Pedagogy, practice and learning theory

When I was a teacher trainer, we used to debate whether trainee teachers should be introduced to learning theory before or after they went into the classroom to teach.

On the Pedagogy First programme (an online course to learn how to teach online) learning theory comes very near the end of the 24 week course (at Week 21), perhaps reflecting a view that theory follows practice, or that theory needs to be understood as a culmination of prior learning. Quite a few participants have struggled to keep up with the course, so only a small number have engaged with the week on learning theories, although those that did made interesting posts. (See the Pedagogy First course site )

As luck would have it, Claire Major, a participant on the course, is writing a book on how teaching online changes our work as teachers and so has a particular interest in learning theories – and this led to some great discussion and outcomes.

Claire bemoaned the fact that what has been written on learning theories seems to be a confusing mess and said she needed a diagram to pull it all together. I agreed.

Donald Clark wrote a series of 51 blog posts, each about a different learning theorist. Here is a screen shot taken from his first post in the series about Socrates.

 

Source of screenshot: http://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=Socrates

But this is not the diagram that Claire was looking for.

However, inspired by Claire to hunt for a diagram I found this cMap by Richard Millwood for the Holistic Approach to Technology Enhanced Learning Project.

Source of screenshot: http://cmapspublic3.ihmc.us/rid=1LGVGJY66-CCD5CZ-12G3/Learning%20Theory.cmap

But ultimately Claire took up the challenge herself and produced this presentation which she has shared as her final presentation for the Pedagogy First course.

What a great final outcome to a 24 week course!

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Theory-informed TEL and Connectivism

This week I met Seb Schmoller  who recommended that I have a look at the ocTEL MOOC , a 10 week open course in technology enhanced learning which is being run by ALT (Association for Learning Technology) here in the UK.

Seb is a former Chief Executive of ALT. I was vaguely aware of this MOOC, but had put it to the back of my mind, because for me there are just too many MOOCs about at the moment – it’s difficult to know where to focus.

But Seb’s prompt made me have another look and ‘Yes’ ocTEL does seem well organized with some interesting discussions and useful resources. However, I don’t think I will be getting fully engaged as I am already committed in part to FSLT13  due to start on May 8^th 2013 – and Growing Old Around the Globe   due to start on June 10^th 2013.  More of them later in other posts.

So far in the ocTEL MOOC I have checked out the Week 1 resources and listened to the recorded presentations .  One slide from Liz Masterman’s presentation has stuck in my mind.

Liz Masterman interviewed academics in Higher Ed and asked them which theories informed their use of technology in their teaching. This Wordle is the result. The two tiny words are ‘constructionism’ and ‘behaviourism’. This slide resonates with me because I was recently asked to create a presentation about learning theories for Lisa Lane’s Pedagogy First Online Teaching course. Whilst I am familiar with everything that is on Liz Masterman’s slide (although there are some models in there as well as theories), I only mentioned a few of these in my own presentation. Maybe I should have tried to take a broader brush, but at the time less seemed more.

For me an omission from Liz’s slide and therefore from the interviewees’ thinking and experience of technology enhanced learning in Higher Ed is ‘Connectivism’ or anything to do with networked learning – although communities of practice can be thought of in terms of networked learning.

In terms of the slide I don’t think it matters whether or not we think of Connectivism as a theory, since some of the other items listed on the slide are not theories – but could its omission be a ‘telling’ statement on where academics are in Higher Education in relation to their understanding of learning in new landscapes of practice?

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Describing open learning environments and emergent learning

Recent work on developing our framework for describing emergent learning (see Footprints of Emergence   and Emergent Learning and Learning Ecologies in Web 2.0 ) has been taxing our powers of description. By we, I mean my colleague Roy Williams and me. The work of Paul Cilliers has been helpful (see below)

How can we have confidence in the footprints, when the footprint (a graphic description of a learning experience), if individually drawn, depicts an interpretation of the learning experience based on subjective personal reflection on that experience, and the scoring factors themselves can be open to personal interpretation?

This ongoing work in seeking to describe and clarify what we mean by emergent and prescribed learning is progressing on our open wiki ‘Footprints of Emergence’. There has been quite a bit of interest in this public wiki with upwards of 50 unique daily visitors, which is very encouraging.

