What I sent to our vice provost

One of the reasons I enjoy my work is because I am often challenged to think.  That's a good thing.  So, having been challenged (asked) by our new vice provost for distance education about my objection to the use of "innovative technology" to describe our distance education strategy, I took some time to consider my objection:

There's a reason I am not in marketing, despite having been assured many times that I'd be "perfect" in that role.  I can understand why people might think I'd be a fit for marketing, when the reality is that I am a questioner, a challenger, and, when I believe in something, a persuader.  Marketing tends to be selling the sizzle, creating the buzz, etc.  It's important and brands are built that way, but it's not what I do best.  

Unless I'm overlooking something (or it's somewhere on campus that I haven't been), my university is behind in our pursuit of quality distance education.  That's actually the good news, because the innovators take the risks, make the mistakes, and blaze the path.  It's the ones who come later (second movers or those who adapt to survive) who can learn from the mistakes and offer a better product.  

I don't see innovative technology on our campus.  We have some of the basics (Blackboard, Skype, some pockets of other technologies, etc.) and some very large holes that even the two-year colleges within our system have filled better than we have.  So, from my perspective, only a marketer could describe our technology as innovative and cutting edge.  

But what we DO have are innovative ideas, innovative people, and a system-wide spirit of innovation to address the opportunity and challenge of the things you've articulated very well (below).  What I'd like to see us do is not simply copy or play catch-up with others in this space, but to step back, start without any pre-conceived ideas, and see what possible solutions our innovation can provide.  Innovative solutions.

One example:  Our system does not function as a system, but as disparate and, sometimes, competing entities.  That wouldn't matter, perhaps, except that the big losers are the students we are trying to serve.  If I am a student (traditional college age or older student who is seeking a college degree later in life), the system is a morass of conflicting and confusing offerings.  If I am fortunate enough to find one of the two-year colleges who offer me a mostly (or fully) distance/online schedule and I work diligently to gain my associates degree, then what?  The majority of the distance/online offerings at my campus are graduate degrees, which are of no use to me at all until/unless I complete two more years of online offerings (which could be blended and include some monthly or weekly sessions at my local high school or library).  Where in the system can I find the solution to my problem?  And why is that not one of the questions we are addressing?

Dancing geek

The pedagogy of teaching fascinates me, despite the hubris implied by use of the word 'pedagogy' in public.  Taking pride (of the appropriate kind) reflected in preparation and professionalism in ones craft as an educator requires an awareness that teaching is both art and science, in somewhat equal measure.

Benjamin Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives is part of the rich science of teaching; understanding how to use the taxonomy is part of the art.  Long a fan of the elegant simplicity of a hierarchy of thinking skills, I have used Bloom's Taxonomy in course design, test design, and content delivery.

In the midst of teaching, explaining to students how learning happens seems prudent; students are, after all, my partners in the process and it helps if we're doing the same dance steps.  The step-wise progression from lower order thinking skills to higher order thinking skills is beautifully choreographed in the latest revision to Bloom's--we now have digital verbs.  For example, from the Update to Bloom's Revised Taxonomy:

• Remembering - bookmarking, searching, googling, social bookmarking
• Understanding - advanced/ boolean searches, blog journaling, annotating, subscribing, tweeting
• Applying - executing, playing, uploading, editing
• Analyzing - mashing, tagging, linking
• Evaluating - commenting, posting, moderating, collaborating, reviewing
• Creating - programming, blogging, podcasting, publishing, wiki-ing

For those of us who are pedagogists as well as closet geeks, this is really good news.  It means I can use technology as more than a tool to enable learning objectives related to other content.  The effective and well-planned use of technology is its own pedagogy, music to the ears of a geek who dances.


Related Ramblings:
Learning Through Teaching: Pandemic consumption
Learning Through Teaching:  My cup runneth over
Learning Through Teaching: The "no textbook" decision

A work in progress

I don't even know where to begin to describe what's happening in our classroom this semester as we address online education as an innovation. From the scholarly articles and supporting texts come descriptions of what I'm observing:

"Above all, innovation is work rather than genius. It requires knowledge. It often requires ingenuity. And it requires focus." (1)

"(W)hen all is said and done, what innovation requires is hard, focused, purposeful work. If diligence, persistence, and commitment are lacking, talent, ingenuity, and knowledge are of no avail." (1)

"Innovators constantly ask questions that challenge common wisdom...they like to ask 'If we did this, what would happen?'" (2)

"(I)nnovative entrepreneurs actively try out new ideas by creating prototypes and launching pilots. Unlike observers...experimenters construct interactive experiences and try to provoke unorthodox responses to see what insights emerge." (2)

"It's no longer sufficient to create a product, a service, an experience, or a lifestyle that's merely functional. Today's it's economically crucial and personally rewarding to create something that is also beautiful, whimsical, or emotionally engaging." (3)

  

We have created a lab focused on asking questions, researching answers, and creating prototypes that embody the experience students (and standards organizations) expect from online education.  It's truly a beautiful process to watch.

(1) The Discipline of Innovation by Peter F. Drucker (HBR Case)
(2) The Innovator's DNA by Jeffrey H. Dyer, Hal. B. Gregersen, and Clayton M. Christensen (HBR Case)
(3) A Whole New Mind by Daniel H. Pink

My cup runneth over...

