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You Learn What You Live

Dwayne Harapnuik — April 5, 2011 — Leave a comment

This past weekend I had the opportunity to watch my 13 & 14 year old sons tackle and solve a real world problem that most of their peers, and I would speculate most adults, would not have even attempted. The rear door latch on our Chevy Astro Van broke and rather than take the van into the garage I asked my boys to fix it. I need to qualify, neither of my boys have any training in mechanics, nor do I, and none of us has ever had to resolve a problem like this before. I also need to explain that both of my boys have always been home schooled and have grown up in an environment where learning is stressed as part of what makes us human. I have always argued that whether one believes we are evolved or created there is no denying that we are learning beings–that is one of the most amazing aspects of the human condition. As a classic constructivist I hold the position that learning is an active process in which learners construct new ideas or concepts based upon their current/past knowledge–learning is all about making meaningful connections. The world around us often provides the best learning environment–if we choose to use it as a learning environment.

So–asking my boys to fix the van on a Saturday morning was nothing that surprised them nor was it something that overwhelmed them. They simply jumped into the back of the van and started assessing the situation and came up with a plan of attack. In less than 45 minutes they had removed the door panels and frames, unlatched and opened the doors, and identified and removed the broken part. The most challenging part of the whole repair was the trip to the auto-wrecker and the search for the replacement part which required scouring through over 25 wrecked vans–apparently this is a common problem with Chevy vans. The removal of the replacement part took only a few minutes which was good because we had less than 5 minutes before the wrecking yard closed.

It was amazing watching my sons install the replacement latch and reassemble the interior panels and frames of the two rear doors–they looked like seasoned professionals and had a confidence that you don’t generally see in teens. Other than helping them with inserting the latch rod into the pressure fitting on the latch pin (my hands are considerably stronger than my boys) they did all the work. This Saturday morning was in no way extraordinary and other than telling my boys I was proud of how well they worked together and complemented them on how quickly they resolved the problem nothing special was done because this is just the way that the Harapnuik household works and what the Harapnuik brothers are expected to do.

This experience and many more that have preceded it remind me of a fundamental question that we in academia need to address. Shouldn’t experiential or active learning and real world projects be used for all instruction? I have been pondering this question for many years and this past Saturday’s events remind me of an an article and a conversation I had with my youngest son when he was 10 that should call us to action.

In The Read Write Web Blog post Can New Media Be Taught in Schools? Marshall Kirkpatrick argues that you cannot genuinely teach New Media in school but rather have to immerse students in the new media tools and systems through experiential learning and projects. New media has to be experienced to be learned and ultimately understood. Kirkpatrick sarcastically asks:

Tests on Twitter, wiki-style study groups, students quizzed on yesterday’s most popular YouTube videos and the biggest hits on Del.icio.us/Popular – is this what the future of education is going to look like?

Common sense would dictate that this just doesn’t seem reasonable, yet so much of our educational system is based on recipe and regurgitation. So many in academia hold critical and analytical thinking as the “gold standard” but so much of what we do doesn’t go much beyond the repetition of information. Should we be encouraging our learners to learn how to learn? Shouldn’t they be given the opportunity to solve real world problems?

With this context in mind, a conversation with my younger son several years ago will reveal just how far away from this ideal our education system is. While riding up the chairlift on a downhill mountain biking trip I was discussing potential areas of special interest that my boys would like to explore in the upcoming fall. Since we are very active downhill mountain bikers we need to constantly repair and maintain our bikes. My younger son (at this time 10 years old) is a natural mechanic and simply enjoys maintaining and repairing his bike and after recently replacing his entire drive-train (derailleur, shifter, cables etc.) by himself, I realized that he may be ready to move into some formal mechanical training and suggested that we take a bike mechanic course together. My goals were twofold. First, I wanted use one of his natural interests and use bike mechanics as an avenue to explore the fascinating aspects of science like physics, chemistry and engineering. I also wanted another opportunity to expose my son to the traditional learning system or courses, classes, tests and the like. Even though we home school I have regularly put my boys into our traditional system for a variety of classes to insure that they are able and prepared to take instruction from others and are able to deal with how the rest of the world is taught. We have also have our boys take the year end HLAT or similar exams to insure that they are comfortable with the whole testing process.

Unfortunately, as my boys get older and move into higher grades getting them to agree to this process and justifying the reason for doing so is getting harder and harder. My younger son’s response to a formal bike mechanic course was:

Dad do we have to—why can’t we just learn by working on the bikes. Taking a course takes so much time and you really don’t get to do very much and you just don’t learn anything and…. Why can’t I just take my whole bike apart and put it back together–this is what we have done so far and I know a lot….

In an attempt to justify a formal course I explained that in a well designed course the content will be well laid out and course would follow a good text book or similar course material in a logical fashion. I also tried to justify that we could/would have access to an expert who could help us work through problems that we may not be able to resolve ourselves. My son responded in saying

I’ve worked on bikes long enough to know that there isn’t anything that we couldn’t figure out on our own–it may just take us a while. We could look things up on the Internet and find the answer if we got stuck-that’s what we did when we were figuring out how to fix and solder our guitar….