In particular we have been very interested in the work that a colleague from Austria – Jutta Pauschenwein, (FH JOANNEUM, University of Applied Sciences, Graz, ZML – Innovative Learning Scenarios) has been doing in relation to using the framework we have developed. Jutta has written a number of blog posts about this, but here is the most recent one written in English – Footprints for “Emerging Learning” – Variety of a creative method of reflection.

This work of Jutta’s (and her team) and of others who have drawn footprints of their courses or learning experiences, and shared them with us on our wiki has motivated us to further discuss our understanding of the factors we use for scoring the footprints and describing learning experiences. It has become increasingly clear that each footprint is unique to the individual who is drawing it and that if footprints of the same course are drawn by different people, they will be different. Does this invalidate the process or the framework? Our answer is ‘No’. Each person’s learning experience, and perspective on that learning process, is unique to them.  The value of the framework is, we hope, in providing a mechanism for articulating that experience, and in the discussion around this articulation.

Now it could be argued that this is simply an excuse for vagueness and of course this argument needs to be taken seriously. Any research or discussion of learning should be rigorous, and we hope that in our efforts to clarify the meaning/description of the factors that we use in our framework, we will be adding to the rigour of the research.

However, we are also aware that all learning is context dependent and in particular, that the open, emergent learning that we are seeking to describe takes place in complex systems, where there are no straightforward right or wrong answers.

Particularly helpful in explaining our position on this is the work of Paul Cilliers and in particular his article – Complexity, Deconstruction and Relativism

Cilliers, P. (2005). Complexity, Deconstruction and Relativism. Theory, Culture & Society, 22(5), pp.255–267. Available at: http://tcs.sagepub.com/content/22/5.toc

Cilliers writes that we should not underestimate the complexity of much of what we try to understand. It is difficult in complex systems to get agreement on meaning. He urges researchers to be ‘modest’ (not weak, but responsible) in the claims they make, because knowledge is always provisional, always contingent and contextual and the context has to be interpreted. My experience is that it is difficult to maintain a ‘modest’ stance in the face of requests for ‘the answer’.

Cilliers explains that in describing complex systems we have to reduce the complexity, which is what we have been struggling with in our framework. To reduce the complexity we have to leave some things out. In our framework we use 25 factors to describe prescribed and emergent learning and we have, more than once, had the discussion about where we draw the line, because our discussions often raise the possibility of adding another factor. The problem is that what is left out influences the description as much as what is left in.

Cilliers writes that complexity is messy and all frameworks are compromised to some extent.

‘There is no stepping outside of complexity (we are finite beings), thus there is no framework for frameworks. We choose our frameworks.’ (p.259)

‘To talk about the complex world as if it can be understood is clearly a contradiction of another kind and this is a contradiction with ethical implications.’ (p.261)

Cilliers has so perfectly described the issues we are wrestling with in the work we are doing in attempting to better understand open learning environments and emergent learning.

With the advent of MOOCs and a huge surge of interest in open, distant and online learning, how can we best describe learners’ experiences in these and more traditional environments? How can learners make sense of and articulate their own experiences? How how can we design environments which will help learners to work in messy complex systems?

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SEAD White Paper – Learning Across Cultures

Our paper “Learning Across Cultures” has been accepted by SEAD and posted on their site along with a number of other papers. ‘Our’ refers to Roy Williams, Simone Gumtau and me.

The next stage is a ‘meta-analysis’ of all the actions suggested in the different papers and a review of the papers in line with the review process posted on the SEAD website.

There will be a preliminary presentation of the study at the US National Academy of Sciences in Washington DC at a Leonardo DASER on May 16 2013.

When the study is finalised, our full white paper will be included in the Appendix.

It will be interesting to see the outcomes of the meta-analysis and whether the final report has any impact on transdisciplinary, cross-cultural collaboration between the sciences, engineering, arts and design.

This is how the original call for papers was explained on the SEAD website

We are seeking to survey concerns, roadblocks and opportunities, and solicit proposed actions for enhancing collaboration between sciences and engineering with practitioners in arts and design. These position papers will be submitted as part of a report to NSF and the community from the SEAD network in the summer of 2013. With grateful appreciation for US funding, we recognize that activity connecting the sciences, engineering, to arts and design is international and, furthermore, that global involvements are essential in today’s economy. Therefore we are interested both in what US collaborators can learn from experiences in other countries, and vice versa, institution or region specific issues, and also in how to foster collaborations that bridge beyond regions to nations. Cultural cross-fertilization via the SEAD network – whether from disciplinary, organizational or ethnic perspectives – is a vital component of our purpose and goals.

