Category: Hot Topics

Mindfully learning about mindful learning

I am definitely on board for encouraging mindful learning. Just as I expressed in my last post, the value in inspiring learners to want to learn, engaging them in the material and encouraging them to reach out on their own in a connected learning experience, is not something that can be underestimated. According to Sir Ken Robinson, it is only when an education allows learners to be diverse, creative, and curious (that which is stifled by today’s systems) that they will be engaged and will flourish. Similar sentiments are expressed by Ellen Langer in The Power of Mindful Learning; Langer blames myths in our current mindset on the learning process for, to paraphrase, ‘stifling creativity’ and ‘silencing our questions’ [1]. Both of these underscore the importance of allowing learners to learn individually, creatively and based on their own curiosity. I agree that when someone is allowed to use their natural abilities to pursue an understanding about that which they are passionate, it is a wonderful thing. The question is: how can we inspire such learning in the systems of today or even in the systems of tomorrow? Is it physically, temporally, and economically possible to give each child the attention they need in order to help them find and pursue their passions? Sir Ken Robinson speaks to a well-rounded education, but are there enough hours in a day for a true mindful learning experience in each of requisite topics he describes? One sort of answer to these questions may be found in Anti-Teaching: Confronting the Crisis of Significance by Mike Wesch, in which his entire class was restructured to promote “good questions” or, in his view, questions in which the only appropriate response is another question. At least in the time he had with his students, he had a success in immersing them in the topic and engaging them in mindful learning. So, for at least one college course, it is possible. How I would set up an engineering or physiology course to utilize similar immersive techniques as those Dr. Wesch implemented, I am not sure (anybody have any ideas?). Could this system be replicated to some degree at the grade school level? It may be tricky. In all, I think that the most important theme and my take-away from these resources is that one must be mindful of why they are teaching the material before they can find how best to teach it. Is it really the facts and equations that are important or is it the inspiration and skills that come from engaging with the material? In that vein, two examples from my own education come to mind: 1) In my own undergraduate physiology course (which was a typical lecture format), the most memorable moment for me was when someone asked a question and the professor answered, “I don’t know. Nobody knows, so far. People are doing research on that, but that is the boundary of our knowledge.” That small remark helped inspire me to pursue research. 2) In my Statics course, it was required that we format the answers to our homework questions in a very specific way: defining the problem, the “knowns,” and the “unknowns,” drawing a diagram, and then pursuing the solution. Do I remember any specific problems I solved this way from that class? No. But I do remember the problem solving technique and, to this day, if I have a problem to solve, it still gives me clarity when I approach the problem in this way. Whether or not we can have each of our students partake in creating the history of the world as Dr. Wesch did, maybe one small thing we as teachers can do to foster “mindful learning” is have our students know that there are boundaries to our current knowledge and that it is the point of education to gain the perspectives and tools required to tackle pushing the boundaries of that knowledge further. [1] Langer, Ellen J. The power of mindful learning. Addison-Wesley/Addison Wesley Longman, 1997.

I overthink, therefore it depends

Many of us are familiar with the quote, “I think, therefore I am” by Descartes; however, you’re probably not familiar with the satirical twitter account, @AcademicsSay. This account put out a classically sarcastic, yet all to true tweet earlier today “I overthink, therefore it depends.” Both this classic quote and its modernized parody underly an important mechanism for critical thinking- questioning.. or “overthinking.”  

This week I read “Anti-Teaching: Confronting the Crisis of Significance” and watched several youtube videos by Michael Wesch. He makes the case that students are adamantly demanding to know “why is this relevant to me?” As a student, I can identify with this. I want to know, “how does this content advance me toward my aspirations? why is it necessary? what makes this content essential and valuable?”

If you can’t answer these questions, you can’t possibly fulfill your role?? If you can’t justify your course content, why are you teaching it?… for the money (insert sarcasm here)?? From a young age, we’re asked “what do you want to be when you grow up?” The more you ‘know’ the harder that question can become for some people. In fact, most students come to college to figure that out rather than with an agenda from which they never deviate! In some small way, as a teacher, we help them figure this out; therefore, the question “why is this relevant to me?” is more than a question. It is a solicitation to deviate from those stale power points! You know, the ones you really don’t need a power point for… because you basically have them memorized… because they never change…? This question is an opportunity, and one that poses some new and exciting opportunities as future faculty!

