After two weeks of preparatory/organizational work --involving sharing and discussing background materials in Anthropology and Media Studies, becoming familiar with this term's theme (which intersects McLuhan and Montagnards along the lines of Global Village Revisited), and establishing our workflow routines-- we are, as of today, officially under way.
It seems official today because we had our first direct interaction between participants in DMA this term and members of the Montagnard Dega community living in the Greensboro NC area. On the UNCSA end of the Skype call, we introduced ourselves and talked with two Montagnard Dega women, both of whom were engaging, kind, and delightfully honest and forthright. My friend and colleague of 15+ years, Andrew Young, did a masterful job of introducing the Montagnard Dega women to us, and facilitating our interaction with them.
We asked questions ranging from what they missed about their home culture in Vietnam, how it came to be that they settled in Greensboro NC. We also asked Andrew Young how he came to be interested in Montagnard Dega culture. In each instance the responses were enlightening and informative.
In the wake of this meeting I found myself energized and full of ideas. The responses to our questions seemed to hint at directions for us to explore that would be much different, and much more interesting, than writing reports about the history of the Montagnards, the music, etc. This is not to say these pursuits are uninteresting. They are in fact very interesting. Rather it is to say that in the context of an outside-in or autobiographical variant of anthropology, which we are inventing/reinventing in this course, we can include history and so forth much more meaningfully if these things have a personal/interpersonal entry point, and a trajectory more closely allied to social networking.
Here is a sample of the ideas that came to me (in email format, either email written to me, or in response to email I received) that resulted from our Skype-based videoconference:
First, a couple of links to wonderful resources were sent to me by Aaron Ross:
http://blog.ted.com/2010/10/20/meet-jr/
http://the99percent.com/articles/7008/JR-on-Art-Experimentation-and-Keeping-Your-Freedom
My response to Aaron:
Aaron, thanks so much for this share. We could do a copy-cat (okay, an homage :) to this guy's brilliant strategy and put images of Montagnards in our environment. You've probably seen the free software tools that allow an uploaded image to be gridded out in 8.5 X 11 for easy printing with a regular printer, so we would be able to do this basically cost-free. Lots to think about. Thanks again! Bob
A relay to Andrew Young:
Andrew, the student who asked about your path shared a couple of great links with me (see above). There are free software programs out there we could use to make giant posters using standard 8.5 X 11 paper, which would make it possible to do something like what is depicted in the video. These are the kinds of things that, as you mentioned, young artists bring to the table.
A further thought sent to Andrew Young:
A couple of years ago I worked with students on digital-storytelling projects. The Center for Digital Storytelling was my source for this.
Basically, their model is to bring in groups of folks for two-day work sessions, during which time they (the organization's staff) would help each person script and edit a short personal narrative, speak and record it, and make a short video (using still images or sometimes images and short clips) that would use their spoken-word audio recording as the video voiceover. Now that I think about it, the CDS process started with with the gathering and selecting images part, since they discovered these often sparked memories and storytelling. The heavy-lifting in the process swirled around writing and editing the story scripts. Their goal was to boil the narratives down to the bone.
When I did this with students I just adapted the model to my circumstances, spreading the work out over several weeks rather than doing a two-day intensive experience, and each person had to script, tell, and produce their own story.
I think it could be interesting to start with the photo project (get large images of Montagnards made and installed in the UNCSA environment). This would give a digital-skills angle to image work, and also would give a particular cast and rationale to the ethnographic field work students might do.
Then we could work on digital storytelling projects (which for me would cover audio and video skills). The images, and the digital stories, could then be self-published on your blog or wherever, and used to get some notice by the organizations and/or granting agencies you guys are in contact with and/or need to produce reportage for. Possibly UNCSA becomes a co-signer on a future grant application? Lots of possibilities up here in the blue sky.
Anyway, we could use the media lab classroom I teach in as the place to do the production aspect of the stories. The media lab space is deserted in the afternoons, and only my sections meet in the room in the mornings, so we'd pretty much have it available 9-5 every day. Weekends are also available. Voice and video recording could be done wherever by whomever.
I guess I'm thinking some of the Montagnards might enjoy and benefit from working directly with my students on projects such as these. Rather than standing around awkwardly wondering what to say when they meet, they could simply get down and do some work together. Sort of like cooking and eating a meal, only more extended in time and with a different focus.
We could talk about how this might play out --we could pair up a small group of students with a Montagnard to work on his or her story. We could also pair them one to one, and each person could help the other with their story, etc. --using whatever combination of email, skype, meetings in the media lab, etc., to carry the projects forward.
Here's an example of a digital story that is posted on the Center for Digital Storytelling website: http://www.storycenter.org/stories/index.php?cat=8
Re: meal+music event, the house across the street from my building is called Academic House (I might have pointed this out when you were here?), and it comprises a reasonable place to have a gathering (we have our faculty meetings there, etc.) and it also has a kitchen, a deck/porch (for possible music-playing and listening), and it's a space we control so it would be easy to schedule it. I spoke to the dean about looking for a space with a kitchen, and he suggested we just use the AH, so it's already approved. So we may have a solution to the 'where' question as regards the shared meal and music event.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Studio-model teaching and brain-based learning
I've been undergoing contract-renewal review, including some pretty intense scrutiny and criticism of studio-based teaching. Much of the criticism swirled around the fact that I often have music playing in the studio while we're working. I responded to this criticism initially with research on studio-based teachers which found that, without exception, such teachers took on a "DJ" role as part of their work. The interesting part was that this selecting of music was not found to be random or willy-nilly in the least. Rather it was a carefully considered part of the environment, done with sensitivity and intentionality. In some ways, this seems to me to support the notion that emotional indicators are much more important in teaching than is usually recognized. I see things like music as contributing to the affective domain or side of the classroom, and I think we are just in the beginning phases of getting some good research on the importance of affect and its role in how the brain works.
Anyway, re: the criticism of my playing of music was pointed towards the idea that it would be distracting to the students. First of all I do ask folks to let me know if if is giving them problems. Second of all it's likely a stretch to think that young people will be distracted by it. Third of all I am not even asking students to read or pay attention to a lecture while they are in class. They are working on media projects. They are doing studio-based and studio-type work while in class. I ask them to read on their own for homework. Whether they do this to music or not is up to them. I certainly can't control it.
But this flagging of music as distracting connects also to a more serious line of criticism now being broadly directed against the use of digital media. This is the line now being developed by folks like Nicholas Carr, and popularized in books including The Shallows. It's out there, and it's the latest in a line of critique that is, well, pretty shallow.
