The problem of control in education

I attended TTIX 2010 yesterday at the University of Utah.  TTIX (Teaching with Technology Idea Exchange) brings together instructional designers, technology specialists, and educators interested in the use of technology.  In her the keynote address, Nancy White explored the question "Should we use communities in learning?"  While there wasn't much argument that we should not, Nancy did present an interesting paradigm for thinking about the ways in which learning occurs.  She thought about it as an issue of "me, we, and the networks."  Or, more simply, we can learn individually, in small groups, or as part of a much broader network.  

We see individual and small-group learning at work every day in higher education.  But, real networked learning that extends outside of campus seems to be missing from most universities.  Of course, students often have their own personal learning networks, but these networks generally live outside of what they perceive as their school experience.  Students do one sort of learning in class, in the library, and with project groups.  They do another type of learning "outside of school," learning that is largely separated from their course work.  This seems problematic to me for at least two reasons.  First, formalized "school learning" should be authentic and connected to students' interests.  Second, if we really believe that higher education should produce life-long learners, campuses should help students begin to build and use a personal learning network that includes people, media, web resources, organizations, etc.  While some of those elements will be available on a college campus, it is either arrogant, naive, or both to think that a single college campus can connect students to all of the resources they will need for a rich learning network.  In short, there are times when we need to get students off-campus and encourage them to do their learning there.  And, this learning needs to have meaningful connections to what they are doing on campus as part of formal university programs.

Our problem in higher ed is that we want to exert control over students.  We want to tell them what they can learn and when they can learn it (the standard course model); we want to create closed learning management systems (e.g. Blackboard &Brain Honey) that allow us to monitor student learning and keep out "intruders;" and we tell them what their learning goals will be (graduation requirements).  Universities, by their very nature, will always have some level of structure and exert some level of control over students--I've come to accept that fact as unavoidable.  However, why couldn't our institutions help students identify their own learning goals, build their own personal learning networks, and then find ways to connect that learning to university coursework (or internships, captstone experiences, field studies, service learning, etc.)?  

We often wonder why students aren't motivated to do the sorts of deep learning that we would hope to see at the university level?  But, we can't be too surprised, given the fact that we removed most of a student's autonomy.  If students don't have some choice in structuring their learning (and selecting from a list of courses to take is a poor excuse for "choice"), they will rarely be motivated to learn deeply (see this TED talk by Dan Pink for more on this idea or this condensed version of his ideas; his newest book, Drive is also a good read) .

What we need in higher education is more boundaryless, fuzzy, relationship-based learning that doesn't begin and end at the semester.  The traditional course model might not ever go away, but why couldn't there be an overarching learning process that is overlaid on top of courses?  The type of learning that is motivating, inspiring, and that will likely last well beyond graduation?  

What are committees really good for?

If you work on a college campus (or in almost any large organization) you've probably had some experience with committees.  At BYU I sit on a handful, one of which is a new student orientation committee charged with developing and evaluating programming for new students.  Our most significant responsibility is to develop a multi-day orientation program that is held on the weekend just prior to the beginning of a new semester.  This means that, although we are a standing committee that theoretical operates all year long, most of our "real work" is done in the summer months leading up to September when a large class of freshmen arrives on campus.  What's more, the attitude of the committee chair has been that if there aren't pressing agenda items, we really won't benefit from an hour long meeting.  I'll confess that, up until quite recently, I liked things this way.  From where I sat, it meant fewer meetings, fewer assignments, and more time to work on other projects I have going.  I tended to look forward to the "meeting cancelled" email that arrives the morning of the scheduled meeting.  

Although our committee's sporadic meetings this summer have given me extra time, I think we've gotten into a bad habit, a habit that will hurt us in the long run.  I've seen evidence of this in the last few weeks as I've tried to work through a challenge with another committee member.  The details aren't important, but what I've realized is that because he and I have not been seeing one another each week and discussing our joint work, two things have happened.  First, we have not been exchanging simple information that would be useful to us in our work.  Second, and more importantly, our professional relationship has suffered.  We don't have the social capital that we need in order to discuss sensitive matters, tactfully raise opposing ideas, or work through problems that are arising in our orientation planning.  

This has all caused me to reconsider the purpose of committees, how they function, and how we build them.  So, if I were asked to create a new committee next week, these are some things I would keep in mind to help me in my design:

1.  Committee work isn't just about being productive or efficient, it is about establishing relationships among stakeholders.  While action items, key decisions, and reports on past assignments are all worthy items on a committee's meeting agenda, just being together and engaging in dialogue might be just as important.  And, these conversations don't always need to be focused on our work.  Although hearing about a colleague's vacation or how their son is doing on his study abroad in Europe probably won't have any real impact on your campus, having those conversations on a consistent basis will build social capital.  That capital will be important during those times when your committee faces difficult decisions, disagrees with one another, or has to address an unexpected problem or crisis that has emerged. 

