Jan 2012
In Search of the "Peer" in Peer Review
January 23, 2012 | Filed in: Profession
by Pete Rorabaugh and Jesse Stommel
The word “peer” suggests a person of similar age, education, ability, etc. The word also means “to look closely” (to peer inside something), suggesting that peers are those people close enough to us (in whatever way) that they directly observe and have a vested interest in what we do, think, or say. In an academic sense, who are our peers? Are they the small set of individuals who have similar expertise? Are they our localized, departmental colleagues? Our students? Here’s a pedagogical litmus test: have you ever brought an in-progress paper into class for your students to observe, discuss, critique? If no, then why not?
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The word “peer” suggests a person of similar age, education, ability, etc. The word also means “to look closely” (to peer inside something), suggesting that peers are those people close enough to us (in whatever way) that they directly observe and have a vested interest in what we do, think, or say. In an academic sense, who are our peers? Are they the small set of individuals who have similar expertise? Are they our localized, departmental colleagues? Our students? Here’s a pedagogical litmus test: have you ever brought an in-progress paper into class for your students to observe, discuss, critique? If no, then why not?
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Technological Panic
January 05, 2012 | Filed in: Tools
by Jesse Stommel
The computer and the LMS for an online or hybrid class are merely a medium. Still, so many instructors and students in technologically-enhanced classes spend the majority of their time grappling (and coming to terms) not with the ideas of the class but with the delivery device. We struggle to log in, to format our work correctly, to find information in an endless parade of contextual menus, and to bring some semblance of ourselves into the interactions we have in forums and chat tools.
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The computer and the LMS for an online or hybrid class are merely a medium. Still, so many instructors and students in technologically-enhanced classes spend the majority of their time grappling (and coming to terms) not with the ideas of the class but with the delivery device. We struggle to log in, to format our work correctly, to find information in an endless parade of contextual menus, and to bring some semblance of ourselves into the interactions we have in forums and chat tools.
Read More...The Twitter Essay
January 05, 2012 | Filed in: Tools
by Jesse Stommel
Consider the tangible violence technology has wrought upon grammar. We rely on automated grammar and spell-check tools in word-processing software (so much that they’ve become a crutch). E-mail shorthand fails to live up to the grammatical standards of typed or handwritten letters. And many believe our language is being perverted by the shortcuts (and concision nearly to the point of indifference) we’ve become accustomed to writing and reading in text messages and IMs.
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Consider the tangible violence technology has wrought upon grammar. We rely on automated grammar and spell-check tools in word-processing software (so much that they’ve become a crutch). E-mail shorthand fails to live up to the grammatical standards of typed or handwritten letters. And many believe our language is being perverted by the shortcuts (and concision nearly to the point of indifference) we’ve become accustomed to writing and reading in text messages and IMs.
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Hack the LMS: Getting Progressive
January 05, 2012 | Filed in: Tools
by Pete Rorabaugh
On the simplest level, a learning management system is any organizational pattern that assists teaching and learning. A grade book can also serve this function; so can a journal or a 3-ring-binder. The LMS (or CMS, for course management system) exists as a method for delivering content to students in a given class. What the classroom is to the traditional course, the LMS is to the online or hybrid course. The point of an LMS is to create learning opportunities for students outside the traditional classroom and on a different schedule. It enables synchronous (at the same time) and asynchronous (not at the same time) interaction between members of a class. It overcomes obstacles that traditional college campuses have: proximity to student populations, limited classroom space, and limited scheduling capabilities. In short, the LMS and the online class solve logistical problems for institutions and for students.
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On the simplest level, a learning management system is any organizational pattern that assists teaching and learning. A grade book can also serve this function; so can a journal or a 3-ring-binder. The LMS (or CMS, for course management system) exists as a method for delivering content to students in a given class. What the classroom is to the traditional course, the LMS is to the online or hybrid course. The point of an LMS is to create learning opportunities for students outside the traditional classroom and on a different schedule. It enables synchronous (at the same time) and asynchronous (not at the same time) interaction between members of a class. It overcomes obstacles that traditional college campuses have: proximity to student populations, limited classroom space, and limited scheduling capabilities. In short, the LMS and the online class solve logistical problems for institutions and for students.
