Experimenting with Voicethread

I've been experimenting with Voicethread as a means of making online discussion more interactive.  Below is my first attempt to deliver a lesson via this technology.  It's also my first attempt at embedding a voicethread in an external website. 

Asynchronous discussions | Online Learning Cafe

Asynchronous discussions | Online Learning Cafe

I stumbled upon this site as I was preparing a presentation regarding my literature review on evaluating online asynchronous discussions.  Interesting and funny.  A pleasure to read some real perspective from an online instructor on the the experience of designing and delivering online learning; provided me a view of online learning from the other side of the fence.

How am I feeling?

I haven’t been blogging near as much as I had hoped through this, my latest foray into online learning.  This week I have been tasked with sending an email to my instructor to relay how I am feeling about the course thus far and, as such, I now have some extrinsic motivation to actually take some time, think about what I am doing and feeling and put it down into words.

The fact is, I’m not feeling too good about my learning in this course, Evaluation of Learning.  Sure, the content is interesting, but I’m struggling to stay engaged.  The facilitation of this online course has been good.  Certainly, I have taken other online courses where I felt that the instructor was mailing it in, so to speak, half-heartedly monitoring discussion and providing feedback, in between ordering more mai-tais at the tiki-bar.  This is not the case here. The facilitation has been timely and balanced, not too leading but encouraging enough.  And, as I said in a previous post, the feedback on my initial assignment was thoughtful and helpful.  So, what is the reason for my general malaise?

Well, Fenwick and Parsons, as well as a host of other adult ed scholars, talk about grounding adult education in the lived experience of the learner.  Adult learners need to understand concepts in the real world.  They need to draw parallels with their own experience; they need to touch, see, hear, and feel the context.  They need to try on learning like a new pair of shoes or glasses.  Put them on, strut around a bit, wear them to work and play and see how they feel; how do they integrate into and change how they experience the world in which they live.  As I’ve tried on the learning in this course, it hasn’t integrated well into my world.  It hasn’t changed my experience that much. 

Part of the blame lies in the course design; I am increasingly convinced that it was designed for the adult educator working in a post-secondary-type institution.  That ain’t me.  Even the course text, “a resource for educators and trainers” lives up to it’s billing.  It’s a resource, no different than that handy little cordless screwdriver that I pack with me on any fix-it project that I have to do around the house.  Heck, it even has toolboxes in the back.  It’s not really a challenging read.  It doesn’t present theories or ideas that piss me off or make me cheer.  It’s just…there. 

But another part of the blame lies with me.  I’m at a bit of a crossroads in my work right now.  I’m not directly involved in adult ed, as I’ve said in past posts.  As an analyst, there’s about three degrees of separation between me and evaluating learning.  At best, I’m evaluating results that may be attributed to learning in a round-about way.  There is some possibility that in the near future, evaluating learning will take on more importance due to significant technological change within my organization, but it’s not entirely certain that I will be involved in the teaching or the evaluating.  But I’m also at a crossroads in my career path.  I’m not finding much joy in being an analyst and, quite frankly, much of my scholastic work hasn’t really been grounded in what I do.  And if I am really being truthful here, what I aspire to do isn’t really clear so I’m not finding much joy in the possibility of a future career direction either.  It’s difficult to ground what I learn in the meaning of the work that I do when that work doesn’t provide a lot of meaning for me.  And it’s even more difficult to ground my learning in some future professional vision that’s at best fuzzy and at worse so far beyond the horizon that it really has no definition at all.  Kind of like trying to build the foundation of a house in the clouds. 

So it is with some trepidation that I approached the assignments in this course.  How can I examine a particular issue in evaluating learning when I don’t really evaluate learning as part of my professional life?  I can’t even start from the premise of, “When I graduate and get a job teaching, I think that this issue will be important to me….”.  I’m not so sure that I want to teach, in the traditional sense of the word.  But I do know that learning is something that I enjoy.  And teaching in the broader sense is something that I enjoy and believe will be an essential component of any work that I do in the future.  Whether it pays for the food on the table or not, teaching nourishes me, as does learning.  So it is from this premise that I approach the assignments in this course.

Feedback from my first assignment - refining my research question

I received my first assignment back from my instructor.  For those of you who are interested in such things as marks, I’ll tell you that I did well and that’s as much as I’ll say.  Because, really, that shouldn’t be the point.  Okay, I admit it.  It’s the first thing I look at when I get the rubric back.  Anyway, what is really important is the feedback that I received from my instructor.  You’ll recall from a previous post that this assignment was to be a sort of staging exercise where I was tasked to devise a research question that would be the focus for the following two assignments that would, in turn, constitute the evaluation of my performance in the course (combined with a mark for my participation).  So, my instructor’s feedback and guidance was of particular importance as it would be helpful to me throughout the rest of my assigned work.  And her feedback did not disappoint.  I have taken one other course with this instructor, a face-to-face core course, and her most recent feedback was concise, to the point and thought provoking – just as I remembered from my previous experience with her and hoped it would be in this latest course.  “The question is a good start”, she wrote, “but I am wondering if it is too broad as it addresses both the construction of knowledge and the development of a learning community.  If the question is too broad, it will take more time to research than what the course allows.  Can you revise the question to be more specific?”

