Wiki Wondering

“A teacher is a professional, one who must constantly seek to improve and to develop certain qualities or virtues which are not received but must be created. The capacity to renew ourselves every day is important.”

Paolo Freire (1985)

It is in this spirit and intention that I avidly signed up with others in my Global OER Graduate Network (GO-GN) to participate in a six week adventure into becoming wiki scholars. The course is designed as part of the Wiki-Education movement and required an application and invitation to participate. The course took place from mid May until the end of June, including weekly meetings with a cohort of collaborators where our learning and wiki contributions were guided under the expertise of a Wiki educator and facilitator, Will Kent.

I actively took on the challenge to learn by going through the course materials, laid out in weekly chunks, with manageable outcomes and deliverables. What immediately struck me was the change in the look and feel of wiki editing from my previous experiences as part of course work for the MET program [see ETEC 510 Design Wiki, Hypertext]. Using the visual editor when working on wiki editing was a welcome change. While some familiarity with HTML editing is still good to know, it is no longer the dominant means of contributing content to Wikipedia. The dashboard for the course was a handy way to keep track of my own progress through the course and the directions others in my cohort were exploring.

Wondering about wiki education? There’s more on the Wiki Education dashboard.

Wondering how to connect wiki education to your teaching? There’s more on the Wiki Education dashboard – Training Libraries.

The part that made this wiki work memorable was the notion of getting it wrong to get it right. This is something I’ve blogged about before [See Getting it Wrong, March 2015]. What I wrote then, I now experienced in this wiki scholars course. There are specific rules and procedures for completing wiki edits and creating wiki articles. There are definitely others who will let you know when you get it wrong, and many more who will help you get it right. My own work with minor edits for grammatical structure, word usage, punctuation corrections, and sentence flow is an example of working toward getting it right. Not perfect, but better than it was. What I’ve come to realize as a result of doing this course and adding new information to Wikipedia is that it is the ultimate of collaborative spaces where information truly belongs to everyone.

Wondering what’s behind the Wikipedia curtain?

What lead me to this discovery was the ‘pulling back of the curtain’ – I’ve been a consumer of Wikipedia information (I’d suspect we all are!), but now I see the mechanics, logistics, and human beings behind the words on the page. In true Freire fashion, I can read the word and read the world through Wikipedia. Let me explain. Every wiki article has layers behind it – a talk page where people can talk to each other about what the page needs, suggestions for improvements, actions taken, edits proposed. There is a history page – where the ebb and flow of edits are revealed. It’s a running record of who did what, when, and why. This is where courtesy and consideration call for an explanation of major edits. This is also where, at any point in the editing process, you can do a side-by-side comparison of versions; the ultimate version control. This is all visible at all times to anyone who wants to see what is happening.

Wondering who’s behind the curtain?

We all can be, but there are many interesting and dedicated people behind the scenes. As a result of the Wiki Education course, I’ve become one of them. I’ll continue to iterate and edit as I read and reference wiki articles, now that I’ve got the skill and confidence to do so. There are ways in this wiki-verse to recognize and celebrate the work being done. Barnstars and WikiLove are two examples of the behind the scenes mechanisms to say thank you. Or click the ‘thanks’ link on any wiki edit to send a direct message of thanks to an individual. Behind the scenes there is fun and humour amongst the wiki workers – WikiFauna is one example. I’ll openly share my WikiChild status, but acknowledge that I’ve got some characteristics of the WikiDodo in my wiki-making. Will Kent shared some of the interesting characters behind the scenes – Anna Frodesiak; Doc James; KylieTastic; and Joe Roe. To truly get a sense of what is going on behind the scenes, you can track changes to Wikipedia OR Listen to Wikipedia (there’s a window that shows a real-time tracking of Wikipedia edits).

Wondering what I did?

Some minor edits, some major revisions, and one brand new article, all done in collaboration with others in the GO-GN network.

Wondering where this is going next?

I’ll continue to connect and collaborate with folks like Irwin DeVries [Six Weeks with Wiki Scholar] and Gabi Whitthaus [Art of eLearning blog] on articles of interest in the open educational spaces where I play and learn.

As Alan Levine (aka cogdog) writes [Wikicene Era and Wikidata], it’s the people and places behind the wiki pages we see and read that hold interest for me. I’ll continue to add and edit in Wiki spaces, such as the project Alan mentions, to contribute in other ways. I’ve already added my profile picture to Wikimedia in order to add it to my Wikipedia user’s page. Since my name is a pseudonym this may offer an avenue for those who really want to connect.

I’ll do more research into the use of wiki projects in higher education courses, as share by Petrucco and Ferranti (2020), since “implementing these practices in university teaching calls for careful planning and constant monitoring in order to overcome technical difficulties and effectively manage learning strategies for subject-specific content and digital competences” (p. 43). Some preliminary conversations, and models shared by other educators may help prepare the ground for wiki work in future course offerings in the faculty of education.

And finally, I’m off to the global, virtual Wikimania event coming up in August 2021, just to hang out and learn more.

It’s wondering about wiki that keeps me renewing myself while I revise and edit my teaching and learning practices.

