Myself, I’d never go so far as say “You all get A’s.” This guy did.
“Grades poison the educational environment,” he insists. “We're training students to be obedient, and to try to read our minds, rather than being a catalyst for learning.”
via globeandmail.com: Professor makes his mark, but it costs him his job.
My attitude is that every student starts with an A and then slowly gives up points by being students instead of learners.
But I’m that kinda guy.
Hat tip to D’Arcy Norman.
Stephen Downes has this take on culture and morality. He’s linked to an “Inside Higher Ed” article by the same title.
It’s Culture, Not Morality
People often blur the distinction between legality and morality, reasoning (oddly and incorrectly, in my view) that whatever is against the law or even against the rules is also immoral. But rules do not reflect morality, they reflect culture, and culture changes with time.
If you’re not subscribed to OLDaily in your aggregators, you should be. The feed is at OLDaily
I suppose I should take comfort in the constancy that in every semeseter, I will find students who believe in “learning styles.” The comfort comes from knowing I have resources lined up to try to help. Like this post:
Learning Styles
Several of you have referred to “learning styles” in some of your posts and comments. I know it’s fashionable, but it’s also not supported by any credible scientific evidence.
And this one:
Learning Styles, Again
In order to justify the “Learning Style” theory, that individual student MUST show sigificant improvements across a wide variety of content areas delivered in a variety of modes and therein lies the rub. Whatever design this research takes, it must somehow tease out that causal relationship between the delivery mode and the outcome that’s independent from the repetition.
I even use it as an example of non-theory here:
Theory?! What Theory?!
My problem with it is that it seems so nonsensical that the likelihood of it actually being true is too remote for me towastespend time with it. Logically, it just lacks a level of coherence that I need in order to take it seriously.
Yes, I know. A lot of people believe in learning styles. That’s fine. I’m happy they worship at that altar.
Education isn’t something I’m willing to take on faith.
Brian Lamb has a new post up that was inspired by meeting Dr Sugata Mitra. For those who’ve not heard of Dr Mitra’s “Hole in the Wall” project, Brian has the best links (including the TED Talk on the subject).
This is the interesting point for me:
Dr. Mitra is convinced that these methods cannot work for adults. Based on my own instinct and experience, I have to reluctantly agree with him. Why not? And what would adults need to unlearn in order to learn the way these kids do? I again find myself thinking that the teaching of skills is less important than changing attitudes – but I have no idea how best to do so.
Abject Learning: The hole in the wall: the holes in my thinking and my life.
I think this does work for adults, but perhaps we don’t recognize it. If there’s a difference between kids and adults, it’s the driver. A kid sees something new and says “Ooo, what’s this? Can I play with it?” An adult says, “Oh, great. Can I avoid this for the moment while I deal with the urgent problems of the day?”
The difference is that a kid will see how this new thing — whether it’s an idea, a device, or a process — can be adopted, adapted, or otherwise integrated into his or her life. They’ll poke at it a little bit to see if there’s anything interesting there and then make a decision. An adult will have to be shown that it’s useful before they’re willing to invest the time to learn about it. For many adults (and I’m not sure that maybe it’s “most” adults), the demands on time and attention are so overwhelming that they just can’t add another thing without dropping something. Yet, when they need to know something new, they need to know it in a hurry. How to buy a car? How to finance a house? What are the employment regulations in my new state? How can I cut calories, reduce fat, get the doctor off my case, and not want to lay down in traffic?
I’m not sure that Brian isn’t right about the dichotomy between skills and attitudes, but I also wonder if the issue is that we’re so tied up in teaching “core competencies” and “required knowledge” that we forget to teach people how to learn and how important it is to be constantly scanning the horizon for new things to learn about.
It seems hard to believe I’ve known Dr. David Wiley for years now. I just got to visit with him again last week in Orlando. He’s one of the people who really convinced me to give this blogging thing a try. He has a new post up this morning about differentiating instruction:
Champions of personalized instruction tend to fall back on the assumption that one-on-one tutoring is the most effective instructional approach but is not scalable (implicit in Bloom’s two sigma problem), and since “we all know” that group instruction is poor, we’ve no choice but to personalize using an automated computer system as our best and most effective path forward.
Lying about Personalized Learning at iterating toward openness.
There’s a lot of food for thought in that post, but for me, the interesting idea in this post is that “champions of personalized instruction” are forced to using “an automated computer system” as the “best and most effective path forward.”
As a disclaimer, I don’t run in the same circles of technovation that David does. He probably sees more of this than I do. Or maybe pays more attention.
In truth, I’m not really interested in personalized instruction as much as I am in personalized learning. My goals are not to make my lessons different for everybody but to teach them how to learn what they need in any circumstance. As a result, my approach to “personalizing instruction” has more to do with helping students find the people to talk with who will be most instrumental in helping them learn.
Personal learning environments aren’t just about what tools you plug into them, but who you point them at as well. It’s all well and good to blog and aggregate, but if you only write to your classmates (or the teacher) and only aggregate the echo chamber, then you’re not going to learn much. Which, if I read it correctly, is what David’s saying.
If what we’re doing to “personalize learning” is making a computer talk differently to a person, then we’re missing the boat. “[U]sing an automated computer system as our best and most effective path forward” … ? Um. Not so much.
Time flies when you’re having fun. Some of you have noticed that I’ve been in-world at Last Outpost for the last couple of weeks. Teaching in a multiuser environment — especially one so foreign — is a challenge. In this case, literally teaching in the (virtual) town square.