I gave some considerable thought to her feedback and this is where I arrived.  What I am really interested in is the assessment of a learner's contribution to the learning community in an online environment and the challenges that this represents without the nuance that is present in a face-to-face classroom (e.g. tone of voice, body language, etc.).  The construction of knowledge seems to be easier to assess in the online classroom because there is a written transcript of the discussion.  In fact, some of my early research suggests that there are electronic tools that have been and continue to be developed to measure the level to which individual learners contribute to knowledge construction.  My thinking then, is that the contribution to the development of a learning community (what some have referred to as a social presence) online is really that much more difficult because of the medium.  The medium actually focuses all of the discussion toward knowledge construction at the detriment to the building of a social presence for the learning group.  I think that my research will tell me that half of the battle is to set up the asynchronous discussion in such a way as to allow time for the discussion to be solely about developing a learning community and I think that this will be interesting as well as useful to me professionally.  So, in an effort to provide more focus to my research here is the revised question that I've come up with:

How can we evaluate online asynchronous discussions to effectively assess a learner's contribution to the development of a learning community? 

My first assignment: Evaluating Online Asynchronous Discussion

Since the introduction of the Internet, all manner of organizations and institutions have sought to exploit it as a means to deliver education, training and other learning events. Online learning is fast becoming a dominate way that learners engage with course content, teachers and each other.  Fenwick and Parsons (2009) describe the phenomenon this way: “The move to online delivery is not so much away from traditional higher education but towards using new technologies” (p. 173).  One such technology is computer mediated communication within a virtual classroom, representing a shift away from the traditional bricks-and-mortar environment.  It also represents a significant shift away from the traditional means of constructing knowledge through face-to-face social interaction and discussion, mediated solely by teachers and learners.  This paper will begin to explore how social interaction occurs within the virtual classroom and more specifically, the unique issues that asynchronous discussion presents to the teacher and learner with regards to evaluation.  I will relate my experience, professionally and scholastically, with online discussion, explaining my interest in the subject and the impetus for further research.  Lastly, this paper will conclude with a research question that will serve as a signpost, guiding my upcoming literature review of evaluation of online asynchronous discussion.

The Issue

Online interaction and discussion can be synchronous, meaning it can occur all at once where learners ‘meet’ online at a specified time such as in a chat room, or it can be asynchronous, occurring over time, where learners check into an online discussion forum, posting their own comments and reading and responding to others whenever they see fit.  In the short history of computer mediated learning, asynchronous discussion forums have proven to be the method of choice for learner interaction.  The reasons for this are rooted in the benefits that it provides to the learner and the teacher.  Learners find an asynchronous approach attractive because of the flexibility that it provides; they can interact with the ‘class’ when they want and are better able to balance their participation with other commitments such as family and work.   Teachers find benefit in the evaluation of asynchronous discussion; there is a script of the discussion, in the form of threads that can be reviewed and analyzed.  Learners and teachers both find benefit in the purposeful structure that asynchronous discussion can provide to the construction of knowledge; discussion posts reflect significant thought, often bringing in further resources (e.g. videos, hyperlinks to articles, podcasts) and responses are typically coherent with and build upon themes introduced in earlier posts.

However, asynchronous discussion also presents challenges to learners and teachers.  First, it assumes a level of technical literacy and capacity.  Teachers and learners need to be able to navigate the learning management system and utilize its tools effectively and efficiently.  Second, it assumes that learners can express themselves as well via the written word as they can verbally.  Lastly, non-verbal cues such as body language and tone of voice are missing in the online classroom.  The lack of non-verbal cues combined with the purposeful and arguably clinical construction of knowledge contributes to a lack of dynamism in the asynchronous discussion.  Teachers become moderators rather than facilitators and learners become collaborators rather than peers.  This potential lack of social presence (Aragon, 2003) makes it difficult to wholly evaluate the effectiveness of asynchronous discussion in terms of learner development.  Consequently, it is difficult to wholly assess a learner’s contribution to the learning community via the asynchronous discussion forum. 

Personal Significance of the Issue

As an adult learner, I returned to post-secondary education later in life.  I began working towards a degree in adult education by attending face-to-face classes with a small cohort of classmates.  Over a period of two and a half years, I attended class once each week with this same group of learners.  Much of the learning that occurred took place in discussions that occurred both within and outside of the classrooms.  The discussions weren’t always purposeful, guided or facilitated; they were often tangential, off-topic, and quite often purely social.  When I returned to my studies some years later, I elected to pursue my remaining course requirements via online learning.  Many of my co-learners in these new classrooms were new to me but not to each other.  While they appeared faceless to me, they didn’t appear faceless to each other.  I have found the virtual classroom significantly more isolating in comparison to the face-to-face classrooms that were my experience earlier in my scholastic pursuits.  I have contributed much of this feeling to the nature of the online environment and, in particular, asynchronous discussion.  That said, I have been curious of level of cohesiveness that I have witnessed between some of my co-learners.  And, as a student of adult education, I have wondered how this cohesiveness can be fostered, developed and evaluated in the online environment. 