2.  Meetings should include plenty of open dialogue and collaboration.  Too often meetings become nothing more than reporting sessions where last week's minutes are reviewed, information is disseminated, or decisions are announced.  As much as we complain about these sorts of things, I think that occasionally we like report-back meetings because they don't require anything of us.  Like a student sitting in an unengaging lecture, we can sit back and zone out, but still convince ourselves that we're doing our duty by being in attendance at the meeting.  But, this sort of meeting is a waste of everyone's time because technology has provided much more efficient ways of reporting and disseminating.  Committee meetings are about working collaboratively and that means dialogue, brainstorming, rapid prototyping, and those things that can only happen when a group of people is together in the same room.  Again, this sort of meeting, one that requires engagement and thoughtful participation, can take some getting used to.  But, I would like to believe that it pays dividends in the end.

3.  Committees should facilitate useful connections where none existed before.  Good committee chairs use committees to establish relationships between stakeholders that (1) misunderstand one another or (2) don't even realize they have a stake in one another's work.  While committees should not cease to play a coordination, governance, and project management role, we need to reframe our thinking and view them as a tool for building social capital among stakeholders.  It seems odd to put two people on a committee who don't like each other or who haven't worked well together in the past.  But, under the right circumstances, useful bonds can be formed and future problems can be avoided.  This takes a skilled chair and an already well-functioning committee.  But, I've seen it lead to tremendous benefit when it is handled well.

Here's a radical thought in closing.  Books like Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone lament the  general decline of community and social capital we see almost everywhere.  Can good committees make a difference?  On a siloed, fragmented campus where departments don't get along and very little meaningful collaboration is happening, could something like what I've described make a difference?  

How much has technology really helped us in education?

I just finished reading Atul Gawande's latest book, Checklist Manifesto.  In a nutshell, Gawande argues that the right kind of checklist (it turns out that good checklists aren't easy or quick to produce) can lead to vast improvements in the way we do things, and for very little cost.  It's a great read and one of the most practically useful books I've read in a while.

Gawande is a physician and uses stories from medicine to illustrate the effectiveness of simple checklists (there are also some fascinating examples from building construction and finance).  One of the areas where checklists have made the most difference are in operation rooms.  It turns out that for even the most developed countries--those with great hospitals, state-of-the-art medical technologies, and highly-trained physicians--surgical complications are a fairly significant problem.  Gawande and his team have managed to develop simple checklists that, when used properly, have drastically reduced complication rates.  It is important to note that these have not been modest findings, the results have been startling and and hard to argue with.  

The interesting thing in all of this is that the vast majority of physicians and hospitals have refused to use the checklist.  Instead most have opted to invest in $1.7 million remote controlled surgical robots that have driven up costs massively, without producing any significant improvements.  Meanwhile, the low-tech, low-budget checklists are saving lives.

There seems to be a parallel here to education.  More and more, institutions are adopting technology with the hope that it will revolutionize learning.  In my graduate work I spend a fair amount of time with instructional technologists, some who tout technology as the saviour of schools.  I should also confess that I am sometimes a sucker for cool ed tech gadgets because they seem to make learning fun and engaging.  That's not to mention my reliance upon technology for some of the most basic functions of my job (just last night I made a presentation to a group of parents of incoming students and used the bells and whistles of a fully-mediated auditorium to "enhance" my remarks).

The nagging question I keep having, though, is whether the very expensive technology we use has really improved the learning experience for students.  It likely cost thousands of dollars to outfit the auditorium I spoke in last evening.  And, I would estimate that there are at least 100 other rooms of various sizes just like it across the rest of my campus.  In many ways this is nice.  It means that instructors can use PowerPoint slides, show media clips, play music, etc.  These things are entertaining for students and can deepen engagement.  But, how much more did the parents in my session learn because I used technology?  What if the computer had crashed mid-presentation?  Would I have been prepared enough to make the remaining 15 minutes useful?  Would a low-tech "technology" like a "minute paper" have been just as beneficial as a data slide?

