e-Learning Ecologies MOOC’s Updates
Active Knowledge Making (Admin Update 4)
Active Knowledge Making—so learners become active knowledge producers (for instance, project-based learning, using multiple knowledge sources, and research based knowledge making), less than they are knowledge consumers (as exemplified in the ‘transmission’ pedagogies of traditional textbook learning or e-learning focused on video or e-textbook delivery). Active knowledge making practices underpin contemporary emphases on innovation, creativity and problem solving—quintessential ‘knowledge economy’ and ‘knowledge society’ attributes.
-
Video 2a: What Does it Mean to be an Engaged Learner?
-
Video 2b: Hierarchical or Horizontal Knowledge Relations
-
Video 2c: Memory Work in Learning
-
Video 2d: Changing the Balance of Agency
-
Active Knowledge Making in Scholar
All Levels of Participation: Make a comment below this update about the ways in which educational technologies can support learners to become active knowledge makers. Respond to others' comments with @name.
Additional Introductory and Advanced Participation: Make an update introducing an active knowledge making concept on the community page (not your personal page - because only peers will see that!). Define the concept and provide at least one example of the concept in practice. Be sure to add links or other references, and images or other media to illustrate your point. If possible, select a concept that nobody has addressed yet so we get a well-balanced view of active knowledge making. Also, comment on at least three or four updates by other participants. Active knowledge making concepts might include:
-
Project-based learning
- Inquiry learning
- Authentic pedagogy
- Progressive education
- New learning/transformative learning
- Participatory learning
- Gamification
- Prosumers
- Knowledge society/economy
- Learning for innovation/creativity
- Research-based learning
- Online project spaces
- Makerspaces
-
Suggest concept in need of definition!
Active learning concepts: Authentic pedagogy
Authentic learning takes place in the context of real-world problems. It should involve active learning and authentic tasks. Therefore, the goal of authentic pedagogy is to prepare students for their roles in society. Examples of how such authentic learning may be implemented include simulations, table-top exercises, role play, placements/internships.
I wonder if professional courses like medicine which incorporate clinical rotations and apprenticeships would qualify as 'authentic pedagogy'.
I would like to talk about the importance of time and the value of mistakes in active learning. In doing so, I would like to define active learning, simply, as learning by doing. That is, learning by fully involving oneself as a person in the process, physically and cognitively. One example of such practice is apprenticeship, by which a mentor teaches simultaneously a way of doing and a way of thinking to a mentee. As an experimental researcher, I have been taught and have taught to others in that way. Depending on mentor's and mentee's personality and the cultural context, one important variable is the value granted to mistakes.
There is a common understanding that what is learned by mistake is well learned. But there is also this trivial fact that making mistakes and figuring them out takes time and some degree of suffering. This conundrum brings to think about the value of time and how deeply we want to be involved in a particular learning. In other words, it leads to ask: Is this piece of learning worth spending time by making mistakes in learning it? Could we go straight to the cutting edge where mistakes are worthwhile, because there is no other way? In science, this edge is called research. In any craft, it is the time when one becomes creative with the techniques she has learned.
Often, there is not so many ways to get things done right, and time is better spent learning them right from the beginning, to leave more time later on to what is truly creative and an expression of self - or leaving a mark in the world. For this reason, in the realm of active learning, self-learning is not always the best solution, and often-time rigorous apprenticeship has more value.
I agree with @Nikolaos that ICT tools and platforms make knowledge and information widely available there for facilitating active learning. But I live in an underdeveloped economy where there are lack of adequate infrastructure to support this kind of learning. Traditional classrooms are not enough and because of this millions are out of school. However many children undertake apprenticeships (ubiquitous?) and learn on the job as we saydown here.
Inaccessibility to online technologies primarily as a result of paper infrastructure inadeuacy. I believe if we have the tools and resources we can get our own students too to be not just conumers but also creators of knowledge.
