By Anders Norberg (Education Strategist, Campus Skellefteå, Sweden )
Imagine yourself as a teacher with virtually no media in a face-to-face teaching environment in an isolated part of the world. You have 30 students who are going to learn x. You have them all under a tree. You have nothing but your knowledge and your students—no Internet, no library, no video, no cell phones, no books, no paper, no chalk board. What can you do? Ask them about their experiences with the subject? Start discussions? Tell them things? Probably. Not easy, but clean in some ways. If they only knew what you know. What else can you do in this situation except tell them what you know in a kind of transfer-of-knowledge project? If you had only one book, you would probably read aloud now and then (like professors in early medieval universities). But sometimes you feel that you would rather tell them things in your own words (in medieval universities the lecture, “lectio,” was born this way, often followed by “disputatio,” discussion).
Suddenly someone brings in paper and pencils for all. What a relief. Now things go a little more smoothly. Students can take notes. Would you mind if they take notes word-for-word when you give a lecture? (Medieval professors didn’t like it at all—the student could then sell the notes or, worse, lecture himself. Students who tried were thrown out for a year.). But, more importantly, students could be given more advanced assignments. They could formulate ideas and questions together. They could be given homework. They could write texts themselves. They could create.
Then suddenly textbooks arrive for everyone. Fantastic. (Like in universities in late medieval times, when printed material became available for students). Now you don’t have to tell them everything because they can read for themselves under your guidance, under the tree and at home, individually and together. And in combination with the pencils and the paper, the possibilities multiply. You can concentrate the time under the tree on questions and problems, correcting misunderstandings, stimulating discussions, enabling applications, developing criticism. You might even organize a distance course.
Now, would you still keep talking all day and telling the students everything just in case they can’t read or do not understand the book, or because they say that it is dull to read? Do you tell them what’s important in the book instead? Or do you explain the content so they can read more easily later? How do you design the blend between oral lecture culture, books, and writing possibilities? What is effective and what works?
But what if those books were going to replace you in a longer perspective? (“Lectures were once useful; but now, when all can read, and books are so numerous, lectures are unnecessary,” attributed to Samuel Johnson according to Boswell.) But in retrospect we know that the teacher’s role survived the book. Some teachers succeeded by integrating the book, some by adding it.
And then along come film, radio lectures, video…and Internet access with an abundance of tools and communication possibilities. What is possible then? How can it all blend into your teaching? And in a student’s learning? When is new technology so integrated that we don’t need the “blending”/ “hybrid”/ “mixed-mode” metaphors any longer? Or does it all end with a lot of media and no teacher?
For every media enhancement, there is a blending possibility. Some institutions and teachers use it for the same basic course concept. Others use it for real change, in some sense, seeking the future of education. These are the blenders that I would propose. Things can change, become better and more effective, offering more freedom and options to both teachers and students. More responsibility for learning can be shifted to students with more asynchronous media. The teacher’s job becomes different but not necessarily easier. The freedom for students to learn in their own way increases. Some students do not have to sit in school all day. They do asynchronous work with help of media instead of synchronous attendance. More freedom, more possibilities, more responsibility—for all? And what is adding and what is blending?
6 Comments
Jared Stein says:
Sep 7, 2011
I enjoyed this perspective–thanks for sharing it.
Having taught in China, where we did have pencils and paper, but the latter was very limited, I can attest to what a mind-opening experience back-to-basics teaching seems. It shows how much we take for granted today, and illustrates the very real power that our resources and technology can bring–if only we would employ them for maximum effect, rather than simply out of habit.
BTW, do you have a source for the “Medieval professors didn’t like [verbatim note taking] all” bit? I have a colleague that would love that kind of anecdote in context of copyright law.
Anders Norberg says:
Sep 8, 2011
Glad you liked it. The source for the ban on exact lecture notes is from Istvan Hajnal (1959) L’ensignement de lecriture aux universites medevial, Academie des Sciences de Hongrie (Budapest). McLuhan uses Hajnal’s work heavily in “The Gutenberg Galaxy” (I saw it first there but read Hajnal later).
