First Rule of Book Club...

Our class last week was focused on how to lead a productive book club session. We discussed some do’s and don’ts of book clubs and then we simulated a book club experience by having a chosen few of the class participate in a discussion of Marc Prensky’s “In the 21st Century University, Let’s Ban (Paper) Books” published in the Chronicle of Higher Education. As I watched the simulation, I saw some of the values that Kristin explained to us. For example, when one of the participants was getting off track by talking about the overall absurdity of the piece or talking too much about their personal experience, the facilitator (Kristin) was able to reign it back in and gently guide people through a productive discussion.

At one point, I remember I was itching to get into the discussion because the opinion was being formed that Prensky was simply too naive, so I aggressively tapped Evan out in order to put my two cents into the conversation. While it is generally good to have participants be passionate about the book club subject matter, I felt like also should have toed a line of sharing the discussion space with everyone else while making sure my opinion is heard, but not dominant. The most important job of the facilitator in those moments is to recognize any imbalance of expression and address it in gentle and objective ways to make the conversation smoother.

One of the biggest takeaways from the class was that book club discussions are for the benefit of the participants not the facilitators. It really is not about imparting our wisdom or pushing people toward a certain conclusion. It is more about giving people the tools to reach their own interpretations, while being mindful that those interpretations are grounded in the text being discussed. I hope that our own book clubs that we participate in this week remember this philosophy, as we all want to lead discussions where our participants feel empowered to express themselves and not feel like they have to conform to a paradigm that the facilitators have established.

Redemption, Unfortunate Genres, and Communities of Practice

Our in-class discussions last week were once again shaped by LEOs, which for some reason needed a redemption. I was given the LEO of a lawyer, a role which entailed thinking of the arguments and counterarguments for claims made in a New York Times opinion article. This particular article, “AI and Big Data Could Power a New War on Poverty,” was quite easy to contest. Besides belonging to the unfortunate genre of “Tech will save education” (which seems to be a repeating theme in this class), the author was quite astute in her incorrect opinion that AI has no biases and therefore could provide an evaluation-free analysis of public assistance programs. The author also proposed a dramatic restructuring of modern American life that was definitely not that big a deal! Everyone will be matched with their corresponding job at the other end of the country maybe and all children will be tutored in isolation based on their strengths and weaknesses. Cool! (*ok, ending obnoxious sarcasm*)

            Fortunately, my other classmates that also had the lawyer LEO were also not having her arguments, and dissected them point by point. I realized midway through out discussion that another point of this exercise was to come up with reasons why her arguments were appealing, but we did not focus on that at all. I thought of how influential the author's credentials were, a researcher at Stanford University, and the visibility of The New York Times opinion column. Her argument was likely to have influence somewhere. I then appreciated it when Kristin suggested that her audience might be people who would fund and support the Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality (where the authors works) because it ties in with our information and news literacy discussions. Ultimately, information has value and it’s important that we think of these considerations when presented with an opinion we might disagree with: what are the author’s motives in making this argument?

            We later jigsawed into a different group, where we had a much more robust conversation on all of the learning theories and strategies we have learned thus far. One particular discussion that stood out was our rehashing of what really happened at orientation and whether any of that knowledge transferred. When I recited some of the activities that we had done (all of us were second-years), Nicco pointed out that a lot of these activities were lectures where everyone was sitting around and listening to UMSI’s amalgamation of policies. He believed our time would have been better spent in cohorts, beyond the Information Challenge, where we would discuss the implications of these policies within consistent small groups. This idea resonated with me a lot as I considered the challenges inherent in a school like UMSI that was trying to bring together disciplines and build communities.