So I was glad to see a program on NPR reporting on a study done in France that took a different tack on the whole issue of multi-tasking and distraction. In my view, as is the case with much science, it provides a start at interjecting common sense into this debate.
The researchers found the brain actually is set up much like a parallel processor, with what the author calls "two frontal lobes" which I assume means two distinct sides, since most pictures and verbal descriptions refer to the frontal lobe as a singular structure. Anyway, according to the researchers the brain has two frontal lobes (or one frontal lobe with two distinct sides), which makes it possible for humans to pursue up to two things at once by assigning a different task to each lobe or side. Subject to interpretation is whether or not this is a good thing.
My general approach is to stay with the descriptive part of the science. The study, in my interpretation, just seem to say that the brain has two lobes or sides that in fact work together --either separately or 'in parallel', or as a team or 'serially'-- in carrying out the complex work of the brain. This would seem to be the news the scientific study put out there for interpretation.
Two lobes are better than one, it would seem, based on the French study: the dual structure of the brain enables it to assign resources selectively and proportionally to working on one or two tasks at a time. Presumably, if a given task, goal, or situation is perceived by the brain as having an extremely high reward associated with it, it allocates a preponderance of its resources --drawing on the available resources of both of its frontal lobes, even-- to that task. Conversely, if a situation is perceived by the brain as having two complementary goals, perhaps with complementary/synergistic and mutually inclusive high rewards (i.e., one affect-oriented goal and one cognitive-oriented goal), then it works on both tasks and goals at once, and should.
If the brain had only one frontal lobe, or a one-sided one, it would presumably have to process everything serially, one single task after another single task, or first an affect-oriented goal, then a cognitive-oriented goal, and so forth. The result would be a less complex brain, a less efficient brain, and ultimately, I guess, a brain that would be different from a human brain.
Along this line of interpretation, education structured around the exclusive use of serial-processing might be thought of as inhumane (arguably the Puritans tried this), as might education structured around exclusive parallel-processing (the possible tyranny of the open classroom comes to mind in this regard). It would seem to me that 'brain based education' would involve learning how to apply and/or blend parallel and serial processing, just as flexibly and intelligently as the brain itself seems to do. Humans seem to be learning all the time, sometimes one thing at a time, sometimes two things at a time. So, some activities or courses might appropriately feature serial processing, other activities might appropriately feature parallel processing.
However, the study reports, the brain is simply overloaded by three tasks or three goals at once, because it only has two frontal lobes (or two sides to its one frontal lobe) to work with. In many instances the brain does well to divide its resources to make progress on two goals at once; in other instances the brain does well to combine its resources to focus on one task. Not an either-or, in other words, in my interpretation.
My hope would be the more research along the lines of the French study will be done. It seems to me that it's very rare that the human brain is doing only one thing at a time. In the laboratory setting described in the study, a second task was "introduced" to subjects. But outside of the laboratory, it seems likely to me that much of the time the brain is doing two things, and the article I think suggests that's usually fine, and self-regulated by the brain itself. I do think we need to be more complex and nuanced in discussing things like multi-tasking and distraction. What if multi-tasking and distractability turn out to be adaptive and important? I think it's more a matter of finding a balance between doing one thing at a time, and doing two.
In the DMA course I think I put into effect a good balance. I combine activities of singular focus with activities of dual focus, and I think I do a good job of creating a good mix for learning.
Anyway, re: the criticism of my playing of music was pointed towards the idea that it would be distracting to the students. First of all I do ask folks to let me know if if is giving them problems. Second of all it's likely a stretch to think that young people will be distracted by it. Third of all I am not even asking students to read or pay attention to a lecture while they are in class. They are working on media projects. They are doing studio-based and studio-type work while in class. I ask them to read on their own for homework. Whether they do this to music or not is up to them. I certainly can't control it.
But this flagging of music as distracting connects also to a more serious line of criticism now being broadly directed against the use of digital media. This is the line now being developed by folks like Nicholas Carr, and popularized in books including The Shallows. It's out there, and it's the latest in a line of critique that is, well, pretty shallow.
So I was glad to see a program on NPR reporting on a study done in France that took a different tack on the whole issue of multi-tasking and distraction. In my view, as is the case with much science, it provides a start at interjecting common sense into this debate.
The researchers found the brain actually is set up much like a parallel processor, with what the author calls "two frontal lobes" which I assume means two distinct sides, since most pictures and verbal descriptions refer to the frontal lobe as a singular structure. Anyway, according to the researchers the brain has two frontal lobes (or one frontal lobe with two distinct sides), which makes it possible for humans to pursue up to two things at once by assigning a different task to each lobe or side. Subject to interpretation is whether or not this is a good thing.
My general approach is to stay with the descriptive part of the science. The study, in my interpretation, just seem to say that the brain has two lobes or sides that in fact work together --either separately or 'in parallel', or as a team or 'serially'-- in carrying out the complex work of the brain. This would seem to be the news the scientific study put out there for interpretation.
Two lobes are better than one, it would seem, based on the French study: the dual structure of the brain enables it to assign resources selectively and proportionally to working on one or two tasks at a time. Presumably, if a given task, goal, or situation is perceived by the brain as having an extremely high reward associated with it, it allocates a preponderance of its resources --drawing on the available resources of both of its frontal lobes, even-- to that task. Conversely, if a situation is perceived by the brain as having two complementary goals, perhaps with complementary/synergistic and mutually inclusive high rewards (i.e., one affect-oriented goal and one cognitive-oriented goal), then it works on both tasks and goals at once, and should.
If the brain had only one frontal lobe, or a one-sided one, it would presumably have to process everything serially, one single task after another single task, or first an affect-oriented goal, then a cognitive-oriented goal, and so forth. The result would be a less complex brain, a less efficient brain, and ultimately, I guess, a brain that would be different from a human brain.
Along this line of interpretation, education structured around the exclusive use of serial-processing might be thought of as inhumane (arguably the Puritans tried this), as might education structured around exclusive parallel-processing (the possible tyranny of the open classroom comes to mind in this regard). It would seem to me that 'brain based education' would involve learning how to apply and/or blend parallel and serial processing, just as flexibly and intelligently as the brain itself seems to do. Humans seem to be learning all the time, sometimes one thing at a time, sometimes two things at a time. So, some activities or courses might appropriately feature serial processing, other activities might appropriately feature parallel processing.