Playing in the MUD requires much more skill and attention than might be guessed from the initial simple introduction. Because it’s text based, there are several advantages to the environment.
First, it’s accessible to almost anybody with a computer and a connection. Even people who are blind or visually impaired can play. People on dialup can play. People with really old, slow computers can play. The barriers to entry are very low and for an educational environment, that’s key. Not just important. Key.
Second, it’s interactive. What you do has an effect in the game. Whether it’s picking up a weapon, donning your armor, learning a spell, or saving your companions, it’s reflected in the game. This is real interaction, not the pseudo-interaction “click here to advance” or “pick the answer that most closely agrees” level of question response. From the time you first stand in Town Square, everything you do has an effect on your character in the game.
Third, it’s multiuser. You are not there alone. One of the earliest computer games was “Adventure in the Colossal Cave” which is actually the antecedent of all modern MUDs. In that, the adventurer solved puzzles, slayed monsters, and explored the cave. From “Adventure” a whole series of single player games called Zork came on the scene and evolved in the early days of personal computers. Dialup networks gave access to similar single player “bbs games” and finally the MUD-engines were developed to provide a full multiuser, persistent game space.
Fourth, all the characteristics of an educational game are in play, except – perhaps – core content. Personally, I maintain that this is an artificial contrivance to make educators feel better about using games but that it cripples their ability to use them effectively — Grendler, notwithstanding. While many things that happen in the game are generated by random number selection, the reality is that the actual game play is almost entirely within the player’s control. If you make a mistake, the game will punish you. If you play well, the game rewards you. The occasional dispute between players — and the occasional interference from ‘pkillers’ who delight in messing up the game play of others — is certainly not random, any more than a fistfight in the back of the playground is random.
Fifth, it’s horribly time consuming. Going through the same instructions for everybody take time as each new player comes up to speed in their own way. Other players in the game are excellent sources of information and more advanced students regularly help those just starting out.
Lessons learned so far:
It doesn’t matter how much instruction, how many resources, or how well the ground is prepared, students don’t pay any attention to it. Several people have asked for more instructions on how to play the game, only to find out that the instructions existed already and they’d ignored them.
A corollary to that is that the game is, in fact, an instantiation of “exploratory learning.” You’re supposed to learn to play the game by playing the game.
One piece of instruction was missing. When following another, the screen goes into a “compact/brief” mode to cut down on the amount of information flowing. This is not necessarily a good thing for somebody trying to learn their way around. It’s easily reversed by typing “compact” to turn it off, and “brief” to reestablish the view.
The reflection papers from 688 were due last night, but the rubric wasn’t available until the evening. I’m looking forward to reading them.
Alex Golub is an anthropologist studying people who play World of Warcraft. He has an interesting article on the use of fear and humiliation in teaching over at Inside Higher Ed this morning.
What I learned that night was that I believe in the power of fear and humiliation as teaching methods. Obviously, I don’t think they are teaching methods that should be used often, or be at the heart of our pedagogy. But I do think that there are occasions when it is appropriate to let people know that there is no safety net. There are times — not all the time, or most of the time, but occasionally and inevitably — when you have to tell people to shut up and do their job. I’m not happy to discover that I believe this, and in some ways I wish I didn’t. But Warcraft has taught me that I there is a place for “sink or swim” methods in teaching.
Fear and Humiliation as Legitimate Teaching Methods :: Inside Higher Ed :: Higher Education’s Source for News, Views and Jobs.
Some of you commented that you believed that the first week of class was inappropriately harsh or difficult, and that it violated commonly acceptable practice. While we weren’t slaying boss-mobs, we were actually engaging in a similar activity.
One of the on-going discussions about online education is a chronic debate about cheating.
What’s cheating? Sure, paying Kurt Vonnegut to write a book report on Slaughterhouse Five the way Rodney Dangerfield did in Back to School is probably beyond the edge. What about looking up the answer online? Or asking Bob? If Connectivism is a valid construct than knowing who to ask becomes an important skill. For years, education has given a wink and a nod to the notion that it’s less important to know a fact than to know where to find the fact when you need it. What’s that do for cheating? How can you cheat? If your goal is to assess how much knowledge about a subject that a learner might be able to bring to bear on a problem, then ask him/her to solve a problem. Few people can cheat a “performance” task where most people might not even realize they were cheating a “knowledge” task.
phaedrus » Blog Archive » Assessment at a Distance.
This discussion makes me tired. It’s so pointless, but it does serve the purpose of casting doubt on the validity of online learning.
What are the factors that promote “cheating?” Are they realistic? How is the perception different from the reality?
Question: Why does the College Board need to test 8th graders?
At a briefing to unveil the program Wednesday, College Board officials said that the exam — ReadiStep — would help students, their families and their schools plan high school programs that would increase preparedness for college. The idea is that the test will be for diagnostic purposes, not for evaluating whether students get into certain programs or win scholarships. The test will be “a launchpad” that “can help teachers change the course of students’ instruction,” said Lee Jones, the College Board’s senior vice president for college readiness.
College Board Unveils Test for 8th Graders :: Inside Higher Ed.
Answer: Revenue.
As the importance of the SAT is reduced for college acceptance, they need to make up the revenue somewhere.
This piece from the prolific Michael Wesch came to me by way of D’Arcy Norman.
We don’t have to tear the walls down. We just have to stop pretending that the walls separate us from the world, and begin working with students in the pursuit of answers to real and relevant questions.
Digital Ethnography » Blog Archive » Revisiting “A Vision of Students Today”.
You’ll find some common themes in that essay. It’s worth a full read.
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