Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 14, No. 567.
Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
<http://www.princeton.edu/~mccarty/humanist/>
<http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/>
Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2000 10:24:38 +0000
From: lachance@chass.utoronto.ca (Francois Lachance)
Subject: Yearning and Learning
Eric,
Your reworking of the Newman quotation has hit more than a nerve. It has
stirred a whole neural network. I was heartened to read that you had
experienced not only frustration but also satisfaction. Would you care to
elaborated on the sources of frustation? Are they technical? Are they
related to negotiating expectations, assessing student preparedness and
motivating commitment? I ask these questions out of a belief that the
factors affecting the success of distance education whether electronic or
not are not intrinsic to the spatial and temporal arrangements of the
pedagogic experience. Your appeal to Newman seems to make the case for
universal and unmovable conditions. I'm intriguted by the cognitive
dissonance this position might generate in
Deborah Hanson, Distance Learnig Co-ordinator at Crowder College, makes
the point that online interactivity can be improved.
http://as1.ipfw.edu/2000tohe/proposals/Hanson.htm
What is remarkable (or not) is that the principles developed and
implemented at Crowder are very relevant for successful face-to-face
pedagogy. Allow me to quote extensively from her paper :
<quotation>
Students will often put off and avoid contact with instructors,
technicians, and administrators waiting for someone to contact them versus
seeking the information for themselves.
For this reason, Crowder College developed extensive procedures,
orientation, and guidelines for students. In support of the thesis, "The
underpinnings of interactions, which result in successful learning,
involve the transfer of knowledge coupled with changes in intrinsic
motivation," the author has identified and examined seven distance
learning interactions which help to promote interactivity:
Increase participation and feedback
Build communication and understanding
Enhance elaboration and retention
Support learner motivation and self-regulation
Develop teambuilding
Promote exploration and discovery
Generate learner self-diagnosis and closure
</quotation>
What strikes me is that knowledge transfers and changes in motivation led
to a set of seven principles that can also be applied to pedagogical
interactions that do not posist the need for change in motivation.
Newman's glorious prose is focussed on a concern with the moral
development of students. The Crowder principles as reported by Hanson
focus upon the need to make students want to be good students. There are
teachers who regard the student as a contracting party agreeing to engage
in a certain course of behaviour for a prescribed period of time. These
seem lik three rather different approaches. However, at a certain level of
abstraction, all three suggest the operation of a rewards and penalities
designed to induce certain behaviours and orientations. A machine with
moveable parts. A set of cybernetic situtations. A general system.
One person's frustration can become the data set for another's research.
Or the pretext for the articulation of collective desires. Are we not
constantly negotiating for improvement in the efficacy of the interlocking
bodies -- institutional, corporate and personal -- while at the same time,
fearing intrusions upon the spaces we traverse and occupy, struggling for
the efficient disaggregation of the said bodies? Is it not fair, to
explicitly ask students what they believe they are giving the teacher?
Even if it is not fair, it is a rather good pedagogical trick to induce
dialectical thinking.
So Eric what did you want to accomplish by hitting nerves?
Francois
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