A New Year; A New Course

It's been a while since I last wrote, as so much happened this fall. Research about program planning went right to the back burner. Perhaps I'll have a chance to revive some of those thoughts and discussions during 2011.

My program planning work is currently most intriguing for the literacy program in the housing developments. I'm finding that I'm bumping up against major and significant power issues, not in the conventional sense, in that everyone working on the project is very much on board and supportive to the degree that they can be, but in a very subtle sense, in that community-based literacy for people living in poverty (especially moms living in poverty) isn't given nearly the resources it needs. It is assumed that regular funding will do, but that's a gross underestimation of what's required. A type of David and Goliath story. Tiny funding vs huge need. We are told it's because of the difficult economic times, and yet far greater monies are spent on other things. Why those and not this? Because we're dealing with marginalized people who don't vote and won't complain?

And so, program planning becomes political in that the focus is not only on helping these women learn to read and become confident in making whatever changes the want/can in their lives, but in that we need to fight for the very life of the programming, which can make such an impact on the lives of the students, their children and their community. Wouldn't it be nice to break the cycle of low literacy?

Hence, the program has taken a decided turn in the direction of trying to make it more difficult for funders to reduce the funding. We probably can't get the funding increased to what's actually needed, but we can't afford to lose even one dime. So we're chosing projects and approaches that will (hopefully) move the program into the media's eye. At the same time, we're helping the students to find their voice, and challenging some of the systemic assumptions that have led to their being under-resourced in the first place. The hope is that by moving these programs ... and their students ... into the light, we'll be able to get enough funding for the program to do its real job: helping people learn to read, write, learn, try new things, venture forth, and generally be productive parents and citizens.

The approach I want to take is one of "situated literacy", of drawing on people's lives to determine the learning that is needed to cope - not with MY kind of life - but with THEIR lives. In order to do that, we need to be prepared to listen to the students and their needs, to look at their community and their environment, and to be realistic about what can be accomplished with all the available resources: people, time, money, energy, hope. It should be an interesting year.

Follow-Up to Lesson

The open-ended lesson was piloted, and interesting things that would apply to emergent curriculum and emergent program planning came out. Specifically, what surprised me was the quiet in the room (I had expected spirited conversation and interaction), the mild confusion about being given freedom to move around the room at will (I had expected relief), and the slight discomfort with a less-guided activity (I had expected hunger to learn to emerge). Students did have a series of questions to consider, but it wasn't until they played around with another program planning model in groups that the connections to the other models placed around the room began to be made. Note to self: start with the safety of group discussion and shared dialogue to illuminate the topic and build a base of shared experience, and THEN get students to venture out alone.

Of interest for program planning was that this border between order and chaos, the structured and the unstructured, is probably important to emergent program planning as well. While some people thrive in the self-directed environment, and are comfortable with the unpredictability of "emergence", the diversity of the stakeholder group would suggest that the management of change, the management of connections, and the management of concept-reassembly need to be considered thoroughly. The program planner needs to be able to do this management, and to be comfortable with a certain degree of unpredictability and emergence. The idea of remembering that familiar ground makes for a better take-off spot than unknown territory is also valuable. (Ie. committees need to come to an understanding of something before they can move into new risks).

Walking the Talk

Tonight I'm going to practice what I preach. The purpose of the lesson is for students to understand the role of program planning models, to consider how different models reflect different beliefs and value systems, and to begin to develop their own model. Instead of teaching anything up front though, I'm going to start by putting information about different models, old and new (some by fancy theorists and some by former students of mine), around the room. I'm going to give some basic instructions and some basic questions, and then let students wander around the room discussing what they see. At the end, we'll have a discussion about the models. I have no idea where it'll go, but I trust that no matter where they go with it, it'll be relevant. I'll tackle whatever arises.

This is emergent lesson planning, but how does this link with emergent program planning? I think if I can get students to understand the interconnectedness of the pieces, then they'll be better able to see the whole. If they see program planning as a continual discovery of options, not the rigid carrying out of a predetermined process, then they'd be prepared for some of the chaos that is inevitable in program planning. That ability (capacity?) would allow them to approach a program planning task with greater openness.

Ie. is teaching how to plan programs really about helping people develop a process-based mindset? Is gaining comfort with emergence and the unpredictable, transformative aspects of the work as important as the technical-rational piece of "how to"?