What a wonder!

References

Freire, P. (1985). Reading the World and Reading the Word: An Interview with Paulo Freire. Language Arts, 62(1), 15-21. Retrieved July 19, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/41405241

Image Attribution: By Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=38618923

Petrucco, C., & Ferranti, C. (2020). Wikipedia as OER: the “Learning with Wikipedia” project. Journal of E-Learning and Knowledge Society, 16(4), 38–45. https://doi.org/10.20368/1971-8829/1135322

Posted in Learning, Teaching, Together | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Congress and OTESSA: A conference within a conference

All genuine learning requires of us a constant open approach, a willingness to engage invention and reinvention, so that we might discover those places of radical transparency where knowledge can empower.

bell hooks, 2010, p. 187

Here I am, once again preparing for conference presentations, reflecting on my practice as an open educator and a teacher of teachers. This quote by bell hooks caught my attention as I am reading and reflecting on what to bring into these sessions – as I strive to find my intention and a way to reinvent not only myself but the information, content, spaces, and places where I will present.

This year, the Open/Technology in Education, Society, and Scholarship Association (OTESSA) is holding an inaugural conference, having deferred last year’s conference due to the global COVID-19 pandemic. I honour the struggle this new organization has endured since it began. This conference within a conference is also a worthy endeavour, since it is working to fit something that is inherently open and shared into spaces that are not designed for the fluid and collaborative nature of the folks that make up OTESSA. To this end, my presentation on TETCs is being constructed here in order to bring radical transparency to knowledge construction within this alternative format session. There are many things I might say or could say that are not included in this presentation since it is limited by the time allotted for this session. I’ll provide some after-thoughts within this post.

My Reflection on TETCs and OEPr

OTESSA 2021 Conference Presentation Video

Link to the presentation notes where all references and URL links can be accessed.

Link to some of the images found in this presentation curated in a Flickr album shared as open resources.

Links to interactive elements shared to extend the conversation.

Afterword – thoughts in reflection

One issue that I hinted at in this presentation is the question of defining the term ‘competence’ and how it compares to the conceptions of literacies. I am thinking deeply about the differences and relationship between these concepts as well as how skills and fluencies fit into this concepts. The terms competency and literacy are often used interchangeably. Some clarity comes from reading deeply and as I read, I have curated a draft version of a graphic that looks to analyze the key terms relating to the concepts – skills, fluencies, competencies, and literacies.

From my question at the conclusion of this presentation, I have located an article on A Review of Faculty Development Models that Build Teacher Educators’ Technology Competencies (Parrish & Sadera, 2019) posted in the reference section below.

Brief Reference List (more references are shared in the presentation notes)

Foulger, T.S., Graziano, K.J., Schmidt-Crawford, D.A., Slykhuis, D.A., Change, Y.L., Christensen, R., Dillon, D.R. & Parrish, A. (2020). Invited Panel: Fostering New Research following the Teacher Educator Technology Competencies (TETCs): Research from the JTATE Special Issue, Preparing All Teacher Educators to Support Teacher Candidates’ Integration of Technology. In L. Elizabeth Langran (Ed.), Proceedings of SITE – Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference 2020. Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). Retrieved May 30, 2021 from https://www.learntechlib.org/primary/p/216140/. VIDEO of this presentation is found on YouTube at: https://youtu.be/aWPu9pQ33d0

Knezek, G., Christensen, R. & Furuta, T. (2019). Validation of a Teacher Educator Technology Competencies Survey. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 27(4), 465-498. Waynesville, NC USA: Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education. Retrieved May 29, 2021 from https://www.learntechlib.org/primary/p/207633/.

Parrish, A. H., & Sadera, W. A. (2019). A Review of Faculty Development Models that Build Teacher Educators’ Technology Competencies. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 27(4), 437–464. https://www.learntechlib.org/primary/p/208226/

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A Pandemic Fugue

Alternative Title: Music to Inspire a Pandemic Pedagogy

“By words we learn thoughts, and by thoughts we learn life.”

—Jean Baptiste Girard

It’s funny how random words can catch your attention. Today, it’s the word “fugue” that caught my interest and began rattling around in my brain. This random word has me searching for meanings. I start with the dictionary definition, then wander over to Wikipedia for clarification.

Meaning #1: psychological in nature

According to the Merriam Webster dictionary, this fugue is “a disturbed state of consciousness in which the one affected seems to perform acts in full awareness but upon recovery cannot recollect the acts performed”. This may describe our current time where teachers and students sometimes may be prone to semi-consciously going through the motions of teaching and learning, within these rapid deployments of remote and digitally enabled online learning or socially distanced classroom environments. For many of us, both teacher and students, reach the end of these learning events or courses, and may not remember or be aware of the acts we’ve performed.

Meaning #2: musical in nature

The Merriam Webster dictionary defines this as “a musical composition in which one or two themes are repeated or imitated by successively entering voices in a continuous interweaving of the voice parts”. This is done in a “contrapuntal” or polyphonic way. The etymology of the term comes from the Latin, French, and Italian derivations of the words “fugere (“to flee”) and fugare (“to chase”)”. The Wikipedia information outlines the necessary conditions for a musical composition to be defined as a fugue, and provides a few examples.

