Content, context, and cost

Over at Iterating Toward Openness, David Wiley offers a brief discussion of the reusability paradox. Here's the paradox--that the more "re-usable" a piece of content is, the less likely it is that that content will lead to learning. The reason is relatively simple: people learn new things by connecting them to things they already know, believe, or have experienced--context. But for a piece of content to be used frequently and in many settings it cannot contain context. If it does, it will exclude potential users for whom that context does not apply.

This is a big issue for fans of open content who hope that by making lots of content freely available it will lead to lots of learning. Wiley is skeptical. Lots of access-yes, but learning is less certain.

The paradox also has significant implications for campuses. American higher ed has tended to respond to this problem by making faculty masters over content, and by imagining that the course is the context (we can call this the content breeds context model). In other words, we tend to ignore what students bring with them to class, and instead encourage students to make sense of content within the context of a particular class. While this leads to a certain sort of learning, it also leads to compartmentalization of knowledge, so that what a student learns in one class is difficult to transfer to another.

If campuses move to an open content model in order to reduce costs, the paradox will be even more challenging, because in such a setting faculty control over content is limited, and so it is more difficult to grow context out of content. One possible response is to encourage each student to bring her/his own context to the subject. In this model (the "my context isn't your context" model) faculty members become coaches, working individually with students. This may lead to good learning, but it doesn't make education cheaper.

So it strikes me that if a campus wants to use open content to lower cost, it has to figure out the context problem--both how to know what contexts students bring with them and to help create a common context.

I'd like to suggest that the best way to do this is through a more structured co-curriculum. In this model (let's call it "shared context") students would be expected to have the same type of experience at the same point in their academic careers. Orientation and service-learning in the first year, for example; study abroad in year two, undergraduate research in year three, etc.

There would be three valuable results to a common context: 1. by rationalizing the co-curriculum campuses could control costs in these areas, 2. faculty and students could assume a similar set of experiences as the basis of a common culture, and 3. the common context would make it possible to get around the reusability paradox. Open source content could be reusable because the context is common.

Can we be careful when talking about innovation?

Peter Ingle posted a spot-on comment to my last post about The School of One. Here is Peter, quoted at length:

Not to hijack your blog, but an interesting part of the article was where the teacher said something like "no one is doing anything like this". Why does everyone think they are the first to come up with something when it is just not true.

Elementary teachers at my school (see very old) used to move us through the spelling lists at different paces dependent on how we did on each test.

When I was teaching HS in the early 90's we used a software program for biology that placed students dependent on how they had performed previously.

Just because the newspaper comes out to interview you does not make one an educational innovator.

So much truth here, both on the specifics of the School of One and on the broader issue of innovation. There are plenty of instances of people applying old approaches in new contexts (peer-led instruction, for example, dates to at least the 1790s in India), lots of examples of people using new technology to do old things (an on-line discussion board is, well, a discussion), and lots of on-going practices that nonetheless get pitched as new (service-learning is a tradition dating to the late 19th century) but the "invention" of something in education is awfully rare.

So the key question is "Why do we have to sell something successful as something new in order to get attention?" Part of the answer is based in our view of progress--that something must be new to be good. This is part of a long American tradition, but one that ignores contingency, history, and humility. But a taste for progress is deep in higher ed, especially among progressives.

Another part of the answer is that higher ed is driven by the appearances of modern capitalism with its "new models," love of "growth," etc. Our innovations are a key part of the way we sell ourselves to the world.

But the biggest part, in my mind, is the hope that somewhere there is THE SOLUTION--the approach that works in all settings, for all students. That hope is bunk. There are no SOLUTIONS, only solutions--short-term, limited, but appropriate in a particular time and place.

So instead of trying to find the next new thing, can we instead search for the thing that works now, here, for our actual students? And can we carry on that search in every class, every year, for the long term?