Though it pains me to admit, I have not yet finished The Digital Divide.  I have, however, traveled to visit family, celebrated a holiday or two, knitted on the year-and-counting afghan, celebrated my daughter's birthday, moved to a new office, conducted meetings, continued planning for two courses this semester, read other books and worked on a remodeling project.  In between, I've taken to photographing random cemeteries.  I'm not slacking, just over-committed.

But I have made progress in my reading, slowed somewhat by my long-standing tendency to write in the margins of the book, make connections that compel me to seek other sources ("Now where IS that quote that seems to say this in a different way?"), and allow time for what I'm reading to rumble around in my brain.  It's the rumbling that seems to yield the most benefit, especially when considering conflicting perspectives:

"In geography--which is all but ignored these days--there is no reason that a generation that can memorize over 100 Pokemon character with all their characteristics, history, and evolution can't learn the names, populations, capitals, and relationships of all the 101 nations in the world.  It just depends on how it is presented."

"One of the most interesting challenges and opportunities...is to figure out and invent ways to include reflection and critical thinking in the learning (either built into the instruction or through a process of instructor-led debriefing) but still do it in the Digital Native language."  

"(T)oday's neurobiologists and social psychologists agree that brains can and do change with new input.  And today's educators with the most crucial learning missions --teaching...the military--are already using custom-designed computer and video games as an effective way of reaching Digital Natives.  But the bulk of today's tradition-bound educational establishment seems in no hurry to follow their lead."

"Three unexpected sources can help us negotiate the historical transition we face as we move from one prevailing mode of communication to another:  Socrates, modern cognitive neuroscience, and Proust."

"Teens' poor performance (relative to adults when navigating unfamiliar web sites) is caused by three factors:  insufficient reading skills, less sophisticated research strategies, and a dramatically lower patience level."

"As the brain evolves and shifts its focus toward new technological skills, it drifts away from fundamental social skills, such as reading facial expressions during conversation or grasping the emotional content of a subtle gesture."

When I review the quotes, I am exhilarated, concerned, frustrated, hopeful, and overwhelmed.  On the whole, it's good news that we can understand (as least some of) the impact of technology on learning.  What concerns me, though, is the tendency to divide the world of knowledge into discrete camps, forgetting, for example, that reading narrative text and being forced to reflect upon the meaning is a different skill from rapid identification and absorption of information...and that both are required for success in navigating a complex world.  It's not either-or; it's both-and.

The web of knowledge existed long before it was digitally connected and it was already a lot to absorb.  Perhaps that's been the draw to the cemeteries--a tangible reminder of the finite and the infinite...and what belongs where.  One semester at a time...

Pandemic consumption

I have a weakness for English majors.  A case in point is Mark Bauerlein, professor of English at Emory University, and editor of The Digital Divide: Arguments for and Against Facebook, Google, Texting, and the Age of Social Networking.  In the eight-page introduction alone, I found several gems:

• In wondering about 6,901 comments posted in response to a 2,500-word newspaper piece, Bauerlein questions "what readers think when they encounter 4,838 comments to a news story and believe that post #4,384 really matters.  Is this democratic process or fruitless vanity?"
• "How many decades passed between the invention of the telephone and its daily use by 90 percent of the population?  Today, the path from private creation to pandemic consumption is measured in months."
• The phrase "reclusiveness in public spaces" aptly describes how we "look the same" to others (at the coffee shop, for example) whether we are reading a book online, checking Facebook, or contributing to a malicious gossip site.  "Nobody can tell, and that precise shelter removes one of the long-standing curbs on vicious conduct, namely, exposure."
• And, in the final paragraph:  "If we let the human realities that accompanied those older tools fall into oblivion...then we lose a part of our humanity, a historical sense of our recent selves."

More reading material...woo hoo!

The "no textbook" decision

Let me make it clear from the outset that I like textbooks. I've kept many of the texts I used during my graduate school days, along with a sizable number of more recent acquisitions. At their best, textbooks provide research, case studies, insights from business heavy hitters (remember, this is a business school), and visually enticing diagrams, photographs, and charts. How could anyone not love a well-written textbook?

Well, today's students, mostly. They not only prefer to read and write in shorter bursts (think text messages and tweets), they also want to be able to find the absolute latest information available. I've been surprised--pleasantly and on more than one occasion--how quickly students can and do investigate a casual reference I've made to some topic...often before the end of the day and quite frequently before the end of that class period.

Kansas State University's Digital Ethnography Project conducted a survey of 200 students and found:

• They complete 49% of the readings assigned to them.
• They buy textbooks that are never opened.
• The reading ratio of books to web pages is 8:2300.

And we (meaning academics) have inadvertently contributed to the decline in textbook appreciation. Many instructors cover the textbook material so thoroughly in lectures that reading the text is really unnecessary; therefore, the cost of the textbook is seen as wasted money. I prefer that reading occur before students come to class (quaint, I know) and have varying levels of success with reinforcing that behavior. Still, it's a slog, at best.

The other way we've contributed to the downfall of the textbook is by taking steps to minimize student cost. In this particular course, we worked with the publisher to develop a custom text of only the required chapters, supplemented by relevant articles. The unintended consequence is a black-and-white version of the text, which significantly decreases the visual appeal. In fact, I use the original textbook simply because it's more enjoyable to read.

So, what will replace the text? A combination of classic articles (such as Michael Porter's "What is Strategy?"), videos used in the current course, student-driven research (within broad guidelines), and a requirement that students be able to understand and explain what they find. And I am knee-deep in the nuts and bolts of the details required to guide this process toward the learning objectives for the course.