What do you think about “Anti-teaching?” How do you, or would you, work to instill empowerment, promote interconnectedness, and facilitate mindful learning?

Bird’s eye view: Mindful Teaching and Learning

The evening of January 6, 2016 I was flying back from Boston after having visited some of my family and my friends that I had been missing dearly since I moved to Blacksburg last Fall. I was feeling wistful to say the least, leaving my dearly beloved Boston behind me. As the plane approached Dulles airport I looked out the window to find a sea of moving lights. Long winding roads with thousands of cars moving – some slow, some fast. They were all moving in some direction and from my vantage point it all looked beautiful, serene and calm. Then I thought about my brother who would be driving in the same traffic to come pick me up from the airport and in that instant I knew he wouldn’t find what I was watching a calming experience at all! Distance provides perspective which is the reason why Mike Wesch’s concept of “grand narrative” in his article Anti-Teaching: Confronting the Crisis of Significance stands out for me.

In the grand scheme of things, what matters most? My experience as a learner has been unique in the fact that I studied up to my M.A. in Psychology from India and then I pursued further education in U.S.A. when I decided I needed my M.Ed. in Counseling and now my Ph.D. in Counselor Education. There is a big difference between studying and pursuing education and I will try and explain what it means for me. Throughout my seventeen years of education in India, one thing that was important for everyone around me was – grades. Not sports, not arts, not music, not communication skills – just grades. Whether I retained information after the exams were over, whether I applied what I learned from my classes or whether I actually understood what I was supposed to be learning did not matter. My intelligence was held hostage by my grades.

Growing up I knew that rote memorization was necessary and there is always one and only one correct answer, even for a descriptive question for which you absolutely had to fill six sides of your answer booklet if you wanted full points. If you didn’t, well, it was assumed that you did not “study” long enough. I use the word study in quotes because it had nothing to do with studying to learn. Our teachers were testing us on memory retention rather than assessing what we had learned or the knowledge we had gained in their classes. I call this the functional fixedness of an educational system. I had a stifling experience as a learner growing up and I hope every single day that I never teach in any way that is even close to how I was taught. Therefore I agree when Mike Wesch said in his article that teaching can be considered a hindrance to learning depending on how it is used.

My experiences in pursuing education however have been different. Having the opportunity for open dialogue with my professors as well as my classmates, facilitating growth for each other and learning in depth instead of scratching the surface to acquire good grades seems to be the trend for me now. The “quality of learning” as put forth by Mike Wesch seems to be taking the lead here. Getting rid of “rigid habits” as Ellen Langer describes it in her book Mindful Learning, has become necessary. Technological advances in the field of education definitely appears to have advantages and the capacity to reinvent learning for the younger generations. But how? What else is needed?

Jon Kabat-Zinn describes the act of mindfulness as paying attention in a specific manner, focused deliberately on the present moment and in the process being non-judgmental of one’s efforts. How can this concept be applied to teaching? Mindfulness was never a new concept for me, I was taught Yoga at a young age and it incorporates significant concepts from mindfulness. It was difficult for me, however, to find the best way to apply mindfulness in my professional work. Counseling adolescents in a residential treatment facility is not an easy feat. Add state mandated paperwork to that and it easily becomes 50 something hours a week minus any peace of mind. Incorporating mindfulness into that mix appeared to be an impossible mission to undertake. To help myself with this project, I read a book called The Mindful Therapist by Daniel Siegel a few years ago. I wanted to make sense of how to pursue mindfulness in mental health counseling. It helped. Having pursued this effort for approximately four years now I can say that if I want to I can be a mindful therapist. It is by no means easy nor does it become second nature like a lot of other things do. It has to be purposeful every single time and that is the beauty in it.

Launching into the world of teaching a couple of years ago I started applying mindfulness to my teaching practices. The more I practiced the more I realized that learning for my students happened not only when I was taking steps towards being a mindful teacher but most importantly when they were mindful of what they were learning. I was trying like Mike Wesch put it very succinctly, to focus “on the quality of learning rather than the quality of teaching”. I was trying to facilitate a passion to learn which I believe would then facilitate learning for my students.