I’m connecting these conceptions of fugue to the words of Bakhtin (1981) whereby:

“concepts of heteroglossia (the diverse voices that combine into any creative act), polyphony (the multiple elements drawn in to unison) and dialogism (the process of dialogue that is crucial to invention and change) provide a perspective on the fundamentally social nature of innovation which is central to the “hive mind” of contemporary media”.

(Hoeschmann, 2019, p. 95)

This reminds me that it takes many voices to create innovations in learning. That diversity, multiple perspectives, and dialogue are requisite ingredients in the composition of learning interludes. Connecting this to my pandemic-induced ‘fugue’ thinking, I see the importance of sharing my learning, and that of my students, into larger efforts to share our ‘songs’ of learning.

During these times of physical distancing, social isolation, managed contacts, and conducting conversations through digital means, it is ever more pressing that teaching and learning events and activities merge, combine, and shape voices into an interwoven melody that makes a difference. Our individual and collective fugue states of mind can be disrupted by meaningfully and purposefully weaving voices (students, teachers, parents, leaders, external others) into the learning interludes we create as educators and mentors.

This does not mean I should merely follow or chase after the voices of others that are similar to my own, as musical fugues suggest. This only creates echoes of consonant sounds and leads to stronger silos where only like minded voices are heard. In our educational efforts to teach in these pandemic times, it’s good to listen to a symphony of voices. Those voices that are unlike my own, from disparate parts of the world, can add undertones and nuances to my own voice. I need to listen carefully to those voices. But, once listened to, and heard, I then need to critically create just the right notes for my own students. It is through this process of listening, mimicking, recreating new melodies of learning for my students. This shakes me out of my pandemic induced fugue state as an educator.

Then, serendipitously, this musical interlude, a model of a musical fugue emerged from my search for examples of music representative of fugue compositions. This production by Sansar Sandadorj caught my attention as an example, not just of how a fugue composition sounds, but how this interweaving of voices can be accomplished with music from around the world. We’ve seen many such compositions emerging as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since this was posted in 2016, well before any hint of a global pandemic, it reaffirms that we are creative human beings that have been connecting from around the world well before this forced confinement in singular spaces.

This music alternatively had me smiling or brought me to tears as I contemplate the joy and the power of playing and learning together. We can offer such moments to our students!

We too can step out of our fugue and leave a legacy of our teaching and learning, just as this video models. This is a record of a moment where musicians came together purposefully, to create something meaningful and beautiful.

At this moment, as we cross the threshold of one year into this global pandemic, it is time to break out of this fugue and create beautiful music in whatever way we can (as modelled by the Canadian physicians in the video below)!

This is our call as educators, teachers, learning designers, digital media creators, and learners. Let’s reflect on the symphonies of learning, the music in the sound of mathematics conversations, the compositions in the arts and crafts students create, the many and multiple ways we engage students in video enabled conversations, or the varied tasks left as a legacy of learning. Just as we did before this pandemic happened, we can take this curated collection of media creations and use this to reflect and connect, taking time to re-listen, re-think, and re-member.

As I come to the end of a course of instruction in my work as a teacher educator, it’s important I do just that. In the coming weeks, I’ll re-listen and re-learn from the student’s many learning artifacts in a symphony of learning moments. Definitely something to nudge me out of this fugue!

References

Bakhtin, M. M. (1981). Discourse in the novel. In M. Holquist (Ed.), & C. Emerson & M. Holquist (Trans.), The dialogic imagination: Four essays by  M. M. Bahktin (pp. 259–422). University of Texas Press. https://hdl-handle-net.ledproxy2.uwindsor.ca/2027/heb.09354

Hoechsmann, M. (2019). Pedagogy, Precarity, and Persuasion: The Case for Re/mix Literacies. The International Journal of Critical Media Literacy, 93–101.

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Bicycles for the Mind

And that’s what a computer is to me. What a computer is to me is it’s the most remarkable tool that we’ve ever come up with, and it’s the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds.” ~ Steve Jobs

From Popova, M. (n.d.). Steve Jobs on why computers are like a bicycle for the mind. Brain Pickings.

This is a response to the media production “The Social Dilemma” that espouses to be the canary in the coal mine, sounding the alarm about the impact of social media on mental health, discrimination, and democracy. This film, ironically warehoused within the Netflix collection, is touted as a “must watch” docudrama bringing a critical view to the impact of social media on the cultural fabric of society. While this film has merit in building toward a tipping point in the conversation about the negative impacts on people’s lives resulting from social media usage, this is not a new conversation, nor is it particularly helpful in presenting a broader focus on the issues at hand.

A dilemma is defined as “a situation requiring a choice between equally undesirable alternatives. any difficult or perplexing situation or problem”. This film presents its own dilemma. It needs to be viewed critically as a media production. Viewers need to watch for the entertainment value, but also take note of the media devices used to mine your attention (cue ominous instrumental music). It focuses on the evils of social media, which may be the low hanging fruit that will bring people into this conversation.

