Liberal Arts Education and Technology

I am giving a presentation this week at Smith College on the role of technology in liberal arts education (job interview). Your comments, criticism, suggestions on this draft of the visuals for my presentation would be greatly appreciated. #change11

 

Dispositions and Virtual Collaboration

Image: cooldesign / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

As I prepare to meet a new group of students in two online classes I reflect on what will help them get started. I recently reread some of the thinking about habits of mind (see article by Describing 16 Habits of Mind). Costa and Kallick propose that there are discrete habits or disposition that, in concert, support thinking and problem solving.

1. Persisting
2. Communicating with clarity and precision
3. Managing impulsivity
4. Gathering data through all senses
5. Listening with understanding and empathy
6. Creating, imagining, innovating
7. Thinking flexibly
8. Responding with wonderment and awe
9. Metacognition
10. Taking responsible risks
11. Striving for accuracy and precision
12. Finding humor
13. Questioning and problem posing
14. Thinking interdependently
15. Applying past knowledge to new situations
16. Remaining open to continuous learning

With a bit of training, learners can develop these habits to improve their performance on learning tasks.

These habits of mind transfer to learning in online environments, and provide a basis for thinking about the unique challenges of learning and collaborating online. Because of the unique affordances of virtual learning spaces, it might be necessary to expand the definition of or add to the dispositions on this list.

In a recent presentation to the #Change11 course, Howard Rheingold talked about Attention as a digital literacy (see also this article in the Educause Review).  With the abundance of information and opportunities to connect on the internet, our attention is constantly being redirected.  It was refreshing to hear him address attention not as a behavior that is either present or absent, good or bad. Like Costa and Kallick, Rheingold sees Attention as a set of skills and attitudes that can taught and developed. He advocates the development of mindfullness regarding where a learner is directing her attention, and strategies for making what he calls "micro decisions" when ones attention is interrupted.

Together habits of mind and Rheingold's literacies will offer my incoming students a good start to online learning. Yet there are other dispositions that I believe are critical to success in virtual learning environments. 

As I write three come to mind:

Norming. Making explicit what the norms will be for communication, behavior, timeliness, appearance. If it is a synchronous meeting, are multiple threads managable by the participants.  Do I type while another is "talking" or wait and allow pauses between each contribution. Under what conditions do I use the mic or type my contribution. How to we notice when some people are not getting "airtime". Because we CAN work from home in our pajamas, does that mean we agree that during a Skype conference, it is ok to be dressed informally. If we represent ourselves with avatars, are there expectations about what those avatars will and will not look like.

Preparing. Some people and some environments demand a period of time to switch realities from the physical to the virtual. For instance the transition from sitting in my solitary office to being in a group of people in a Collaborate (formerly Elluminate) session or a virtual meeting in Second Life is instant. Without the time to drive to a physical meeting, adjust my clothing when I get out of my car and walk to the meeting room, I may find myself disoriented and unprepared to get right to work.

Sharing. Online learning environments are often collaborative spaces where learners may be called upon to participate in ways they are not used to. When I attend a physical conference session, I may be invited to ask questions at the end. When I attend a virtual conference, I often participate in "back chat" through the text channel while the presenter is speaking. As a presenter and learner the ability to engage in back channel discussions involves a willingness to share and a set of skills for handling multiple forms of communication.

These may be a start.  Help me tease out the habits/disposition of online learning and collaboration.  Comment below either to elaborate on these three or to expand my list.

Anchors for Glossary

Teaching always makes me to learn. Usually it happens in discussion when learners share their thoughts - and they are different from mine. Sometime the difference is small but causes me to reconsider. Sometime the difference is huge and I get to struggle with my own perspective, incorporate this new way of seeing and figure out what I now know.

At other times, a student asks a question, that seems straightforward to them, but I don't know the answer (not even a lame answer). I could go into a long post about how I came to be ok about not knowing answers. But this post is actually about providing the answer (maybe a lame one) to a specific how-to while blogging question. Joan this is for you. Readers, if you know less lame answers please comment.

