Tag: learning

Learning Community

What’s A Learning Subjective? #Rhizo15

Laura Pasquini

In the first course week of #Rhizo15 Dave asked us to define our learning subjectives, specifically:

  • How do we design our own or others learning when we don’t know where we are going?
  • How does that free us up?
  • What can we get done with subjectives that can’t be done with objectives?

After reading a the follow-up blog post & the list of #Rhizo15 Week 1 blog posts (Thanks, @Lenandlar) prompted me to respond. Learning is uncertain, and happens at the rarest moment.

As an educator, we get caught up with the standard Learning Objective slant for teaching and learning. Learning objectives (sometimes referred to as intended learning outcomes or course-specific goals) are clear statements to describe the competencies learners should possess upon completion of a course (Simon & Taylor, 2009; Harder, 2002; Kennedy, 2007). An effective learning objective identifies what a student would know and be able to demonstrate along with the depth of learning expected from the curriculum.

With #Rhizo15 the lack of learning objectives provides a lot of freedom to explore ideas, connect to meaning, and identify new ways of knowing. I think a learning subjective is when students are encouraged to make their own learning personal. I felt bad for a delayed blog post on this topic — but then I remembered — being subjective means individualizing and customizing my own way to learn. Subjective learning allows for more preference and flexibility, which provides dynamic ways to engage in uncertain patterns and developments from within a course. Learning objectives provide well-defined outcomes and intentions for learning. The openness of learning subjectives provides opportunities for students to drive the course agenda and direct their interests for topics. For some teachers and students, learning subjectives might place education out of its comfort zone to consider what a curriculum could be if defined by all those involved. I think

For many teachers and students, learning subjectives might place all outside of our educational comfort zones. Consider what your course and curriculum would be like if you showed up to class on the first day and asked everyone in the room to design & be a participant in your course? Bring on the blank stares. I suspect many students would walk out of the room or drop your online class. Not for the ability or empowerment of being part of the learning design process, but more out of the fear of the unknown. I think Tania‘s metaphor explained it best: a jigsaw puzzle. This daunting task of figure out where to put the pieces together for ambiguous learning is complicated and requires a lot of work. Are you ready to commit for this complicated and multi-layered task? Am I? Who knows? But I am willing to give it a try. [If I am overwhelmed by the #rhizo15 learning swarm – I always have Keith to ask. :)]

My learning subjective for #Rhizo15 will be en par with how I prefer to travel, e.g. backpacking across Europe. Travel light. Show up to the airport or train station. Select a random place to go. Identify a few things I might see or do. Be open to new adventures and experiences. Sure. I might get lost or not know the language – but I will figure it out or it will be an experience at least. The not knowing what is ahead is okay. I will find the way with others, as there are a number of locals and travelers I can have a chat with. Only memories (a few photos & blog posts) and connections will follow me home as souvenirs.

me & parliament#TBT from 2006 London – {Note To Self: I need to digitize my earlier travel photogs.}

I am looking forward to bumping into a few #Rhizo15 friends as I travel through this course. My learning pack is ready, and I want to explore. Some of you I will see soon (in person), others online, and then — who knows — I might even travel to a location near YOU soon (get your guest room or couch ready)! For now, I look forward to our learning travels online. Stay in touch!

References:

Harden, R. M. (2002). Learning outcomes and instructional objectives: Is there a difference?. Medical teacher, 24(2), 151-155.

Kennedy, D. (2007). Writing and using learning outcomes: a practical guide. Cork, Ireland: University College Cork.

Simon, B., & Taylor, J. (2009). What is the value of course-specific learning goals. Journal of College Science Teaching, 39(2), 52-57.

Learning Community

Curriculum T.B.D. with #rhizo15

Laura Pasquini

From A Practical Guide to Rhizo15: “Rhizomatic learning is one story for how we can think about learning and teaching in a complex world.” Dave Cormier (@davecormier) has been thinking “in the rhizo” for a while and expressing ideas of the community as curriculum for teaching and learning. Cormier (2011) believes a curriculum for a course can be created in time, while a course is happening, specifically  “… to be rhizomatic involves creating a context, maybe some boundaries, within which a conversation can grow.”  