Meeting students where they are, learning with students, encouraging rather than taking an expert stance, providing food for thought, curiosity and questions rather than providing that one correct answer. Providing enough information that facilitates critical thinking, analysis as well as burning desire to find out more. Facilitating students being able to see from a bird’s eye view – moving pieces of a giant puzzle that could all be brought together if we were adamant in being purposeful, not once, not twice but every single time.


I was a Teenage Mindless Learner

It started in high school. My primary goal at the time was to get into a “good” college, and I knew how to do it- get good grades, and fill my time up with lots of “extra-curricular activities” to tack onto my application. I also knew that the material in my classes was not really that hard for me- I could pay attention 10% of the time in class, memorize a bunch of stuff, and get A’s. I got very good at efficiently allocating my time to maximize my GPA. I literally felt sometimes like I was cracking some kind of formula. In class last Wednesday, we lamented the question “Will this be on the test?” I don’t think I ever actually said these words aloud, but I would certainly pay attention if anyone else did. This kind of learning more or less got me through my master’s program, as by that time I had gotten really good it. This isn’t entirely true- along the way, there were plenty of classes or topics or assignments that truly engaged me. Writing papers was usually more engaging than studying for exams, for instance, and anything that required some creativity often got me thinking more “mindfully.”  Sometimes, the topic was complicated enough that I actually had to sit down and understand it. I would notice when this happened, so I really appreciate having words for it now. Mindless learning was fast, efficient, and not a lot of fun. Mindful learning, on the other hand, was slow. I would read a few sentences or paragraphs, then stop and think about them. I would solve a math problem, and then come up with another way to solve it. Even when I was 17, when I thought about “learning,” this is what I meant. Everything changed when I entered my PhD program. I realized after my first midterm that I couldn’t rely on mindless learning anymore, and that now, the most “efficient” thing for me to do was to actually, mindfully, learn the material. In order for me to do this, I had to stop thinking about my grade- the outcome- and focus on the process. The great irony here is that my grades improved once I stopped caring about them, and I realized that it was more enjoyable and in some cases easier to engage with the material than to memorize it. I firmly believe that schools should promote mindful learning.  Ellen Langer, in “The Power of Mindful Learning” discusses the importance of critical thinking and the dangers of “overlearning” or simply memorizing processes. Not only can mindless learning be dangerous (and she lists many convincing examples of this), it is also thoroughly unenjoyable and does not prepare you either for the workforce or a fulfilled life. It reminds me of a quote from the song “Kodachrome” by Paul Simon – “When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school, it’s a wonder I can think at all.” Students may always try to “maximize,” since they have limited time and attention. But as teachers, maybe we can shift what it is they are maximizing. Ellen Langer also discusses, as does Michael Wesch in his article “Anti-Teaching: Confronting the Crisis of Significance”  how she promotes mindful learning in her classroom. As she writes in “Mindful Learning,” “‘what we teach’ may be less important than ‘how we teach.'” If teachers promote the idea in the classroom that the purpose of the class is to be engaged and to learn how to think critically, rather than to memorize a bunch of stuff and do well on exams, then I think the students will absorb this message. It may seem like an uphill battle at first, but I believe that if it is done well, students will thrive in this kind of environment. I’m curious to hear about other’s personal experiences with mindless vs. mindful learning. Share your stories!    

