Social Constructivist

Maintaining the Demand to Reflect on our Teaching Assumptions

2011-09-28T13:15:00.001+10:00

Yesterday, our college had a second Staff Conference - the first time we have had two years in a row with the opportunity for a whole of college day of professional development and conversation.

Last year I presented at the conference, and brought up issues about Western-centric ways of thinking which I felt were problematic - for my own teaching practice rather than for anyone else. I really challenged myself, standing up in front of people who didn't know me well to confront them about reflecting on their practices. I wrote about it in an earlier post last year.

This year's conference was personally challenging for different reasons, but I enjoyed the fact that more of my colleagues had taken up the opportunity to share their thinking, and challenge the rest of us to consider things which we might not yet be considering, but probably should. One thing which still surprises me, but I guess shouldn't surprise me, are the attitudes I heard from some other colleagues about those who stood up to challenge their peers to be more aware of their assumptions, and to be open to reflection. Some of these attitude are defensive, and indignant, and not one's I particularly admire.

The knee-jerk reaction to having someone outside your own circle of influence comment on your disciplinary practice, or suggest that we (themselves included) might do well to step back and evaluate the impact of our assumptions on our students, is to jump up and say - "well, you don't understand what we do, and there is a reason why we do what we do" and "I'll defend that from your assumptions". This always disappoints me, and though I might feel an initial twinge of hurt, or a wince of recognition that I am guilty of the assumption being pointed out, I always make the effort to look more closely at the questions being asked, and consider how I could in fact take aspects of those observations on board.

Sometimes we really need our colleagues to tell us about something we can't see, mostly because we're not looking, and are distracted with other matters. I found the presenters at our conference this year particularly thought provoking, because I could see clearly after listening to them how I needed to change to become a better teacher - to be much more explicit about what I want my students to achieve, and how I communicate my expectations.

The quote I have at the top of this blog fully captures this dilemma in regard to International students, as well as many other kinds. We have norms and tacit knowledge embedded in our time-tested classroom routines, our expectations, our language, our assessment measures, our participation requirements, many of which our students can't see because they're not made explicit. Although I have this quote from Ryan and Viete as the basis of my reflective blog, I still need to be reminded about what it means in different contexts. I am grateful to my courageous colleagues for reminding me of it again, and will continue to hope that those among us who express indignation about having such challenges put forward, will eventually take a closer look at what such questioning can actually achieve - a better, more equitable, and more transparent learning environment for our students.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Which innovations should we adopt? Comments on the role of a MOOC

2011-09-24T09:04:00.000+10:00

This morning I read a few blog posts from the MOOC daily newsletter, one of which was from Sue Hellman, Small Changes; BIG RETURNS


http://bigreturns.posterous.com/change11-double-double-toil-and-trouble
Sue made some interesting observations about applying technology with a one-size- fits- all approach, namely, that it doesn't work. I agree. But I didn't quite agree that new technology and pedagogy ideas are necessarily presented as 'cure all' - but that is often how people who haven't (yet) spent a lot of time researching and exploring an idea come to perceive it from others who are more enthusiastic, and who have found the benefits they wanted. The new explorers begin to feel as though this is the 'new thing' they need to do, and catch up with, or be left behind.

But those who feel overwhelmed often times forget that pens and overhead projectors and computers were once 'new innovative technologies' - but now they are ubiquitous tools in the repertoire. Here's a small part of what Sue said, among much interesting and valuable reflection, on changing pedagogy:

"It's not that the innovation was a bad one. It's that giving it the tag of 'cure-all', mass producing it, and professionally developing everyone in its how to go about it (sort of), means the original vision becomes so diluted, the very thing that made it innovative in the first place is lost. It's no longer a creative response but has morphed into an expected norm."

Schools and universities working with new technology and pedagogy and investing money, are usually thinking carefully, and evaluating. All teachers need to reflect on the best ways to employ new technology, or new ways of teaching, and evaluate the benefits for themselves. This doesn't, or shouldn't mean rejecting something if you can't see it's immediate benefit.

So, I agreed with Sue's positive words on the value of a MOOC as one way teachers can explore, learn, see and hear positives and negatives, and be "open" to change. Here's my comment to Sue:

"Thanks for these thoughts. I do agree a forum like MOOC had a lot of potential. As an EdTech manager, and as an academic and teacher, I communicate new ideas in technology and pedagogy to teachers with the proviso that they should by all means explore, but only run with a certain new thing if they think it can enhance, or develop in creative ways the skills their students need.

What seems to me to be different about the current wave of technology change in education, is that we are being advised that the 21st century student is different from former generations, and that they need different skills for a changing global workforce, and to prepare them for a world which is undergoing rapid change.

In some ways they are different in the classroom, but not all are digitally literate, or indeed, display terribly many different personal or study behaviors. They just have new online forums to act in. I think any innovative technology idea which is worth it's salt should become ubiquitous. But it's what teachers and students do with it, and make happen from using it, which can continue to be innovative and 'new."

It's so important for teachers to continue to remember what its like to be a learner.

Reflecting on the MOOC #change11

2011-09-22T13:56:00.000+10:00

I've taken on a gamble, signing up to take part in MOOC #change11 to get informed about education technology, blended online learning, sharing, connecting and other things. I'm still not sure what it's all about, but it seems to be - as far as I've managed to work out - an online virtual world of sharing ideas, resources, experiences and opportunities to change education. I'm adding a page to this Blog to isolate my reflections, so look at my MOOC Reflection Page to see my additional reflections on the MOOC experience.

A Massive Open Online Course running over several months, with participants encouraged to plot a pathway through the enticing streams of thought and information, dipping in now and then, or taking a regular plunge into materials provided online by educators from all around the world. Sharing and reflecting on the content, and engaging with fellow MOOC participants, is the substance of the distributed materials thus far.

It just so happens that this week I had a meeting with some visiting academics from Malaysia, from a University not unlike my own, who were traveling in Australia to gather information, meet with practitioners, and see for themselves the ways tertiary institutions and schools were entering into the world of blended learning and mobile technology. They were wanting to hear first hand how our iPad Program was working, and engage in a detailed discussion about the positives and negatives of a major technology change in an established institution. The visitors were our market competitors, and I was aware of this fact as I engaged in the discussion, but eventually found our discussion becoming more of a two-way exploration of the challenges of working with teachers in bringing about change, for the benefit of students. I got a lot out of the morning's discussion, and they even mentioned the possibility of inviting me to Malaysia - somewhere I've never been but would love to visit.

I liked the fact these teachers had come to Australia in person to witness things first-hand. Last month some teachers from a Queensland High School also visited us, and we shared much in the ways of expertise, challenges, failures, frustrations and the rewarding successes of pushing ourselves into new and often fearful experiences. Risk is a frightening thing for many teachers who have established classroom habits and patterns, as it was for me too.

Sharing online is great, and there is much to be discovered, but eventually all that is learned in the online world needs to be applied to a task, to the development of a new process or system, to evolve from information and theory into a new means of supporting and enabling students in their particular education journey or task.

Looking forward to writing more about MOOC on my MOOC page.

Teaching Teachers iPad EdTech - Weaving a multi-stranded base of support.

2011-09-18T15:25:00.001+10:00

For the past eight months I have been teaching both young students in a Literature course for International students, and conducting regular Professional Development training sessions on new educational technology for teachers. If had I imagined I would be able to easily transfer my teaching skills across the divide between teaching young people and teaching teachers, I would have been seriously mistaken. Fortunately, as I began my second training role I was completing a Graduate Certificate in Tertiary Teaching, the focus of which is teaching adult learners in tertiary settings. I had already come to the realization that some of the philosophy underlying adult education theories, such as the belief that adult learners are both intrinsically and extrinsically motivated to learn for 'higher reasons,' concerned with their professional identities and personal development, could not necessarily be taken for granted. Teaching already established teachers new things is a deeply challenging task; one which needs careful and nuanced planning and delivery.

Even with the awareness of the challenge looming large in my planning, I am finding it difficult to meet the needs of all the different teachers attending my PD sessions (25 so far) on learning to teach with iPads. From 2012, all new students to the college will be learning in a 1:1 iPad classroom. I was (and am) prepared to learn on the job and build my knowledge of what I should cover, and how, as I go along. I have been particularly careful never to assume I understand the content areas of the different disciplines, but went to the trouble to try and find out what the priorities of the different disciplines were. The consequence of this decision is that I aim to keep my focus general, looking at generalist applications for presentations, student support and feedback which are applicable across disciplines.

But this approach hasn't yet worked for many people, for whom the whole notion of using an iPad in their teaching is an enormous change filled with anxiety. These teachers find it harder to navigate their way around the device in the PD sessions, and need much more hands-on guidance than those who have already become familiar with the practicalities. This need has tended to slow down the sessions considerably, and / or put undue demand on other attendees to assist their colleagues instead of engaging with the ideas and information being presented. ** Most of the practical sessions I have run have a hands-on, let's do it all together as we go along aim. Some parts have needed more information and explanation than others, as setting the background context is crucial if people are to find ways to engage. I have had mixed feedback about my approaches - some teachers feeling not enough hands-on work is offered, and others that there isn't sufficient context, direction, or guidance about practical applications. I am working with this feedback to alter my approaches in the upcoming term.

So, while I have a broad approach of presenting ideas for applying the iPad as a learning tool which are interdisciplinary, and an underlying aim to stimulate thought, experimentation and idea sharing among members of discrete disciplines, many teachers are still limited in developing their practical expertise by time constraints imposed by their everyday work demands, part-time working patterns, out of work responsibilities and myriad reasons from studying part-time to being fundamentally opposed to the use of this, and other technology, in the classroom.