Joan has created a blogger.com blog for and with young children. She wants to be able to link key words to definitions but is not keen on what happens when she links to dictionary.com (it is busy and the reader ends up leaving the blog). I link from my blog often but have never been been trying to do a similar task. It would be awesome if the text definition popped up like they do on the NYT page, leaving the readers in the same spot. But that is probably way to fancy.

I searched the blogger.com gadgets to see if there is a gadget in which Joan could build a glossary. I looked for askaword-like gadgets that lead to a preexisting dictionary. I looked for online collaborative glossary tools. No luck. But here's my current answer.

1. Create a new page on the blog called glossary. (Yeah the tab will show but that isn't so bad if it is one page and not a page for every word.)

2. On that page build your glossary like this (of course this is my sample glossary - see the tab at the top of this blog).  I have three terms in my glossary: Virtual Worlds, Pedagogy and Online Learning.  Virtual Worlds has not been bold-ed yet.  Pedagogy has been bold-ed but is not ready to link to.  Online learning is both bold-ed and ready to link to.

HTML code for setting anchors on a glossary page  (code for bold and new line
are also visible)

3. While in edit on your glossary page, choose HTML next to the COMPOSE button.  This takes you behind the scenes into the HTML code of the page.  Mostly it just looks like text but you will see some non-text stuff. In the above example look at the code in my glossary (which contains only 3 words and a lot of space for this example).

• Look at "Virtual Words" in the above code.  It is just text.
• Look at "Online Learning." It has the code  b  and /b on either side in brackets. This is the code for bold that was applied to the HTML when I pressed the B bold button on the tool bar in COMPOSE
• Look at Pedagogy.  It has this code a name= "pedagogy" and  /a  before and it in brackets. This code is called an anchor and makes it possible to link to this specific place on the glossary page. As in the previous example   b  and /b will make the word Pedagogy appear bold.

4. While in Edit mode on your glossary page, AND in HTML (not COMPOSE), copy the code as above.  Add  a name= "youranchorword" in front of each of your glossary terms and /a  after.  Use the < > symbols as brackets. Replace "youranchorword" each time with a word that you will remember to refer to this term.  In my example glossary I will use "pedagogy" for Pedagogy, "online" for Online Learning and "virtual" for Virtual World. Publish your glossary page to save it.  You can edit it at any time.

5. Go to a post in your blog that contains words that you want to link to your glossary.  In edit mode AND in COMPOSE (not HTML), highlight the word and choose the link button in the tool bar. (We can do this in HTML but it means more code!) Paste the url to your glossary page.  You may need to open it in another tab in order to get the address. Follow the address with #youranchorword, where pedagogy is the anchor word you used for that item in your glossary.  Click ok in the link editor and publish your blog post.  The link will turn blue. When you click it, you will open your glossary with the anchored word in the top most position of the page.

6. Test our my glossary words now that I have anchored each of them: Virtual Worlds, Online Learning, Pedagogy

Self Assessment

Today I read Jeffrey Keefer's post "Check in on Change11 goals and expectations" in which he reviews the 3 goals he set at the start of the Change11 MOOC and asks himself how he is doing. I am challenged to do the same. Thanks Jeffrey.

On September 30 I wrote:

"Today I've decided that I will spend less time on instructor generated material and more on participant generated. I want to understand the connections [learners make], follow some ideas, see how others embrace/struggle with/modify/define the process. "

This is no behaviorally written object but it was a good starting point for an emerging set of questions and learning goals.

1. I will spend less time on instructor generated material and more on participant generated.

My participation has been sporadic

• I read the Monday daily all the way through as it gives me a sense of the talk in the blogs.
• I have dipped into some of the other dailys.
• I have attempted to attend synchronous sessions
• Besides the daily and the synchronous sessions I have successfully avoided reading/watching an facilitator content. I have decided that I don't want to see the content through the facilitators eyes I want to see how others make meaning of it (or how I make meaning of what they say about their meaning making :).
• When I read learner posts I dig deeply, read the posts and any comments, reflect in my journal, often comment and follow links to the author's other posts or links to referenced writers (unless they are facilitators).

2. I want to understand the connections [learners make], follow some ideas, see how others embrace/struggle with/modify/define the process.

This is harder to answer in one sitting. Some initial thoughts and the next questions I want to explore.