McLuhan translates the citation of Hajnal on p95: “after careful consideration ( the Faculty) decided in favour of the first method; that the professor should speak fast enough to be understood, but too fast for the pen to follow him…students who in order to oppose this statute themselves, or by means of their servants and followers, should shout out or whistle or stamp their feet would be excluded from the Faculty for one year.” ( from p 64-65 in 2 nd ed of Hajnals book).
This with stamping feet etc was probably a method of making the lecturer repeat himself or speak more slowly. Students took turns sometimes also, writing a sentence each to cope with the lecture speed. This regulation was decided at the Faculty of Arts in Paris 1335 if I don’t misunderstand it.
The more commercial side of this (students selling lecture notes, etc) has been discussed by EmidIo Campi in ‘Schorlarly Knowledge: Textbooks of Early Modern Europe’ (2008), p 45f, available in parts in Google books – as is McLuhans book.
Funny, isn’t it? I guess medieval professors feared for their living and saw copying and later printing as threats. Had they only known what printing as technology should contributed with in the longer perspective – things as democracy, freedom of thought and expression, development of scientific publishing…
Steve Ehrmann says:
Oct 9, 2011
I explored this line of thinking some time back: the thought experiment of imagining what it would be like without technology. The first time I tried it I was startled at how many people saw problems in adapting (say) reading (just as Socrates had foretold). After many such discussions with academics, it became obvious that (a) were headed in this direction almost inevitably, driven by the increasing specialization of knowledge, our need to educate a growing population, our need for mobility, etc. But all these steps involve loss as well as gain. Perhaps some of the notions in this article are still worth discussing:
http://www.tltgroup.org/resources/or%20quality.htm
Anders Norberg says:
May 28, 2012
This blog post seems to have been of some interest elsewhere on the web also, scooped on for example http://www.scoop.it/t/21stc-learning-in-low-resource-environments/p/1801161120/a-back-to-basics-thought-experiment-about-blended-learning-blended-learning-toolkit and reproduced as a blogpost in a blog unknown to me at http://ozmahouseeducationalconsulting.com/2011/10/18/a-back-to-basics-thought-experiment-about-blended-learning/ and twittered a little here and there. No problem at all.
But I would like to, as the writer of this now old blog post, add just one thing: The tree itself, the original space where this thought experiment starts, is in itself a synchronous medium, a piece of education technology. We forget this, the education space is in our education genes as teachers. But it is not necessarily the the platform to which all technology later is connected, to enhance the platform. The tree – the shade of the tree and the space for education outlined so people not disturb, is enabling education, it is not identical with education, it is a tool. And when would we in this thought experiment leave the shade of the tree while continuing the learning – or use it when needed, just like any other tool? How can we re-innovate spaces as tools among other tools for learning, and stop defining learning as basically a space / classroom?
Jen Devine says:
Nov 1, 2012
I really enjoyed reading this because it gives a nice summary of the idea of blended learning and what it can be if we truly focus on “blending”. Technology in the classroom is an invaluable tool if it is used properly so now as teachers we need to continue to perfect how we blend components. I get excited that this idea is becoming more popular because it will at least take away the fear all teachers have of keeping students who are absent for long periods of time up to speed in their studies. It’s going to do a lot more than that too!
Maurice Ward says:
Jan 28, 2013
Thanks Anders, a nice narrative, one I’ve tried to ‘sell’ faculty over the years. As an education designer and staff developer I regularly meet people who have spent a life time investing in a way of teaching and that investment, good or bad, is often the biggest impediment to change. Your model helps to show that all of us are already invested in blended learning but because it’s so familar we don’t recognise it. Likewise we all use technolgy of one kind or another.
In moving to the current modalities – Internet, interactive tools, etc. I usually find the way to engage reluctant starters is to find an area of their teaching that is a burden to them and with them, figure out away that the new blend might address that. We all hate change. unless we see some practical benefits to US in it.