Thus I became acutely conscious that the reasons why people were attending the sessions varied greatly - some eager and some under duress - and this variation had a significant impact on the dynamics of both the teaching and learning. As a classroom teacher in the same institution, I believe it is important that I acknowledge and show that I understand the varied demands, and appreciate the challenges. I think this has helped me to lower my expectations, but perhaps it has also distracted me from providing a stronger vision for progress and change. The difficulty is that I don't see myself as solely responsible for creating and maintaining the vision. It must be collaborative, supported from above, and broadly engaged with.

There are multiple ways teachers can engage. We also have a Wiki space for teachers to share ideas, post app reviews, share practical suggestions, fixes to problems, links to resources, websites, info-graphics, videos, and discipline specific considerations. Very early on in my position, I posted and advertised to all the college academics the following entry on the 'philosophical underpinnings' of the process.

Philosophical Underpinnings of the iPad Project.

It is important to have a robust philosophical basis upon which to build such a large training program, especially as teaching with iPads has the potential to significantly change the way we deliver content in our discipline areas. However, the iPad should not be the focus of our teaching - the outcomes we want students to achieve is the priority, and the iPad is a new tool we have at our disposal to enable these outcomes.

For the iPad project to be fully teacher-driven, and for disciplinary interests and priorities to be maintained (and correspondingly opened up to possibilities), it is essential that everyone participates and helps shape the direction of the project. Such an emphasis on participation ensures that particular interests are not excluded, and that the practicalities of changing practices for the different disciplines are considered in decision-making processes.

Some particularly inspiring teachers who have embraced this change, and quietly run with it to develop and evolve new and exciting learning experiences for their students, are setting the standards for others to aim for. As I enter the next phase of the process - mostly engaging with small groups in disciplinary areas to focus practical attention on developing learning activities - I aim to give the star performers credit where credit is due, and showcase their efforts to others. If I can involve them in working with teachers in their own disciplines, or enable them to share their approaches and ideas more broadly, then it will feel much more like the collaborative effort it needs to be.

**(In addition to the group sessions, I also offer one-to-one support and am available for drop-in advice and assistance at two campuses several times every week. Uptake of these more personalized opportunities has been slow, whereas attendance at the general (45 minute lunchtime) PD sessions has been high.)

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Why the iPad is a great constructivist tool for education. A case study in Literature.

2011-06-05T13:49:00.001+10:00

My most visited post ever was from March 2011, when I wrote about Teaching with iPads - beyond the shiny surface. I think I gave a good run down of some of the features which make it a useful creation tool for teachers and students, but I think I diverged somewhat from my major interest in this blog, social constructivism. So here I am endeavoring to bring these two interests together in considering why, and how, the iPad can contribute to a pedagogy based on the principles of social constructivism. Of course, I am not claiming one 'needs' an iPad to achieve this - that would be silly.

From my perspective, a social constructivist pedagogy in the classroom involves seeking ways to enable students to derive meaning from the ideas and concepts being studied - meaning that relates to their own past, present and future lives. If ideas which seem foreign initially can be explored through the lens of the familiar, or the personally fascinating, then students may find the concepts to have greater relevance. Simply motivating through desired outcomes for grades is not going to be enough for many students. There needs to be something much more on offer.

In teaching literature, I long believed that the human dimension of stories enabled anyone to enter into and see the relevance of ideas, and thus to see the structure, techniques, use of language and images and connections. Teaching literature to international students has cured me of this false idea. It isn't so much about language ability - they can all read the texts - but they know I want more from them than just a literal reading and a plot summary. I want them to understand what is being communicated, and I want them to understand, and then communicate themselves in writing, HOW that author has communicated their story and the ideas it contains. This is much harder to achieve.

As I discussed in an earlier post story choice is crucial. I am seriously considering how I will change my approaches to teaching Literature, now I will be soon teaching students in a 1:1 iPad curriculum. The traditional ways will still offer a strong basis for reference, but something crucial will need to change. I'm just not sure exactly what that will be. But here's what I'm thinking at the moment.

What I want to head towards is a classroom where the students not only demonstrate that they understand the strategies used by literary authors in their work - the metaphorical nuances, the historical allusions, the subtle assonance and dissonance - but that they can then become the ones who design the means of teaching this knowledge to their peers in ways which will resonate and be understood at a deeper, fundamental level. This is something which cannot be transmitted from teacher to student in the traditional way, as it involves students drawing on their own reservoirs of experience, meaning, social knowledge, performance abilities and self-confidence to create something entirely new. That entirely new creation should not necessarily be an expository essay, either. In fact, I'd rather it wasn't

The iPad can be an exemplary tool to facilitate such an objective because of it's multiplicity of interfaces - sound, moving images, textual manipulation - and it's connection with such diverse sources of already created content. Increasingly, applications for the iPad are appearing which facilitate blending and mashing of sound, text and image, and enable the unique styles and personalities of students to be incorporated into the mix. Comic strip creators, ePub makers, iMovie, GarageBand, and story spinners for example, all facilitate personal expression.

The self-representation which is so easily discerned on a Facebook page is something social media forums foster, even demand. But students might well be hesitant to bring their personal lives to the classroom so overtly. Thus concepts like avatars might have a place in social constructivist literary analysis and teaching. Imagining oneself in another's shoes can enable an entering into the creative experience authors' bring to life in character, setting, context and metaphor. While this seems a relatively simple cognitive step which wouldn't require a mobile device to bring it into being, I believe that the ease and speed with which students are able to create sequences of images and text, sound and moving pictures to share with their peers in the classroom, makes the iPad an exemplary tool to support a social constructivist pedagogy.

But don't be fooled by the promise of simplicity: a complex challenge underlies this creative endeavour. Students must aim to achieve two things. Demonstrating a deep understanding of the concepts and ideas demanded by the discipline is only part of the challenge. Through their designed "lesson" they also need to successfully communicate that appreciation to their peers in an engaging and relevant way. Thus the final goal of my social constructivist literature program (still just a fantasy) is a culmination of learned skills, appreciation of audience, reflection on self-knowledge, applying imagination to appreciate possibly alien ideas, and a design process to maximize successful communication through audience engagement.

Some of you will be thinking that this is something many teachers should be required to do themselves on a daily basis. I couldn't agree more. Time is a rare commodity in the teaching and learning environment for students as well as educators. A tool like the iPad can facilitate a speedier production of quality resources for both groups to share with peers, for whatever purpose is required, allowing more time to go into the crucial thought, design and reflection process. I envisage that if I get the chance to bring my plan to fruition, it would perhaps be a project in the later terms of the year-long program in which I teach. Ideally, its principles will be able to shape many other smaller classroom activities along the way, building students' sense of themselves as creators of knowledge and experts. Rather than seeing themselves as vessels to be filled with others' expertise, an emphasis such as that described could shift students' self perceptions towards confidence, achievement, and empowerment.

Thanks for my excitement about these possibilities go to all the brilliant educators I follow on Twitter, and who blog and write and speak about their own ideas for student empowerment and change. Without them, I wouldn't have begun to envisage any such changes free from an attendant fear of failure.

I'll let you know how it goes.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Parkville, Australia

Literary Aesthetics and the e-reader. Not an Irony.

2011-04-17T09:45:00.001+10:00

I am someone who loves real books a great deal. I collect works of some key modern writers, and covet hard to find and expensive to buy hard backs. I've gathered all seven first editions of Anaïs Nin's Diary, published by Swallow. I also have a second edition of Nin's collection of short stories, Under a Glass Bell, which she most likely personally printed on a hand press in New York in 1944. My most cherished book is a first edition of Elizabeth Smart's By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept, published in a small print run by Poetry Editions in 1945. I found an online photograph of the original cover, printed it to size, and made a dust jacket for it. There is nothing I would accept to part with it.

Fortunately, I can keep my first editions in their very good dust jackets with their sunned spines and their slightly foxed pages, and the scent of old book which will linger upon them for as long as they stay in solid form. There is no need for me to give them up, even with the advent of digital readers. I know!! It's a surprise that people are still actually able to make their own choices about how they read, and what kinds of books they buy, despite the proliferation of worried commentaries about the death of the book.

With the mass closures in Australia of Angus and Robertson and Borders stores, there's a new proliferation of worried commentaries about the death of the bookstore.

Yet these instances seem to be more a result of bad business planning than about consumers switching wholesale to e-books. However, other emerging statistics do tell an interesting developing story about the attractiveness of instant book satisfaction leading to some significant downturns in book sales. But, is it wise to continue the alarmist rhetoric about the death of the book?

I'm much more sanguine, and tend to share the views of more moderate commentators, for example here and here that claims about the death of the book have been greatly exaggerated.

I see no need to ditch my hard earned and beautiful book collection and have them all digitally rendered. That's patently absurd. When video came out we all still went to the movies despite the fears that everyone would stay home. Hard-back books and e-books are not the same, and nor should they be equated. Paperbacks I'm less attached to, but that's because often the paperback version is a cheaper reproduction for a mass market. The hard back is for the collector. But I still haven't made the most salient point: that books, e or hb, are more defined and valued by purpose and the aesthetics of their content, than their form. This is an idea publishers and e-reader designers should think about.

I will return to form, because the most commonly expressed reservations people I've talked to give for their reluctance to use e-books relate to tangibility, and to where and how our human bodies are used to reading. Those who have already embraced e-books may still actually love their paper books. It's not a matter of giving up one way for the other, but of diversifying consumption: creating hybrid ways of enjoying the still popular pleasures reading gives us.
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Literary Aesthetics

Much is made of the cultural context surrounding the production of a work of fiction - the conditions of artistic creation and the location, the setting: the historical moment. The quality of the text lies in the words being read and the experience that reading renders up to each individual - whether or not the words are read on an iPad or from a paperback book. I'll give you an example.

