Category Archives: Class Discussion

A trend that I wish to see is one mentioned by the New Media Consortium (2015), which is that of increasing collaboration between higher education institutions.

There are only so many ‘Introduction to Psychology’ courses needed in this world. At the very least, I imagine major universities across Canada collaborating on the development of a few excellent introductory online courses that can be shared between them.

I then see more important collaborations happening in higher level courses. For example, the University of Manitoba is on the leading edge of the prevention and management of HIV disease in the developing world. Presumably, a course based on this knowledge would be of benefit to people around the world but it would be a waste of resources for other institutions to try and duplicate our work. Instead, if universities would make it easier for students to find and get credit for courses at other institutions, their students could benefit from learning from the international leaders in particular fields.

I already see beginning in this direction. For example, our program on Oral-Systemic Health (OSH) has been requested by educators in Saskatchewan, Nebraska, and Europe. We, in turn, are interested in educational initiatives in OSH being done at New York University’s School of Nursing. Collaboration rather than duplication seems to be in everyone’s best interests. This, of course, would never preclude institutions from individualizing programs to meet the specific needs of their own students. For example, a Geology course for Manitoban students should focus more on the science of prairie landscapes than that of deserts; the reverse would be true for students in Arabic countries.

In short, as it becomes easier to share information through technology, it would benefit us all if we would spend time focusing on how best to use the resources available to us, before creating our own.

Reference:

New Media Consortium. (2015). NMC Horizon Report 2015: Higher ed edition. Retrieved from http://cdn.nmc.org/media/2015-nmc-horizon-report-HE-EN.pdf

When I think of the future of education, I always think of a statement I hear at almost every professional development session: we are preparing students for jobs that do not exist yet. I’m sure many of you have heard the same thing. In my specific context teaching English language learners in China, an additional area of focus is introducing students to different approaches to education and learning.

My school isn’t at the cutting edge of technology, but I think that can be seen as a positive. We have the advantage of not getting caught up in trends, and the only direction go is up. I’m not going to pretend that we’ll “catch up”, so to say, but I do believe we can meet the needs of our students by taking the best past trends and incorporating it into our approach to education. We’re also lucky to be situated in the “silicon valley”of China, so there are countless opportunities to access cutting edge technology (once we’re ready!)

My vision to best prepare students for jobs that do not exist yet aligns with The New Media Consortium (2014) Horizon Report 2014 K-12 Edition solvable challenges to technology adoption: creating authentic learning opportunities (p.20). The best way, in my opinion, to foster independent, creative, critical thinking is present the learning as challenges for students to solve. Much of my current course consists of theory, short demonstrations, then hands-on practice using a single assignment for all students. This is problematic for two reasons: the assignments cannot possibly be an authentic learning opportunity for ALL students, and the software used could, quite possibly, not be used in the jobs of the future. So, I would like to see my school move toward authentic learning opportunities with open-ended requirements for what/how technology is used.

The New Media Consortium (2014) Horizon Report 2014 K-12 Edition also mentions shifting teachers’ roles to becoming mentors to students who are taking charge of their own learning (p.6). This was not a surprise to me, and I’m starting to see evidence of this even in my school which has had a typically traditional approach to education. This really is the key to my vision–as teachers, we need to step back and let the students take control.

I have been thinking about how to shift the focus to authentic learning experiences with teachers as mentors and how to help this change happen in my school. My idea is to start by shifting the focus of my IT class. I am still considering all of the details, but I would like to propose that, rather than being a stand-alone class, IT be integrated into our English and Social Studies classes. I chose these specific subjects as they are classes taught using Canadian curriculum. I see my role becoming more of a tech integration specialist. By combining the curriculums, there would be more opportunity to create authentic learning experiences. I would like to use the periods usually dedicated to IT class as a time when students could use technology while they work on projects (independently and in teams) that solve authentic problems they identify in their English and Social Studies courses. My role would shift from being a lecturer/demonstrator to mentor and coach. The benefit for the students is twofold: they can develop creative and critical thinking skills, which will, no doubt, be indispensable skills in their future careers, and it introduces them to an alternate approach to learning.

