Learning as Performance: MOOC Pedagogy and On-ground Classes
August 24, 2012 | Filed in: Open Education
by Chris Friend
I once heard an interesting story about my former collegiate marching-band instructor, Dr. Richard Greenwood. According to legend, Greenwood once held up the score to an extensive piece the band was working on, pointed to it, and said, to the surprise of those around him holding instruments, "This is not the music we are playing. This is not the song we are performing. This is only a map. It's a guide to get us where the composer wants us to go." He then went on to discuss the merits of interpretation, flexibility, and improvisation within a framework.
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I once heard an interesting story about my former collegiate marching-band instructor, Dr. Richard Greenwood. According to legend, Greenwood once held up the score to an extensive piece the band was working on, pointed to it, and said, to the surprise of those around him holding instruments, "This is not the music we are playing. This is not the song we are performing. This is only a map. It's a guide to get us where the composer wants us to go." He then went on to discuss the merits of interpretation, flexibility, and improvisation within a framework.
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Experiments in Mass Collaboration
February 15, 2012 | Filed in: Critical Pedagogy
by Pete Rorabaugh and Jesse Stommel
We see the banking model of education in classrooms where desks are arranged in tidy rows and in every labyrinthine online class portal. Mass collaboration disrupts organizational structures imposed from the outside and encourages students to build new channels of communication and new habits of analysis. Mass collaboration pushes students out of the classroom or online class portal and into the world, where their work has more immediate relevance and a much larger audience. Finally, mass collaboration redraws the role of the instructor, shifting power dynamics and forcing students to take ownership of their own learning.
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We see the banking model of education in classrooms where desks are arranged in tidy rows and in every labyrinthine online class portal. Mass collaboration disrupts organizational structures imposed from the outside and encourages students to build new channels of communication and new habits of analysis. Mass collaboration pushes students out of the classroom or online class portal and into the world, where their work has more immediate relevance and a much larger audience. Finally, mass collaboration redraws the role of the instructor, shifting power dynamics and forcing students to take ownership of their own learning.
Read More...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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