A Future of Undergraduate Teaching

In various fora, I've been doing a lot of discussing and thinking about this lately and I think that this scenario is very likely.

 ... most teaching in the early years of an undergraduate degree will gradually cease to be via lectures and will instead take the form of online presentations produced by professionally trained presenters backed up by teams of academics. This online content will be paralleled by peer tuition (or teaching by questioning) which, when done well, is clearly effective (see here and here), and the associated growth of so-called learning analytics. Lectures may well become special occasions in which the best-known academics make their presence felt. Meanwhile, small group teaching will make a come-back in all years, especially in the best universities.

We've been saying for years that lectures are not a good way to learn except for a minority for whom it resonates with their learning style. And when we take on board the critique of our education system more generally that it is a huge university entrance system predicated on forming traditional research academics, then in GB it really is likely that the new fee regime is going to concentrate pedagogical minds on androgogical matters (though I prefer a term like mathetogogical). That is assuming that we are able to effect a culture change in British culture more widely to take away the prejudice that the only form of 'education' worth having is precisely invested in the system to produce research academics (even though simultaneously that is derided)

The fact is that HEI's will have to think hard about just what it is that they are 'selling'. I think that part of the answer will be 'accreditation' (largely about summative assessment and benchmarking) and another will be formative assessment and learning coaching.

The question in a barebones version of that future is about the way that those less able to access learning resources (including the human ones) of a traditional-ish form will be enabled to access it. Or will the 'total package' including access to counselling and other support services remain a kind of gold-standard?

The Future of Undergraduate Teaching - WorldWise - The Chronicle of Higher Education:

Teaching science through language

For me it was interesting to read this post at the end of a week when I'd twice said to different people that I do have a science bachground since Linguistics is a science. It's interesting to see this perspective beefed up big-time:

Language provides a wealth of data available from the students themselves — data with questions that beg to be asked, making everyday phenomena surprisingly unfamiliar and requiring explanation. Linguistics is at the core of cognitive science, offering incomparable ways to understand the nature of the human mind. The biological capacity for language appears to be shaped in part by genetic information and in part by information gained through childhood experience. Scientists have sought to tease that information apart, and this work has yielded good explanations in some domains and a body of understanding that can be made accessible to middle school and high school students

Interestingly I also use language to help teach cultural analysis for similar reasons: its proximity to all of us and the way that it scales to culture more widely.
Language Log � Teaching science through language

Learn in depth rather than breadth

This seems to be quite an impressive piece of research on learning and teaching it's written up here: Students Benefit From Depth, Rather Than Breadth, In High School Science Courses Now we should recall the particularity of the subject area researched, but I suspect that it would be transferable. "The study revealed that students in courses that focused on mastering a particular topic were impacted twice as much as those in courses that touched on every major topic. The study explored differences between science disciplines, teacher decisions about classroom activities, and out-of-class projects and homework. The researchers carefully controlled for differences in student backgrounds."
All of which seems to cover the issues I was wondering about in principle. Though that said, I''m wondering how this relates to those who are in MBTI terms 'N' where gaining an overview seems to be important: is that the same as breadth or merely demarkating the area to be deepened?

I feel vindicated, however, by this: "The study also points out that standardized testing, which seeks to measure overall knowledge in an entire discipline, may not capture a student's high level of mastery in a few key science topics. Teachers who 'teach to the test' may not be optimizing their students' chance of success in college science courses," Only in the sense that on my teaching practice, my mentor asked me why I was teaching a class more than they would need to know about a topic for their exams. My defence was that (reflecting on my own experience) having more context and potentially interesting linked information should support the learning that you actually want to encourage (this is a consequence of a constructionist approach).

The serenity meme

I've been attributing the serenity prayer to Reinhold Niebuhr for a few years now. But it may be that the attribution is wrong according to this post and the article it points to. Language Log � The serenity meme: "quotation-hunter extraordinaire Fred Shapiro has uncovered evidence undermining the long-held attribution of 'The Serenity Prayer' to the American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr. Niebuhr's family originally claimed that he composed the prayer in the summer of 1943, but Shapiro has uncovered variations on the theme going back to 1936 in various American publications"
It's also an interesting study in textual transmission and begs a number of questions, one the more interesting and perhaps important is whether the meaning is essentially changed. It also shows the power of structural devices in speech and writing. It may be worth looking at these variants and then think about the gospels too...

Below are ten variants of the prayer cited in Shapiro's article, with the final one from 1943 being Niebuhr's preferred version, according to his daughter. I've arranged them in tabular form so that the formula is more obvious. What God is being asked to grant consists of three noun phrases, which we can label SERENITY, COURAGE, and WISDOM. Note that in a few of these early cases, COURAGE actually precedes SERENITY; I've marked these with (1) and (2) to indicate the actual order of the NPs in the source texts.