Don’t bash the basics

So, apparently I enjoy playing the devil’s advocate when it comes to the weekly readings. I agree with some of what both Langer and Wesch write but—in a nice, exciting middle ground position—some of their views on anti-teaching and how to learn most effectively also differ from mine. Langer speaks of the dangers of overlearning, excessive practice, and drilling “the basics” to student creativity and even mastery. One of the hazards of overlearning is the inability to react to new situations, although the examples Langer provides do not exactly lend a sense of urgency to incorporating mindfulness into education (turning on a car blinker on an abandoned road? walking on the left as opposed to the right side of the sidewalk?). However, I absolutely agree that practicing can be done to a fault. My first thought when I read this article was of a book I recently finished (and which I seem to reference in most of my blog posts and comments), Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning by Brown et al. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in teaching…very interesting and informative but also enjoyable to read. The authors discuss some of the educational myths that Langer outlines as well as strategies supported by pedagogical research to help students learn. One technique is interleaving (see also Scientific American article) as opposed to the traditional method of practicing a single skill repetitively before moving on to another. Interleaving is mixing up types of problems or drills, so, for example, instead of grouping math problems in a homework assignment by whether they require addition and subtraction or multiplication and division, the problems are jumbled. An example from the book outside of education is with batting practice in baseball. In one study, the pitches were in random order to one group of players and blocked by the type of pitch (twenty curveballs followed by twenty fastballs, etc.) to another. The players in the random, interleaved practice struggled more not knowing what pitch they were going to get but ended up performing better than the other group in future practice and games because they had learned to discriminate different pitches. The topic of overlearning, especially in reference to “the basics,” also reminded me of the “Everything is a Remix” YouTube video series and TED talk by Kirby Ferguson that we watched in the Preparing the Future Professoriate class last semester. Langer warns against mindlessly going through the motions of learning basic skills, whether in tennis or math, without considering individual needs and abilities. Langer also questions the notion that a standard set of basics should exist, because these guidelines may hamper modifications that permit creativity and lead to new insights. Clearly, everyone is different, and what works for one person will not necessarily work for someone else. However, according to Ferguson in Part 3 of his series, “copying is how we learn.” In contrast to Langer, Ferguson seems to identify more with the school of thought that we need to learn some set of established fundamentals before we can go on to achieve greatness. He provides examples, mostly of famous artists, who start out by copying the work of others before they then become creative geniuses themselves. Bob Dylan’s first album consisted mostly of cover songs, and Hunter S. Thompson retyped The Great Gatsby, word for word, to know what it was like to write a novel. There are other examples, but the point is that practicing a skill in a prescriptive manner or according to what someone else did does not necessarily prevent or stifle creativity. Langer is not calling for a complete overhaul of basic skills acquisition, but the goal of individualizing “the basics” for every person is somewhat unrealistic. That being said, small changes can go a long way: for example, offering a few different ways one might hold a tennis racket is easy to do and avoids the mindset of “this is absolutely the only way this will ever work for you.” But I would argue that a general set of basics, fundamentals, or prerequisites are time-saving, but also useful and not in opposition to the goal of individual learning and mastery. So, to tie in with my post title, “yo, don’t bash the basics.” Following our discussion on connected learning, I think we all hope to share our excitement about a subject to students to ignite their curiosity. Better yet, the students can then discover how the topics have meaning in their own lives–maybe beyond tests. While I think most of us want our students to find a passion for learning, Wesch accurately describes how many of us come up short. Students struggle to connect their education to anything meaningful? Yep. Students are more concerned with tests than understanding? Also yes. I am eager to change the climate of higher education to re-awaken a love of learning in students, but I thought Wesch’s views were biased toward a decidedly academic mindset. I believe that most college students are rational human beings, and while many of them do possess the capacity to love learning, they would also very much like a job one day that provides them food, water, shelter, and the ability to pay off student loan debt and procreate in a financially-responsible manner. In order to get this sort of job fifty years ago, a Bachelor’s degree was more than sufficient. Now, a Bachelor’s might not be enough, and applicants must additionally have good grades, internship or research experience, community service, and other resume-building activities. While many college students today are a product of the culture of standardized testing in K-12 education, their preoccupation with grades and tests is also a bit of a survival tactic: the job market is competitive, and, like it or not, grade point averages help determine whether or not you come out on top. Despite the very real pressures students face, instructors can, and should, cultivate a desire to learn. All people are “cut out for learning,” to quote Wesch. However, I disagree with the notion that school, in the sense of colleges and universities, is for everyone. The education system obviously leaves much to be desired, and schools should better facilitate student success and encourage students to get excited about learning. That is to say, school is for many more people than current conditions would suggest, but still not for one hundred percent of individuals…and I think that is okay! I tend to be a big fan of trade and vocational schools. You want to be a raft guide for the rest of your life? Or a massage therapist? Or a welder? That’s awesome, you’ll probably be much happier than most academics that make six-figure salaries. Constant learning also takes place in these other professions. Or what about students that are driven by other, equally worthy passions besides strictly learning? For example, one of my friends studied to be a doctor (so, medical school and not vocational school, but you see where I am going with this), not because she is endlessly curious about disease mutations, but because she wants to help provide medical care to underprivileged people in the rural South. In order to be a good doctor, she will continually learn as well, but a burning desire to know is not what keeps her going; rather, I think her primary goal is to actively help people. The hunger for knowledge Wesch speaks of seems to apply more for Master’s or PhD-bound students interested in research. I feel that, as teachers, our focus should move towards not only fostering an atmosphere of learning but additionally helping students connect with their true interests and curiosities…and realizing that these will not always coincide with the passion for learning in a school setting that Wesch describes.