The School of One

Check out this NYT article on The School of One. At a middle school in NYC, each day students get a "playlist" of worksheets they need to complete for the day. Each student has a laptop. Each assignment is computer graded. Students compete with each other to finish first, or to get the best scores.Teachers are there to answer questions, move students along, etc. The Chancellor of NYC schools thinks this will allow more students to learn and move more effectively through school.

My 13-year old daughter has an English class taught by a near-retirement teacher. Each day he hands out a worksheet. The students sit in silence and complete the worksheet. if they finish early, they read silently. No talking allowed, certain strange rules (like on homework--only hand-written work will be accepted). The teacher sits at his computer all day long. He scares the heck out of the kids.

Are these two examples similar? What is to be learned? Is it enough to allow students to move at their own pace? Is this better than nothing? Better than the current practice in K-12? HE?

Does educational interaction rely on interruption?

I attended another presentation today where the presenter said "I would like this presentation to be interactive, so feel free to interrupt me at any time to ask questions." The presenter went on to say that she would stop presenting from time to time so we could ask questions. Clearly, her view was that interaction would make it possible for us to learn more effectively.

What is behind the connection between "interaction" and "interruption?" I have tended to think it is laziness--the presenter doesn't take the time to plan actual interaction, so instead s/he invites the audience to do it instead. Or, there isn't enough time for presentation and interaction, so the presenter gives over the responsibility to the audience to decide whether interaction is worth it. Almost always, the audience declines the offer. It is one of those tacit agreements on which the machinery of education runs.

After thinking a bit more, though, I'm not sure I should be so cynical. "Interact" means "to act on each other;" "interrupt" to "cause or make a break in the continuity or uniformity of." So the question really ought to be which sorts of interaction are best facilitated by interruption?

I once gave a lecture in a huge American Institutions class in which I invited students to interrupt me whenever I said something they didn't agree with. At each interruption I invited the student to come to the front of the class to explain her/his objection. Those breaks had an interesting result--students listened closer to what I was saying so they could object.

Lots of people have argued that groupthink is a problem for learning, for decision-making, and for society. Yet just as often, when someone points out the groupthink, that person is shamed. (Joe Wilson anyone?) I'm not coming out in favor of public belligerence. But I do wonder if schools, communities, and homes wouldn't be better off if we strengthened the link between education and interruption.

Advisor, mentor, coach, what?

As much change as there has been in faculty roles in the classroom (exemplified (somewhat poorly, I think) by the shift from "sage on the stage" to "guide on the side") there have been even greater changes in the roles faculty play outside of the classroom.

As an undergraduate I only went to office hours when I had a course content question. (I still remember the anxiety I felt sitting outside Neil York's office waiting to ask a question about the Compromise of 1850.) When I began teaching I had the same expectations--that students would come to talk about the course.

Over time my expectations, and those of my institutions, have changed. At BYU I became something of an advisor, helping students select courses for the next semester. Now, I and all other Westminster faculty teaching in learning communities are expected to mentor new freshmen. We talk a bit about classes, but our greater interest is in seeing how students are doing--Are they going to classes? Getting on OK with roommates?--and in helping to shape their approach to learning--How do they study? How much? Any difficulties? (BTW, this sort of practice is spreading in higher ed. both because it seems to help with retention and because the NSSE survey asks students how often they talk with faculty outside of the class about non-academic topics.)

Other faculty here are working on developing a coaching role with students in our project-based, competency driven business programs. There, students complete complex projects, with faculty coaching them on how to better do their work.

This week I've been wondering whether these roles are adequate. Here is why.

In my freshman seminar I asked students to write essays about their strengths and weaknesses, and how they expected to grow over the semester. To give shape to the essays, students wrote about the college's learning goals. (i.e. "I feel like I am quite strong at "critial thinking" but need to become better at "leadership, teamwork, and collaboration.") Their essays were good--well-written, complete, and serious about the learning goals and their own growth. Only one of the essays had any real vigor to it though, and in that one the student rejected the whole idea of the value of our particular learning goals.