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Footprints of Emergence in CPsquare

We had a great discussion about our recent paper Footprints of Emergence  in CPsquare’s Research and Dissertations Series of presentations last night. By we I mean, Roy Williams, Simone Gumtau and myself and by CPsquare I mean the community of practice on communities of practice.

We had some technical difficulties in getting connected and we were small in number, but if ever there was proof that ‘small is beautiful’ in terms of quality of discussion, it was in last night’s discussion.

Some interesting points came out of the discussion.

Our footprints (see diagram below) could be interpreted at first glance as ‘flat’ and static – a bit like a map. Our paper explains that the opposite is in fact the case, but a dynamic, evolving, adaptive 3D footprint is very difficult to depict without the correct software. This is something we are looking into, but personally don’t have the skills to develop – maybe I am just speaking for myself

Each footprint is a ‘snapshot’ in time. This was so well observed and noted by John Smith (Community Steward of CPsquare). ‘Snapshot’ describes it so well.  They are also snapshots from an individual, or specific group perspective. John said ‘emergence is in the eye of the beholder’. So true.

The footprints can be drawn prospectively and/or retrospectively, dependent on the context and purpose and we discussed a variety of ways in which the footprints have already been used and the case studies we have published in the paper.

The footprints are about the balance to be achieved between prescriptive and emergent learning. We are definitely not saying that in any given learning environment ‘emergent’ is right and ‘prescriptive’ is wrong, or vice versa.

It is difficult to determine exactly where on the footprints the points should lie at any point in time. In determining this we are very aware that the very next day, next hour, we might place them differently. The value is in the discussion or thinking about where to place them.

John contributed an interesting perspective from his reading of Barry Boyce and James Gimian, The Rules of Victory: How to Transform Chaos and Conflict–Strategies from The Art of War (Boston & London: Shambhala, 2009).  and thought that ‘the strange produces the conventional and vice versa’ and that many of the metaphors and issues from the book can be brought over to the same issues that we are discussing in relation to emergent learning. We definitely need to explore this further.

And right at the end of the discussion, the issue of ‘awareness’ was raised. As Roy put it … a possible ‘scenario is that as more people draw more footprints, and they become more ’aware’ of the dynamics, they are less able to interact with (or in) full ‘awareness’.  This takes us into a whole new realm of discussion for me, so I’m looking forward to seeing how it develops.

But in the meantime – Roy has set up a wiki for further discussion. If you are interested in our footprints framework and would like to contribute a footprint to the wiki, Roy, Simone and I would love to hear from you.

And Roy, Simone and I have decided that our tag for discussions related to this on Twitter, blogs or elsewhere will be #emergentlearning

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Reflections on Collaborative Research

Collaborative research can be very rewarding, but the opposite can also be true. An internet search quickly shows that others have also written about this.

A 1998 paper (Guidelines for Research in Partnership with Developing Countries) written by the Swiss Commission for Research Partnership with Developing Countries, lists 11 principles of collaborative research as follows:

1. Decide on the objectives together
2. Build up mutual trust
3. Share information; develop networks
4. Share responsibility
5. Create transparency
6. Monitor and evaluate the collaboration
7. Disseminate the results
8. Apply the results
9. Share profits equitably
10. Increase research capacity
11. Build on the achievements

The Responsible Conduct of Research website also provides guidelines for collaborative research.

Both these sources of information say similar things and both appear to be providing guidelines for funded research projects.

Very little of the research I am involved in is funded. I usually work voluntarily, in my own time, to satisfy my own interests. Because I am an independent consultant, it follows that time I spend on this research, also means that it is time that I am not earning by working on a paid project. This is my choice, but perhaps it necessitates a different type of collaboration, or throws up some different issues.

I have done enough collaborative research now to know when it does and doesn’t work for me. It doesn’t when there is no real sense of working together, when there are ‘egos’ involved, when one of the team claims personal ownership over some aspect of the research, when there is lack of mutual respect, when there is lack of communication, and worst of all, when there are issues around whose name should appear as ‘lead’ author. It occurred to me that it would be great if a research team’s names were presented as a circle, so that there was no way of getting into these ‘lead’ author issues.

