Where do you do your best learning?

To get us started, I’d like you to invite you to reflect on this question.

Discuss the question with the person next to you and if you want, post a comment on the blog.

Remember, we can come back to this, and any other conversation thread later. 

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Rethinking my practice

When I taught the course that is the focus of the article I am presenting today (Crump, 2018), I set it up as a blended course where the online component was a blog, rather than a closed discussion forum. In previous teaching, I used a more conventional approach, with students submitting a number of learning artifacts to me during the term and then producing a larger piece at the end of the course. With this approach, students were demonstrating their knowledge only to me and learning conversations were limited to teacher-student and peers in the same class. Even though I had been using technology within my teaching, I was doing so within the closed learning management system

Why the shift? Around the same time, I was planning the launch of an open, online, and collaborative peer review journal, J-BILD (Journal of Belonging, Identity, Language, and Diversity). I started reading about open scholarship, the open access principle (Willinsky, 2006)and the public knowledge project (pkp.sfu.ca). This made me question how I was using technology in my teaching to extend learning beyond the contact hours of the class. When I came upon the concept of thinning the classroom walls, it resonated deeply and quickly became one of the core pillars of my teaching. 

References

Crump, A. (2018). Thinning the Classroom Walls: Graduate Student Perspectives on Blogging as Pedagogy. J-BILD, 2(2), 29-52. http://bild-lida.ca/journal/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/JBILD_CRUMP_2_2_2018.pdf

Willinsky, J. (2006). The access principle: The case for open access to research and scholarship. Cambridge, MA, and London, UK: The MIT Press.

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8 thoughts on “Where do you do your best learning?

  1. I like being able to jump around quickly from one information source to another to build the level of understanding that satisfies me.

    1. David, in a traditional classroom, you would have been very disruptive, jumping from teacher to classmates to the collection of encyclopedias at the front of the class. 😉
      In a networked learning situation, you would (do) thrive.
      Thank you for sharing!

  2. Anywhere and everywhere. The iPhone and accessibility to the internet is what I had waited for all my life it feels like.

    1. Thank you, Annie! You’re making me think by not allowing phones in the class (BYOD is not, as you know, accepted by all educators), we are putting learners at a disadvantage- taking away the main tool they use to connect, organize thoughts, and participate in different social networks. I’m also now thinking that it might be interesting to ask students what it is like for them to use their phones as tools for learning, and the contrary – what it is like when they can’t.

  3. It depends on the type of knowledge to acquire and the type of learning I want to achieve… different places, different formats!

    1. Hi Andy! It was great meeting you today! I’d like to hear more about how you’ve been using blogging and other media to create diverse learning spaces for your students. Hope to continue the conversation!

  4. We – students, educators – learn more when our school work translates directly to real life projects. Par exemple, un article publié en ligne publiquement stimule davantage les étudiants / apprentis rédacteurs qu’une rédaction qui finit dans un classeur. 🙂

    1. Merci pour partager, Mathieu! I think it’s interesting that you distinguish between school work and real life projects. The work you’re doing with your students (current, former, at other colleges…) narrows that gap and brings real life to school.

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