The other day I was going to work on the train and reading the first short story from Yiyun Li's second collection of stories, Gold Boy, Emerald Girl. I found the book in iBooks, and the free sample gave one story, the introduction and the table of contents. I had not read past the fourth page before I was in tears. No, it wasn't because reading on the iPad is an impoverished aesthetic experience - it was the quality of the writing and the powerful impact the writing was having on me. The simplicity, and therefore the utter beauty of the image of loss, innocence, and pathos which I read was so strong. It didn't matter that I was reading an electronic version. The power of that moment was contained in the words, not in the physicality of the object delivering the words to me.

I am not immune to the romance of the material object. Part of the reason I love my copy of Under a Glass Bell is that I know it was actually hand printed by Anaïs Nin, or if not actually by her, on her printing press in New York. I know this not because it is advertised in the book, but because I've read the Diary and read of her struggle to get her work published by established presses. She also wanted to help her lover set up a business, so she financed the press and contributed the work to be published. She writes about the trips to the press, the setting of the type, and the manual labour of printing each edition.

These stories add value to the object and make up a good proportion of the desire I have for it. It is also, actually, a rather beautiful thing. However a reader who ventures inside and spends time with this book is given further journeys into a far wider spectrum of aesthetic, intellectual and emotional experiences - experiences which indeed expand from and eventually eclipse both the romance of the story of production and the physicality of the object. Take for example the first story in Under a Glass Bell, "The Mouse".

The Mouse and I lived on a house boat anchored near Notre
Dame, where the Seine curved endlessly like veins around the
island heart of Paris.
The Mouse was a small woman with thin legs, big breasts,
and frightened eyes. She moved furtively, taking care of the
house boat, sometimes silently, sometimes singing a little frag-
ment of a song. Seven little notes from some folk song of
Brittany, always followed by the clashes of pots and pans.

Anaïs Nin, 1944, page Nineteen

Once I am immersed in the story and my imagination is engaged, the mode of delivery becomes irrelevant. Nin takes readers into Paris, into her houseboat, and into the strange, gentle, fearful and extraordinary lives of ordinary people - extraordinary because the quality of her writing so easily engages the imagination of the reader for whom the stories are written. Yes, I love and adore my slim, sepia-toned and deliciously history-scented 1944 copy of Under a Glass Bell, but I also value the instant gratification of getting a book delivered wirelessly to my Kindle for iPad, so I can have the reading experience I desire sooner, and cheaper, rather than later and with the environmental cost of transporting the book across country or continents. The other thing to note is that a writer like Nin today can make a book of his or her own on a computer with relative ease, publish it, market it and reach readers in a short space of time. Is it as romantic a prospect? I think it is. Anaïs Nin's story of "The Mouse" can make me cry with just as much feeling as Yiyun Li's story of "Kindness" - irrespective of form.

I can still curl up with a good book when ever I want - as I can also curl up with a book that delivers its story to me via a screen. It is really the stories which matter - Don't you agree?

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On connection and change in Education

2011-04-09T13:17:00.001+10:00

When I was researching for my PhD, I would frequently come across a book or set of essays which began with "On" something, or "Towards" something. I liked these works because they were so evidently open and in the process of becoming and evolving, never seeking to establish unique authority. This is a position I respect in academic writing, because it contributes a new voice to an area of exploration but then leaves the door open for new voices to follow. The writers are invariably of the kind I aspire to be: balanced, critically aware, passionate, and most importantly, they desire to be part of a developing narrative contributed to by others. Such voices are sadly harder to hear in many areas in which I am now spending intellectual and emotional time in the education field.

Of this "becoming" genre, one title is stuck in my imagination: Susan Stewart, "On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection". I actually came across this work when doing my Masters research into wilderness art and photography, and I can still say it was by far the most enjoyable book I read across my whole candidature, mostly because of the depth of imagination the author brought with her, and the beautiful connections she was able to so skillfully make between the objects and practices examined, and the human desires which brought those objects and practices into being.

'Longing' on it's own is a powerful word. It positively hums with associations which stimulate the human mind and body. It simultaneously carries embedded within it hopefulness and lack of fulfillment; a searching gesture towards a vision of the future, flanked by absence and uneasiness. And so it should. This is the way desire should be. This is the nature of the force which motivates people to act, choose, learn, work, love, grieve, and create. Why is it so hard for us to remember?

My major frustration at the moment, in both my work as a teacher and as someone working in an education technology integration project, is daily encounters with binary thinkers. Mostly, the frustration comes when I realize that reluctance to engage with new ideas and concepts is based on a more deep seated reluctance to look beyond one's own interests. It is both a personal failure of vision, and a failure to recognize that all individuals can, and should (if they are at all involved in delivering or receiving education) take a place on a broader canvas of human endeavour.

Put simply, I am constantly disappointed by the fact that it is so often a default position to criticize and dismiss, than to make the effort to understand how something could be engaged with creatively to further both those private interests, and the broader ones. An easy example is to read the comments on articles written about new school projects to introduce iPads, iPods and other mobile learning devices into classrooms, or to use e-book readers, or open a lecture series to a Twitter backchannel. Scorn and derision pepper the more hopeful and positive responses like bitter stains. Yes - of course there should be discussion and debate, of course divergent opinions must be heard and respected. Yet, what many of these negative voices share, in my view, is a lack of actual reflection on what positive things could be achieved by thinking creatively, and opening up a fruitful debate instead of closing it down through unexamined fear of change.

Why is it so difficult for students, and many others, to be open to seeing connections between what appear to be on first glance divergent sets of skills and concepts? Why is there such a longing for separation, isolation, and simplistic solutions? Complexity is a natural state of affairs for most intellectual disciplines, systems, institutions, and human relationships, but many still cling resolutely to the walls which can be (clumsily) built to neatly divide complexity into an illusion of simplicity.

As I've grown older and practiced reflection, the parallels between all the things which shape my personal and intellectual life have become easier to see. I actively look for these connections in my everyday life, both in my teaching with students and in my role working with teachers. But I am generally unsuccessful in communicating the benefits such an ability to see connections can bring, and I now think I know why.

It's more than simply fear of change or laziness which prevents some people from seeing more creatively. Among my younger students, it's usually simply a lack of experience of seeing how seemingly divergent concepts, contexts and disciplines can intersect and overlap. Here is a fundamental role teachers at all levels need to fulfill: enabling students to actively transfer the skills they gain in a particular course across the curriculum.1

For older people, reluctance to look at what benefits both change and collaboration can bring are more complex - but they will never be convinced by being told to do so by someone else. Professionals need to see the benefits of change for themselves, and if possible they need to be the creators and managers of their own change: not the followers of someone else's vision. Professionals don't really appreciate being students again. As a professional teacher I see this: my frustrations come when some refuse to even look, and reject the opportunities to lead or participate due to myriad possible reasons which I can never hope to fully appreciate, or influence.

This realization should free me up somewhat, and I should feel less responsibility for those voices of dissent. Potentially, transferring more responsibility to others can empower me to articulate a stronger sense of the collective vision, and enable others to shape change according to their own visions. I say 'potentially' with a sense of longing - I want this freedom to express, but it's not quite there. I long for a clear sense of path and purpose, but shadows will always cloud the way. Without the challenge a struggle brings, desire to achieve and longing for fulfillment will fade from view. We all need to keep struggling, and thus to keep learning and 'becoming' something else.

I don't always want to admit it, but, this is the way it should be.

1. For an excellent article on this, see Dara Rossman Regaignon, 'Traction. Transferring Analysis Across the Curriculum.' Pedagogy Vol 9, 1, 2009.

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Location:In Flux.

Teaching with iPads: Beyond the Shiny Surface

2011-03-06T14:44:00.001+11:00

I have to admit right up front that I am not disinterested in seeing the very positive aspects of teaching students with mobile technology - and iPads in particular. My role as an Education Technology Manager in an iPad Project needs me to be an advocate for the investment in time, money and resources so far expended. But before I took on this role, I was teaching Literature to nine different tutorial groups of English language learners a week, and I used my iPad in almost every class - sometimes frequently, other times not at all. If you are interested in reading more about this pilot, look at the blog, and the recent report on the six month pilot, here.

My use of the iPad in the classroom has been wholly dependent on the learning task I have designed. It is never just about using the technology, and any good teacher will tell you that about any learning technology. The number of times I have read negative comments from people on blogs, and in response to positive articles about iPads in classrooms, arguing that the iPad is just a shiny toy deployed by Apple to take over the world, are not comments from teachers who have actually made a good effort to teach with one.

Here are five of the top reasons I love teaching with the iPad, and just a note, we have a reliable dedicated WiFi network for the iPads at our college.

1. It is a fantastic creation tool. This blog post is being written in a garden, while I am lying on a daybed. No cords, no keyboard or mouse, just me and the iPad - music is playing through the iPod app. I have gotten used to the virtual keyboard, and can produce long pieces of work with it. After I've posted this blog, I'm going to review and refine the Keynote presentation for my poetry classes for this week.

2. The display out feature on to TV screens and projectors enables me to work with and annotate text with a stylus in real time, with apps like GoodReader and AirSketch. I can make it all visible to students on the classroom screen. I can also invite students to do annotations to text. This would work well in the Maths and science classroom as well - inviting student groups to collaborate to solve problems in front of the class, or design their own problems for other students to solve. We should enable our students to be teachers too.

3. The ability to show offline videos within apps and browsers,
prevents the buffering problem of online viewing. This saves time, fuss and anxiety. If I know I can show the part of the video I want offline, I can be more relaxed, and be a happier teacher. Moving images - not solely the moving mouth of the teacher - keep students engaged.