Professionally, I have worked in the social services for nearly two decades.  Much of the work that I have done, helping people to understand, cope with, and facilitate change, I have found akin to teaching and learning.  In my present role, I am greatly involved in ushering in some significant changes to how we provide service to those in need.  The changes are sweeping, the organization is quite large, and the supports to facilitate the learning are minimal.  As such, we are looking at new ways to deliver training and online, asynchronous discussion is a method that we are considering. 

It is from these two perspectives, as a student and as a professional, that the issue of evaluating online asynchronous discussion piqued my curiosity. And, it is from these two perspectives that I will conduct my research.

The Research Question

Nisbet (2004) argues that “although [the asynchronous discussion group] is only one type of e-encounter, it is arguably one of the most important” and “as part of a wider project examining facilitation of online discussion group interaction, the dilemma of how to measure group interaction” is significant (p. 122).  Further, Hughes, Ventura and Dando (2007) assert that “with no means of assessing the emotional state or responses from students there is a lack of means by which to develop online facilitation effectiveness” (p. 17).  So, while discussion is one of the most significant ways to construct knowledge and develop a learning community, it is difficult to evaluate the learner in both of these paradigms within the online asynchronous discussion.  Consequently, the research question that will guide my upcoming literature review is as follows:  How can we evaluate online asynchronous discussions to effectively assess the construction of knowledge and the development of a learning community? 

Conclusion

Increasingly, we are living in an asynchronous world.  Communication is text-based, presented so as to be read, considered, and responded to at some point in time in the future.  In a fast-paced world that demands flexibility and just-in-time solutions, it appears to make economic and logistic sense.  In the realm of online learning, this type of communication is championed by scholars for its effect on eliminating bias in evaluation.  But an opposing perspective sees discussion devoid of social presence, and as a consequence, evaluation that is less than whole.  Reconciling these two perspectives is the challenge facing the evaluation of online asynchronous discussion and will be the focus of my future research. 

References

Fenwick, T., & Parsons, J. (2009). The art of evaluation: A resource for educators and trainers. Toronto, ON: Thompson Educational Publishing, Inc.

Aragon, S. R. (2003). Creating social presence in online environments. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, (100). 57-68.

Nisbet, D. (2004). Measuring the quantity and quality of online discussion group interaction.. Vol. 1. 122-139.

Hughes, M., Ventura, S. & Dando, M. (2007). Assessing social presence in online discussion groups: A replication study. Innovations in Education and Teaching International. Vol. 44 (1). 17-29. 

WWPS (What would Paulo say)?

This past week, we discussed developing criteria for evaluation – those standards by which we measure achievement of learning.  We talked about criterion-, normative- and self-referenced standards of achievement.  And we talked about indicators, too.  Those specific behaviours that tell you learners are meeting the standards of achievement.  Blah, blah, blah. Booooooring.  I know.  I’m yawning as well.  Your standard goals and objectives stuff.  But as it happens, the subject matter this week was fortuitous, for a couple of reasons.  First, I had to hand in my first assignment on Saturday, so if there was a week where I could half-ass it (in terms of my attention to the session content), this was it.  Second, the issue of measurement became a focal point of my research while completing my assignment, and, through that research, I was able to view the session content under a bit of a refreshed lens. 

Here’s what we’ve been tasked to do: describe an issue/problem from our own experience in evaluating adult learning either as a facilitator or student and explain the reason the issue is important.  Not a big deal, but here was the rub.  This assignment would form the basis for the other two assignments in the course: a literature review and a lesson plan to teach our peers about the issue and our research findings. 

So, what issue/problem did I select?  Well, since I’m not currently teaching professionally, I came at it from a learner’s perspective and chose the problem of assessing online asynchronous discussion.  This idea has been bouncing around in my brain for a while now since I started down this road of online learning. 

Prior to starting online studies, with the exception of a brief traditional distance ed course, my experience with adult ed was entirely face-to-face.  In fact, since returning to school in my mid-twenties, the classes that I took were exclusively small and comprised of tight-knit groups that stayed together over a long period of time over many different courses.  This experience has influenced my belief that knowledge is most often created through critically reflective discussion and debate including all of the nuances (read non-verbal) that such discussion entails.  So, when my participation in such discussions were evaluated in the past, it was my assumption and expectation that those nuances were taken into account as well as all of those intangibles that are the hallmarks of good group work.  That belief was further cemented when I read Paulo Freire’s Liberation Pedagogy model.

Put simply, learning happens when we are transformed from a state of being unaware (magical conciousness) to being critically aware (critical conciousness).  When we become aware of a problem, are able to define and discuss it with a common language and act on solutions, then we have liberated our minds, bodies and spirits.  We have truly learned.  And the linchpin in all of this is that group of people and their interactions.  Not just what we say together but how we say it and it what context.  All of those nuanced interactions that take place in and out of the classroom, sometimes heated, sometimes ugly, sometimes light, sometimes hilarious, but always thought-provoking, always transformative.  So, it is these moments that have shaped my evaluation of good discussion.  And, it is from this perspective that I find the evaluation of online, asynchronous discussion troubling and worth more research.   

