Point/Counterpoint: What Activates Learning

This presentation at the ELI Annual Conference focused on how learning is activated in the classroom. The presentation was structured as a point/counterpoint discussion between Parke Rhoads (representing Technology) and Rick Jones (representing Architecture and space design), mediated by Jeanne Narum. We sought to answer three questions:

1. What are the key trends and factors that SHOULD be driving technology in your institution?
2. Beyond technology initiatives, what strategies do you need to use with your campus constituencies to further activate learning?
3. Consider learning as an ecosystem, and ask yourself where you are now, and what is next for your institution.

Transcript

1. Point / Counter Point: What Activates Learning?  How Technology Activates - Current drivers - Future trends  How Space Activates - Need and application - Challenges and trends  The Ecosystem of Learning - Institutional vision - Things you do vs build - Where are we now, what’s next? parke.rhoads@vantagetcg.com rick@jonesarch.com jlnarum.lsc.ico@gmail.com
2. What Activates Learning? Mack Hall, Norwich University, Jones Architecture & Vantage Technology. Photos courtesy Horne Visual Media.
3. WHAT DO WE WANT OUR LEARNERS TO BECOME? • Agents of their own learning. • Integrative thinkers and problem solvers. • Empowered communicators and leaders. • Model-based reasoners. • Resilient experimenters. WHAT EXPERIENCES MAKE THAT BECOMING HAPPEN? • Tackling ill-structured, open-ended complex problems with others. • Searching for, finding, and sharing relevant, reliable, and up-to-date data with team members. • Blending disciplinary concepts, methods, representations toward solving problems. • Creating, sharing, debating, and defending models (graphical, diagrammatic, mathematical). • Trying, failing, and recovering. Georgia Institute of Technology — Problem-Driven Learning Spaces
4. WHAT DO WE WANT OUR LEARNERS TO BECOME? • Skilled with the use of technology, able to use simulations to develop mathematical models, able to use software and hardware for data collection and analysis WHAT EXPERIENCES MAKE THAT BECOMING HAPPEN? • Collaborating with peers on interesting tasks, opportunity for “hands-on” engagement with solving context-rich problems. • Interacting with peers and with instructors, experiences reinforcing their ability to function well in a group. • Presenting and evaluating oral arguments; viewing and critiquing the work of individual teams. North Carolina State University — Student-Centered Active Learning Environment with Upside-Down Pedagogies (SCALE-UP)
5. WHAT DO WE WANT OUR LEARNERS TO BECOME? • Thoughtful individuals, who search for multiple approaches to problems. • Inquiring participants, who question to learn. • Creative thinkers, who recognize there may be a new solution. • Confident individuals, who appreciate benefits to be gained from collaboration. • • Tolerant participants, who appreciate diversity of multiple cultures. • • Effective communicators, with skills for multiple media and venues. WHAT EXPERIENCES MAKE THAT BECOMING HAPPEN? • Feeling comfortable in an open, accepting work and classroom environment that encourages experimentation and risk taking. • Enjoying a sense of physical freedom, with the ability to get up, move around, join others, demonstrate ideas. • Having easy access to cutting-edge visual technologies and staff with relevant technical expertise. University of Maryland College Park — Michelle Smith Collaboratory for Visual Culture
6. Activity #1: What do you want your learners to become?
7. Mack Hall, Norwich University, Jones Architecture & Vantage Technology. Photos courtesy Horne Visual Media. Technology Activates Learning
8. It’s (IT’s) Where the Students Are Laptops and smartphones are the preferred learning tools Desktop Student’s Top Learning Habits Have Changed Drastically 1995 2015 1. Class Notes 2. Study Groups 3. Class Reading 4. Other Texts 5. Office Hours / TA 1. Shared Notes 2. YouTube 3. Online Articles 4. Study Groups 5. Class Reading Horizons Report: Educause & New Media Consortium Recent Changes in Student Life & Study: Scandinavian Journal of Education Research How Generation Z is Shaping the Change in Education, Forbes Magazine Educause ECAR Survey, 2017 “I’m Dyslexic. My phone is the best tool I have, I even use Siri to take dictation to get my papers started. If professors are worried it’s a distraction from class… either the instruction could be better or they should incorporate my phone for class use” - Student Survey Response, 2018 VantageTCG Primary Research
9. But how today’s students experience technology is very different from today’s faculty -60% -40% -20% 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% Online classes are effective and well integrated Online / Blended Classes work well Instructors use technology to inspire Student BYOD is distracting Faculty Opinions on Technology Disagree Strongly Disagree Agree Strongly Agree -60% -40% -20% 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% Online classes are effective and well integrated Online / Blended Classes work well Instructors use technology to inspire Student BYOD is distracting Student Opinions on Learning Technology Disagree Strongly Disagree Agree Strongly Agree -60% -40% -20% 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% Everyone agrees technology is important Strong Disagree Strong Agree Agree Disagree Condition of Classroom Technology Improves Learning It’s where the change is Eduacuse ECAR Survey & VantageTCG Primary Research
10. Most modern information is in digital form CSC Corp., Report on Big Data, 2012 By 2020, over 99.5% of the information in the world will be in digital form. Data, information, and collaboration exists in increasingly intangible 1s and 0s. Technology becomes an integral part of the curriculum in order to access this world and bring the ephemeral into physical form (e.g. visualizations, videos, etc.) If ‘digital’ is where the content is, where is the classroom?