However, the study reports, the brain is simply overloaded by three tasks or three goals at once, because it only has two frontal lobes (or two sides to its one frontal lobe) to work with. In many instances the brain does well to divide its resources to make progress on two goals at once; in other instances the brain does well to combine its resources to focus on one task. Not an either-or, in other words, in my interpretation.
My hope would be the more research along the lines of the French study will be done. It seems to me that it's very rare that the human brain is doing only one thing at a time. In the laboratory setting described in the study, a second task was "introduced" to subjects. But outside of the laboratory, it seems likely to me that much of the time the brain is doing two things, and the article I think suggests that's usually fine, and self-regulated by the brain itself. I do think we need to be more complex and nuanced in discussing things like multi-tasking and distraction. What if multi-tasking and distractability turn out to be adaptive and important? I think it's more a matter of finding a balance between doing one thing at a time, and doing two.
In the DMA course I think I put into effect a good balance. I combine activities of singular focus with activities of dual focus, and I think I do a good job of creating a good mix for learning.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Studio-model pedagogy: adding critique to the mix
I've been working to institute studio-model pedagogy in the context of the Digital Media for the Artist course for quite a while. In fact I started with that idea in the fall of 2006, my first term teaching at UNCSA, but I ran into numerous roadblocks that had little to do with the model and much to do with me coming to know my audience and context. Now that I have some aspects of those critical factors better accounted for in my design, the studio-model is clicking.
It was my own experience with the studio-model as a visual art student that keyed it in for me. The atmosphere and structure of studio art classes was something I really enjoyed. People were motivated and going about their work. Instructors would give an occasional presentation or demonstration for the whole-class, but otherwise they circulated about the studio, pausing to look at and/or comment on the efforts of individuals. In sum, everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves and also learning a great deal. This is what I sought to re-create as an atmosphere or ethos in the DMA course.
The situation presented some differences that were somewhat troublesome. First, the DMA course is required, hence people are not always motivated to take the course. So I have to work pretty hard to: 1) make it as interesting as possible, and 2) structure it so folks who are not motivated (and even ones who are) do not end up with structure-hunger; given that the environment of UNCSA is in general highly scheduled; chill--space can easily be interpreted as fill-in-with-something-else space).
Second, more than an occasional presentation is needed to get the content across to students (in short there is more to teaching a course like DMA --in terms of needing to introduce conceptual and procedural content-- than there is in teaching studio art courses).
BUT having said that, there are striking similarities as well. The person-at-their-easel is fairly comparable to the person-at-their-computer. By definition, both environments invite hands-on and project-driven approaches. So, I have done whatever I can in the way of aligning the physical space with the studio ethos, playing the role of DJ in providing suitable background music (which virtually almost all studio-based teachers report they do), and keeping the atmosphere open yet structured.
In talking with a colleague recently, though, I realized I was missing a major opportunity to add conversation into the pedagogical mix. I am a huge fan of conversation-based pedagogy, yet the studio-model seems to not invite it; project-based learning seems to be a much better fit. Yet in my recollections of studio-based environments as a learner, there was always informal conversation during class (which I allow and encourage in DMA as well) AND there was also semi-formal conversation at the end of each session around putting the day's work on display and having a discussion-based critique. The instructor would offer feedback, sometimes on individual pieces, sometimes re: group characteristics (i.e., everyone needs to work on texture, etc.), and students would enter into the conversation. It was also a very powerful indirect teaching to simply see one's own work next to other's who were working on the same assignment. I mean a lot of metacognitive, self-evaluative work took place in that space without the teacher having to say anything.
So this is my aim for next term and beyond is to introduce critique into my studio-matrix in DMA, by projecting and talking about different pieces of student work-in-progress. I think this represents the last piece of the puzzle for me. It solves problems related evaluation, communication, and structure. I now comment on the blogs that students create to address the homework aspects of DMA by reading, so they get feedback on their conceptual work and on their completed media projects, but by instituting critique I will be able to comment on the in-studio work students do, and their in-progress work on their media projects. I will of course continue to enjoy the banter and fun of spending time in-studio with them.
It was my own experience with the studio-model as a visual art student that keyed it in for me. The atmosphere and structure of studio art classes was something I really enjoyed. People were motivated and going about their work. Instructors would give an occasional presentation or demonstration for the whole-class, but otherwise they circulated about the studio, pausing to look at and/or comment on the efforts of individuals. In sum, everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves and also learning a great deal. This is what I sought to re-create as an atmosphere or ethos in the DMA course.
The situation presented some differences that were somewhat troublesome. First, the DMA course is required, hence people are not always motivated to take the course. So I have to work pretty hard to: 1) make it as interesting as possible, and 2) structure it so folks who are not motivated (and even ones who are) do not end up with structure-hunger; given that the environment of UNCSA is in general highly scheduled; chill--space can easily be interpreted as fill-in-with-something-else space).
Second, more than an occasional presentation is needed to get the content across to students (in short there is more to teaching a course like DMA --in terms of needing to introduce conceptual and procedural content-- than there is in teaching studio art courses).
BUT having said that, there are striking similarities as well. The person-at-their-easel is fairly comparable to the person-at-their-computer. By definition, both environments invite hands-on and project-driven approaches. So, I have done whatever I can in the way of aligning the physical space with the studio ethos, playing the role of DJ in providing suitable background music (which virtually almost all studio-based teachers report they do), and keeping the atmosphere open yet structured.
In talking with a colleague recently, though, I realized I was missing a major opportunity to add conversation into the pedagogical mix. I am a huge fan of conversation-based pedagogy, yet the studio-model seems to not invite it; project-based learning seems to be a much better fit. Yet in my recollections of studio-based environments as a learner, there was always informal conversation during class (which I allow and encourage in DMA as well) AND there was also semi-formal conversation at the end of each session around putting the day's work on display and having a discussion-based critique. The instructor would offer feedback, sometimes on individual pieces, sometimes re: group characteristics (i.e., everyone needs to work on texture, etc.), and students would enter into the conversation. It was also a very powerful indirect teaching to simply see one's own work next to other's who were working on the same assignment. I mean a lot of metacognitive, self-evaluative work took place in that space without the teacher having to say anything.