I'm not arguing for the elimination of technology in higher education (or any setting for that matter).  But, I wonder how often we falsely assume that twitter, tech classrooms, and iClickers will simplify the educational process and prevent educational failures.  Could it be that simple pedagogical tools, processes, or philosophies could be just as impactful and at a much lower cost?  And, what sorts of new failures does technology introduce?  Gawande frames this question well:

"We have most readily turned to the computer as our aid.  Computers hold out the prospectof automation as our bulward against failure.  Indeed, they can take huge numbers of tasks off our hands, and thankfully already have--tasks of calculation, processing, storage, transmission.  Without question, technology can increase our capabilities.  But there is much that technology cannot do:  deal with the unpredictable, manage uncertainty, construct a soaring building, perform a lifesaving operation.  In many ways, technology has compicated these matters. It has added yet another element of complexity to the systems we depend on and given us entirely new kinds of failure to content with."

What are our "educational checklists?" (i.e. those simple and frugal things that can make signficant differences in learning).  And, what are the "surgical robots" in education that look cool, but deplete budgets without making any meaningful improvement to the educational landscape?  And, maybe most importantly, how do we know when we're dealing with an expensive failure or something that, while expensive, truly will revolutionize learning?

The forgotten part of the First-Year Experience

A recent discussion on the first year experience listserv has gotten me thinking about the way we allocate resources across the first-year experience.  If your campus is like mine you likely have a variety of programming for first year students with most of it being front loaded to the first semester or even the first two weeks of their time on your campus (it's always been interesting to me that we speak of our work in terms of the first year experience, when most of us do very little in the way of formal programming during the second half of that year).  

This practice of front-loading makes sense (and has been advocated for by, among others, John Gardner).  Among other things, it allows institutions to communicate expectations, help students feel connected to each other and to campus, and provides proactive support that positions students to be successful.  These are all good things and the last two decades have provided plenty of data suggesting that they make a difference.  The question raised on the listserv was about end of year rituals or ceremonies and that made me wonder if what we do at the end of the first year experience matters.  

For much of the formal learning we see in schools and elsewhere, beginnings and endings get a lot of attention.  Think about a typical college course.  In the beginning students receive a syllabus that outlines the learning objectives for the course, an anticipated timeline for when and how they can expect to be learning, and some information about how to get help along the way.  The syllabus (assuming it is a well-written one) becomes a guide for the semester.  Plenty of important things then happen in the middle of the course to facilitate learning.  Then, four months later there is an ending, an ending that in some cases is quite ceremonious and ritualistic.  There is the "last lecture" where the faculty member reminds students of what the course goals were, a "testimonial" of sorts where she might remind them of what she thinks is the kernel of the entire course, and some sort of final exam or project that helps students tie things together and demonstrate their learning.  We see this across the entire college experience as well (i.e. Orientation/Convocation followed by graduation/commencement four or five years later).  I even vaguely remember it happening when I was a student in Mrs. Palmer's pre-school class.  On the first day I remember meeting Mrs. Palmer, getting a tour of the classroom, and hearing about all of the fun things I was going to get to do that year.  Then at the end of the year we had a full-blown "pre-school graduation" (complete with homemade graduation caps) where we were honored by our parents and then given a chance to showcase the cutting, coloring, and singing talents we had worked hard to acquire that year.  I would like to think that these practices, ceremonious as they may be, also have pedagogical value.  

The question this raises for me is whether we could or should do something at the end of the first college year that would have value for students and campuses.  The tendency would be to plan an end of year celebration with music, eloquent speeches, and a banquet or refreshments.  That may not be a bad thing, but it is expensive and runs the risk of becoming a frilly show absent of any real value.  So, are there simple, cost-effective ways of capitalizing on the end of the first year that would be both celebratory and educationally useful?

There are a few things that would seem useful to consider when designing a "second book end" for the first-year experience

1.  Revisit the goals, learning objectives, etc. introduced at the beginning of the year.  We spend a fair amount of time and effort introducing institutional missions and aims, learning goals, and expectations.  It only makes sense that we would want to follow up at the end of the first year to remind students of these same things.

2.  Celebrate successes.  The National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience and Students in Transition sponsors a First Year Students Advocate program wherein they recognize faculty members and administrators who have done extraordinary work to improve the experience of first year students on their campuses.  There isn't any good reason why this couldn't happen on individual campuses (I know there are a few campuses that are already doing this).  Faculty members, staff, administrators, and student leaders who have done significant first-year work could be recognized.  Additionally, first year students who have demonstrated tremendous progress towards first-year objectives could be highlighted.  This would seem useful in at least two ways.  First, people like to be recognized and when they are, they tend to work even harder because they feel appreciated.  Second, it would give institutions the opportunity to recognize best practices and communicate a set of values to the rest of the campus community.

