randy bass - e-portfolios and learning
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E-Portfolios and the Problem of Learning in the Post-Course Era AAC&U Pre-Conference Symposium January 20, 2010TRANSCRIPT
E-Portfolios and the Problem of Learning in the Post-Course Era
Randy Bass, Georgetown University
AAC&U Pre-Conference Symposium January 20,2010
“Why did the Articles of Confederation fail so completely?
“Most historians believe the Founding Fathers spent a great deal of their first cons8tu8onal conven8on dra9ing the Declara'on of Independence and only realized on July 3rd that the Ar8cles were also due.”
From America, by Jon Stewart & Co.
Sir Ken Robinson, “How Education Kills Creativity”
ted.com
Sir Ken Robinson, “How Education Kills Creativity”
ted.com
“What we need is a new conception of human ecology, one in which we start to reconstitute our conception of the richness of human capacity.”
E-Portfolios and the Problem of Learning in the Post-Course Era
“You know. It was taught as a Gen Ed course and I took it as
a Gen Ed course.”
Georgetown student, end of first year, focus group: reflecting a particular course in which, he claimed, he was not asked to engage with the material.
“You know. It was taught as a Gen Ed course and I took it as
a Gen Ed course.”
“What we ask students to do is who we ask students to be.” Kathleen Yancey
(quoted by Liz Clark this morning)
“...what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.”
Nicholas Carr, “Is Google Making Us Stupid,” The Atlantic, July/August 2008
Is Gen Ed Making Us Stupid?
Student Focus Groups
What students are saying:
In many courses, they are not asked to engage with the material--just to listen and to give it back.
Often they are not being challenged, asked to think critically, or able to bring relevance to their learning.
“Call to Action” Student Focus Groups
They are all very satisfied.
They all agreed there is a big difference between a Georgetown education and a Georgetown degree.
For the most part--of course there are exceptions--their coursework is not where their meaningful learning is taking place.
High Impact Practices (National Survey of Student Engagement--NSSE)
• First-year seminars and experiences
• Learning communities
• Writing intensive courses
• Collaborative assignments
• Undergraduate research
• Global learning/ study abroad
• Internships
• Capstone courses and projects
High Impact Activities and Outcomes
High Impact Practices:
• First-year seminars and experiences
• Learning communities
• Writing intensive courses
• Collaborative assignments
• Undergraduate research
• Global learning/ study abroad
• Internships
• Capstone courses and projects
Outcomes associated with High impact practices
• Attend to underlying meaning
• Integrate and synthesize
• Discern patterns
• Apply knowledge in diverse situations
• View issues from multiple perspectives
• Gains in Skills, knowledge, practical competence , personal and social development
So, if high impact practices are largely in the extra curriculum, then where are the low-impact
practices?
The Post-Course Era
If the formal curriculum is not where the high impact experiences are
then there are three options
(1) Make courses higher impact
(2) Create better connections between courses and the high impact experiences outside the formal curriculum
(3) Start shifting resources from from the formal to the high impact (experiential) curriculum
All of the above…
Whether we turn to improving the quality of courses, or try harder to connect courses to experiences, “courses” will no longer be the bounded experiences they have been.
changing nature of learning in the culture
…will drive changing nature of learning in the classroom
…will drive the way we need to support and assess student learning
E-Portfolios are the natural extension of the logic of the learning paradigm (Barr and Tagg, 1995).
John Seely Brown: Practice to Content
content
practice
Looking from the Web in…
How do we make formal learning environments more like informal learning?
How do we make classroom learning more like participatory culture?
Participatory Culture
Features of participatory culture
Low barriers to entry
Strong support for sharing one’s contributions
Informal mentorship, experienced to novice
Members feel a sense of connection to each other
Students feel a sense of ownership of what is being created
Strong collective sense that something is at stake
How do we make classroom learning more like participatory culture?
Jenkins, et. al., The Challege of Participatory Culture
Six Characteristics of high impact practices AND definition of participatory
learning
Features of participatory culture (on the Web) Low barriers to entry Strong support for sharing
one’s contributions Informal mentorship,
experienced to novice Members feel a sense of
connection to each other
Students feel a sense of ownership of what is being created
Strong collective sense that something is at stake
High impact experiences (extra curriculum)
Attend to underlying meaning
Integrate and synthesize
Discern patterns
Apply knowledge in diverse situations
View issues from multiple perspectives
Skills, knowledge, practical competence , personal and
social development
NOVICE MIRACLE EXPERT
product product
Connecting Intermediate Processes to Practice
Bass & Elmendorf, 2007
NOVICE processes
EXPERT practice
LEARNING processes
LEARNING processes
How can we better understand these intermediate processes?