So this is my aim for next term and beyond is to introduce critique into my studio-matrix in DMA, by projecting and talking about different pieces of student work-in-progress. I think this represents the last piece of the puzzle for me. It solves problems related evaluation, communication, and structure. I now comment on the blogs that students create to address the homework aspects of DMA by reading, so they get feedback on their conceptual work and on their completed media projects, but by instituting critique I will be able to comment on the in-studio work students do, and their in-progress work on their media projects. I will of course continue to enjoy the banter and fun of spending time in-studio with them.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Looking beyond DMA (to other virtual worlds)
I frequently think about the contextual or program aspects of DMA. For example, I wonder where, if anywhere, the DMA course fits into the context of the Undergraduate Academic Program (which is the equivalent of an abbreviated Liberal Arts portion of the BFA degree students work towards at UNCSA). That's one type of questioning I do --but don't get the wrong idea. This is not an existential, angst-filled line of questioning, it's an enjoyable part of my reflective process, and it feeds my design and re-design process.
As noted in the previous post on this blog, which focuses on the work of Andrea Lunsford, and in other posts where I recount aspects of what I'm doing with the course, I have assembled a cluster of provisional answers to the above pleasantly existential line of self-questioning. The cluster boils down to this:
I basically see DMA as a composition course devoted to helping students advance their skills in reading/decoding/interpreting and writing/encoding/creating in a variety of media including but not limited to text. At its base, I see DMA as a 21st century composition course which teaches and combines the skills and tools of the theoretician, rhetorician and technician.
I also do a different, futuristic type of questioning. Assuming DMA and media studies could one day become a focus, area-concentration, or minor for some students at our institution, what advanced-level courses would build well on it? Along these lines I am always on the lookout for clues to how folks are building successfully on the foundations of a rhetoric-based approach to education (that's the Lunsford piece) to capture and advance some of the insights and knowledge-product options new-media makes available to all of us.
Several new-media related electives have been offered at our school, including a course on Generative Art (co-taught with my esteemed colleague Dean Wilcox), another one entitled Theory and Practice of New Media Art (which I offered solo), and one currently underway called Virtual Worlds (also co-taught with Dean Wilcox).
At the recent NC Symposium on Teaching Writing I met a pack of people with clues about the future --even about the possible future of our own Virtual Worlds elective, in that they mentioned ideas, references, and software with potential to augment our VW course next time it's offered. The panel of presenters (whose varied perspectives are represented below in audio recordings) focused attention around the title Virtual Worlds: Pedagogies of Play.
Their perspectives vary nicely from theory-centered looks at virtual worlds to technically-centered looks. I would underscore, though, that all of the presenters blended theory and technology --which also underscores Tom Boellstorff's notion in Coming of Age in Second Life that we are in an age of techne, an age in which thought and technology are conjoined.
The symposium sessions were not being recorded or archived, so I made my own 'bootleg' audio recordings (using a first-gen, now-antique iPod with a microphone attachment) of the presentations. The recordings, each preceded by a short annotation, are embedded below.
Stephanie Boluk insightfully and provocatively traces the historical arc of the Little Red Riding Hood story from early oral beginnings to a recent computer game treatment:
Patrick LeMieux describes a fascinating array of game genres emerging in non-commercial, artistic, and/or DIY sectors, and says a bit about tools/platforms that students can use to create their own examples:
Patrick Jagoda focuses in a very astute and engaging way on the intellectual capacities that professors can help students build, in order to help them optimize their now-direct and pervasive involvement in the production and sharing of media-infused knowledge-products:
Victoria Szabo insightfully describes the critical skills students need in order to engage in media decoding and encoding with maximum awareness and impact, and uses examples from a series or cluster of courses devoted to the history of virtual worlds:
A question and answer session includes yours truly asking about the possibility that while professors may aim for things like transdisciplinarity, students may be inhabiting post-cognitive universes, characterized more by affective markers:
As noted in the previous post on this blog, which focuses on the work of Andrea Lunsford, and in other posts where I recount aspects of what I'm doing with the course, I have assembled a cluster of provisional answers to the above pleasantly existential line of self-questioning. The cluster boils down to this:
I basically see DMA as a composition course devoted to helping students advance their skills in reading/decoding/interpreting and writing/encoding/creating in a variety of media including but not limited to text. At its base, I see DMA as a 21st century composition course which teaches and combines the skills and tools of the theoretician, rhetorician and technician.
I also do a different, futuristic type of questioning. Assuming DMA and media studies could one day become a focus, area-concentration, or minor for some students at our institution, what advanced-level courses would build well on it? Along these lines I am always on the lookout for clues to how folks are building successfully on the foundations of a rhetoric-based approach to education (that's the Lunsford piece) to capture and advance some of the insights and knowledge-product options new-media makes available to all of us.
Several new-media related electives have been offered at our school, including a course on Generative Art (co-taught with my esteemed colleague Dean Wilcox), another one entitled Theory and Practice of New Media Art (which I offered solo), and one currently underway called Virtual Worlds (also co-taught with Dean Wilcox).
At the recent NC Symposium on Teaching Writing I met a pack of people with clues about the future --even about the possible future of our own Virtual Worlds elective, in that they mentioned ideas, references, and software with potential to augment our VW course next time it's offered. The panel of presenters (whose varied perspectives are represented below in audio recordings) focused attention around the title Virtual Worlds: Pedagogies of Play.
Their perspectives vary nicely from theory-centered looks at virtual worlds to technically-centered looks. I would underscore, though, that all of the presenters blended theory and technology --which also underscores Tom Boellstorff's notion in Coming of Age in Second Life that we are in an age of techne, an age in which thought and technology are conjoined.
The symposium sessions were not being recorded or archived, so I made my own 'bootleg' audio recordings (using a first-gen, now-antique iPod with a microphone attachment) of the presentations. The recordings, each preceded by a short annotation, are embedded below.
Stephanie Boluk insightfully and provocatively traces the historical arc of the Little Red Riding Hood story from early oral beginnings to a recent computer game treatment:
Patrick LeMieux describes a fascinating array of game genres emerging in non-commercial, artistic, and/or DIY sectors, and says a bit about tools/platforms that students can use to create their own examples:
Patrick Jagoda focuses in a very astute and engaging way on the intellectual capacities that professors can help students build, in order to help them optimize their now-direct and pervasive involvement in the production and sharing of media-infused knowledge-products:
Victoria Szabo insightfully describes the critical skills students need in order to engage in media decoding and encoding with maximum awareness and impact, and uses examples from a series or cluster of courses devoted to the history of virtual worlds:
A question and answer session includes yours truly asking about the possibility that while professors may aim for things like transdisciplinarity, students may be inhabiting post-cognitive universes, characterized more by affective markers:
Saturday, February 5, 2011
On track, on target, on page with Andrea Lunsford
This year's NC Symposium on Teaching Writing --held at NC State and entitled Shifting Platforms: New Media, Emerging Literacies, & the Writing Teacher-- is a welcome sign that the rhet/comp community (which has been for me a source of inspiration and pedagogical ideas and insights for many years) continues to lead the way on the teaching+media front.