Read More...The Tangle of Assessment
January 05, 2012 | Filed in: Critical Pedagogy
by Pete Rorabaugh and Jesse Stommel
Grading and assessment are curious beasts, activities many instructors love to hate but ones that nonetheless undergird the institutions where we work. Peter Elbow begins his essay “Ranking, Evaluating, and Liking: Sorting Out Three Forms of Judgment” with the mission to “attempt to sort out different acts we call assessment” (187). It’s interesting to note his specific phrasing here. He doesn’t say that he intends to “sort out assessment” but rather that he intends to “sort out different acts we call assessment.” From the first sentence of his essay, Elbow makes clear that assessment is a complicated and potentially fractious subject, one that he treads lightly. He continues, “I have been working on this tangle not just because it is interesting and important in itself but because assessment tends so much to drive and control teaching. Much of what we do in the classroom is determined by the assessment structures we work under” (187). The choices we make about assessment, often at the outset of a course (in the syllabus), guide much of what happens within the course. Assessment is a “tangle” for Elbow, both because it is difficult to navigate with any true objectivity and because ideas about assessment influence so much of what happens at institutions and in classrooms.
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Grading and assessment are curious beasts, activities many instructors love to hate but ones that nonetheless undergird the institutions where we work. Peter Elbow begins his essay “Ranking, Evaluating, and Liking: Sorting Out Three Forms of Judgment” with the mission to “attempt to sort out different acts we call assessment” (187). It’s interesting to note his specific phrasing here. He doesn’t say that he intends to “sort out assessment” but rather that he intends to “sort out different acts we call assessment.” From the first sentence of his essay, Elbow makes clear that assessment is a complicated and potentially fractious subject, one that he treads lightly. He continues, “I have been working on this tangle not just because it is interesting and important in itself but because assessment tends so much to drive and control teaching. Much of what we do in the classroom is determined by the assessment structures we work under” (187). The choices we make about assessment, often at the outset of a course (in the syllabus), guide much of what happens within the course. Assessment is a “tangle” for Elbow, both because it is difficult to navigate with any true objectivity and because ideas about assessment influence so much of what happens at institutions and in classrooms.
Read More...Rules of Engagement; or, How to Build Better Online Discussion
January 05, 2012 | Filed in: Online Learning
by Pete Rorabaugh
All participation is not equal. Digital media prompt us for comments, but in an academic setting we should harness this cultural habit to teach the difference between expressing opinion and authentic engagement. Professors often feel unfulfilled by poorly designed peer review exercises with their students. They complain: “The students don’t offer anything helpful. They just write things like ‘I like this part,’ or ‘this doesn’t make any sense,’ or ‘good paper!’” In peer review and in online interaction, we should teach and model for students the best methods of intellectual engagement.
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All participation is not equal. Digital media prompt us for comments, but in an academic setting we should harness this cultural habit to teach the difference between expressing opinion and authentic engagement. Professors often feel unfulfilled by poorly designed peer review exercises with their students. They complain: “The students don’t offer anything helpful. They just write things like ‘I like this part,’ or ‘this doesn’t make any sense,’ or ‘good paper!’” In peer review and in online interaction, we should teach and model for students the best methods of intellectual engagement.
Read More...Trading Classroom Authority for Online Community
January 05, 2012 | Filed in: Online Learning
by Pete Rorabaugh
Early web commenters referred to the Internet as a primitive, lawless place like the "Wild West." Plenty still needs to change to make certain parts of the web more civil and useful, but some aspect of the "Wild West" spirit is applicable to a discussion of student-directed learning. Too much civilization and society makes us compartmentalized and complacent. The West was a challenging place for European immigrants because it required an expansive sense of responsibility. You could no longer be just an apothecary or a cobbler. You had to provide for your own food and shelter from the resources around you; you had to decide just "what to do" with all this freedom.
