Transcript Randy Bass, Georgetown University Creating an Institute for Innovation in Teaching and Learning Drexel University, February 25, 2010

Randy Bass,
Georgetown University
Creating an Institute
for Innovation in
Teaching and
Learning
Drexel University, February 25, 2010
Faculty Development
“in the age of the network”
Mary Deane Sorcinelli, “Creating the
Future of Faculty Development”
Visible Knowledge Project
(Bass and Eynon)
Academiccommons.org
Innovation & Inquiry
What’s scholarly about the scholarship of
teaching and learning?
Teaching Commons?
Pat Hutchings and Mary Huber, The Advancement of Learning
20th C. Paradigm
Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
I
teach
Practice
Evidence
Individual
L
20th C. Paradigm
Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
Practice
I
teach
Evidence
Individual,
Local
Published
SoTL
“The Literature”
Cosmopolitan
L
Developing the Middle Ground in the
Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
Practic
e
I
tea
ch
Published
SoTL
“The Literature”
Evidenc
e
Individual,
Local
“Middle Space”
Randall Bass and Dan Bernstein, “The Middle of Open
Spaces: Generating Knowledge about Learning through
Multiple Layers of Open Teaching Communities”
Cosmopolitan
L
in
Opening Up Education
The Collective Advancement of Education through
Open Technology, Open Content, and Open
Knowledge
Edited by Toru Iiyoshi and M. S. Vijay Kumar
Developing the Middle Ground as Concept
Practice
I
te
ac
h
The “middle ground” that falls
between individual practice and the
world of generalized knowledge about
teaching and learning.
Evidence
an essential link between individual
practice and the eventual construction
of knowledge in open systems
Randall Bass and Dan Bernstein, “The Middle of Open
Spaces: Generating Knowledge about Learning through
Multiple Layers of Open Teaching Communities”
in
Published
SoTL
“The Literature”
Opening Up Education
The Collective Advancement of Education through
Open Technology, Open Content, and Open
Knowledge
Edited by Toru Iiyoshi and M. S. Vijay Kumar
Developing the Middle Ground as Concept
Practice
I
te
ac
h
Evidence
A place where scholars (faculty, students,
others) work on common questions
Would involve collaborations and might
have the shape of faculty inquiry groups
or research collaboratives
Published
SoTL
“The Literature”
They might be tied to innovations (for
example the use of new digital tools for
learning), or tied to curricular reforms (a
new general education program), or to
dimensions of learning (for example,
problem solving in calculus)
Randall Bass and Dan Bernstein, “The Middle of Open
Spaces: Generating Knowledge about Learning through
Multiple Layers of Open Teaching Communities”
in
Opening Up Education
The Collective Advancement of Education through
Open Technology, Open Content, and Open
Knowledge
Edited by Toru Iiyoshi and M. S. Vijay Kumar
L
Keith Trigwell’s Three Levels of SoTL
Individual
Work undertaken in behalf of the
improvement of one’s practice
Communal
Work undertaken in behalf of
one’s community
Scholarly
Work undertaken in as a
contribution to the literature
Still an individual model
Trigwell, Martin, Benjamin, and Prosser, 2000
Developing the Middle Ground in the
Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
Practice
I
te
ac
h
Evidence
Moving SoTL beyond the
power of one
Recognizes that most faculty are not going
to undertake inquiry as formal
scholarship but have valuable insight
Published
SoTL
“The Literature”
Recognizes that we really can only learn
so much by looking at learning in our
own classrooms
Randall Bass and Dan Bernstein, “The Middle of Open
Spaces: Generating Knowledge about Learning through
Multiple Layers of Open Teaching Communities”
L
in
Opening Up Education
The Collective Advancement of Education through
Open Technology, Open Content, and Open
Knowledge
Edited by Toru Iiyoshi and M. S. Vijay Kumar
Examples of Collaborative Inquiry?
Lesson Study at
University of Wisconsin,
LaCrosse
Developing the Middle Ground
Practice
I
teac
h
How would it change your work to
ask your question collaboratively?
