Silver Lining for Learning

In the midst of living through the pandemic, 46 authors from around the world paused, reflected, and wrote chapters for an open access book on lessons that teacher educators should have learned from 2020.  In this episode, Dr. Rick Ferdig, lead editor of “What Teacher Educators Should Have Learned From 2020”  provide an initial discussion of the impetus for the book, some general lessons learned, and how such reflective activities can be continued beyond the pandemic.  Dr. Rebecca Nelson provides an overview of her co-authored chapter titled, “The Four Pillars of Digitally Infused Education: Transcending Modalities in a Post-COVID Learning Environment.”  She will talk specifically about the importance of instructional design, flexibility, building relationships, and a pedagogy of care. Dr. Aimee Barber will then discuss ways to use effective pedagogy to design online learning experiences.  She draws on examples from her co-authored chapter, “Using Knowledge of Effective Pedagogy to Design Online Learning Experiences: Restructuring Teacher Education Coursework to Reflect Virtual Learning Shifts,” pointing to ways she and her team restructured teacher education coursework during the shift to virtual learning.

In Episode #69, Chuck Dziuban and Patsy Moskal from the University of Central Florida (UCF) have spent decades conducting research on blended and fully online learning, resulting in several edited research volumes on blended learning. Their paper, Adaptive Learning in Psychology: Wayfinding in the Digital Age, was recipient of the United States Distance Learning Association (USDLA) quality research paper award in 2017.  The episode discusses the history of faculty training programs for blended and online instruction at UCF, case for personalizing learning, as well as their research on a scholarship program for low income communities in Central Florida called the Tangelo Park Program. This program has seen significantly reduced crime and has resulted in 100% high school graduation rates as well as high levels of college attendance. It also unpacks key components of this program as well as its potential sustainability, replicability, and scalability.

The annual EDUCAUSE Horizon Report on emerging learning technologies and trends is widely anticipated, cherished, and read by thousands worldwide. Topics like AI, blended and hybrid learning, learning analytics, micro credentialing, open educational resources, and quality online learning dominate the most recent 2021 report (PDF). This year’s report offers overviews on technological trends as well as social, economic, environmental, and political ones. In 2020, the report began including short implications essays. In 2021, there were five such essays including ones on higher education in South Africa by Laura Czerniewicz of the University of Cape Town; on Australia by Jon Mason of Charles Darwin University; and Turkey by Aras Bozkurt of Anadolu University. The three authors of those reports are the Silver Lining or Learning guests for Episode #68.

Gilly Salmon is a leader in online learning, e-learning, and blended learning, having spent 30 years in the university sector in the UK and Australia as Professor and Pro Vice-Chancellor.  She is founder and C.E.O of Education Alchemists Ltd; a company formed around her life’s work of Carpe Diem learning design methodology, pedagogical transformation, online teaching, technology enhanced learning, the 5 stage model, and e-tivities.  In this episode Dr. Salmon discusses four possibilities for an education world post-pandemic, including (1) restore, (2) adapt, (3) evolve, and (4) transform as well as her five stage model of online teaching and e-moderating.

Hosts reflect on the past 4 episodes (#62-65) with special guest Scott McLeod.  Episode 62 | Participatory creativity with Vlad Glaveanu & Edward ClappEpisode 63 | Let children play with Pasi Sahlberg & Alex HarperEpisode 64 | Self-directed learning with Peter Gray and Bria BloomEpisode 65 | Innovative Learning at Massive Scale: Let’s nQuire about the Future of FutureLearnDiscussion topics include the halo effect, creativity in schools, deeper learning, as well as the future of learning.

FutureLearn from the Open University (OU) in the UK offers a unique example of how massive open online courses (MOOCs) can be designed for active and engaging learning.  Mike Sharples, the former Academic Lead of FutureLearn, joins us to discuss the purposeful design of FutureLearn toward social learning, which involves inquiry and discussions as central to the pedagogical design of the platform.  We additionally talk about citizen inquiry, mobile learning, online learning, science education, human-centered design of personal technologies, innovative pedagogy, artificial intelligence, cognitive science, MOOC design, and much more.   

Children come into the world with an instinctive drive to play, explore, and learn. These drives are shaped by our evolutionary past to make us who we are. Schooling, in contrast, suppresses these drives through one-size fits all curricula and a predetermined age-constrained progression. This begs the question, what would learning look like if the emphasis were on students driving the learning, setting their own goals, and working towards achieving them? This is the idea of self-directed learning. A self-directed education encourages students to play and explore, allowing their natural instincts, curiosity, and drives to flourish.In this episode, we will speak with Peter Gray, research professor of psychology at Boston College as well as contributor to Psychology Today  blog Freedom to Learn, and Bria Bloom, a born and raised unschooler as well as the Executive Director of the Alliance for Self-Directed Education to explore the theories of human nature and evolution that drive this approach, whether self-directed learning can work for all learners, and understand  what unschooling looks like and how it can function in the world we live in today.  

Play is essential for child development but is not always encouraged within formal educational settings. Increasingly, children are losing the freedom, time, and space for play. They are under more adult supervision and play itself is becoming structured. At school, play is pushed aside for more formal academic content. In this episode, we have invited Pasi Sahlberg, a Professor of Education Policy at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, and coauthor of Let the Children Play: Why more play will save our schools and help children thrive (with William Doyle, 2019) alongside Alexandra Harper, an accomplished practitioner and leader in the early childhood, primary and tertiary sectors across government and independent systems to talk about the importance of play in education systems. 

The role of creativity in education has always been deemed necessary and important. In this episode, we discuss a new framework of viewing creativity as a participatory process in which creativity is a result of an interaction between elements, distributed across social, cultural, psychological, temporal, and material elements. Rather than defining certain individuals as ‘creative,’ the participatory creativity framework proposes a more democratic approach to creativity, empowering individuals to create and find agency within an evolving process. We are joined by guest speakers Dr. Vlad P. Glăveanu, Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Psychology and Counseling at Webster University Geneva, Associate Professor II at the Centre for the Science of Learning and Technology (SLATE), and Edward P. Clapp, Ed.D. a Principal Investigator at Project Zero of the Harvard Graduate School of Education.  

Hosts Chris Dede, Curt Bonk, Punya Mishra & Yong Zhao gather to reflect on the past five episodes (#57-#60) and provide commentary.Episode 60 | Transforming Higher Education Policy and Practice for the Global Common GoodEpisode 59 | It’s Time to be Inclusive and Include UDLEpisode 58 | Unpacking the Digitization and Datafication of Education: Thoughts from Finland and BeyondEpisode 57 | Technology in Special Education and the National Center for Innovation, Design, and Digital LearningEpisode 56 | Welcome to the Wonderful World of Openness  Conversation topics include remote learning, brand recognition, and the power of Universal Design for Learning (UDL).