Could a Machine Teach Like You Do?

Dan Butin

Last month I attended the Institutionalising Best Practice in Higher Education Conference at the UWI St. Augustine Campus.  I was part of the organizing committee as the CETLs were co-hosts along with the Quality Assurance Units.  It was a great conference, with some excellent keynote speakers.  One of them was Dan Butin, Associate Professor and Founding Dean of the School of Education at Merrimack College and executive director of the Center for Engaged Democracy, USA. He gave a rousing address on the need to flip the university, and create an impact-centred, engaged institution; an institution that is transformative; that scaffolds deep, authentic learning; that provides students with rich experiences of learning.

Now here I am looking back at a few "draft" post on this blog that never made it to the light of publication, and among them is a link to this tongue-in-cheek article, penned in the early days of the arrival of the MOOCs (massive open online courses), an article in which the same Dan Butin wonders if his student would be better served taught by a machine! Take a read, and ask yourself the same question!!! http://www.nebhe.org/thejournal/i-am-not-a-machine/   .

"Most of what we do is based on a transmission model of education, and most of what we transmit is low-level content knowledge to help students just get the basics. This is why MOOCs have become such a sensation. If all we have experienced is being lectured at, then, sure, Wikipedia, the Khan Academy and MOOCs should replace us. I hope, instead, that MOOCs will prompt us to refashion what we do in the college classroom and how we do it."  

Flipping a Calculus Course - and self directed learning?

I have posted in this blog a couple times on the "flipped classroom" teaching strategy (check the categories on the right).  In this entry I want to share a series of posts in which a mathematics lecturer at the Grand Valley State University in Michigan, Robert Talbert, chronicles his experiences with "flipping" a calculus course.  In the process he illustrates the potential of the flipped approach for developing self-regulating students, an important goal in the preparation of 21st century graduates.

The following post entitled The inverted calculus course and self-regulated learning is a good place to start - http://chronicle.com/blognetwork/castingoutnines/2014/03/03/the-inverted-calculus-course-and-self-regulated-learning/ .  You can  use the “previous”  and “next”  links at the top of the post to see his earlier and later posts if it gets interesting.  He is writing about his experience “flipping” a calculus course, but the concepts introduced and the lessons learned are  relevant to most disciplines.  I particularly like the post on Creating Learning Objectives, flipped classroom style which really gets you thinking about how you develop and sequence learning outcomes http://chronicle.com/blognetwork/castingoutnines/2014/03/05/creating-learning-objenctives-flipped-classroom-style/ .   The posts are certainly worth a read.  

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Teen to Government...Change Your Typeface and Save Millions!

14-year-old science student hits upon a simple strategy for saving big on printing costs.

What really excites me about this story is what it suggests about the power and potential of authentic learning and assessment.  CLICK HERE to check it out and leave a comment.

The Teaching Prof Says Give Students a Choice in Assignments and Boost Creativity and Motivation

"Dan Pink, in his 2006 book A Whole New Mind: Why Right Brainers Will Rule the Future, indicates that autonomy, mastery, and purpose are qualities that motivate learners and result in achievement. Isn’t this what we desire for our students? When students are asked to interpret, construct, and demonstrate their own concepts or ideas regarding specific course concepts from a selection of product or performance options, content retention, commitment, motivation, and creativity increase. At least that’s what’s happened in my courses, and those outcomes are consistent with the principles of effective course design."

Looking for workable ideas for increasing student engagement and meaning-making? In this article, the "Teaching Professor" shows what can happen when students get to choose.  If you have any experiences of your own to share, add a comment!

What Do Students Learn Through Discussion?

You think the reason for having discussions is obvious to students? I’d encourage you to test that assumption. Next time you’ve had a discussion, ask students why you had them discuss the topic rather than simply lecturing on it or have them read about it in the text. If I had to guess, I’d say that question will first be met with silence, followed by some glib answers, “You didn’t have time to prepare a lecture,” followed by other answers, none still very insightful, “It’s a way to keep us awake.”  Maryellen Weimer, The Teaching professor Blog

One of the hands-on sessions that we have included in the CUTL technology course is a workshop on the use of the excellent communication and collaboration tools available in the Moodle/elearning system, in particular, the discussion forum tool.  I love the Moodle forum tool for the choices it offers with respect to the way in which the forum will operate - Will the forum allow students to start their own topics or will all topics be started by the instructor? Will students have to post their responses to a question before they can view the responses of their peers? Will it be strictly a Q & A rather than a full, open discussion etc. All these decisions are made by the instructor when setting up the forum.