The formality of these essays matches the formality of my first mentoring conversations with students. When they come by my office for a mentoring talk it is almost as if they are reporting on their behavior. Not a bad thing, to be sure. And something likely to lead over time to deeper relationships. But awkward nonetheless, for both parties.

(This year all of our entering freshmen have mentors. If they aren't in learning communities, then their mentors are administrators. The whole senior administrative team is participating. This is a great step forward--every student has someone looking out for them. But many of the administrative mentors find the relationship even more awkward because they don't even have their mentees in a class.)

The same day I graded the essays I got perhaps ten text messages from my daughter who is also a new freshman at a college in California. Those texts and our phone calls were much rawer. She feels isolated socially. And she doesn't feel like anyone--roommates, RAs, or faculty--see that isolation.

Certainly some of my role as a dad is to help her through that isolation. But it left me wondering if I would be able to see those feelings in the students who I mentor. Should I see them? Are they visible to someone who is a "mentor"? We know that a sense of isolation, over the long-term, is a predictor of a student not being retained at a college. And it is especially the case for students who have other risk factors--first-generation, lower income, etc.

What is the role for an employee of a college that makes it possible to see isolation? Can faculty ever do it consistently? Should they? Or are roles themselves the issue? Do they obscure what we might otherwise see if we thought of each other as friends? As part of the same community, regardless of roles? Can the roles fall away even while we maintain the educational purposes that make us a college instead of a club?

Mission Statements/Mission Questions

Lionofzion makes another great point, this time in response to my post about schools being organized around questions. Here is the last paragraph of loz's response (all of which can be read here.)

Perhaps the first step towards this model of education could be to replace the classic 'mission statement' with a 'mission question' thus moving the school's central goal away from instilling some sort of knowledge or character (a central feature noted in most school mission statements) and towards serving as a challenge to students and teachers to more thoroughly examine their places in the world.
I took a look at Westminster's mission statement, and I think loz is onto something. Here is the first paragraph of our mission statement:

We are a community of learners with a long and honored tradition of caring deeply about students and their education. Students are challenged to experiment with ideas, raise questions, critically examine alternatives, and make informed decisions. We encourage students to accept responsibility for their own learning, to discover and pursue their passions, and to act with responsibility.

Imagine the first sentence as a series of questions:

As a community of learners we want to understand the following:

• What role does our tradition of education play in supporting student learning today?
• What obligation does a learning community have to care deeply about its members?
• How does caring influence student learning?

So now, some questions of my own: How would a college use a mission question to recruit students? I'm giving a talk to potential students and their parents this Saturday. I'll let you know.

What if schools were organized around questions?

John Lloyd, a British TV producer, comedian, and all-around smart guy has a new talk on TED. Titled, "John Lloyd Inventories the Invisible" it spends 10 minutes detailing the things we cannot see or do not yet understand.

In addition to closing with a great quote (Auden: "We are here on earth to help others. What the others are here for, I have no idea.") that ought to make any civic engagement person think hard, Lloyd says there are two great questions: What are we here for? and What should we do about it?

He made me wonder what a school would look like if it were organized around questions--these or others. This is a big question itself, since so much of schooling is organized around answers as they have congealed into disciplines over the years. The result is a passing on of knowledge (not a bad thing in and of itself) but also a limit on the creativity of students and teachers.

Among the things a "question school" would have to take up is the question of how we would know if a student was ready to move on. Today, students "graduate" when they have fulfilled a set of requirements, related almost entirely to taking courses, attendance, and passing exams. But if a school was focused on questions, how would it end? Probably not with answers, since for the big questions there aren't always answers.

This makes me think of Zen practice, where the teacher asks students to work on koans--short, complex, unclear stories. Questions really. Student and teacher talk through the koan regularly. In between conversations students study, meditate, work. At some point the student has exhausted the koan or gained deep insight into it, and the student moves on.

Could a "question school" work the same way?