I must begin by indicating that I really love the idea of Living-Learning Communities, residential programs which are offered at a number of universities, including Virginia Tech, although I have personally never had the opportunity to be a part of one. I think they have the potential to foster a lifelong love of learning and to promote learning outside of the classroom. However, since these residential programs are department or field-based, I wonder whether they promote the pervasive silo-mentality in many academics ("young" and "old"). I do not think, by any means, that the model needs to be completely revised, as I think there is great value in it. However, I wonder if there is a way to make it more interdisciplinary and more innovative. Perhaps these residences could have "house parties" in which they invite members of other Living-Learning Communities to casual symposia, discussions, think tanks, etc. Or, perhaps the Living-Learning Communities could be organized as Problem-Based Learning Living-Learning experiences around various societal issues. I think this would be feasible, since we already have Enhanced-Learning communities that are focused on an interest rather than an academic major. I think that moving Living-Learning Communities in this direction would help disrupt academic silos and promote innovative, collaborative, interdisciplinary learning.
Tonight, in my Preparing Future Professoriate class, a student mentioned that some students were in communication with the authors of their textbook. She said that the authors were welcoming comments from their student readers (such as what they (dis)agreed with, needed clarification on, etc.). I thought that that was fascinating, and immediately wondered to myself why that wasn't a more common practice. Surely, textbook authors do not want to have to personally address thousands of students around the world regarding their insights on a textbook. However, I wonder what type knowledge could be created by intergenerational, international, intercultural, interdisciplinary conversations about various academic texts, in which learners and educators have constructive dialogue, and textbook authors chime in every now and then.
This week, reading an article entitled, "What Constitutes Doctoral Knowledge" (Devos & Sommerville, 2012) and watching Godin's TED talk, "Stop Stealing Dreams," has really got me to thinking about how much of a machine higher education is. Granted, schooling at various levels involves training students to behave in certain ways, uphold certain values, and have certain goals. However, this type of mass indoctrination is particularly disconcerting to me at the graduate level, where doctoral students are supposedly imported for their potential to generate knowledge in a particular field (or interdisciplinary area). It strikes me as quite ironic that we admit students who demonstrate some potential to think deeply, innovatively, and critically, and yet, over the course of their graduate career, we proceed to mold them into compliant members of a knowledge-production assembly line, whereby they are trained to “follow suit.” [Note, I say "we" because we are the institution (Palmer, 2007)--We are the academy.]
While we do celebrate innovation, in that doctoral students are expected to create at least a nugget of new knowledge, we also stifle innovation, in that we force students to process and package their knowledge-nuggets in the same traditional packaging, with the same standardized dimensions. For example, with dissertation formatting requirements that warrant entire training workshops, I cannot help but wonder, how do seemingly empty requirements enhance students’ learning and knowledge creation (assuming this is still why we admit doctoral students)? I am by no means advocating for complete eradication of guidelines and expectations, but Dr. Fowler has challenged us to think critically about why we do what we do in teaching. Even beyond the logistics of the physical dissertation document, there are ways in which some of what we do is merely “going through the motions,” or doing things a certain way simply because “that’s how they’ve always been done.” I wonder whether doctoral programs will begin to shift from having students conform to what has always been done to welcoming and supporting students in doing something different—or whether they are too convinced that they are already doing what is best to ever consider something new. My goal is to obtain a tenure-track professorship with a joint-appointment in Cooperative Extension. I have always attended land grant universities (Cornell University, University of Delaware, and now Virginia Tech) and have come to really value Cooperative Extension. Through Cooperative Extension, land grant universities transform the scientific knowledge generated in the "ivory tower" into practical information using lay language. Although Cooperative Extension is not a contemporary institution, I think it has the potential to initiate even greater good in communities if it incorporates contemporary pedagogical strategies. One way Cooperative Extension has begun to respond to a more digital society is by establishing eXtension, Cooperative Extension's interactive online system, which provides practical research-based information online. For example, eXtension has an "Ask an Expert" feature, which allows people to pose questions to Extension Specialists. While the notion of "commoners" depending on "experts" for answers has its own host of philosophical and epistemological issues, I think this is a practical service that youth, parents, farmers, educators, and others can use to access trustworthy research-based information in a practical way (that may be more beneficial than a mere Google search).
Extension Specialists tend to engage in more community education, rather than traditional classroom education. However, just because you take the educator out of the classroom does not mean you take the classroom out of the educator. That is, even community educators may be relying on traditional teaching strategies, which could be enhanced by including contemporary pedagogical strategies. As a future professor and Extension Specialist, I hope to employ these innovative teaching and learning strategies, both in the classroom and in the community. |
GEDI BLOGI am taking a Contemporary Pedagogy, a Graduate Education Development Institute (GEDI) course towards the Preparing Future Professoriate (PFP) certificate. In this section of my blog, I will be posting about topics related to innovation in teaching and learning. Archives
April 2015
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