Megan Poore's List: pedagogy, theory, philosophy

• The main characteristics of transactional learning (Maharg   2004) are that it:

   
   
  • Involves active learning;
   
  • Is based on doing legal transactions;
   
  • Involves reflection on learning;
   
  • Is based on collaborative learning;
   
  • Requires holistic or process learning. 

• Each student is asked to focus on two of the projects,   and bear in mind the following issues in their report:

   
   
   
  •   The   most difficult questions they had to answer in each of the two projects,   and how they answered them; 
   
  •  The pattern of work that they adopted within the firm, and the strengths and weaknesses of their approach; 
   
  • What they would do differently next time and why?
   
  •  What they have learned from the projects as regards risk management case and file workload and client care? 

• four   different rates of change – technological innovation (very fast); the rate   of adoptions of technological innovations (fast, but depends on the product   – compare mp3 players with video conferencing, for instance); the rate at   which practices change as the result of new technologies (much slower – in   education, the ‘glass book’ is still depressingly common); and the rate at   which practices improve generally as a consequence of a technological innovation   (very slow – touch screens in commercial applications, for instance, or networked   learning ecologies in education).
• Coupal identified three stages of development in ICT use by teachers: ‘literacy   uses ( a technology-centred pedagogy); adaptive uses (a teacher-centred, direct   instruction pedagogy); and transforming uses (a student-centred, constructivist   pedagogy)’ (Coupal 2004, 591); and this has been observed by other researchers   (eg Bottino 2004).
• As they point out, the slow accretion of learning within   the community alters identity as well as practice: indeed, changed identity   is the essence of apprenticeship, not merely for apprentices, but for anyone   learning new sets of skills, knowledge and values.

• Table 1

                                                                         

  	Klemm’s anti-lurking protocols	Our practice
  1.	Require participation – don’t let it be optional	Lurking was OK for us – the forums, after all, were   resources for students.  And if students had no questions, and no useful   comments, we were happy for them to learn from others.
  2.	Form learning teams	Our virtual firms were just that
  3.	Make the activity interesting	Feedback from students told us the transaction was   interesting and highly relevant
  4.	Don’t settle for opinions only	Students asked precise questions and were given precise   answers
  5.	Structure the activity	Better still – students structured their own activity,   based on our guidance (and the forum contributed to that set of guidance)
  6.	Require a ‘hand-in assignment’ (deliverable)	Students required to achieve the negotiated settlement   that was the end-point of the transaction.
  7.	Know what you are looking for and involve yourself   to make it happen	Students are clear about the aims of the forum, and   both Charlie and I answered postings on it.
  8.	Peer grading	We did not use this nor do we consider it useful, given   our students’ inexperience in PI transactions.  However next year we   shall introduce peer grading of perceived effort.
• The literature on situated learning emphasises   the effect of physical and social contexts on learning.  According to this   research, learning is more likely to be deep and effective when situated in   discipline-specific and authentic tasks (Brown (2000), Brown, Collins &   Duguid, (1989) Barab, Hay & Duffy (1998); Herrington, Oliver & Reeves   (2002)).

• What might such transformative learning actually involve?    It could include the following:

   
   
  • Making apparent to students the ‘invisible framework’   of the legal profession(8)
   
  • Analysing practice, and helping students to develop their   own reflective practice within the profession, while learning that practice,   and being aware of wider societal, cultural and business contexts.
   
  • Acknowledging and then working to change the borders of   professional practice
   
  • Transformative growth in professionalism (Taylor   (2002; 2004).
• Bourdieu, P (1989) ‘Social Space and Symbolic Power’, Sociological   Theory 7, 1, 14-25.

• Coupal, L.V. (2004). ‘Constructivist Learning Theory and   Human Capital Theory:

   

  Shifting Political and Educational Frameworks for Teachers’   ICT Professional

   

  Development. British Journal of Educational Technology,   35, 5, 587-596.
• Klemm, W R (2002) ‘Eight Ways to Get Students More Engaged   in On-line Conferences’, The Higher Education Journal, 26, 1, 62-64
• Scardamalia, M (2001) ‘Big Change Questions: Will Educational   Institutions, within their Present Structures, be Able to Adapt Sufficiently   to Meet the Needs of the Information Age?’ The Journal of Educational Change,   2, 2, 171-176

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• Wikis are one of the newest features of Web 2.0. This article describes the implementation of a project in a marketing course in which students created an interactive textbook using wiki software. Several surprises encountered along the way are described, and the unique problem of grading individual contributions to a wiki is discussed. The author concludes that the wiki work improved the collaboration skills of students, but effects on learning could not be assessed. Strategies are provided that other instructors interested in using a wiki in the classroom can use to make the experience fulfilling for both instructor and students. The article ends with a call for the development of better grading methods and for assessment of the impact of wikis on learning.