I have a quizzical relationship to writing, even though I love learning and the play of ideas. So I've long been in search of new paradigms of writing. I could write well enough to get good grades in school and that sort of thing. Yet I never wrote with enjoyment until email came along and caused me to realize that my longstanding lack of enjoyment re: writing was bound-up with the solitary, non-conversational way it had been framed for me in school. It was the situational grammar, the discursive formation, the setting or framing, that put me at cross-purposes with writing. So it was a revelation for me that writing could be conversational and enjoyable.
My favorite professor in my undergraduate years at U.C. Santa Barbara was William Macomber. He presaged my eventual embrace of conversational writing when he told us that if we really wanted to learn how to write we should fall in love with someone who lives far away, and if we really wanted to learn how to talk we should fall in love with someone who lives close by. That's what I call teachin'. This was in 1971, when I was a freshman in college, and it was quite a few years before the widespread dispersion and adoption of electronically-based conversational writing practices in society. Yet some, like Macomber, got the news early and started promoting a different view of the practices and purposes of academic writing.
Within schools in general, though, the requirement that all writing must be solitary was pretty easily enforced by 1) the allied grammatical stricture of isolating students via individualized assessment/grading, and 2) the lack of alternative forms of writing practice either inside or outside of schools. The situation may be significantly different now, in that it seems to be becoming more difficult to maintain the isolationist grammar given that electronic media has proliferated alternative types of writing, and given that students have mastered these alternatives in many instances outside of school and prior to starting college. In this regard I was delighted that Ms. Lunsford addressed the need for changes in institutional grammar --in particular the need to re-think the emphasis on the individual-- along with changes in the way new media is perceived and used, in her talk at the symposium.
Anyway, to complete this loop, I came to the realization that writing could be an enjoyable, powerful engine of learning by collaborating with an English rhet/comp student when I was doing my doctoral work. I was at the time a doc student in the social and philosophical foundations of Education. My collaborator and I carried on an extended conversation in writing via email on topics of mutual interest, and each of us ended up using the edited transcript of our conversation as the centerpiece of our two, separate and differently framed, dissertations --one in English, one in Education. It was this interdisciplinary collaboration that clued me in to the great work being done re: teaching+media in the rhet/comp community, and to the potential of conversational writing to add important dimensions to learning. Both dissertations were approved BTW, and degrees granted, in 1995.
Andrea Lunsford's keynote address --entitled The Role of Rhetoric and (New Media) Writing in 21st Century Universities-- focused on: 1) re-framing the notion of 'writing' to include involvement with mediums other than text, 2) shifting the focus of such writing towards "making things happen in the world", and 3) maintaining a commonsensical and also arch case for the value of rhetoric-based education. These are all premises that underpin the DMA course, and bolster my ongoing development as a teacher. It's the second item --making things happen in the world-- that I think resonates with the social, conversational writing that I have advocated for some time. In writing conversationally there is a real audience, real perspectives are transformed, and this in turn affects how we live and learn in the real world.
Lunsford is a Professor of English and Director of the Program in Writing and Rhetoric at Stanford. More importantly in my scheme of things, she is the real deal --meaning she practices everything she professes. As such, her keynote was insightful and inspiring, and full of good examples. As might be expected, her presentation was also exquisitely balanced in its rhetorical appeal and delivery.
She first became one of my heroes when she clearly stated her support for the idea that student writing --including texting and everything else-- is indeed WRITING, and should for this very reason be accorded the highest respect. Many were the times that I shook my head as teachers, who were my audience in workshops I used to give re: how to use the internet, would say that they could not get students to write because they (the students) were too busy texting, messaging, and emailing one another.
I knew these teachers meant that texting and so forth were not the same as writing essays, but still it gave me pause, I mean real pause, because they did not seem to hear themselves actually saying that students had no time or motivation for writing because they were writing too much. And, gulp, sometimes, all to often really, these types of comments were coming from teachers of writing. So it was a joy to discover that Andrea, a bona fide English teacher at a top drawer university, was insisting that when people are writing they are writing. Let us now be thankful for small things I guess :)
I've had several students write, unprompted, in blogs and so forth that they, too, are delighted to know that Andrea, an adult and English teacher, actually thinks they are bringing important skills and dispositions to the act of writing. Note, though, Lunsford is absolutely certain students need to be able to leverage and extend their abilities in a variety of ways while they are in college, for example by learning how to develop and communicate a stepwise, complex argument (premises, propositions, support, conclusion, etc.) and to do so within a recognizable arc that includes a beginning, middle, and end.
In my estimation Lunsford is side-by-side with Mimi Ito on these kinds of issues --not only in POV, but also in doing the research to back up the POV. Like Ito, Lunsford has for years been involved in careful longitudinal study of youth involvement with media --in Lunsford's case the focus is on student writing, in class and outside of school, and on the myriad ways in which the notion of writing is expanding right before our very eyes (or, with a nod to Derrida, expanding in the eyes of our pupils). It's time to stop bashing student culture, students' new ways of learning, and their writing. It's time to open our own eyes and expand our ways of seeing. Lunsford states this clearly and unequivocally. It is time to understand and build on what's going on, time to get on with it. YES!
So, it was a wonderful experience of convergence, confirmation, and new learning for me to hear Ms. Lunsford talk about the aims, grammars, forms, and nitty-gritty practices of education, and the need to align such matters with the magnificent give and take of the NOW. This is the kind of alignment I am seeking all the time in the DMA course.
So, here's my conclusion. I think everybody should listen to Andrea Lunsford, plain and simple, just like that. Accordingly, I recorded her talk and it can be heard via the embedded media player below. Enjoy!