(Or how has it?)
Evidence
Who else, in your local or virtual
community, is asking some version of
your question?
Published
SoTL
“The Literature”
L
Practice
I
teach
Evidence
Developing the Middle
Ground :
layered inquiry
communities
through digital resources
Published
SoTL
“The Literature”
L
Two Stories
 The Faculty Inquiry Toolkit (Carnegie Foundation)
 The Digital Stories Multimedia Archive (Visible Knowledge
Project)
SPECC
Strengthening Pre-Collegiate Education in
Community Colleges
SPECC
Strengthening Pre-Collegiate Education in Community Colleges
Toolkit build in WordPress Blogging Tool
Portal to
Exemplars of
SoTL as Tools
Toolkit copied over as new “home” for
statewide network:
three hubs, 24 schools
A layered “middle ground” community
connected through a social space
Asking shared questions about learning
A teaching commons for pooling, methods,
insights, resources
Visible Knowledge Project
70 faculty
21 campuses
Five years
Shared Areas of Inquiry
Digital Stories
Collaborative Inquiry as Intersecting Questions and Shared Practice
Wyn Kelley
MIT
Linkon,
Youngstown
E-portoflios,
LGCC
Benmayor,
O’Leary
CSUMB
Weis,
Millersville
Felten,
Vanderbilt
Gambrill,
Nguyen
USC
DeJesus
Arizona
Faculty Learning Community
O’Connor
Georgetown
Questions teachers ask in isolation about
innovations :
-Is this working?
-Can I do this better?
-Can they do this better?
-How do I grade these things?
Questions you can ask in isolation (all these years):
-Is this working?
-Can I do this better?
-Can they do this better?
-How do I grade these things?
Questions you can ask collaboratively:
-What are the underlying competencies of this work?
-What does it mean to rethink the boundary between the critical and creative
in multimedia authorship?
-What are the implications for teaching basic and new literacies?
-How would these skills fit into a course of study?
-How would these skills fit into a lifetime of learning?
Second Generation Meta-Study
Michael Coventry (Georgetown)
and
Matthias Oppermann (Humboldt)
Linkon,
Youngsto
wn
E-portoflios,
LGCC
Benmayor,
O’Leary
CSUMB
Weis, Millersville
Felten,
Vanderbilt
Gambrill,
Nguyen
USC
Wyn
Kelley
MIT
DeJesus
Arizona
Interviewed 26 students
who were in the classes of VKP faculty
on five different campuses
O’Connor
Georgetow
n
Digital Stories Cross-Campus Study
From Hierarchy to Grid
Two Cases a Case of?
SoTL 2.0
+
Social Network, built on
shared questions, linked
resources
Flexible Database of
Evidence, Analysis
Implications for an Institute?
 Middle space at every institution?
 Three kinds of tools or spaces are essential to support these middle:
 The tools and means to create digital exemplars of student work and faculty
analysis;
 Tools for robust search, retrieval, and indexing so scholars can locate each
other through their work and link to resources; and
 Social networking tools that enable collaboration to build and share
knowledge.
 The linkage between improved/innovative pedagogy and larger
inquiries into learning is the “network”: how the institution
leverages collaboration around larger questions.
Implications for an Institute?
 Middle space at every institution?
 An Institute for pedagogy (teaching, learning
and inquiry) as “r & d” space for an
institution
What’s the Problem?
“You know. It was taught as a
Gen Ed course and I took it as
a Gen Ed course.”
Georgetown student, end of first year, focus group:
reflecting a particular course in which, he claimed,
he was not asked to engage with the material.
High Impact Practices
(National Survey of Student Engagement--NSSE)
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•
First-year seminars and experiences
•
Learning communities
•
Writing intensive courses
•
Collaborative assignments
•
Undergraduate research
•
Global learning/ study abroad
•
Internships
•
Capstone courses and projects
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High Impact Activities and Outcomes (NSSE)
 Outcomes associated with High impact
practices.
