On my way to work today I was listening to ETS talk, a great podcast that originates with Educational Technology Services (thus the ETS) here at PSU. [Minor disclaimer - I have been a guest on the podcast]. The director of ETS and the podcast’s host is Cole Camplese [second disclaimer - Cole is a friend of mine], who does a lot of interesting work / thinking around how to integrate technology into learning and teaching. In episode 22 of ETS talks, one of the regulars, Allan Gyorke, begins a discussion was about developing a boot camp so that faculty here could start to think about how to really integrate Web 2.0 technologies into their courses. What struck me was that while talking about moving the conception of technology toward this new paradigm, they were also talking about teaching and learning using the equivalent of a Web 1.0 metaphor (or maybe Web 1.5). I think this is really common not only in the learning design community, but in the teaching and learning community in general (e.g. Colleges of Education). Maybe we can expand our thinking about teaching and learning by remembering it is a form of technology.

On a fundamental level, teaching is the ultimate (and by that I mean not greatest, but original) technology. If we define technology as a tool that helps us accomplish a task, then it becomes clear that teaching is a technology. In fact, it is the technology that sets us apart as a species. Humans ability to teach each other, and by doing so transmit information from generation to generation, is what makes us so successful. Alan Kay said “technology is only technology to those born before technology.” [Thanks to Cole for that quote] Obviously, there is no one around to remember when teaching was technology.

If we are willing to conceptualize teaching as technology, then what does it mean for us to think of teaching as a 2.0 endeavor? I think what it means is the “teacher” needs to give up the idea that they own the technology. We (the teachers) have to give it away. I posted about an un-conference the other day as an idea of how to reconsider academic conferences. This is, in some ways, an extension of the un-conference idea. I will try and use the idea of the ETS boot camp as an example. They proposed getting a group of learning designers together, getting them in groups and setting them a design challenge from a faculty member. They would solve this challenge using social software tools and then present their solutions to a panel of faculty for evaluation. Then these ideas / design projects would be made available for others to see as exemplars of how to integrate social tools. Given the metaphor for teaching, this is good pedagogy.

Now let me propose an alternative that attempts to change the metaphor [recognizing this is not fully baked]. Create a social space that is open for proposals from the learning design and faculty community at PSU. Anyone can make a proposal for development – e.g. I am interested looking at how del.icio.us could be used in an undergraduate course in science teaching or I am interested in thinking about how YouTube might be used in any course. The people in the community would “vote” for different proposal by adding their name to the proposal. When a proposal reaches some critical mass of people signed on, perhaps a mix of designers and faculty, it becomes a real group. The group is given resources – i.e. physical space, online space, other resources from ETS, etc. Once the group is up and running, others may join. The group sets up its own meeting times and goals and its only responsibility is to report back to the larger community, maybe in a on-going blog that includes products that can be shared. This creates a system that is responsive to need and not “owned” by the teacher (in this case ETS).

Imagine a university that worked this way. Students or faculty could make course proposals to the community. When a critical mass was reached the course becomes reality and then other can join. You could set criteria like enrollment limits and how the course would count toward a degree, etc. You might end up with a proliferation of courses about The OP, but you also might end up with a incredibly dynamic, innovative and powerful learning community. Talk about an open university. The Un-university? University 2.0? Just a thought.

In developing curricula for science education we base our work in part on the misconceptions students bring with them to the classroom. As part of my research I examine classroom science practice, and in particular the practice of one exceptional Chemistry teacher that is a part of my research group. He has infused his curricula, which he developed from scratch by himself, with a great deal of the history of chemistry. One of the units he does on burning involves having students do a series of experiments and then they are asked to draw on these experiments to support or refute phlogisten theory. This got me thinking about curriculum development and its relationship to the history of a field.

My question is: has there ever been a curricula designed (in science or not) that uses the historical development of ideas in a field as a analog to help structure activities in a classroom?  For example, in Physics this would start with the Aristotelian ideas that are considered core misconceptions current students have when entering Physics classes. You would design a set of experiences that challenge these core Aristotelian misconceptions. Then work through the ideas that Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, etc. in response to particular problems. The idea is not to focus on the history per se, but on the problems in the disciplines that great scientists grappled with and solved.  For example, using the data that supported a geocentric model of the universe, what were the weaknesses of the model, and what was the final piece of data that caused the revolution to a heliocentric universe.