My next attempt at trying to justify a formal course included the typical “you get out of a course what you put into it” and I also tried to include the justification that he needed to get more experience in our traditional learning system.

At this point my older boy piped in on the conversation and affirmed the notion that courses just take too much time. He complained that it normally took 10-15 minutes for the teacher to get everyone settled down to the point where they started to do some work and then 10 minutes later they moved to a new location or different subject and had to go through the whole setting down process once again. These are courses like creative writing, physical education, science workshops and field trips and other opportunities where most kids are motivated to be engaged–I shudder to think of what my son’s would think of learning math, language arts, or social in a traditional setting. The following questions from my older son have motivated me to action:

Why do they waste so much of our time? Will it get any better when we get to University? Why can’t you fix it?

I have been pondering this conversation and the resulting questions for the past several years and I agree with my sons. Why can’t we fix it? We need to move from the passive educational environment of main lecture points, rubrics, individual competition and standardized testing to an active educational environment of interactive presentations, critical and analytical thinking, collaboration and meaningful projects. We need to create an environment where creativity, innovation and exploration flourish. For the most part that was not the environment I was subjected to in my 12 years if primary and secondary and 13 years of post secondary education. I did tough it out and made the most of all my courses but it really didn’t have to be that way and for the generations to come it needs to improve.

We can do better. We all know how valuable it is to learn by doing, by experiencing life and by real world projects. We just need to work this into our formal system. The research on constructivism, active learning, experiential learning and many other approaches and theories confirm that our educational system can be radically improved if we make the effort. Our kids, young adults and all our learners for that matter deserve this effort. We all need to work together to “fix it”.

In Learning 2.0, Meaningful Connections experiential, hands on, Learning

Why Learners Should Blog

Dwayne Harapnuik — February 8, 2011 — 4 Comments

In his Teach Paperless blog Shelly Blake-Plock offers several excellent reasons for Why Teachers Should Blog. Blake-Plock posits that):

The essence or meaning of a blog is determined by what the author posts and how others respond.
A blog reveals how the author thinks.
Blogs confirm who the author is and what ideas, thoughts reactions, dreams and the author is currently pondering.
A blog can help teach the author WHAT they think.

The notion of thinking about ones own thinking and about learning is summed up by Blake-Plock in the following statements:

This is real maturity. Because real maturity is not about having the right answers, it’s about having the audacity to have the wrong answers and re-address them in light of contemplation, self-argument, and experience.

This is made perhaps even more evident by the public nature of the blog, and that is one of the foremost reasons all teachers should in fact blog. Because to face one’s ill conclusions, self-congratulations, petty foibles, and impolite rhetoric among peers in the public square of the blogosphere is to begin to learn to grow.

And to begin to understand that it’s not all about ‘getting it right’, but rather is a matter of ‘getting it’.

Understanding the difference between getting it right and getting it is the key to learning. You can make mistakes and still get it. Unfortunately, many of our politicians, administrators and even some educators just don’t get this. Learning from one’s mistakes is central to learning.

Blake-Plock’s post has inspired me to think about why I blog and while I endorse his arguments. I suggest that we need to go further and expand our thinking on this topic to include all learners–not just teachers. I also posit that we need to include the following suppositions to fully round out why all learners should blog:

A blog can help a learner make meaningful connections
A blog reveals that a learner is learning.
Blogging reveals WHAT a learner has learned.
A blog can expand our capacity to learn.

When I take the time to analyze a video, blog post, article or book and write about it in my blog I actually move the subject of what I am writing about from information to knowledge–I make it my own. Regardless If people comment on my blog posts or not the process of reflection, analysis and then synthesis helps me make the necessary meaningful connections which means I am learning. My blog becomes an organizational point for what I have learned and it can serve as a starting point when I wish to review my thoughts at a later date. In essence my blog acts as an extension of my long term memory.

Blogging has enabled me to expand my capacity to store and retrieve knowledge and when I combine this with tools like Evernote which enables me to store, organize and easily retrieve small bits of information my short term memory is also further expanded. Contrary to what Nicholas Carr states in the Shallows, the internet is not making us stupid–IFF we choose to use it to expand and enhance our learning. The choice is ours.

In Blog, Meaningful Connections 21st century learning, Learning

Mobile Devices as Engagement Catalysts

Dwayne Harapnuik — March 10, 2010 — Leave a comment

In the past several weeks I have attended several functions in which the speakers talked about their experiences in college. Unfortunately what they said about their experiences was not surprising and not very encouraging. For example, one individual who retired at age 55 talked about his experience going back to university to get a degree that would help him in a new endeavor. In sharing his challenges of being an adult learner and not being in school for many years, this individual talked about cramming for tests, meaningless assignments and all the work that he had to do which really didn’t appear to have any significance toward the degree he was working toward. While it was disappointing to hear about this individual’s experience it was even more disappointing to listen to the majority of the audience grown in agreement with his experience.