• There really is a diversity of opinion here. I cannot say we are are a fully heterogeneous group. There is a high degree of education and computer facility. But I expected more agreement, more indoctrination perhaps. I am finding debate refreshing. What are the ways that we as a group diverge? How do facilitators handle difference. (I saw one very welcoming response to disagreement from George.)
• Some people are grappling with the challenge of so much content and so little direction. This too is refreshing. I wonder if practice is all that is needed to take control of learning. Or does it take specific regulatory skills, or a certain temperament? What happens to people between their first and second MOOC? Or is three the charm? What makes a learner go on to their second MOOC, if the first was frustrating.
• Some are openly reveling in the smorgasbord of knowledge. How do they stay engaged and resist the traditional expectations to do it all?
• MOOC researchers and MOOC learners have overlapping but different needs (researchers are also learners but learners are not necessarily researchers).

More reflection to come.  Would love to hear from anyone who has written or seen a post that would lead me toward answers or more questions.
#change11

Complexity, Cognitive Load and MOOCs

I've just read two posts by Michael Gallagher Complexity, self-organization, and #Change11: reactions to Siemen's presentation(1) and Multiple interfaces, cognitive load and learning design: My appartment in Seoul (2). In the former Gallagher discusses the pattern making process we use to make sense from the chaotic stuff of life (and learning in a MOOC).  In the latter he takes us on a fanciful tour of his high tech Korean apartment,  a device to explore interface design and cognitive load.

Complexity and cognitive load - two of my favorite topics.

Complexity
I love complexity. I love to slosh about in it.  But it isn't easy.  My training compels me to approach problems with a linear logic.  I learned to create a lovely 3x3x3 outline (three points on each of  three levels I, 1, a. b. c. ) in 6th grade.  I loved the rules of grammar.  How shocked I was to learn that poetry was not always composed in iambic pentameter. I learned well.

When I fight the compulsion I am thrilled by the meandering journey from hyperlink to hyperlink, the "collision of actors, agents, feedback, waste, noise, and then, ideally, pattern, understanding." (Gallagher, 1) 

I cannot even set goals until I muck about in the complexity of a topic.  I absorb a shallow Gestalt of a problem.  I see the problem through lenses I didn't know existed.  My interests are assaulted and piqued. Then I am able to dig deeply into an aspect of the problem, to which I think I have a chance of contributing.

When I am able the resist the temptation to take a prescribed set of steps toward a goal,  I remember that I don't fully understand the learning, sense making process. One does not get there from here simply by following these steps.  The collision of ideas and patterns is currently unpredictable.

Cognitive load.
Cognitive load: This term, coined by John Sweller, explains the ability or inability of a novice to process information - based on the mental demands required by germane, intrinsic and extraneous load. It attempts to reduce complexity so that learners do not apply all their cognitive resources to achieving a goal or making a "means-end analysis."

I have long balked at the idea of cognitive load. Even though I recognize it all around me and employ techniques both for coping with it and designing instruction to control for it.

Cognitive load theory is like iambic pentameter (well maybe not, but let's see how far I can go with the analogy).  It is a perfectly reasonable approach to instructional design. (Ok, so far. Iambic pentameter is a reasonable approach to poetry.)  Cognitive load theory works. You want someone to be able to tell you the process involved in solving a three step math problem with a known solution.  Providing a worked example reduces the load involved in solving the problem and enables the learner to see and repeat the solution.  (If you want to produce a catchy verse that can be quickly learned and repeated to spread a bawdy joke or the news of the kings heroism in battle, or to get a rapping gig, iambic pentameter is for you.)  But it isn't the only approach teaching or learning (or poetry).

I'm not sure about this yet but I think the strategies that Sweller offers have led instructional designers and educational policy makers to focus on a means-end analysis of the "problem" of education.  Means-end analyses are not bad analyses for experts, but for novices (if I understand Sweller) they lead to a narrow expedient approach to achieving a goal that misses the important aspects of learning. Cognitive load reduction leads to complexity reduction which leads to the ability to move quickly from one topic to the next, which leads to efficient memorization of factual information, with leads to high achievement on standardized test.  It does not lead to deep understanding or the ability to handle complexity in life.