For me collaborative research is rewarding when there is a genuine partnership – a ‘Pas de Deux’ relationship as one of my research colleagues called it, i.e. that colleagues provide complementary strengths. This of course requires knowledge of and respect for each other’s strengths which takes time to develop. Two ‘Cs’ are very important in this – courtesy and frequent, open communication.

For me collaborative research also works best when partners are equally enthusiastic about the research topic and have a genuine desire to dig deep, i.e. it’s more than a jumping through hoops exercise to meet an externally imposed target. The rewarding bit of the research for me is in the discussions that can take place, possibly over many months or even years about the ideas being researched. The actual publication is simply the icing on the cake.

Finally, for me the most rewarding research collaborations have been those where the discussion doesn’t end simply because the paper has been submitted for publication – the discussion has been rich enough to generate too much to say in one publication and ideas for further research immediately spring to mind.

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JOLT Special Issue on MOOCs

The MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching (JOLT at http://jolt.merlot.org/) has released a Call for Papers for a special issue on Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), to be published in Summer (June) 2013.

The Guest Editors of the special issue are George Siemens (Athabasca University), Valerie Irvine (University of Victoria), and Jillianne Code (University of Victoria).

Proposals in the form of extended abstracts (500 words) are due on November 15, 2012, with full manuscripts due on January 31, 2013.

The full Call for Papers is available at the following URL: http://jolt.merlot.org/jolt_moocs_cfp.pdf

The Oxford Brookes FSLT12 MOOC team is thinking about this. For me it raises again the question of what makes a good Abstract. In this case the extended Abstract is going to be the deciding factor in getting a paper accepted, so it is important to get it right.

I’m looking for some good advice on this. Any suggestions?

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A new paper on Emergent Learning in IRRODL

The next issue of IRRODL (International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, Vol 13, No 4, 2012) has been published. This issue includes a paper written by Roy Williams, Simone Gumtau and me -  Footprints of Emergence.

In this paper we continue to explore the ideas around emergent learning which we first discussed in a paper published (also in IRRODL) in 2011 – Emergent Learning and Learning Ecologies in Web 2.0

In that paper we focused on developing our understanding of emergent and prescribed learning in relation to ways of working on the Web.

In the Footprints paper just published, we have explored how we might recognise a curriculum that promotes emergent or prescribed learning and suggested a framework for doing this. We are hoping that through this work we will be able to work collaboratively with others to examine a variety of curricula and learning environments (from curricula in more formal settings such as schools and Higher Education, to more informal settings such as MOOCs), and so further develop our understanding of the factors that lead to different degrees of emergent or prescribed learning.

In addition, we are beginning to see possible links between these ideas and those we have developed in a second paper – Synaesthesia and Embodied Learning which we have submitted to the Leonardo Journal

We have already presented some of the ideas associated with the Footprints framework at a conference at Stirling University in June of this year. (See also blog post – Learn by unlearning; see by unseeing)

Further presentations related to the paper will be to:

• CPsquare community -  – in the week of November 19^th as one of their Research and Development series of events. For this we hope to use the Footprints framework to discuss learning in CPsquare  with community members.

• Lancaster University on Tuesday 12^th February 2012 for their CPD (continuing professional development ) series

• An Abstract has been submitted to the SEAD Working Group on White Papers -   and we are currently in the process of writing the paper for submission on   November 15^th  
  (see also blog post -  SEAD: Describing Changing Curricula)

•  We are also in the process of seeking funding to develop the  Footprints framework further.

What I particularly like about this work (apart from the pleasure of working with Roy and Simone) is that it is continually in progress. It has not been a ‘one off’. In fact  whilst the publication process has actually been quite fast (about 6 months), it has felt slow, since out conversations around this work have been ongoing and our thinking is continually developing and evolving.

So it’s great to see the paper published.

This looks to be an interesting issue of IRRODL with contributions from some authors I recognise and follow – so I am looking forward to reading the papers.

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Is structure counter to cMOOC philosophy?

