I was incredibly excited when I saw that one of the chapters for this week's reading was about the matter of "the design of learning environments". I was expecting the chapter to (finally!) deal with something where I have some expertise. Alas, it was not to be.
The chapter starts with tremendous promise. As it says, "(S)chools have undergone major changes in the past century". (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000.) It goes on to say that, a century ago, "(T)he challenge of providing mass education was seen by many as analogous to mass production in factories," and to propose that this paradigm led to notions of efficiency, standardization and ("scientific") management of education. (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000.)
I absolutely concur with all of those propositions. But I was subsequently profoundly disappointed that the chapter did not then deal with what I was expecting and hoping that it would, at least in part, which is the actual physical design of schools and learning environments. So with your indulgence, please let me devote the remainder of this post to my thoughts in this area, which I believe is fundamentally critical to "transforming teaching and learning"!
I am not an architect by vocation--but I was married to one for 20 years, so I am somewhat of an amateur "architect" by avocation. I also did post-graduate study in architectural history and theory (the incomplete PhD which will haunt me the rest of my born days). Just before the turn of the 20th century, the American architect Louis Sullivan (generally considered the "father" of both the skyscraper and architectural "modernism") coined the phrase "form follows function". Without getting into great, gory detail, the expression is essentially self-explanatory. The architectural form of something should flow and follow from the function of that thing--whatever it may be. The form of an individual room should derive from its function, the form of a group of rooms should do the same, and so on until you have a finished building--the form of which should, then, be fundamentally driven by, ideally suited to, and a physical embodiment of its function. (Coincidentally and/or ironically, Sullivan went on to do much of his professional work within the emerging paradigm(s) of mass production, standardization, and "scientific management" that so deeply infused much of early 20th century thought.)
I have long maintained that the present-day "school" as we currently construct and recognize it is virtually indistinguishable--physically--from a prison. They both tend to be rather bland and generic buildings. They are both typically low-rise, flat-roofed structures. They are typically placed in isolation, sitting like an island on a large piece of land, which is easily observed and monitored. They are both (very unfortunately in the case of schools) frequently surrounded by (ugly) chain link fence. In some schools, even more unfortunately, their surroundings even dictate that said fence is topped with razor wire. And in some schools, there are armed guards and people must pass through metal detectors to enter. In both institutions--and it's important to think of them as institutions--security is extremely important. (Granted, in the case of one security is intended to keep bad guys out while the intent of the other is to keep them in--but security is security.) School, like prisons, even go into occasional "lockdowns". I could go on with the analogy, but I'm sure you get the point--and might never look at school building the same as you did before.
Is a facility which so closely resembles a prison really the best possible "design" of an ideal learning environment? Obviously not. I would also argue that while learning goals have indeed changed tremendously in the past 100 years, the design of schools has not kept up. Schools re, I would suggest, still designed (and operated) as "factories". If the function of schools has changed so dramatically, why hasn't the form changed equally dramatically?
I absolutely agree with Bransford et al that learning environments should be "learner centered, knowledge centered, assessment centered, and community centered". (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000.) I also absolutely agree with their positions, from the chapter on technology, that schools, the design of learning environments, and technology should "increase connections between schools and the communities" and "make connections between students' in-school and out-of-school activities", and do "function in a social environment". (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000.) I truly applaud absolutely everyone who works to try to make that happen within a physical environment which is not designed for any such thing.
From my point of view, the first and most fundamentally important thing that must take place in order to truly "transform teaching and learning" is to radically rethink and redesign the physical (and institutional and social) "learning environments" within which teaching and learning are happening. Unless we (the great collective we) change the form of our schools, present and future functions will never be able to reach their full potential. This is where I see the greatest challenge in the design of learning environments--and it is the area in which I would most like to find myself working in the future!
Citation:
Bransford, J., Brown, A., & Cocking, R. (2000). How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, & School. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.