Of course, the big question is, how will I get the resources to facilitate this vision, but I think I have a solution. The maker movement is gaining traction and there are several maker spaces in Shenzhen where students can go to research and develop projects to solve various problems while using the maker space’s resources for a reasonable fee. Therefore, my school’s lack of technology may become a non-issue. Instead of spending money to purchase a lot of equipment, software, and other resources, it may make more financial sense to make use of pre-existing maker spaces–the fees paid would likely be less than purchasing a wide variety of technology and resources. We also would not be responsible for constant updates–thus softening the ill-effects of following trends

The challenges I anticipate facing upfront are largely administrative resistance. A colleague suggested that, before approaching the school administration, I try to anticipate the five issues they would have with my proposal if I presented it today, then come prepared with solutions. I think this is a good way to approach proposing a change in our approach to teaching. Another obstacle is how my colleagues will react to the change if the proposal is accepted. I find that most teachers are intimidated by technology and are reluctant to use it in their classrooms. Therefore, it may be difficult to effect large-scale change without smaller changes to test the waters and build teacher confidence. So, I’ve thought about trying to encourage a culture of sharing at my school by offering lunchtime talks/demonstrations of technology teachers could try out in their classes.

I’m optimistic and motivated, but also scared. I feel like I’m on my own on my mission to see my vision fulfilled. This brings me back to a goal from my flight path: to collaborate more. I think this will be essential as I move forward because collaboration will allow me to continue learning. It will also mean that I’m not travelling this path alone–support and guidance will be essential in evaluating how to move forward

New Media Consortium. (2014). NMC Horizon Report 2014: K-12 Edition. Retrieved from http://cdn.nmc.org/media/2014-nmc-horizon-report-k12-EN.pdf

Bryan Alexander (2014) envisions the early 21^st century as a “Renaissance” in education, and by the year 2024, classes are based around the students creating multimedia projects in various forms through developing rich content in gamified classroom structures. According to this vision, Alexander states that “games and social media are delivery mechanisms for curricular content. Much of the curriculum involves creation: storytelling, game making, collaborative media work” (2014). I feel that this vision of the future of technology integration within education is what interests and excites me the most. Within this particular area of emerging technologies, there exists a potential to engage and motivate our students in ways that create powerful connections between their learning and their own personal interests and values.

Game-based learning functions to leverage student engagement, achievement and collaboration opportunities in order to promote the development of communication and problem solving skills, as well as creativity and self-confidence. Gaming has played a significant role in the lives of our students outside of the school context for years, and likely many of us were once engaged (or perhaps still are engaged) through participating in gaming opportunities, whether they be system based, online or otherwise. With this prevalence of gaming in the lives of our students, beginning at seemingly early ages, how do we as educators build this interest into our own design thinking to create learning opportunities that enhance skill development and digital literacies?

To help facilitate the integration of game-based learning into classroom and educational settings, I hope that we can approach the notion of technologies for learners by creating opportunities for students to plan and design their own games through various programming and design options. Through student involvement in the design process of game-based learning, our students can utilize technologies that are designed to be flexible, customizable, and adaptive to learner needs, while supporting students in planning for and achieving their own personal goals.

Despite the benefits of enhanced student engagement and motivation, and the development of skills in creativity, problem solving and collaboration, technologies for learners (including programming) have been slow to gain entry into formal educational settings, as their integration necessitates major changes in school cultures. In some cases, it seems that technologies for learners have not been widely accepted in school instructional programs because they challenge the standards-based perspective on instructional change in schools. As educators, how do we effectively manage and best align the implementation and integration of technologies for learners with institutionally based requirements, while engaging our students and impacting their development through approaches to game-based design and learning? Finding a balance between these considerations seems to hold the key for moving educational technology forward into the future.

By reflecting on the roles that technology plays in the current educational climate, we also need to reflect on past approaches to technology, and to consider how we’ve ultimately arrived where we are. While reading about Alexander’s envisioning of the future of education, I was continually reminded of the work of Seymour Papert, and the ways in which Papert’s ideas and perspectives on educational technology can help move us toward an exciting and engaging future for our students.

Seymour Papert’s influence extends throughout current pedagogical approaches to the integration of educational technology, constructionism, and the teaching of science and mathematics, to name but a few areas of significance. Papert and Solomon’s Twenty Things to Do With a Computer (1971), raises key questions and issues around educational technology that are still current and overwhelmingly relevant, more than 40 years after the report had been written. Papert and Solomon question the reasons as to why schools seemed to be “confined” in their approach to educational technology to uses that limit students to problem solving uses rather than opportunities to produce some form of action. The answer to this, according to Papert and Solomon, is that “there is no better reason than the intellectual timidity of the computers-in-education community, which seems remarkably reluctant to use the computers for any purpose that fails to look very much like something that has been taught in schools for the past centuries.” (1971). The approaches to educational technology proposed within the report are designed for all learners “of whatever age and whatever level of academic performance,” and this introduction to programming connects with our current knowledge of applications to Logo, Scratch, and beyond.

