If a Class Occurs and No one Shows, Did Learning Happen?

Zoe as Ruler of Camelot?

Here at EDUC 578, we have always been small but mighty.  Tonight; however, based on the DMs and emails I have received I think we are going to be minuscule and perhaps not quite as mighty as we usually are. . .But that's okay.  My first reaction whenever I receive a number of students opting out of class for whatever reason is to take it personal.  "Is it me?"  This quickly turns into the professional. . ."Is it the course or the content?"  Both reactions are natural to those who pride themselves on their teaching ability as well as the ability to construct a course that is meaningful for their students.  I'm nothing if not both a bit self-absorbed and deeply concerned about creating an environment that promotes intrinsic motivation.  I want students to want to learn, often in spite of being in/at a learning institution.  After the third message I received from a student, I  began to think. . .In this class, more so than in any other class I have taught in the past, I believe I have created an environment that doesn't really require either a teacher or a building from which my EDUC 578 student can learn.  I was given the freedom to follow my passion (thank you Dr. Lattimer). . .to teach a course on learning and technology that required students to be self-directed learners, to go out into the vastness of the Internet and create meaning for themselves, to examine how they learn and how this might be applied in their future classrooms. This opportunity was two parts amazing and one part, "holy cow," can I pull this off?

This is what I believe.   I want my students to strip down what they "know" about education and learning until it lies in front of them naked and exposed.  This is the starting point.  Here is where we can actually see schools and learning for what they are: social constructs.  Under such light, it should become obvious that neither schools nor learning has to be this way.  The past structures and beliefs about school and learning served a small minority well, while alienating a large number of those, who, like my mother, came to believe that "We ain't school people."  I never truly understood how my mother could come to this conclusion about her entire extended family until I saw the data of who was successful and who was not in school.  It's sadly predictable who succeeds and who fails in our schools, and all too often based on the color of one's skin.

Have I accomplished my mission for my EDUC 578 students?  I'm not sure.

This is what I know.  I am amazingly energized when I read our EDUC 578 blogs.  From innovation week to reflections on class readings, to the simple excitement of being re-tweeted, I see a group of women who have made an honest attempt to try and create meaning for themselves.  They are authentic and open and not afraid to be wrong, or have opinions.  To the best of their abilities they are trying to follow their passion in education and create meaning.  Whether this be teaching ESL to adult learners, math to middle schoolers, or examining the inequity in our education system they are doing their best to follow the advice of a somewhat wacky new professor with a vision.  I realize that this style doesn't fit everyone.  It is often hard to deal with so little structure when structure is main component of the social construct of education.  It is also hard to follow a passion if you are not quite sure of exactly what that passion is. . .but I still appreciate the effort.

Last week, I ask the class to take a look at the essential questions of the course:

1. How does learning occur?
2. In what environments can technology promote learning?
3. What is the process by which technology enhances learning?

Tonight, I think we can put this to the test.  As I mentioned last week, I don't think we need to add any more new ideas to the rest of the semester.  I expect that the current process of reading, tweeting, bookmarking, writing, commenting, and growing your PLNs will suffice.  Let's rephrase some of the essential questions: Does a student have to attend class to learn?  Can the environment which promotes learning be a coffee shop or a comfortable chair at home? Do computers and the Internet change the way learning happens?

My answer to all of the questions are all predicated on one thing:  intrinsic motivation.  If I have a strong desire to learn, whether it be to cook, run a marathon, become a Pinterest Ninja, or master physics, the resources exist for me to learn them without a formal teacher or a physical school to attend.  Technology is not the only way to accomplish this, but it is one way.  It is a medium that can connect me to informal teachers around the globe who have the expertise and desire to share. It can create community and foster collaboration the size and scope of which would be hard to replicate in any other way.

As far as me letting go. . .I'm working on it. I have 46 years of the old model of education and learning that creeps into the recesses of my subconscious when I let my guard down.  I don't really believe in external motivators like grades to enhance learning, but in the current carrot and stick model of education, some people find it hard to want to participate if their in no external outcome for their effort.  If I allow my students to grade themselves, what are the consequences for not coming to class, for not completing some of the expected work, for not learning?  Part of me wants to say that a failure to learn is its own natural consequence.
When my sixth grader asked me, "Daddy are you proud of my for getting straight A's?"
I replied, "Zoe, I'm more interested in what you learned than your grades."
This didn't go over so well for my extrinsically motivated 11-year-old. It saddens me that she is already a product of the system. . .and this is with a father who is an educator that fights the status quo.
I don't have all the answers. . .  I may never have them, but I do know that this experiment has shown me that it is possible, that students can follow their passion and learn at the same time, and that I can act as a guide and not be the sole arbiter of knowledge and learning.

And you are learning, right? Right?