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The Ideal Professor vs. The Typical Professor

Dwayne Harapnuik — September 9, 2013 — Leave a comment

The Ideal Professor vs. The Typical Professor – Faculty Focus | Faculty Focus via kwout

This is a very short blog post that has an excellent table that provides a summary of the results of the survey. It is encouraging to note:

the characteristics these students identified as belonging to those teachers who most effectively taught them were not absent in Typical professors. They just weren’t as pronounced. I take that to mean, if you aspire to be ideal, you don’t have to do new things, just more of those good things you already do.

The numbers reflect the percentage of students who endorsed this characteristic for their Ideal professors and the percentage who said they characterized the Typical professor.

Teaching Characteristic Ideal Typical

Professor speaks clearly/not monotone 93 80

Course and daily goals appear on the syllabus 83 52

Students have a voice; input on course policies and procedures 40 7

Professor talks informally with students sometimes 43 15

Professor lectures 78 93

Professor uses discussion 58 37

Professor does in-class activities/demonstrations 57 21

·Uses humor often/occasionally
·Uses humor occasionally only 97 75

·Cheating/plagiarism policy—investigates and resolves incidents
·Do not know what approach is used to deal with academic dishonesty 58 64

Solicits anonymous, written, informal feedback on teaching/course 68 17

·Solicits student feedback two or more times per term
·Never solicits student feedback 72 3

Read the full post…

In Learning

The Latest Threat of the Teaching Machine

Dwayne Harapnuik — September 6, 2013 — Leave a comment

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/17980-automated-teaching-machine-a-graphic-introduction-to-the-end-of-human-teachers

Automated Teaching Machine: A Graphic Introduction to the End of Human Teachers via kwout

Adam Bessie and Arthur King have created a comic that illustrates the numerous attempts over the past 100 years of automating teaching. They point to Fanz Kafka’s writings and highlight several attempts at automation from Pressley’s teaching machine in 1915, to Skinner’s Box in the 1930’s and finally to the EngKey egg shaped robot that is currently used by South Korea elementary schools to help teach English.

Perhaps the most helpful or alarming fact that Bessie and King offer is their statement that:

…we don’t need “teaching machines” to mechanize Education.

Human teachers just need to act like robots, teaching to the standardized test, never complaining, following the script and making sure students do as well.

If we were to focus on significant learning environments that incoporate critical and analytical thinking rather then the regurgitation of information the threat of the teaching machine wouldn’t be a threat.

In Learning automation, teaching, teaching machine

Goodbye eLearning?

Dwayne Harapnuik — August 20, 2013 — Leave a comment

Elliott Masie’s Learning TRENDS – Learning TRENDS – 785 – Goodbye eLearning? Jane Pauley on Boomers; Wearable Performance Support via kwout

Elliot Masie the prolific author on learning and technology; the head of the MASIE Center, a Saratoga Springs, NY think tank focused on how organizations can support learning and knowledge within the workforce; and the leader of the Learning CONSORTIUM, a coalition of 230 global organizations cooperating on the evolution of learning strategies has noticed that:

two phrases that are decreasing in presence:

“e-Learning”
“Instructional Designer”

Masie is not surprised by the shift away from “e-Learning” to the all encompassing term “learning” or to greater level of specificity offered by terms like: Virtual Classrooms, Webinars, eBooks, MOOCs or Online Courses. Despite being credited with introducing the term “e-learning” in the mid 90’s Masie too has moved to using the term “learning” for all his programs.

Having spent the past 18 years working on the cutting edge of e-learning/online learning/web-based instruction or whatever we are calling it today I agree with Masie that the general term “learning” is much more appropriate. Most recently I have been adding the prefix “digitally enhanced” to the term “learning” differentiate it from its more traditional meaning. Perhaps this move back to the use of learning to refer to what we do all the time and everywhere is most appropriate considering that we have really only limited learning to the classroom for the past 100-150 years.

I am also glad to see that terms like e-learning are going out of vogue and am now waiting in anticipation for the term “mobile-learning” or “mlearning” to fade away as well. It is unfortunate that our society tends to limit or constrain so many things through naming conventions and/or definitions. Learning is the making of meaningful connections and it happens all the time and everywhere with or without technology.

In Learning e-learning, elearning, mLearning, mobile learning

16 useless infographics

Dwayne Harapnuik — August 13, 2013 — Leave a comment

16 useless infographics | News | theguardian.com via kwout

We can all appreciate a good infographic because it conveys a vast amount of information or a very clear message through a well designed visual representation. Not all infographics useful as we can see from the Guardian’s article. In addition to being useless some of the infographics are also misleading.

View the Guardian’s 16 useless inforgraphics post

Warning: British/European perspective on what is acceptable to publish online.

In Infographic communication, graphics, useless

The Future Is Now: 15 Innovations to Watch For

Dwayne Harapnuik — August 8, 2013 — Leave a comment

http://chronicle.com/article/The-Future-Is-Now-15/140479/?cid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

The Future Is Now: 15 Innovations to Watch For – Commentary – The Chronicle of Higher Education via kwout

I have been monitoring innovation in education for the past 20 years so I am always looking for new insights so any post, article or story that points to “innovations to watch for” catches my attention. Even before I fully read the article I did a quick look up of the author Steven Mintz to see if he had the credentials or the experience to be offering these types of predictions. He does openly warn he readers he is a “historian and far better at interpreting the past than forecasting the future.” In addition to being a Professor of History, University of Texas at Austin, Mintz is also the Executive Director for the Institute for Transformational Learning in the University of Texas System. Finally, he points to over a decades worth of teaching with technology and walks the talk with a personal website http://stevenmintz.com/ that demonstrates his belief and skill in using technology to enhance learning.

Mintz points to following 15 innovations that he suggests will alter the face of higher education over the next 36 months:

1. e-Advising
2. Evidence-based pedagogy
3. The decline of the lone-eagle teaching approach
4. Optimized class time
5. Easier educational transitions
6. Fewer large lecture classes
7. New frontiers for e-learning
8. Personalized adaptive learning
9. Increased competency-based and prior-learning credits
10. Data-driven instruction
11. Aggressive pursuit of new revenue
12. Online and low-residency degrees at flagships
13. More certificates and badges
14. Free and open textbooks
15. Public-private partnerships

Despite not being an acclaimed expert in educational technology Mintz’s predictions fall in line with the literature and research in this area and more importantly he points to changes in learning as the key disruptive innovation in 8 of his 15 predictions. He sees evidence based pedagogy not only informing instructional design but also personalized adaptive learning. He accurately places the emphasis on student-centred, competency based, well designed and collaborative constructed learning experiences as a major catalyst for change. His remaining predictions point to the disruptors of open educational resources (OER), growth of online learning and the loosening of credentialing through certification and badges and the move toward public-private partnerships.

Mintz sums up his piece with a positive challenge to faculty members to work together and:

take the lead in designing an education that will truly serve the needs of our 21st-century students.

Read the full article…

In Innovation Change, EdTech, future, predictions