The series of reports explores new forms of teaching, learning and assessment for an interactive world, to guide teachers and policy makers in productive innovation.
The first report proposes ten innovations that are already in currency but have not yet had a profound influence on education. You can see a summary of each innovation at the menu on the right. Please contribute with comments on the report and the innovations.
Una versión del informe en español está disponible en: innovating-pedagogy.wikidot.com
Pingback: Innovating Pedagogy | openmind.ed
Relevant Pew report on the future of Higher Education: http://pewinternet.org/~/media//Files/Reports/2012/PIP_Future_of_Higher_Ed.pdf
While there is some common sense in this report, I realise that a number of the topics are not directly focussed on the classroom, I wonder exactly how much experience the authors of some of the topics actually have in classroom teaching, particularly with more difficult pipils. The Rhizomatic Learning and Personal Inquiry Learning topics for example represent approaches used by any competent teacher. Current ideas, heavily dependent on a data based approach tend to constrict understanding upon which learning depends and I would not like to see this approach go much further. This approach has led to the criticism by both Universities and employers of the lack of thinking skills of current students.
Blue Sky thinking is agood thing but does need to be rooted in practicality.
Hi Michael
Thanks for your comments – I totally agree with you. As it happens, I was a school teacher for a couple of years in a supposedly “tough” school in Peterborough (we were certainly bottom of the league table), where we certainly had more than our fair share of ‘difficult’ pupils. Likewise, many of my co-authors of this report have either been teachers themselves or have classroom experience through leading projects in schools, so I’d hope that we’re not too far removed from the real world and the practical problems and solutions contained therein.
Another thing to point out is that this report is aimed more at Higher Education, due in part to our own background and interests at the OU in terms of innovating pedagogy for HE and distance learning students. That’s not to say these innovations couldn’t or shouldn’t apply elsewhere (or wouldn’t work) but it’s maybe helpful to remind ourselves where our primary focus is.
I hope you enjoy the report and do please post again if you have any specific thoughts about any of the themes we’ve talked about.
Liz.
Hi Michael. I was very interested in your response, but I didn’t understand what you meant by “Current ideas, heavily dependent on a data based approach tend to constrict understanding… This approach has led to the criticism… of the lack of thinking skills”. Can you explain more precisely what “ideas” or “approach” you had in mind? (I have a particular interest in the potential downsides of technology-enhanced learning, despite – or perhaps because of! – it being my responsibility to promote it.)
Pingback: Innovating Pedagogy | Technology & Educational Development
In reply to Diana – glad you like the publication method.
We wanted to distinguish our perspective from that of the EDUCAUSE Horizon reports, which start from a consideration of how technologies may influence education. I would argue that ours aren’t ‘technology-driven opportunities’, but are rather an exploring of new and emerging forms of teaching, learning and assessment in an age of technology. All innovations in education nowadays are framed in relation to technology, but that doesn’t mean they are ‘technology driven’. So, for example, personal inquiry learning is mediated and enhanced by technology, but not driven by it.
We had a long discussion over ‘pedagogies’. The problem is that there isn’t a word in English that means ‘the processes of teaching, learning and assessment’. I would argue that in current usage ‘pedagogy’ has broadened from a formal learning experience conducted by a teacher, as we have become more aware of the opportunities for peer learning, non-formal apprenticeship etc. See e.g. http://www.memidex.com/pedagogy+instr . The origin of the word isn’t ‘teacher’ but “slave who took children to and from school” We were careful to indicate in the Introduction our usage of the word: “By pedagogy we mean the theory and practice of teaching, learning, and assessment.” So, within that usage are practices that might contribute towards effective learning, such as creating and sharing annotations of textbooks.
Mike
This is a great way to publish a report.
The idea of these being ‘pedagogies’ is exercising me at the moment, because my initial reaction is that these are mainly technology-driven opportunities that only become pedagogies when they are constructed into a learning experience by a ‘teacher’. There is a responsibility that formal learning entails. There is a contract between teacher and learner to take the learner somewhere they could not otherwise go, and cannot clearly know in advance, but should be able to recognise as fulfilling the contract once they get there. Pedagogy is the means by which the teaching profession does that. Putting out content isn’t pedagogy. Neither is providing the means to annotate books – we never call writing in the margin ‘pedagogy’. Still thinking about it, though, and have hardly sampled the report.
But you can see I’m intrigued, and will certainly continue to comment!
The report is due to be published during July