This article (on page 17) was published in Education Technology Insights, January 2016 edition. It considers how today’s technology aligns with our natural human inclinations to “learn by doing” through self-directed discovery and inquiry.
Dr. John
Mobile Security
As universities push more content to mobile devices to support teaching/learning, enhance communications, and extend features of their enterprise systems more must be done to protect that content in case devices are lost or stolen. This is necessary for practical reasons and to ensure college compliance with federal regulations like FERPA. This article shares some practical measures you can take with quotes from yours truly!
Video
Carnegie Mellon University: Symposium on New Paradigms of Teaching and Learning
This is an excellent conversation on the transformation of teaching and learning hosted by Carnegie Mellon University. Highlights include:
- Learning Outcomes: Evidence is suggesting that the flipped classroom approach can improve learning outcomes in high enrollment courses like foundation courses. This might allow us to rethink the viability of larger classes in some situations.
- Streamlining Course Development: The Gates Foundation is supporting a study at the University of Maryland involving recombining content available in MOOCS for use in campus courses. The notion that we must build our courses from scratch is being tested.
- Residential Learning: Technology-enhanced learning can complement residential learning if used to free faculty for other important activities. A focus on achieving learning outcomes using the “best mix” of online and face-to-face interaction could create an immersive residential learning experience.
- Adaptive Learning Models: The Gates Foundation is supporting the use of adaptive learning models in high enrollment general education and developmental education courses.
- Transformation of Teaching and Learning: Transformation takes place when individual course-level enhancements transition to collective change.
- Access: We are now reaching audiences that were previously excluded from higher education. MOOCs were sited as well as the new open source mooc.org (a collaboration between Google and edX.org).
- Simon Initiative: Links cognitive models of learning with computation tools to create focus on both the learner and measurably improving learning outcomes (click here).
- Getting Technology Right – Focus on the Learner: “Learning results from what the student does and thinks and only from what the student does and thinks. The teacher can advance
learning only by influencing what the student does to learn.” – Herbert Simon, 2001
Adaptive Strategic Thinkers
After exploring the Six Habits of True Strategic Thinkers outlined by Paul Schoemaker, I can’t help but consider the challenges facing brick and mortar universities and how we might use such an approach to meet the challenges ahead. The fundamentals of how we approach learning are transforming due to ready access to online resources. Content expertise no longer resides exclusively “on-location” but valuable resources still exist on residential campuses that can promote immersive learning. Since today’s learners navigate information online, traditional classroom learning is not needed as much for that and therefore, faculty are finding new ways to guide learning and engage students in collaborative exercises that allow for greater synthesis of content and deeper critical thinking. Our learning should not be limited to simply remembering, understanding, and applying knowledge. A residential campus can create opportunities for understanding how we process information differently, how we might reach the same (or different) conclusions through different approaches, strategies, expertise, and mindsets. As I read the six habits below, I could not help but consider the transformation we are undertaking and how a framework could facilitate that transformation.
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Anticipate: Anticipate the impact of such things as MOOCS, badges versus degrees, mobile pedagogy, virtual reality, and gaming on the learning process.
- Think Critically: Think in ways that challenge current beliefs and mindsets while respecting the dignity and expertise of our colleagues.
- Interpret: Interpret our changing environment by seeking patterns that can help us to think differently about pedagogy and learning.
- Decide: Make decisions that support incremental change but in ways that effectively position the university in the marketplace.
- Align: Align people and resources in ways that transform but also respect diverse view points and expertise.
- Learn: Learn from our successes and mistakes to ensure our strategies can be adjusted accordingly.
Six Habits of True Strategic Thinkers
Anticipate
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Look for game-changing information at the periphery of your industry
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Search beyond the current boundaries of your business
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Build wide external networks to help you scan the horizon better
Think Critically
Critical thinkers question everything.
- Reframe problems to get to the bottom of things, in terms of root causes
- Challenge current beliefs and mindsets, including your own
- Uncover hypocrisy, manipulation, and bias in organizational decisions
Interpret
- Seek patterns in multiple sources of data
- Encourage others to do the same
- Question prevailing assumptions and test multiple hypotheses simultaneously
Decide
- Carefully frame the decision to get to the crux of the matter
- Balance speed, rigor, quality and agility. Leave perfection to higher powers
- Take a stand even with incomplete information and amid diverse views
Align
- Understand what drives other people’s agendas, including what remains hidden
- Bring tough issues to the surface, even when it’s uncomfortable
- Assess risk tolerance and follow through to build the necessary support
Learn
- Encourage and exemplify honest, rigorous debriefs to extract lessons
- Shift course quickly if you realize you’re off track
- Celebrate both success and (well-intentioned) failures that provide insight
Source: Paul J. H. Schoemaker
Link
Web 2.0 Tools for Teaching and Learning
This is a compilation of links to Web 2.0 tools and apps. A special thank you to Anthony Basham at Berea College for assistance compiling this.
Video
Changing Education Paradigms
Another excellent presentation from Sir Ken Robinson as he discusses the tug of war between standardization and the need to develop creative/divergent thinkers in our education system.
Video
Do Schools Kill Creativity?
Sir Ken Robinson is one of my favorite speakers. This presentation challenges our current modes of education in an entertaining way.
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Why I Hate School But Love Education
Interesting video that challenges our perceptions of higher education.
Video
Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates …
Interesting video about what motivates us toward action. The video also uses a “white board” animation technique to deliver the content.
John Lympany 