The audience also laughed in agreement with the speaker when he indicated that he was looking for any opportunity to get out of finishing his degree. They also laughed reluctantly when the speaker indicated that he just had to buckle down and “jump through the hoops” to get through his degree. This is an example of an adult learner who is motivated, mature, and responsible enough to know that the degree that he was working towards would enable him to do the things he wanted to do in the future. And yet, he only saw his educational experience as a means to an end – not as an opportunity to learn, grow and to be enriched. As learning theorist and an educator I grimace when I hear these types of stories but I also recall similar frustrations with many of my classes. I also shudder to consider what the average 18 or 19-year-old, who is often less motivated and focused, is thinking about their experiences in college. NSSE scores confirm that many of our students do not believe that they are being engaged or challenged enough.

It doesn’t have to be this way – one’s educational experiences can be so much more. Learning should be an active, dynamic and engaging process in which learners construct new ideas or concepts based on new, current and past knowledge. The making of meaningful connections is key to learning and knowing and this can be very rewarding and motivating. I also know that we need to move from the passive educational environment of main lecture points, rubrics, individual competition and standardized testing to an active learning environment of interactive presentations, critical and analytical thinking, collaboration and meaningful projects. We (the Academy) have the responsibility to create significant and engaging learning environments to make these types of stories to go away.

Fortunately, teaching & learning is changing and some people are speculating that mobile devices are one good way of fostering engagement and interaction. But what do we mean by engagement or engaging learning?

In her book Student Engagement Techniques: A Handbook for College Faculty, Elizabeth R. Barkley defines engagement as a

process and a product that is experience on a continuum and results from the synergistic interaction between motivation and active learning.

In Defining Student Engagement: A Literature Review Adam Fletcher reveals that a consolidated definition suggests that:

Students are engaged when they are attracted to their work, persist in despite challenges and obstacles, and take visible delight in accomplishing their work. Student engagement also refers to a student willingness, need desire and compulsion to participate in, and be successful in the learning process.

Perhaps one of the most significant revelations regarding engagement is that we tend to know what it looks like when students are engaged and equally important when they are not. Just watch any young person playing a video game and you will likely see expressions similar to those in the image below.

In “Engage Me or Enrage Me”: What Today’s Learner’s Demand, Mark Prensky reminds us that most young people have video games, music, movies, extreme sports, social networking and many other activities that are engaging. He also reminds us that these young people aren’t necessary looking for “eye-candy or the wow factor” they are simply looking for a challenging environment in which they can learn to adapt.

Mobile devices themselves really do nothing to foster engagement but what they do is force educators to think about the learning environment in new ways. Because we can tap into the internet and vast databases of information, anytime and anywhere with mobile technology, we no longer have to focus on “delivering the content” or require our learners to memorize and regurgitate information. We can move beyond the informational aspect of instruction and move into the realm of analysis and critical thinking and have our learners apply this information to genuine and signficant problems and projects.

These tools force us to rethink the classroom and the learning environment as a whole because we are not able to stuff the classroom into the device. We have no choice but to rethink the way we design our classes and our learner’s experiences – the learner not the content becomes the central focus. When you combine this with the fact that these tools give us access to so much information we can now really focus on the learner, engage them, and help them make those significant connections. What an exciting opportunity!

In Learning, Meaningful Connections active learning, engage, Engagement

Creating Significance to Foster Learning

Dwayne Harapnuik — September 17, 2009 — Leave a comment

Michael Wesch, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University is best known for his poignant YouTube videos Web 2.0 The Machine Us/ing Us and more recently A Vision of Students Today. His EDUCAUSE keynote presentation, Human Futures for Technology and Education provides a deeper explanation of the videos and also identifies the key to his message. In this presentation Wesch explains how he and his students came to create the video of A Vision of Students Today and how he views significance as one of the major problems we face in Education today. Wesch makes the argument that what is significant for students not what is significant in the average college classroom.

The way to judge what is significant in a classroom is to look to the questions that students are asking. For example, if the following type of questions are being asked:

Will this be on the exam?
How many pages do I need to write?
Should we write this down?

then it should be clear that assessment and not learning is what is significant.

In the Vision video Wesch’s students ask the question: If these walls could talk would they say? In response to this question Wesch argues that the message the walls (educators) are sending is:

To learn is to ACQUIRE information

Information is scarce and hard to find

Trust authority for good information

Authorized information is beyond discussion

Obey Authority

Follow along

What these wall DO NOT say, but should is:

To learn is to Discuss, Challenge, Critique, and Create information

Wesch argues that to learn is to create significance–one creates significance through meaningful connections. The fundamental question that Wesch challenges us to answer is:

How can we create students who can create meaningful connections?

He points to anthropological truisms: There is no connection without meaning and there is no meaning without connection to support his position.

Rather than just offer a critique of our current system Wesch offers the following suggestions for creating significance:

Find a grand narrative to provide relevance and context for learning (addresses semantic meaning)
Create a learning environment that values and leverages the learners themselves (addresses personal meaning)
Do both in a way that realizes and leverages the existing media environment (and therefore allows students to realize and leverage the existing media environment).

View the Human Futures for Technology and Education presentation.