A skeptical look at academic blogging

While the theme this week is Connected Learning, the blogs by Scott Rosenberg and Tim Hitchcock are focused on the benefits of blogging, the former making the case for blogging in general and the latter making the case for academic blogging, specifically. As I’m generally a skeptical person, I want to address what I think is an overselling of academic blogging, rather than the blogs on Connected Learning, which I largely agree with.

I’ll start by saying I’m not opposed to the idea that academic blogging is beneficial for some people—I just think these two blogs do not take a critical and nuanced look at the costs and benefits of blogging. A much more nuanced and balanced take, in my opinion, can be found on the Dynamic Ecology blog, in a post entitled Should you start a science blog? Ask yourself these questions.”

This blog goes through the reasons that science blogging may or may not be a good idea for any particular person. To me, the most important point that is not considered in the assigned articles is that of opportunity costs. You could be doing countless other things with your time besides blogging and each of these other activities has an expected benefit to your academic output. You should allocate your time proportional to the expected value of the academic (and non-academic) metrics you care about. Successful blogging is a large time commitment –you need to blog frequently, probably every week, for a long time, perhaps months, before you have likely accumulated more than a few readers.  And then, you must keep it up to keep your readers coming back.  If you don’t enjoy it, are not very self-confident, or are not a fast writer, blogging will take even more of your precious time. If you don’t have much of interest to say, the benefits of blogging will be reduced. The vast majority of blogs never get off the ground and the time spent trying to gain an audience is at least partially a sunk cost. However, some people succeed, and these are probably the self-confident people with interesting things to say who enjoy blogging and are fast writers (more often than not). So I see academic blogging as a gamble with the odds determined by factors such as those I’ve just outlined.

The author of the post, Jeremy Fox, who has been blogging for years sees the best way to benefit from academic blogging is if people who have power over your career, such as an advisor or department head, value your blogging. Otherwise, in general, he thinks blogging isn’t likely to have much of an impact on your career in terms of publication output, getting grants, job prospects, tenure, etc. The main benefits he sees are that he enjoys blogging and can have in-depth conversations with colleagues (as opposed to on Twitter), mentor students, perhaps influence the direction of his field, and educate the public.

Despite my less rosy view of academic blogging, I’ve actually been wrestling with starting a blog for a while now. I would like a place where I can explore ideas in my Ecological Statistician niche with other ecological statisticians and wildlife biologists, but I’m still unsure about the net effect it will have on my career and I have plenty of other things I need to be doing.

Connected Learning–From the POV of a skeptic

I come from a small town with limited technological resources, particularly regarding education. Every course, every lecture, was done on PowerPoint or paper handouts which the instructor elaborated on throughout the class period. PowerPoint is a good tool for a lecture–it serves as a way for the lecturer to emphasize certain points throughout the lecture and serves to improve and cater to the audience’s visual literacy, in addition to traditional one-way communication methods (e.g. teacher to classroom of 20+ students). One of the biggest takeaways from this kind of lecture, however, was that, if unfettered or left in the hands of an unenthusiastic professor, these methods fall flat, leaving students frustrated.

In this course, keeping a consistent blog is the primary assignment for each student. And at first I was a skeptic. What do I have to say that is more important than an academic–a so-called-expert in the field of contemporary pedagogy? How are we going to learn if we aren’t given the information we need? Aren’t we all just going to be lost in the wilderness for the next four months? I have no credibility. But here’s the thing: This type of thinking is a byproduct of old-school pedagogy and traditional academic models. People have been learning from the instructor to body of students dynamic for generations. But this is the 21st Century, perhaps it is time to open up our classrooms a little bit, to explore what we each have to contribute to a body of knowledge that is constantly changing, evolving, and expanding.

