Anni Rytkönen: What does it take to get HE/UH teachers engaged in technology?

Erkki SutinenSchool of Computing

University of Eastern Finland

Technology for coping with change?

• Besides that we need to cope with technological changes, like from Blackboard to Moodle, how can (web-based?) technology help us to cope with changes?

What do you claim?

• What is your key message?• What did we not know before your study?• What were we not even thinking of before

your study? • What was the most surprising result?

Your standpoint?

• How do you map your position within broader research?

• What was your plan to hunt your background literature – theoretical standpoint and related references

• Your literature: 71 out of 124 references have a Finnish background – is it a bit of an exaggeration?

Your research philosophy?

• What is your research passion?• What pushes you or pulls you?• Does your research follow– post-positivism and give objective facts?– interpretivism and help you to understand?– pragmatism and solve a given problem?– emancipation and change the power play?

Your theoretical framework and key concepts

• Could there be Level 0: what am I?• How are teaching Levels 1..3 related to

monological (let learners get), dialogical (do) and trialogical (create) learning to behaviorism vs. constructivism to surface vs. deep learning?

• Could you have combined them?

How do you know it – your methodical approach?

• How do you base your research questions and thus method on your chosen research philosophy?

• Much of data (and thus results) was based on the number of features, other technologies or similar used; what about the level of using them?

• Categories – what is the relation of expertise categories (p. 81) and the combination of teaching level and technological innovativeness (84)?

Transparency of your research?

• How did you map the answers of open questions OR teachers behind onto the categories (e.g., see p. 86 – isn’t the teacher at Level 2 (p. 8: s/he is interested in what s/he does))

• Did you categorize all by yourself or was there another classifier – and to which extent did you agree?

• Did you make use of codebooks or similar?

Learning teachers

• How could you follow up teachers’ learning process from category to category (81 or 84) and would it be helpful?

• Could you follow up a give teacher team’s emerging distribution of skills?

• Explain Figs. 9.1 (129)– 3a: glass ceiling; 3b: smoothened learning curve with more

simple systems or sets of apps– How does Fig. 9.1 relate to Fig. 5.1 (52)?

• and 9.2 (132)– Weakness-based or strength-based learning (133) – creatively

out of comfort zone empowered by one’s strengths?

Learning organization

• Can an organization manage innovation?• Or do innovations happen in an inspiring spirit as a(n

interpersonal) movement?• What is the role of affections and attitudes for a culture of

innovation?• Does a strategic approach to change require a

management studies approach instead of an innovation diffusion model to understand the dynamics of a change process?

• Based on your research, how do you characterize UH as a cradle for innovation?

Your context: University of Helsinki

• What are the parameters that can change?– Arrangements of teaching, e.g. 1:n– Top-1 in Finland or Top-x internationally– Surrounding society?– Leadership?

• Re-contextualizing: (how) can HEIs similar (in which way?) to UH benefit from your research?

• Up-scaling and down-scaling: (how) can bigger or smaller HEIs learn from UH?

Your technologies – course management systems

• System or sets of apps?• Web-based – Web 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 or beyond• What prevents from creating systems, tools

or apps to support Level 3?

Your field: Educational technology as a discipline

• In your interdisciplinary research, how do you see your roles as an educationalist and as a computer scientist?

• Did you encounter any constructive or destructive tension or conflicts between the disciplines when doing your research, in terms of questions, method, analysis, interpretation of results, or application of them?

• (How) would it have helped your research if educational technology had been an academic discipline in the Finnish HE system?

Top-down vs. bottom-up renewal?

• Do you really believe in strategic leadership and top-down driven management of universities (p. 9) – supported by constructive alignment? If yes or no, why?

• Have you heard of Freakonomics by Levitt and Dubner – how goal-based orientation might make teachers to cheat?

• How could technology facilitate a bottom-up renewal of teaching in HE?

• Has this something to do with control vs. trust (p. 88)? Cf. early adopters (in control) vs. late adopters (peer trust)

• Or organized, system-supported (heavy) change vs. organic, apps-based light change?

Given that you were (with your research-based wisdom) the Finnish Minister of HE

• What would be your national program to renew HE?

• How would you make sure that you get the grass root level involved – teachers and students?

• Role of decision-making in general: how is expertise or competence in leadership related to technical or pedagogical skills towards improved education in HE?

Reflect upon your research process

• What were the main challenges on your road?• What could you have done better?• What are you most proud of?• What does the current work advise you for your

continuing research? The plan for your next paper?

• What should I have asked you and how would you have imagined me to expect you to answer?

Next steps – how can technology help us to cope with change?

• What are the changes that HEIs are going to encounter in the next ten years?

• What are the technologies that we need to cope with the coming changes– Affective computing?– MOOCs, SPOCs?– Ubiquitous (where?)– Games?– You tell us!

• How can your research inform us to cope with the coming changes, with technology or otherwise?