 |
| from Jorge Cham, Piled Higher and Deeper. |
With
the prodigious rise in online content we need fewer distractions and better pedagogy. Yet, our frustrations are not a new. McLuhan (1964, p 23) wrote
"for the message of any medium or technology is the change of scale or
pace or pattern that it introduces into human affairs." The
instructor’s choice of media is a critical pedagogical decision in
instructional design as it shapes the environment and thought. Television as a medium taught us that life
is packaged in 8-minute segments (Postman 2005). If texts, worksheets, and
tests are the dominant media, the the “cram, pass, and forget” model will be
adopted by students. I imagine a pedagogy where student 2.0 should help
narrate, create, critique, curate, and share the content, although I seldom realize those ideals. Social media plays a role in these ideals.
 |
| Binders were my dominant mode of content curation in 1980s and 1990s. |
Social
media offers instructors and students to communicate and collaborate in ways
that may be efficient,
effective, and yes, even transformative. In
my teaching I have transitioned from curating the course content in large
binders (1980 s -1990s) to five different
LMSs. Each time we are promised a better
system. But each semester as I curate an improved content, students watch as
the content is washed away after exam week, as if what we created together is
not worth maintaining for the future. College administrators advocate for online teaching to alleviate
shortage of classroom space. However, taking bad teaching
online is like giving a bad guitar player a bigger amplifier (Ohler 2013, p. 6). Rather, I advocate more connected and open
pedagogy that gives students more control of learning and sharing.
The internet has also spread the use of memes. Memes are internal representations of knowledge that are culturally inherited. As educators we can use lessons from memes to help students master and retain key concepts. Memes can be developed by students with readily available smartphone apps (e.g., QuickMeme, and MemeGenerator) and shared via many networks. We can use lessons from memes via online communities to help students master and retain key concepts and new terminology (Brodie 2009).
The internet has also spread the use of memes. Memes are internal representations of knowledge that are culturally inherited. As educators we can use lessons from memes to help students master and retain key concepts. Memes can be developed by students with readily available smartphone apps (e.g., QuickMeme, and MemeGenerator) and shared via many networks. We can use lessons from memes via online communities to help students master and retain key concepts and new terminology (Brodie 2009).
 |
| Students can develop and share fish memes to facilitate retrieval and recall of new taxonomy. |
Community
of practice is a social learning theory that fits my teaching philosophy. Learning is fundamentally experiential and learning is
fundamentally social (Wenger 1998).
Therefore, the learning must be open and connected because the knowledge resides in numerous communities. Yet the structures of our learning management systems make it difficult for students to be connected and for all learning artifacts to be archived and shared.
Imagine
the visual depiction of students at the periphery of the community of practice. The vision of student (novices) moving through
collaboration toward the core is empowering. I
tell students that accepting the notion that "I am a novice"
or "I am becoming" will make
it easier for them to ask questions (for more background, see On Becoming an Ichthyologist). Every action is a
chance for to move from periphery to involved. Not all learning takes place in the
classroom and the social media trials I describe can assist with motivating
students to be active participants in open and connected networks.
 |
| Source: Pinterest |
1. Public Writing
2.
Twitter and Infographics
Twitter is widely used by instructors. Don't think of Twitter as a passive website. Rather consider Twitter as a place to start and continue a discussion. You will find followers who have similar interests. Start or follow a discussion with a unique hashtag. Right now #PenceScience and #NationalBookLoverDay are trending. Stories of scientists working in the field were shared in the #fieldworkfail discussion on Twitter. Students can use Twitter in many ways. Twitter allows students to initiate discussions and invite authors of their readings to weigh in on discussions. A list is a curated group of Twitter users, which allows you and your students to make more connections.
 |
| Sample Infographic or Information Graphic, developed by the USEPA. |
Images and videos added to tweets get more attention. If you want your message to be re-tweeted, make a simple graphic. In the new media, these are called Information Graphics (i.e., infographics) and a simple assignment to create an infographic on a topic will engage more parts of the brain than "write a summary of the passage from page 368-390." Another app, called Storify, allows the student to locate and write a summary with tweets posted on a particular topic. For example, after the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, educators used the many tweets posted on this story and developed a storify syllabus on the Ferguson issue. Other Storify stories tell of fieldwork of scientists to support world water day and #scicomm.
3.