So, my goal at the end of these 15 weeks is to broaden my horizons, to overcome my biases and move past the following misconceptions:

1.  Technology is scary. I’m not what one would term a techno-wiz. I’m not the person you call to fix your computer (my advice is limited to “Did you turn it off and on again?” “Is it plugged in?” “Um…Control/Alt/Delete, maybe?” and “Throw it out the window and buy another”). This may stem from an overall lack of exposure to technology, and also a discomfort at the association of the technology field’s relationship to mathematics, which has consistently given me nightmares: “OH NO!! Not differential equations!! GAHHHH!!!!” (clutches heart, dies dramatically). But the fact of the matter is that technology, namely the Internet, is a powerful tool that allows for greater inter-connectivity for individuals that is unprecedented.

Scott Rosenberg explains in his Salon article “How Blogs Changed Everything” that the Internet has changed our lives in a fundamental way, more like the telephone than the television. For Rosenberg, the agency of a technology and its ability to permeate our lives in a fundamental way, are the result of how we use it. “Like the telephone before it,” Rosenberg writes, “the Web will be defined by the choices people make as they use it, constrained by — but not determined by — the nature of the technology.” The Internet has integrity when we use it that way and not just as a dispensary for cat photos, pornography, and obnoxious commenters.

2.  Blogs are just online diaries. When blogs first burst on the scene, they had a certain stigma attached to them. It seemed that some people viewed them as personal forums where they could post all of the frivolous details of their lives, like snail photography, or internet stamp collecting. And while these are perfectly fine uses of cyberspace, they may not be the most credible or ambitious. The impetus of the blogosphere is to share a piece of your world with others who have similar interests. The thing is, the same goes for much of academia; it’s all about finding your niche.

Tim Hitchcock talks about this in a post from his academic blog, The Impact Blog at The London School of Economics and Political Science: “The best (and most successful) academics  are the ones who are so caught up in the importance of their work, so caught up with their simple passion for a subject, that they publicize it with every breadth. Twitter and blogs, and embarrassingly enthusiastic drunken conversations at parties, are not add-ons to academic research, but a simple reflection of the passion that underpins it.” Who is a better expert on your research than you? And it seems against the ethics and principles of the academic community to monopolize your ideas and work for your own personal gain. Why not promote, share, and add to your existing research with the community who can benefit the most from it? This academic sharing contributes to what Rosenberg calls “a new kind of public sphere, at once ephemeral and timeless, sharing the characteristics of conversation and deliberation.”

3.  Technology is killing discourse. Actually, if anything, it is making it grow. When in human history was it as easy to communicate with people, down the street, in the next town over, out of the state, across the country, around the globe? Technology is just the incubator that fosters our fecund impulse to share and consume new information faster and more efficiently than ever before. To dive into the “global academic community” discussion, what is a classroom, but the most basic academic community? It is literally a place designated to make learning happen. We live in a world where the classroom doesn’t have to exist in the traditional brick-and-mortar sense, but through a forum where students and instructors are connected 24/7. Using blogs in an academic setting is a good way to encourage discourse and improve interactive learning.

W. Gardner Campbell contextualizes the use of blogging in the classroom through the framework, “Narrate, Curate, Share.” “Blogs are stories,” Campbell writes, and when put into that context it makes sense that creating a running narrative to not only the content learned in the classroom, but also as a gateway into the learning process in general, suddenly we begin to see the benefits of blogging as an academic tool. Students would then have to “curate” their blogs, meaning they would have to arrange them in a way that is accessible to an audience (much like a museum curator arranges displays for public consumption). This is particularly important because a blog is a public forum. Anyone can see it. If students are told from the beginning that whatever they post will be seen by a public audience, including academics and specialists in the field, suddenly they have to rethink the way they write. They have to take into consideration their audience, how what they write will look like in the eyes of experts and amateurs alike. In the words of Seth Godin “Blogging is free. It doesn’t matter who reads it. What matters is the humility that comes from writing it. What matters is the meta-cognition of thinking about what you are going to say. How do you explain yourself to the few employees or your cat or whoever is going to look at it?” Taken in this context blogging is more than an exercise in frivolity; it becomes a legitimate voice in a field or discourse. Campbell also emphasizes sharing as a crucial part of the process: “Sharing means finding and creating connections. It means creating a ‘serendipity field’ that brings new opportunities for learning and creativity. Don’t just wait for the world to come to you. Look for creative ways to get the word out about your blog, about the blogs in your Colloquium, or your other courses, or your residence hall. Network thyself!” If we look at blogs as a unique personalized space on the web designated for the purpose of learning as a community, then it opens up a new means of conveying and consuming information created exclusively for the Internet Age.