My experience with online discussion has left me somewhat wanting.  While it is lauded for its flexibility and its ability to aid in the construction of knowledge, I have found it to be stilted, stop-and-go, somewhat canned, and certainly lacking the dynamism that I experienced in the face-to-face environment.  How can you evaluate a learner’s ability to provoke if you can’t see their incredulous eyebrow lift before they challenge an idea or hear the tone of their voice?  How can you assess the leadership of a learner who uses the tenor of their voice and a deliberate, measured vocal pace to bring together a number of opposing views and develop a common understanding? These are just a few of the intangibles, just a few of the nuances that I’m sure Paulo saw in the groups that he was involved in when he was establishing his theory. 

I had to conclude my assignment with a research question.  And, while I crafted something that would “serve as a signpost, guiding my literature review”, as I conducted a cursory scan of the literature and drafted and redrafted this initial assignment, what I really kept asking myself was, “What would Paulo say?”

Alleviating anxiety

In our session this week we were broken into small working groups and tasked with coming up with a list of strategies to alleviate the anxiety that adult learners experience in response to evaluation.  In The Art of Evaluation, Fenwick and Parsons state that “adults are, by nature, wary of evaluation” (p.32).  When I read this, I thought, “Wow, that’s a blanket statement, isn’t it?”  It certainly hasn’t been my experience.  My natural response to evaluation isn’t wariness. In fact, as a consumer of adult education (building upon the idea that adult education is increasingly becoming instrumentalized as a product in a post-modern global political economy), evaluation, as a part of my learning, is an expectation.  I’ve paid for the course and now I want to see how well the institution has delivered the education that they promised.  And the way to do that is through evaluation. 

In fact, the only wariness that I have is how that evaluation will take place and how well will it measure the learning that I am expecting to obtain from taking the course.  I don’t even think that I would describe it as a ‘wariness’, either.  More of a natural skepticism.  That feeling that everyone gets when you’ve shelled out 500 bucks for something after countless hours of shopping.  You’re pretty confident in your purchase but when you bring the product home and as you open it up, you wonder, “Is this going to be everything that I thought it would be?  Is it going to offer any surprises?  Are those surprises going to be good or bad?”  Bringing it back to the learning context, I question whether the evaluation does what it’s meant to do, or measure what it’s meant to measure.  Is it congruent with the stated goals of the course?  I also question whether or not the evaluation will enhance my learning.  Will it provide me an opportunity to apply the concepts to my own life experience, to provide new and unexpected insights and will it prove useful in the future? Will I say at some time in later years, “This makes sense…I recall a course I took and a paper I wrote/presentation I did/ test I took….”

Fenwick and Parsons offer up a number of techniques to “create an atmosphere where honest evaluation is welcomed as an aid, instead of a threat” (p. 32).  Chief among those techniques and echoed in many of the working group discussions this week was the idea of introducing evaluation early on in the learning event.  Some groups suggested that evaluation should be reviewed in a clear and concise way even before the learning event has started, before the first day of class.  I agreed wholeheartedly with this suggestion.  In fact, as I pondered this concept further, I came to the conclusion that ‘the learning event’ actually starts long before the first day of class, long before I get the syllabus, I would argue.  It begins when I first start ‘shopping’, the first time I say, “I think that I would like to learn about….”  So, with this in mind, I wonder why more courses don’t offer up their methods of evaluation earlier on in this process.  In the course calendar, why don’t they add to the statement , “The learning goals for this course are..." something like "...and the way that they will be evaluated will be…”?  Even if the institution is flexible on the type of evaluation that can be done so long as the achievement of learning goals are measured (another strategy identified in our discussions this week) should this not be explicit in the course calendar?  As an adult learner, this would certainly alleviate some of my anxiety.

Pedal Powered Family

I have just added a blog to the list that I am following.  I worked with Heidi for a short while before she and her family set off on a year-long expedition to circumnavigate the continent via bicycle.  Yes, you read correctly - bicycle.  Now some of you may be thinking, "Okay, that's something that I could do."  Now, consider doing it with a couple of pre-school age kids in tow, literally.  I sometimes wonder how I'm going to survive a trip to the grocery store with my kids, so when I see what Heidi is doing I am simply amazed.  What an adventure.  What a learning experience for her, her husband and her kids. 

Happy New Year!

I'm back.  After a great holiday, it's good to be back.  Back to work, back to school and back to blogging.  I have just begun a new online course this past week that focusses on learner evaluation.  Take a peek at my readings and you'll see a few new additions.   In the coming weeks, I'll continue recording my reflections on my learning.  I will also be posting some of my work from my previous courses as well.