4. The iPad works well on Wireless networks. I can go online and show real-time news and events. I can demonstrate Internet research skills, and pass the iPad around to groups so they can look up resources to complete their learning activities. If the wireless becomes problematic, my 3G network will take over and the class can continue. Try doing that easily with a Netbook!! I pay for my own 3G, but a hotspot could also be a solution.

5. Everything I need is at my fingertips. Dropbox to transfer files, emails, class handouts, the Moodle LMS, articles I've saved to plan activities, photos, videos, music. The ease with which I can extend a discussion which eventuates by finding some images to help with visualizing concepts, means class time can be dynamic; responsive to where the students are at, and not chained to a set and structured timetable driven entirely by me.

"BUT," I hear the negative voices already saying, "we can do all that with a laptop". My answer is, "but why would you choose a laptop when you can use an iPad?" They're cheaper to buy, easier to maintain, require less IT intervention, no virus software to update, and have a 3G option. I haven't even mentioned the huge added dimension of the 1:1 iPad classroom. These top five teaching benefits apply just to a teacher with a first generation iPad - imagine how much more dynamic it can be in a 1:1 environment, and with a second or third generation iPad. I'll let you know.

My interests at the moment are concerned with enabling and supporting over seventy teachers to exploit the iPad's features, and enhance the learning experiences of their students. But the benefits for a teacher who actively looks for ways to streamline his or her work practices, administration tasks, and personal learning strategies are reason enough.

We have chosen to go with iPads, for reasons laid out in our report. However a Galaxy Tab or equivalent Android based tablet might well do all these things too. I'd be interested to hear from teachers using these devices in the classroom.

Photo: Trinity College, University of Melbourne.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Thoughts on Combining Technology Integration for Educators with Primary Research

2011-01-30T16:24:00.000+11:00

I have recently begun a new role in my college as an Education Technology Manager - an opportunity I attribute to discerning "following" decisions on Twitter and some timely post-grad study (as well as luck: the previous incumbent left). Naturally, I find myself continuously engaged with ideas about how to combine the grass-roots kind of constructivist philosophy I believe should shape learning, with my academic need to research everything. As I wrote in my previous post I am deeply interested in an approach to engaging educators in professional development which involves cultivating a meta-awareness of transferring constructivist practice from learning to teaching. The focus is not on technology tools, but on the pedagogy shaping the architecture of learning. The important question is, how can these new tools help to more effectively bring to life the ever-evolving designs of education?

What is the nature of this constructivist professional development I am talking about? Well, read my previous post. Briefly, it aims to make the focus of professional development for educators their own teaching experiences and circumstances - instead of some abstract IT agenda derived from ad hoc and disconnected imperatives determined by what new software applications are out or the latest social media trends. Just like the learners in our lectures and tutorials - particularly in the higher education environment - social context is a key determining factor in engaging learners and enabling them to practice and apply their learning in real contexts that will shape them into worthwhile human beings, and coincidentally enhance their future careers. (Swap these outcomes according to your personal philosophies).

This is not an original idea by any means. I am always reading new articles and interesting blog posts from educators like Bill Ferriter, and education technology research specialists like David Wedaman, who see the parallels between engaging students through learner-centred activities, and designing professional development for educators. If learning experiences aren't relevant for the participants it will be un-engaging and a waste of their time. The insights and interests of educators needs to be the foundation of their professional development. Those among us who take responsibility for our own professional development would hardly follow leads, attend conferences and read articles which were not relevant to our circumstances and interests. The same fundamentals should underlie design for broader audiences.

However, it isn't that easy to find out what teachers and lecturers need - especially if they don't think they need anything. My own students in Literature classes often ask me what is the relevance of Literature: "why do we have to study it?" they wail. "We aren't going to be literary critics." Literature is a core subject at my college because of the opportunities it provides to read, write, critically analyse texts and discuss new ideas in groups - all skills which the international students we teach will need when they enter an Australian University. So, whether they realise it or not, the benefits they will get will serve them in the future. But if they are wailing, its a signal I need to make my classes more interesting, relevant and engaging. (See posts below on this.) Can the same be said for educators embarking on new adventures in technology?

I recognise the uneasy tension in this analogy when applied to professional development for educators. You can't patronise professionals by "telling them what they need". Nothing would switch them off faster. But equally, if they are unaware of what's out there - what other institutions, schools and training environment are doing to engage learners and improve relevance and satisfaction - they might never know what's possible. This is where research becomes essential. I see tremendous value in combining information provision with researching the circumstances and needs of those for whom the information is provided. It should be a two-way design that never undermines the autonomy of professionals - as indeed, it should not undermine the experiences, expertise and knowledge of our young learners.

What I also really want to do while in the role I now have, is to plan now to explore beyond the two-way flow of need and information / need and application in designing professional development, and promote a meta-awareness about transferring constructivist experiences from learning to teaching contexts. So, my proposal in my previous post about educators perhaps being "inspired enough" and seeing "sufficient incentive, (might) take responsibility for their own learning and then feel motivated to share that learning with their colleagues" is the foundation I want to cultivate. On this constructivist foundation, can pedagogy and its technological tools build new flexible learning architectures?

To test if such an eventuality is possible, I will be designing and conducting a longitudinal research project on this issue with a senior colleague in our unique teaching and learning context. Is this too idealistic? Would the active intentionality I have negate findings? What do you think?

Students (and teachers) as Creators of Knowledge with new Educational Technology

2010-12-30T16:27:00.001+11:00

A reflection on Mike Neary's "Student as Producer: A Pedagogy for the avant-garde: or, how do revolutionary teachers teach?"

As a tertiary teacher I'm not quite sure why it took me so long to think about pedagogy. My excuse, as I've admitted to myself and others, is that I was not trained to be a teacher while studying for my Ph.D, and not many post-graduates who choose to, or are fortunate enough to remain in academia (depending on your point of view) are given the opportunity to formalise a teaching qualification while taking undergraduate classes on low pay, and further delaying submission day. But I'm thinking a lot about it now, especially as the tides of change have finally rolled in to the safe harbour of my place of employment, and past ways of teaching students seem to be on the way out. An article by McLoughlin and Lee, 2008, really raised my awareness of this issue. See references below.

This change was discomfiting, and is still as the changes are moving relatively slowly for some sections of the tertiary sector. I'm not particularly interested in engaging in a debate with myself about what I imagine my colleagues must think of this change, but would gladly have it with colleagues in person. What I'm interested in is affirming for myself an anchor point - something relatively stable which resides just outside the artifice of negotiating with the hard and soft skills of mastering new technology. This anchor point is the philosophy which shapes the educational experiences I design for my students: it is the pedagogy which guides the way I deliver a curriculum. Without this, all the workshops on effectively using the LMS, and integrating forum posts and online quizzes into classes are just so much hot, gusty, and irritating wind generated from who knows, and who cares where. Without a base of fundamental beliefs about the value of what is being taught, the winds of technological and social change can easily blow you off course.

The pedagogical approach which has most interest for me is constructivism. Students work on real world, open ended problems with the guidance of an instructor, and build original knowledge from the application of principles and theories to these problems. (I plan to look at this in more applied contexts soon). "Vygotsky argues that teaching begins from the student's experience in a particular social context. Pushing that notion to the extreme of it's radical logic, he suggests that the social context must be arranged by the teacher so that the student teaches themselves (sic)" (Neary). There is a progressive politics at the heart of Vygotsky's constructivism - one that "place(s) the student in the role of 'investigator who is out to establish a particular truth and whom the teacher only guides' " (Vygotsky, 1997).

The approach is empowering but on its own could be co-opted into a number of philosophical positions, including the pragmatic student-as-consumer position. Crudely expressed, from this position, if the subject material isn't directly useful for assisting students to pass their exams and be industry ready graduates then it is largely redundant. Deeper knowledge about the history of a discipline and the evolving patterns of its influences on the world, and the world's influence in it, can be sacrificed to the imperatives of feeding graduates into the "industry". Bypassing the opportunity to expose students to the (evolving and changing) philosophical roots, and the particular 'logic' of a discipline (Entwistle) is to send them into their futures under prepared, and potentially ill equipped to maintain themselves as responsive and responsible workers and world citizens.

Should idealism give way to pragmatism in the twenty-first century? Is it redundant idealism to consider that university should be an experience to shape citizens as much as it shapes workers? There is much written about the changing cultures of higher-education and the growing requirement for educators to meet students where they are assumed to be - firmly entrenched in Web 2.0 social networks and fluent in digital relations. But there is a tendency to read this powerful imperative as also consisting of a call to abandon pedagogy as a practical philosophy, and rely on the technology alone to function as a democratiser and a reliable inspiration for creative engagement. I think this alarmist, polarised reading is often made by those who are compelled to confront technological change, rather than having come to it by personal curiosity or sought after opportunity. Technology is not available to all, nor is it utilised wisely by all. There are still vital roles for educators in advancing pedagogy - one of the basic being an obligation to raise awareness of the larger social, environmental and political contexts in which students will eventually apply their learning as workers. Now more than ever - simply because it is now - the time is right for exposing students to the broader contexts which a critical pedagogy can make visible.

Mike Neary from the Centre for Educational Research and Development at the University of Lincoln, presents his centre's work on 'Student as Producer' as part of a pedagogy for the avant-garde derived from the work of Walter Benjamin and Lev Vygotsky. See article here. The kind of Avant-garde Marxism with which Benjamin advocated went beyond issues of means of production or a stated commitment to progressive social values. The way work was enacted and products produced should reflect 'the ways in which the social relations of capitalist society might be transformed' (Neary). Benjamin's work suggests to Neary that in education, students needed to be the subject, not the object, of instruction and learning. Intellectual labour - the production of knowledge - should not be confined to the instructor as imparter of wisdom, but part of the learning processes undertaken by students.

