Reschooling Society and the Promise of ee-Learning:
An Interview with Steve Eskow
Chad Trevitte and Steve Eskow
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In this article, Chad Trevitte interviews Innovate guest editor Steve Eskow about the concept of ee-learning and the promise it holds for revitalizing higher education. Eskow defines ee-learning as a combination of the electronic technologies employed in online learning ("e-learning 1") and a pedagogy of experiential learning rooted in real-life settings in the world outside the university classroom ("e-learning 2"). As he discusses ee-learning in the context of previous philosophies of educational reform, Eskow argues that this mode of pedagogical practice seeks to bridge the gap between theory-based instruction on the one hand and practical application on the other. Eskow also addresses the ways in which ee-learning offers an alternative to the traditional view of the university as a self-enclosed space of learning, while still supporting the development of conceptual and propositional knowledge that educators typically value in the setting of the campus classroom. By allowing students to pursue their work in specific, authentic, contextualized settings while consulting with instructors and peers online, ee-learning offers a pedagogical approach that aligns knowledge and experience in a reciprocal, mutually enhancing fashion.
"Learning Histories" are used in action research projects to enhance organizations' learning capabilities. The approach documents change as it facilitates individual and organizational reflection. Findings and progress in creating learning histories, as well as questions and issues regarding their future use in system-wide learning efforts, are described.
Turning a College Lecture into a Conversation with CoverItLive
Alfred Hermida
by Alfred Hermida, April 13, 2009
Tagged: coveritlive, journalism school, social media, twitter, university of british columbia
Journalists who also teach will know that one of the challenges of teaching a large, undergraduate class is the sheer number of students. It can be hard to foster a discussion in a lecture hall, where many students may be too intimidated to speak up. So instead the lesson often becomes a lecture, as the professor stands up in front of the class and talks at them for the best part of an hour. In this instructor-centered model, knowledge is a commodity to be transmitted from the instructor to the student's empty vessel.
There is a place for the traditional, one-to-many transmission. This is the way the mass media worked for much of the 20th century and continues to operate today. But the emergence of participatory journalism is changing this. Most news outlets, at the very least, solicit comments from their online readers. Others, such as Canada's Globe and Mail, use the live-blogging tool CoveritLive both for real-time reporting and for engaging readers in a discussion, such as in its coverage of the Mesh conference in Toronto.
Tools such as CoveritLive or Twitter can turn the one-to-many model of journalism on its head, offering instead a many-to-many experience. The same tools may also have a use in the classroom, as a way of turning the traditional university lecture into a conversation.
T&L blogger Ryan Bretag recently sat down with his students and asked them about 21st-Century Learning strategies. Their suggestions are amazing.
Read the whole piece here: http://www.techlearning.com/blogs.aspx?id=15776
Some snippets:
Each discussion point started and ended with the focus on learning. For example, the students talked about creating a learning environment that was about learning not just memorization. To do this, they wanted to seek out partnerships both locally and globally in order to build connections that would foster a "learning to learn" movement where students are learning for learning, open to learning, and innovative.
Clearly, textbooks were not fast enough nor diverse enough in their eyes. They longed for ways to interact with materials that were updated frequently and offered a wealth of perspectives. In fact, a good portion felt there was a need to move beyond the textbook because "information changes to rapidly" for textbooks to be the main source in the classroom. Along with this, information and resources needed to come in a variety of formats if the curriculum was going to remain progressive and current: narrative, fiction, digital, multimedia, and non-fiction.
Enhancing Learning Using Generic and Specific
Aspects of Knowledge Formation
Peter Petocz
University of Technology, Sydney, Australia
Peter.Petocz@uts.edu.au
Anna Reid
Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia
Anna.Reid@mq.edu.au
Abstract: Recognising and understanding the diverse ways that students learn is an important step in setting up effective environments for learning. A traditional way of getting this information is to observe the quality of assessed work and classroom interactions. An alternative and more direct method is to actually ask students to tell you about their own learning. While some students will be less successful than others in articulating their ideas, an overall picture will emerge of the variety of ways in which students understand what it means to learn. Such an approach has been used to investigate students' experience of learning in a variety of contexts. One practical effect of this line of enquiry has been the discovery of the dichotomy between teacher focused, content orientations to learning associated with a surface approach to learning and student focused, learning orientations associated with a deep approach to learning. These qualitatively different conceptions of learning result in discernible differences in learning outcomes. While some aspects of learning seem to be universal, others depend on the context of learning. In this paper, we look at two parallel studies of students' conceptions of learning in statistics and in music, areas quite different both in content and traditional methods of pedagogy. Research in these and other academic disciplines suggests that there is a strong relation between students' (and teachers') perception of professional work and their conceptions of their discipline and learning within that discipline. We discuss how this 'Professional Entity' is apparent in statistics and music, and how an appreciation of the Professional Entity can help teachers enhance their students' learning in other
Assessing How Students Learn
Bill Cerbin
In higher education the dominant mode of assessment is to measure what students have learned in a course or program. By measuring what students learn educators can monitor student progress, determine learning gaps and gains, and document achievement.