Novices can develop without narrowly defining their responsibilities, without controlling for "extraneous" cognitive load (that's where the sparks of clashing ideas happen).  Watch any pre-schooler (and I mean any person who has not been to school).  It is messy.  It is hard to assess, because the assessor's goals and accomplishments the learner makes are often not aligned.   Deep understanding and understanding within complexity takes time, it requires the opportunity to observe, to see the decisions and outcomes of experts and developing novices.  It requires the opportunity to act and fail.

MOOCing
My experience being a novice in the complex learning environment of a MOOC has been messy.  In my first MOOC, PLENK2010, I often felt lost.  If only they would tell me what to do (whine, whine, whine).  They were not providing me the scaffolding I needed. (Sorry George and Stephen, they is you.)  I loved it.  I learned a lot.  But I wasn't sure what I was learning because the goal was not clear, and that was unnerving.  This time around, in my second MOOC, #Change11, I feel like my limitations have fallen away.  I don't feel compelled to do it all.  As I've said elsewhere, I don't feel compelled to do instructor promoted reading.  I'm still a novice MOOCer, but a developing one.  Complexity, collisions among actors, agents, feedback, waste, noise. Bring it on. My 3D pattern-finding glasses are on.

Making Change11 My Own

Dave, George and Stephen have emphasized that one of the defining characteristics of a MOOC is the source of the goals. While the instructors/facilitators have a plan, (and personal goals) they do not determine the learning goals for the course. Each participant set her own goals. I think this is not just rhetoric. Not a variation on the "learner centered" model. MOOC and open learning in general has the potential to redefine what we mean by learning. I imagine that for some the goals may be clear cut from the start. For others they will emerge and morph. Like others, I am juggling many goals and all the possible content. Today I've decided that I will spend less time on instructor generated material and more on participant generated. I want to understand the connections, follow some ideas, see how others embrace/struggle with/modify/define the process. #change11

Determinism - non-Determinism Spectrum in Learning

Today my colleague Rick Oller posed a dichotomy (perhaps a spectrum) with draconian on one side and organic on the other. We were discussing the application of theory to instructional design. He likes to talk about determinism and its opposite so I took that to be the meaning of his use of draconian (deterministic) and organic (non deterministic). As I grapple with understanding and teaching about learning theory I look for ways to tease out the distinctions and similarities of our big notions about learning. I decided to apply this spectrum as a lens to consider four big educational theories. I think the line between organic and draconian already exists within the theories with behaviorism and cognitivism on one side (draconian), constructivism and connectivism on the organic side. I won't draw the line in black, and as a techno virtualist my line runs the full gradient of gray.

Cognitivism is hyper draconian: instructor or content centered, rule oriented. At its basic level instructional design depends on cognitivism because the rules or design principles make the user experience pleasing and effective.

Behaviorism can be either very rigid or very organic. Strict behaviorism is content centered and very structured like a recipe. On the other extreme, all interaction is a complex dynamic system of stimulus response. Negotiation, pursuasion, manipulation and love are all the outcomes of organic behaviorism.

Constructivism sits in its own gray space between cognitivism and connectivism. It can be more or less instructor-, content- of learner- driven. It is always learner-driven by virtue of the underlying belief in subjective individually constructed reality.

Connectivism plays well with all the other theories-practices but is decidedly learner-driven. However in connectivism, I would argue that the "learner" may be a human, a group, a system or a machine. Connectivism is not rule oriented in a hierarchical sense, but "rules" or logics (not unlike and maybe including the laws of physics) apply in the dynamic and seemingly unpredictable direction learning and connecting takes.

I tell my students, and anyone who will listen, that the four theories are not mutually exclusive. They are all useful. They all explain some aspects of learning. And since there are different types of learning one theory or an other is more useful depending on content and goals. Skillful teachers incorporate strategies that are based on more than one of these theories. And each of us leans toward one or another of the theories because of our understanding of reality. If your world view includes objective reality I suspect you will favor practices based on cognitivism and classical behaviorism. If you believe that reality is a construction of each individual you are likely to favor constructivism or connectivism.