The dilemma is not what you think it is. Ironically, one of the key characters in this docudrama asks “Is there a problem? What is the problem?” This is, at first viewing, a death knell for democracy, for individual autonomy, and for the greater goodness of humanity. While this may appear to be a new issue, or as suggested in the film that this is different this time, the discourse around the use of technology and how new technologies will alter the very fabric of society are not new. Human-kind has been arguing this dilemma for millennia.

With a critical viewing, this is a media production like any other. Meaning can be gained by applying the media literacy triangle and the associated questions (as outlined by the Association for Media Literacy) are applied to this film – focusing on the text, audience, and production.

My critical viewing was framed by a few of these questions

  • What might be its (implicit and explicit) messages?
  • What values are being promoted?
  • How and why does this text appeal to its target audience?
  • How does this text (not) appeal to me?
  • How is this text distributed or sold to the public?
  • Who profits from the consumption of this text?

The film begins with a quote: “Nothing vast enters the life of mortals without a curse ~ Sophocles”. The film concludes with a quote: “How do you wake up from the matrix if you don’t know you are in the matrix?” (cue ominous instrumental music, again). The creators of this media production use quotes, clips, scenes, sequences, and film ‘manipulation’ to ensure you maintain attention to the film. The media manipulation becomes evident with a critical eye. The colour red is used for moments of particularly nefarious technological manipulation of the teenage male character in the dramatic portions of the ‘text’. The camera angles change for dramatic effect when the two teenage characters are wrestled to the ground by the police. A ‘cut to black’ with an extended black screen is used for dramatic effect between sequences. Clips are juxtaposed or merged to hasten or slow down the story line. The interview clips range from static, seated poses to sequences of movement through hallways or onto a stage. All decisions of what to include or exclude have been made by the film’s creators for a purpose, audience, and specific message.

The ‘characters’ in the film have been selected for a purpose as well. Those who are interviewed as part of this production are listed on the website associated with this film. While it’s an interesting collection of individuals, many of whom are involved or responsible for this current dilemma – which still hasn’t been clearly revealed – what is interesting are the voices that are not included, those left absent from this conversation. Organizations and critics, who are suggested to be the true optimists and those who cry out that ‘we can do better’, are somehow absent or removed from this conversation. The dystopian views of the dilemmas surrounding our use of social media consumes eighty minutes in the ninety minute film. Presenting a balanced narrative does not have media value.

There are so many layers that can be unwrapped in this production, so it’s purpose of opening conversations has been fulfilled. Underlying the core dilemmas of mental health, discrimination, and democracy, as outlined on the website, are issues of surveillance capitalism, addiction, users as products, predictive analytics, exploitation of the vulnerable, unethical social experimentation, suicide, child protection, algorithmic control, manipulation, radicalization, destabilizing national economies, legislation, tribalism, and subjugation. But don’t let this film stand proxy for truth and reality or believe that this is a global version or the only version of the story. Don’t be fooled by the anthropomorphic views of social media technologies i.e. “Social media has it’s own goals and has its own means of pursuing them; Digital frankensteins are terraforming the world in their image.”

Yes, these issues are real. Yes, this is a concern for anyone using or managing social media for themselves, their families, or their work contexts. In my case, this work context is education for both teaching and learning. Yes, capitalism and the market economy dominate the decisions made by tech companies beyond just social media spaces. But that isn’t the only story here, nor does it result in the suggested or inevitable end of this narrative.

What was perceived by Steve Jobs as the bicycle for the mind can and does transform our collective reality. Bicycles have the potential to bring people together, but only for those who have been taught and have experiences with riding a bike. This was the vision expressed by Seymour Papert in the early days of technology. Individual autonomy and choice in technology use and social media use can support the human need to connect and share stories. It can be grounded in the human rather than dominated by the technologies. It can exhibit care and connect humanity, rebuilding and re-weaving the social fabric. What is missing in this film production is the human side of the story. Maybe that will be included in the ‘part 2’ sequel.

As hinted at the end of the film, it will be the critics and those with a critical eye who raise us up and call us to action. In the digital spaces and places where I work, within the field of educational technology and open education, there are many who are actively engaged in this conversation, and have been for much longer than the dawn of social media. There is a robust movement of individual and collective acts of critical questioning, kindness and conscientious care from those who continue to challenge the capitalist push for educational technologies (e.g. who is pushing the agenda for 1:1 technology in education? who is promoting the need for exam proctoring to ensure student honesty?). The visions of bicycles, turtles, and hospitality are dreams that can continue to shape the global conversations in physical and digitally enabled spaces. These conversations, like those suggested in the film, are both utopian and dystopian, both deterministic and not neutral at the same time. There is still hope in these spaces, but it is waning with the every present pressure from tech firms to build and take over these sacred spaces where children and vulnerable people are coming to learn, play, and share their stories. The news and media presents a grim picture. It’s time to take action.