3.  Bridge the gap between the first-year and sophomore experiences.  I'll confess that I have not followed the SYE (sophomore year experience) movement very closely as of yet.  However, it seems to be commonly accepted that the transition from the first to the second year is challenging for many students.  If that is true then an end of year book end could be designed to address some of these issues (e.g. how to prepare for the sophomore year, resources to connect with prior to starting classes in the fall, etc.)

4.  Reflection on growth, challenges, and lessons learned.  The first college year and its experiences provide students with plenty of opportunities to learn and grow.  Asking them to reflect on those experiences, make meaning from them, and share their learning in public ways could be beneficial (if you use portfolios on your campus this could be a required artifact in that portfolio).

The challenge in all of this is finding the time, resources, and space for something like this to happen.  So, can it be done?  And, how would it look on a large campus with a large freshman class?  What challenges do small colleges face in considering the end of the first year?  

 

Academic play: Is goofing off in the classroom a bad thing?

One of my favorite blogs is maintained by Daniel Coyle a former contributing editor of Outside magazine and now a full-time writer.  A recent post explored the power of play in developing skill and left me wondering why we don't see more "play" in academics.  

Coyle argues that the very best athletes get to be that way, in part, because they spent a fair amount of time "goofing off" in fairly unstructured environments.  That's not to say that elite athletes don't at some point adopt a very structured and rigorous training regimen.  But, it seems that the path to skill started on playgrounds (for many NBA players), empty swimming pools (skate pros), and dusty streets (Ronaldinho & other South American soccer stars) in a number of cases.  The rationale is that these unique practice environments give young athletes a chance to be creative, invent their own games, get lots of reps, and develop a passion for their skill or game.  This new-age coaching mindset doesn't always sit well with "veterans" because it can mean chaos, loss of control, and a lack of the all-important "drill."    

This doesn't seem altogether different  from the view we take of education.  In most schools structure seems to be king--highly defined curricula, students in desks, and quiet individual work.  While pure logistics dictate much of this structure out of necessity, I wonder how learning would be impacted if students were engaged in "academic play" a little more often.  

In A Whole New Mind,  Daniel Pink describes how this concept of play is taking hold in successful businesses (e.g. Google--they encourage employees to spend 15% of their time working on whatever personal projects they find interesting and loosely connected to Google's mission), the military, and medical training.  And, U.S. Soccer just hired former Men's National Team captain Claudio Reyna to try and infuse "play" into the training of youth soccer players in the U.S.  

So, what would "academic play" look like?  Would it even work in a school or classroom setting where, at best, only half of the learners are motivated to learn?  

William Kamkwamba: A case study in deep learning

William Kamkamba's story is not new (he started his work in 2002 and started getting heavier press coverage in 2008), but I heard it for the first time this week.  Aside from being very moving, there seem to be some lessons here for educators and the way we engage students in good learning.  One of the things that impressed me with William's story was the fact that he seemed to be doing the sort of learning we all hope students will do, but it happened outside the formal confines of a school or university and with no real external support.  As I write this, it occurs to me that good learning like this might result because of those factors (i.e. the best type of learning happens outside of school).  

So, my first question is whether it is realistic to expect learning like this to occur within a formal setting.  The cynic in me wants to say no, but the pragmatist part of me that enjoys having a roof to sleep under, food to eat, the possibility of providing for my daughther make me want to say "yes, we can do it."  So, here are some key principles I see at work in William's story that seem to be instructive for instructional designers, teachers, and anyone that cares about learning.  

1.  Help the learner identify a real problem or opportunity.  William's story started because he saw an opportunity (the winds in Malawi) and wanted to find a way to leverage that opportunity.  Because it was a learning opportunity that he had identified and that he cared about personally, he was willing to engage in the hard work of deep learning.  William's learning was also motivated by a humanitarian desire to help people in his village, which seems to be important in some way.

2.  Allow the learning to be self-directed.  William didn't have a curriculum or syllabus he was following.  He identified gaps in his knowledge--things he needed to know in order to solve the problem at hand (and related sub-problems that likely emerged along the way)--and then garnered resources to help him learn what he needed to know.  Not only does this sort of experience shift the responsibility for learning onto the learner, but it also prepares them to engage in meaningful learning once they leave an institution and don't have a formal system nudging them along the path.

