Students are empowered as learners if encouraged to act as co-creators of the platforms and learning spaces they use for their college work.
Yes, though some students come to the classroom with deeply embedded ideas about how the learning environment operates and for some, it takes time to shift their stance from passive to more active and collaborative. Maybe the use of open digital platforms is just the "carrot" to make this happen...
Students need to know that they are empowered in these actions.
Yes, and most have been conditioned to believe that they have no power at all or very little. And, of course, there will always be instructors who will resist this kind of thing, thinking that they might be losing control of their courses. We have to realize that the instructor should be more of a guide than a dictator. Digital tools can help immensely in this area.
Students selected what they felt were pivotal passages from the text and created a digital gallery on the course website of their visual interpretations of the text.
Wow. Now that's something that I could use in my online English 102. Great!
learning alongside my students as we explore new technologies.”
Yes. Teachers should accept that even they do not know everything about their subjects. Admitting that maybe your interpretation could be wrong (or just allowing for different interpretations) is essential. When teaching literature, I get "educated" constantly by new interpretations from students, sometimes using them in future semesters. Good teachers need to be good students too.
Kris Shaffer has argued, “facilitate student access to existing knowledge, and empower them to critique it, dismantle it, and create new knowledge.”
Couldn't agree more. Sorry textbook industry, but it's time for a new business model.
that when instructors talk about their pedagogy, it should be outside of earshot of the students they instruct.
Students should be aware of their instructors' methods and philosophies concerning teaching. I honestly don't know how many of them read it, but I always explain this to students in my syllabi. I'm thinking that this might be the subject of a class discussion at some point. Students can lead too. I let mine start their own forums based upon their own questions. Guidance is required, of course, but sometimes I let a forum that was started by a student go on for a while before I chime in.
Open digital platforms and tools are built, enriched, and experienced by students and instructors working together.
This sounds like a great next-step for student involvement and collaborative work in our strategic planning! What if we took it a step further and created student/faculty AND community organization collaboration?
In a First-Year Learning Community at our college, assignments for English and Hospitality Management courses took advantage of the public nature of the site and were developed with an actual audience in mind: fellow students.
I know we have tried first year learning experiences in the past with mixed results. But I wonder with our new ILE requirement for the Liberal Arts Major, would this be replicable at HCC?
the City Tech OpenLab, an open digital platform for teaching, learning, and collaborating.
Wow! The City Tech OpenLab site is great. I can see this as a great way as a professor to understand what other faculty are doing in courses that I could build on, or prepare my students for. For instance, if I see the tools and content and language used in A&P and Organic chem courses, I can start providing my nutrition majors with better preparation and can collaborate with other professors in different departments.
Using audio and/or videotaping of individual students via conferencing, small groups via team presentations, or the class via large group discussions, interdisciplinary conversations can be captured, documented, and then revisited through guided reflection.
Interesting idea! Perhaps the guided reflection of a class presentation could be used in place of the traditional reflection paper or in place of a discussion board?
move away from the banking model
You can get out of banking without going digital.
critical digital pedagogy necessitates professional development
Yikes! This is where I have a problem: I cannot learn all this stuff fast enough!
Aside from the generous HCCFellows stipend that is supporting me to type these lines, there is little more to offer at our institution. :(
First-Year Learning Community
It seems to me (and it ALWAYS does) that this kind of creative approach works best in a hybrid (digital + onsite, "tech + touch") setting.
in collaborating with a team, conducting themselves in a professional environment, and presenting their work
I like this model even if it's a bit weighted toward IT.
It does me thinking about how I can apply it to my field: the geosciences.
interrogate
I'm curious: do you have data that shows users actually interrogate the systems the use?
My feeling is that, for the most part, we give the systems we like a pass. Those we don't like, we ignore.
all areas of the platform
What sort of outreach is done to achieve this broad platform of opinion you claim? How do you know you've reached view-point diversity? Indeed, how do you (or I, since I just made up the term!) "view-point diversity"?
Virtual environments can replicate this separation, or they can invite permeability of their spaces through openness and visibility
You'll need to convince me. From what I've read already, virtual environments seem more like virtual echo chambers. What I'm looking for is an appreciation for dissenting views, how alternative perspectives are cultivated and supported; and, eventually, how diverse views are reconciled into consensus. I'll read on. :)
Given the busy lives of community college students
All the more reason to do this stuff!
"linking mechanisms" they used to make connections between disciplines
I see, Jack, how you applied linking to science. I like this. From my experience, many (most?) students don't appreciate disciplinary distinctions well enough to know they need integration -- as if they are building a bridge to nowhere.
writing
How can this be applied to science?
In closing, I asked the students to consider what if any "new knowledge" or understanding did they discover, uncover, or construct as a result of doing this assignment
I think the power of collaborative learning/ LCs is not what "I" learned but what did we learn together.
I'm sure leaning integration can happen inside one's head; it's social.
kind of "talking back" opportunity for students
I think things like this have promise at least to get the students talking. I can envision other schemes.
Indeed, emotion can be a catalyst for integrative learning.