I’ve noticed some themes that repeat throughout the discussion topics in the PIDP 3250 Forum…

Relevance:

Adult learners ( like most learners) require relevance. It is difficult to be motivated if the topic or content is not relatable. The relevance and objectives of the material need to be clearly defined by the instructor, so the learner can identify with it, and own it. It is in this primary step of instruction that the first scaffold is created – the realization of existing knowledge, and how it relates to the topic or content.

The strategies we use in instructing are extremely relevant as well. In Hattie’s Visible Learning it is widely accepted that some strategies work better than others to produce active learning. In choosing our strategies, we are also choosing our impact on learning.

Conditions:

As instructors, we set the environment and the strategies. This includes but is not limited to a positive classroom environment, whether in-class or on-line, that promotes order, empathy, safety and respect. It is within these managed parameters that the students feel more comfortable and motivated to take risks and explore. Mistakes will be acknowledged and encouraged, for it is the recognition and exploration of our mistakes that leads to deeper learning and understanding.

Questions:

Teachers ask questions all the time. It is my responsibility as an instructor to ensure they are ‘good’ questions. As a lesson is progressing, I will check in with simple questions to ensure we are getting it, and moving in the right direction. But value is added by asking questions that produce other questions. Questions that inspire thinking are open-ended – that inspire research and reflection during the process of sense-making, are crucial to developing meta-cognitive skills. And throughout the learning there are way-finding questions for both the instructor and student that assess and guide the learning: ‘Where am I? Where am I going? How do I get there?’ It is in answering these questions that the learning becomes visible.

Collaboration:

Social cognitive learning theory supports the notion that much of human learning occurs in social environments. This is a practice that has developed and conditioned us for hundreds, if not thousands of years. Learning occurs readily, and more deeply, in environments where the student can collaborate and connect with their instructor and peers. An intensive learning environment will foster and encourage collaboration. This can be a challenge in on-line courses, where participants may never see each other. A way to overcome this challenge is to use discussion forums and video-conferencing. Our PIDP 3250 course has been a flipped on-line classroom that encourages, even requires, collaboration. We as students, researched and explored the topics separately, but came together to collaborate within the forums.

Tools:

The name of this course is instructional strategies. The strategies we have explored in the discussion forums, and those found in Barkley’s Student Engagement Techniques, are all tools for us to use. In addition to these strategies are the tools of technology. We explored digital technologies that can be used within a classroom, and those that can open up the classroom to the on-line world. The trend to adopt and utilize technological tools is gaining acceptance as innovation makes these tools ubiquitous and user-friendly. I plan to become knowledgeable and current in these modern tools of the trade, and utilize them wherever possible to further my development as an instructor, and to further learning opportunities for my students.

Barkley, E. (2010), Student Engagement Techniques. Jossey Bass San Francisco

Hattie, J. (2008) Visible Learning retrieved from: http://visible-learning.org/

Engagement = Motivation + Active Learning

At the beginning of this course on instructional strategies, I posted comments about student engagement and motivation. This post follows up to complete the equation, and discusses active learning.

In Student Engagement Techniques (2010), Barkley’s description of active learning is

‘where students make information or a concept their own by connecting it to their existing knowledge and experience’ p.17,

and that along with motivation, it is one of the two inter-woven components for student engagement. Active learning is an umbrella term that applies to several groups of instructional strategies, including:

• Co-operative and collaborative learning
• Discovery learning
• Experiential learning
• Problem-based learning
• Inquiry-based learning

In these groups of instructional strategies, over 50 years of research has shown that engagement is enhanced when teachers encourage students to reflect on and monitor both the process and result of their learning.

For me the impact of our teaching is seen in the visibility of the learning in our students, and always relates back to Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development (ZPD). It is described as the zone that lies between what the students already know and can achieve without intervention, compared to what they can achieve with help and guidance from their teacher.