Sometimes learning can be messy. The rhizome concept is often uncertain as it maps in any direction, starts at any point, and grows or spreads with experimentation within a context. From this idea and others shared at the #ALN14 keynote (Pasquini, 2014), I gathered a number of valuable ideas to shape learning contracts for my own students and encouraging learners to map their own ways of knowing and evaluations (Brubaker, 2010). This talk directly impacted a new course I am teaching this term. Much of the content needed life infused into it, and learners did not seem connected to ideas for effective training and development facilitation from the previous iteration. I turned to my learners to ask them to make meaning and apply these concepts to practical situations, workplace experiences, and relevant examples they might encounter. From the class discussions, curation of readings, and developments of training/instruction, a number of my learners felt more empowered and felt as though they were part of their learning process. That being said – it does not mean things were clean and easy. There were a few bumps along the way; however this process of evaluating the learning structure helped me consider the process of knowing and supporting a collaborative curriculum down the road.

Based on my own interest in learning, and the hashtag (#) map of #rhizo15 conversation, I figured #rhizo15 would be a great place to connect and explore this concept further. [Thanks for recommending Socioviz to meet & greet with the community, Dave. Great idea!]

rhizo15hash

If you did not hear great things about the conversations, questions, and sharing from the #rhizo14 group – then you must have lived under an Internet rock last year. The #rhizo14 community often shared a number of valuable insights and resources. Although I tried to play in the sandbox with this active, online community, something got in the way of my participation (I’m looking at you dissertation). I am looking forward to the #rhizo15 camp that officially kicks off on April 15th for 6 weeks o’ fun as the participants build the curriculum. Here’s to playing in the unknown and building our learning out with fresh perspectives and gentle pushes from the #rhizo15 learning network.

Interested in joining the #rhizo15 fun? Here’s a few ways you can engage:

References

Brubaker, N. D. (2010). Negotiating authority by designing individualized grading contracts. Studying Teacher Education, 6(3), 257-267.

Cormier, D. (2011, November 5). Rhizomatic Learning – why we teach? Dave’s Educational Blog. Retrieved from http://davecormier.com/edblog/2011/11/05/rhizomatic-learning-why-learn/

Pasquini, L. A. (2014, October 31). Dave Cormier: Rhizomatic Learning – The Community is the Curriculum. The 2014 Annual Online Learning Consortium Conference (#ALN14), Orlando, FL. Retrieved from https://storify.com/laurapasquini/davecormier-s-aln14-keynote-twitter-notes

Learning and Performance, Professional Development, Training & Development

Twitter to Enhance Learning & Performance

Laura Pasquini

Twitter provides the opportunity to have micro-conversations in 140 characters or less. This social media platform has been repurposed by a number of educators for workplace learning. Twitter is not the only form of professional development available and you do not have to tweet to learn.  That being said, an increasing number of educators have repurposed and remixed Twitter for work learning and performance. You would be surprised what 140 characters can do to create community and interaction online. A number of grassroots initiatives have developed for educators to consider Twitter as part of their professional development plans for informal learning, scholarly development, and shared practices. For me, the last seven years spent on Twitter has been invaluable. This platform continues to provide an open, informal learning space to collaborate and banter with a community of educators. Thanks for that, Larry.

Twitter Bird in the Lattice

Flickr photo c/o Brian Kopp

Twitter is really the “water-cooler” for educators to share news, post reports/trends, read the news, review research, ask questions, gather information, and curate knowledge. Educators are increasingly expressing ideas and links to relevant websites, videos, articles, images, etc. related the workforce.  This commentary and resources were shared for my own learners and other training participants who want to “get started” with workplace learning and performance – so I welcome your shared suggestions for helpful Twitter resources and tips in the comments below.

The Twitter Basics:

Hashtags & Backchannels

GotHashtag

Hashtag: A symbol used in Twitter messages, the # symbol, used to identify keywords or topics in a Tweet. The hashtag was an organic creation by Twitter users as a way to categorize Twitter messages and link keywords posted on Twitter. Besides a current event or pop culture reference, Twitter has been an essential part of the conference tool kit to support sharing on the backchannel. You no longer have to be in-person to engage in the workshops, presented talks, or round table discussions via the live experience. There’s now a full stream of activity created around single hashtags for professional development and workplace learning events.

Here are just a few Hashtags to SEARCH and Follow:  

  • #AcWri (academic writing)
  • #highered
  • #digped
  • #edtech and #onlinelearning
  • #phdchat and #gradchat and #SAdoc
  • #Open and #OER and #openaccess
  • #acadv (academic advising)
  • #StudentAffairs and #sachat
  • And MORE!
  • P.D. hashtags related to your field and conferences, e.g. 2015 Education and Ed Tech Conferences [Psssst… you can add to it if  I’m missing any!]

