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?
17 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:
(Link no longer available)
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.
Marc Schulz says:
Jul 20, 2013
Anders, I am preparing a professional learning opportunity about blended elarning, I would like to add you article to our LMS. Would you mind if we use this blog as an activation piece to get teachers thinking?
Anders Norberg says:
Jul 22, 2013
Dear Marc! No problem, just use it but with reference to me and this blog! Glad you find it useful! / Anders Norberg
miriam torzillo says:
Mar 12, 2014
A friend of mine and her partner were in Nepal to deliver workshops to teachers in new methods of teaching literacy to ESL learners. Somewhere on the trip their suitcase of resources, books, laminated visuals etc was lost. They arrived in the first small village to teach without any of the ‘tools’ they were used to. What they did?
They used what was there, human resources, natural materials, stories, Boal techniques, role-play and interaction to help students develop their understanding of the concepts. It was flipped alright, flipped around to what was there, what they already knew and had experienced. As a drama and dance educator, it seems as if we have always tried to reach students where they are and to customise learning to their needs and stories and to allow them to direct the learning. But I suppose we ‘must’ adopt technologies as a part of what we do, because that’s the way it is, or is it?
Anders Norberg says:
Aug 21, 2014
Thanks Miriam for your interesting example from real life! Yes, in practice we use what we have at hand for improvising and solving our problems. And “blending” kind of says that there is no automatic preference for all that is new and technical, it has to be connected to our experience and what we want to do and who our learners are and what their contexts are, etc.
Your last sentence about “must” – well I think that at a special stage ICT media and tools is just the best and most convenient tools we have at hand, so it becomes more the question of why not to use them.
Carol Stipe says:
Jun 7, 2014
Anders,
Thank you for a delightful article. I am faced with technology I do not understand and somehow find comfort and hope in your words.
Anders Norberg says:
Aug 21, 2014
Thanks for your comment. I think ICT technology is, slowly, being integrated into teaching and learning, and not suddenly replacing everything that was before. At least must that be the demands for something sustainable in the future. But, when new tools and media are being integrated, this changes also the normality of our concept of education – as for example many education metaphors at the present are place-and classroom-related, which directs our thinking also about the use of ICT. At late medieval times university culture was very oral, synchronous, multi-layered and associative. With the adoption of print and text university culture has adapted more to a static text-based linear reasoning and presentation. Now it is kind of spiraling back again, on another level. But learning is still learning and demands work and social context.
Jayantha says:
Sep 6, 2014
Thanks Anders,
I came across this site while googling and exploring how a blended course could be assessed. I think the BLtooolkit will be useful for me for the end of year assessment of a blended learning course in dentistry i have been conducting though university moodle page in Fiji Islands.
Incorporate Blended Learning into your Classroom | Magoosh says:
Feb 4, 2015
[…] learning is incorporating new tools and technologies into the classroom. When you think about it, we’ve been doing blended learning since the dawn of time — teachers incorporated literacy in ancient Greece, books after the printing press, and […]
Wendy Kilfoil says:
Feb 23, 2015
We had an English teaching officer at the US Embassy here who actually went into rural areas in Southern Africa and gave classes to teachers on how to teach with absolutely nothing. This was in the late 20th century. I would not guarantee that in several parts of Africa this would not still be a need. However, electricity and connectivity are still problems throughout sub-Saharan Africa which impacts on the blend we use, on the media we can incorporate. It also seems in this geographical area that we need to work with what can be accessed on cell phones as they are fairly ubiquitous. In thinking about ‘blended’, an image came to mind from a presentation I saw recently: everything in a blender. The metaphor does not work for my conceptualization of blended – not something homogenous with the parts indistinguishable but a combination where each activity contributes uniquely. ‘Uniquely’ is also important in the sense that I don’t actually like lecture notes or PowerPoints to be put online. But I must say I’m talking as a person who has never actually designed a blended learning course so perhaps I’m wrong about this.
Dr. Scott Simmerman says:
Mar 1, 2015
My focus has been on organizational development for the past 35 years, focusing on issues of people and performance. There is not any possibility that people would take a course and then pop out and do things differently. Some, of course, learn and change that way but that is most certainly not common.
“Blended” learning simply offers a way to continue to support any classroom learning with alternative kinds of support. And, with training so scarce these days in so many corporations (especially for mid-level managers who are chartered with generating improvements and change and motivation and innovation), online is one of the few ways that they can access information.
Similarly, there is a critical need for post-“training”followup in order to embed any knowledge into actual behavior. There are all sorts of “blended” ways to accomplish that feedback and collaborative support, from periodic group meetings to team discussions to coaching sessions to emails and tweets.
The good thing about being human is that we have extraordinarily flexible ways of learning and zillions of possible ways of connecting and communicating. The downside of that is that there is no silver bullet to get things done.
Performing as a student is very different than performing in the workplace. Sure, the key is learning to learn and all that. But scoring on a test is a much different intellectual challenge than dealing with customers, management, systems and processes and all those other things that occur during a long career (or more commonly, a long series of short careers!).
Patrick Lordan says:
Mar 13, 2015
Anders,
As a former English as a Second Language instructor, I had colleagues from various countries who had taught in very remote (a relative term!) areas of the globe with few resources, and your post reminded me of their accounts of teaching with nothing but what was on hand. One man taught in a village in the bush of Tanzania, and had a blackboard, a few books and no experience. I was able to send him a box of maps, which, surprisingly to my friend, made it through the post–a few maps radically enlarged the students’ views of the world they were a part of and provided months of engaging discussion.
Another colleague taught in a desert village in the Sudan for the British Council, and one time someone showed up with a movie projector powered by a gas generator. The film was projected on a wall of the village mosque and featured, among other things, a lavish buffet, the likes of which no one in the village had ever seen. Several students tried to grab food off the buffet ‘table’ during the showing. We take so much for granted, having such a buffet of information, tools, and resources available to us–all the time. Our challenge is to limit, to curate, or perhaps to judiciously blend what will challenge our students to view the world with new eyes.
Thank you for your post. It continues to challenge my thinking about what is most important about how we teach and how we learn.