The website for this film suggests three ‘take action‘ options. The first is, interestingly, to promote the message by sharing the film. The site includes promotional materials to support the planning of special events around this topic and this film, ironically available for the price of your email and contact information. The second action is to reboot your use with a digital detox or reclaiming screen time. Both would be of particular challenge in this time of global pandemic when physical proximity can be hazardous to self and others. The third action is to rebuild the system, with one option being a course offered by the Center for Humane Technology. (Side note: interesting to notice that many of those interviewed on the film are also members of the board of directors in this institution). This led me to the humane design guide which appears to be a helpful guide, not only for technology solutions, but for frame teaching and learning solutions with technology. While these three options will promote the film and the conversations, there are already spaces, places, and conversations happening in coffee shops, cafes, pubs, and public spaces. Amplifying these conversations is essential. Joining new conversations is critical. Reaching out to others is necessary. Let’s not rely on one film with three options to continue challenging and finding solutions to these ‘social’ and technological dilemmas. Let’s not end this story with a soundbite such as ‘checkmate on humanity’.

As suggested in these action items, I’m fighting fire with fire. I’m inviting you into some social media spaces to continue this conversation. Consider this your invitation. Please bring others into these conversations. Here are some suggested spaces and communities:

Today’s collaborative conversation on @TheMentoree will open this conversation to new participants using the hashtag #OnEdMentors. This conversation will continue with additional blog posts and podcasts – it’s a conversation that will make a difference.

Image attribution: Photo by Jilbert Ebrahimi on Unsplash

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What is Teaching Practice?

It’s often when you stop and think, as I’ve done in the past few weeks, that you can stumble over the most basic question. In an effort to think more clearly about the basic elements of my teaching practice, I need to answer this question. With all my years of experience, I thought it would be easy! I’ve been teaching many years in a variety of contexts, ages, and stages, within physical, face to face places, and in digitally enabled spaces. What makes up my teaching practice?

What is teaching practice?

The Ontario College of Teachers (OCT) outlines five key components or standards of teaching: commitment to students and student learning, leadership in learning communities, ongoing professional learning, professional knowledge, professional practice. The four ethical standards include care, trust, respect, and integrity. I wonder how this holistic view of professional practice connects to the art and science, and the complexity of actions, moves, and thinking that is involved in teaching? Is teaching practice limited to only those actions that relate to student learning – identifying learning outcomes, sharing content, providing learning activities, assessing learning (Paskevicius & Irvine, 2019) – OR can teaching practice be viewed beyond the act of teaching. How do the standards outlined by OCT connect to current contexts for remote, distant, online, and digitally dependent teaching practices.

As I dug a little deeper, I turned to the familiarity of high leverage teaching strategies. Do these help in defining what a teaching practice is or is not?

High leverage teaching practices derive from five key concepts, according to TeachingWorks (http://www.teachingworks.org/work-of-teaching/core-ideas). These include (rephrased from web-site):

  1. Teaching develops knowledge, skills, and abilities that are purpose driven.
  2. All students can and should learn at high levels.
  3. Teaching and learning are active sense-making processes.
  4. Teaching and learning are interactive, co-constructed and collaborative.
  5. Classroom contexts matter. Teachers manage and use contexts to support learning.

From these five core concepts come 19 high leverage teaching strategies. These do not identify ‘practice’ per se, but do outline some of the teaching moves and actions that expert and effective teachers apply. Examining these within the context of remote, distanced, and digitally enabled teaching may be a necessary step in current times. Do these strategies look the same for Kindergarten, Grade 8, or higher education contexts when teaching remotely?

What prompted this question was the re-reading of an interview with Dr. Paul Kirschner. It’s titled “Constructivist pedagogy is like a zombie that refuses to die”. In terms of media, this title grabs attention. The contrasting stance in the interview was not new, but now in the re-reading, it shifted my thinking about teaching practice.

Kirschner bemoans the fact that constructivist teaching, iterated in ‘innovative’ or ‘experiential’ teaching, won’t go away and is hindering the use of effective teaching strategies like direct instruction that expert teachers apply.

“…researcher John Hattie has shown to be unique to expert teachers. They have deep conceptual subject knowledge and an understanding of the substance should be communicated as well as a deep conceptual knowledge and skills in teaching / didactics. Good learning requires good teachers who can adapted for the students. You can’t do this by posting lessons on YouTube.” ~ Paul A. Kirschner

This rings true in current #PivotOnline teaching practices. In this time of COVID-19 and the requirements for remote and distance teaching, or learning, this is a particularly important question. What is teaching practice? How are teachers ‘practicing’ their craft when the students are socially and physically distanced from the teaching action or the teaching context? How does distance or tech/no tech impact the ability to teach?

Kirschner was asked: What distinguishes an expert teacher?

It’s important to point out that you can be an experienced teacher but still not be an expert in teaching. An expert teacher has deep conceptual knowledge of her or his subject area as well as a good didactic ability to reach out to her or his students. To achieve pedagogical expertise, it’s crucial that you have good insight into educational and learning psychology so that you know how learning takes place in the human brain. Knowledge of our cognition should be the most important part of a teacher training program.” ~ Paul A. Kirschner

The importance of knowing and having pedagogical expertise is the critical point here. It’s not because our brains are suddenly different or can process information differently because of the technologies we are using. As Kirschner emphasizes, the evolution of our brain structures haven’t changed since cave-dwelling days. We still learn in biologically primary or secondary ways. Cognitive theory reveals that short term and long term memory works the same way.