Sunday, July 27, 2014
Sunday, July 20, 2014
The Leader of TPACK
The Significant Item:
"(W)hile hundreds of studies claim TPACK as theoretical framing, very little theoretical development of the model has occurred" (Graham, 2011)
(With apologies in advance for this week's entry--I returned "home" from Brazil a few days ago only to find that I don't really have a "home". There was a massive flood in my condo building (Ruptured hot water supply line), and my home sweet home is completely torn apart for repairs. Oddly enough, working on the course was actually easier while I was away than it has been since my return, so this week has been a bit of a scramble, and this may not be my most cogent or substantive contribution! That said, on with the show...)
A theory isn't a theory without theory. As tautological as that may seem, I was having some problems with TPACK, but wasn't quite able to pin down the reason for my discomfort until I read the Graham article. Suddenly, my qualms made sense to me.
With your kind permission, please allow me an anecdotal tangent (or two). I am sufficiently (painfully!) metacognitively aware of my own approach to learning. I simply am not one of those people who can simply plunge headlong into something without a sufficient understanding of "the big picture". I will illustrate with two examples. The first is my recent attempt to learn to play the ukulele. Before I could even pick up the instrument and try to play a single note or chord (practical learning/knowledge), I had to understand to my own satisfaction everything about it on an abstract level. I learned about the history of the instrument--its origins and evolution. I learned about the composition of the instrument--materials, form, and so on. I refreshed my memory about how vibrating strings produce sound. I also refreshed my memory about music theory--the relationships between particular frequencies and so forth. I know this sounds incredibly odd to most people, but until I had done all of that (and more), I literally could not imagine simply picking the thing up and starting to try to play it in a vacuum.
The same applied to my recent experience of studying the become an ESL instructor. The program simply plunged into "how" without (for me) sufficient contextual information about the history and theory of the field. I had to read up on all of that for my own sanity; otherwise I would not have been able to complete the program.
These are, as I said, personal anecdotes (and perhaps illustrations of a rather unusual way of approaching learning), but I find them highly relevant. I simply cannot see how people can, in good conscience, "do" anything without a) building a robust body of theoretical knowledge in their given domain, and b) understanding that body of theoretical knowledge. Yes, 16th Century "doctors" did their best with the limited understanding they had, but we live in a world where we have access to astonishing knowledge, and to "do" education without a sufficient theoretical framework--which practitioners must study before going out into the field to educate--seems akin to some of those 16th Century medical practices!
As Graham says further on, "One intuitively recognizes the importance of integrating knowledge domains related to pedagogy, subject matter, and technology. However, the simplicity of the model hides a deep underlying level of complexity, in part because all of the constructs being integrated are broad and ill-defined." (Graham, 2011)
Graham ultimately concludes that TPACK has "the potential to provide a strong foundation for future technology integration research," but that significant work remains to provide sufficient rigor and robustness to realize this potential. (Graham, 2011)
Graham's position resonates incredibly powerfully with me--not only with respect to TPACK but to much of what I am beginning to learn is the "state of the art" in the realm of educational theory. To borrow a word from last week, I find much of it to be incredibly "squishy". Not only am I personally predisposed to "theory first, then practice" as a general paradigm, but I come from previous educational worlds where theory was crucial (chemistry, film theory, and architectural theory).
Yes, there is something undeniably intuitively seductive about integrating knowledge domains. And something that can be expressed in a simple tripartite Venn diagram, as TPACK frequently is, seems elegantly simple and, again, seductive. But I remain leery. As I said, I had vague and undefined qualms, which have only been amplified by reading the Graham article.
The obvious implication of all of this for both practice and future investigation is that I agree with Graham that much more work needs to be done for it to have convincing validity. I understand the sense of urgency in a world that is evolving so rapidly, but I would prefer to create robust theories and models, with strong theoretical foundations, rather than lurch from fad to fad.
Reference:
Graham, C. R. (2011). Theoretical considerations for understanding technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK). Computers & Education, 57(3), 1953-1960.
"(W)hile hundreds of studies claim TPACK as theoretical framing, very little theoretical development of the model has occurred" (Graham, 2011)
(With apologies in advance for this week's entry--I returned "home" from Brazil a few days ago only to find that I don't really have a "home". There was a massive flood in my condo building (Ruptured hot water supply line), and my home sweet home is completely torn apart for repairs. Oddly enough, working on the course was actually easier while I was away than it has been since my return, so this week has been a bit of a scramble, and this may not be my most cogent or substantive contribution! That said, on with the show...)