In some way, educators could utilize Papert’s Twenty Things to Do with a Computer as a benchmark of sorts, to assess where our schools and districts currently reside with regards to the implementation of educational technology and approaches to student application. It strikes me as astounding, and somewhat frightening, that a 1971 report on technology could still hold such a crucial level of relevance, especially when we consider how technology itself has changed over those decades. This relevance is a testament to the profound and fundamental importance of Papert’s passion and influence, and his impact continues to challenge and drive progression in pedagogical approaches and planning. By reflecting on the significance of Papert’s legacy, perhaps we can move more productively and purposefully toward the future of education as envisioned by Bryan Alexander.

References

Alexander, B. (2014). Higher education in 2014: Glimpsing the future. Educause Review, 4(5) Retrieved from http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/higher-education-2024-glimpsing-future?

Papert, Seymour and Solomon, Cynthia. (1971). Twenty Things to Do With a Computer. Massachusetts Institute of Technology: A.I. Laboratory.

I feel there is a divide of how health care professionals need to adapt to the current and future needs as it pertains to patient education. There are two groups that need to be considered; the population that is 65 years and older now and the people that will reach that threshold in the next 10-20 years. Both groups will require different approaches to teaching them to better manage their medical conditions. The thought process of selecting the proper technology to maintain interest and engagement still applies but greater emphasize needs to placed on how that age group prefers to receive information. Creating the coolest mobile app will not improve patient compliance with taking their medications for a chronic condition if end user simply prefers an automated phone call reminder. The group that is currently below the 65 years old threshold will demand more access to their own health information and value more the flexibility of maintaining contact with health care providers through web or mobile based mediums. This younger age group will likely have the pressures of caring for their elderly parents who are living longer and still provide for their own children. As such, flexible communication options and personalizing content will be most important to them.

I have already seen changes in how technology has improved the patient experience when I went to a walk-in clinic in Toronto. The group of clinics I believe was created by a group of young physicians and their technology friends. I was able to find the location that was nearest to my work and look up the current wait times on the internet. When I arrived at the walk-in clinic there were two kiosk monitors where you were prompted to swipe your health card and briefly enter the reason for your visit. You could choose from a list of doctors that were working in the clinic at that time and each one you selected would tell you exactly how many patients were ahead of you to see that doctor. I was called in shortly after and seen by a nurse who confirmed my reason for the visit and took my vital signs to make sure nothing more serious was going on before the doctor saw me. This is example of the expanding scope of healthcare professionals in different settings to triage patients. Overall, I thought it was a great experience and saved me time during my lunch time to get a prescription. Would someone in the over 65 years group have the same feedback on this type of experience?

When Alexander (2014) described campuses having agreements with hospitals in order to better place students and graduates it made me think of a recent partnership that our organization has completed. This is partnership is between the University Health Network and The Michener Institute which is the first of its kind in Canada for a hospital to merge with an applied health sciences education institute. I found it very interesting to read about it from Alexander and actually see it materialize with the organization that I work at. This partnership will strengthen the delivery of health care as students will be directly trained in line with the needs of the hospital.

References

Alexander, B. (2014). Higher education in 2014: Glimpsing the future. Educause Review, 4(5) Retrieved from http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/higher-education-2024-glimpsing-future?utm_source=Informz&utm_medium=Email+marketing&utm_campaign=EDUCAUSE

New Media Consortium. (2015). NMC Horizon Report 2015: Higher ed edition. Retrieved from http://cdn.nmc.org/media/2015-nmc-horizon-report-HE-EN.pdf

On the whole, think that education will continue to evolve, adapting more digital technologies to change the way knowledge is transmitted. The goals of education will change as well to reflect the changing world. If education serves to prepare the next generation to be productive members of society then it will continue to shift and change to prepare students for the changing job market.

I agree with Alexander that blended learning will become the norm as “blended life” becomes widespread (2014). As more and more of mainstream society adapts to changing technologies, wearable technologies, adaptive technologies, etc, education will adopt this. Literacies will change and adapt to include digital stories as their proliferation in the future seems highly likely.

I do not think that fully online education will become the norm at any level. There is something about being in the classroom and having that accountability and human interaction that will not change. For myself, having taking many online classes, it is a very unnatural thing. I find the richness of the classroom preferable and if I lived in an urban area I would not be taking online classes. Online learning will continue but I think for its accessibility and adaptability. It will be a choice for some who prefer it, and others for whom it is the only option.

As far as MOOCs and free education, at the tertiary level education is big business and as with any business I think the stakeholders would fight to maintain its viability. Look at the music industry and their war to protect copyright as an example. I think think that big universities would fight free education in the same way. I think the only reason they support MOOCs is because they know that they aren’t a threat to the system.