What Is a Twitter Chat and How to Make the Most of It? Twitter chats are threaded discussions using a hashtag to dialogue about a specific subject.Twitter chats are linked conversations via a single hashtag that participants can search, follow, and include in their own Tweet as they respond during the Twitter chat time. Twitter chats are similar to online chats, forums, or discussion boards; however, they are often synchronous and active during a designated date and time. The hashtag for many chats continues past the “live” event on Twitter for others who want to share and engage. Some Twitter chats guide the discussion or have open topics central theme, while others Twitter chats are moderated in a structured question-response format. E.g. Edu Chat Calendar http://bit.ly/educhatcalendar and the Twitter Directory from IHE. 

Other Twitter Tips & Resources:

EdTech, Learning Technologies

Checklist: Selecting Technology for Learning

Laura Pasquini

With so many possibilities for digital learning, selecting media and technologies for appropriate course instruction is a very complex process. Although there are a wide range of options in the ed tech realm, pedagogical considerations should always come first. Instructors should reflect on the learning objective and desired outcomes for their subject matter before identifying technological applications for the course.

The SECTIONS model, developed by Tony Bates (2015), is a pedagogical framework for determining what technology, specifically how this technology will be appropriate for instructional approaches. This might include identifying and determining pedagogical characteristics of text, audio, video, computing, and social media. With this framework, Bates (2015) asks five critical questions for teaching and learning for technology and media selection:

  1. Who are the learners?
  2. What are the desired learning outcomes from the teaching?
  3. What instructional strategies will be employed to facilitate the learning outcomes?
  4. What are the unique educational characteristics of each medium/technology, and how well do these match the learning and teaching requirements?
  5. What resources are available?

In thinking about the interplay of technology and learning, higher education courses will need to consider how this design process is developed. In this book chapter, Bates shared an alternative approach to the ADDIE model for instructional design – Learning + Technology Development Process Model (Hibbitts & Travin, 2015).

Learning + Technology Development Process Model (Hibbitts & Travin, 2015)Regardless of the model for learning design, it will be important to assess how technology will impact the pedagogy. The SECTIONS model is an effective framework to best inform instructors when deciding what media or technology to use for face-to-face, online or blended learning courses:

  • Students
  • Ease of use
  • Costs
  • Teaching functions (including the affordances of different media)
  • Interaction
  • Organizational issues
  • Networking
  • Security and privacy

I would encourage you to utilize Bates’ (2015) Questions to Guide Media Selection and Use, to support your learning design when consider technology adoption for teaching. This open, shared educational resource will provide you with a broader reflection on issues and considerations for your digital pedagogy. Here is an abbreviated checklist for selecting technologies for learning I adopted for a learning module. It was developed for faculty who would like to consider the broader issues for teaching with technology, and how to navigate this course planning process for digital/media inclusions.

Checklist: Selecting Technology for Learning

STUDENTS

  • Review accessibility mandate or policy of your institution, department or program.
  • Determine demographics of the students and appropriateness of technology.
  • Consider student access to technologies, both off campus and on campus.
  • Determine digital skills and digital readiness of your students with learning expectations.
  • Justify students purchases of a new technology component (if needed) for learning.
  • Assess prior learning approaches & how technology can support student learning.

EASE OF USE

  • Select the technology for ease of use by instructor and students.
  • Identify technology that is reliable for teaching and learning.
  • Verify the technology set up, maintenance and upgrade are simple.
  • Confirm the technology provider/company is stable to support hardware or software use.
  • Outline strategies to secure any digital teaching materials you create should the organization providing the software or service cease to exist.
  • Locate technical & professional support, both in terms of the technology and with respect to the design of materials.
  • Determine technologies to best support edits and updates of learning materials.
  • Outline how the new technology will change teaching with to get better results
  • Assess risks and potential challenges for using this technology for teaching and learning.

COST & YOUR TIME

  • Consider media selection by the length of time and ease of use during course development.
  • Factor the time it takes to prepare lectures, and determine if development of digital learning materials will save time and encourage interaction with students (online and/or face-to-face).
  • Investigate if there is extra funding for innovative teaching or technology applications; if so, determine how to best use that funding for learning technologies.
  • Assess the local support from your institution from instructional designers and media professionals for media design and development.
  • Identify open educational resources for the course, e.g. an open textbook, online videos, library page of articles, or other potential open educational resources.

TEACHING & LEARNING FACTORS

  • Determine the desired learning outcomes from the teaching in terms of content and skills.
  • Design instructional strategies to facilitate the learning outcomes.
  • Outline unique pedagogical characteristics appropriate for this course, in terms of content presentation and skill development, specifically for:
    • Textbook, readings, or other online text materials;
    • Audio, such as podcasts, streaming audio from news, etc.;
    • Video, such as slide presentations, lectures, tutorials, and screencasts; and
    • Social media, such as blogs, wikis, microblogs, photo sharing, curation, etc.
  • Plan learning aspects that must be face-to-face (in-person or online).