A theory isn't a theory without theory. As tautological as that may seem, I was having some problems with TPACK, but wasn't quite able to pin down the reason for my discomfort until I read the Graham article. Suddenly, my qualms made sense to me.
With your kind permission, please allow me an anecdotal tangent (or two). I am sufficiently (painfully!) metacognitively aware of my own approach to learning. I simply am not one of those people who can simply plunge headlong into something without a sufficient understanding of "the big picture". I will illustrate with two examples. The first is my recent attempt to learn to play the ukulele. Before I could even pick up the instrument and try to play a single note or chord (practical learning/knowledge), I had to understand to my own satisfaction everything about it on an abstract level. I learned about the history of the instrument--its origins and evolution. I learned about the composition of the instrument--materials, form, and so on. I refreshed my memory about how vibrating strings produce sound. I also refreshed my memory about music theory--the relationships between particular frequencies and so forth. I know this sounds incredibly odd to most people, but until I had done all of that (and more), I literally could not imagine simply picking the thing up and starting to try to play it in a vacuum.
The same applied to my recent experience of studying the become an ESL instructor. The program simply plunged into "how" without (for me) sufficient contextual information about the history and theory of the field. I had to read up on all of that for my own sanity; otherwise I would not have been able to complete the program.
These are, as I said, personal anecdotes (and perhaps illustrations of a rather unusual way of approaching learning), but I find them highly relevant. I simply cannot see how people can, in good conscience, "do" anything without a) building a robust body of theoretical knowledge in their given domain, and b) understanding that body of theoretical knowledge. Yes, 16th Century "doctors" did their best with the limited understanding they had, but we live in a world where we have access to astonishing knowledge, and to "do" education without a sufficient theoretical framework--which practitioners must study before going out into the field to educate--seems akin to some of those 16th Century medical practices!
As Graham says further on, "One intuitively recognizes the importance of integrating knowledge domains related to pedagogy, subject matter, and technology. However, the simplicity of the model hides a deep underlying level of complexity, in part because all of the constructs being integrated are broad and ill-defined." (Graham, 2011)
Graham ultimately concludes that TPACK has "the potential to provide a strong foundation for future technology integration research," but that significant work remains to provide sufficient rigor and robustness to realize this potential. (Graham, 2011)
Graham's position resonates incredibly powerfully with me--not only with respect to TPACK but to much of what I am beginning to learn is the "state of the art" in the realm of educational theory. To borrow a word from last week, I find much of it to be incredibly "squishy". Not only am I personally predisposed to "theory first, then practice" as a general paradigm, but I come from previous educational worlds where theory was crucial (chemistry, film theory, and architectural theory).
Yes, there is something undeniably intuitively seductive about integrating knowledge domains. And something that can be expressed in a simple tripartite Venn diagram, as TPACK frequently is, seems elegantly simple and, again, seductive. But I remain leery. As I said, I had vague and undefined qualms, which have only been amplified by reading the Graham article.
The obvious implication of all of this for both practice and future investigation is that I agree with Graham that much more work needs to be done for it to have convincing validity. I understand the sense of urgency in a world that is evolving so rapidly, but I would prefer to create robust theories and models, with strong theoretical foundations, rather than lurch from fad to fad.
Reference:
Graham, C. R. (2011). Theoretical considerations for understanding technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK). Computers & Education, 57(3), 1953-1960.
Sunday, July 13, 2014
Time for a Paradigm Shift?
The Significant Item:
- "Before students can engage with the new participatory culture, they must be able to read and write." (Jenkins, 2006, p. 19)
- "Meaning making occurs whether we use traditional, paper-based texts or digital, multimodal texts," (Rowsell, 2011, p. 57)
Jenkins makes a powerful and persuasive case for the value of "participatory culture" in both his article and TEDx talk. But as the quote above makes abundantly clear, he is not arguing for the abandonment of traditional literacy. And as Rowsell points out, there is fundamentally very little difference between "traditional" and "digital literacy". It's all about constructing meaning.