GCF Learn Free

I came across this blog just recently even though I had visited its parent website many times over the past year or so.  It is aptly named - learn free.  Having worked for Goodwill early in my career, I can attest to the good work that they do and their ability to keep simplicity of focus in an increasingly frenetic and complicated global political economy.  The Goodwill Community Foundation's Learn Free website is just an extention of that focused mission.   I had the pleasure of introducing my folks to this website as they have just recently embarked on a mission of their own to embrace technology and the benefits that it can have in keeping in touch both with the world and with those important to us in this world. 

Much on blogging, technology and other things

As much as I know, I know this much: the more that I know, the more I know that I don’t know much.

I was trying to put my cumulative learning in this grand experiment into a single phrase and this is what I came up with.  Talk about incoherent intelligence.

Those that have followed my blogging from the get-go will recall that my idea was to explore the medium as a tool for critical reflection and learning.  Previously, my reflections in any learning event were contained in a journal of some sort.  Most often it was saved in a folder in my computer but sometimes it was saved in the messiest of file cabinets: my brain.  Sharing my reflections was limited to my instructor, my classmates, my colleagues and (God bless them) my family.  So, blogging would open up the audience considerably.  Or so I thought.  Turns out that blogging is more than just throwing some thoughts down on a webpage, adding some hyperlinks, the odd picture or video, and waiting for the responses of the masses.  Apparently, if you blog it, they won’t necessarily view it, read it, and comment on it.  In fact, most won’t even know that it’s there. No, you actually have to be equally adept at marketing your ideas.  Posting on other blogs, telling friends, colleagues, and acquaintances about your blog are just a few activities that you need to do in order to get readership.  You’re not just the author and idea-man; you are the publisher and ad-man.  Problem is, I’m more of an idea-man than an ad-man.   

So, in terms of obtaining feedback from the masses, making my blog a truly interactive critically reflective endeavour, I kind of didn’t succeed.  Actually, in the spirit of true unvarnished critical reflection, my experiment was a failure.  But it wasn’t an unmitigated disaster.  Let me explain why.

When I first decided to blog I made the decision knowing that I had some experience with technology.  I had read blogs, used the internet quite frequently for research purposes and had taken one online course. Heck, I even participated in a couple of social media sites (although my network resembled more of a campfire circle than a complex web).  But it was that most recent experience with an online course and my introduction to a learning management system that piqued my interest in technology and its use in developing and expanding learning.  So it was with this background that I approached my blog.  Eager to experiment but a little nervous about what I might experience.

Even though my blog entries didn’t get the engaged response that I’d hoped for, I did get some readership.  Or at least some viewers.   I can’t be sure that they read anything due to the lack of comments but they at least took a look.  And, for those that didn’t stumble upon my blog using the random selection tool, something that I said drew them to my pages.  This in and of itself was a success.  It gave me a viewership that encouraged me to continue writing.  My viewership also made me conscious about the quality of my writing as well. Now, I don’t just mean ensuring that my writing was free of spelling and grammatical errors and had a good flow, either.  I’m talking about the content, the ideas.  In a traditional journaling exercise in any course that I’ve taken, you typically have to complete a journal entry every week and submit it.  This structure sometimes means that you search for some artificial insight, some saccharine “eureka” moment (I prefer that term to “aha” – that’s just sooo 2010).  Having a viewership meant that I felt compelled to write something of substance, even if it was small, and it meant that I went days, sometimes weeks, without posting.  I simply didn’t have anything worthwhile to say.  I also had a number of unfinished blogs on the desktop.  Ideas that were fleeting, lacking the substance that I initially thought they had as I tried to develop them. This compulsion along with the ability of the medium to accept and assimilate other tools, such as hyperlinks and videos, also meant that my posts were often more creative, involving more research, in effect, more critical reflection.

While on the one hand my posts were more thought out and involved more critical reflection as a direct result of the medium, they also suffered a bit as well.  Not only did I reflect upon the substantiveness of my posts, but I also reflected on their legacy.  The possibility that anyone could read my posts brought with it a weight of responsibility.  I was very conscious of the fact that my posts could be read by anyone.  My reflections upon my learning, how I was openly applying learned concepts to my life meant that those in my life could be brought unwittingly into this public spectacle.  As such, I don’t think that I was as fulsome in my reflection as I would have been had it been off-line.  The extent of my confession was hampered by the lack of a screen and a sacred vow of secrecy, you might say.

So, my blogging experience wasn’t a failure, especially in terms of my learning about the strengths and limitations of the medium.  It gave me the kick in the ass that I hoped it would and in more ways than I had expected.  It also allowed me to explore the tools that are available via the world wide web and what they could mean to my practice and the role of adult education in the global political economy.   

55 minutes of the final hour: Post-modernism invades the classroom

“There are those who see critical questioning as always leading to a relativistic freeze that prevents them from ever making full-blooded firm commitments” Stephen Brookfield in Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher.

I came across this little nugget late last night (or was it early this morning?), after posting my last blog.  You’ll recall in that post that I explored the “intellectual incoherence” that is a hallmark and danger of post-modernism.  We spend too much time thinking about, defining and discussing all of the complexities and intricacies of the world’s problems and in the face of all of that complexity, we simply cannot act. Global death by theory, you might say.  And it’s true, isn’t it?  We like to wrap ourselves in our analysis and our theory as if they were warm blankets.  They’re comfortable, reassuring, keeping out the harsh reality of what might happen, could happen, definitely will happen.  And, they do a pretty good job of covering our ass, too.