This was a question that came out of our FSLT12 Research Review meeting today. We were discussing what we have found out about the ways in which people participated and learned in the FSLT12 MOOC  -  and the extent to which this was constrained by the structure and curriculum we designed into the MOOC.

These questions have been timely for me. I have been pondering for quite a few days now about the approach taken by George Siemens and Rory MGreal to their Openness in Education MOOC, which I signed up for.

I was completely baffled at the start of the MOOC on September 10^th when there was nothing on the site. Apparently this was down to technical failure, but I’m wondering how many other people were contacting ‘friends’ to find out what was going on. To what extent is communication a part of structure and curriculum? But even now that the MOOC has got going and has been explained as follows …..

This course is based on a connectivist model of learning that Stephen Downes and I have been developing since 2008. We will provide some readings each week, but the course is really driven by learner contributions and resources. Which means that if no one blogs, the course gets pretty boring . Once you’ve submitted your blog, please include the course tag (oped12) in your posts and they will be aggregated into a daily newsletter. Please be patient as it typically takes a day or two to get ramped up with the course.

We don’t have a central discussion forum set up…learning happens in many places, sites, and tools. More on that here: http://open.mooc.ca/how.htm If you feel a place of interaction needs to be created, please create it and share with others using the course tag.

…. it’s quite difficult to find the content and it seems that there are not going to be any synchronous sessions, where people could gather/connect if they so wished.

David Wiley has made similar comments in a blog post, but brainysmurf  has responded in the comments on his blog

It’s really up to us as participants to decide what to do with the facilitators’ content (if anything), to develop our own live sessions if we want to and to share our resources as we see fit. That shift in power/control/effort is going to rattle more than a few people, I bet!

Am I rattled? Well, not rattled, but certainly questioning whether this extremely ‘hands off’ approach is in the best interest of learners.

Which comes back to the question of just how much structure and support should MOOC conveners provide. I know there are no right or wrong answers; and to come back to the initial question, I’m not sure how much or in what ways a structure/curriculum constrains learning, but then I’m also not sure how much a lack of structure/curriculum constrains learning.

Is structure counter to cMOOC philosophy? I don’t think so. I don’t see that the principles of connectivism – autonomy, diversity, openness and interaction across distributed platforms, or the key activities of cMOOCs – aggregate, remix, repurpose, feedforward, necessarily militate against structure or a curriculum.

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Embodied Learning

At what point do we forget or cease to think about intelligence as being embodied and think of it only in terms of our brains and minds. Little children naturally use their bodies for learning. Most children in nursery schools do not read and write. They learn through their bodies in the sand and water tray, on the climbing equipment, with bricks, Lego and so on. They learn by doing and acting on their environment using all their senses.

There was a fascinating programme on the Horizon Programme on BBC2 last night – The Hunt for AI, which explored the relationship between mind and body and the extent to which the body is ‘intelligent’.

The question asked by the programme was whether it is possible to build a machine (robot), which can mimic human intelligence. Is it possible to make a machine that can think?  Is it possible to capture the wonderful versatility of the human brain, human imagination and creativity?

The programme showed that there have been amazing developments in artificial intelligence and robotics since the days of Alan Turing’s work on the Enigma Machine. Most recently among these developments there has been the realization that in order to mimic the nature of human intelligence, robots or machines would need to have embodied intelligence, intelligence conditioned by the body. So artificial intelligence is now trying to replicate the human body.

Once you start thinking about the role of the body in learning – as we did in the paper we have just submitted to the Stirling Conference in June (see Abstract here – Theorising Education 2012 Abstract), then it is possible to think of many examples of embodied learning.

The example in the BBC2 programme was of the presenter trying to learn how to walk the tightrope. His instructor tells him to ‘turn his brain off and let his muscles do it’; she tells him that he is ‘thinking too much’.

As he said, learning to walk on a tightrope is similar to how a child learns to walk. It is instinctive. Ultimately everything we learn to do becomes automatic with practice.

But perhaps what was most intriguing about this example was that the presenter only learned to walk the tightrope when his instructor suggested that he sing at the same time. This very much relates to the discussion we have in our paper about multi-modal and cross-modal ways of working.

This was a fascinating programme and couldn’t have been more timely in relation to the work I have been doing with Roy Williams and Simone Gumtau on our paper – Synaesthesia and Embodied Learning.

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