They enable students to…
…attend to underlying meaning
…integrate and synthesize
…discern patterns
…apply knowledge in diverse situations
...view issues from multiple perspectives
…make gains in Skills, knowledge, practical
competence , personal and social
development
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High Impact Activities and Outcomes
 High Impact Practices:
•
•
•
 Outcomes associated with High
impact practices
First-year seminars and experiences
Learning communities
Writing intensive courses
•
Collaborative assignments
•
Undergraduate research
•
Global learning/ study abroad
•
Internships
•
Capstone courses and projects
2/16/10
•
Attend to underlying meaning
•
Integrate and synthesize
•
Discern patterns
•
Apply knowledge in diverse situations
•
View issues from multiple perspectives
•
Gains in Skills, knowledge, practical
competence , personal and social
development
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So, if high impact practices are
largely in the
extra-curriculum (or the cocurriculum), then where are the
low-impact practices?
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formal curriculum
=
low-impact practices ?
Are we then entering the “post-course era”
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If the formal curriculum is not where
the high impact experiences are
then there are three options
(1) Make courses higher impact
(2) Create better connections between courses
and the high impact experiences outside the
formal curriculum
(3) Start shifting resources from from the formal to
the high impact (experiential) curriculum
Range of responses
courses designed as
inquiry-based and
problem-driven
Using social
tools at scale
Design courses for depth and
engagement (writing
intensive, project-based,
team-based, etc)
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Participatory Culture of the Web
How do we make classroom learning more like participatory culture?
Features of participatory culture
 Low barriers to entry
 Strong support for sharing one’s contributions
 Informal mentorship, experienced to novice
 Members feel a sense of connection to each other
 Students feel a sense of ownership of what is being
created
 Strong collective sense that something is at stake
Jenkins, et. al., Confronting the Challeges of Participatory
2/16/10
Culture
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Six Characteristics of high impact practices
AND features of participatory culture

Features of participatory
culture (on the Web)
 Low barriers to entry
 Strong support for sharing
one’s contributions
 Informal mentorship,
experienced to novice
 Members feel a sense of
connection to each other
 Students feel a sense of
ownership of what is being
created
 Strong collective sense
that something is at stake
 High impact experiences
(co- curriculum)


Integrate and synthesize

Discern patterns
Apply knowledge in diverse
situations



2/16/10
Attend to underlying
meaning
View issues from multiple
perspectives
Skills, knowledge, practical
competence , personal and
social development
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Looking from the Web in…
How do we make formal learning environments more
like informal learning?
How do we make classroom learning more like
participatory culture?
Informal
Learning
Participatory
culture
2/16/10
The Formal
Curriculum
High impact
practices
Experiential
Co-curriculum
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Connecting Intermediate Processes to Practice
NOVICE
MIRACLE
product
2/16/10
Bass & Elmendorf, 2009
EXPERT
product
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Connecting Intermediate Processes to Practice
LEARNING
processes
NOVICE
processes
LEARNING
processes
EXPERT
practice
LEARNING
processes
How can we better
understand these
intermediate
processes?
2/16/10
How might we
design to foster
and capture
them?
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Connecting Intermediate Processes to Practice
LEARNING
processes
NOVICE
processes
LEARNING
processes
“Thin slices”
of online
discussion or
blog
LEARNING
processes
Traces of
collaborative
practice
evidence
of
Process
EXPERT
practice
Microreflections on
the cutting
room floor
ePortfolio samples:
drafts, reflections
Holding Conversations
Social Bookmarking
Collaborative Editing
Thin Slices
Participatory learning + Web 2.0 tools
Student work is in process, in practice—
not just in summative work
Networked research group
Yahoo Pipes
Intermediate processes
 “judgment in uncertainty” (Shulman)
 “practical reason” (Sullivan and Rosin)
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Salient Questions -- in a Constrained Fiscal
Future?
How do we make the formal curriculum
more like informal learning?
How do we make the formal curriculum
more like -- more connected to – the
extra-curriculum?