Brookfield goes on to say that, “from this viewpoint, critically reflective teachers are weak-kneed equivocators, always able to see two sides of an issue and therefore unable to have confidence in their own choices”.  So, not only are we, as a society, unable to tackle the most pressing developmental problems of our time because we are trapped in a clingy web of stasis, but even in the classroom, wherever that may be, we, as teachers, can’t make a decision or move an idea forward because we are too entangled in our journaling or our critical conversation circles.  So, if what Finger and Asun suggest is right, that adult education is the way to “learn our way out” of our developmental quagmire but adult educators are “weak-kneed equivocators”, then I guess we’re really screwed, huh?  Well, not really.

You’ll also recall that I suggested in my last post that technology could play a role in learning our way out, as evidenced in the Occupy Movement and the Arab Spring.  It serves to bring people together, clarify oppression and facilitate action.  What Brookfield suggests is that teachers who engage in critical reflection are not weak.  Rather, they have strength in their “commitment to people, beliefs, structures, movements or ideals and an acknowledgment that at some time in the future, [their] experience might lead [them] to amend or even abandon such commitments”.   Without the adult educators to guide the gathering of people, help clarify the oppression and coordinate the action, all the while through a critically reflective lens to ensure democracy in the ‘classroom’, the technology is just another bulletin board riddled with incoherent messages.  So, while teachers may spend 55 minutes of the final hour, as Einstein suggested, contemplating the problem, they are committed to praxis and engage in it just the same.

Beyond post-modernism: From throwing up our hands to throwing down the gauntlet

Created in Wordle by me

Finger and Asun talk about the post-modern world in which we live.  They refer to it as a juncture of sorts.  Along the development road, we have left our modernist way of travel and we are reflecting upon our attempts to bring the lesser-developed along for the ride with a critical eye.  It’s through this reflection that we are coming to realize that trying to bring others into the capitalist fold, relying solely on capitalist forces to do so, has been an abysmal failure. What have we learned from the modernization experiment?  Capitalist forces serve the hegemony of the dominant class, the corporate class.  The inevitable facelessness of multi-nationalism has left a wake of ecological degradation and destruction, societal inequity and despair, and a convoluted and complex global political economy that more resembles a house of cards than a solid base for growth and prosperity.  It would seem that the current state of affairs in the world bears out Finger and Asun’s arguments.  And it’s this last conclusion, the tremulous house of cards on the brink of collapse, which is a key hangover feature that leads us into the post-modern era.  It’s also the most troubling characteristic and the single point of attack for adult education, Finger and Asun assert, if the new adult education is to become a force of reason and change in the new global political economy. 

Now, Finger and Asun don’t spend too much time focusing on the characteristics of the post-modern era that make it unique to any other in our history.  Much of the scholarly writing on this has been largely speculative up until this point in time and, although much has been written about it in recent years, I would suspect that it is largely still speculative and, I would argue, reactive.  So, after some encouragement from one of my classmates in response to post in her seminar discussion (thanks Colleen), I’ll attempt to provide my perspective here.

When I read about post-modernism and Finger and Asun's description of it as "intellectual incoherence" and a "fragmentation of social and individual life", I immediately thought of adult education as a natural response.  I think that at its core, adult education seeks to clarify concepts through social interaction.  I think that what we are seeing in the technological realm is a natural evolution of post-modernism, perhaps a post-post-modernism.  The rise of social media and the efforts made to bring people together on a global scale through this medium is evidence of this evolution.  I think that the Occupy movement is an example of this evolution.  I would also argue that much of the protests in the middle east were examples of this evolution as well. 

I recently attended some training on eLearning.  Well, it was billed as eLearning but the trainer, a true androgogue (and I mean that in the most sincere and positive way), spent the time allowing us to explore technology that was free or virtually free via the World Wide Web.  Each site that we visited, each application that we downloaded and explored was accompanied with the questions “How do you think this would be of use to you and work that you do within the social services?”, and “How do you think this would be of use to those that you serve?”  Now, I won’t suggest that each application or website was revolutionary for social service delivery or our clients, but most were at the very least helpful if not extraordinary (evident by the number of times that my jaw dropped and I muttered, “Coooooool”).  But, what struck me as we discussed the merits and limitations of what we were tinkering with was how much we have advanced in the past 15 years in terms of our relationship with technology and its role in how we relate to each other and our world.  So, while the post-modern era is delocalized, fragmented, complex, and contradictory with an eroded body politic, it is not necessarily going to result in a global throwing-up of hands in the air, a collective sigh of resignation and an apathetic chorus of, “Well, what can you do?”  It may just be that the way we relate, gather, and educate to liberate is changing and the technology that many say serves to isolate us will in fact bring us together and serve to facilitate our efforts to “learn our way out”.