Vygotsky's approach to education briefly touched on above, is one of 'social learning' - where 'not only the individual student will be transformed, but ... the nature and character of the social will be remade' (Neary). Students must strive to push past the prescribed limits of set tasks and achieve more than their current educational levels seem to allow. This puts students in the position of being able to produce and collaborate in knowledge creation, not simply receive or consume. The ambition of the 'Student as producer' project is to disturb the business as usual approach to university teaching, and the average expectations which align with learning outcomes. Instead, an environment of 'open-ended' exploration and problem solving needs to be cultivated.

The broader vision Neary articulates in his paper - like Benjamin's and Vygotsky's visions - is potentially transformative and idealistic. It's not necessary for idealism to give way to pragmatism in this case, because idealism is pragmatic if it ultimately prevents social and environmental catastrophe. Yet perhaps without the institutional framework of a major philosophical project like Neary's, the ambitions of individual teachers or departments can further the philosophy but be rather less lofty. I started this commentary with the goal of trying to affirm for myself an anchor point from where I could negotiate the task of mastering new technology, and acclimatise to changing higher education cultures, without risking losing my sense of being valuable as an educator. The technology itself can ironically help with this goal, an idea which nicely mirrors, I think, Vygotsky's socially-embedded constructivism.

Learning happens within the social context, and today's social contexts are expanding in unexpected and rapid ways. However, knowledge about older ways of thinking and knowing are well documented, and also deeply embedded in the teaching ideologies of many university instructors. As tides shift, it's not necessary to abandon and devalue past ways of understanding the world, or the deeper historical roots of disciplinary knowledge. Rather, it should be considered as an important foundation upon which to build newer pedagogical approaches; or indeed older approaches if you recognise the early twentieth-century contexts of Benjamin's and Vygotsky's theories. It only requires a shift of perspective to see new technology and networked learning as an opportunity instead of a barrier.

The greatest opportunity I think new educational technology challenges offer educators is the chance to become learners once more, and model in their learning the constructivist principles they might want to cultivate in their students (McLoughlin and Lee, 2008). What better way is there to become aware of the mechanics of constructivism, than to participate in an ongoing group endeavour such as developing new learning activities, redesigning curriculum, and collaborating with colleagues to refresh course materials for the new learning environments technology involvement will require? I can't think of one. It's perfect.

Teachers with decades of experience probably don't want to go back to school and be lectured about how to teach, especially by someone with less experience. But they might, if they are inspired enough and can identify sufficient incentive, take responsibility for their own learning, and then feel motivated to share that learning with their colleagues. This is a necessary first step to precede involving students in similar constructive learning opportunities.

I'm planning to research the potential of this theory in 2011. Stay tuned for updates.

Entwistle, Noel. (2010) Teaching for Understanding at University. Deep Approaches and Distinctive Ways of Thinking. Palgrave Macmillan, London

McLoughlin, Catherine & Lee, Mark. J. W. 'The Three P's of Pedagogy for the Networked Society: Personalization, Participation, and Productivity.' International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. 2008, Volume 20, Number 1, 10-27.

Neary, Mike. (2010) 'Student as Producer: A Pedagogy for the avant-garde: or, how do revolutionary teachers teach?' Learning Exchange, Vol 1, No 1 (2010)
http://learningexchange.westminster.ac.uk/index.php/lej/article/view/15

Vygotsky, Lev. (1997) Education Psychology St Lucie Press, Boca Raton, Florida.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Book Review - Whatever Happened to Modernism? Gabriel Josipovici

2010-12-28T17:20:00.000+11:00

This blog is a temporary home for the following review.

What Ever Happened to Modernism? by Gabriel Josipovici,
Yale University Press, 2010

Reading this book over several months was not long enough. I took advantage of the requirement to concentrate this book demands to breathe slowly and allow myself to re read and re read again Josipovici's carefully crafted phrasing. To take on this book requires a certain appreciation for the historical and persistent presence of modernism in literature and art. Josipovici does not take his readers through a mundane history of modernist literature. Rather, he draws them seductively and skilfully into certain key moments within certain creative struggles by certain writers, and asks them to enjoy with him the particular pleasure, and pain, of uncertainty.

It is the complex and terrible beauty of these moments that, once recognised for their intangibility, assume for Josipovici the essence of the modernist project - or rather, it's necessary crisis. He strains towards each successive articulation with the same sense of yearning for the words to express the inexpressible employed by the writers whose work he explores. But where modern writers sought to render visible the alienation and suffering of a single character, or of a whole generation, Josipovici seeks to explain why the modernist project was, and is still, the benchmark of worthwhile art.

The uncertainties modernist writers and artists articulated in their work were not easily expressed, nor easily accepted by critics, or, indeed, by the writers themselves. Kafka wrote to Max Brod about his work in 1909: 'each word, even before letting itself be put down, has to look round on every side' and 'the phrases positively fall apart in my hands' (4). This uncertainty, even fearfulness about expression is partly what gives the works discussed in this book their essentially modernist credentials.

To understand modernism one must understand what came before. The modern is only modern in relation to it's predecessor. Josipovici quotes Roland Barthes: 'to be modern is to know that which is not possible anymore' (139). If one cannot stay still or go back - if history or the loss of certainty or fascism or emptiness of spirit or pain cannot be borne - one must go forward. But into what? What if there is no language for the future? What if the ways words have been arranged in the past no longer fulfil the needs of the present? Then one is silenced. Or one struggles to speak in a new as yet unknown language.

A major aspect of what Josipovici describes as the crisis of modernism is this lack of reliable means modern artists and writers have to express their helplessness. In whichever era 'the modern' can be argued to exist - anywhere from the Renaissance to World War Two and beyond - the common thread is the fading away of some former means of certainty in expressing an understanding about the world. When the modern emerges, traditions, old world orders and religious certainties have been swept away by tides of enlightenment thinking, science, humanism: new ways of thinking and acting. The modern also has to grapple with the vacuum left by that which has been lost or surpassed. The modern artist comes to see "A universe for the first time bereft of all signposts" (92). Josipovici explores how modern artists, writers and composers - like Mallarme, Wallace Stevens, Samuel Beckett, Kafka, Picasso, and Stravinsky - seek for a new voice to express the experience of a new, signless time with images or sounds that had not been seen or heard before. This is what makes modern art the opposite of "Art" as a recognisable category. It cannot help but be original in its moment of creation as it is born out of a unique experience of struggle. Josipovici argues strongly that modern art does not depict the struggle for a path through the new array of choice born from the loss of old certainties - but that it IS the struggle. It doesn't represent life - it is itself alive.

For me, the most powerful connection Josipovici makes to illustrate this vitality is that between the crisis of modernism and the philosophical writing of Soren Kierkegaard. By first linking this nineteenth century religious thinker with another famous Dane, Hamlet, we get a sense of the role Kierkegaard's work will play. The plethora of choices available to a young intellectual in a world of crumbling certainties can lead to melancholy and inaction (43). The crisis of modernism for Kierkegaard was anxiety: 'Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom' (44). So many possibilities were made available by the loss of tradition, but it was equally anxiety-making to be floating so freely, no longer guided by the past. But to be harnessed to the chains of tradition, repetition of past patterns and the certainties of a responsible life was to be swallowed up by necessity. Thus, Kierkegaard says 'necessity's despair is to lack possibility'. Josipovici then reminds readers of the companion dialectic which the crisis of modernism evokes: 'possibility's despair is to lack necessity' (46). In between these positions, as between all the tensions which make up the fabric of modernism, lies the abyss.

Josipovici only looks briefly at Lawrence, but when I consider the tensions at the heart of this book, I'm reminded of a passage from Lawrence's novel St Mawh. The well to do daughter in the story who regularly goes out to ride her horse, St Mawh, is suddenly overcome with the boredom and futility of her petty existence, and she pleads to her mother: 'I've got to live. And the thing that is offered me as life just starves me, starves me to death. Mother ... I want the wonder back again, or I shall die'. When all that is left to an artist, writer or musician is to mimic his or her predecessors, to rehash the old ways, there is no life in the enterprise. It is a dead thing. The voices of modernist artists aimed to articulate this loss of traditional certainty, to grieve for it at the same time as they tried to formulate a phrase to express what might lie beyond. They reach back as they reach forward across the abyss which surrounds them, and their art is the expression of this suspended, trembling moment.

There might well be readers of this book for whom Josipovici's later chapters, complaining about the unoriginality of contemporary realist fiction writers, will be viewed as unfair perfectionism. But to Josipovici, gritty realism can drift easily into an impoverished spirit closed to possibility, and cynically predisposed to distrust romanticism of all kinds: 'All of them ultimately come out of Philip Larkin's overcoat' he opines (174). The Britons are marked out for particular scorn as anti-European and tending towards philistinism, but Josipovici owns his partiality proudly. For him, most realist fiction is distanced from intensity and immediacy. It is mere repetition lacking in courage.

When we stand in a gallery before a painting in the modern tradition and ask ourselves, maybe derisively, 'but what does it mean?' that moment of incomprehension is the meaning. It is alive because of it's inchoate quality. Our confusion in some ways mirrors the abyss the artist confronts in his or her effort to be heard and understood. When Prufrock says 'I have heard the mermaids singing each to each, I do not think that they will sing to me,' Josipovici remarks that 'because they weren't singing to him, he is in the unenviable position of having to live with the sense that what would give meaning to his life is there, but just out of earshot' (126). The paintings on the walls whisper together, but we can't make out the conversation unless we take the time to open ourselves to doubt, and to possibility. The modern is expression born and articulated on the edge, turning regretfully away from the loss of certainty, while straining towards something still out of reach. Thus it sings, and shimmers, and lives.