I have a quizzical relationship to writing, even though I love learning and the play of ideas. So I've long been in search of new paradigms of writing. I could write well enough to get good grades in school and that sort of thing. Yet I never wrote with enjoyment until email came along and caused me to realize that my longstanding lack of enjoyment re: writing was bound-up with the solitary, non-conversational way it had been framed for me in school. It was the situational grammar, the discursive formation, the setting or framing, that put me at cross-purposes with writing. So it was a revelation for me that writing could be conversational and enjoyable.
 |
| W. B. Macomber |
Within schools in general, though, the requirement that all writing must be solitary was pretty easily enforced by 1) the allied grammatical stricture of isolating students via individualized assessment/grading, and 2) the lack of alternative forms of writing practice either inside or outside of schools. The situation may be significantly different now, in that it seems to be becoming more difficult to maintain the isolationist grammar given that electronic media has proliferated alternative types of writing, and given that students have mastered these alternatives in many instances outside of school and prior to starting college. In this regard I was delighted that Ms. Lunsford addressed the need for changes in institutional grammar --in particular the need to re-think the emphasis on the individual-- along with changes in the way new media is perceived and used, in her talk at the symposium.
Anyway, to complete this loop, I came to the realization that writing could be an enjoyable, powerful engine of learning by collaborating with an English rhet/comp student when I was doing my doctoral work. I was at the time a doc student in the social and philosophical foundations of Education. My collaborator and I carried on an extended conversation in writing via email on topics of mutual interest, and each of us ended up using the edited transcript of our conversation as the centerpiece of our two, separate and differently framed, dissertations --one in English, one in Education. It was this interdisciplinary collaboration that clued me in to the great work being done re: teaching+media in the rhet/comp community, and to the potential of conversational writing to add important dimensions to learning. Both dissertations were approved BTW, and degrees granted, in 1995.
 |
| Andrea Lunsford |
Lunsford is a Professor of English and Director of the Program in Writing and Rhetoric at Stanford. More importantly in my scheme of things, she is the real deal --meaning she practices everything she professes. As such, her keynote was insightful and inspiring, and full of good examples. As might be expected, her presentation was also exquisitely balanced in its rhetorical appeal and delivery.
She first became one of my heroes when she clearly stated her support for the idea that student writing --including texting and everything else-- is indeed WRITING, and should for this very reason be accorded the highest respect. Many were the times that I shook my head as teachers, who were my audience in workshops I used to give re: how to use the internet, would say that they could not get students to write because they (the students) were too busy texting, messaging, and emailing one another.
I knew these teachers meant that texting and so forth were not the same as writing essays, but still it gave me pause, I mean real pause, because they did not seem to hear themselves actually saying that students had no time or motivation for writing because they were writing too much. And, gulp, sometimes, all to often really, these types of comments were coming from teachers of writing. So it was a joy to discover that Andrea, a bona fide English teacher at a top drawer university, was insisting that when people are writing they are writing. Let us now be thankful for small things I guess :)
In my estimation Lunsford is side-by-side with Mimi Ito on these kinds of issues --not only in POV, but also in doing the research to back up the POV. Like Ito, Lunsford has for years been involved in careful longitudinal study of youth involvement with media --in Lunsford's case the focus is on student writing, in class and outside of school, and on the myriad ways in which the notion of writing is expanding right before our very eyes (or, with a nod to Derrida, expanding in the eyes of our pupils). It's time to stop bashing student culture, students' new ways of learning, and their writing. It's time to open our own eyes and expand our ways of seeing. Lunsford states this clearly and unequivocally. It is time to understand and build on what's going on, time to get on with it. YES!
So, it was a wonderful experience of convergence, confirmation, and new learning for me to hear Ms. Lunsford talk about the aims, grammars, forms, and nitty-gritty practices of education, and the need to align such matters with the magnificent give and take of the NOW. This is the kind of alignment I am seeking all the time in the DMA course.
So, here's my conclusion. I think everybody should listen to Andrea Lunsford, plain and simple, just like that. Accordingly, I recorded her talk and it can be heard via the embedded media player below. Enjoy!
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Self-assessing my work as a course designer
I am really liking the re-designed DMA course. As noted in previous posts, what I've tried to do is DO some of the key things that I've only been able to talk about in previous years --and thus far I think I've been successful. It is quite a bit of work to "build the airplane while it is flying" but so far it seems worth the effort to have re-designed the course, even though I have had to unfold or unfurl the design on a week-by-week basis.
One of the new things is to ask participants to do some self-assessment. This weekend is the first practice with this. I created a rubric, in the form of a fill-in form, that is based on conversations we had in class and online about what constitutes a good blog. And I've now asked participants to use the rubric as an armature or job-aid to assist them in assessing their work as "bloggers". They will use this form again at mid-term.
I'm taking this opportunity in parallel to assess my own work as a course designer, and I will re-assess at mid-term as well. What I'm going to do for starters is just go through the list of course goals and objectives and comment on them re: how I think we are doing in meeting the goals set for the course. Since the goals and objectives may not capture everything that I would want to happen in the course, I will also offer a closing comment on elements of the course that may exist outside of the goals-and-objectives framework (which of course means that I may need to bring these 'outsiders' into the list of goals-and-objectives for next time). Here goes.
There are five goals for the course, so I will comment on each in its turn, and refer to specific objectives associated with each goal in my commentary.
This has been a good term thus far in my estimation. I feel that 'the mood in the room' is great, the spirit of exploration is strong, and participants are being very considerate of one another. All of this is more important to me than matters of content. If learners complete this course successfully and are open to learning more, and wanting to learn more, or even just more likely to be in such states because they've had a positive experience, then I'm satisfied that a big part of my overall goal for the course is met. This is not to say that relaying content and skills is unimportant, it's more to say that I think these things hinge on the affective elements.
In terms of meeting the course goals, I think significant progress has been made --to the extent that I feel we're actually ahead right now of where I would have thought we might be. Room for improvement exists particularly in the area of providing individual feedback. This has been difficult for me to do given all of the in-course design work I am doing. Yet I also feel that I have been very responsive to discussions, and with general feedback. For example I posted summary comments in the first online discussion forum that I think were fairly extensive and responsive to what participants were bringing to the conversation. In the syllabus I have signed on for providing individual comments as part of mid-term proceedings, so this present gap will begin to get addressed soon.
Overall I'd assign myself a letter-grade of A for the first challenge cycle. I hope I can keep up with things as the new challenge cycles unfold. Having gone through the first cycle, I can see that the form will change in subtle ways (i.e., I am introducing the second cycle with a short reading rather than an assignment to just think about the given essential question). This may be a case where the structure/form can indeed kind of recede or fade to a more background position or layer as we all become more familiar with it.
One of the new things is to ask participants to do some self-assessment. This weekend is the first practice with this. I created a rubric, in the form of a fill-in form, that is based on conversations we had in class and online about what constitutes a good blog. And I've now asked participants to use the rubric as an armature or job-aid to assist them in assessing their work as "bloggers". They will use this form again at mid-term.