How might we design to foster and capture them?
evidence of process
Connecting Intermediate Processes to Practice
LEARNING processes
NOVICE processes
LEARNING processes
EXPERT practice
evidence of
Process
LEARNING processes
LEARNING processes
“Thin slices” of online discussion or blog
Traces of collaborative practice
Micro-reflections on the cutting room floor
ePortfolio samples: drafts, reflections
Connecting Intermediate Processes to Practice
#1: Social Pedagogies and a Large Lecture Course
Foundations of Biology BIOL-103
1st year Biology course
250 students
science majors & pre-meds
Heidi Elmendorf, Georgetown University
Sense of Personal and
Intellectual Significance
Student Learning Goals (Students develop…)
A Sense of Audience and Voice
Social Pedagogies
Participatory learning
Course Design Elements
Readings & On-line Conversation
Class & Think-Pair-Share
Lab & Partnered Inquiry
Problem Sets & Group Effort around Authentic and Challenging Problems
Research Paper & Shared Steps
Exams & Room for Uncertainty
Heidi Elmendorf, Georgetown University
• Communicate about the reading. One of the best ways to learn something is to talk about it. Air your bafflement, express your wonder, ask your questions, try out a new idea of your own…And while I hope you will talk often about biology this semester with your classmates, I want to be sure you have an official forum for these conversations – and that you are rewarded for the effort you will expend having them.
Prof Elmendorf’s Instructions to her Students for the Discussion Board
Holding Conversations
Online Conversation
Jose Feito, on the importance of “not knowing”
“The theme of not-knowing [has] emerged as a key factor in the maintenance of a truly collaborative intellectual community within the classroom.
In order for a shared inquiry to proceed productively, the participants must be able to regularly acknowledge their lack of understanding, offer partial understandings, and collectively digest the resulting discourse.
Not-knowing is characterized by a group’s ability to defer meaning, tolerate ambiguity, hold divergent perspectives, and postpone closure. In order to develop, it requires a relatively non-judgmental classroom atmosphere, but not an uncritical one.”
Jose Feito, St. Mary’s University (Moraga, California, U.S.A.)
Online Conversation
Thin slices of learning
Voice, agency, adaptive thinking all begin here…
Sense of Personal and
Intellectual Significance
Student Learning Goals (Students develop…)
A Sense of Audience and Voice
Social Pedagogies
Heidi Elmendorf, Georgetown University
Part of the process of capturing student work in a portfolio will increasingly be capturing the process of coming to know.
Social Pedagogies and an Introductory Writing Class
Writing, Invention, Media HUMW-011
1st year writing course
20 students
Gen Ed
Randy Bass, Georgetown University
Humanities & Writing 011
First-year required writing course
Section theme: “Writing, Invention, Media”
Core concept: “writing is a social act”
Core theme: Changes modes of learning, the participatory culture of Web, and the nature of the University
CORE
Important
Worthwhile
Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe,
Understanding by Design
What is worth knowing and doing?
What is important to know and do?
What is a core or enduring understanding?
CORE
Important
Worthwhile Opening Day exercise:
Writing in school?
Writing on the Web?
HUMW011: Writing, Invention, Media
Core Values of Writing in School: Week One
Cor
e
Impo
rtan
t W
orth
whi
le
Core Understandings--writing in school (week one)
Core Understandings--digital, Writing on the web (week one)
Semester-long Project
Collectively write an essay responding to the claim that Universities are radically out of step with new modes of learning (“participatory culture”) of the Web.