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Early web commenters referred to the Internet as a primitive, lawless place like the "Wild West." Plenty still needs to change to make certain parts of the web more civil and useful, but some aspect of the "Wild West" spirit is applicable to a discussion of student-directed learning. Too much civilization and society makes us compartmentalized and complacent. The West was a challenging place for European immigrants because it required an expansive sense of responsibility. You could no longer be just an apothecary or a cobbler. You had to provide for your own food and shelter from the resources around you; you had to decide just "what to do" with all this freedom.
Read More...Digital Culture and Shifting Epistemology
January 05, 2012 | Filed in: Critical Pedagogy
by Pete Rorabaugh
In his article "A Seismic Shift in Epistemology" (2008), Chris Dede draws a distinction between classical perceptions of knowledge and the approach to knowledge underpinning Web 2.0 activity. Our culture is shifting, Dede argues, not just from valuing the opinions of experts to the participatory culture of YouTube or Facebook, but from understanding knowledge as fixed and linear to a concentration on how knowledge is socially constructed. Dede writes that "the contrasts between Classical knowledge and Web 2.0 knowledge are continua rather than dichotomies . . . Still, an emerging shift to new types and ways of 'knowing' is apparent and has important implications for learning and education."
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In his article "A Seismic Shift in Epistemology" (2008), Chris Dede draws a distinction between classical perceptions of knowledge and the approach to knowledge underpinning Web 2.0 activity. Our culture is shifting, Dede argues, not just from valuing the opinions of experts to the participatory culture of YouTube or Facebook, but from understanding knowledge as fixed and linear to a concentration on how knowledge is socially constructed. Dede writes that "the contrasts between Classical knowledge and Web 2.0 knowledge are continua rather than dichotomies . . . Still, an emerging shift to new types and ways of 'knowing' is apparent and has important implications for learning and education."
Read More...The Student 2.0
January 02, 2012 | Filed in: Critical Pedagogy
by Jesse Stommel
Students are evolving. The student 2.0 is an altogether different animal from the student 1.0. And our classrooms are ecosystems, an environment all their own, where we each must decide how to engage this new species of student. We teeter at a slowly disintegrating threshold, one foot in a physical world and the other in a virtual one. Our students are no longer just bodies in desks; they are no longer vessels. They have become compilations, amalgams, a concatenation of web sites. They are the people in front of us, but also their avatars in World of Warcraft and the profiles they create on FaceBook. They speak with mouths, but also with fingers tapping briskly at the keys of their smart phones. When they want to “reach out and touch someone,” they use Skype and Twitter. They have become more than just ears and eyes and brains to feed. Now, they feed us, and themselves, and each other, with an endless parade of texted and tweeted characters. Shouldn’t we, as teachers 2.0, work with not against the flow of these seemingly errant 1s and 0s? Shouldn’t student-centered learning address itself, as fully as possible, to this new breed of student? Shouldn’t we understand our students as more than just inert flesh?
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Students are evolving. The student 2.0 is an altogether different animal from the student 1.0. And our classrooms are ecosystems, an environment all their own, where we each must decide how to engage this new species of student. We teeter at a slowly disintegrating threshold, one foot in a physical world and the other in a virtual one. Our students are no longer just bodies in desks; they are no longer vessels. They have become compilations, amalgams, a concatenation of web sites. They are the people in front of us, but also their avatars in World of Warcraft and the profiles they create on FaceBook. They speak with mouths, but also with fingers tapping briskly at the keys of their smart phones. When they want to “reach out and touch someone,” they use Skype and Twitter. They have become more than just ears and eyes and brains to feed. Now, they feed us, and themselves, and each other, with an endless parade of texted and tweeted characters. Shouldn’t we, as teachers 2.0, work with not against the flow of these seemingly errant 1s and 0s? Shouldn’t student-centered learning address itself, as fully as possible, to this new breed of student? Shouldn’t we understand our students as more than just inert flesh?
Read More...