I would propose that Jenkins' notion of "participatory culture", in the broadest sense, is also about the very same thing--constructing meaning, specifically constructing a sense of the world, one's place in it, and how one can interact with others to affect the world. But schools and educators seems to be having tremendous difficulty grappling with "digital literacy", "technology", and so on.
This is why all of the readings and the video clips have made me think ever more that "schools"--as social institutions--are extraordinarily conservative institutions which are incredibly resistant to change and in desperate need of a massive paradigm shift:
This, to me, is the greatest implication for professional practice and the ground for further questions. How do we "transform" such a large, cumbersome, and unwieldy thing as "public education"? Schools that shut down social media are doing exactly the wrong thing. Schools that discourage collaboration are doing exactly the wrong thing.
But even here in this course, we're struggling with a certain aspect or issue that is part of the questions that are being asked, having to do with intellectual property. As the NMC Horizon Report (Johnson, Adams Becker, Cummins, Estrada, Freeman, & Ludgate, 2013, p. 7) suggests, the very idea of "authoritative sources" is being broken down and replaced by concepts of openness. This is a HUGE area of consideration for academics (and intellectual property lawyers and policy makers). One person's "plagiarism" or "intellectual theft" (based on a closed and proprietary notion of ideas and information) is another person's "mashup" or "remix" (based on an open and collaborative notion of ideas and information). That said, here are my citations:
Jenkins, H. (2006). Confronting the challenges of participatory culture: Media education for the 21st century. John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Retrieved from http://digitallearning.macfound.org/atf/cf/%7B7E45C7E0-A3E0-4B89-AC9C-E807E1B0AE4E%7D/JENKINS_WHITE_PAPER.PDF
Johnson, L., Adams Becker, S., Cummins, M., Estrada, V., Freeman, A., & Ludgate, H. (2013). NMC Horizon Report: 2013. Higher Education Edition. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium. Retrieved from http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2013-horizon-report-k12.pdf
Rowsell, J. (2011). Rethinking literacy education in new times: Multimodality, multiliteracies, & new literacies. Retrieved from http://brock.scholarsportal.info/journals/brocked/home/article/view/236/174
Sunday, July 6, 2014
Just don't call it a "method"!
The Significant Item:
"Inquiry is much more than a teaching method--it is a way of being in the classroom, as well as in the world." (Clifford & Marinucci, 2008, p. 676)
Please forgive me for saying so, but I find this rhetoric just a touch on the hyperbolic side. When we start talking about something--anything--in such epistemologically absolutist terms, I start to get just a little nervous. Such language begins to take on slightly cultish/creepy overtones for me.
Please don't get me wrong. I find it very difficult to disagree in any substantive fashion with what I've been reading and learning so far (although it's still early days!), but--to be perfectly frank/blunt--I also find that a lot of what I've been reading and learning so far seems to be from the realm of truths we hold to be self-evident.
I know it may be heresy, but it still seems to me that there really isn't that much that is truly new, different, or radical about "inquiry". Clifford and Marinucci go on to argue that "true" or "genuine" inquiry demands that "teachers develop the attitudes of a scholar", that such authentic inquiry evokes "questions that lead to further questions", requires a "spirit of wonder", and that it is "a knowledge-building space in which ideas are at the center and each individual has a commitment to producing the collective, evolving understanding".
This is all well and good, but as far as my poor little mind can discern, it is essentially an articulation of (the philosophy of) "science" as a pedagogical paradigm, within which "inquiry" would be the good old "scientific method" which meets all of the stated criteria (it functions within an epistemological paradigm--a way of being in the world, it requires the attitudes of a scholar, it is entirely driven by questions which lead to further questions, it is most definitely undertaken in a spirit of curiosity and wonder, and "science" is exactly a "knowledge-building space in which ideas are at the center and each individual has a commitment to producing the collective, evolving understanding"). So what's wrong with calling "inquiry" a "method"? Within such a construct, I see nothing wrong with the word at all!
By the by, I deliberately chose to include links to Wikipedia pages, because the notion of a knowledge building space devoted to ideas with individuals producing a collective, evolving understanding is also exactly the concept of "collective intelligence" which drives Wikipedia itself.
And this is where my questions for further investigation reside. I'm fascinated by "collective intelligence", "shared knowledge", and so on within the realms of digital media and digital citizenship. Yes, learning needs to be authentic, meaningful, and relevant in "real" communities beyond the classroom and the school. But those "real communities" are increasingly "virtual" and digital. With a few clicks and/or keystrokes, students today can almost instantly bring together constantly-shifting communities of astonishing breadth and depth. How do we design and implement a truly relevant model of education in such a world?
References:
Clifford, P. & Marinucci, S. (2008). Testing the waters: Three elements of classroom inquiry. Harvard Educational Review, 78(4), 675-688. Retrieved from http://library1.ucalgary.ca/u.php?id=3209
Philosophy of Science. (2014-07-06). In Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved 2014-07-06 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science.
Science. (2014-07-06). In Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved 2014-07-06 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science.
Paradigm. (2014-07-06). In Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved 2014-07-06 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradigm.
Scientific Method. (2014-07-06). In Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved 2014-07-06 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method.
Collective Intelligence. (2014-07-06). In Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved 2014-07-06 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_intelligence.
"Inquiry is much more than a teaching method--it is a way of being in the classroom, as well as in the world." (Clifford & Marinucci, 2008, p. 676)
Please forgive me for saying so, but I find this rhetoric just a touch on the hyperbolic side. When we start talking about something--anything--in such epistemologically absolutist terms, I start to get just a little nervous. Such language begins to take on slightly cultish/creepy overtones for me.
Please don't get me wrong. I find it very difficult to disagree in any substantive fashion with what I've been reading and learning so far (although it's still early days!), but--to be perfectly frank/blunt--I also find that a lot of what I've been reading and learning so far seems to be from the realm of truths we hold to be self-evident.
I know it may be heresy, but it still seems to me that there really isn't that much that is truly new, different, or radical about "inquiry". Clifford and Marinucci go on to argue that "true" or "genuine" inquiry demands that "teachers develop the attitudes of a scholar", that such authentic inquiry evokes "questions that lead to further questions", requires a "spirit of wonder", and that it is "a knowledge-building space in which ideas are at the center and each individual has a commitment to producing the collective, evolving understanding".
This is all well and good, but as far as my poor little mind can discern, it is essentially an articulation of (the philosophy of) "science" as a pedagogical paradigm, within which "inquiry" would be the good old "scientific method" which meets all of the stated criteria (it functions within an epistemological paradigm--a way of being in the world, it requires the attitudes of a scholar, it is entirely driven by questions which lead to further questions, it is most definitely undertaken in a spirit of curiosity and wonder, and "science" is exactly a "knowledge-building space in which ideas are at the center and each individual has a commitment to producing the collective, evolving understanding"). So what's wrong with calling "inquiry" a "method"? Within such a construct, I see nothing wrong with the word at all!
By the by, I deliberately chose to include links to Wikipedia pages, because the notion of a knowledge building space devoted to ideas with individuals producing a collective, evolving understanding is also exactly the concept of "collective intelligence" which drives Wikipedia itself.
And this is where my questions for further investigation reside. I'm fascinated by "collective intelligence", "shared knowledge", and so on within the realms of digital media and digital citizenship. Yes, learning needs to be authentic, meaningful, and relevant in "real" communities beyond the classroom and the school. But those "real communities" are increasingly "virtual" and digital. With a few clicks and/or keystrokes, students today can almost instantly bring together constantly-shifting communities of astonishing breadth and depth. How do we design and implement a truly relevant model of education in such a world?
References:
Clifford, P. & Marinucci, S. (2008). Testing the waters: Three elements of classroom inquiry. Harvard Educational Review, 78(4), 675-688. Retrieved from http://library1.ucalgary.ca/u.php?id=3209
Philosophy of Science. (2014-07-06). In Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved 2014-07-06 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science.
Science. (2014-07-06). In Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved 2014-07-06 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science.
Paradigm. (2014-07-06). In Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved 2014-07-06 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradigm.
Scientific Method. (2014-07-06). In Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved 2014-07-06 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method.
Collective Intelligence. (2014-07-06). In Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved 2014-07-06 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_intelligence.
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