Videos and more

I am well on my way on this new MOOC I am taking. It's a University of London course through Coursera about learning called the Future of Education.

Today's work consisted of watching a few interviews about learning. They were very short - just 5-10 minutes each, so it was easy to do this in-between all the other things one has to do in a day. Funny that, as it is EXACTLY that of learning in-between everything else one does in a day that annoys me the most when my students tell me how they go about doing their course work! That makes it quite clear to me just how much times - and education (and students) - has changed since I went to college. I may consider promising to change the way I build up my video lectures.

With that onboard I also found it interesting that today's videos were about how we as individuals learn. Also, they specifically spoke about reflection journals and learning. I may not retract my stance on reflection texts, but I may be willing to modify it a bit. So reflection journals may be good, but I don't know if they ultimately result in generally everyone, or even specifically me, learning more than just by normal lectures (teacher delivery, didactic learning, as it was called).

If we assume that most students (not people in general, as that would give you a different base to work with all together) at my college do not learn best by didactic lecturing, then it is certainly interesting to tone down this type of delivery and - as discussed in today's videos - prepare courses more as a facilitator of learning. It sounds simple, but that is actually a complex enough idea in that it entails so much.

Also I have read some texts which are available online for this week's work. I liked this one, as it appeals to my visual learning preferences. But it is actually quite extensive and because of the mapped visualisation hard to navigate in any sort of chronological or argue-based order. It's a net resource so it follows the postmodern approach to information. One tasty tidbit from it, though, which is I fund very true. I can't help myself but put this in here, even though I could possible have reflected on far more things on that site...

"Sometimes there is a direct connection between the content of a course and the occupation it leads to. In my humble opinion, that is usually a second best, anyway. It leads to some spurious "subjects" being offered in universities, in which any self-respecting student will be a surface learner because the subject has no intellectual coherence."

Read more: For surface learning http://www.doceo.co.uk/heterodoxy/surface.htm#ixzz3EnLHH9SY
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives. I can recommend it, and source it as: Atherton J S (2013) Learning and Teaching; Angles on learning, particularly after the schooling years [On-line: UK] retrieved 30 September 2014 from http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/

I am finding the workload - if taken seriously to be - quite time consuming, but I guess that is the crux of all learning, ultimately, no?

First reflection task

I usually really don't like reflection tasks (read: hate em). It's the "no one knows how I feel inside" quality of such texts which I find incredibly boring to read. But, this MOOC I am following (What Future for Education?) requires that I write one. So I am cringing inside as I take to the keyboard to produce one myself. I will try to keep it to the point. So here goes:

This week´s reflection topic is:

Reflect on your previous learning experiences. Think about one particularly successful and one unsuccessful learning experience. Consider what were the conditions that made this experience successful or unsuccessful for you and what this tells you about your own preferred ways to learn.

The academic inside of me is annoyed by the imprecise language used in this question. My previous learning experiences? Like ANY of them? On a micro level I look at it, read it, write it and do it, and then it's in. On a macro level, however, I have to ask: In school, out of school, at music school, inn scouts, gymnastics, and the list goes on. I have to assume they mean from my formal education, but even this is difficult. Are we talking ONE specific experience? I sincerely hope that more than just a handful of people reading this has had more than a few specific learning experiences that are memorable and that have stuck with them as successful experiences. For the future of education, I seriously hope that.

It would be easier for me to chunk them up according to which level/grades I was in. Also, looking back on my formal education, I have a hard time saying exactly when I was (actually) learning something, and just having fun in class. That goes for more or less every school and grade I have been in - apart from maybe one school/one grade - which I found so incredibly boring I just could not bear it. Other than that one year, I did a lot of really fun things when I went to school.

I was in the GATE program and later I took the IB programme. And I learned a lot. Most of all, I learned to take full responsibility for my own learning outcomes. What you put in is what you get out. But if I were to chose my years at GATE or IB as successful learning experiences to reflect and comment on, I would have to say that it was because we were given so much freedom to learn, and the teachers trusted us so much that they let us do so (at our very crazy, experimental and bit out there pace).