I'm taking this opportunity in parallel to assess my own work as a course designer, and I will re-assess at mid-term as well. What I'm going to do for starters is just go through the list of course goals and objectives and comment on them re: how I think we are doing in meeting the goals set for the course. Since the goals and objectives may not capture everything that I would want to happen in the course, I will also offer a closing comment on elements of the course that may exist outside of the goals-and-objectives framework (which of course means that I may need to bring these 'outsiders' into the list of goals-and-objectives for next time). Here goes.
There are five goals for the course, so I will comment on each in its turn, and refer to specific objectives associated with each goal in my commentary.
- Goal 1: Learners will enhance their 21st century thinking skills
- Objective 1.1: Learners will be able to advance their thinking skills via practice, referenced to an assessment rubric, evidenced in online blog postings, and done in response to the five key/essential questions for the course.
- Objective 1.2: Learners will be able to categorize their thinking as transactional, transformational, or transcendent, by using these terms appropriately in reflective blog postings.
- Assessment commentary: The blogs have turned out to be the centerpiece of the course, so I feel pretty sure thinking is being practiced via engagement in online writing (which I consider to be a 21st century way to approach both thinking and writing, primarily because it is active). Also, I've used the terms cited in 1.2 fairly extensively, so I think learners have at least been given a good chance to assimilate them into their own vocabulary and use them.
- Objective 2.1: Learners will be able to advance their talking skills via practice, referenced to an assessment rubric, evidenced in online discussion forum exchanges, and done in response to the five key/essential questions for the course.
- Objective 2.2: Learners will be able to work conversationally, online and F2F, in in small groups, as evidenced in their ability to carry out a variety of assigned tasks in a timely fashion.
- Assessment commentary: I have not yet finalized the discussion forum rubric but I have the data to assemble it (again its based on learners' ideas as to what constitutes a good conversation, which I gathered via discussion). Also, for now discussion forum work has had a somewhat less important role than blogging, so I figured it was better to start with the blogging rubric. Plus, overload can be a risk: two self-assessment tasks at one time may have been a bit much. A different timing will also enable a separate practice. Other than that, I think there have been many opportunities for conversation-based collaborative work, and as usual learners at UNCSA, who are often involved in collaborative activity all the time in their arts area, are quite adept at it.
- Goal 3: Learners will hone their 21st century expert-perspective gathering skills
- Objective 3.1: Learners will be able to choose from and appropriately use a variety of search engines to gather expert perspectives from the open-web, evidenced in research citations that identify search tools and website sources, and done in response to the five key/essential questions of the course.
- Objective 3.2: Learners will be able to choose from and appropriately use expert perspectives including including those of Walter Ong, Marshall McLuhan, Lev Manovich, Sherry Turkle, Marcos Novak, Donna Haraway, George Lakoff, Bruce Mazlish, and Mimi Ito, as evidenced in research citations that identify sources.
- Objective 3.3: Learners will be able to access, choose from, and appropriately use online library databases to gather expert perspectives, as evidenced in research citations that identify sources.
- Objective 3.4: Learners will be able to differentiate among high, medium, and low reliability/confidence sources on the open-web, as evidenced in research citations that include source identification and assignment of level referenced to an evaluative filter.
- Objective 3.5: Learners will be able to save, tag, and retrieve bookmarks from Delicious, as evidenced in research citations that identify platforms.
- Assessment commentary: Participants have been introduced to prominent Media Studies theorists and have been encouraged to refer to these theorists in blog and discussion forum posts. We have not yet worked with "a variety" of search engines --at least not a wide variety. We have talked about the difference between Google-style search engines, which cast a broad net, and StumbleUpon-style search engines, which in effect allow users to 'educate' and refine searching at the front end of the process so to speak. So we've begun to introduce variety. We've accessed the online Lexis database that our campus library provides access to, so again we have a start on meeting this objective. And we have used Delicious bookmarks to tag and store research finds. We have not yet talked about ways to evaluate web sources, nor how to properly cite internet resources, so these objectives remain untouched at this point in the term.
- Goal 4: Learners will develop their 21st century knowledge constructing skills
- Objective 4.1: Learners will be able to enact 21st century literacy, evidenced in the assembly of information and perspectives into knowledge-products, done in a variety of media (text, image, audio, and video), in ways that are relevant and responsive to the five key/essential questions of the course.
- Objective 4.2: Learners will be able to use the term ‘cloud computing’ appropriately, in relation to the advent of an era in which intellectual and creative work will transpire as easily online as socializing does, in blog and online discussion postings.
- Objective 4.3: Learners will be able to work effectively and appropriately in the Moodle learning management software work environment, as evidenced in their ability to carry out a variety of assigned tasks in a timely fashion.
- Objective 4.4: Learners will able to use the Google Apps environment (including iGoogle, Sites, and Docs) as evidenced in their ability to carry out assigned tasks in a timely fashion.
- Objective 4.5: Learners will be able to perform a variety of image creation and editing tasks using Photoshop Elements and other web-based image tools, as evidenced in their ability to carry out assigned tasks in a timely fashion.
- Objective 4.6: Learners will be able to create and edit audio content using Audacity, Garageband, and other web-based audio tools, as evidenced in their ability to carry out a variety of assigned tasks in a timely fashion.
- Objective 4.7: Learners will be able to create and edit video content using iMovie, as evidenced in their ability to carry out a variety of assigned tasks in a timely fashion.
- Objective 4.8: Learners will be able to create avatars and attend meetings in a UNCSA online classroom within Second Life, as evidenced in their ability to carry out a variety of assigned tasks in a timely fashion.
- Assessment commentary: We have completed one challenge cycle at this point in the term, and have successfully IMO explored the use of image-collage as a way to explore themes in a non-linguistic manner, in response to our first essential question. 'Cloud computing' has been introduced in relation to Delicious bookmarks, and has been mentioned several times in other contexts as well (i.e., in talking about Google Apps). We've also used Moodle fairly extensively already, and Photoshop Elements has been worked with as well. We have not yet begun our involvement in audio and video learning, nor have we ventured into Second Life yet.
- Objective 5.1: Learners will be able to reflect on, manage, and assess their group and individual learning processes, as evidenced in reflective writing done as part of completing challenge cycles on key/essential questions.
- Objective 5.2: Learners will be able to take part in the construction and use of rubrics to self-assess the quality of blog posts, discussion forum posts, and other work products.
