Dean Shareski is one of my heroes. His “Ideas and Thoughts From and EdTech” has been in my ‘gator for years now. This post from yesterday has been haunting me as I think about the role of the teacher. It starts like this:
According to many definitions of good teaching, I don’t qualify:
- I don’t clearly state objectives
- If I do state them, they are as fuzzy as all get out
- I have a hard time measuring student progress
- My course syllabus changes almost daily
- I never use tests<
- I constantly stray off topic
There are likely a multitude of sins I have not listed.
I relate to this list. Sorta.
I’ve been accused by past classes of not stating objectives clearly. Actually, I think that’s probably true, up to a point. As you’ve probably learned by now, the class itself is an exemplar of what I believe about online instruction. That first week when I tell you what I want you to do seems to me like a very clear set of objectives in terms of activities. I ask you to set up your blog, aggregator, instant messenger, and TappedIn office. I further assign you a series of specific activities with each of those tools. I don’t tell you what you’re supposed to learn from that activity nor do I tell you how to do it, beyond some very general pointing to resources you might find useful. The reasons for that should be obvious by now. What I wanted you to learn was:
- You could do it largely on your own
- Environments that violate your expectation are highly instructional
- There is great personal satisfaction in accomplishing these kinds of tasks
The paradox here is that you wouldn’t have learned these lessons if I’d told you about it in advance. It’s more akin to getting to the top of the mountain and looking down the other side. Whatever I tell you about what you’re going to see from there is meaningless until you get there to see for yourself. More, if I condition you to see only certain things, your perception of that view will be colored in a way that’s counter productive. The best I can do is keep saying “You’ve gotta see this! It’s amazing!”
As a teacher, I have to differentiate my instruction to accommodate your individual ZPD in order to give each of you the opportunity to make as much progress as you can. It’s not my intent that each of you should make the same progress. Unlike typical classes where the goal is to cover some prescribed set of content, this course is intended to give you as much new knowledge in this area as possible because I recognize that it would take years, not weeks, to instill in each of you the depth and level of knowledge represented by a course entitled “Principles of Distance Education.” As a result, I need to prioritize, organize, and introduce that domain to you in a way that maximizes your learning, builds a foundation for future exploration of this cognate, and perhaps inspires you to continue learning about and growing into this space after the course is over.
You may or may not realize that what each of you is doing in this course is building what’s known a a “personal learning environment” — more specifically, a “personal learning network” — which you will be able to use after the course is over for any content domain you desire, not just those prescribed by your course of study. Sadly, I recognize that most of you will drop your engagement like a hot potato as soon as the course is over, but at some point in the future, you may recognize the need you have for ongoing study and you’ll have the foundation you need in order to become effective learners in thi information dense environment represented by the general moniker of “21st Century Learner.”
In short, unlike the typical course where the instructor expects you to all end at the same place, I expect that every person will leave the course in a different place, but a place which represents the highest possible level of advancement you can achieve given your individual circumstances, skill levels, and knowledge base.
But I didn’t tell you that and as an “objective” it’s - as Dean puts it - “fuzzy as all get out.”