I am sure, though, that not everyone has experienced the same type of learning environments and perhaps even within my class the kids could have experienced it differently. I am fortunate because I don't think I have been in a learning situation where the teachers didn't honestly believe that we were a bunch of smart, able kids. That type of trust is invigorating, but of course could only be given because we individually (not necessarily only collectively) had an appropriate knowledge base, and they had no preconceived notions of the limits of what we were capable of.

A bad learning experience is easier to pick out. Right here and now, however, I can only think of one, in one particular class setting. It lasted an academic year. Clearly the school was just the wrong school for me. I was so bored, so incredibly bored. It wasn't engaging, it wasn't interesting. It didn't build on anything, it wasn't challenging. The teachers didn't think we knew anything; which we didn't (collectively) since we were all from different schools and had different backgrounds and knowledge levels and all of this was different from what the teacher had. I was so uninterested that I fell behind in everything, making it twice as hard to stick with it. I had to quit and do something else.

Was it me, was it the teacher, was it the program? I don't know. But some main areas concerning my preferred ways to learn become clear from this. I like challenging, difficult tasks to work on either individually or in groups. I like to read, write, formulate, try out and question things. Freedom to develop and inquisitiveness are important factors, as well as trusting in myself and being trusted by omg teachers. 

My good and bad learning experiences ultimately have very little to do with learning, and much more about the situation and atmosphere in which learning can occur. 

What future for Education?

This week is the first week of the MOOC What future for Education, offered by the University of London through Coursera. It´s my first MOOC, so I don´t quite know what to expect - apart from that my enthusiasm may dwindle as the weeks pass. Luckily, though, it´s only a 6 week course, so once past the hump week of week 3, I am hoping I won´t have problems completing.

The structure of the course is divided into five sections, which are the same each week. It starts with a reflection assignment. My plan is to write out more or less all of the reflection assignments on this blog - and so the blog will live as long as I am in this MOOC (or, if all goes well, the next one, too). Some of it is activities in discussion forums and stuff like that. We will have to see if I blog on the other parts or not.

So why am I doing this? I am fascinated by the idea of non- and informal education - and what keeps people motivated to continue with informal education in a LLL perspective. And I thought I would try it out for myself. Going to a museum or what have you is a type informal education (if not also non-formal), but a MOOC suddenly very different. It´s not fun the way visiting a museum is. It´s actually a commitment, where you have to give and take and not just absorb what ever the museum (or teacher) is dishing out. It´s not formal so there is no system I have to be a part of - I do this totally by choice. So in effect it is really harder than formal or casual informal education.

If you don´t know what LLL is, I have added this from Ifed´s webpages. It´s where I found this definition which I thought would be helpful:

Lifelong learning was to be the ‘master concept’ that should shape educational systems (UNESCO 1972:182). What emerged was an influential tripartite categorization of learning systems. It’s best known statement comes from the work of Combs with Procure and Ahmed (1973):

Formal education: the hierarchically structured, chronologically graded ‘education system’, running from primary school through the university and including, in addition to general academic studies, a variety of specialised programmes and institutions for full-time technical and professional training.

Informal education: the truly lifelong process whereby every individual acquires attitudes, values, skills and knowledge from daily experience and the educative influences and resources in his or her environment – from family and neighbours, from work and play, from the market place, the library and the mass media.

Non-formal education: any organised educational activity outside the established formal system – whether operating separately or as an important feature of some broader activity – that is intended to serve identifiable learning clienteles and learning objectives.

Also, truth be told, I added that link so that I will be able to find it again for myself in the future. The definitions of formal, non-formal and informal education confuse me at times, and they are mostly administrative, so it is good to have them here. Personally, I sometimes feel like non-formal education is a bit of an oxymoron. I have my formal education and I have my books, conferences, etc which are informal education. So I really wonder what this non-formal education initiative - this MOOC - will be like.

I haven´t quite decided if I want to do this for a certificate or not, but I understand that I can sign up for that later if I decide to do so. We will have to see. For now I am going to get started on the first reflection assignment.