Technology, and the Seven Principles for Good Practice in Education

I first became aware of Chickering and Gamson's 'Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education' about 6 years ago (even though it was published in 1987), and it's often referenced in academic research. The principles are really common sense, but can provide some key aims/objectives for academic staff in developing an effective educational experience for students. The principles are as follows;

1. Encourages contacts between students and faculty
2. Develops reciprocity and cooperation among students
3. Uses active learning techniques. (a.k.a. "Encourages active learning")
4. Gives prompt feedback
5. Emphasises time on task
6. Communicates high expectations
7. Respects diverse talents and ways of learning

I always find it amazing that some of the really pioneering work that inspire education(alists) today, were actually researched/published a long time ago. I was 5 when these principles were published!

Anyway, later, Chickering and Ehrmann (1996) applied the use of technology to support/aid the original principles, with suggestions like asynchronous discussion to encourage contact between students and faculty. But.... I wonder how, with the more recent burst of the social web, that we can use technology to support the 7 principles today. Here's some brief ideas that are really targeting many of the academics I support at MMU (rather than the expert innovators);

1 Encourages contacts between students and faculty

Moving beyond the basics of email discussed by Chickering and Ehrmann, today we have a range of other means, such as Social Media (Twitter, Facebook and even LinkedIn). Commentators (Hall 2009) have long been discussing how students arrive at University and have (or develop) their own Personal Learning Environments consisting of tools like Facebook and Twitter, and further research suggests that students are already using these tools to discuss aspects of their education (Junco, et al, 2011).

Further to this, students can feel greater contact with Faculty through the provision of bespoke audio and video recordings, as they can see/hear their tutors ( Lee, Mcloughlin and Chan, 2007; Stewart & Doolan, 2008; Middleton, 2009)

2 Develops reciprocity and cooperation among students

Again, the possibilities of the web enable learners to not only cooperate through the likes of forums, or again social media, but also through collaborative tools like Google Docs or Skydrive. Then, there are tools like PBWorks (wiki) that can be great for supporting collaboration.

3 Uses active learning techniques

It may not be the most innovative thing, but I love the activity of blogging. Not just to be participating in a growing craze on the web, but because it enforces a reflective approach upon the author. And reflection, is a key skill in active learning! Obviously I use blogger, but many of my students have signed up to Wordpress as well, and they are seeing some of the benefits I find.
As devices have become more portable, the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) movement can work well for departments without a wealth of resources available to them. For example, I encouraged students to bring their own laptops/tablets to class for a breakout activity to access and reflect on specific content on the web, then summarise for the rest of the class.

4 Gives prompt feedback

Many of the VLEs available today enable tutors to develop quizzes, with tailored feedback that students receive as soon as they complete the quiz. For example at MMU, Moodle allows tailored feedback for each answer to each question.  It's also possible to provide further feedback based on overall grade boundaries. The possibilities here are huuuggee.

5 Emphasises time on task

The developments in connectivity really makes the web available right in the palm of the learner. Literally. When we use tools like Twitter or Facebook, we can engage students in academic discussions when they're on the train, during their break in work, or even when they're eating their tea! Further, mobile friendly VLEs enable learners to access a whole range of course-related information/activities, anyplace, anytime. I can't wait for MMU to launch the mobile friendly Moodle next year!

6 Communicates high expectations

Engaging in some of the activities discussed above, we are promoting a positive working ethos amongst our students. Whether that's by communicating with students out-of-hours, or by providing things like assignment details in a short video. A lot of the time, when we make an effort, so do our students.

7 Respects diverse talents and ways of learning

Multimedia learning can not only support different ways of learning, it can build upon the Dual Channel Theory (Mayer & Gallini, 1990) of information processing by combining complimentary verbal and visual information (think VARK spectrum) to overcome/avoid cognitive overload and cater for different learning styles.

Perhaps the idea of the 'student as producer' takes this a step further, and even reinforces the high expectations mentioned previously? What about innovative uses of Second Life for students to develop fashion shows?

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These are just some brief thoughts on technology and the seven principles. Do you have any particularly innovative approaches/experience to tackling any of the 7 principles? Get involved in the comments...

References

Chickering. A, & Gamson. Z (1987) Seven principles for good practice in undergraduate education. American Association of Higher Education Bulletin vol.39 no.7 pp.3-7

Chickering. A & Ehrmann. S (1996)  Implementing the Seven Principles: Technology as Lever. American Association for Higher Education Bulletin, 49 (2), 3-6. Available online at: http://www.tltgroup.org/programs/seven.html

Dabbagh, N., & Kitsantas, A. (2011). Personal Learning Environments, social media, and self-regulated learning: A natural formula for connecting formal and informal learning. The Internet and Higher Education, 15(1), 3-8. Elsevier Inc.

Mayer, R. E., & Gallini, J. K. (1990). When is an illustration worth ten thousand words? Journal of Educational Psychology, 82(4), 715–726.

Hall, R. (2009). Towards a Fusion of Formal and Informal Learning Environments : the Impact of the Read / Write Web. Learning, 7(1), 29-40

Junco, R., Heiberger, G., & Loken, E. (2011). The effect of Twitter on college student engagement and grades. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 27(2), 119-132.

Lee, M, Mcloughlin. C,  and Chan. A (2007) Knowledge Creation processes of students as producers of audio learning objects. In Beyond Control: Learning technology for the social network generation. Research proceedings of the 14th Association for Learning Technology Conference

Middleton, A (2009) Beyond Podcasting: creative approaches to designing educational audio. ALT-J, Vol 17:2, pp 143-155 Stewart, W. and Doolan, M.A (2008) Listen to this: enhancing the learner experience through the use of audio within next generation technologies. Paper presented at the Higher Education Academy’s fourth Annual Conference, July 1-3 at the Harrogate International Centre.




