While I was reading the latest innovative pedagogies report,
some comments came to mind, which I will gladly share a bit further down this
blogpost after a quick description of the report itself. Researchers from the Instituteof Educational Technology located at The Open University (UK) together with academics
from the Learning Sciences Lab at the National Institute of Education in Singapore recently published the fifth Innovative pedagogy report. A full-text PDF version of this 47 page report is available to download from www.open.ac.uk/innovating. In
the report they provide an overview of emerging innovative pedagogies. This
report covers: learning through social media, the concept of productive failure
as a pedagogical option, teachback, design thinking, learning from the crowd,
learning through video games, formative analytics, learning for the future,
translanguaging, and the blockchain for learning. The aim of the report is to explore
new forms of teaching, learning and assessment for an interactive world, to
guide teachers and policy makers in productive innovation. This fifth report
proposes ten innovations that are already in currency but have not yet had a
profound influence on education.
This is definitely an interesting report, as it offers a
quick overview of emerging pedagogies. There have been prior reports that I
found inspiring as well (previous reports can be found here). The introduction
situates the current learning science and puts it within the increasingly
interdisciplinary realm of learning and teaching, both formal and informal.
While most introductions are merely synthesis of what can be expected, the
introduction of this report offers a truly rich – yet brief – background to the
report, adding what went before it and providing a state of the art overview of
EdTech.
As an educational technologist, some of the innovative
pedagogies seem familiar, e.g. learning
through social media is a topic most of us are familiar with, but indeed,
it is not always implemented as a recognised pedagogical policy. The report
also emphasizes the need for educators/facilitators to be part of the learning process
to allow truthful curation of content. The examples given of crowdsourced and
facilitator driven social media accounts are really inspiring (@realtimeWOII
and pepysdiary.com both using direct quotes from the past to bring it back to
life).
The productive
failure option fits with the flipped classroom/lecture approach, as it
allows learners to first try out finding a solution on their own, possible
failing at it, after which a teacher/instructor steps in. Giving the students
room to creatively work around a problem they cannot solve at first, and
discussing it. I like this approach. I
would also like to see deliberate flawed research presentations, I mean giving
faulty presentations first, asking the audience to indicate where they thought
a faulty research method/deduction… had taken place and then rectify it as
a presenter. I guess that would make a conference audience more attentive and
make the whole process more inspiring. … Yes, I will use this in an upcoming
presentation. Maybe even a classroom or lecture option.
The teachback
approach is slightly related to the productive failure, in that it tries to
limit failure in communicating. This approach comes from the medical world, and
I remember doctors in training having to learn to listen to patients in order
to really grasp the medical condition as it is portrayed by the patient.
Teachback asks one person (usually an expert or teacher) to explain something
they know about a topic to another person (usually someone new to the topic).
Then the novice tries to teach their new understanding back to the expert. If
the learner gives a good response, the expert goes on to explain some more
about the topic.
Massive peer
learning, or learning from the crowd fits the next level of networked
learning, in its nicest form is the citizen learning, where people share what
they learn in their contexts/locations with others. This is used in http://www.NQuire-it.org
Formative analytics,
based on learning analytics but giving the learners tools to visualize their
learning and possibly adjust their learning is an upcoming trend. But then
again, I do wonder what are the chosen indicators for visualizing learning (is it
the learner who decides or others that decides what matters in terms of
learning?).
The translanguaging
is something that is in need for accepting. Most of us global citizens speak at least two languages. Mixing languages to
deepen understanding is something most of us have been doing, but is now
growing interest in formalized learning and I am truly happy to see that, ik
ben er echt blij om, vraiment ça me donne de l’énergie! Or to use my native
dialect: doar zenn’k na ne kier echt blaai oem!
Blockchain learning becomes interesting (a blockchain stores digital events securely on every user’s computer rather than in a central database). It is of interest, especially when we will be able to keep our learning trajectories openly accessible for personal use. Creating our own learning across formal and informal learning environments.
Anyhow the report provides new ideas, and new ways of creating
learning opportunities. But … pedagogy is only one part of the learning equation
and recently, I wonder whether we as
educational technologists are not loosing serious learning/teaching ground.
Education for all is slipping through our fingers as we dig deeper into
pedagogies, yet deny current filter bubbles as results of algorithms. For
people do indeed learn from social media, but this learning increasingly
happens in isolated information islands… only rehashing what you like. This
means that what I get to see through social media is increasingly what fits my
views… this means the learning is decreasingly Socratic, for I am not provided with discussion food the way I (or dare I include we) I used to.
If we learn increasingly with the use of social media, we are increasingly learning from results that are filtered by non-transparent algorithms. Numerous algorithms that we are unaware off. Are we slowly being brainwashed, now more than ever before?
