Some Thoughts on "Rethinking University Teaching in the Digital Age"

Sometimes it's good to take a step back on do a little reflecting. I've been working on the IMPART online course and decided to take a few minutes to read the article "Rethinking University Teaching in the Digital Age" by Diana Laurillard (Futures Forum 2002)¹. This article is a summary of "Rethinking University Teaching for the Knowledge Society" by the same author - a paper presented and discussed at the EDUCASE Forum's 2001 Aspen Symposium².
The article talks about how the "transmission model" of teaching (that is, passing on knowledge/information from teacher --> student) has been the dominant form of "education" and even as we adopt new technologies, such as the Internet, we continue to use this method. However, people "learn by doing and gain the experience necessary to reason, strategize and make sense of situations that will arise in practice, during their future careers" --> the transmission model does not meet these requirements. Laurillard puts forth a "conversational model," which looks something like this:

Highlights of this model:

• iterative dialogue - 2 types:


1. discursive, theoretical, conceptual level (top of diagram)
2. active, practical, experiential level (bottom of diagram)


• 2 processes:
  
1. adaptation of practice in relation to theory
2. reflection on theory in light of practice

Reading this article reminded me to focus on interactivity when I design the modules for my online course. Opportunities for students to discuss the issues, especially how theory meshes with their experiences within research practice and how they can incorporate the theory into their research practice, need to be presented to generate useful discussions among the students in order to enhance learning. As well, feedback from the students on the learning to the "teacher"³ is an important part of the process.

And one last thing from the article - it presents the following definition of the role of universities in society (from the British National Inquiry into Higher Education, 1997): "to enable society to maintain an independent understanding of itself and its world," pointing out that this broad mission really separates universities from the for-profit sector's more limited mission. I like this - I think that it's important to recognize the importance of maintaining indepedent universities.

---

Footnotes

¹Full text of "Rethinking University Teaching in the Digital Age" (as well as other summary articles from the Forum for the Future of Higher Education's 2001 Aspen Symposium: http://www.educause.edu/Apps/forum/ffp02w.asp?bhcp=1

²This article is next up on my reading list! It, along with the other papers presented and discussed at the EDUCASE Forum's 2001 Aspen Symposium, can be downloaded for free from http://www.educause.edu/Apps/forum/ffpiu01w.asp

³in the case of my online course "teacher" can, I think, be viewed as the mentors in the program (who represent the experts in the various topics, as well as myself as the course designer. It is also important to remember that this iterative dialogue between students and teachers will take place in the seminars and need not all be incorporated into the online course.

A Few Thoughts on An Online Module I Tried Out

In my ongoing efforts to examine a variety of online courses, I just completed an online module: the "Breastfeeding E-Learning Module." This module had a few components about it that I really liked:

• started with a short video to catch your attention
• short module (~45 mins to complete)
• point form notes, to the point
• interactive (used T/F quizzes throughout)
• immediate feedback (as soon as you clicked on your answer, you were told if you were correct, often with a few sentences, or even a video to explain why you were correct or incorrect)
• a quiz at the end where you had to score >85% to pass the module

The thing that I didn't like about the module, however, was that often the "yes, you are correct" or "no, you are incorrect" was just typed in plain text, followed by the same explanation either way. It seemed to me that it needed something with more visual impact (like a big "X" next to "incorrect" and a big checkmark next to "correct" - as it didn't have much of an impact on me whether I was right or wrong, so I'm not sure how much the information will stick with me).

The other problem, of course, is that T/F questions tend to focus on the lower levels of thinking (remembering, rather than applying, analysis and synthesizing information). I'm not sure how to get around this one in an online course where you want to give immediate feedback though. Perhaps it requires a combination of using T/F or multiple choice quizzes for immediate feedback with case studies/discussion questions to get to the higher order thinking skills.

Why a Professional Reflections Blog?

A long, long time ago, in a lifetime far, far away (grad school), I took a UBC Centre for Teaching and Academic Growth (TAG) workshop on making an electronic teaching portfolio. We learned about the value of recording our teaching activities and our learning about learning, in terms of both having a record for job applications and promotion and in taking the opportunity to reflect on our teaching, with the aim of evaluating, and hopefully improving, our work. It was a good workshop, which really got me excited about working on my own portfolio. But then, as always happens in the land of grad school, I got caught up with my research and writing and teaching and didn't end up making time to work on my portofolio beyond what I had done in the workshop. Later, as I was getting closer to finishing my degree, TAG again presented me with an opportunity to work on my portfolio, this time in the form of a contest... with prizes! The contest entailed working on, and submitting to TAG, a teaching portfolio. All the portfolios would get the benefit of feedback from people at TAG, as well as there being extra motivation to actually set some time aside to work on it. Never one to turn down the opportunity to win a prize, I met with a TAG staffer, Isabeau, to learn more about electronic teaching portfolio and started working on having something to submit for the contest. One of the things Isabeau and I discussed was the idea of attaching a reflective blog to the portfolio... for example, if you attend a workshop, you would list it in the "Workshops" section of your portfolio, and it would be linked to a posting on your blog where you reflect on what you gained from the workshop. Already being familiar with the blogging phenomenon, I thought this sounded like an excellent idea. I spend a fair amount of time working on my portfolio and set up a blog where I would put my reflective pieces. Of course... the best laid plans.... After the contest was over (and for which I did, in fact, receive a prize), I got swept up with a little thing called "my thesis defence," and didn't actually get around to putting anything into my blog. But now, here I am! I actually must thank Jackie, who is also on the verge of starting a reseach blog, who challenged me to actually get something posted. We set a deadline. We shook on it. So it's official! And this is my first (of many!) postings here on the uncreatively named bethsnow.blogspot.com.

Postscript: I wrote this up on my (not wireless enabled) Palm Pilot, in a coffee shop, with the plan to later upload it to this blog. And lo and behold, when I came here to upload it, it turns out that I had, in fact, posted here before. So this is actually post #2!

Testing Hypotheses

I was at a doctoral defence today and one of the examiners said something in passing that gave me pause for thought: "People are often tryig to prove their hypothesis rather than test their hypothesis." It may seem like a subtle difference, but I think it is an important distinction. I've had many discussions with many people about my frustration at the way some people view science, specifically the way they treat "negative results." When you run an experiment and confirm the null hypothesis (e.g., there is no difference between the groups being compared), this is not a failure of your experiment (although many people view it that way). So long as you have designed your experiment well and you have sufficient power to detect a difference, this outcome is just as valid as confirming the alternative hypothesis. I think it can lead to real problems when people set out to "prove" their hypothesis -- especially when it leads to not publishing "negative results," whether that's because the investigators themselves don't try to publish them, believing them to be invalid, or because reviewers/editors take this view.