INTERACTION

  • Identify the skills for development and interactions that are most to determine the best type of media or technology to facilitate this learning.
  • Determine the kinds of kinds of interaction to produce a good balance between student comprehension and student skills development.
  • Estimate the amount of time the instructor will be interacting personally or online with students, and the type of medium for this interaction.

ORGANIZATIONAL ISSUES

  • Determine institutional support in choosing and using media or technology for teaching.
  • Identify if the institutional support is easily accessible, helpful, and will meet the needs for the learning technologies for the course.
  • Determine if there is funding available to “buy me out” for a semester and/or to fund a teaching assistance/support to concentrate on designing a new course or revising an existing course.
  • Locate institutional funding or resources for any learning technology or media production.
  • Review the standard technologies, practices and procedures for teaching and learning, to verify requirements for utilizing institutional technology resources, i.e. the learning management system, lecture capture system, etc.
  • Determine if the institution will support trying a new technological approach to learning, and will support innovative media or digital design.

NETWORKING

  • Outline the importance for learners to network beyond a course, i.e. with subject specialists, professionals in the field, and relevant people in the community.
  • Identify how the course or student learning can benefit from networking and learning from external connections.
  • Determine the appropriate network and/or social media space to integrate for your learners to network with each other and connect with external community members.
  • Integrate these networking mediums with standard course technology.
  • Delegate responsibility for its design and/or administration to students or learners.

SECURITY AND PRIVACY

  • Determine the student information you are obliged to keep private and secure.
  • Identify the institutional policies for security and privacy for teaching & learning.
  • Outline potential risks and challenges of using a particular technology where institutional policies concerning privacy could easily be breached.
  • Identify who at your institution could best advise you on security and privacy concerns, with regards to learning and teaching technologies.
  • Itemize the areas of teaching and learning, if any, available only to students registered in the course.
  • Identify the types of technologies to best restrict or limit access to course materials (if any) for my registered students.

Interested in reviewing your own learning design further? DOWNLOAD the Checklist: Selecting Technology for Learning

Reference:

Bates, A. W. (2015). Chapter 8: Choosing and using media in education: The SECTIONS model. From Teaching in a Digital Age. A Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. Retrieved from http://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/

Hibbitts, P. D., & Travin, M. T. (2015). Learning + technology development process model.

ACPAdigital, StudentAffairs

ACPA Digital Task Force: Report and Higher Ed Live Discussion

Laura Pasquini

Last year I was invited to join the ACPA Digital Task Force – so you might have read a few blogs (here, here, here, & here) about my involvement or tweeting about the issues we were working on using the hashtag #ACPAdigital. 

The Role of Digital Technology in Higher Education.
Direct Video Link http://videos.myacpa.org/the-role-of-digital-technology-in-higher-education

The former ACPA President, Kent Porterfield, in conjunction with the ACPA Board of Governors and International Office established the ACPA Digital Task Force (#ACPAdigital). The #ACPAdigital group, led by Ed Cabellon and Tony Doody, was charged with “understanding how to advance the application of digital technology in higher education, informed by student affairs scholarship and practice, to further enhance ACPA’s influence and its role as a leader in higher education in the information age.”

taskforce_draft

Last week ACPA shared the Draft Report and Recommendations document, which included our contributions made over the last nine months. Each sub-group of the taskforce researched and/or worked on various projects to provide insights for student affairs educators in the follow areas:

  • Scholarship and Research
  • Teaching and Learning
  • Organization Infrastructure of ACPA

Here are the emergent themes from the#ACPAdigital report:

  1. Integrate digital technologies that advance teaching and learning within higher education.
  2. Design training and development opportunities to enhance college student educators’ use of digital technologies.
  3. Invest in the creation and dissemination of research and scholarship in digital technologies.
  4. Develop the infrastructure and resources appropriate to ensure sustainability and relevance in digital technologies.
  5. Establish and grow strategic collaborations and partnerships to capitalize on existing resources for higher education.
  6. Ensure equal opportunity to the resources necessary for full engagement with digital technologies.

Please read and review the FULL REPORT, and provide any comments you have to Tony or Ed. We would love to get your feedback, questions, and thoughts on the draft.

UPDATED (April 1, 2015):

Learn more about this report from the Higher Ed Live show (4/1/15) as the #ACPAdigital Task Force chairs discuss our work, the draft report, and how digital will impact student affairs educators on The Future of Digital Education show. Please follow @HigherEdLive & all the tweets from #HigherEdLive and #ACPAdigital. READ: The show “Notes” (tweets) on Storify. Or WATCH the recording here: