How Does Online Learn By Doing ACTUALLY Work?

Learning by doing or active learning has become a buzzword at levels of education in recent decades, driven by the findings of cognitive science and the spread of constructivist learning theories which posit that people generally learn better when they are actively involved in the process, and when learning is made relevant and authentic through activities that allow students to apply learning to real life problems and situations.

Also a major feature of education today is online and blended delivery aimed at improving learning outcomes, reducing costs and catering to increasing demand for flexibility of access, particular in higher education.  For many institutions, marrying these two imperatives, active learning and online learning, has proven challenging.  In this short video, Carnegie Mellon West Coast Campus demonstrates how it is done.  The featured programme is supported by experienced faculty who serve as mentors.  They have abandoned the traditional approach to delivery, they say, in favour of the online learning-by-doing approach in order to help their students become independent thinkers.

After you have watched the video, drop me a comment to share your thoughts.
 here is the link to the video http://www.rogerschank.com/ .

Video Creation as a Form of Active Learning

 Video Creation as a Form of Active Learning

In one of the topics in our CUTL Technology course we look at the use of video and audio in instruction.  Having students create their own videos as a form of assessment or "meaning making" is highlighted as the Number 1 pedagogical use of video. Several of the course participants comment favourably on the idea, though some ponder over logistical issues that might get in the way.   A few graduates of the course have successfully implemented the use of student videos, like Dr. Adrian Cashman of CERMES and Dr. Grace Fayombo of the School of Education who both made presentations on student-created videos as a learning tool at our inaugural Teaching With Technology Symposium last year 

A lecturer in the Faculty of Science and Technology at St. Augustine has taken the idea and is "running with it" in a big way. Jason Matthew teaches biochemistry and he is challenging his students in BIOL 2365 to "imagine, create and innovate" with video. The project, Biochemians Got Talent, required students to create 15-minute videos (a bit long, perhaps?) on any topic in the BIOL 2365 course syllabus. The project produced 30 videos which Mr. Matthew has made available on YouTube. He is interested in having biology and biochemistry students at UWI view and comment on the videos (and perhaps add to them as well!). So those of you who teach biology/biochemistry, please share with your students. It's an excellent way for students to "learn form each other".  Here is the link to the channel where you can view the videos LINK. Take a look and drop me a comment with your thoughts on the idea.   

(Just in case the link doesn't work, you can also go on the YouTube website (www.youtube.com) and type in BiochemJM in the search bar.

The MOOCS Are Coming, Are We Ready?

W hen over 160,000 people signed up for a course in artificial intelligence offered by two academics at Stanford, in the Fall of 2011, this sealed the eruption of MOOCS as “the hottest topic of discussion in higher education in the U.S”.  Things in the MOOC realm have been moving “fast and furious” ever since.

I have the wonderful pleasure of being the facilitator for the course Advancing Teaching and Learning with Technology in the Certificate in University Teaching and Learning (CUTL) programme at the UWI Cave Hill Campus.  This course provides for stimulating interactions with faculty as we engage in online discussions of various issues impacting on teaching and learning in higher education today. 

One of the issues discussed with the current cohort is the rapidly developing phenomenon of MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) that is sweeping across the Higher Ed landscape, primarily in North America.  Interestingly, no one on the course had heard the term before, but all were immediately intrigued by it.

A MOOC is a type of online course aimed at large-scale participation and open access via the Internet. The term  is only about five years old, and really only came to prominence within the last year, as the involvement of some of the USA’s leading universities, including Harvard, MIT, Stanford and Berkeley, triggered a media frenzy about the potential of MOOCs to revolutionize higher education on a global scale. 

MOOCs  sprung out of the open educational resources  (OER) movement with its lofty goals of  alleviating the digital divide “between the global North and the global South”, and contributing to the development of less advanced economies.  Much of the attention behind MOOCs  currently focuses on making e-learning more scalable and sustainable. While there is no commonly accepted definition of a MOOC, two key features are:

• Open access. MOOC participants do not need to be a registered student in a school to "take" a MOOC, and are not required to pay a fee.
• Scalability. Many traditional courses depend upon a small ratio of students to teacher, but the "massive" in MOOC suggests that the course is designed to support an indefinite number of participants. (Wikipedia)

When over 160,000 people signed up for a course in artificial intelligence offered by two academics at Stanford, in the Fall of 2011, this sealed the eruption of MOOCS as “the hottest topic of discussion in higher education in the U.S”.  Things in the MOOC realm have been moving “fast and furious” ever since - Colleges are entering into deals to offer credits for MOOCs  http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/11/13/moocs-college-credit/1699671/.  The American Council on Education, ‘a non-profit organization that represents most of the nation’s college and university presidents', is working on a process by which MOOCs can be assessed for academic rigour leading to approval for academic credit, although the decision as to whether to accept approved courses for credit transfer will remain up to the individual institutions.  MOOCs are rapidly gaining popularity in rural communities and developing countries where access to traditional schools is limited.

So the big questions emerging are these, "Will MOOCs destroy academia?" http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2012/11/156587-will-moocs-destroy-academia/fulltext; or will history prove them to be the cataclysmic “game-changer” in higher education in the 21^st century; the "big experiment” that if successful, “will give people all around the world access to high-quality, online classes without having to pay a dime”, allowing people to educate themselves based on what they want to learn…. allowing stay-at-home parents to take real classes in their spare time to stay current, business people to improve their resumes, and high school students to "get a head start on college when they’re bored?" http://distancelearn.about.com/od/isitforyou/a/How-Moocs-Are-Changing-The-Way-People-Learn.htm.

More importantly, what threats and opportunties might this avalanche bring for institutions like UWI? 

I welcome your thoughts…

Cool Tools to Keep You Organized

In our CUTL 5106 course Advancing Teaching and Learning with Technology we benefited from a presentation by Information Literacy Librarian Ingrid Iton on Using ICT Tools for Professional Development and Research (and Teaching). It was a great introduction to the wide range of resources that are available via the Campus Library's network, including introducing the new UWI-wide information portal UWIlinC.   This new portal, provides one point of access to information resources from across the English-speaking Caribbean in all formats including UWI's intellectual output, subscribed resources (electronic journals, databases, electronic books) and the catalogues for all four UWI campuses. To check out the portal, CLICK HERE.

On the subject of tools that support professional development and research by helping you to keep you organized, I thought I would share two of my favourites, DROPBOX and EVERNOTE.

DROPBOX:
With dropbox, you never again have to worry about forgetting your USB drive/flash drive at work with that document you wanted to work on (or forgetting to email a file to yourself)!  With Dropbox, you save your documents in a cloud application which allows you to access them from anywhere that you have access to the Internet.  You can download dropbox to all your computers and mobile devices (for you IPad, Iphone and BB users), and any files saved to the dropbox on one device will be automatically synchronised to all your devices.  For a more comprehensive overview of the tool, CLICK HERE for a review by TechGeek.  To set up a Dropbox account and download the app, CLICK HERE.


EVERNOTE
Evernote is promoted as a program designed to make your life easier. It is one of a number of  web-based tools (another popular one being OneNote) that allows you to keep and organise notes in one program that syncs to just about any device, making it easy to access your notes from anywhere.  For a student, these might be lecture and study notes; for faculty, they might be notes on research projects, course notes or even "Notes to self".  Notes can be in text format, audio or video. You can even add your own handwritten notes if you use a tablet; add images that you take with your mobile phone or other digital device; add links directly from  relevant web sites or send email messages directly to your Evernote folders which are called notebooks etc. The idea is that you create notebooks for all the categories of notes you are going to keep, and then you can easily "throw" notes into those notebooks ( or access them) from your home computer, your work computer, or your mobile devices once you have Internet access.  For a full overview of the tool here's  link to the source, the Evernote site where you can setup and account!

Would "Flipping the Classroom" Work for Your Course?

 "Andrew P. Martin loves it when his lectures break out in chaos."  The "chaos" usually results from his implementation of the teaching strategy know as "flipping", being implemented in a number of college classrooms, particularly in North America.  As the term implies, "flipping" involves the inversion of what one would expect  to happen in the traditional college lecture. Activities that would normally be done as "homework" are done in class, and much of what would traditionally be covered in the lecture is done by students outside of the classroom, often supported by technology.  "Flipping ... takes many forms, including interactive engagement, just-in-time teaching (in which students respond to Web-based questions before class, and the professor uses this feedback to inform his or her teaching), and peer instruction."  Some (both instructors and students) love it, some hate it, but apparently, a growing body of research, is showing that the method results in "more learning."

Read the full article which appeared recently in the Chronicle of Higher Education following a Teaching and Learning Conference at Harvard University where "flipping" was a regular buzzword." http://chronicle.com/article/How-Flipping-the-Classroom/130857/.  After you read the article, share your thought.  Would/could  "flipping" result in "more learning" in your course?  Would it be feasible? Why ever not????

We are not Alone on the Workload Train

This post has nothing to doing with teaching and technology, but it does have very much to do with an issue currently occupying the minds of members of faculty here at Cave Hill, the issue of workload adjustments in harsh economic times.  I thought I would share an insightful article appearing in today's issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education, entitled Back in the Classroom: Colleges are calling off the deal that allows many professors time out from teaching.   Some institutions link the move to an "increased eye on efficiency" or "more equitable workloads", others bluntly tell faculty "The world has changed, in case you haven't noticed."  Whatever the reason, it seems that across the USA state universities, in particular, are ushering in a wave which is seeing  large numbers of "top tier" full-time faculty back in the classroom and teaching inroductory level courses.  Even more interesting than the article itself,  are the comments and exchanges that it stimulated.

" I'm having some trouble mustering sympathy for the professors mentioned in this article. I haven't taught my contractual load of 3 courses per semester plus a short term (3 - 3 - 1) since the day I walked on this campus 16 years ago. My real load? Somewhere around 4.5 - 1 - 4.5 (Neither have I ever been paid for an overload.)

And we wonder why those outside the academy are setting up the guillotine."

If you would like to read the full article  (and the comments which follow it), CLICK HERE

Princeton Joins the Open Access Movement

I read in yesterday's issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education that Princeton University has joined the ranks of institutions adopting a policy of free and open access to the scholarly output of its academics. You can read the article HERE.  In the article, faculty at Princeton were said to have "unanimously" endorsed the policy  on the basis that “the principle of open access is consistent with the fundamental purposes of scholarship.”

In adopting the policy Princeton has joined a growing number of highly respected US institutions such as Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) that encourage or require researchers to make  copies of their articles publicly available, usually via institutional repositories.

In welcoming the news open access advocate and Librarian at the University of Kansas, Lorraine Haricombe, was quoted as saying: “This shows strong support for what universities do, and that is share their scholarship for the support of the cause and as a public good.”

With the current debate surrounding issues of copyright for scholarly works, including requirements for the payment of licenses by universities such as UWI for use of scholarly articles, one wonders about the  implications of the open access movement for the futures of such arrangements.