To analogize to learning theory, you could view the revolutionary moments in the development of a science discipline as a reorganization of the facts of the field analogous to an accomodation in conceptual change. In this way you can use a map of the history of the discipline as a sort of roadmap to the likely development of an individual’s understanding of the discipline. The development of scientific disciplinary culture becomes an analog for the development of individual understanding of the ideas of that culture.

I know there have been curricula that focus on the history of science and primary source readings, but has anyone every considered history as an analogical guide for curriculum development? Thoughts would be appreciated.

I have just returned from the annual meeting of the National Association for Research on Science Teaching (NARST) in New Orleans, LA. What struck me clearly this time was the completely outmoded way that conferences (not just NARST) are run. I have been reading about the concept of an un-conference recently in Fred Stutzman’s blog. The idea is based on Open Space Technology. Generally, the idea is that of a self organizing conference. People are invited and then create an agenda on the fly (sometimes in advance via Web 2.0 tools) including break-out sessions based on emergent issues of interest.

How would this work in an academic research conference? That is the question I have been wrestling with. One of the difficulties is that most universities tie reimbursement for conference travel to presenting, so no presentation means no reimbursement. This makes a conference without a fixed agenda very difficult to populate. One solution is to allow all participants to be named as presenters. The solution I think is strongest, is to sandwich the unconference between poster sessions. In the morning have a poster session with refreshments. People are official presenters so there is no issue with support. Then there is a large middle section that is unconference. Then in the evening there is a poster session again with wine and cheese refreshments. It seems to have potential for a really powerful microtime learning community.

I just found out today that one of my amazing colleagues here at PSU, James Nolan, has been using Open Space Technology in his work with teachers in PSU’s professional development school. I am hoping to see this in action and report back how it updates my thinking on the academic unconference.

Just a quick thought. This morning it struck me that teaching is an activity that naturally generates theory (little t). To be able to explain something to someone else (how to make oatmeal) naturally leads to questions about why and therefore naturally leads to theory building. In terms of science, teaching may be the ultimate creative act.

Another article in The Economist got me thinking this week. Seems the UK is finding that its young students are not reading as much as they used to. This is not really big news and is an international trend. What was interesting was that in “1997 the government introduced a national literacy strategy” to address this problem. The “rigidly-structured daily one-hour lesson” seems to have actually turned kids off of books (do tell). Students asked why it was good to be able to read answered that it would help them do better on tests, not that reading was enjoyable. This seems to me to be exactly where we are headed with the emphasis in NCLB on standardized testing in reading and math (and soon science, which makes me most nervous). Programs emphasizing mechanics will drain critical literacy skills of inherent richness and leave students even further behind and even less interested in school. I can think of nothing more likely to reduce enjoyment of reading than turning it into a highly-structured mechanical activity.  Is the goal of education to create good factory line workers (a job that is increasingly disspearing), or to produce people with intellectual curiosity and deep love of learning?  Obvious answer, but do we really think that creating highly structured (read as teacher proof) curricula is a way to help people learn?  Seems so, as long as the measure of learning is how well you do on a standardized exam — and hey, there are lots of those in life, so at least we are preparing them for that.

The 12.23.06 issue of the Economist has an interesting article about the migration of Arizona State University’s technology infrastructure (starting with email) to Google’s Apps for Your Domain. My friend, Cole, talks about this much more articulately and thoughtfully, so check out his blog if you want deep thinking on these issues. I really liked one of the analogies used by Google’s Dave Girouard, when talking about security issues. He said that is going to be an “evolution in trust” similar to the one that occurred when “people reluctantly accepted that their money was safer in a bank than under a mattress”. To me this makes perfect sense. As we increasingly want to access data anywhere, it is going to become the information management companies like Google that will have to make a convincing case that the data is safe with them, because if they can’t make it safe their business will collapse. I don’t know if PSU is headed down this road, but it seems like an inevitable part of Web 2.0. Interestingly, the other implication of this is that IT bosses will disappear as their functions are increasingly done by information management firms. The Marc Benioff of Salesforce.com implies in the article that this may be one reason universities are moving so slowly to this notion of email and application management offsite — the IT bosses are simply protecting their own jobs.