Entering the Post-Course Era–
in a Constrained Fiscal Future
How do we best match resources with the
experiences that add the most value? Can we
continue to afford “everything plus”?
How should we respond to the shifting
ground between curricular and cocurricular learning?
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Thin Slices
If we are to connect courses
to the “holistic self-portrait” of
the learner (Bret Eynon),
then we not only to link out
but in..
Not just about knowledge to be acquired, but
Ways of thinking
Embodied
Ways of acting (practice)
Ways of talking
A sense of identity
Not just knowing,
but the experience
of knowing
(and coming to know)
John Seely Brown: Practice to
Content
content
practice
Open Business Models in a digital
economy (e.g. journalism, music)
AGGREGATE
FILTER
CONNECT
2/16/10
Tim Kastelle, University of Queensland
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Tim Kastelle, “Successful Open Business Models”
“Successful Open Business Models”
(higher education)
Aggregate
•Information resources
Filter
•Knowledge (what knowledge is worth knowing)
•Scholarship (peer review)
•Graduates (employability)
Connect
•Ideas, experiences, people
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Shift in How We Add Value?
COURSE
ERA
AGGREGATE
FILTER
CONNECT
2/16/10
POSTCOURSE
ERA
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Tim Kastelle, “Successful Open Business Models”
The lesson to take from the current states of both the music
industry and journalism is that you have to have a clear
understanding of how you’re creating value so that you build and
protect the correct parts of your business model.
Perhaps universities can learn this lesson before educational
business models are disrupted as well.
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Sir Ken Robinson, “How Education Kills
Creativity”
ted.com
Sir Ken Robinson, “How Education Kills
Creativity”
“What we need is a
new conception of
human ecology, one
in which we start to
reconstitute our
conception of the
richness of human
capacity.”
ted.com
We have had our why's, how's, and what's upside-down,
focusing too much on what should be learned, than how, and
often forgetting the why altogether.
In a world of nearly infinite information, we must first
address why, facilitate how, and let the what generate
naturally from there.
Michael Wesch, “From Knowledgeable to Knowledge-able,” Academic Commons,
January 2009 (academiccommons.org)
But even as we shift our focus to the “how” of learning,
there is still the question of “what” is to be learned. After all,
our courses have to be about something.
Usually our courses are arranged around “subjects”…. As an
alternative, I like to think that we are not teaching subjects but
subjectivities: ways of approaching, understanding, and
interacting with the world.
Michael Wesch, “From Knowledgeable to Knowledge-able,” Academic Commons,
January 2009
Randy Bass
contact (for slides, follow up):
[email protected]
References
Randy Bass and Heidi Elmendorf, “Examining the Value of Social Pedagogies: A Paradigm for
Deepening Disciplinary Engagement among Undergraduate Students,” ISSOTL 2009.
John Seely Brown and Richard P. Adler, “Minds on Fire: Open Education, the Long Tail, and Learning
2.0” Educause Review (Jan/Feb 2008)
Henry Jenkins, et. al., Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture, MacArthur Foundation
Occasional Paper, 2007.
Tim Kastelle, (University of Queensland) Innovation Leadership Network, http://timkastelle.org/blog/
George Kuh, High-Impact Educational Practices: What They Are, Who Has Access to Them, and Why
They Matter, AAC&U, 2008.
Ken Robinson, “How Education Kills Creativity.” TED http://ted.com.
Lee Shulman. “The Pedagogies of Uncertainty,” Liberal Education Spring 2005.
William Sullivan and Matt Rosin, A New Agenda for Higher Education: Shaping the Life of the Mind for
Practice. Jossey-Bass, 2008.
Visible Knowledge Project, (Randy Bass, PI); Digital Stories Multimeda Archive, Michael Coventry and
Matthias Oppermann. https://gdc.georgetown.edu/projects/digitalstories/
Wesch, Michael. “From Knowledgeable to Knowledge-able,” Academic Commons, January 2009
(academiccommons.org)
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