap into collective knowledge when we get feedback.

The third key in Collective Learning is be open to new ideas.  I was at a meeting with other faculty members from around the university working on a new idea for the college.  What I discovered was that the older faculty members mainly focused on "tried and true" methods of doing things, while younger faculty members wanted to do projects that would carry with it name recognition (making a name for themselves).  None of the ideas were new, none were revolutionary, none were going to go to that mythical "next level."  Would they work?  In their own way, but there was limited openness to anything untested, untried, or innovative.  Collective knowledge is not stagnant, it is not codified and unchanging.  It grows as individuals and organizations grow, and you should experiment.  That is why being open to new ideas is so critical.  New ideas allow collective knowledge to adapt and expand.

Finally, be willing to answer questions and give feedback.  The worst thing for an eager learner is to come face to face with someone who won't help them.  Always take time to answer questions and to give feedback.  This is the only way for collective learning to be provided to the next generation.

Yes, I have focused on person-to-person communication of knowledge, but that is because people will know where to go for the information.  You could do a Google searches for information, and get back 1,000 sites of varying degrees of relevance.  Instead, you could go to someone in the "know" and ask them where they would start looking for the information.  In general, you'll get a better way of finding a useful site, and you will be a connection in your individual learning network.

The Phenomena of Emergence (Collective Learning #change11 )

Yesterday, I joined the CIDER meeting Emergent Learning and Learning Ecologies in Web 2.0.  One of the other audience members made a comment to me that got me thinking.  We were talking about emergence, and I made mention of mathematical complexity.  The response was that we were discussing social emergence, and that math was just a metaphor.  That is what got me thinking.

A little background.  Chaos theory was just becoming big when I started my masters.  One of my professors, knowing I had a strong background in math, talked with me about it.  It also came up in a class on modeling ecological systems.  I kept up with complexity and chaos theory off and on since then (but it never became a major calling for me).  As a scientist, I also have been taught the supremacy of mathematics since I was in high school.  So saying that math was just a metaphor was odd, since all complexity theory ultimately originates in mathematics.

The specific thing that was discussed was regarding the imitation of the system, and that small changes at initiation can have a dramatic effect.  My ultimate idea here is that one person could throw the group dynamics into a spin and radically affect the forming social network.  But I sat with the idea of math as a metaphor, and that is when I was struck by an amazing similarity between what is being discussed with collective learning and emergence.  One point I made regarding codifying collective learning is the unpredictability of the initial system.  But it is not just the initial system, it is the individual(s) that make up the collective.

Where did this come from?  What the conversation reminded me of was a work of Science Fiction:  Isaac Asimov's Foundation Series.  If you are not familiar with the series, in the first book, a mathematician develops an algorithm to predict large scale societal trends in the future.  A foundation is built to "oversee" these trends, working for a "better" outcome.  The problem comes in the second book, because the one thing the algorithm can not predict is the actions of an individual, and one individual throws the entire system into chaos.  I know I have left a lot out, but this is just meant as a breif overview.

What is the point?  Ultimately, the individual is the important element in the collective.  How do you maintain a collective when one individual disrupts the collective?  With a large enough population, the collective maybe able to maintain itself, but a small one may not survive.  Think about that one disruptive student in a class.  How much of a problem do they make for the learning of others?  This is not to alienate one person, or to even say one system is better than another, but if you ignore that one individuals actions, it can have a damaging effect on any collective you try to build.  This becomes a question of leadership/management ultimately, but it can not be ignored when trying to build a #collective.

And how does this deal with math...well except for the reference to an algorithm to predict future societal trends by one person, which is in many ways analogous to small changes in initial state altering the behavior of the system, not much. :)

Collective Learning Environment - RPG and Fandom

I came home tonight, and while I was sitting and relaxing, a thought occurred to me.  One of the greatest examples of a collective learning environment, and one that has had a fair amount of impact, has been Role Plyaing Games and Fandom.  If your not familiar with these two groups, you might want to look into them.

I first got into role-playing games when I was in elementary school, and my mom thought it was one of the best (and worst) things that happened to me.  She use to tell people that when I got into Dungeons and Draagons, I started to read and study on my own.  I devoured books on medival Europe, became fascinated with classical culture, in high school took Latin, in general, I became a learner.  It didn't stop with me reading; I also talked to people, learned what they knew, got references from them.  I made connections.  Now, that was back in the 70's.  If you look at RPGs now, the idea of collective knowledge has exploded.  I have no idea how many sites exist for D&D alone, but just doing a quick search will find pages and pages of links.  I'll limit myself though to one specific D&D example:  The Forgotten Realms.

The Forgotten Realms is a setting designed for D&D that first appeared in 1987.  Since then it has spawned well over 250 novels, anthologies and graphic novels, as well as at least ten computer games, and a gaming phenomena called living campaigns.  Add to that the official game supplements published, which is well over 200 books, and you have an entire library about a fictional land.  But that is not all, since the advent of the internet, people have been posting their own "rules", ideas, compelations, and other such remixes of ideas.  The Forgotten Realms wiki, founded in 2005, has over 11,000 pages.  The Forgotten Realms General forum, housed at the D&D publishing company, Wizards of the Coast, has 915 thread with a total of 41,288 posts.  The Realms Lore Forum has 2,084 thread with 82,122 posts.  These forums were started approximately 4 years ago.  If you talk to people who play in the Forgotten Realms setting, they know extensive details of the fictional world, including geography, culture, and history.  Strangely, many of these people have along the way picked up a lot about humanity's histories and cultures, as well as real world geographies.

Fandom, groups of people who are fans of a particular author, movie, comic book, or series, are just as knowledgeable of the details of their interest.  Star Trek and Star Wars fans have been lampooned for years about the extensive knowledge that they hold regarding these two fictional worlds, but the point is, these people learned about these worlds.  Fans of Star Trek created a functional Klingon language.  You can even go to the Klingon Language Institute to learn Klingon!

While many may see these as anomolous, or fringe groups, even classify them with some form of psycological disorder even, the fact remains that people in these groups possess a collective knowledge, share that knowledge, experience collective learning, and even create new objects (even languages) from this collective expereince.

The question becomes, why would someone learn the history of the forgotten realms and not the history of Europe? 

My main answer would be that you are expected to learn the history of Europe, it is mandated by your school, by your parents, and by your society.  In essence, all the life has been sucked out of it.  The forgotten realms on the other hand is exciting, new, something that you can explore.  There is no expectation for you to learn what someone has decided is an important date or an important leader (even if the date or leader is important).  The keywords for this is explore, imagine, create. 

Now I need a period of reflection (and dinner).  I'm going to come back to this idea of explore, imagine and create a little later.
 #change11