3.  Forum for sharing/testing ideas.  William's learning was incredibly public.  If the windmill didn't work, looked stupid, or in any other way failed to meet expectations he was likely to hear about it from those in his village.  Consequently, he was more motivated to really understand the principles of windmill design, electricity, etc. and to produce something that wouldn't get laughed at or mocked.  Additionally, because the learning was public he was likely receiving feedback all along the way regarding how to improve his work.  That combination of experience and feedback led to much better learning than would have otherwise resulted.

4.  Connections to a number of disciplines.  While much of what William was learning was focused in a physical science or technology domain, he likely had to learn things from other fields--writing skills, oral communication skills, business principles, etc.--in order to really make his windmill project a success.  It was the sort of integrated general education experience that liberal arts folks dream of.  The key was that he had selected a problem whose successful solution depended on a broad set of knowledge and skills.

5.  A connection to future plans/goals.  It's obvious from listening to William's story that he doesn't plan on stopping with a rough-looking windmill outside his family's Malawian farm.  What he learned in these initial projects has raised new questions for him, provided access to new sources of learning, provided additional motivation, and helped him develop a vision of what he wants to do and become as he moves forward.  This is in striking contrast to the term project or other course assignment that dies quickly once final grades are posted.

This sort of learning requires a paradigm shift for educators.  They become designers, facilitators, mentors, and coaches rather than information disseminators and evaluators.  So, for something like this to work it would take individuals that understand (1) what good learning looks like and (2) what sorts of mentoring leads to this learning.

We see these things at work in Capstone courses and in abundance in graduate school, but how can these principles be applied at the undergraduate level (or even within secondary and elementary education)?  Could an entire education be built around capstone-esque learning like this?  

How do we get young men to want to go to college and want to work hard once they get there?

Earlier this week I read an article about the challenge of engaging male students in a meaningful college experience.  I  saw the anti-intellectual attitude alluded to in this article displayed at the high school level when I was a teacher and coach, and I see it now in my work in higher education.  It's not that male students aren't intelligent, don't work hard, or aren't prepared for college-level work.  It's just that, in far too many cases, being a good learner and being a "man" are mistakenly viewed as being mutually exclusive.  This false dichotomy leaves young men feeling like they have to choose one role or the other.  And, at 18 years old being "cool" or "chill" generally wins out.  This means that participating in class, being seen in the library, or having any sort of academic conversation outside of class is strictly taboo (Note:  many will do "academic" things when no one is looking, but my experience has been that the best kind of learning is, at least part of the time, public and social).

Really, there are two related problems here:  (1) Getting males to want to go to college, trade school, technical training, etc. and (2) Helping those that do go to take full advantage of the opportunity rather than doing enough to not kicked out, but without looking like they really care all that much.  I realize that my mentioning these problems is not earth-shattering and that there are a lot of people thinking about the same thing.  The shortcoming I see is in the way we go about trying to remedy these problems.

This made me wonder how we could package some of our basic messages about the value of education and deliver them in ways that would resonate with the students we are trying to reach, particularly male students.  The Inside Higher Ed article I linked to above mentions a strategy employed by Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia wherein students are introduced to the concept of a "Morehouse Man" that embodies a set of core values that the institution believes are characteristic of the type of men they hope to graduate (Morehouse is an all-male institution).  The intent is to help students see and believe that being a man includes being well-dressed, well-spoken, well-educated, etc. and that to become that sort of man a student needs to do certain things while they are in college.  The question I would have is whether the audience they are intending to reach (those students that for whatever reason aren't living up to the ideals held out by the institution) really want to become a "Morehouse Man" or at least the image of  a "Morehouse Man" that has been created by this messaging.  

An example of this same sort of challenge is outlined in Made to Stick, by Chip and Dan Heath.  In a nutshell, the state of Texas wanted to decrease the amount of litter on their highways.  And, they knew which Texans were most likely to litter, so they targeted their campaign at "Bubba."  Bubba represented the 18 - 35 year old male, pickup truck driving, country music listening demographic that seemed to be at the heart of the litter problem.  The idea was to give the standard "don't litter" message using both language and messengers that "Bubba" would relate to.  So, they brought in members of the Dallas Cowboys, Mike Scott of the Houston Astros, and Willie Nelson and the now well-known phrase "Don't mess with Texas" was born.  These weren't just famous people, they were people that Bubba saw as real Texans, men that Bubba wanted to be like.  The strategy worked and visible litter along Texas roadways had decreased 72% within five years.  

So, the question am left with in all of this is who our Bubbas are and how we can package two old messages (education is valuable and education means doing things that lead to good learning) in new ways.  Who would male students respond to and what could that person or group of people say that would make an 18 year-old male student want to be a scholar?