- Assessment commentary: Learners have already taken part in the co-construction of rubrics for self-assessment, and are presently doing their first self assessment.
This has been a good term thus far in my estimation. I feel that 'the mood in the room' is great, the spirit of exploration is strong, and participants are being very considerate of one another. All of this is more important to me than matters of content. If learners complete this course successfully and are open to learning more, and wanting to learn more, or even just more likely to be in such states because they've had a positive experience, then I'm satisfied that a big part of my overall goal for the course is met. This is not to say that relaying content and skills is unimportant, it's more to say that I think these things hinge on the affective elements.
In terms of meeting the course goals, I think significant progress has been made --to the extent that I feel we're actually ahead right now of where I would have thought we might be. Room for improvement exists particularly in the area of providing individual feedback. This has been difficult for me to do given all of the in-course design work I am doing. Yet I also feel that I have been very responsive to discussions, and with general feedback. For example I posted summary comments in the first online discussion forum that I think were fairly extensive and responsive to what participants were bringing to the conversation. In the syllabus I have signed on for providing individual comments as part of mid-term proceedings, so this present gap will begin to get addressed soon.
Overall I'd assign myself a letter-grade of A for the first challenge cycle. I hope I can keep up with things as the new challenge cycles unfold. Having gone through the first cycle, I can see that the form will change in subtle ways (i.e., I am introducing the second cycle with a short reading rather than an assignment to just think about the given essential question). This may be a case where the structure/form can indeed kind of recede or fade to a more background position or layer as we all become more familiar with it.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Final draft of course design (for now)
Things are hoppin' I'm excited about the design of the new course, and about some recent related re-discoveries. Here's the text of an email I sent out to colleagues:
A friend sent me a link (included below) to a video of a TED presentation by Sugata Mitra. I think this video poses --in easy-to-grasp, concrete terms-- a critical question about the scale or type of change that new-media occasions for education. I sometimes wonder (okay I often wonder :) whether or not we are for the most part responding out-of-scale (e.g., making minor adjustments when the changes we are responding to are major). How would we be thinking about curriculum reform, classroom space, the new library, where we'd like to be in ten years, and so forth if we took what Mitra is doing and applied it to our context? http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_the_child_driven_education.html I would love to have a conversation on our campus community about this, and possibly even frame a bit of it as research. I'm thinking I may submit something to the ARTStem project-grant program to see if we could get some funding for it. Anyone else interested in exploring this?
Several years ago I co-wrote a piece about an inter-disciplinary, inter-institutional pedagogical experiment I engaged in. The piece is called University to Diversity: The Story of 2 Live Class. In it I state the same conclusion that Mitra arrives at in the linked-to piece above; namely, learning is an emergent phenomenon resulting from self-organizing systems. If systems are damped and disturbed (in other words not allowed to self-organize) then teachers (I could be provocative and say dictators :) have to step in. In many ways teachers as actors create a need for themselves/ourselves by impeding the self-organizational capacities humans in interaction have.
The same colleague that pointed me to the Mitra TED talk, put it this way:
I don't think the important variable is "how many computers" but rather
"how can we get kids engaged with other kids over an interesting
learning task." In the clip he had fewer computers than children, but
the key was that he gave them an interesting task, the technology to
accomplish that task, allowed/encouraged them to talk with each other
and he got out of the way. We tell kids to sit down and don't talk, then
we precede to tell them a bunch of stuff we think they should know in a
form that all but makes it unknowable to them while we punish them if
they talk with each other. And we call this "education."
You have a lot if not all his ideas in practice in your classroom. You
don't have 25 students sitting quietly in rows all facing you and
writing down what you say that might be on the quiz. You have them
sitting in small groups and facing at different angles. I guess you must
have turned the podium into kindling or maybe some art project by now,
but it is not in front of the room. You allow and expect the students to
talk during class. Success comes not from the number of computers but,
as always, from the pedagogy employed.
It was interesting for me to see his success and to remember that we
should trust the kids to learn. The only real question is "Can students
learn when they are being taught?" As long as they are not taught, I am
sure they learn well.
A friend sent me a link (included below) to a video of a TED presentation by Sugata Mitra. I think this video poses --in easy-to-grasp, concrete terms-- a critical question about the scale or type of change that new-media occasions for education. I sometimes wonder (okay I often wonder :) whether or not we are for the most part responding out-of-scale (e.g., making minor adjustments when the changes we are responding to are major). How would we be thinking about curriculum reform, classroom space, the new library, where we'd like to be in ten years, and so forth if we took what Mitra is doing and applied it to our context? http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_the_child_driven_education.html I would love to have a conversation on our campus community about this, and possibly even frame a bit of it as research. I'm thinking I may submit something to the ARTStem project-grant program to see if we could get some funding for it. Anyone else interested in exploring this?
Several years ago I co-wrote a piece about an inter-disciplinary, inter-institutional pedagogical experiment I engaged in. The piece is called University to Diversity: The Story of 2 Live Class. In it I state the same conclusion that Mitra arrives at in the linked-to piece above; namely, learning is an emergent phenomenon resulting from self-organizing systems. If systems are damped and disturbed (in other words not allowed to self-organize) then teachers (I could be provocative and say dictators :) have to step in. In many ways teachers as actors create a need for themselves/ourselves by impeding the self-organizational capacities humans in interaction have.
The same colleague that pointed me to the Mitra TED talk, put it this way:
I don't think the important variable is "how many computers" but rather
"how can we get kids engaged with other kids over an interesting
learning task." In the clip he had fewer computers than children, but
the key was that he gave them an interesting task, the technology to
accomplish that task, allowed/encouraged them to talk with each other
and he got out of the way. We tell kids to sit down and don't talk, then
we precede to tell them a bunch of stuff we think they should know in a
form that all but makes it unknowable to them while we punish them if
they talk with each other. And we call this "education."
You have a lot if not all his ideas in practice in your classroom. You
don't have 25 students sitting quietly in rows all facing you and
writing down what you say that might be on the quiz. You have them
sitting in small groups and facing at different angles. I guess you must
have turned the podium into kindling or maybe some art project by now,
but it is not in front of the room. You allow and expect the students to
talk during class. Success comes not from the number of computers but,
as always, from the pedagogy employed.
It was interesting for me to see his success and to remember that we
should trust the kids to learn. The only real question is "Can students
learn when they are being taught?" As long as they are not taught, I am
sure they learn well.
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