Last semester I used Google Docs as a key tool in my class.  It was a course on learning theory as applied in Science Education.  I had them create a Wikipedia type of glossary of terms that they were responsible for keeping accurate.  One of the things I like most about Google Docs was what I could use it for in small groups.  I had student in groups and asked them to do their work in Google Docs.  They spread out around the building, wherever they felt they could work best.  I asked them to each include me as a collaborator on their document.  I sat in front of my laptop and could watch as groups developed their ideas by click between documents.  I could give on-the-fly feedback right into their document.  I could call them back to the classroom by typing a quick note in their document.  And when they came back to class I could share out their work my just clicking between documents that were already on my machine (or at least displayed there), without any “collecting”.  It seems a trivial thing that I actually stumbled onto by accident, but I think it points to the incredible power of the unexpected opportunities provided by ubiquitous computing in a networked environment.

This is not a profound one, but one of those stories you just want to remember. My daughters and two of their friends were up in the playroom playing their current favorite game, school. While they were doing this they were blasting the radio tuned to a classic rock station that happened to be playing Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”. Playing school to “we don’t need no education”, does it get any better than that?

For academics expertise is something we have to care about. It is the coin of the realm. I have been thinking a lot about what expertise means in the days of social software and peer rating systems. What does expertise at a university look like if the classroom has students taking notes together in a shared system (e.g. Notemesh) and the lectures are available via enhanced podcast? Do classes start to look more like blogs with podcasts? Do we develop a system of courses that are culled like Technorati or Digg culls other blogs? Will faculty be evaluated on the number of Diggs their course gets rather than the SRTEs (Student Rating of Teaching Effectiveness)?

Right now our expertise system (at least in academia) relies on credentials. To be a faculty member you must, for the most part, have a PhD or similarly highest degree in field. Expertise in the social software universe is based on popularity, and presumably usefulness and interest of the information your share along with how regular you are with sharing it — blogs (like mine) with very erratic or infrequent posts have much less impact in the blogosphere. Will we see faculty hired based on their blogs and podcasts? On the faculty fear end of the spectrum — will faculty whose classes have few diggs loose their jobs? One of the original fears about video and audio of lectures is that you would only need the one expert in Chemistry that does a great job to replace all the Chemistry faculty in the country. I don’t believe that teaching can be replaced in this way, but it may force a change in the model of teaching.

For another day: the question of how all these issues with expertise play out in terms of the research part of a faculty members job.

In their column for the NYT magazine Freakonomics, Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt discussed the problem of getting doctors to wash their hands in the hospital. For me there are clear parallels between this phenomenon and NCLB (No Child Left Behind). Doctors were given free Purell hand sanitizer as they pulled into the parking lot, they were “caught” being good (i.e. washing their hands before examining a patient) and given $10 Starbucks giftcards. All this led to an increase from 65% to 80% proficiency in hand washing. Finally, they cultured the doctors hands and then made a screen saver for every computer in the hospital with a picture of the massive bacterial colonies that resulted. This brought proficiency up to 100% (they claim) and it has stayed at that level since. Dubner and Levitt then point out how the solution to a seemingly simple problem (getting doctors to wash their hand before examining a patient) is often incredibly difficult and time consuming.

So, what has this to do with education and NCLB? Well, for me it brings out the massive underestimation of the complexity of learning and teaching on the part of almost everyone. This is exemplified in NCLB, which asks for 100% proficiency among students and proposes punitive measures based on standardized test scores as the motivation. If we compare the complexity of getting all american school children to 100% proficiency to getting doctors to wash their hands, it seems pretty obvious the differences in complexity. Yet, with the doctors all the cohersion (both rewards and punishments) could only get them to 80%. Do we really think that we can legislate a solution to the problem of schools failing to prepare our children? If there are kindergarten classrooms with 35+ students taught by someone with emergency certification (i.e. no preparation to teach), what is a realistic level of proficiency for those students? I don’t know what the equivilent of the dirty hand as screen saver is for our educational system, but NCLB is not it.