Ok, so I won’t say that I’m a complete convert just yet, but I am keeping an opening mind and being more and more convinced as my exposure to the idea of incorporating a blog into the classroom is increased. Let’s all take this opportunity and dive in. Who knows what we can do together?

Works Cited

Campbell, W. Gardner. “Narrate, Curate, Share: How Blogging Can Catalyze Learning” CampusTechnology.com. Public Sector Media Group, 10 August 2011. Web.  25 January 2016.

Hitchcock, Tim. “Twitter and blogs are not just add-ons to academic research…” TheImpactBlog.com. LSE Impact of Social Sciences, 2015. Web. 25 January 2016.

Innerpreneur. “Seth Godin and Tom Peters on blogging.” Online Video Clip. Youtube. Youtube, 18 April 2009. Web. 25 January 2016.

Rosenberg, Scott. “How Blogs Changed Everything.” Salon.com. Salon Media Group Inc., 6 July 2009. Web. 25 January 2016.

Connected Learning through the Arts

For those of you who know me, I am a huge advocate for the arts in education. I believe the arts offer an intrinsic exploration into the human experience that is necessary for creating well rounded, knowledge hungry students. I believe the arts and design are related to every discipline and can be used to deepen connections, expand breadth and depth of knowledge, and create generations of lifelong learners who are civically engaged and eager to explore endless possibilities.

Connected Learning is an educational approach that placed focus on the student rather than the outcome. Connected Learning is built upon personal interests, peer to peer relationships, digital technologies, social platforms, and strives for achievement in academic, civic, and career-relevant areas. What strikes me are the similarities between Connected Learning and Arts Integration particularly in the areas of creativity and interest-driven learning.

Arts Integration encourages students to explore topics through creative approaches that create deeper connections to identified learning outcomes. An example of Arts Integration would be having students draw or sculpt the various phases of cancer on a cellular level to demonstrate how cancer cells spread through the human body. Another example would be for a group of students to write a short play or a series of monologues that discuss cancers effect on group dynamics or a family system. These performances could also include explorations of the arts and healthcare by providing deeper connections to the impact cancer has on our current society. Other students could write and compose a short musical piece that highlights music therapy as one of the many holistic treatment options for patients. Another student could develop a photo series showing developing cancer cells on a micro level through the use of microscopes and other digital technologies. While another student could write and publish a children’s book that explains what it means if a parent or loved one is diagnosed with cancer. These are just quick examples that draw interdisciplinary connections between numerous fields including science, engineering, healthcare, humanities, arts, and design.

It seems to me one of the biggest similarity between arts integration and Connected Learning is the ability to approach a problem through multiple disciplines that use creativity as a core driver of knowledge growth. Connected Learning and Arts Integration urge students to think creatively and draw connections between multiple topics simultaneously. Both Connected Learning and Arts Integration suggest that disciplines are not silos, but interconnected avenues of possibilities in contemporary problem solving. Then why do these two pedagogical approaches seem to be operating independently of each other rather than inclusive of one another?

At the core of Connected Learning is the idea of openly networked, production centered, and shared purpose learning that focuses on academia, peer culture, and individual/shared interests. This ideology is what the arts are all about. Open network and collaboration, production centered outcomes, and shared purpose. What amazes me is contemporary pedagogy often overlooks the contributions of the arts and design and attempts to establish new paradigms that in reality are achieved through arts and design integration and interdisciplinary approaches towards contemporary problem solving.

How do we work together? How do my skills as an artist contribute to your problem as a scientist? How does your knowledge of physics and engineering influence my ideas on human centered design and infrastructure? And how do we create a curriculum that encourages life long learners to work together by combining and transforming disciplines rather than isolating them? These questions are at the heart of Connected Learning and Arts Integration. So what are some of your thoughts? Comments welcome in the section below.

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Who do blogs connect?