What has changed is how these tools and technologies shape our ‘becoming‘ (Ihde & Malafouris, 2019) within our culture, our world, our relationships with each other. Teaching practice, and teachers’ knowledge, includes an understanding of cognitive science and how biologically primary and secondary knowledge is taught and learned. Specifically, cognitive load theory and collective/collaborative learning (Kirschner et al., 2018), or how to provide effective instruction (Rosenshine, 2010). These are not necessarily included in all teacher education, instructional design, or how-to-teach-online crash courses.

“We also know that there is evolutionary primary and evolutionary secondary knowledge. The former is something we need to survive as a species. It has been evolutionarily ‘hardwired’ into how we think and develop. We learn this almost automatically without instruction, such as our ability to recognize our mother and communicate with each other and, thus, acquire our first language. The secondary is all cultural, such as how to read and write and use mathematics. That is something we need school and instruction for.” ~ Paul A. Kirschner

So, teaching practice in online, digitally enabled spaces needs to be taught and requires its own kind of teaching practice. This is not just about instructional design, but there is instructional design involved. It’s not just working out the pedagogy of teaching with technology, but that’s in there too. It’s going to require a shift in Faculties of Education, in teaching accreditation programs, and in teachers’ perceptions of what ‘teaching practice’ is all about. This extends into the research on TPACK as framed in this graphic:

“Reproduced by permission of the publisher, © 2012 by tpack.org”

There’s a ‘sweet spot’ in the centre of these elements! That’s where the magic of learning happens, and the magic of teaching practices shine!

For my teaching practice, it circles back to writings by Parker J. Palmer. My teaching practice is a reflection of everything I am and do as a teacher, since it mirrors my persona and identity, both physical and digital. As Palmer (2017) states, when I come face to face, either physically or virtually, with my students, I have command over one thing, “my identity, my selfhood, my sense of this “I” who teaches—without which I have no sense of the “Thou” who learns … good teaching cannot be reduced to technique; good teaching comes from the identity and integrity of the teacher” (p. 4). This is as true in open, digital, online, and virtual spaces as it is in a physical classroom context. This teaching practice is a complex and negotiated ‘thing’.

In my experience, this practice is just that – practicing! Not perfect, not perfection, not even planned in many cases. My teaching practice consists of a multitude of micro decisions and major experiments in teaching, never getting it quite right, but learning more about what to do or not do the next time. As any Olympic athlete can attest, it’s through the practicing that the perfect can emerge.

It’s a process from catalyst to ideas, actions into reflections. That’s part of my teaching practice.

The sum total of my internal ethos, my acts of hospitality, my ways of knowing, my ways of being “teacher”, as demonstrated in how I negotiate into educational spaces, with students, using digitally enabled teaching activities, whenever and wherever appropriate, presenting learning opportunities, exploring and collaborating on assessments, all while maintaining a relationship with my students in all their humanity – this is my teaching practice.

I’ll end with this thought – in the midst of troubling times for teachers. This describes my teaching practice and my dependence on others, including my students, to help me ‘become‘ a practicing teacher.

“Humanity is a quality we owe to each other. We create each other and need to sustain this otherness creation. And if we belong to each other, we participate in our creations: we are because you are, and since you are, definitely I am. The ‘I am’ is not a rigid subject, but a dynamic self-constitution dependent on this otherness creation of relation and distance.” (Eze, 2010, p. 190-191)

I Teach Who I Am

References:

Eze, Michael Onyebuchi (2010). Intellectual history in contemporary South Africa. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-230-62299-9. pp. 190–191.

Ihde, D., & Malafouris, L. (2019). Homo faber revisited: Postphenomenology and material engagement theory. Philosophy & Technology, 32(2), 195–214. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-018-0321-7

Kirschner, P., Sweller, J., Kirschner, F., & Zambrano, J. (2018). From cognitive load theory to collaborative cognitive load theory. International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning13(2), 213–232. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11412-018-9277-y

Ontario College of Teachers. (2020). Standards of practice. Retrieved April 15, 2020, from https://www.oct.ca/public/professional-standards/standards-of-practice

Palmer, P. (2017). The courage to teach: Exploring the inner landscape of a teacher’s life. San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons Inc.

