Preparing for the Post-Course Era
Randy Bass (Georgetown University)
Inside Higher Education
Audio Conference February 16, 2010
[email protected]
2/16/10
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“You know. It was taught as a Gen Ed
course and I took it as a Gen Ed
course.”
Georgetown student, end of first year,
focus group: reflecting on a particular
course in which, he claimed, he was not
asked to engage with the material.
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Student Focus Groups
What students are saying:
• In many courses, they are not asked to
engage with the material--just to listen
and give it back, without opportunity to
make it relevant to their lives or their
learning.
• They talk about the difference between a
“Georgetown degree” and a “Georgetown
education.”
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Richard Light, Making the Most of College:
Students Speak their Minds
• “…most graduates have far clearer memories
of their singing or writing or volunteer
tutoring….than of the details of the class on
American history they took in the sophomore
year.”
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Richard Light, Making the Most of College:
Students Speak their Minds
• “That leads to a simple but enormously
powerful finding that…those students who
make connections between what goes on
inside and outside the classroom report a
more satisfying college experience.”
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High Impact Practices
(National Survey of Student Engagement--NSSE)
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
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First-year seminars and experiences
Learning communities
Writing intensive courses
Collaborative assignments
Undergraduate research
Global learning/ study abroad
Internships
Capstone courses and projects
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High Impact Activities and Outcomes (NSSE)
Outcomes associated with High impact
practices.
They enable students to…
…attend to underlying meaning
…integrate and synthesize
…discern patterns
…apply knowledge in diverse situations
...view issues from multiple perspectives
…make gains in Skills, knowledge, practical
competence , personal and social
development
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For example…(AAC&U Session Description)
“This panel addresses ways in which the
transformative impact of study abroad can be
further enhanced and extended to the campus
learning community. Through presentations, case
studies, and audience discussion, the panel will
address how the integration of study abroad with
high-impact, integrative learning activities such as
undergraduate research, senior capstones, or
service-learning can be transformative for both
students and institutions.”
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High Impact Activities and Outcomes
 High Impact Practices:
• First-year seminars and
experiences
• Learning communities
• Writing intensive courses
• Collaborative assignments
• Undergraduate research
• Global learning/ study abroad
• Internships
• Capstone courses and projects
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 Outcomes associated with High
impact practices
•
•
•
•
Attend to underlying meaning
Integrate and synthesize
Discern patterns
Apply knowledge in diverse
situations
• View issues from multiple
perspectives
• Gains in Skills, knowledge,
practical competence , personal
and social development
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So, if high impact practices are
largely in the
extra-curriculum (or the cocurriculum), then where are the lowimpact practices?
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formal curriculum
=
low-impact practices ?
Are we then entering the “post-course
era”
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Electronic Portfolios
• E-portfolio ‘movement’ as sign and symptom
of the post-course era
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If the formal curriculum is not where the high impact
experiences are then how should we respond?
•
Make courses higher impact
•
Design better connections between courses and
the high impact experiences outside the formal
curriculum
•
Rethink relationship between curriculum and cocurriculum, including (perhaps) shifting resources
from from the formal to the high impact
(experiential) curriculum
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If the formal curriculum is not where the
high impact experiences are then how
should we respond?
(1) Make courses higher impact
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Range of responses
courses designed as
inquiry-based and
problem-driven
Using social
tools at scale
Design courses for depth
and engagement (writing
intensive, project-based,
team-based, etc)
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Participatory Culture of the Web
How do we make classroom learning more like participatory culture?
Features of participatory culture
– Low barriers to entry
– Strong support for sharing one’s contributions
– Informal mentorship, experienced to novice
– Members feel a sense of connection to each other
– Students feel a sense of ownership of what is being
created
– Strong collective sense that something is at stake
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Jenkins, et. al., Confronting the Challeges of Participatory Culture
Six Characteristics of high impact practices AND features
of participatory culture
 Features of participatory
culture (on the Web)
 Low barriers to entry
 Strong support for sharing one’s
contributions
 Informal mentorship,
experienced to novice
 Members feel a sense of
connection to each other
 Students feel a sense of
ownership of what is being
created
 Strong collective sense that
something is at stake
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 High impact experiences (cocurriculum)
 Attend to underlying
meaning
 Integrate and synthesize
 Discern patterns
 Apply knowledge in diverse
situations
 View issues from multiple
perspectives
 Skills, knowledge, practical
competence , personal and
social development
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Informal
Learning
Participator
y culture
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The
Formal
Curriculum
High impact
practices
Experiential
Co-curriculum
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How to respond?