            Nicco’s idea also translated well with this week’s readings, as we considered how book clubs or “literature circles” help sustain communities of practice. The idea that learning becomes more engaging and productive when discussing a common element as a group is the central ethos of a book club and explains its popularity. I was struck by the comparisons between the “kid” book club and the “adult” book club in the Daniels and da Rosa dos Santos readings respectively, as they each seemed to have the effect of creating community in addition to creating learning opportunities. I think the major difference I saw was the latitude that was given to the kids in the choice of books they were going to read. The adult book club was much more goal-oriented (how can we learn about design principles so we have a better contextual awareness for our research?), while the kids were more unconstrained, as literacy by any book necessary was the ultimate objective. Reading about the learning practices in these book clubs, I couldn’t help but think of the book club that I attended as a teen in my small-town library. Not only was I able to read boundary-pushing books I couldn't read in school, I also met people who I am still friends with today. That book club now happens online, but is more logistically challenging with our complex adult lives always getting in the way. A strong, shared purpose, as well as a regular schedule, is necessary to have an effective book club experience. In establishing communities of practice, navigating these logistical challenges and communicating these norms and expectations are absolutely paramount, whether or not they use a book club as their scaffolding.

Assessment Data and the Implications of Transfer

In last week’s class, we had more conversations on the differences between formative and summative assessment. We were asked to discuss ways in which formative or summative assessment could be applied in different situations, including forming a curriculum and during instruction, during a think-pair-share activity. I really like think-pair-shares for their ability to develop a personal idea into a conversation point and then a group topic. I continue to be intrigued by how formative assessment involves continuous data collection from learners. It is this data that allows instructors to make decisions about their own practices as well as what themes to focus on in a particular setting. I think there are limits to what formative assessment can tell you about the learners you are interacting with, and there might be underlying problems to your teaching that you are not gleaning from this data. I am still struggling with how to get around this problem.

            One of the main activities in this class was watching a TED talk by Jane McGonigal about how playing video games builds skills that can make for a better world. We then had to fill out a survey that asked us to rate how well we could hear the listener, whether we remembered specific elements of the talk, and to apply concepts we learned from class to the talk. I found this to be a fascinating exercise in data collection, as every question had an intention that was apparent to the instructor, but was not to the learner (me in this case). For instance, why did we get a question about the speaker’s shoes? I was caught off guard by this question. Should I have focused on her outfit and not what she was saying. However, it was a question that gauged how well we were paying attention to the video, which is potentially useful for learning activities where you want the learner to focus on visual elements. As for the talk itself, I was enthralled by her optimism for gaming communities, which I have since lost, but I think she has an important point to make about how gaming can teach us skills that are valuable for our lives outside virtual worlds. I think McGonigal could have focused more on the games that she regarded as successful examples of transfer. There are real implications that the games she cited can advance causes like climate change advocacy and diplomatic peace because that means the inverse is also possible. To what extent can video game players transfer their skills to warfare, which is becoming more simulated and dependent on algorithms? I think having that conversation about the successful transfer of skills from virtual worlds to physical worlds demands our attention to multiple possibilities, not just the peaceful ones.

            Those questions about transfer make this week’s readings all the more appropriate. Knowing what makes transfer possible is essential to applying it both in the classroom and our everyday lives. An important point in the chapter of How People Learn was how building on existing knowledge to produce transfer only works when the subject matter is both tangible and culturally relevant. Making sure that new pieces of knowledge connect authentically to students while not developing misconceptions is a difficult task. I ran into this difficulty while making my screencast about how MPrint works, as I was trying to think of an easy way to get this process across to people who have little experience with the website and come from many different backgrounds. I ultimately used a package metaphor to illustrate how a document is sent to be printed. I hoped that a package sending process would be able to be communicated across cultures and generations, and thus, would be useful metaphor that someone can easily remember and be able to apply it to other situations where file transfer and storage is needed to perform a task. As instructors, we need to be capable of thinking about the different circumstances and perspectives of our learners, as we all bring a personal history when we enter a physical or digital classroom. Applying techniques that facilitate transfer require that personal knowledge of our learners so we know how they can bring those skills to a different context.