Dorn proposal for 2009 THATCamp
- May 17th, 2009
- shermandorn
For the record, below is what I proposed for THATCamp. Since I wrote the following months ago, I’ve had additional thoughts on where to go with this, but origins and drafts matter, so here it is, warts and all:
Rant/discussion/query:
Dialog: (How) can we generate and maintain the type of dramatic/performative classroom interaction in an online environment that exists in the best discussion and seminar classes? Face to face classes have a spontaneity that generates such dialogue, and teachers or facilitators can play the Devil’s-advocate role in a way that hones the issues moment to moment, iteratively. But in an asynchronous environment, there is no such inherent moment-to-moment tension and drama This is one essence of humanities classes that I have been unable to replicate online, and the technology skeptics such as Margaret Soltan doubt it is possible.
Central questions:
Are there elements of a live-dialogue drama that can be translated into an asynchronous environment, or should we give up on the “aha!” moment embedded in an argument?
If the first, what are those elements?
If the second, how do we pick different goals that still serve that conversational, perspective-shifting goal for the liberal arts?
May 19th, 2009 at 6:23 pm
I wonder if students have already started figuring this out. Have you ever noticed the video responses they send to each other on YouTube, often in friendly debates?
May 20th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
In my experience most of the “drama” in the seminar room consists of the professor calling on That Guy Who Never Does the Reading. I am not sure how important it is to transfer this to the digital environment!
I find the exchange of ideas, drama not withstanding, is at a much higher level in online classes, where students get to think for a moment about what they want to say, go back to the book to pick up a supporting detail, and check their spelling and grammar before they make their comment.
As to the “Aha! moments” they are still happening and students post about them. When a student writes that “it was so interesting when I learned X” she is sharing such a moment.
(Thanks for posting your proposal–great idea! I will put mine up in a day or two.)
May 25th, 2009 at 10:02 am
Sterling and Larry,
Thanks for commenting! Sterling: I wish my students were so engaged, but it’s my responsibility to teach students whether or not they can upload to Youtube!
Larry: there are no guarantees in F2F classes, certainly. My current question on this topic revolves around the conditions and preparation necessary to generate that drama and ‘aha!’ moments. Neither F2F nor online chauvenism serves us well.
May 25th, 2009 at 11:59 am
[…] as a “grammar” that I would be predisposed to impose on online seminars. But as my original proposal for THATCamp pointed out, I don’t think the world (or learning) works in the same way […]
May 27th, 2009 at 10:49 am
Sherman,
I was wondering if you’ve looked at some of the literature from the Computer Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW) community. While not specifically focused on education, it does delve into problems of how teams of colleagues work together (whether its engineers, software developers, medical professionals) on common problems. In some ways this is more “seminar” like than traditional lecture classroom settings.
One of the problems with online “seminars” (especially asynchronous ones) is that we lack many of the subtle ques we get in f2f interaction (body language, absence/presence of stress or emphasis in our voices, etc) that can drive those hot exchanges of ideas. (generally discussed as “telepresence”).
As a graduate of a distance education program (www.lis.uiuc.edu/programs/leep/) that was not asynchronous, featured live audio from the instructor and an interactive chat room for students, it’s a little sad to see so many discussions about online higher education focus only on asynchronous approaches. Granted they do have some advantages (as do larger in person lectures), but why not push towards more synchronous approaches for classes that are more about interaction than content.
#devilsadvocate
May 27th, 2009 at 1:23 pm
Richard,
You’re absolutely right that if we *can* have live interaction, we should. Unfortunately, in lots of institutional settings that’s very difficult because of various assumptions built around online courses and programs — often that it should serve students’ scheduling needs. Is that ideal? No, absolutely not, but for many faculty, it is either politically or institutionally impossible to mandate scheduled sessions. And for many others, the ideal size of an Elluminate session (no more than 9, according to many I’ve talked with as well as my own experience) is incompatible with class sizes that will fly at a specific institution or within a specific program. The alternatives (e.g., essentially holding twice as many class sessions online as for a F2F class) turn into a speed-up for faculty in many instances.
That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t push for live online classes when possible. But I think that there’s another reason to think about asynchronous classes: if we can learn something about them, we also expand our skills with live classes. I’ve picked up a number of techniques from very-large mass lecture research, and the typical size of my undergraduate classes is under 40.
June 24th, 2009 at 11:55 am
[…] example, what does it mean that one can use Drupal to think through an answer to ShermanDorn’s question as well as […]
March 9th, 2010 at 4:10 am
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