As I worked through each of the discussion forums within this course on instructional strategies, the relevance of each topic to motivation, active learning, and engagement became clear. Listed in the >PIDP 3250 menu >Forums tab at the top of this page are each of the discussion topics, with summaries of key points and references.

Reflecting on these topics, I see the opportunity and necessity to teach with instructional strategies that promote active learning. I’ve also noticed some themes that repeat throughout the topics… coming up next!

Barkley, E. (2010), Student Engagement Techniques. Jossey Bass San Francisco

Zone of Proximal Development http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_of_proximal_development

From a post by Tyler Offer (Feb 2015) in Digital Learning Instruction Techniques Forum:

‘Can we agree that education is changing…rapidly and that the learners that are graduating high school this year will be radically different than those who graduated ten, twenty, thirty years ago? The job markets will look very different in ten, twenty, thirty years from now. The field of education needs to change and adapt but we need a plan for that change. Expecting instructors to do that without a plan is expecting a lot…I daresay it’s expecting too much.’

Tyler’s observation has led to three questions for me:

1. How is education changing?
2. How is the future job market different?
3. Does education have a plan?

I will highlight how the future job market is changing, but the focus of this journal will be on exploring the first and last questions: how is education changing? and does education have a plan?

The Future Job Market

Merriam and Bierema in Adult Learning: Linking Theory and Practice (2014), recommend a video about major trends in the future of work. In the video, the future of work is fuelled by technology, innovation is necessary, knowledge is transparent, commuting is replaced by communication, and collaboration is everywhere. Employers have access to a global workforce, and careers are replaced by contracts. In this environment, the future employee needs to stand out. As described in 21^st Century Skills: Learning for Life in Our Times (2009), knowledge is important, but critical thinking, innovation and collaboration, among other skills, make up the 21^st century skillset. In the modern world of globalization and technological advances, the value of the employee is not in what is known, but in what they do with it.

So how do we, as instructors, promote and develop these 21^st century skills in our students? Education is changing, but is there a plan? Yojana Sharma in University World News writes:

‘Can university leaders ensure that their institutions keep up with rapid changes in technology and shifts in local and global economies? The International Association of University Presidents, or IAUP, session at the WISE (2013) conference in Doha sparked considerable debate on whether universities can survive to serve ‘emerging generations’.

At the WISE conference, 84 % of delegates agreed that universities were in drastic need of change in order to survive. Sharma also reports that ‘ensuring that the university stays relevant often means a closer relationship with the employment market. Some delegates described how they have to forge really close relationships and are forced to keep up with the employers of their graduates.  Dr Gerald Reisinger, president of the Applied Sciences University of Upper Austria, explained that its curriculum had to be reviewed completely at least every five years with input from the business sector, students and faculty. If the university does not keep up to date, students do not have jobs, he said.’

It is clear that the administrations of higher learning institutions are very aware of the importance of staying relevant. To not only keep up with the changing needs of the student, but to be pro-active in assessing those needs, with the collaboration of faculty, students, and business. In the trade occupations in British Columbia, there is a liaison between business and education through the Industry Training Authority. In the case of landscape horticulture, we also have HortEd BC, a liaison group that closely monitors that education is in tune with field requirements. It is paramount that as an instructor, I collaborate with industry so I am aware of the relevant needs of the graduate so they are truly prepared for employment.

Where are we at? How is education changing?

Two current major forces that are driving change in education are Digital Technology and Life-long Learning. I won’t go too deep into technology, as I think we are mostly aware that it is all around us, and increasingly affects our daily lives.

Digital Technology. Excerpts adapted from in the 2014 Horizon Report are:

Social media plays an ever-increasing role in student’s lives. As faculty, we are beginning to embrace social media, but privacy concerns must be addressed.

Online Hybrid Collaborative Learning has amplified the potential for student engagement through the blended use of traditional deliveries of instruction, and digital technology. Hybrid courses, where the student has both in-class time and digital collaborative time outside of class, are being used more often. Collaborative learning promotes group problem-solving and communication skills, while advancing knowledge of the subject matter.