The Joy of Stats - Fantastic Video just for the sake of it

2010-12-19T14:21:00.000+11:00

The Joy of Stats - Infographics

A Teacher's Experiences of being a Distance Learning student

2010-12-15T17:22:00.000+11:00

I'm just about half way through my final unit of a Graduate Certificate in Tertiary Teaching, a course delivered through Open Universities Australia. I do have a Ph.D, but it didn't take me long after my first horrifying weeks of teaching undergraduates, back in 2005, to realise that I was not really a very good teacher. I know a lot of people would never actually admit this to themselves. I've got more years under my belt now, but I still have much to learn about designing and delivering good programs to my students.

The final assignment of the course is to redesign one of our currently taught programs as a distance education course - a task I am as yet unsure how to tackle. But first things first - What am I making of the experience of being simultaneously a University level teacher, and a student - again?

There is much chatter in the Twitterverse among educators in the United States and Canada - Australian and British teachers only pop up now and again in my timeline - about the growing potential of distance, or e-learning. At the moment, everyone is excited, or disappointed, about whether their proposals were accepted for the upcoming conference of the International Society for Technology in Education, in Philadelphia. If I wasn't tapped into this social network, I now realise, I would be terribly ignorant about what is going on and changing in my own profession. Academic journals just don't get one excited about change!!

I do feel that much of this current interest in e-learning has to do with a general embracing of technology as an enhancement for more conventional classroom activities. There is research by respected scholars to support the trend towards engaging with learners through computer technology, and through social media which is supported by mobile devices. See for example the wonderful recent edited collection by Ulf-Daniel Ehlers and Dirk Schneckenberg - Changing Cultures in Higher Education, which goes way beyond the growing impact of technology in higher education contexts, and engages with questions of how education policy, organisational culture, technological development and globalised knowledge intersect to stimulate innovation, and direct change.

Not only learners are being swept up in a second, or third, wave of technology change, but educators themselves are enhancing their teaching practices by engaging with a wider network of professionals through the ease of access brought by mobile devices and social media. The world of e-learning is itself a diverse mixture of platforms, offering potential to all participants in the education landscape - not just students. This shouldn't be forgotten. Making a teacher's or an administrator's job easier, more enjoyable, streamlining administration tasks and enabling ease of communication with students and colleagues, cannot be underestimated. But there is substantial resistance among both teachers and students.

On a side note - so far I haven't printed out any course materials. I uploaded all the course modules and readings to my dropbox using my desktop computer. Then I opened the files from dropbox using the Noterize application on my iPad. I read the course notes, highlighted important sections with my stylus pen, made notes for my blog posts, and posted my blog posts to the LMS all from my iPad. I'm writing my assignment in Pages. I can do it in a coffee shop, if I want to.

Of course, more pragmatic reasons for the growing interest in e-learning is to enable wider, and more equitable access to quality education, and to expand the horizons of once place and culture bound classrooms and lecture theatres. The course I am doing is administered from Perth, Australia. It's students are located in many Australian cities, and other countries - mostly from South Asia. I really value this diversity, and the contributions made by the participants on the discussion board this term about their experiences as teachers in disciplines very different to my own, have been invaluable for me as I negotiate the readings and tackle the assessment tasks.

It wasn't always this good, however. This is the first time out of the four units I've done since 2008, where discussion posts made up a substantial component of the assessment. I can't begin to explain how much better the experience is, when participants are actually participating. You would think that as both adults, and teachers - presumably highly motivated individuals - these educators would be keen to share their thoughts and experiences on a discussion board. But no - when given the option, most would choose to lurk silently. Several people posting on the Welcome and Introductions module expressed fears and anxieties about making public their thoughts and ideas to their fellow students. I don't have the same fears now - but I did when I thought that what I might say could be seen as ignorant, or unimportant, by what I imagined were more experienced people who would judge me as a novice.

What I now know is that I could have learned from those more experienced teachers. As a more experienced teacher now myself, I am somewhat relieved to find that I am still lacking in substantial ways, and that other teachers who might see me as experienced, have much to teach me.

When I try to transfer this insight to designing a distance-education course for students, the one thing which strikes me hardest, is to be cognizant of the anxieties many people feel about being publicly exposed. I don't think this is a reason NOT to make discussion board posts, or blogs, or flip-cam movies or voice threads, compulsory. Rather, this challenging aspect of distance education - which is to expose yourself to and engage with others - could be more highly rewarded. And yet, there are inevitably students who sit silently all term in our face to face classes. This doesn't mean they aren't engaged and learning, however. One thing e-learning, or distance learning has going for it, is that there are diverse ways the shy and the anxious can engage, such as sending blog post directly to the instructor, rather than to the LMS. I don't believe students should be compelled to be exposed - but definitely encouraged.

Building in flexible options for participation is easier in an on-line program. This is one of the strengths of more general kinds of e-learning, and a good argument for why higher-education needs to embrace change, innovation, and recognise that not all learners (or all lecturers / professors) have the same needs, or the same levels of comfort, within this second or third-wave of change.

Involving Faculty in Pedagogy - Modeling Constructivism

2010-11-23T09:17:00.000+11:00

As part of my constructivist agenda, I have been aiming high and trying to get the staff at my college to participate in, and generate our own professional development. See my post from where I spoke at the Staff Conference about Trends in International Pedagogy, in September.

One of the things I am doing with the generous assistance of an energetic and enthusiastic colleague, and a fabulous Educational IT person, is building a Wiki for staff from all departments across the college to participate in. I'm hoping at least some of the nearly one hundred academic staff will want to help construct the Wiki. Here's what it looks like.

It was important for the Wiki to be both aesthetically attractive, and easy to use. The name, Volta, was a brain wave of my colleague - a way to bring together the arts and sciences disciplines. It tells participants that

"This Wiki is a resource for sharing ideas, resources, research, classroom practice and pedagogy. Our broad aim is to foster interdisciplinary appreciation and collaboration, and to cultivate an intellectual community of scholars."

We announced it's "Activation" at the last All Staff Meeting, and showed staff through some of the most enticing pages, including: Book Reviews, Useful Teaching Resources, Our Research Interests, Worth Reading, Informative education Blogs, Wiki's and Twitter feeds / groups (including #mathchat and #edchat), Ideas Forum, Philosophy and Literature. Also, importantly, there is much there to look at and laugh about. Hopefully this will entice the more reluctant ones to at least look

All academic staff in the program have been invited to take part, and I will let you know how it goes. The wiki is, however, restricted to academics in our college. If there is no interest, I will try and find out why. I've had a few emails to say, "Well Done" - and "about time someone did this" but no participants yet. I wish I could set up a counter (will have to see if the IT person has an idea how to do this). Must give them time to finish marking exams, I guess... I'm impatient!!

My hope is that, being "grass roots" rather than administered from above, there will be some people who want to take part. It certainly has support on many levels, but will people make the effort? Do teachers really want to take part in evolving a resource which enhances our own professional development, and improves the learning experiences of our students at the same time?

Time will tell. It's the end of the semester, and it's winding down time. I have hopes, though.

Culturally Responsive Story Choices - Evaluation with students' voices

2010-11-21T11:57:00.001+11:00

Well, I've had some time to read the short essays from my class, and reflect on the success, or otherwise, of the task. I have some very positive reflections about the value of the exercise overall - and in particular, the positive effects of including of a slideshow of visual images; the constructive elements of my earlier 'looking behind / below a word" exercise, and finally, the value of the exercise in terms of discovering my students prior knowledge (or lack of it) as the case may be.

Ironically, I'm really excited by my own failure to choose a story they would all understand.

The essays themselves were a mixed bag. The students who came to the last tutorial before the holidays, to engage in discussion, and receive the handout where I gave a suggested outline of things to discuss, generally produced clearer writing, and communicated more effectively. The handout justifies the suggested structure with reference to the elements of longer essay writing in Literature with which the students will soon need to become familiar. I reduced this structure to three or four very short paragraphs.

Introduce your theme / topic / (in this case 'image'.)
Indicate some places in the text where this image occurs (quotes and evidence).
Give your impressions of what purpose the image has in conveying the "deeper" meaning (from looking behind a word).
Close with a sentence suggesting an overall meaning for the role of the image in the story.

The students who didn't come to the last tutorial, struggled to structure their work effectively, and generally had a hard time linking back to the earlier exercise of looking behind an image, to this new story context. Those who did, and who referred carefully to the examples I gave using another key image from the story, wrote much more usefully about their chosen image.

No surprises there. The written work tells me a lot. However, I wasn't satisfied with only evaluating the written work. I wanted to hear from the students how they had approached their task, and some of the positive and negatives they could identify. This feedback, when combined with assessment of the writing, was infinitely more useful for my evaluation purposes than writing alone.

Employing the Ipad app Audionote for Evaluating student work

As the owner of a new Apple iPad, I am particularly keen to explore ways I can use it in my work - both to enhance my students' learning experiences, and to make my own teaching, administration, and professional development activities more effective, and enjoyable. In our first class back this term, I invited each of my ten students to consider some questions about their writing task - how they approached it, what they struggled with, what they learned - and jot down some notes. Then I sat with each student, and recorded their responses using the Audionote application.

As each student spoke, I typed their name on the note 'paper,' so that I could easily find each students' response on my recording. I could then listen back to the responses when I was reading their essays. Short notes can be added in afterwards, to jog my memory about certain issues. It is a great way to add supplementary detail about students' responses, areas of difficulty, and strengths.

I fully realise that this strategy might be great for this small class, but my regular teaching timetable brings over one hundred students into my classes each week, and the challenges might be more substantial. However, the potential is exciting. What I was able to gain from it was interesting and useful feedback from students about the challenges they faced.