20 students acting collectively as “author” Write it together through crowd-sourcing and
collaborative editing—test the hypothesis that all of them together could write something better than any one of them
Intent from the beginning is to publish it on the Web
Working in the Wiki
Social Bookmarking
Social Bookmarking
Collaborative Editing
CommentPress
CommentPress
Thin Slices
Participatory learning + Web 2.0 tools
Student work is in process, in practice—not just in summative work
Networked research group
Networked research group
Yahoo Pipes
Networked research group
Participatory Culture and Formal Learning
Student team
Student team
Student team
Shared course blog or teacher / tutor space
Any mechanism for aggregating, feeding, filtering, tagging…
Capstone Course in Engineering
(Design competition)
70+ students 12 teams two projects
Central RSS feed
Team blogs
Central RSS feed
Team blogs
Teacher watches, coaches
(key source of capture for intermediate processes)
Thin Slices
If we are to connect courses to the “holistic self-portrait” of the learner (Bret Eynon), then we not only to link out but in..
Sense of Personal and
Intellectual Significance
Student Learning
Goals
A Sense of Audience and Voice
PRACTICE: Features of Participatory
Process
• Help students create markers of certainty and
uncertainty
• Provide opportunities for relearning
• Design opportunities for meaningful reflection on
Practice
Sense of Personal and
Intellectual Significance
Student Learning
Goals
A Sense of Audience and Voice
PRACTICE: Features of Participatory
Process
• Help students create markers of certainty and
uncertainty
• Provide opportunities for relearning
• Design opportunities for meaningful reflection on
Practice
Connecting to faculty?
Make courses portfolio-aware, portfolio-adapted
Link to eportfolios
Tim Kastelle University of Queensland, “Successful Open Business Models”
“Successful Open Business Models on the Web”
Aggregate
Filter
Tim Kastelle
Tim Kastelle University of Queensland, “Successful Open Business Models”
In the 21st Century, how do colleges and universities “add value”?
• Aggregate
• Filter
Tim Kastelle
Tim Kastelle, “Successful Open Business Models”
The important business model idea here is that the role of the person putting the course together is not necessarily to create content, or to transfer it into the heads of the students. The main jobs here are aggregating and filtering – compiling information, figuring out what is essential, and then creating a framework within which students can explore this knowledge using all of tools (mental, physical and digital) at their disposal.
Tim Kastelle
Tim Kastelle, “Successful Open Business Models”
In general, this [participatory learning] is where students gain value in this kind of setting. It’s a very challenging way to teach. There’s no set of slides to guide you, your primary resource is what you know, and there is a small but measurable chance that things can go completely haywire. On the other hand, when it works, it is exhilarating. So I’m adding a third key value adding activity for digital business models: connecting.
Tim Kastelle
Tim Kastelle, “Successful Open Business Models”
“Successful Open Business Models” (higher education)
• Aggregate • Information resources
• Filter • Knowledge (what knowledge is worth knowing) • Scholarship (peer review) • Graduates (employability)
• Connect • Ideas, experiences, people
Shift in How We Add Value
AGGREGATE
FILTER
CONNECT
Tim Kastelle, “Successful Open Business Models”
Connecting is critically important both in journalism and in education. So that makes three value adding activities in the digital economy: aggregating, filtering, and connecting.
The lesson to take from the current states of both the music industry and journalism is that you have to have a clear understanding of how you’re creating value so that you build and protect the correct parts of your business model.
Perhaps universities can learn this lesson before educational business models are disrupted as well.
Tim Kastelle
Shift in How We Add Value
AGGREGATE
FILTER
CONNECT
COURSE ERA
POST-COURSE ERA
E-PORTFOLIOS ARE TOOLS that PUT FILTERING and CONNECTION
in STUDENT HANDS
Sense of Personal and
Intellectual Significance
Student Learning
Goals
A Sense of Audience and Voice
PRACTICE: Features of Participatory
Process
• Help students create markers of certainty and
uncertainty
• Provide opportunities for relearning
• Design opportunities for meaningful reflection on
Practice and integration of experience
We have had our why's, how's, and what's upside-down, focusing too much on what should be learned, than how, and often forgetting the why altogether.
In a world of nearly infinite information, we must first address why, facilitate how, and let the what generate naturally from there.
Michael Wesch, “From Knowledgeable to Knowledge-able,” Academic Commons, January 2009 (academiccommons.org)
But even as we shift our focus to the “how” of learning, there is still the question of “what” is to be learned. After all, our courses have to be about something.
Michael Wesch, “From Knowledgeable to Knowledge-able,” Academic Commons, January 2009
Usually our courses are arranged around “subjects”…. As an alternative, I like to think that we are not teaching subjects but subjectivities: ways of approaching, understanding, and interacting with the world.
