Instructor-led teaching and Open Educational Resources

Education, as practiced in much of higher education is instructor-led, including online education.  In recent years there has been a flurry of interest in the use of open educational resources for learning with some organizations pushing the agenda that students can learn difficult topics simply by relying on what peer students know or can determine.  Some have questioned this concept and have suggested that instructor expertise is needed to guide cohorts of student learners.  Many colleges (often for-profits) rely on well-crafted lesson plans for instructors to follow, and include learning materials.  This concept is different from a traditional college teaching experience in which faculty are asked to create a semester syllabus, select a textbook, gather appropriate materials and guide students through the learning experience.


The purpose of this note is to suggest that things are indeed changing in higher education; the hand-crafted instructor-led experience may well be too expensive going forward. I suggest the current model may be replaced with instructors becoming even more "guides-on-the-side" that we ever envisioned when that catch phrase was used in the early 1990s. Why do I suggest that the model may change (or is already changing)? I think the OER movement will provide more and more excellent materials - thus, a key attribute of a an excellent instructor may become someone who has the knowledge to sift through the vast amounts of open learning materials to craft a pathway for students through the welter of materials available.  Thus, still the "g-o-t-s"  (guide on the side), but in a bit of a different role - making sense of what's out there. The good news is that there remains a role for faculty (faculty-led) and that technology, social media and OER is making a difference in improving higher education.

Can faculty shift to the above "g-o-t-s" model? What should Sloan-C do to improve faculty skill in an enhance "g-o-t-s" model?  Should topics like those listed below be the subject of Sloan-C workshops?

  • How to find materials
  • How to evaluate, sift, and organize
  • How to teach in a g-o-t-s model
    • find
    • present
    • organize
    • specify outcomes
    • share
    • rework
    • learn from others
    • get to an end point quicker
    • question
  • And, for all these things, what are the best support infrastructures:
    • blogs
    • wikis
    • voice thread
    • conferences/virtual conferences
    • .. and loads of other stuff
    • Can we create immersive experiences?
There is much to do - your comments on what you see as the future are welcomed.
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How to increase instructor's presence in large courses?

Submitted by scagnoli on May 11, 2010 - 1:54pm.

If classes may become larger because of the use of technology, then it becomes more important that students find instructor's comments or explanations at their fingertips when they are needed. I think this applies to the 'g-o-t-s' model that you mention.

And a way to achieve this is through the use of micro-lectures, so that students can have the instructor comments or instructions just when they need them. By micro-lectures I mean short video clips where the instructor presents a topic, comments on students work, demonstrates something such as how to solve an equation, or provide quick comments on the weekly assignments. (Several examples of micro lectures can be found in Lanny Arvan's class blog)

These short interventions will contribute to enhance "instructor's presence" especially  in large enrollment courses, making the instructor comments available for a time when the students need it. Something like the Just-in-time-teaching concept. I believe this will be part of growing into more blended or distance learning approaches.

My 2 cents,

Norma

micro-lectures

Submitted by jbourne on May 11, 2010 - 1:58pm.

So, just like we do now -- using small youtube videos to help augment the g-o-t-s strategy is a good one.  Makes sense - many people in fact do this a lot now;  perhaps it might be accurate to say that people are already transitioning to this model....

Variation on a theme

Submitted by larvan on May 11, 2010 - 1:40pm.

I think a good metaphor is "overlapping conversations."  Instructors likely will have an ensemble conversation going with the entire class.  When students have blogs, like this one, instructors may also have individual conversations with each student where other students can eavesdrop or chime in.  So the instructor will be commenting on ideas the students initiate. 

I am less sanguine on the idea that instructors will assemble content for an OER or a bunch of OERs.  However, if you view YouTube as an OER, then bringing in open some open content will happen.  I just don't see it as the textbook replacement you seem to be envisioning.  More likely, instructors will ahve their own library of content they've made or gathered over time and rely on that.

textbooks, OER and the like

Submitted by jbourne on May 11, 2010 - 1:45pm.

Good point, Lanny!  I should have mentioned textbooks -- my favorite!  But, as we have seen quite a few good text books are in open resources as well.   You make me think also to ask about how a group like Merlot, maintaining an open resource of materials, might feed into this interesting future we are envisioning.   

I also like your "overlapping conversations" metaphor.  The words eavedrop and chime-in make a lot of sense as a paradigm - those will be hard to swallow for the ole-timey instructor, won't they?

Thanks for posting!!

John

Sugar for the hard to swallow

Submitted by larvan on May 11, 2010 - 2:53pm.

Maybe better language is kibbitz.  That's what we old timers like to do. 

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