Paskevicius, M., & Irvine, V. (2019). Open Education and Learning Design: Open Pedagogy in Praxis. Journal of Interactive Media in Education2019(1), 10. https://doi.org/10.5334/jime.512

Rosenshine, B. (2010). Principles of instruction. UNESCO International Academy of Education. http://www.ibe.unesco.org/fileadmin/user_upload/Publications/Educational_Practices/EdPractices_21.pdf

Skogstad, I. (n.d.). ”Constructivist pedagogy is like a zombie that refuses to die”: An interview with Paul A. Kirschner. Retrieved April 16, 2020, from http://isakskogstad.se/constructivist-pedagogy-is-like-a-zombie-that-refuses-to-die/ 

Image attribution: Photo by Adi Goldstein on Unsplash

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An Ethos of Care (#OER20 Conference Presentation)

Caring is a sustained emotional investment in an individual’s well-being, characterized by a desire to take actions that will benefit that person.” Weiner & Auster (2007)

This is our open, online presentation for the OER20 Conference that was scheduled for April 1-2 in London, England. As a result of current global crises in managing the COVID-19 pandemic, the conference has gone fully online with both in-time sessions and pre-recordings of presentations. While this session is not how we envisioned our conference sharing, this story is one we feel strongly about sharing. Here we share our actions in caring through our cross-cultural mentoring experiences as a result of the Open Education for a Better World project promoted by UNESCO.

Here is our session presentation.

Please connect with us. We can be found on Twitter @hj_dewaard and @rekha_chavhan. Reach out to us on Twitter if you’re interesting in hearing more about this mentoring experience or about this presentation.

If you would like to know more about the OE4BW project, take a look at their website information at http://oe4bw.ijs.si/

The graphic image created for this presentation is a summary of research from several of the references listed below.

An ethos of care in mentoring, created by HJ.DeWaard, CC-BY

References

Daniel, A., Franco, S., Schroeder, N. L., & Cenkci, A. T. (2019). Cross-cultural academic mentoring dyads: A case study. Mentoring & Tutoring: Partnership in Learning27(2), 164–189. https://doi.org/10.1080/13611267.2019.1611286

Geber, H., & Keane, M. (2017). Ubuntu and transformational mentoring in South Africa: 7 principles of a culturally integrated mentoring response. In D. A. Clutterbuck (Ed.), The Sage Handbook of Mentoring (p. Chapter 31). Sage.  https://www.researchgate.net/publication/315045829_Ubuntu_and_Transformational_Mentoring_in_South_Africa_7_Principles_of_a_Culturally_Integrated_Mentoring_Response

Johnson, W. B. (2017). Ethical considerations for mentors: Toward a mentoring code of ethics. In The SAGE Handbook of Mentoring (pp. 105–118). 55 City Road: SAGE Publications Ltd. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781526402011

Loureiro-Koechlin, C., & Allan, B. (2010). Time, space and structure in an e-learning and e-mentoring project: EMPATHY Net-Works. British Journal of Educational Technology41(5), 721–735. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8535.2009.00975.x

Noddings, N. (1988). An ethic of caring and its implications for instructional arrangements. American Journal of Education96(2), 215–230.  www.jstor.org/stable/1085252

Sanyal, C. (2017). The effective mentor, mentee and mentoring relationship. In The SAGE Handbook of Mentoring(pp. 143–155). 55 City Road: SAGE Publications Ltd. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781526402011

Weiner, S. J., & Auster, S. (2007). From empathy to caring: Defining the ideal approach to a healing relationship. Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine80(3), 123–130.

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Care in Community

“Never believe that a few caring people can’t change the world. For indeed, that’s all who ever have”

Margaret Mead

The FemEdTech group of caring people is such a group. This group has no formal membership. Those in the group don’t hold formal meetings or organize rallies. The group has a quasi, semi, partially structured framework. Membership is self initiated and actions are self directed. Members from around the globe participate in this group of caring people. The #FemEdTech quilt project is proof of the group’s existence and it’s reach into a digital and personal ethos of care.

In preparation and in conjunction with the OER20 Conference in London, England, a plan was crafted by FemEdTech organizers to visualize the conference theme “The Care in Openness” and evidence this notion of care. This became an open invitation and a call to participate in a global quilt project. Participation was described in many ways, not the least being the creation of a quilt square. The project is guided by Sarah Lambert’s (2017) three principles of social justice in open education (referenced below) – redistributive justice, recognitive justice, and representational justice. The project has three parts – preparing and assembling the people and quilt as a link to social justice and open education contexts; creating a physical and digital archive of elements relating to the theme of care; and, the sharing and completion of the artefact at the OER20 conference in both material and digital form.

It was the community and call that caught my attention. The invitation came at the same time as I was writing a proposal for a presentation at OER20 and immediately sparked my imagination. Visions of quilts created and crafted by Canadian women, including my sisters, came to mind. While I have never contributed to the physical production of a quilt, I have participated by sharing fabric swatches from past sewing projects. I described my vision in the intention to submit:

“I have a quilt at home that is made up of all the bits of fabric that my three sisters and I had used for many of our childhood sewing projects. When I look at this quilt I am able to re-visualize each of the finished products that were made from that swatch of fabric, bringing back memories of a rich collage of failed attempts or favourite outfits we four had stitched together with our own hands. My square will be just that – a re-presentation of some of my ed tech failed attempts and favourite ‘outfits’, captured in the colours, shapes, and words embroidered into the fabric.”

As with all visions, they bump into reality and end up looking different. Without my sewing machine at hand, without a handy supply of fabric or tools, and with the parameters of a 6 X 6 inch square in which to craft something meaningful, I was bereft of ever getting the promised square completed. But an after-season sale at a local fabric shop renewed by mission and re-ignited my vision. I gathered a modicum of materials together and shared my promise with the #FemEdTechQuilt community in a tweet.