If you want a snapshot of the growth and enormity social media, check out this video.  It's definitely got a corporate feel and agenda, but I think that you can imagine the implication for adult education.

Talking with books

Well, I have finished all of my readings for my two courses (cue the Peanuts theme music and begin dancing).  You’ll recall in an earlier post that I lamented on my slow reading ability.  The concept of speed reading is so far out of reach for me, so foreign a concept as to be almost magical.  When I see people skim through a text and give a cogent recollection of its meaning shortly thereafter, I find it to be as plausible an explanation that they absorbed the written words through some sort of neuropathic osmosis as opposed to actually reading them.  Like the words leapt off of the page and were sucked into their cranium through some sort of Dyson-designed literary wind tunnel technology.  I just don’t get it and I don’t think that I ever will.  I’ve learned a few tricks to speed up my reading, but I’m still slow. Painfully, sharp-stick-in-the-eye slow.  But I did get all of my reading done.  All of it.  All four books.  In less than 12 weeks.    And, I read a significant number of journal articles on top of the required reading.  So, you might have guessed that I’m pretty proud of myself.  And I’m okay with being a slow reader, I think. I spend a lot of time in critical contemplation upon my reading, remaking my own theory in the face of other.  I think that contributes to my slowness.  And, I think that that is okay.

Brookfield writes about having a conversation with books.  The more engaged conversations are earmarked by underlines, highlights, dog-eared pages, notes in the margins and broken spines – in the books, I mean (God, if reading were that painful, I think that I would have given up long ago!).  I’ve had some engaging conversations these last few months - with all of the books that I have read.  At times the conversations have become quite heated.  I’ll admit to throwing down a book in frustration a time or two.  At other times I have scrambled frantically, feverishly flipping through the pages in a book to recall a conversation that we had at some point in time that had only now made sense to me and developed meaning.  Indeed I think that it would be fair to say that I even developed relationships with my books.  They challenged me and affirmed me.  They gave me confidence and kicked me in the stomach (not that I’ve ever had a relationship with someone who literally kicked me in the stomach – well except for that kid in my neighbourhood back when I was 7, but he wasn’t much of a friend anyway).  So I am glad to have “met” my books, as Brookfield suggests.  And I am glad that our initial conversations are done and they were most fruitful.  I know that I’ll go back to converse with them in the remaining weeks of my current courses and likely again and again in the future.

On developing and facilitating an online, asyncronous seminar

During the week of October 2 to 8, 2011, I facilitated an online, asynchronous seminar, with a group of my classmates as participants.  The focus of the seminar was a chapter from within Finger and Asun’s book Adult Education at the Crossroads: Learning Our Way Out.  The chapter that I chose was titled “Marxist Adult Education: Democratic Centralism or Multiple Paths to the Right Solution”.  Pretty heady title. 

So, what was my rationale for choosing this particular chapter?  Having little prior academic experience in political science, I am nevertheless keenly interested in local, provincial and national politics and have been an avid consumer of political media for a number of years.  My political leanings tend to be more to the socialist left due in no small part to my vocation in the social services.  With this in mind, a chapter that dealt with Marxism and the opportunity to delve deeper into this school of thought and how this thinking has informed and influenced adult education globally, was hard to pass up.  Further, the opportunity to learn more about Paulo Freire, “one of the most influential educationists of the twentieth century” (Mayo, 2010, p. 31) was equally hard to pass up. 

The current Occupy Movement and the growing interest and attention given to inequality in the distribution of wealth and opportunity in society, further fuelled my interest and provided a real world, present day context from which to explore the readings.  In an article in  Finance & Development, Branco Milanovic, Lead Economist in the World Bank research group and author of the recent book The Haves and the Have-Nots: A Brief and Idiosyncratic History of Global Inequality, states that “income inequality has been on the rise—or stagnant at best—in most countries since the early 1980’s”.  He further states that while global inequality has reached a plateau and actually decreased in recent years, this is due in large part to the growing economies of China and India.  This does not necessarily mean that the gap between the richest and poorest in the world’s population is decreasing overall.  And, even if this trend continues the issue of inequality and all of the social ills that it represents will not simply go away.     

I think that the growing inequality in today’s society demands Marxist thinking and its derivatives, critical theory and critical pedagogy, in the analysis of society and development, how we relate to each other and our environment on a global scale.  Further, Freire’s work on “the collective dimension of learning” and the grassroots approach of Participatory Action Research (another key subject area in the chapter) provide useful pedagogical tools to “transform sociopolitical conditions” (Finger & Asun, 2001, p. 86). But that’s enough about my rationale for choosing the chapter that I chose.  On to my seminar… 

I crafted my lesson plan around the goal that at the end of the seminar learners would be able to draw the connection between Marxism and critical pedagogy and demonstrate an understanding of Paulo Freire’s Liberation Pedagogy and Participatory Action Research (PAR).  To support this goal, I created a presentation that employed a mix of graphic and textual components to synthesize these three themes from the reading.  Embedded within the presentation were three activities to engage learners in further exploration of the three themes.