I was a class room teacher for many years and my encounter with e-learning now l find exciting. Many young people will embrace it as many embrace social medias network these days. I must say I consider timespent on these social media as a waste of time.
Godwin Ihimekpen.
I think blended learning is the next level of teaching. Plain and simple. To reach today's learner you need to be willing to accept how they WANT to learn. Right, wrong, good, bad those are just opinions.
Does Blended Learning work? yes
Do a majority of students engage more in a blended learning environment? yes
Those are facts, and that is where we need to focus.
Hi, I found this a good topic to reflect on. In my personal life, I can see more and more how I am seamlessly involved in active knowledge making. I have my own playlists on my laptap, and these are updated immediately for others to see through my Facebook account and Spotify. When I make a purchase using the internet, I often then receive an email asking me to provide feedback on that product or to directly add a consumer review. So I am adding to knowledge alongside what other people thought about the product. In a similar way, I use these reviews to help make my own decisions about certain consumer products through to where to take a holiday.
But as an educator, I find this the most challenging topic to help engage with my students. I think there are three reasons for this (1) that given my students are adult learners, that they are not comfortable as being knowledge creators in an education setting (b) they all come from the same profession, and perhaps it is the professional culture which implicitly doesn't encourage knowledge making in this way (it is a science discpline, and we are brought up to think that a very large scientific project is needed to make knowledge) (3) that the courses I design and the technology to be used are not sufficiently supportive or engaging for students to then take part.
As always, the challenge is to encourage students to critically engage with the subject at hand. We will see from the drop-out rate on this course that not all students are committed. That is fine for a voluntary program like this one, but the consequences are different for students who need to graduate from a program.
Most teachers love working with students who are dedicated and do more than is required, but one of my concerns is catering to students with a range of capabilities and commitment.
Learning technologies or online courses aren't the answer to that problem. I think it takes special dedication to complete a MOOC such as this. However, learning technologies broaden the tools we have to engage with students and encourage them to become active learners. None of my students have the excuse of 'oh, I didn't have the book to do the reading' or 'I didn't know what the assignment was.' They try other excuses, but the accessibility of online technologies allows me to demand from students What are you going to contribute to this discussion?
In my experience, using e-learning technology has helped me implement module requirements that improve student ownership of their work. They have the tools and the resources and are required to make their own project, produce knowledge, rather than simply hand up 'Tim's assignment.'
To cultivate the benefits of elearning ecologies unlearning is needed unlearn and relearn old notions. For example, place in elearning ecologies is a distributed territory. Idenity is mixed with otherness. In other words, notion and expereinces in elearning ecologies are boundless; there is here, absent is present, far is near and senses are actions. Above all, elearning ecologies challenge the dominant monolingual mindset in today's education systems.
ICT tools and platforms make knowledge and information widely available, therefore facilitating and supporting active learning, or knowledge making if you like to call it like this. But his requires a different emphasis of the educational process. We need to know and use different types of thinking and arguing. Induction and/ or deduction is a good example. In other words, we need to focus on the approaches whereby we can produce knowledge, and also a knowledge typology.
By definition, blended learning is part online and part in a traditional classroom environment. We would be hard pressed to find any class that is not partially using the WWW to deliver content. A 4th grade teacher that places a list of assignments on the class website is teaching a blended class. What we are really concerned about is the current trend of teachers trying to incorporate various communication components of Web 2.0 tools to build learning communities. Many educators are trying to use these tools, but they have not mastered the environment nor have they recognized what works and what does not. It is too early to judge.
@ Emilio it would be good if you could clarify your stance on why you think blended learning is a mistake/monster that will destroy learning and education.
When I was researching my post for this week (I just posted it as an update) I came across this review of Online Learning Studies: http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED505824.pdf. They found Students who took all or part of their class online performed better, on average, than those taking the same course through traditional face-to-face instruction and Instruction combining online and face-to-face elements had a larger advantage relative to purely face-to-face instruction than did purely online instruction. From what I've read there seem to be a lot of advantages to blended learning.