This work by Peter Reed is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.

Learning, Games, and Future Learning

Scrabble image from Flickr User jking89: CC-BY 2.0

Over the past week or so I have started playing Scrabble again, something I haven't played for years. The affordance of technology here is that I can play my partner or my mum asynchronously using the free Wordfeud app on our iPhones. 

Through playing and reflecting on our Scrabble games, my thoughts last night (typically when trying to get to sleep) were directed towards three points (not in the scrabble sense!) I want I discuss here;

1) Do we learn differently now, or have you forgotten how to spell words as well? Generally I'm still pretty good, but from time to time I might write (or more probably type) a word that just doesn't look right. So I might ask someone how to spell that word, or being tech-enabled, use a spell checker or google. 

But at what cost does this affordance come? Are we forgetting things more easily now? We don't need to be so rigorous with spelling because the the trusty spell check will auto correct us. So we can afford to be a bit more lax. Arguably, if we still used typewriters to construct our documents we might pay more attention - perhaps if you don't use it, you lose it (in a working memory sort of way)?

2) This leads on to my second point, which is related to technology enhanced game based learning. Scrabble has always been a great way to learn new words and their meaning. In the Reed household growing up, the word 'Xu' was famous - not normally part of one's vocabulary, however it's useful to get rid of that 8 point letter 'x' at difficult times in a game. (For the record, Xu was/is a Vietnamese coin, and yes I do realise I'm not really painting the picture of the mischievous youth that some will perhaps know). 

Now playing scrabble via iPhones has somewhat ruined the game for me. I'm able to put my tiles in the board and check if it's a word without my opponent knowing. So I can (and ashamedly have) put a few random letters across a triple word score and got lucky. But I don't even know what it means! In 'real life' scrabble, you can't do that. 

So whilst we often eulogise the affordances of technology to enhance 'things', it can also have a negative influence at times, reinforcing the importance of thinking critically (why, what and how) before introducing tech solutions; not only in game situations like above, but also in relation to teaching and learning. 

3) And on to my final point, related to learning and future learning. Does it matter anymore if we either forget to spell certain words (or if youths don't know how to spell as we once did)? Previously we needed to hand-write letters and job applications, so spelling was a very important skill/literacy to present ourselves professionally (I am young enough to have never actually been required to hand-write a letter/application). The importance of accurate spelling is arguably less important now we're all wired. Knowing the rule to put 'i' before the 'e', except after 'c' (which actually isn't always true) isn't as import at as it once was. This isn't goin to solve the problems we will face (as a sector / an economy / a race) in the future, is it? And yet we still cling on tightly to these so-called essentials. Now I'm not suggesting we completely abandon spelling, but this reminds me of Ken Robinson's TED talk; 'Schools kill creativity', and his example of the young girl who 'wasn't any good in school' as she was fidgety and couldn't concentrate. As it turned out, she was highly creative and became a leading ballerina. Horses for courses, one might say.

We can't solve problems of the future with the same type of thinking we used when they were created (was that Einstein?). So perhaps if we want to prepare for the future, we might have to let go of some of the inherent things of the past? 

I've embedded the Ken Robinson talk below - a worthy watch if you're one of the few who haven't already seen it.

This work by Peter Reed is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.

The Flipped Classroom

The Flipped Classroom is an interesting concept in blended learning, focussing on literally 'flipping' the traditional model of education...

As Karl Fisch identified, regular homework requiring students to apply theory to problems/activities, highlights three groups;

• A proportion who completed the work with no problems and who probably didn't need the practice
• A second segment who wouldn't even attempt the homework (didn't want to; not enough time; lack of understanding)
• A final group in the middle who would attempt the work, but become frustrated because they couldn't do it or had done it incorrectly.

So instead of 'lecturing' at the front of a class for an hour, this 'chalk & talk' 'transmission' element is recorded (short videos, podcasts, screencasts, etc) and given to students (on CD or online) to watch beforehand (or indeed afterwards). What would be homework i.e applying that information to problems, group work, etc, is now done in class - potentially overcoming the two 'problem groups' discussed above.

The original 'founders' of the Flipped Classroom suggests that 'flipping' increases Teacher to student, and Student to Student interaction, since 'the role of the teacher has changed from presenter of content to learning coach'. Having said that, and as Doug Belshaw highlights, it is based on certain assumptions about our education system in which "we've commoditised learning to such an extent that it's becoming indistinguishable from training".

To this, and many of his other points, I agree. We should challenge core assumptions about how we teach, and importantly, how we assess students. However, in the situation we are in today, I think the Flipped Classroom is a great idea: it could be the starting block for teachers to begin to innovate, and an opportunity to engage students through the VLE (Moodle), provide interactive online content, and free up class time to run more engaging and interactive classes. Subsequently, I think this can lead to increased personal interaction with students, increased formative feedback, and importantly, increased understanding and student satisfaction.

There are a number of services to help support this notion of the Flipped Classroom, whether that be existing videos from the Khan Academy (a library of over 2,700 videos covering everything from arithmetic to physics, finance, and computer science), YouTube or Open Content (i.e. free with some restrictions) from MIT OCW or the Open University's OpenLearn site. Closer to home, we have facilities to capture our own materials and make them available through the Institutional systems such as Equella or the Podcasting Server.

To give you a better idea on the Flipped Classroom, see the video below. The images I used above were also taken from an interesting infographic from Knewton.com.
I'd love to hear your thoughts, and for those interested in implementing this approach, I'd be happy to help. Also keep your eye open for training and posts about the benefits of using multimedia (video, podcasting, screencasts, etc), to enhance learning, teaching and assessment...




This work by Peter Reed is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.