Why I really love the forum tool, moreover, is the value it can add to a course by extending opportunities for discussion beyond the limited time available during face-to-face contact hours, and for encouraging students to engage with a topic even prior to coming to class.  Yet, as Maryellen Weimer reminds us, students do not always appreciate the value of discussion, and this can impact negatively on the importance they ascribe and the effort they commit to participating in discussion, whether face-to-face or online.  In her recent blog post Weimer suggests a few simple ways in which instructors can help student to appreciate the value of discussion to learning.  Click here to read the full post.

Seeing Ourselves Through Students' Eyes

We have just come to the end of the Advancing Teaching and Learning with Technology course in the teaching certificate programme (CUTL) and assignments are due.  Some participants have kept up with the pace of the course and have completed assignments on time, others have requested extensions to the submission date for a variety of reasons.

Looking back on this the second cohort of the course, I have been reflecting on the differences in the ways in which different participants have experienced and responded to the course.  The course is delivered in a blended format, with all core instruction, readings etc delivered online while face-to-face sessions are dedicated to hands-on workshops to introduce a range of instructional technologies.  Online discussions and other interactive web-based activities are a major component of the course.  Some persons have relished the online forums; the exchange of ideas and experiences and collaborative engagement with the assigned readings have been extensive, rich and thought-provoking.  However, there are those who have struggled to keep up with the pace of the forums, citing, in many cases, a dislike for spending extended periods at the computer, as well as the demands of professional and personal responsibilities which left little time to devote to what some found to be a demanding, even if engaging and meaningful course.

This reflection brought to mind a point made by award-winning author Stephen Brookfield, in his classic book The Skillful Teacher, to the effect that  the most important knowledge teachers need to do good work is a constant awareness of how students are experiencing their learning and perceiving their actions.  This was one of three core assumptions of skillful teaching which Brookfield outlined, the others being that:

• Skillful teaching is whatever helps students learn; and
• Skillful teachers adopt a critically reflective stance towards their practice.

Of course, these three assumptions are intertwined since, teachers often come to a knowledge of what will help their students learn through a combination of factors, including ongoing reflection on the outcomes of past actions, and ongoing solicitation of feedback from the learners themselves.  This latter action, solicitation of feedback, is not always easy and,perhaps for that reason, is often overlooked.  However, if Brookfield is correct, and this is in fact "the most important knowledge teachers need to do good work.., "  then finding ways to make this feedback easy and effective is paramount.  This is where technology can help.

The ready availability of course and learning management systems such as Moodle, offer feedback tools which make it extremely easy for instructors to collect anonymous feedback from students on an ongoing basis throughout a course .  Brookfield suggests that ensuring the anonymity of students' responses to questions we ask regarding their classroom experiences is a "cardinal principle of seeing ourselves through students' eyes", as this is more likely to lead to willing and honest responses. What will also encourage willing responses, he further suggests, is having students witness this regular invitation of anonymous commentary, followed by public discussion with them of the results...adding, "they start to believe that you mean what you say about the value of critical reflection."

Another interesting point Brookfield made in discussing the core assumptions of skillful teaching, is the invaluable lesson instructors can learn from their own return to "student status". He wrote:

"If... we find ourselves regularly in the situation of trying to learn something new and difficult, we can use this experience to gain an appreciation of what some of our own students are going through.  We are provided with an experiential analog of the terrors and anxieties that new learning produces.  As people used to orchestrating others' learning, we probably won't enjoy feeling frightened, embarrassed, and intimidated when we find ourselves in the role of learner.  But if we care about helping out own students learn, the experience of struggling as learners ourselves is a kind of privilege.  It gives us a gift of empathy that helps us adjust what we're doing to take account of students' blockages and anxieties."


So CUTL5106  participants, take note; when you feel like complaining about the demands of the course, see it as the privilege and the gift I try to make it!  And if you use none of the other technological tools that we have been exploring in the course, use the Feedback tool in Moodle/Elearning!