Listening to the students responses before I read their work was illuminating. I learned that several students in the class had little or no knowledge,let alone understanding, of religion, and that this factor severely limited their appreciation of one of the story's major themes. Even with the three tutorials of discussion and analysis, this concept hindered a deeper understanding.

I learned that the slideshow of images I made was highly effective at helping several students to "see" the connections made in the story between the main character, the underlying theme of lost traditions in an ancient culture, and between the repeating images which all intersected and built up a powerful aesthetic. It allowed them to see in to a foreign world, using images to which they could relate, simply because the work of imagination was done for them.

Putting the images, words, and meaning together in a piece of written work, however, is something they need to learn to do on their own, with support. I feel rather pleased that the challenge was high enough that many difficulties were able to come to light. It is easy to be complacent about what we think our students know, or should know, but if we bothered to find out, we can help them to help themselves fill in the blanks. They are such vulnerable things, I've come to appreciate.

Culturally responsive story choices

2010-10-28T10:22:00.000+11:00

My Anxiety.

It's the end of first term for my experimental Literature class, and I'm taking a moment to reflect on how I think it went. The students have been assigned a writing task over their holidays (they voted for this option themselves) and I literally have no idea what things will come back to me in two weeks time.

I must confess I'm not feeling positive. For all my ambitions to make the classes accessible, relaxed, and open in many respects for students to engage and learn in creative ways, only half the class turned up on the last day to get their assignment, and to engage with the preparatory writing activities I had worked hard to develop for them.

Sometimes I reflect that my approach might well be counter-productive. Am I going too slowly? Are the texts too difficult despite my efforts to find ones which I felt would enable these particular students to feel their way in to the ideas more easily? I'm trying to locate the "average" zone of proximal development for these students. After seeing their presentations, I got a much better sense of what they might be able to understand. The challenge is for them to translate that understanding into a written piece, in an unfamiliar discipline, in a second language. I really don't know what that's like.

The Students' Anxieties

The assignment isn't the usual argumentative essay assigned to the general cohort. I'm building on the basis I've tried to establish. Here is a word - an idea lies behind it - and an image may also be conjured (out of imagination or cyberspace) to fill in the ambiguities.

I think this is easy enough in everyday discourse: the complication comes when the word is located in a context where meaning is not immediately evident - such as in a story. To ease the strangeness which my other students have reported feeling when confronted with a literary text in English, I chose one which was, in my view, both accessible and meaningful. The story I chose has a contemporary Indonesian setting, and tells a story which goes from the present to the past, and back to the present. The visual, auditory, and sensual images which supported the story were vivid, and had clear connotations - at least, I thought so (I might well be wrong, and will be pleased to understand the difficulty). The subject matter is contemporary, relevant to a growing proportion of the world's young people, and had multiple levels of possible engagement for the students' varied abilities.

The task is to write 400-500 words on the role of one of the repeating images in the story. What is the image? How is it described? What is the role the image plays? How does the image contribute to the overall meaning of the story? Many in the group have expressed anxiety and concern that they won't be able to write well enough - mainly based on their lack of experience, or past efforts in literature in their home countries. "But this is just a preparatory, non-assessed course," I remind them. "Don't worry so much." Strained, fearful faces peer back at me - half terrified, half amused.

If you are interested to read the rather wonderful 1500 word story being studied, "The Pilgrimage" by Tim Hannigan, you can see it here at Indonesiamatters.com.

http://www.indonesiamatters.com/6576/short-stories/#pilgrimage

A slide show of images accompanied my presentation of the story to the class. You can look at it on Slideshare. I aimed to find location credits for the pictures, and have author/publisher permissions. The excerpts are from "The Pilgrimage," by Tim Hannigan (Timdog).

http://www.slideshare.net/jennmelb/pale-ghosts

When I get the assignments back, I'll have a grounds more relative than this reflection to base evaluation upon. Stay tuned.

2010-10-17T18:08:00.000+11:00

Noel Entwistle - Teaching for Understanding at University.
Deep Approaches and Distinctive Ways of Thinking

Publication Details

This book has had a profound impact on my recent reflections about my teaching approaches. Entwistle's focus is higher education, and there is much here to interest educators from diverse disciplines. Beginning from an understanding that the twenty-first century is ushering in unprecedented change in terms of global interconnectivity, Entwistle writes, "Increasingly, knowledge acquired at University can be no more than a springboard for coping with change and complexity in everyday life and the workplace." p1.

What really appealed to me about the book is an argument emphasising the need to identify and work with your subject's "inner logic" as well as the particular pedagogy to support it. "Effective university teaching thus depends on establishing a relationship between the specific subject content and the ways in which students are helped to engage with the ideas, so as to develop their own understanding" p3.

Short "bridges" connect chapters, linking the various discussions neatly. There are sections on 'How Students Learn', exploring educational psychology, learning styles, motivation and personality; 'The Nature of Academic Understanding', examining the conceptual basis of various disciplines (engineering, biological sciences, history, media); two chapters on 'How Academics Teach', and 'Research'; and also planning and designing curriculum and assessment to support student deep learning and understanding.

Student voices are included throughout - the author having sought out students' responses and evaluations of various pedagogical approaches. These sections are illuminating, reminding the educator-readers that there are end users whose opinions of our work matter. What educators think students need to know is only part of the new higher education landscape. Expository practices - the lecturer holding court with students as passive receivers - are out of style. Inspiring educators to create 'powerful learning environments' is the ambition of Entwistle's book. How to do this?

Provide authentic, open problems with learning materials in a variety of formats designed to make connections with students' previous knowledge and interests.
Use teaching methods which arouse interest, activate prior knowledge, clarify meanings and model appropriate thinking strategies and reflective processes.
Specify learning strategies in detail to provide scaffolding, with the guidance then gradually removed to encourage subsequent self-regulation of studying.
Encourage students to monitor their own strategies and discuss these with other students, to provide a classroom culture that encourages reflection on process. (p 105)

Well worth investigating.

Presentations in Lit class

2010-10-15T16:35:00.000+11:00

In my second last post, I described the visit to the computer lab I made with my small student group. Their task: to look behind / below / around a word, idea or phrase. The groups had to then "teach" the rest of the class what they had found, and the groups watching and listening were invited to comment, question, evaluate the information imparted for its communication value.

The words / ideas / phrases chosen by the students themselves were:
1. Studying overseas 2. Cloning 3. Shake

To say I was impressed by the variety and quality of what these students presented is an understatement. Maybe it was because I have never done anything like this in my usual teaching, (where I have eight classes of fifteen students once a week) that the novelty and creativity of the activity made such an impression. I'm struggling to think of how I can do similar things with over a hundred students. Next year, there might well be WiFi enabled iPads in the hands of each student, if the pilot program our college has under way is a success.

The group looking at studying overseas produced a fantastic slideshow, with a story at the heart of it - a Chinese girl coming to Australia to study, and finding dilemmas and challenges in her way, to be overcome. This group showed in their presentation familiarity with the narrative arc of story telling, introduction, complication, climax, dénouement. I learned something important about my students' knowledge which I would perhaps not have uncovered so effectively, if I had just asked the group what they knew about story telling. Enabling them to "show" me, teach others, and share their ideas, brought this important piece of information the whole group in a powerful way.

The second presentation on "cloning" was deeply impressive. For a start, the group researching the word / idea were interested in the science, the potential, the ethical dimensions of this developing technology. OK, so, what has cloning to do with Literature? Well, the students were researching, asking questions, finding answers, and in their presentation they covered history, important moments, explored the positives and negatives, asked one another and the audience questions about possible futures - "Where would you want to keep a clone of yourself - in a deep freeze? In a specialised hibernation chamber? Would you want to spend time talking with your clone?" What fabulous stories such questions would inspire, and what complex and lateral thinking these students showed me and their colleagues! I can now draw on the ideas, problems, and ethical dimensions of this presentation to build parallel understandings with the literary and language ideas we will shortly come to.

The third presentation on "shake" was a fitting conclusion. Each student in the group found a story to match one of the several possible connotations or variations on the term. Physical movement, emotion, surprise, horrible realisations. They worked hard to find expressive visualisations to complement their presentation of the word, and the possible interpretations and uses to which it could be put in language, storytelling, experience. They DID the work required, and went beyond it.

While this isn't perhaps a revolutionary exercise, I hope that it will lay a foundation of ideas, concepts and reference points which might not otherwise have been available for these students, as they progress in the course. They were all explorers, researchers, storytellers, creators of knowledge, sharers of ideas. My aim is for them to continue to be so, but the next stage will be a development on this foundation.

In the next post, I'll briefly outline the next step towards the reading, analysis and writing task to be assigned.

Talking Pedagogy with Colleagues - A potential minefield

2010-09-23T19:20:00.000+10:00

This week I presented a paper on International Pedagogies to my entire faculty at a staff conference. The conference title was "Engaging Students in the 21st Century". I spoke about the intersections of Quality in higher education, and learner-centred teaching theories and practice.

We only teach international students at our college, and this is a cohort of students with unique learning challenges. I talked about some of the recent research looking at the international student experience in Australia; about the need for educators to reflect on their "western" values and assumptions, and about negotiating the ever-changing terrain of ICT in education. I spoke as a student of all these areas of education - as I am undertaking a graduate qualification in tertiary teaching. Many higher education teachers in Australia, and elsewhere I assume, come to their roles with a PhD, but no teaching qualifications. Most of my colleagues are far more experienced than myself, and I was at pains to acknowledge my somewhat novice position. I only ever spoke through the lens of research.

The response was initially very positive, with some good questions from the audience, and some debate about some of the provocative things I discussed. I got good feedback from a handful of people in the lunch break, that my presentation was thought provoking and challenging.