Then the story emerged. It became a layering of blues and greens representational of the open spaces of the Canadian landscape. Open landscapes look different under a vast blue sky.

I envisioned long walks through tall grass, hikes along forest trails, the open fields of my childhood, dappled evergreen woods covered in layers of snow and ice, the blue of summer lakes, and undulations of waves lapping the shore. Adding a few beads and buttons represent the magic of first snows and snow covered hills. No tech in sight!

My crafting of this vision of landscape calls forth an ethos of care that exists in Canadian landscapes where people come together to help each other when land and weather often dictate rules of engagement. Not just a “come from away” story. It’s a neighbourly thing, and ethos of care, built into the psyche of those who live within open landscapes.

Now to add the tech element! My vision of blues called forth the logo from Virtually Connecting – itself a modified representation of a painting created by my mother where I see heads turned toward each other in relationship and conversation. Virtually Connecting is such a place where relationships and conversations exist in an ethos of care – with intentionally equitable hospitality (Bali et al., 2019). The logo recreation on my quilt square is left without the lettering, not because it isn’t important, but because I wanted the focus to be on the faces, as representative of the people in conversation, not the text that binds many ideas or people together.

Finally, to add the contrasting colour – a few red buttons in the shape of hearts. I decided to gather the buttons strategically around the logo as representative of the limitation of 10 people in a Google Hangout, that is no longer a constraint. The heart shaped buttons are representative of the ethos of care held in these Virtually Connecting spaces, despite the barriers and boundaries imposed by the technology, and where conversations and laughter often flourish beyond the screen. This VC logo and heart shaped button combination is centrally placed on the quilt square, overtop the background of yellow – visions of sunrises and sunsets – and black.

And so, my square is finished. It’s carefully packaged and about to be sent. I won’t reveal the finished square just yet. I’ll share this when I see it again, in the midst of all the other squares crafted and created by others in the FemEdTech community, coming from all parts of the globe. This will happen when I attend the OER20 conference in London England in early April. I am humbled by the stories and amazed by the voices sharing openly about their #FemEdTechQuilt experiences as this Quilt of Care and Justice is created.

References

Bali, M., Caines, A., Hogue, R. J., DeWaard, H., & Friedrich, C. (2019). Intentionally equitable hospitality in hybrid video dialogue: The context of Virtually Connected. eLearning Magazine. Retrieved from https://elearnmag.acm.org/archive.cfm?aid=3331173

Lambert, S. R. (2018). Changing our (Dis)Course: A Distinctive Social Justice Aligned Definition of Open Education. Journal of Learning for Development, 5(3), 225–244. Retrieved from https://jl4d.org/index.php/ejl4d/article/view/290

Image Attribution: Photo by Iñaki del Olmo on Unsplash

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Thinking about Feedback

“What leads you on
Wakes you in the night
What calls your name
When no one else can hear?
What follows you
That even you cannot see…
 
Follow that star.
 
There is no one’s life but your own.
Seize every fiber
Every feather and force
That weaves through all
Surrounding you.
A light, a guide.
A way”

Borhani, M.T., (2017). Living with Words: This “Vale of Soul-Making”. Sameshima, P., Fidyk, A., & James, K. (2017). Poetic Inquiry: Enchantment of Place. (pp 100 – 107). Delaware, USA: Vernon Press 

What leads me on? What wakes me in the night?

How do I seize the feedback I’ve been given and let it guide my way deeper into thinking about feedback – as a giver and receiver of feedback.

It’s one thing to ask for feedback, and another to take that feedback and reflect on it. Reflecting doesn’t mean just reading through it and perhaps considering it worthy of further action. It’s not about listening to the comments made by others after they’ve examined my work, my teaching, my writing. It’s taking it all in – the good, the interesting (because it’s all interesting in some way), and the not so useful (even though it usefully tells you that you’ve missed the mark in terms of explaining yourself with clarity). It’s more than reacting with an ‘ah yes‘ or a ‘wonder why‘ when I look upon the comments made. It’s really thinking deeply and then acting on the suggestions in one way or another. 

I was gifted with feedback, from my classmates in the Research Colloquium course I’m taking, on my draft proposal for grant funding, and from critical friends in digital spaces. When I suggested an open forum using Hypothes.is, I never imagined the deep, rich and responsive feedback I would receive. I am thankful to those who took time to read and respond.

I am also reflecting on feedback I give to others – on conference proposals I’ve been reviewing, on book chapter submissions I’ve offered to edit, on comments I add to blog posts, and feedback I give to my students. What do I expect will happen when I provide feedback to others? This graphic about feedback that I created a while back focuses on the giver of the feedback, but fails to look at the expected action or reactions to feedback.

concept map of feedback
Mapping the Concept of Feedback

What do you do with feedback you’ve been given? How does it shape your ‘NEXT’? Do you attend to every element of feedback, or focus on one or two pieces of feedback that are meaningful? Just wondering out loud! Add a comment to leave me some feedback!

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