Online communities
Many instructors are creating Facebook groups for their classes; there are many Facebook ideas you can adopt. I have used these since I joined Facebook to easily facilitate student introductions at the beginning of class. Because of privacy concerns of students (the law known as FERPA) and Facebook evils, I never make membership a requirement. My Ichthyology Facebook group is a public group and is dominated by past students and other fish enthusiasts. However, you can create a closed Facebook group. I use Facebook to join and learn for a variety of groups. I also maintain a Flickr Ichthyology class site and require students to post their better fish photos (with annotations) to this shared site. On Flickr I follow my favorite photographers and joined a number of Flickr groups. Similarly, I follow some individuals on You Tube. Here I am able to encounter rare and interesting videos that are useful for my teaching. For example, Brandon Brown posted a beautiful underwater video of Longear Sunfish breeding behaviors and Cardinal Shiners in breeding colors. One problem with many learning management systems is they are designed for instructors to post, curate, and deliver content. If you wish to create an online open learning community you may have to find alternative platforms in which students can create discussion, post materials, and be more engaged in the learning process. Consider experimenting with PBWorks or Slack; here are notes from one such experiment.
Many instructors are creating Facebook groups for their classes; there are many Facebook ideas you can adopt. I have used these since I joined Facebook to easily facilitate student introductions at the beginning of class. Because of privacy concerns of students (the law known as FERPA) and Facebook evils, I never make membership a requirement. My Ichthyology Facebook group is a public group and is dominated by past students and other fish enthusiasts. However, you can create a closed Facebook group. I use Facebook to join and learn for a variety of groups. I also maintain a Flickr Ichthyology class site and require students to post their better fish photos (with annotations) to this shared site. On Flickr I follow my favorite photographers and joined a number of Flickr groups. Similarly, I follow some individuals on You Tube. Here I am able to encounter rare and interesting videos that are useful for my teaching. For example, Brandon Brown posted a beautiful underwater video of Longear Sunfish breeding behaviors and Cardinal Shiners in breeding colors. One problem with many learning management systems is they are designed for instructors to post, curate, and deliver content. If you wish to create an online open learning community you may have to find alternative platforms in which students can create discussion, post materials, and be more engaged in the learning process. Consider experimenting with PBWorks or Slack; here are notes from one such experiment.
4.
Digital Storytelling and Video Essays
We need to train people to be inspiring communicators if they are to be effective in their work or public lives (Dahlstrom 2014). One easy teaching trial is to assign a video Essay instead of a written essay. One example, is the This I Believe Essay which many college classes have adopted. In this video version present "I Believe in Resilience." However, students in the STEM courses seldom write in a narrative form. I spent many decades teaching before asking students to tell me their stories. My teaching has personally transformed when I began facilitating student storytelling and sharing my own stories. When it is safe to tell stories, then learning communities become storytelling communities.
We need to train people to be inspiring communicators if they are to be effective in their work or public lives (Dahlstrom 2014). One easy teaching trial is to assign a video Essay instead of a written essay. One example, is the This I Believe Essay which many college classes have adopted. In this video version present "I Believe in Resilience." However, students in the STEM courses seldom write in a narrative form. I spent many decades teaching before asking students to tell me their stories. My teaching has personally transformed when I began facilitating student storytelling and sharing my own stories. When it is safe to tell stories, then learning communities become storytelling communities.
In my
Ichthyology class, I first tell students some key ideas behind learning to
study Ichthyology (video) or Stream
Habitat Management (video). This provides students with some background on research on learning that
informs practices that I suggest they adopt. Click for more on How
to Learn Ichthyology. I have found that digital stories have
many uses for my teaching. I can post a short fish mystery that forces
students to think about it, or even read the assigned text. In
this post I provide a brief answer the mystery of Bloody Neutrality of the Smallmouth Bass.
To prompt students to examine defining events in their own young lives, I share my story Not Everyone Truly Lives and assign students to create a wondering map (Brooks 2010, p. 19-47). Students are always struggling with new and challenging materials. I use a digital story assignment in order to get them reflecting on their struggles and sharing the story. This digital storytelling assignment was described in the post, Inside the head of a fish head. If you need more background before adopting digital storytelling, start by reading Ohler (2013). Ohler (2013) presents a number of important revelations about storytelling as pedagogy. For me, the most important was that the story provides a set of practical processes for resolving issues, educating ourselves, and pursuing our goals, while combining traditional and emerging literacies (Ohler 2013).
5. Eportfolios and a Web of One's Own
To prompt students to examine defining events in their own young lives, I share my story Not Everyone Truly Lives and assign students to create a wondering map (Brooks 2010, p. 19-47). Students are always struggling with new and challenging materials. I use a digital story assignment in order to get them reflecting on their struggles and sharing the story. This digital storytelling assignment was described in the post, Inside the head of a fish head. If you need more background before adopting digital storytelling, start by reading Ohler (2013). Ohler (2013) presents a number of important revelations about storytelling as pedagogy. For me, the most important was that the story provides a set of practical processes for resolving issues, educating ourselves, and pursuing our goals, while combining traditional and emerging literacies (Ohler 2013).
 |
| The Hero's Journey from Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces. "Students need to become heroes of their own learning stories as well as of the stories they tell with their own lives" Ohler (2013, p. 9) |
Gardner Campbell called for
giving each student a personal cyberinfrastructure in 2009 podcast or read the text. In
2013 University of Mary Washington initiated Domain of ones own where first-year students are assigned a
web domain name. Dozens of other universities have adopted similar initiatives. The University provides
free,
personal domain names and web hosting and students take control of
their work. Creating a domain of one's own may be the most important wickedly subversive education innovation of our times (Waters 2014). Listen to Ted talk by Jim Groom and find out why Jim Groom rocks.