11. This is what’s expected of students after graduation “Employers report a widening gap in students graduating with work skills, compared to how students or faculty rate themselves” 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% Working with others in teams Current on tech Working with numbers / Statistics Being innovative / creative Applying knowledge / Skills to real world Current in trends Employers Students Faculty Technology is the tool of the information age. Traditional lectures and curriculum ARE NOT keeping pace. Need (to do better) to teach students the tools and methods they will use to tackle the problems of the future. Falling Short: Hart Research, 2004 & 2012 & aacu.org 2015 Survey Updates
14. Places to try, to gain competency/fluency, to create Dartmouth Jones Media Library Photo courtesy Horne Visual Media. Johns Hopkins University, Brody Learning Commons. “Viz Wall”
15. Places to try, to gain competency/fluency, to create
16. Build Design Test Learn Perpetual Beta: Design Occupy Traditional Learning Space Planning Process: Technology Growth Source: Kurtzweil, R. Singularity.com, 2017 Today Year 1: 2X Technology Growth Year 2: 4X Technology Growth Year 3: 8X Technology Growth Year 4: 16X Technology Growth Year 5: 32X Technology Growth Year 10: 512X Technology Growth Year 20: 524000 X Technology Growth Year 55: More than 1Trillion X Traditional capital plan vs Pace of innovation
17. Activity #2: How do you make the case for the investment in a constant innovation cycle?
18. Mack Hall, Norwich University, Jones Architecture & Vantage Technology. Photos courtesy Horne Visual Media. Space Activates Learning
19. Is this what you hear from Faculty? D’Amore-McKim School of Business, Northeastern University, Jones Architecture. “This space has spoiled me for other classrooms on campus; I cannot teach anywhere else!” Northeastern University faculty member, Post-Occupancy Feedback
20. OR, is this what you hear from Faculty? (left) Kreitzberg Library, Norwich University, Jones Architecture. (right) D’Amore-McKim School of Business, Northeastern University, Jones Architecture. “I cannot teach in this room; the technology is overwhelming.” Norwich University faculty member, Post-Occupancy Feedback “This space has spoiled me for other classrooms on campus; I cannot teach anywhere else!” Northeastern University faculty member, Post-Occupancy Feedback
21. And then, beyond Faculty … Faculty Provost Dean Facilities Students TA’s IT Team Registrar Librarians Planning AV Team Alumni
22. Squeak and Hum
23. Squeak and Hum
24. Squeak and Hum
25. Squeak and Hum
26. Squeak and Hum
27. Squeak and Hum
28. Post-Occupancy Feedback
29. What we hear from Faculty
30. What we hear from the Provost “That’s all lovely and I understand the rationale for active learning. But no institution can afford to flip all of their 130 seat lecture classrooms into 60 seat active learning spaces.”
31. What we hear from the Registrar “Our role is to balance class size against available space, and to accommodate faculty requests where possible. Reducing too many classrooms to less than 50- 60 seats will cripple our ability to do that effectively.”
32. Squeak and Hum Image is a pilot “future” undergraduate classroom developed with the faculty of arts & sciences in Harvard Hall, Harvard University, Jones Architecture Inc., 2016. The future classroom will be adaptable in response to multiple pedagogical modes, readily support collaborative work, and be equipped with appropriate technology and furniture. In this case, technology included a single projector, and whiteboards for instructors and teams. Technology backstop is online content that students are to watch before class --- requiring behind the scenes technology resources for recording, dissemination. How do we balance general classrooms against more specialized demands or research needs? And what is appropriate for each institution’s culture?
33. Activity #3: Identify a hidden stakeholder you discovered in a project and why were they important to the outcome?
37. Mack Hall, Norwich University, Jones Architecture & Vantage Technology. Photos courtesy Horne Visual Media. The Ecosystem of Learning
38. Things you solve BY DESIGNING • The right blend • Flexible configurations • Maximize seating, given best pedagogy • Appropriate technology • Find learning spaces everywhere Things you solve BY DOING • Find the innovators on campus (leverage thought leadership, coach academic leadership) • Perpetual beta: places to experiment with new tools • Funding for operations and capital expenditures • Importance of training, support, evaluation • Coaching effective modern curriculum • Changing culture • Changing curriculum and technology support It takes both new space and new approaches 38
39. Activity #4: What is your most important takeaway from our discussion?
40. Transformation: The Story 40 Assessment & Strategy First Iteration Coaching, Training, & Support Adaptation & Growth Finding the Innovators Next Iteration Assessment & Strategy Adaptation & Growth Current State of Innovation on Campus 1) Started with institutional research, sense of “falling behind” 2) IT, Facilities built new spaces to “test” young faculty and new student “bleeding edge” 3) Opened up new culture, ideas. Exposed challenges. Fueled demand 4) Curriculum and pedagogical skills transformed 5) Classrooms shaped to new pedagogy 6) Campus accelerated into modern institution
41. • Permeability • Interdisciplinary • Design Thinking and Ideation • Institutional Issues & Change • Assessment & Evaluation • Student & Faculty (and other Stakeholders) Experience • Technologies & Online Spaces • Planning Teams & Inclusivity What Matters for Learning?
42. Graphic from World Economic Forum, “Future of Jobs Report”. Surviving the new era of constant innovation means teaching, researching, and collaborating for interdisciplinary fields that don’t even exist yet. • What skills are needed to solve problems of the future? • How will these skill sets continue to shift? • How do we best equip students for this future workplace? Yield is less traditional content delivery and more collaborative, project-based group work, reflective of the workplace and this future skill set. The Future is “Solving” over “Knowing” Memorization and Repetition are no longer valuable Graphic from Bloomberg News Essence of Active Learning Graphic from World Economic Forum, “Future of Jobs Report”. Top 10 Skills:
43. What Harvard’s analysis actually showed
44. What Harvard’s analysis actually showed