Online Learning: As online learning garners increasing interest among learners, higher education institutions are developing more online courses to both replace and supplement existing courses. According to a study by the Babson Survey Research Group published at the beginning of 2013, more than 6.7 million students, or 32% of total higher education enrollment in the United States, took at least one online course in Fall 2011 — an increase of more than half a million students from the prior year. As such, the design of these online experiences has become paramount.

Gamification and Virtual Reality are both finding their way into education. Several institutions have developed virtual activities wherein the students can experience a task or procedure to practice mastery.

In education, technology is influencing our delivery of instruction, whether it is within a class, or on-line. In researching education’s current level of digital technology, it is obvious to me that there is a clear, but slow, trend of acceptance, experimentation, and utilization.

Learning to Learn – Education 2.0.

As Gerstein, J. (2013) compares the Web to Education, she describes that in the development of the Web there have been at least three stages. The first was Web 1.0, in which it was there, you could look up information, but little else. She compares this to Education 1.0, the historic pedagogical approach in which the student is there, receiving information, and little else.

Then came Web 2.0, in which users can interact with the content, and each other. This relates to Education 2.0, an androgogical, constructivist approach, in which we promote interaction with, and between, our students to develop their 21^st century skills of critical thinking, collaboration, and communication. Education 2.0 is slowly growing and spreading throughout the educative landscape, but has a way to go yet. As Gerstein notes: ‘Many educators are doing Education 1.0; talking about doing Education 2.0; when they should be planning and implementing Education 3.0.’

Web 3.0 is today’s web, in which content is individualized to the user. In Education 3.0, the same will likely occur. The 2014 Horizon Report contains a section on Assessment Analytics, in which data from students’ digital input is collected and analyzed, to shape the digital delivery of content to each individual.

Education itself, as a service and an industry, is learning within its own zone of proximal development. With exhaustive studies we know very clearly where we have been, we know where we are. But do we know where we are going? Do we know how to get there? What coaching and guidance does education receive to help it get to the next level? What is the next level?

I think the coaching and guidance comes from the front line, from the student. The instructor or teacher is the conduit through which the students’ acquisition of learning is visibly formed, until the students can do it on their own, and can master learning how to learn. Until all teachers, courses, and institutions practice this visible learning, I think Education 2.0 is going to be a long level. This is not to say that strides into Education 3.0 are not being made. There are currently many instances of institutions and instructors who are pushing ahead; who creatively guide learning to help students become masters of their own learning.

Does education have a plan?

No. But it does have a direction. The plan is to go in that direction, where and whenever possible. In learning how to learn, we as instructors must be always know our impact, and nurture a growth mindset in our students. We must hold these strategies sacred, and bring them into every event of instruction, whether in-class, face-to-face, digitally or on-line.

In planning the future of education, the 2014 Horizon Report predicts that within a year policy-makers in higher education will have guidelines in place for social media in classrooms, for both students and teachers. The main concern is privacy, as they want classrooms to be perceived as safe spaces for open discussion and to preserve the integrity of student submissions.

Also contained in the 2014 Horizon report are many examples of institutions experimenting and succeeding with digital technologies. Here are just a few:

• ‘The Ohio State University, for instance, is experimenting with a combination of technologies to create a “HyFlex” model of learning that incorporates online interactive polling, lecture recording, and a backchannel for synchronous communication. According to the instructors, this exploratory endeavor has succeeded in creating a model that suits the interests and desires of students, who are able to choose how they attend lecture — from the comfort of their home, or face-to-face with their teachers. Additionally, findings from the formal study show that students felt the instructional technology made the subject more interesting, and increased their understanding, as well as encouraged their participation via the backchannel.
• Stanford University makes extremely effective use of iTunes U, where it publishes professional videos and other learning materials, produced by experts. This model aims to equalize access to education, and teach complex concepts through multimedia. While individual instructors may not be able to replicate the quality of content published to Stanford’s collections, there is an increasing expectation that universities and colleges be leaders in online learning, and thus equip their faculty and staff with the tools and training needed to create top-quality resources.
• A study at George Mason University showed students who collaborated with others outside of the classroom for online components of a management course reported enjoying it more and learning more.
• The University of Texas launched an initiative in 2013 to incorporate new technologies in lower-division history, calculus, statistics, government, and classics courses, with the aim of establishing a hybrid model to improve undergraduate engagement. Based on increases in persistence rates among freshmen in the past three years, as well as marked improvements in grades, attendance, and passing rates, three-year $50,000 grants will be given to each department to support the development of online content, such as video modules and tools that promote in-class discussion.
• Online Courses: Part of engaging students in deep learning across online environments is personalizing the experience. In the summer of 2013, Pearson took their partnership with big data technology-provider Knewton to the next level by offering more than 400,000 college students enrolled in first-year science and business courses access to adaptive tutorial services.’

Challenges

Like any learning, the evolution of higher education is not without some challenges. The primary challenge is the digital fluency of faculty. But this is also being addressed. As shown in the 2014 Horizon Report, for example, the University of California, Irvine has created a Faculty Institute for Online Learning, where faculty can learn to create effective online courses. Another example is the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation granted $800,000 to Davidson College to support the faculty’s development of digital skills. Other challenges exist, such as funding and competition from outside sources (MOOCs and private institutions).

Although most institutions are planning and progressing individually, it is through collaboration with each other, and analysis of what has already been tried, that they are collectively reinforcing the movement toward digital enhancement of courses and curriculums. Institutions are creating vice-provost offices and centers of excellence in which learning and digital technologies are studied and applied on and off campus.

The Global Up-Side

As learning institutions evolve with instructional strategies and delivery methods, the effect is felt globally. With portable infrastructure and online learning becoming more available, especially in tandem with programs like One Laptop per Child, the access to digital materials and instruction reaches populations that have never had an equal opportunity to learn. To go to the Horizon Report one more time, ‘the World Bank estimates a 25% increase in global higher education attendance from 200 to 250 million. In Africa alone, the continent would need to build four universities with capacities of 30,000 people every week just to accommodate the students reaching enrollment age by 2025.’

Summary

In response to the quotation at the beginning of my journal, I think there is good cause for Tyler to be concerned about teaching in this changing environment without a plan. It is with this same concern that institutions have begun moving out of Education 1.0 into Education 2.0, and even 3.0. The plan is to move. I think the motivation to move is to stay relevant, and it comes from the students and the businesses and organizations that eventually employ them. It is a focused movement that has many variables, and invites experimentation and mistakes, just like learning.

In my research of where education is, and where it is going, in relation to the two major forces of digital technology and learning to learn, I have confidence the direction is mapped out. Factors that inhibit the speed in which education moves in that direction such as digital fluency, funding and effectiveness are recognized. Evidence of the movement and the hurdles are apparent. Education is visibly learning.

Resources

Fadel, C., Trilling, B. (2009). 21^st Century Skills: Learning For Life In Our Times. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Jossey-Bass, San Francisco

Gerstein, J. (2013) Experiences in Self-Determined Learning: Moving from Education 1.0 Through Education 2.0 Towards Education 3.0. Retrieved from: User Generated Education Blog at https://usergeneratededucation.wordpress.com/tag/heutagogy/

Johnson, L., Adams Becker, S., Estrada, V., Freeman, A. (2014). NMC Horizon Report: 2014 Higher Education Edition. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium.

oDesk (2009). The Future of Work. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8Yt4wxSblc

Offer, T. (2015). Faculty Slow to Adopt, Digital Learning Instruction Techniques discussion forum, moderated by Garima Kamboj, PIDP3250, Vancouver Community College. Retrieved from: http://moodle.vcc.ca/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=130583

Yojana, S. (2013). University World News: WISE – Can Universities Keep Up With The Future? Retrieved from: http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20131101092922654