For me the challenge will be to maintain some momentum. A few of us in one department (Literature) are keen to increase collaboration across the different discipline areas in the college. Others are less enthusiastic. My interest is to broaden participation by faculty in conversations around pedagogy, and in collaborative efforts to communicate and share the research interests, teaching approaches, and challenges we all face with this unique group of students. I am realistic enough to see this ideal as an uphill challenge.

No-one likes to have to examine their assumptions, or to reflect too deeply on what they are doing in the classroom. But I feel there is so much going on in the different discipline areas that I want to hear about. The challenge will be getting other teachers to overcome their reservations, and contribute with generosity and in a participatory spirit. There is never enough time, either.

Indeed, the kinds of reflective and collaborative things we should want to cultivate in our students, are exactly the same things educators need to do themselves. Ironically, the barriers to participation among both students and teachers, are identical.

Frisson in the computer lab - handing over control?

2010-09-17T18:57:00.000+10:00

This week, I took my students to one of the campus computer labs - not usually a teaching space - to work on "visualising" the word and idea they had chosen in their groups last week. It is holidays for most of the student intakes, so the lab was relatively empty. The inspiration for this 'visualising process', came from an article by Patricia O'Connor, available at the Visible Knowledge Project Library on the Academic Commons website Here.

This was something I have NEVER done before, and the first problem was keeping them off their Facebook pages - unless, I said to them, one of the ways they might visualise the different aspects of their idea / word was located on their Facebook page.

HOWEVER, there was this fantastic "frisson" (panic??) in my mind and body as I felt control slipping away, and their attention diverted to their personal spaces and "real" lives - and it was very interesting to be at the nexus of that teaching / learning / real-life intersection. I'm still remembering the moment, and thinking about what it means for my approaches.

From all the scholarship I am reading, and information and ideas gained from conversations happening in the education field, and on Twitter's #edchat especially, social media is one of the "social environments" in which today's students of all cultural backgrounds participate. But at the moment, I am unsure how, or in what way, I might integrate social media into my classes. But I am opening the door to see what comes in! And what comes from the students themselves.

It's a process of slow exploration, I think.

But, back to the students. They were all logging into You Tube, Google Images, and some of the Chinese students were using Baidu - the official Chinese search engine, looking (I hope) for resources on their topics in their own languages. I didn't mind this - one thing I'm kind of trying to do is value the cultural and personal knowledge these students bring with them to Australia, and let it have a space that is acknowledged by the teaching "authorities" they encounter.

I went from group to group marvelling at the strange things they had found, and reminding them of the objectives - to teach the class the 'depth' of ideas behind a surface word. I suggested looking for positive and negative connotations, or aspects, to demonstrate the diversity of ways words, and the ideas behind words, can be appreciated.

Next week, we are back in the lab, following up the work they have done collaboratively in the previous week. Most of them were exchanging Facebook info so they could share stuff together, and planning interactive presentations for the class in two weeks time.

Because I am deliberately trying to surrender some control, I've indicated their presentations can be in a format of their own choosing. Each group of three (and one of four) have ten minutes. It will be in the reflection exercise I have planned for after each presentation, where the learning they have achieved will, hopefully, be brought back into the objectives.

What have the students watching learned?
Which pieces of visualised evidence were most helpful in conveying the depth behind the word / idea?
And finally, (because this is a Literature class) has the group tied their exploration to a human story? This can be a real story, or one they have made up together.

My next post will be on something different - a presentation I'm making at the academic staff conference about research trends in International Pedagogy - and the ideas behind constructivist and culturally responsive teaching approaches. It should ruffle some feathers - I think.

I'm now going back to the huge pile of essays from my eight other classes. And it's the weekend too!

References:

O’Connor, Patricia. 2009. “Close reading, Associative Thinking, and Zones of Proximal Development in Hypertext”. In Bass and Eynon. The Difference that Inquiry Makes: A Collaborative Case Study on Technology and Learning, from the Visible Knowledge Project. Academic Commons. Centre for New Designs in learning and Scholarship (CNDLS) at Georgetown University. https://digitalcommons.georgetown.edu/blogs/vkp/library/

First Class - Introductions and setting the scene

2010-09-04T18:26:00.000+10:00

I arrived this Thursday to meet the ten students arrayed at the far end of a long U shaped classroom. This group of students from a range of South Asian and Middle Eastern countries, aged 17-20, were comfortable in one another's company, and were laughing and joking together. One young man was playing his guitar while waiting. This made all the difference, I think, in putting me and them at ease. My usual class groups are quiet and reserved on day one - not usually having met one another.

A Wi-fi enabled laptop was already connected to a large plasma screen, loaded with an image to show them to begin our discussion about words.

My opening comments were to introduce myself. I sat not at the front behind a desk, but down close to the students on a chair between the U-shaped array of desks. I then asked the class if they had any knowledge about Literature. One student admitted she had no idea what Literature was. (I should mention that my classes are a compulsory subject in the English component of the program, so, these are not necessarily students who come to class with intrinsic interest. This group is undertaking a preparatory program before the main one.)

In my explanation, I focussed first on my own passion for Literature, and the personal dimension of that passion. Then I spoke about national literatures, and mentioned some of the great names in both Western and Eastern Literature - including the Persian poets Hafez and Rumi. I then explained some of the learning objectives for the course, and one particularly important goal, that I was aiming to learn as much from them about their lives, cultures and experiences, as they would learn from me.

To understand how to make connections between words on a page, and what they mean in the immediate context, one must have experiences to connect with the new words and ideas. So my next invitation was for each student to tell me what they liked to read - not just fiction, but something they feel excited enough to bother reading about. This discussion was fantastic - and there was a broad range of interests brought to light. It gives me information to refer back to.

In a few weeks, this reflecting on reading will hopefully form the basis of a presentation from each student, where they will need to "teach" the class the most significant, and personally meaningful aspect of a story (fiction or non-fiction) they know and understand. I'll talk more about this in later posts.

The image I showed then was of the top and underneath (photoshopped) of an iceberg (above). For a western student group, the "tip of the iceberg" is a familiar saying. Not so for these students, but the image made the point about 90% of something being "below the surface." Given that in Literature I frequently distinguish 'surface' and 'deeper' readings, this image was maybe unoriginal, but it made visible the meaning I wanted them to appreciate.

They all seemed to "get it" - but rather than assume understanding, I reinforced the analogy with an activity. Australia was a new place for all these students. With what did they associate Australia? They loved this opportunity: kangaroos, koalas, the Opera House, Uluru, boomerangs, the Harbour Bridge, beaches, deserts, footy, etc.

A visualisation was required here to reinforce - so I did a Google image search via the screen which showed, yes, maps, flags, (symbols); kangaroos, Aboriginals playing didgeridoos, the Opera House, Nicole Kidman in "Australia". The new Google Images interface was good, in that the images were able to be magnified. In short, the "surface" symbolism of a nation appeared. I asked how many of the students had "seen" any of these things since coming to Australia. None. What makes up the depth of a nation, I asked? People, history, customs, culture - came the answer. No-one, I pointed out, had mentioned any preconceptions or knowledge about Australian people, or history, or current events - the details which form the "depth" of any nation. What would they find after staying longer, looking harder? Again, a simple activity, but one I can do again later in different cultural / social contexts - maybe their own.

After this, I asked the group to think of a controversial topic, which elicited a few responses, but nothing everyone was equally aware of. So I fell back to a binary idea - an ultimate black and white debate - that of East / West. What did each student think defined "The West"? Free, vigorous discussion ensued as the group discussed their opinions, and listed some features of the west. They reported back, and the list was illuminating.

Behind each of the areas identified, will be a story. One of the students remarked that the West is synonymous with democracy - something his own country does not experience. One mentioned the laws and regulations which help control standards of health and safety - something with which her own country is still coming to grips. Another mentioned the West's waste, greed, cultural domination and world power. Another thought outside the box, and reflected on the "west" of his own country. These perceptions will have been shaped by human stories, and can be communicated to others using the same human stories.

Next week, these stories are going to be brought to life: made visible. The students will, hopefully, draw from the stories the words, and through the words the ideas which lie under the surface. Because this is a Literature class, the second part of the the activity will be to work in groups to fit their words, images, and ideas into a poem - one that already exists, but makes itself open to be filled with new words, images and ideas.

It occurs to me that this simple work must happen in primary school classrooms all over the world - but perhaps this is something these students have never done. I am going to be ramping up the complexity as I gauge the students' understanding, and the ultimate aim is to move from the tip to the bottom one step at time.

I can't wait for Thursday!

Welcome

2010-09-04T17:59:00.001+10:00

I am a Literature teacher and higher-education researcher in Melbourne, Australia. I teach only international students, in a specialised multi-disciplinary bridging program for students to enter higher education. I have a Ph.D, but am studying part-time for a graduate teaching qualification.

The socio-constructive theories and writings of Lev Vygotsky, seem particularly suited to the needs of international students in the western classroom. In most disciplines, developing a deep understanding of how language, concepts, and processes work in different social and cultural contexts is vital. I am working with one "extended" (unassessed) class, designing and experimenting with some new activities to enhance their deep understanding through knowledge creation. I want to learn as much from these students as they learn from me.

I don't find space for such diversions in my regular teaching, where the curriculum and assessment tasks are created (and fixed) for use in a team, with about 400 students between us. My aim is to also think deeply about what I want students to learn in my classes, and more importantly, why.

In this blog, I am hoping to describe, justify, and evaluate the process of practicing a consciously "constructivist" and "dialogic" pedagogy. The context will be enabling students' understanding of language connections, meanings, cultural and historical dimensions of Literature, but the pedagogies to which I will refer are interdisciplinary. My vocab (and spelling) will be Australian.