Learning & Teaching – Page 9 – Silence and Voice

MediaShift Article – NYU Professor Stifles Blogging

Anybody see the interesting PBS article about this student vs. faculty issue at NYU (where I teach as an adjunct)? From the PBS website, the lengthy and detailed MediaShift piece is NYU Professor Stifles Blogging, Twittering by Journalism Student.

Interesting.

My experience is I try to do anything at all possible to get my students to use and integrate technology into everything they do, often to great resistence from students. I wonder if my students are just older or in fields where technology use is less integral (or am I grasping for straws here?). Nevertheless, while there is certainly a lot of processing and learning here to go around, this does not seem like the most pleasent situation.

How technology in education can go both ways, I suppose.

Transformative Learning & FOC08

There has been some rather loud sharing of alternate perspectives this week in our Facilitating Online Communities (FOC08) course. I commented in an email to the class:

I think these related discussions are quite interesting. It is very difficult to tolerate differences in worldview or educational perspective (among other things), and I think that courses that promote giving voice to alternative perspectives can in turn open learners to a world beyond their own comfort levels. This is one of the features that attracts me to Mezirow’s Transformative Learning.

I do wonder, though, at what point does a discussion sink to a level where facts (though not their meanings) begin to get clouded. Perhaps I am musing myself into a new blog post about this . . .

I am not overly interested in the discussions, but I think Leigh, the class facilitator, handled the increasing tensions exceedingly well. Learning happens differently for different people, and making and encouraging a space for that to happen is a good lesson for us educators.

The situation recalled when I first studied Jack Mezirow, who defined his concept of Transformative Learning as:

“the process by which we transform our taken-for-granted frames of reference (meaning perspectives, habits of mind, mind-sets) to make them more inclusive, discriminating, open, emotionally capable of change, and reflective so they may generate beliefs and opinions that will prove more true or justified to guide action” (Mezirow, J. (2000). Learning to think like an adult: Core concepts of transformation theory. In J. Mezirow & Associates (Eds.), Learning as transformation (pp. 3-33). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass).

In other words, when our we face something that does not fit into our previously-constructed worldview, we can either shrink back and take comfort (or hide) in our assumptions or face the fact that how we previously saw the world no longer fits; we must grow and in the process enlarge our worldview. This is the core of transformative learning as Mezirow describes it, and it is interesting how Leigh’s email has started me thinking about previous learning that is so fitting in this context.

BTW, transformative learning is a very painful experience; any time our values and beliefs get challenged and we run out of excuses for them can cause quite a stir.

Technorati Tags: foc08,Jack Mezirow,transformative learning

Online Course Feedback and Assessment?

My online course begins next week, and I am looking for ways to offer, promote, and access online course feedback. I want anonymous feedback from my students and the ability for my students to offer feedback to one another. The university will have some course evaluation at the end, but I like to regularly have opportunities to get more of an informal pulse on what is happening in the class more regularly.

How do others who teach online handle this?

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Continuing Education + About.com (& CCK08) = Reflective Practice

I often blog about adult and continuing education. Makes sense–I am a senior instructional designer, adjunct instructor at New York University, and organizational learning and communication consultant.

I live and breathe teaching and learning, and with many of my influences (Lyotard, Mezirow, Brookfield, and Denzin, among others) encouraging (critical) reflective practice, I tend to regularly toss ideas and experiences around in my mind for extended periods of time. This is after all the purpose (and by-line) of my blog Silence and Voice itself:

Reflective practice in organizational learning, educational technology, and postmodern society.

It was with some surprise to have Deb Peterson find something that piqued her interest and write about it on her About.com blog. She was very generous in her comments, and it certainly made my morning when I learned about it yesterday. It serves to remind me that we never know who finds our work online–colleagues, future colleagues, current / future / past students, clients, friends, and the like. Once our words are out there and shared online, then the public face we wear may show interesting signs of what it means to be a (critical) reflective practitioner. Sometimes it works well, and sometimes it may be more challenging.

With our world increasingly connected and decreasingly isolated, it is no wonder that George Siemens and Stephen Downes have been able to gather 1900+ of their closest friends (and a few colleagues as well) to discuss Connectivism and Connective Knowledge (cck08), which I think speaks nicely to this experience. Interesting how Deb’s comments about my work and thinking helps me to connect some online (and internal) dots. I suppose we never know when opportunities for reflective practice arise.

The world is getting smaller and more connected indeed . . . what an exciting present and future!