E-Portfolios are the critical apparatus of the shift from
subjects to subjectivities
Implementing E-portfolios is a way of catching up to where we already are: the end of the course as a bounded learning experience
JAMES F. SLEVIN 1948-2005
Dr. Helen Barrett
“My Final Wish…
May all your electronic portfolios become dynamic celebrations and stories of deep learning across the lifespan.”
Visible Knowledge Project (Bass and Eynon)
Academiccommons.org
Visible Knowledge Project Findings
Adaptive expertise
Embodied learning
Socially situated learning
Visible Knowledge Project Findings
Adaptive expertise: Process Practice Metacognition “judgment in uncertainty”
Embodied pedagogies: Beyond the cognitive Integrative
Socially situated pedagogies: Social, participatory learning changes intellectual
development
“A threshold concept can be considered as akin to a portal, opening up a new and previously inaccessible way of thinking about something. It represents a transformed way of understanding, or interpreting, or viewing something without which the learner cannot progress….
Jan Meyer and Ray Land, “Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge: Linkages to Ways of Thinking and Practising within the Disciplines.” Occasional Report 4, May 2003. Enhancing Teaching-Learning Environments in Undergraduate Courses Project. University of Edinburgh.
Threshold Concepts
“As a consequence of comprehending a threshold concept there may thus be a transformed internal view of subject matter, subject landscape, or even world view. This transformation may be sudden or it may be protracted over a considerable period of time, with the transition to understanding proving troublesome.
Such a transformed view or landscape may represent how people ‘think’ in a particular discipline, or how they perceive, apprehend, or experience particular phenomena within that discipline (or more generally).”
Jan Meyer and Ray Land, “Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge: Linkages to Ways of Thinking and Practising within the Disciplines.” Occasional Report 4, May 2003. Enhancing Teaching-Learning Environments in Undergraduate Courses Project. University of Edinburgh.
Examples (acc to Meyer and Land)
Economics: Concept of Opportunity cost Mathematics: Concept of a Limit Literary and Cultural Studies: Concept of
signification
• Transformative: may occasion a significant shift in perception of a subject (or even personal identity)
• Irreversible: unlikely to be forgotten or unlearned
• Integrative: exposes previously hidden interrelatedness of something
When someone truly understands a threshold concepts, it is...
Troublesome Knowledge (Perkins, 1999):
“A threshold concept may on its own constitute, or in its application lead to… troublesome knowledge.” (Meyer and Land, 2003)
-troublesomeness protracts or blocks crossing the threshold: putting the learner in a liminal or stuck place
Among the reasons why a learner might not be able to truly understand a threshold concept is because it presents...
Threshold Concepts are not really “concepts” but conceptually-driven intellectual moves particular to a knowledge domain and a community that can really only be understood through application.
Not just about knowledge to be acquired, but
Ways of thinking
Ways of acting (practice)
Ways of talking
A sense of identity
Embodied
Not just knowing, but the experience of knowing (and coming to know)
Not just about knowledge to be acquired, but
Ways of thinking
Ways of acting (practice)
Ways of talking
A sense of identity
Embodied
Not just knowing, but the experience of knowing (and coming to know)
References and Collaborations
Randy Bass and Heidi Elmendorf, “Examining the Value of Social Pedagogies: A Paradigm for Deepening Disciplinary Engagement among Undergraduate Students,” ISSOTL 2009.
Heidi Elmendorf, Georgetown University (Biolgy): Foundations of Biology.
John Seely Brown and Richard P. Adler, “Minds on Fire: Open Education, the Long Tail, and Learning 2.0” Educause Review (Jan/Feb 2008)
Henry Jenkins, et. al., Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture, MacArthur Foundation Occasional Paper, 2007.
Tim Kastelle, (University of Queensland) Innovation Leadership Network, http://timkastelle.org/blog/
George Kuh, High-Impact Educational Practices: What They Are, Who Has Access to Them, and Why They Matter, AAC&U, 2008.
Lee Shulman. “The Pedagogies of Uncertainty,” Liberal Education Spring 2005.
William Sullivan and Matt Rosin, A New Agenda for Higher Education: Shaping the Life of the Mind for Practice. Jossey-Bass, 2008.