Bass 2014 wrote "E-portfolios are at heart a set of pedagogies and practices that link learners to learning, curriculum to the cocurriculum, and courses and programs to institutional outcomes." Here is a place for the student to reflect and narrate about their learning experience, show the artifacts of their learning, organize and curate their scholarly works, and share with others. Most importantly, ePortfolios are leaner-centric and may demonstrate a student's creativity and sense of wonder better than any exam. I use ePortfolio as a course-level demonstration of student learning; it's been ten years since I gave students the option of creating a hard-copy portolio. Students can choose to make their final ePortfolio private or public. For one example, click here. The easiest way to initiate this trial is to develop your own teaching portfolio and use your struggles and successes to help model the ePortfolio development process. See My Teaching Portfolio.
Bass 2014 wrote "E-portfolios are at heart a set of pedagogies and practices that link learners to learning, curriculum to the cocurriculum, and courses and programs to institutional outcomes." Here is a place for the student to reflect and narrate about their learning experience, show the artifacts of their learning, organize and curate their scholarly works, and share with others. Most importantly, ePortfolios are leaner-centric and may demonstrate a student's creativity and sense of wonder better than any exam. I use ePortfolio as a course-level demonstration of student learning; it's been ten years since I gave students the option of creating a hard-copy portolio. Students can choose to make their final ePortfolio private or public. For one example, click here. The easiest way to initiate this trial is to develop your own teaching portfolio and use your struggles and successes to help model the ePortfolio development process. See My Teaching Portfolio.
Try one of these ideas! Social media have vastly changed how we communicate online. Our students are no longer just consumers of online media. Fisheries educators have a key role to play in training fisheries students in the communications of fisheries issues for multiple diverse audiences. Students 2.0 are content creators, curators, distributors, editors, opinion makers, and much more. Consequently, it is our responsibility as educators to help student 2.0 to navigate through the social media. It is also our responsibility to remind students and instructors that not all learning is digital and, further, outreach to some publics must be face to face (see The Grapevine). While the media landscape has changed dramatically, the criteria for evaluating the credibility of media (arguments, evidence, conclusions, implications) have not. If you choose not to adopt social media, you might be damned with the curse of irrelevance.
References
Bik, H.M. and M.C.
Goldstein. 2013. An introduction to social media for scientists. PLoS Biology 11(4): e1001535.
doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001535
Brooks, K. 2010. You majored in what? Mapping your path from chaos to career. Plume. Penguin Group. New York. 322 pp.
Brooks, K. 2010. You majored in what? Mapping your path from chaos to career. Plume. Penguin Group. New York. 322 pp.
Carr, N. 2008. Is Google making us stupid? The Atlantic.
July/August.
Couldry, N. 2012. Media, society, world: social theory and digital media practics. Polity. 242 pp.
Dahlstrom, M.F. 2014. Using narratives and storytelling to communicate science with nonexpert audiences. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111 (Supplement 4):13583-13584.
Grossman, G. D., D. J. Orth, and J. Neuswanger. 2016. Innovative teaching methods in Fisheries Education. Fisheries 41(8):451-457.
Grossman, G. D., D. J. Orth, and J. Neuswanger. 2016. Innovative teaching methods in Fisheries Education. Fisheries 41(8):451-457.
Kumpulainan, K., and J. Sefton-Green
2014. What is connected learning and how to research it? International Journal
of Learning and Media 4:7-18. doi:10.1162/IJLM_a_00091
McLuhan, M. 1964. Understanding media: the extensions of man. Signet, New York. 318 pp.
McLuhan, M. 1964. Understanding media: the extensions of man. Signet, New York. 318 pp.
Ohler, J. 2013. Digital storytelling in the classroom: new media pathways to literacy, learning, and creativity, 2nd Edition. Corwin. 304 pp.
Waters, A. 2014. Beneath the cobblestones...a domain of one's own. Hack Education. April 25, 2014.
Waters, A. 2014. Beneath the cobblestones...a domain of one's own. Hack Education. April 25, 2014.
Wenger, E. 1998.
Communities of practice: Learning, meaning and identity. Cambridge University Press,
New York.