But measuring what students learn is of limited use if our goal is to improve their future performance. It is akin to taking a person's temperature. You may learn the individual has a fever but the measurement produces no insight into the cause. Suppose we find that students score in the 60th percentile on a standardized test or that half the students in a course have significant writing problems. What should we do to improve future performance? Unfortunately, the assessment data provide little direction. The result is a kind of guesswork by which we consider alternative teaching practices or programs without understanding how or why they would work better than standard approaches.
The Carnegie Foundation
Founded by Andrew Carnegie in 1905 and chartered in 1906 by an act of Congress, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching is an independent policy and research center with a primary mission "to do and perform all things necessary to encourage, uphold, and dignify the profession of the teacher and the cause of higher education."
Building Learning Power
In 1999 I wrote a book called Wise Up: Learning to Live the Learning Life (published by Bloomsbury / Network Press), in which I reviewed the growing evidence for the idea that people could be helped to become more effective learners. In 2001 I was approached by Bristol-based educational publisher TLO Ltd to write a book for teachers that drew out the practical implications, and in 2002 Building Learning Power: Helping Young People Become Better Learners, was published. In the box below are some of the enthusiastic reactions to that book.
donald schon (schön): learning, reflection and change
Donald Schon made a remarkable contribution to our understanding of the theory and practice of learning. His innovative thinking around notions such as 'the learning society', 'double-loop learning' and 'reflection-in-action' has become part of the language of education. We explore his work and some of the key themes that emerge. What assessment can we make now?
Code of practice for the assurance of academic quality and standards in higher education
The Code of practice for the assurance of academic quality and standards in higher education (the Code of practice) provides guidance on maintaining quality and standards for universities and colleges subscribing to QAA. It is made up of 10 sections and was originally prepared by QAA between 1998 and 2001. Revisions of individual sections began in 2004.
Welcome to the DARwiki, a resource and a meeting place for distributed action researchers. If you are new to Wikis you may like to visit introduction to wiki or experiment in the sandbox. You can also ask for help by adding a question here.
Purpose of the Experience\n\nInnovation continues to occur on the internet at an extremely lively\npace. What was once the realm of email, FTP, Gopher, and the Web is\nbarely recognizable a mere 10 years later. Keeping up with the speed of\ninnovation and maintaining a familiarity with the most recent tools and\ncapabilities is handy in some professions and absolutely critical in\nothers. This course is designed to help you understand and effectively\nuse a variety of "web 2.0″ technologies including blogs, RSS, wikis,\nsocial bookmarking tools, photo sharing tools, mapping tools, audio and\nvideo podcasts, and screencasts.
Introduction
The concept of preferences to different individual learning styles was introduced in an accompanying document. (See learning styles). In this document we look at the associated concept of approaches to learning. The original work on approaches to learning was carried out by Marton and Saljo (1976). Their study explored students' approaches to learning a particular task. Students were given an academic text to read, and were told that they would subsequently be asked questions on that text. The students adopted two differing approaches to learning. The first group adopted an approach where they tried to understand the whole picture and tried to comprehend and understand the academic work. These students were identified with adopting a deep approach to learning. The second group tried to remember facts contained within the text, identifying and focusing on what they thought they would be asked later. They demonstrated an approach that we would recognise as rote learning, or a superficial, surface approach.
The Meyer and Land Threshold Concept
"The idea of threshold concepts emerged from a UK national research project into the possible characteristics of strong teaching and learning environments in the disciplines for undergraduate education (Enhancing Teaching−Learning Environments in Undergraduate Courses). In pursuing this research in the field of economics, it became clear to Erik Meyer and Ray Land [1−6, 7−12], that certain concepts were held by economists to be central to the mastery of their subject. These concepts, Meyer and Land argued, could be described as 'threshold' ones because they have certain features in common."
Glynis Cousin, An introduction to threshold concepts
Over the past five years this concept has been embraced by many disciplines outside economics; indeed the above quote is from Glynis Cousin's excellent short introduction to the concept written for earth scientists. The threshold concept has been seen as a valuable tool, not only in facilitating students' understanding of their subject, but in aiding the rational development of curricula in rapidly expanding arenas where there is a strong tendency to overload the curriculum (Cousin, [1, 13]). This web page will describe, briefly, the characteristics of a threshold concept and list selecteted references to the work of those examining its value in the engineering and computer sciences, the physical and biological sciences, economics, accountancy, mathematics and statistics.
Practice and Evidence of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education\nThis journal offers an opportunity for those involved in University learning and teaching to disseminate their practice. It aims to publish accounts of scholarly practice that report on small-scale practitioner research and case studies of practice that involve reflection, critique, implications for future practice and are informed by relevant literature, with a focus on enhancement of student learning. This publication thus offers a forum to develop and share scholarly informed practice in Higher Education through either works in progress or more detailed accounts of scholarly practice. There will be opportunities for discussions/comments regarding works in progress to be shared with journal readers on the journal site. The journal is published twice a year (April and October).
About FFFFOUND!
FFFFOUND! is a web service that not only allows the users to post and share their favorite images found on the web, but also dynamically recommends each user's tastes and interests for an inspirational image-bookmarking experience!!