One more quick addition:

It just occurred to me that program planning models, as far as I know, are missing the element of time. They describe program planning itself as a product, not as a process. We need a model that, like Picasso's "Nude Descending a Staircase", shows an ever-evolving, emergent planning process. When we start a program planning process from scratch, we have our preconceived ideas and a bit of information, but not much more. As we begin to work with various components and see how the various "ingredients" we have foraged from the landscape fit together, and new ones begin to reveal themselves, we begin to have ideas about what needs to happen next. We learn, we integrate, we apply, we fail or succeed, and we then continue on our path of foraging and assembling.

I think what I'll do is look at the various components of program planning as we tend to identify them today (needs assessment, for example, seems critical in a new way of doing things) and look at them from a technical-rational perspective, a practical perspective, a political perspective, but then also from an emergent/connected perspective. We'll see what that does!

I'm beginning to see how my science fair project in grade 8 (Time and Space), and my interest in emergence/chaos theory etc, what I learn from wilderness canoeing, and my newfound interest in program planning fits together. :) And too bad I now have to admit publicly what a nerd I am.

New Students; Fresh Start

I've started teaching Program Planning again with a small group of great students. The first class was about what constitutes adult ed and about the role of the program planner in that larger context. The conversation was rich and varied, and I watched them struggle with their assumptions about adult ed as being a structured, formal, authoritative "product". They made significant moves however towards the idea that adult education/learning is a process, not a product. And that conversation will continue throughout the course.

The link between adult learning as process and the planner's work as "process management" did not yet appear however. That will come. It's a process in itself. Learning is a process; planning is a process; learning about learning is a process; learning about planning is a process! :)

I also had a great conversation with a colleague this week. Not a colleague in the conventional sense, as it's someone I only connect with occasionally. She's a colleague in the sense that we both plan complex programs and struggle with the ethics and politics of programs that we plan. It takes concentration and mindfulness to maintain integrity (reflecting one's values in one's actions) when confronted with strong and potentially opposing forces.

Anyway, she thinks about these things too, and had some interesting ideas about the work of making connections and relationships in planning programs. It struck such a chord with my own ideas about what makes for a good (successful) program planning experience, and how without good process management we fail in planning good programs.

It all makes me think more and more about the ideas that keep rolling around in my head about needing to move to new models of planning programs. If I read the history of program planning, I see progression from Tyler (linear) through Cervero and Wilson (political) to Sork (practical, process-reflective) to Cafarella (organic), but I think it's time we take the next step. Each of the theorists in the past worked from within their times. They looked scientifically at their craft if their world was looking at things scientifically. They saw things politically when post-modernism and the different "-isms" were coming to the fore. They moved to systems approaches when systems theory was big. I think we now need to incorporate the ideas of social networking more firmly.

Last year, I had some delicious conversations with colleagues about connectivism, and I haven't stopped thinking (or writing) about it, although I've done it more privately. However, it keeps gnawing at me, and so I need to be true to that gnawing again and try - again - to come up with a model of program planning that reflects our times now. Not as a theorist, but as a practitioner. We need change in program planning. We need to take what we've learned from Tyler, Cervero and Wilson, Cafarella, and all the others in between, and take the next step. We need to use what we're learning about the online universe to come up with new ways of planning programs and supporting adult learning, in the broadest sense of the word.

Who will I find to join me in the discussion?

New Program Planning Theory?

Program planning is about taking deliberate actions to make learning possible. In the past, program planning was seen as a primarily technical-rational process of determining the necessary ingredients, steps and intended outcomes of a structured, educational program. The underlying assumption that it was a rational process was soon dispelled by theorists who introduced the idea that program planning was a negotiated process influenced heavily by control and power issues. Some theorists addressed the power imbalances by advocating for a learner-centric model (e.g. Freire), while others (e.g. Cervero and Wilson) directly identified the political responsibility of the planner in negotiating with multiple stakeholders. Other challenges to the traditional, rational model of program planning came from other influences: feminism, postmodernism, critical theory, etc because planning does indeed occur within a given context.

Because context is so much of a factor in program planning, we need to take a look now at program planning in the new age of social networking, not because of the technology involved but because of new understandings we've gained from the processes involved with social networking. Specifically, the concept of connectivism should make us take a fresh look at program planning.