The last blog I wrote for the Preparing the Future Professoriate class last semester, “To blog or not to blog after this semester?”, actually comes full circle quite nicely to the readings for this week. The consensus seems to be, at least among the authors of the assigned readings and Godin and Peters, that blogging is awesome. I definitely raised my hand in class last week when Dr. Nelson asked, “who in here hates blogging?”. While I am not a huge fan of blogs, I do see the value in the activity. As I wrote in my previous blog entry on the topic and as the articles describe, a blog is a great place to practice writing, much in the same manner as the journal or diary of yesteryear. I certainly saw improvement in my writing over the course of mandatory blogging last semester. According to Hitchcock, blogs have great potential in academia. Many professors and scientists struggle with connecting their research to non-experts and “normal” people but often also have trouble communicating in general (I call it as I see it). Writing a blog forces authors to think through the information they want to convey in order to present a coherent argument. The benefits of this practice are two-fold: one advantage is the practice in communication, but organizing information into a digestible format also helps the authors better understand and form deeper connections with their own material. One big plus for blogs over old-school journals is the possibility for two-way dialogue with readers, which Rosenberg likens to the telephone, and what can be nearly immediate feedback. Another beauty of the digital blog is the ability to modify, update, and correct posts after publication—a “freedom to fail,” if you will. This freedom should be liberating to academics who normally must conform to rigid formatting guidelines of scholarly journals and get caught up in what reviewers might think.

One potential caveat to the blog hype is that, while blogs are ideally open forums accessible by anyone on the internet, most bloggers will not reach a broad audience but rather a small handful of followers. The readers one is able to attract are generally colleagues (if the blog is in the academic realm) and friends. That is to say, blogs do not necessarily initiate conversations with the uninformed masses and, instead, present an example of confirmation bias: the people that regularly read a particular blog largely do so because they know they will agree with the views presented by the blogger. Not that there is anything wrong with this arrangement. Opportunities for public discussion exist if readers do want to weigh in on a topic, but blogs largely serve the blogger through the action itself of synthesizing information to create a post. Blogging can still be worthwhile, even if no one besides the author ever visits the site. I just wanted to point out that the vision of blogs as an educational tool that invites discussion and collaboration with people around the world is a possibility, but also quite idealistic.

The only other hesitation I have regarding blogging is a fear of too much technology. Not to sound like grandpa or a conspiracy theorist. On the contrary, I am very much on the bandwagon that believes technology is the key to solving many problems in the world. However, I do shudder at this new expectation that we should spend an additional hour or two every week hunched over a keyboard in front of a bright screen working on our digital identity, especially when most of us in higher education already spend most of our days doing just that. I feel that there are other approaches to accomplish the blogging goals, such as writing in a journal or setting up regularly scheduled, informal meetings with peers and colleagues to discuss research. Blogs are definitely a streamlined, glitzy alternative to the traditional ways of doing business, but that does not necessarily mean that everyone should feel like they have to blog. If that sort of thing tickles you, then wonderful. But if not, I think that is also fine.

 

Connected Learning: for the Millennials

The dawn of the 21st century has brought about a plethora of changes in the world. Societies have changed, evolved and turned inside out due to the technological advances. From being trapped in one’s hometown or two thousand people the World Wide Web has opened the entire Universe for us. For me personally, I went from sitting in a classroom with wooden desks taking copious notes on paper with my teacher talking for an hour to sitting in a circle with my laptop following a discussion with my classmates and colleagues as my professor observes.

What just happened?

Granted it took many years but changes that Millennials have seen between their high school and graduate school experiences, I believe have never been so drastic for any other generation. There have been times since I graduated from college when I felt that I was on top of my game, connected to the world, engaging in everything that was cutting edge – email, chat rooms, social media, programming. As recent as last year, attending a meeting for teachers that were developing interdisciplinary courses at a private boarding school I felt I was still there – connected. Connected with my students through the classroom in person and through learning management systems – creating hybrid courses for highly driven high schoolers.

Harsh reality settled in last week though. While sitting in our first Contemporary Pedagogy class for the first time in a long time, I felt like I was disconnected. ‘Blogging’…yikes! What is that?! My thoughts for the entire world to read and comment on! Sounds intimidating.

I had to stop myself and really think about this. OK, so if I can create a hybrid course with a co-teacher and use YouTube videos, Ted Talks, journal articles from PubMed and other online libraries along with a textbook (Phew!) then I can also think about learning through other avenues that I just haven’t had the opportunity to use.

Starting the journey then I think of connected learning as an idea that incorporates literally all we have access to today and sifting that information to gain insight into a particular topic. It is not just reading or not just doing – it is reading, doing and learning through the process. It seems to be more than the sum of its parts.


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