• Despite the potential for learning platforms to herald a paradigm shift in teaching and learning, in the rush to adopt them schools may end up creating their very own digital panopticon, with the technology being used to monitor and control learning, rather than liberate it from the four walls of the classroom.
• Parents and carers expect this and feel comfortable, safe and secure in the knowledge that their children are physically present in school, being monitored by another adult.
• School systems don't support flexible learning.
• E-learning theories tend to be adaptations of existing theories of face-to face learning.
• In a school system built around individual assessment, how do you assess collaboration?
• You ban these in school and want us to use your learning platform. It's about teacher control and convenience isn't it?"

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• Students and teachers alike must understand how systems of knowledge creation and archivization are changing. Encyclopedias are no longer static collections of facts and figures; they are living entities, and the new software changes the rules of expertise.
• Students and teachers alike must understand how systems of knowledge creation and archivization are changing. Encyclopedias are no longer static collections of facts and figures; they are living entities, and the new software changes the rules of expertise.
• correct its own errors
• And this is why digital literacy is so crucial for educational institutions: we do a fundamental disservice to our students if we continue to propagate old methods of knowledge creation and archivization without also teaching them how these structures are changing, and, more importantly, how they will relate to knowledge creation and dissemination in a fundamentally different way.
• What is perhaps more important and useful, though, is the extent to which Wikipedia also preserves the debate and discourse around a particular subject.
• it also records and contributes to the politicization and dissemination of scientific research and communication. And, in order to be participants in these debates, students will need to understand the structures and rhetorics within which they take place.
• However, the technology here is merely secondary: what is more important is teaching people how this technology changes the social sphere so that students too can be empowered to engage the polis rather than being passive users of Word Processing programs.

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• I have a fear that because the technologies are so exciting and beguiling that we are seeing a technologically deterministic drive, rather than one based on sound pedagogies. However I will also show that there has never been a closer alignment between the current practices of Web 2.0 technologies and what is put forward as good pedagogy – what we need are means to realise and harness this match.
• Recent thinking in learning   theory has shifted to emphasise the benefit of social and situated learning   as opposed to behaviourist, outcomes-based, individual learning. What is striking   is that a mapping to the technologies shows that recent trends in the use of   technologies, the shift from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 echoes this; Web 2.0 tools very   much emphasise the collective and the network.
• Arguably then there has never been a better alignment of current thinking in   terms of good pedagogy – i.e. emphasising the social and situated nature of   learning, rather than a focus on knowledge recall with current practices in   the use of technologies – i.e. user-generated content, user-added value and   aggregated network effects.
• Educational systems are slow to change; the practice and process   of teaching and learning are embedded in these systems. Take, for example, assessment   – the primary model in place is still one based on summative, individual assessment;   although formative and more collaborative assessment is possible, it is more   difficult in the current educational infrastructure.

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• Paul A. David (1990) suggested that the inability of organizations to absorb first-generation change is due to existing physical structure.
• As McLuhan has stated, new tools are often adopted to do the work of the old.
• The ability to continue to learn and develop new knowledge replaces the importance of existing knowledge, or, what is known today is less important than the capacity to continue to know more. The development of a certain type of person with certain mindsets exceeds the importance of being in possession of a particular type of knowledge - becoming in contrast with knowing.
• Yet, in spite of small-scale innovation, new methods typically do not result in new spaces and structures of learning. As noted by David (1990), new innovations are adopted in the context of existing physical spaces. Changes of a more significant and profound nature need to be enacted at a system-wide level.
• Once change has developed to a point of potentially altering the existing system, significant resistance can be expected.
• Spaces are themselves agents for change. Changed spaces will change practice (JISC, 2006, Slide #30).
• The concern is not with structure itself, but rather with the assumption that structure is required across all spaces of learning.

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• online course offerings should move away from large, centralized applications and instead make use of a network of connected applications. Connectivism & Connective Knowledge is not simply about the use of networks of diverse technologies; it is a network of diverse technologies.