(more to follow)

Categories for Program Planning along Connectivist Lines

Key Principles

- Build relationships between people, and between people and content

- Help people discover relationships between different contents

- Avoid calcification and allow for change, shifts, chaos, creativity, innovation, unpredictability

- Allow for "rapture" by managing chaos to some degree

- The smallest unit matters, because it is the seed for inquiry

- Chaos, self-organization, emergence, challenge/disruption, change, renewed chaos is the path of learning

- The medium IS the message ... plant the initial seeds for content and process carefully

- Reflective practice and metacognition are critical

Objectives

- Instructor-suggested

- Learner-defined

- Mutable and transformative

Approach to Learning

- inquiry-based learning

- project-based learning

- problem-based learning

- critical reading

- open learning

- action learning; discovery learning

- experiential learning

- emergent curriculum

- the classroom (virtual or otherwise) is a learning community, a community of practice

Role of the Teacher

- animateur

- provocateur (Siemens)

- curator (Siemens)

- responsible catalyst

- connector

- audience

Learners

- autonomous but connected

- engaged

- thinking

- re-assembling

- connection-seeking

- meaning-making

Outcomes

- Cognitive and affective, but hard to measure

- Knowledge production

- Connection creation

Oh Yeah, and Content

- Initially, loosely focused

- Initially, somewhat filtered

- Fluid, but not vaporous

- Coherent even in moments of dissonance

Transfer from Facebook Discussion

Over the past year, a group of adult educators in adult literacy were sharing ideas about connectivism, fluid learning opportunities, rebellious curriculum development and transformative education. The following is a synopsis of the key ideas that came out of the discussion.

- Discovery of connectivism ... is it a learning theory or a teaching approach?
- Does connectivism offer an opportunity for more holistic learning and renewed desire to learn, not just online but also in the classroom?
- It seems so much more learner-directed, with students feeding into and growing their own learning networks.
- It raises the question about the role of the teacher.
- It subverts the power of the teacher and other authorities (in a positive way) because it hands power back to students.
- It reminds us of activists like Freire and Macado, who struggled with the role of the teacher in learner-directed education
- It is a matter of finding balance between order and chaos, of structure and freedom
- It's about creating "learning experiences" that learners can tap into
- What then, as educators, is to be our working process?
- We have to consider things like emergent curriculum.
- We also need a more "emergent" structure through which to present our information ... everything is so linear.
- Some software may be starting to break out of the linear learning model (eg. Waterlife)
- We still need to manage the flow of information, so we find a good balance between "trickle" and "deluge".
- What does Jungian psychology offer us about learning and soul/brain growth?
- There are specific things we can consider (metrics) that have been developed for online learning that apply to "connected learning" as a whole
- We're trying to (and more likely to) reach "rapture" through connected learning.
- There are similarities to participatory action research and design, and inquiry-based learning
- Technology has certain effects on our brains and learning that need to be considered
- The concept of knowledge is shifting in society; our PLEs look different than they did 20 years ago.
- We need to create opportunities for "double-loop thinking" if we want real change.

NAMES THAT CAME UP

Siemens and Downes
Michael Wesch
Freire
Macado
Konrad Glogowski
Czicksentmihalyi
Michelle Fine
James Gee

Social Networking Tools

I'm currently working on a project that requires me to document and evaluate a literacy program being offered in a low-income housing development. I'm also designing a 100-hour online ESL teacher training program, while teaching/developing a blended Program Planning in Adult Education course. Each of these projects are being hugely influenced by the Emerging Technologies course I'm taking, because my ideas about curriculum development and educational practice are being tossed around like a paddle-less canoe in a thunderstorm. (I love it!).

The first project, in which I'm working with strong, interesting and learning-hungry women who have been battered around by life and society, is in some ways restricted by an outdated view of "literacy". This outdated definition of literacy is focused on "autonomous" (disconnected) skill development. There are lists of things that represent "being literate", lists that are used to determine "progress" in reading and writing. Nice things with tick-boxes beside them if accomplished and demonstrated to an 'educated' person from another socio-economic world. Things that result in another document if properly achieved, one that is said to open new doors for them.

But the documents associated with these lists seem to me to be loaded with subtle messages that keep literacy learners in a subservient and marginalized position. The definition of literacy reflected in them is, in effect, a white, middle-class list of what "should" be known. It does not reflect critical aspects of "situated literacy" that could show how much these women DO know. It is more likely, inadvertently perhaps, to measure what they DON'T know. In addition, even if they could do all the things on the list perfectly, the acquired literacy would not give them access to all that we promise them if they achieve those things .... nor have we even asked them what THEY want to be able to do with their newly-developed literacy skills. It may be understanding parole paperwork or medical info about ADHD for their kids, or writing letters to complain about bed bug infestations, or understanding why their tax rebate isn't as high as they expected. Shouldn't we be asking them what they want?