(2) Create better connections between courses
and the high impact experiences outside the
formal curriculum
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Range of responses
Activities that link
inside / outside
Community-based
Course Connections
Weblogs while studying
abroad, public research or
field journals
Electronic portfolios
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Connecting Intermediate Processes to
Practice
NOVICE
MIRACLE
product
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Bass & Elmendorf, 2009
EXPERT
product
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Connecting Intermediate Processes to
Practice
LEARNING
processes
NOVICE
processes
LEARNING
processes
EXPERT
practice
LEARNING
processes
How can we better
understand these
intermediate
processes?
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How might we
design to foster
and capture
them?
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John Seely Brown: Practice to Content
content
practic
e
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“Minds on Fire”
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Intermediate processes
• “judgment in uncertainty” (Shulman)
• “practical reason” (Sullivan and Rosin)
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How to respond?
(3) Rethink relationship between curriculum
and co-curriculum, including shifting
resources from from the formal to the high
impact (experiential) curriculum
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How to respond?
Can we any longer afford to act as if the formal
curriculum was the center of the
undergraduate experience—especially if that
means under-funding and under-developing
the kind of experiences we are increasingly
understanding correlate with deep learning?
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Tim Kastelle University of Queensland,
“Successful Open Business Models”
Three Value-adding activities in the
digital economy (e.g. Journalism,
Music):
Aggregate
Filter
Connect
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Tim Kastelle, “Successful Open Business Models”
“Successful Open Business Models”
(higher education)
Aggregate
•Information resources
Filter
•Knowledge (what knowledge is worth knowing)
•Scholarship (peer review)
•Graduates (employability)
Connect
•Ideas, experiences, people
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Shift in How We Add Value?
AGGREGATE
FILTER
CONNECT
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Shift in How We Add Value
COURSE
ERA
AGGREGATE
FILTER
CONNECT
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POSTCOURSE
ERA
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Entering the Post-Course Era–
in a Constrained Fiscal Future
How do we best match resources with
the experiences that add the most value?
Can we continue to afford “everything
plus”?
How should we respond to the
shifting ground between
curricular and co-curricular
learning?
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Three Considerations for the PostCourse Era
• Our notion of learning has far outstripped our understanding of
assessment – we need far more nuanced ways to read the evidence
of learning that emerges in practice
• Our notion of learning has far outstripped our language for teaching –
we need far more nuanced ways of counting load and of defining the
instructional net.
• If electronic portfolios are to be a key to “filtering and connecting” –
then they must both engage multiple stakeholders on campus
(Batson) and engage faculty and courses in ways they generally are
not now.
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Tim Kastelle, “Successful Open Business Models”
The lesson to take from the current states of both the music
industry and journalism is that you have to have a clear
understanding of how you’re creating value so that you build and
protect the correct parts of your business model.
Perhaps universities can learn this lesson before
educational business models are disrupted as
well.
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References
Randy Bass and Heidi Elmendorf, “Examining the Value of Social Pedagogies: A Paradigm for
Deepening Disciplinary Engagement among Undergraduate Students,” ISSOTL 2009.
Trent Batson, “Portfolio: the Higher Education ‘Hedgehog’,” Campus Technology, Feb 17, 2010.
John Seely Brown and Richard P. Adler, “Minds on Fire: Open Education, the Long Tail, and
Learning 2.0” Educause Review (Jan/Feb 2008)
Henry Jenkins, et. al., Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture, MacArthur
Foundation Occasional Paper, 2007.
Tim Kastelle, (University of Queensland) Innovation Leadership Network,
http://timkastelle.org/blog/
George Kuh, High-Impact Educational Practices: What They Are, Who Has Access to Them,
and Why They Matter, AAC&U, 2008.
Richard Light, Making the Most of College: Students Speak their Minds, Harvard University
Press, 2001.
Lee Shulman. “The Pedagogies of Uncertainty,” Liberal Education Spring 2005.
William Sullivan and Matt Rosin, A New Agenda for Higher Education: Shaping the Life of the
Mind for Practice. Jossey-Bass, 2008.
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