My superhero origin story is the ostracism I felt from the school system. I have sat in so many classes thinking of all the different ways the teacher could be facilitating the learning to harness the knowledge and enthusiasm of the students in the class while my life force was drained from my body from talking head teaching. My personal mission is to bring the lecture down from its dominance over post secondary classes which reveals my core judgement, as Boling et al discuss core judgements are not easily separated from design (2017) and I am transparent in my values around this. I am in a position where I do not need to accept design work that is not aligned to my values and my core judgements around lecture dominance being problematic.
From my observations subject matter experts who are hired in the college system want to share what they know because they love what they know. However, knowing something well and talking about it and teaching for learning are not the same. Knowing is not the way to get learners passionate and interested about a subject.
I use the project management tools and skills I have learned (my background and education are in project management) but mainly within that, the change management skills. I find practitioners need support to make change. There is a full grieving process instructors can go through when they consider the old ways they have been teaching with the new ways I am advocating and co-creating with them. I am not always amazing at helping people through change. I need to walk away sometimes. I recall an instructor once telling me they wanted their students to complete an activity “to keep them busy” and I could not respond with grace. I just stared into their eyes until they stammered “that is the exact opposite of what we are doing here right?” I work on becoming better at facilitating change because I think it is the most important thing I need to do in my work as an ID. It’s a power I want to get better at.
Our goals as an institution is to align our learning with experiential place based learning (EPBL) and I am good at that. Who could have predicted this as a superpower? I can build any topic out to be around problem based or a field school experience or service project or active learning. I can take almost any content and make it either for, about or in place.I feel strong ties to the place I live, as a settler my ties are superficial at best but the relationship to land and people in our place deepens the more I teach and share from this perspective
Design Tools
Inspired by Lachneb and Bolings’ (2018) Summary of ID tools reported by practitioners (pp.44) I have created my own table of tools used in my ID practice
References:Boling, E., Alangari, H., Hajdu, I., Guo, M., Gyabek, K., Khlaif, Z., Kizilboga, R., Tomita, K., Alsaif, N., Lachheb, A., Bad, H., Ergulec, F., Zhu, M., Basdogan, M., Buggs, C., Sar, A., Techawitthayachinda, R. (2017). Core Judgements of Instructional Designers in Practice. Performance Improvement Quarterly. https://doi.org/10.1002/piq.21250
Lachleb, A. & Boling, E. (2017) Design tools in practice: instructional designers report which tools they use and why. Journal of Computing in Higher Education. (30) 34-54. https://doi-org.ezproxy.royalroads.ca/10.1007/s12528-017-9165-x
December 12, 2021 at 6:49 am
Well said, Karen! I once blurted out, “Kill to content!” to a group of instructors who were struggling to ‘fit everything in’ with regard to specific curricular content. I feel strongly that specific subject matter will be lost to the majority if we neglect the ‘hidden curriculum’ which is constituted by relationships first and foremost. I work in the BC K-12 system, and the implementation of our current curriculum brought with it greater focus on “Core Competencies” in areas of communication, thinking, and identity, plus “Curricular Competencies” for each specific subject. All of these are skills-based, and the core ones are relationship-dependent. In addition to these, we are moving towards greater competency-based assessment (B.C.’s Curriculum, n.d.). All of these rely on authentic relationships and social learning. This is a wonderful step in the direction of learner engagement and ownership, but I find myself wondering if and when this philosophy will spread upwards to post-secondary. It’s a huge encouragement to see your passion for this!
~Alisha
Curriculum. (n.d.). Retrieved December 12, 2021, from https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/.
December 12, 2021 at 6:49 am
Well said, Karen! I once blurted out, “Kill to content!” to a group of instructors who were struggling to ‘fit everything in’ with regard to specific curricular content. I feel strongly that specific subject matter will be lost to the majority if we neglect the ‘hidden curriculum’ which is constituted by relationships first and foremost. I work in the BC K-12 system, and the implementation of our current curriculum brought with it greater focus on “Core Competencies” in areas of communication, thinking, and identity, plus “Curricular Competencies” for each specific subject. All of these are skills-based, and the core ones are relationship-dependent. In addition to these, we are moving towards greater competency-based assessment (B.C.’s Curriculum, n.d.). All of these rely on authentic relationships and social learning. This is a wonderful step in the direction of learner engagement and ownership, but I find myself wondering if and when this philosophy will spread upwards to post-secondary. It’s a huge encouragement to see your passion for this!
~Alisha
Curriculum. (n.d.). Retrieved December 12, 2021, from https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/.
December 12, 2021 at 3:45 pm
I wholeheartedly agree with so much you’ve said Karen! “Knowing something well and talking about it and teaching for learning are not the same” isn’t something I’d thought about until I had started university with a instructor who was an successful expert in their field, but an absolute challenge to learn from in the classroom. Pushing beyond the boundaries of traditional lectures and creating rich learning is definitely a super power!
– Zac
December 12, 2021 at 3:45 pm
I wholeheartedly agree with so much you’ve said Karen! “Knowing something well and talking about it and teaching for learning are not the same” isn’t something I’d thought about until I had started university with a instructor who was an successful expert in their field, but an absolute challenge to learn from in the classroom. Pushing beyond the boundaries of traditional lectures and creating rich learning is definitely a super power!
– Zac