Unfortunately, we have a lot of historical baggage to contend with, making real learning much harder than it needs to be. We have generations of practitioners doing the only thing they know how to do (that which was modeled by former instructors), despite so much research and evidence suggesting a major pivot is in order. But we’re getting there.
Taking the Critic out of Critical Thinking
“People change all the time when it comes to things that matter to them. They’ll change positions, jobs, houses, cars, or whatever matters for them, often at great cost. We’re wired to move on.”
It Isn’t Gaming The Higher Ed System…It’s Smart
From an educational perspective, I have never, in all of my years consulting, auditing, teaching, nor even admonishing, seen a 4-year institution with “better” teaching than a community college. In fact, many of the community college professors I know also teach at 4-year schools.
Impression Management – it’s more important than you think…
Profiles are more and more a crucial component of our lives. It’s not quite as reported today as it was five years ago when we were still figuring out just how profiles worked, but the web is littered with reports of people who lost jobs, scholarships, marriages, or worse, because a profile was not private enough, a person had multiple profiles, or because someone shared a profile of another person without their permission. Those things still happen, they just aren’t newsworthy anymore. But just because our information hungry brains also crave novelty doesn’t mean this isn’t an issue. Especially for younger parts of our society. It’s called impression management and it’s worth talking about.
Innovation 101
Google it. Explore if through ERIC. Do what you do so well! Research the idea, the strategy, etc. See how other schools have done it, or alternatively, see if there are reasons schools have chosen NOT to do something. Look at the business stream in which the initiative was accomplished and then ask how it might be performed in a your specific higher education context. Ping your network and ask colleagues what they think. Go to Twitter or LinkedIn and create a post about it, looking for comments and feedback. Just noodle with it. Even if you finally conclude that it can’t work or if you never end up using it, the continual practice will help. See, as you collect more and more of those ideas, you’ll start to have a throng of options available when the right day comes.
How To Build A Better Lecture / Presentation vs A Bizarro One…
You can create as many Bizarro lectures as you’d like, but the results will always be the same. Students won’t learn, they’ll be bored, and you will ultimately hate teaching. Yes, you should put as much effort as possible into every learning session to create active learning experiences.
What I Should Have Said…
I couldn’t do what my mind was screaming to do which was to yell through the rant explaining that of COURSE it hadn’t worked! The way he went about implementing it was ludicrous! He had coupled poor classroom management skills with a half-baked attempt at a learning model he didn’t even fully understand, so obviously it hadn’t worked!
Hubris
I’ve worked with a lot of schools in my time. Some were progressive and poised to innovate. Many plodded along, hoping that they didn’t mess something up to such an extreme that would lose students. And a few have been dysfunctional (at best) if not just plain troubling.
Accessing Technology
Think about a portal. In my opinion, this is one of the most under-utilized (and therefore under-valued) pieces of digital real estate at a University. And you can tell. The typical portal at a college is the equivalent of a trailer park for links, notifications, and assets. So what do users do? They bookmark the few links they actually find useful and access them directly. Of course that also means they never see the notifications, announcements, or new links over time.
Placeholders
Have you ever watched a classroom where the professor has no idea what active learning is? They still perform the same lectures they have used for years. You know in the first 60 seconds what’s coming. Students will fall asleep, some will try to furiously write down every word while missing a healthy amount of it (and not absorbing any), and still others will simply stare off into the world, trying to remember why they are attending college, etc. You KNOW it’s coming.