Education is also branded (though more so in the USA). Having a degree from a recognizable university means something both for employers and for the prestige of simply having it. Universities are a class symbol and people from all over the world vie for entry into the top schools.

These are just a few of the reasons I feel that education’s change and adaption of technology will be slow and will follow shifting trends in the world. I don’t think that the nature of education will change despite the technologies introduced. As a teacher, who is comfortable with technology and uses it often in her daily life, I will continue bring my knowledge into my practice. I will continue listening to the suggestions of my students to create an environment that is more reflective of their world and the way they learn. I will continue to talk about my successes with the faculty at my school in hope of inspiring others to adapt their classrooms as well.

Alexander, B. (2014). Higher education in 2014: Glimpsing the future. Educause Review, 4(5) Retrieved from http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/higher-education-2024-glimpsing-future?

I visited a friend and former work-mate last week at his home, and conversation strayed into education and technology, in no small part due to his growing interest in pursuing the MET.  He said something I found quite interesting, which was along the lines of: he believes, in the future, that schools will not have set class times or sizes, but will organize and present students with ‘modules’ that they can pick up, finish at their best speed, get help with as needed, and submit as they are able.  The role of the teacher will be to provide the tailored help to each student as they require it – something that many of us have spoken about doing more and more even in our ‘traditional’ classroom environments.  Apparently some schools are already trying out this model, and whether or not my friend knew about it, he hit on ideas very similar to the readings from this week.

Alexander’s (2014) ‘2 cultures of the future’ idea poses some interesting possibilities, and ones that don’t seem hard to imagine as coming to fruition.  The idea of medical specialists being treated like superstars is certainly an appealing idea, but if I’m to be cynical about it, I think first there would need to be a more wide-spread recognition that such people are going to be needed in the coming future.  I was an avid watcher of CBC’s ‘Keeping Canada Alive’ when it was first on tv this fall, and was absolutely ‘wowed’ by some of the technological advancements on display there, from mobile monitors that allow skype calls with doctors into remote Northern hospital rooms, to unobtrusive laser chemo treatments that target brain tumors without surgery – but I had to ask myself, why is this the first time I’m hearing of it!?  I wonder if it’s due to our cultures reactive response to medical issues, rather than a proactive one.  So instead of eating and moving and living our lives in such a way that will help stave off future issues, we are told to just ‘live the good life’ until something starts to go funny, and THEN start consuming a product or pill.  Instead of glorifying the wonders of medicine as they advance, they stay in secret, hidden by our fears of becoming ill and the process of dying, only coming to light when we need them.

I’ve gone off on a bit of a seeming rant here, but this does actually tie-in to my ideas and values around education, and how technology will play a role if used properly.  I’ve had some of my more meaningful teaching moments in recent years when I saw students understand how something they do, love, pursue, or understand, relates to the world around them and outside of their small every-day experiences.  Technology can not only help them make those connections, but it can also inspire them to see possibilities – whether through communicating and ‘disrupting’ the normal cultural narrative in a MOOC, or collaborating and innovating and inspiring each other despite distance.  I think the greatest challenge that exists at the moment, and that I have faced so far as an educator, is wrenching our students out of their worlds, which are so small and over-saturated with consumer media, and helping them see the potential of what is available to them and their place in it.  So far I only have experience doing this on small scales, with individual classes or students, but I would love to be involved in seeing this happen in much greater terms, and ideally, in contexts that serve usually marginalize or under-served voices.  It’s not hard to convince a wealthy private school student that their voice matters, or that they can benefit from technology and getting out there in the world – I would much rather see what students who don’t get to hear that message consistently can do with the right support.

Let us know about your vision

Welcome to the future! I am not sure that I am confident that I could predict the trends in technology that will shape the world and education in 10 years as Alexander did. Nor would I have the confidence to predict even 2 or 4 or 6 years into the future.
At the same time, whatever utopian vision of technology may or may not exist in the future, I think that a more important point if there was an ‘ideal’ would be that there are varying degrees of meeting this ideal standard or not. Let me explain what I mean by this. In the year 2016, in the K-12 education systems, there are huge discrepancies among what and how education is offered. Globally we have a range of accessibility and hardware such as large international schools abroad that offer 1-to-1 computer use for their students to underfunded public school systems which lag behind running old operating systems on bulky old computers. Worse yet are places in the world where they still struggle to use basic paper and pencil technology to run their classroom due to lack of resources, this spectrum of having and have-nots will still be part of the education world as I see it in the future.