O God, give us	serenity to accept what cannot be helped (2)	courage to change what must be altered (1)	and	insight to know the one from the other	1936
we may have	an understanding and serenity to face what cannot be changed (2)	the courage to change what should be altered (1)	and	the wisdom to recognize one from the other	1938
oh God, give me	serenity to accept that which cannot be changed	courage to change that which can be changed	and	wisdom to tell the one from the other	1939
God give me	serenity to accept things I cannot change	the courage to change those I can	and	the wisdom to know the difference	1940
we must have	the serenity to accept what we cannot change within ourselves	the courage to attempt to change what we can	and	the wit to know one from the other	1941
God, give me	serenity to accept what cannot be helped (2)	the courage to change what must be altered (1)	and	insight to determine one from the other	1941
try to develop	serenity to face that which cannot be changed (2)	courage to change that which can be changed (1)	and	insight to tell one from the other	1941
O God, give me	serenity to accept what cannot be changed	the courage to change what can be changed	and	the wisdom to know one from the other	1942
give me	the patience to accept those things which I cannot change	the courage to change those things which can be changed	and	the wisdom to know the difference	1942
God, give us	grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed	courage to change the things that should be changed	and	the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other	1943

Technology and learning

In a piece of research that showed that good use of ICT in teaching can actually increase learning as measured by test results, we are told that the real insight gained is more nuanced and already known. "The key to success with instructional technology is to keep the focus on student-related outcomes and learning." That goes for all teaching and learning.
The news item is here: College Students Score Higher In Classes That Incorporate Instructional Technology Than In Traditional Classes:

Theology: but is it art?

An erstwhile colleague of mine asks an important question: "Is there actually such a thing as 'Christian Art' anyway? Does art produced by Christian need to consist of overtly Christian imagery? Surely not. Derek posits the idea of 'artist-theologian' - rather than Christian artist. The artist-theologian seeks to interpret God's world and His purposes in that world through the chosen medium - perhaps clay, film, paint or wood, as opposed to the words and metaphors of the more traditional theologian. In this regard, the 'artist-theologian' can help to lift the endeavour of theology out of the realm of 'mere words' and into something that touches the soul."
I pretty much agree and note that the challenge for theological educators is to learn how to get beyond 'mere words' in both teaching and assessing and do so with academic integrity. Some have given up and concluded that it is impossible. But I fear that betrays ignorance or lack of imagination. After all, there are degrees offered in the arts ... !
Out of the Cocoon - Main - Wikiklesia #7 : Theology as Art:

A sense of perspective ...

Worth bookmarking just to bring a smile to your face everyso often, and actually Eric Idle's very clever words and a rather cute animation make it potentially suitable for a light-hearted intro to matters cosmological. I'm considering if I can use it in teaching.
Animation here

The joy of being wrong

In teaching it becomes quickly evident both that we learn a great deal from mistakes and that it is hard to create and environment where mistakes are seen merely as a stage on the path of learning. But it is essential that learning facilitators work at creating a 'free to fail' culture /environment. Just how important is highlighted by some new neural/brain research. "'It's a bit of a clich�to say that we learn more from our mistakes than our successes,' said psychologist Professor Andy Wills of the University of Exeter, 'but for the first time we've established just how quickly the brain works to help us avoid repeating errors."
The way the mechanism works also seems to indicate that someone making a mistake should be given an opportunity to rectify it. Thus also underlining the need for immediate feedback as well as opportunity for correct performance.
ScienceDaily: Why We Learn From Our Mistakes:

Visual History of Religions

This looks like a good potential teaching resource. History of Religion: "How has the geography of religion evolved over the centuries, and where has it sparked wars? Our map gives us a brief history of the world's most well-known religions: Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism. Selected periods of inter-religious bloodshed are also highlighted. Want to see 5,000 years of religion in 90 seconds? Ready, Set, Go!"

See also an animated gif version.

Learning in networks

My challenge from July, I suspect, will be to do something constructive with this.

we argue that we need to move away from the institutionalised logic of the school as factory, to the network logic of the learning community. Indeed, we need to move beyond the concept of ‘extended schools’ - whereby schools extend the range of services they provide – towards a notion of extending learning, whereby learning institutions rethink the possibilities around what can be learnt, where learning can happen and who is involved in the learning process. What this paper implies is that it will not be possible to personalise education whilst maintaining a conception of learning as happening only in certain places, under certain assessment regimes and involving certain people. Instead, we suggest that rather than continuing to build a system based upon the ‘megastructures’ of schools, universities and a national curriculum, we need to move to a system organised through more porous and flexible learning networks that link homes, communities and multiple sites of learning.

Futurelab - Research - Publications - Towards new learning networks