In the first activity, learners were asked to view a video of U.S. Senate candidate, Elizabeth Warren, speaking to a small group of people.  Learners were then asked to think like a Marxist and a critical theorist/pedagogue and comment on the politician’s speech.  The idea of this exercise was to encourage learners to get into the mindset and philosophy of Marxism and offer their perspective rooted in critical theory.  While most learners were able to draw upon the readings, only one was able to really articulate that the politician was engaged in critical pedagogy. 

In the second activity, learners were asked to reflect upon a time when they felt liberated through education.  They were then asked to relate this experience to elements of Freire’s model of liberation pedagogy.  The genesis of the idea for this activity came from Bookfield’s writings on the value of autobiography in Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher (1995, p. 49); the idea being that reflecting on our experiences as learners would form a personal connection with Freire’s theory and lead to further understanding.  This exercise seemed difficult for some learners and easier for others.  Some of the experiences that were disclosed were extremely personal, laden with emotions, and left me feeling as though my experiences didn’t quite measure up.  If I felt this way, then surely other learners felt the same.

In the last activity I posed the same open-ended question that Finger and Asun posed at the end of the chapter: “can Participatory Action Research be applied in contexts other than agricultural and developing societies?” (p. 94).  The idea behind this exercise was to encourage the critical thinking discussed by the authors earlier in the chapter.  I knew when I crafted this activity that follow-up material would be required because of the expansive nature of the PAR approach, its many iterations and interpretations. Consequently, I offered up some further research that I did on PAR closer to home, in a more urban environment.  This seemed to spark learners’ imaginations and contributed to the level of discourse. 

Overall, I felt that the seminar was successful.  Measured against the learning outcomes, I felt that the discussion demonstrated the understanding that learners were developing of Marxist theory and its relation to critical theory and pedagogy, Freire’s liberation pedagogy, and Participatory Action Research.  The discussion seemed to flow freely; learners generally posted their thoughts with little prompting or encouragement from me.  Further, my interjections throughout the week’s discussion did not seem to hinder participation.  Rather, my follow-up questions, posts and comments, seemed to enhance participation and discourse.  

In the presentation and in the summary of the weeks’ discussions, I provided my classmates with a hyperlink to an online survey that I had developed using FluidSurveys.  This was my first time using an online survey tool and this one in particular was easy to use and flexible enough to allow me to obtain some quality feedback on the presentation, the activities and my facilitation.  What my classmates reported, supported my own observations.  All respondents indicated that the presentation enhanced their understanding of the readings and that the activities were challenging or somewhat challenging, promoting discussion and reflection.  A couple of respondents commented positively regarding the use of video and graphics in the presentation and activities.  All respondents stated that the facilitation struck a good balance between letting the discussion unfold and offering timely comments and questions that enhanced learning.   One respondent commented that they had difficulty coming up with a personal experience with liberation through education. 

So what did I learn from my experience and what does it mean for me as an adult educator?  This was my second attempt facilitating an online seminar in an asynchronous fashion.  In this sophomore experience, I was able to draw upon more resources to fully take advantage of the platform and really engage learners.  The use of video, graphics, and hyperlinks to other online resources promoted a dynamic environment for learning.  This is something that I will definitely build upon in future experiences.  That said, I believe that there were some elements to the activities that required more thought and could have been tweaked to further promote critical discourse throughout the week.

In the first activity, my phrasing of the question was, “What might someone with a Marxist perspective/ a critical theorist say….”  This did not effectively encourage learners to get into the mindset of a Marxist or a critical theorist.  Rephrasing it to say something like, “You are a Marxist political thinker/critical theorist attending this speech.  What might you say…”, might have resulted in more learners providing responses that were more than a regurgitation of the readings.  Further, I think that such an approach may have been more interesting and fun.

In the second activity, I neglected to fully anticipate the emotional component of asking learners to reflect upon and share a moment of liberation linked with education.  In some instances, learners were able to share deeply emotional experiences and in others the experiences were somewhat superficial.  Brookfield (1995) says that “some awareness of how students are experiencing learning is the foundational, first-order knowledge we need to do good work as teachers” (p. 94).  Reflecting upon my experience with this activity, I realize that I had no real idea about how learners were experiencing this particular piece of learning.  I hadn’t gotten inside their heads so that I could better anticipate their reaction to this activity.  I think that in some instances, learners were intimidated by the question and by the responses of those that shared deeply personal experiences of emancipation.  In the future, I will attempt different approaches to learn about the participants prior to crafting a learning activity (e.g. through reviewing their biographies, conducting a pre-seminar survey, etc.).

This seminar was an excellent opportunity to further develop my skills in online, asynchronous learning development and facilitation.  It was also an excellent opportunity to learn more about the Marxist school of thought, Freire’s work, and their implications for society and adult education in the present day.  Although I was able to further exploit the potential of an online environment, I was also reminded that a well designed learning event also requires considerable thought into the intent and potential implications of specific activities.  I was also reminded of the importance of getting inside the heads of learners in preparation for a learning event.   The learning that I gained from this seminar will serve me well in designing and delivering learning events in the future.