How is this related to connectivism? When we see things in isolation instead of in their dynamic and ever-changing context, we lose the life of the thing. We need to see these women and their skills in the context of their community ... capable, connected, vibrant, growing. We need to allow that they know things that we don't. We need to support every effort they make to reach out and connect beyond whatever curriculum or skills we expose them to in the classroom. We need to support them in their independent thinking and acting. EVERYTHING about our teaching needs to be about reaching out and beyond, especially when we're talking about people who haven't had equal access to the privileges of middle-class life. This means giving up control, not trying to create lists and ticky-boxes that presume to encapsulate what "should" be. It means listening, being aware of personal biases and presumptions, allowing learning to emerge, describing instead of prescribing. This is situated literacy, literacy as social practice not just technical skill development.

But what to do when a course needs to be certified by someone (like the ESL one) or needs to fit into an expected curriculum (like the Program Planning one)? Then we may not be able to allow for emergent curriculum the same way, but we still need to find ways of engaging students' minds fully and creatively. The difference between a "learning management system", (even a more enlightened or open one) and something like the software "Twine" or "Diigo", which sorts but doesn't pre-chew, is remarkable. One is linear, teacher-led, didactic; the other is open, chaotic, exploratory. This open, chaotic, exploratory approach engages the mind and is propelled forward by "joy" or "rapture". Each time I go online and discover a new software (as an embodiment of a way of thinking about ideas and information and connections), I want to re-write the modules I've completed. I know I need to meet certain standards and expectations, but - like the literacy checklist - these standards are so painfully dry! They too are "autonomous", disconnected from engaged learning. I know that we (I) can do better.

I found a great article on "New Literacy Studies", which talks about literacy as social practice. I'm going to pull out of it the implications for curriculum development. I'm sure they will reflect the values of the Web 2 world and connectivism (learning is located in the community, in the way it is lived out). I'm hopeful that it'll let me more accurately show all the kinds of learning, skill development and social impacts going on in the housing development as a result of the literacy program. I'm also hoping that I can get closer to a list of "best practices" for the courses I'm developing/teaching.

Affordances

In the course on emerging technologies, we've been learning about different types of technologies, but also new ways of inspiring, evaluating, sharing and organizing learning. While the realization of what's possible (and what will be possible) in the 2.0/3.0/4.0 world is breath-taking, I've been disappointed with the same old deification of technology that I so often experience in conversations with techies. It's as if the glitter and shimmer of possibility blinds people who are too close to the technology. There are many "affordances", yes. However, if we're going to buy into the dream that computers can make learning more accessible to all, then we better take a good look at who's got computers ... and computer skills ... and who doesn't, and we better start correcting that massive imbalance. At the very least, we need to recognize the "costs" that technology has on society, information and learning too. No, not to suggest that the Ludite way of life is preferable, but to keep our eyes open about who and what we're leaving behind if we rush too quickly towards the glitter and shimmer. It's taboo to question anything too sexy and prevalent, but when I look around, I see the impact of all sorts of decisions that were made in the name of progress that don't seem so progressive in retrospect. Let's at least, as we incorporate more and more technology into learning, have the courage to look, to really look, at the downsides. Not so that we don't move forward, but rather than we move forward with sure feet and so that we don't have to turn around and mop up our messes because we didn't stop to think.

The "costs" to me are situated mainly in the exclusion of those very people who need access to real, deep and independent learning the most. These people may be marginalized by language, literacy, education, poverty ... those things that are usually called part of "social capital". Another "cost" is in the realm of artful, sophisticated use of language. My generation was taught how to read extensive and narrative texts, complicated novels and research documents. We were taught to write in a variety of styles. It involves a certain mental engagement with ideas that cannot be fed nor expressed in Twitter-land. My children have not learned the same skills, and while their global access to people and places and Facebook "friends" may have increased, their access to old great literature, and the embedded archetypes and wisdoms, is greatly reduced because they can't persevere in taking in or producing written thought. The "all things quick and easy" mentality that is "afforded" us by technology may yet return to bite us in the rump.