What was it that “wowed” you?

Alexander (2014) comments that all post-secondary classes would be flipped by 2024 in the Two Cultures scenario. I would love to see the end to large traditional lecture style classes in post-secondary institutions. This style of ‘chalk and talk’ teaching is antiquated and doesn’t relate to current educational research. It also means that there is a significant divide between the style of teaching in most K-12 classrooms and the style of teaching in some post-secondary institutions.

What are your concerns?

As described in my vision, my concern lies in who has access to technology. It doesn’t matter what the best/ ideal technology is and how it is used if that is only accessible to a small portion of students globally.

How do you see yourself in shaping the landscape?

I hope that my future teaching practise is focussed on providing the best possible learning environment for my students. I am a huge proponent of technology in education with the caveat that the technology is bettering learning, not an add-on, not a distraction but a truly better way for students to learn and to express their knowledge. I hope that I will be a critical consumer and user of technology and that I can also instill these values in my students.

Alexander, B. (2014). Higher education in 2014: Glimpsing the future. Educause Review, 4(5) Retrieved from http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/higher-education-2024-glimpsing-future?utm_source=Informz&utm_medium=Email+marketing&utm_campaign=EDUCAUSE
Bates, T. (2014). MOOCs. In Teaching in digital age. Retrieved fromhttp://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/part/chapter-7-moocs/ (Chapter 5)
New Media Consortium. (2015). NMC Horizon Report 2015: Higher ed edition. Retrieved from http://cdn.nmc.org/media/2015-nmc-horizon-report-HE-EN.pdf

This week’s readings and reflection has made me realize that a lot of the topics and trends that were discussed by Alexander (2014) as well as Johnson, Adams-Becker, Estrada & Freeman (2015) are already sprouting in medical education, even at my institution. What “wow’d” me was my lack of seeing these thing even though they are right in front of me.

Alexander (2014) describes a blended institution, in which F2F classrooms are integrated with online material and resources. Though integration is still in its infancy, I am seeing small signs of it in our undergraduate medical program. Flipped classrooms are slowly emerging in some of the subject areas. Social media is increasingly used. Many of the resources are online. Finally, there has been a significant reduction in the number of tenured staff.

Another area that has seen a significant change is in assessment. In our medical school, there is now a dedicated tech team for evaluation and assessment. This is a new development since I was a medical student, which is less than a decade ago. A great emphasis is being placed on formative assessment and measurements of learning. This parellels the trends highlighted by Johnson et al (2015). In addition, our entire medical community is heading towards competency based medical education, a large component of this being evaluation and assessment. This is a big undertaking, and as such, collaboration between universities is widely seen in order to facilitate implementation. This collaboration is in hopes to make the process efficient, uniform, and effective (Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, 2014).

One of the focuses of competency based medical education is personalization. I’m not aware of the logistics, but students and residents will be assessed for competency and learning will be personalized such that they move on to the next learning activity/skill if they are deemed competent but continue to work on the same acitivity/skill if they are not.

A focus on team based learning has also led to changes in classrooms. While there is still a large lecture theatre, there are many more small group rooms to facilitate group learning activities in the new Katz group learning centre, which was built in 2009.

As this reflection demonstrates, there are many trends that are already incorporated into medical education. All of these areas will continue to develop. One area that I think will be heavily focused on is redesigning of the learning space. I think simulation, both high and low fidelity, will play a central role in medical education, especially with our competency based focus and concerns for patient safety. This will require our learning spaces to undergo further changes and potentially a disappearance of the traditional lecture hall, as anything that could be taught in a lecture hall could easily be done online.

As for my role, I see a greater proportion of my time spent developing online materials for students and facilitating more group work than I do currently. Group work may also move to a more online formate, especially if our school becomes more distributed (with campuses in rural Alberta, such as Fort McMurry and Grande Prarie).  This may become a reality if Alenxander’s “Health Nation” is realized (2014).

References

• Alexander, B. (2014). Higher education in 2024: Glimpsing into the future. Educause Review, 4(5). Retrieved from http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/higher-education-2024-glimpsing-future?utm_source=Informz&utm_medium=Email+marketing&utm_campaign=EDUCAUSE
• Johnson, L., Adams Becker, S., Estrada, V., & Freeman, A. (2015). NMC Horizon Report: 2015 Higher Education Edition. Austin, Texas: New Media Consortium. Retrieved from http://cdn.nmc.org/media/2015-nmc-horizon-report-HE-EN.pdf
• Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. (2014). Competence By Design. Retrieved from http://www.royalcollege.ca/portal/page/portal/rc/resources/cbme