At the same time, I am more and more convinced of the incredible value of underlying principles of the 2.0 world. Once the course is done, I aim to take all the technologies I've been exposed to and see which I can use for the courses I'm designing. I'm also going to spend some time to see how I can combine inquiry-based learning (for adults) and online learning, using the principles of connectivism. Also, I want to bring the principles of connectivism into a classroom version of a course on emergent curriculum for adults. Mostly, emergent curriculum is created for children, but the 2.0 world seems ideal for bringing it into the adult learning world as well.

Bookmarking Assignment

This slideshow was created for the Emerging Technologies course at U of M.

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Moving Towards revisions on the PLE

Paint and words ... that's how the PLE started. I had tried a number of technological tools (CMAP, Inspiration), but the focus on getting the arrows to go to the right boxes in the right order was clearly not a true reflection of how my learning happens. And it's clearly not how I design curriculum, all in tidy boxes, no matter how many arrows I send off to run between them.

Really, the metaphor of wet paint with superimposed action words is more accurate. The vaguely overlapping puddles of "known or believed things" - where certain ideas have gelled a little more or a little less - make more sense to me than a flowchart of boxes with little fences around them. And it makes more sense to me that there is a foundational layer that is part of my identity and a surface layer at which I am taking in new information, meeting new people, trying new things, agreeing and disagreeing.

My foundational "learning landscape", the wet paint under the words, has been painted by the many learning experiences of my life. It's changeable to some degree, but unlikely to move into vastly different colour schemes at this point. I like that there are no clear boundaries between some of the understandings I've gained and put into this landscape (could I say exactly how I've come to certain conclusions about things?), and I like that in some places, my understanding is incomplete. At the same time, there are definitely places where new knowledge is causing a stirring and a ripple effect that may well influence previous understandings about things, or may fill in some of the gaps I currently feel.

However, having read other people's ideas about PLEs and technology in learning, I feel as though I need to add a third layer to my PLE, a layer of "tools" or, more aptly perhaps, "seeds". At this point, I've mentioned some of the tools or seeds on the "action words" layer of the PLE, but it's not enough.

The reason I need to think about this further is that I want to transfer this idea to curriculum development. I'm thinking of my PLE as a model of not only how I learn, but how content can be arranged, and also how learning can be at once orderly and non-linear. The orderly is important to me because I want to encourage deep thinking (which can then contribute to learners' foundational landscapes) but I want to allow for what Czichsentmihaly calls "flow", which presumes that learners can get into a learning 'zone' because they have control over pace and content.

The "seeds", I suspect, will turn out to be a real range of media. If I were working in a non-technological age, I would see myself leaving folders with provocative, interesting, contradictory, visually-stimulating information around a room and letting students (courageous ones!) figure out how to move towards the completion of a project. Online however, I could use all sorts of websites and links and documents. Now, if only I could find a program that would letter me "scatter" the seeds where I needed them.

PLEs and PLNs

I am SO not in Kansas anymore. The course on Emerging Technologies is exposing me to a great number of things I've never even heard of, and through it all I appear to be getting closer to "the heart of the matter", although I'm not sure that I even know what that "matter" is. It feels a great deal like a journey without an end, and isn't that just the finest journey to be on? Regardless, I do feel like I am beginning to grapple with some of the issues related to connectivism and how it can inform my work as curriculum developer, not just for online courses but also for f2f teaching.

The current assignment is to begin to develop a map for a PLE (personal learning environment). The other samples I saw were quite amazing, and I was struck by the mind-popping energy in PLEs vs LMSs (learning management systems). THIS is what I'm looking for as a curriculum development tool, but not for myself ... for my students. I realize the contradiction in terms: me, setting up a PLE for them. Me, still trying to "teach". Maintaining the hierarchical structure I rail against so often.

But, couldn't I get things started by planting seeds in various places, and then just watch learners explore, helping them out if (and only if) they get stuck?

I've made my "model" of a PLE into my profile picture. It represents both my PLE and how I'd like to develop a curriculum. To me, the different colours of paint represent the various areas of thought I come across ( in my daily living and "foraging"), how ideas in one area meander and colour other ideas I've come across, how sometimes they bleed into each other and create new "colours". It shows how sometimes an idea begins to have a ripple-effect (like the Gaia principle that I've named this blog after) and how one idea can affect another that was already half-formed. It shows that there are white spaces, where things are not yet known, and paths that seem to lead to nothing ... yet. I know I may need to name elements of the picture at some point, but for now I can't. The picture represents process, and learning, and potential for curriculum development. Each of these, although represented by the same picture, would have different labels. That's the next challenge.