Educating or de-skilling our learners using LMSs

Stephen RoweAccounting & Auditing Lecturer

Southern Cross University (School of Business & Tourism)

Outline

Two ends of a continuum: time to guide v pay for outcomes

LMSs … maybe the “M” needs to be “Responsibility”

The erosion of the value of time

Some examples

Really a plea for care with Design, not ease of Managing

Share your thoughts too!

newartcolorz.com

A HE Continuum

Outcomes: pay & expectations

of consumer

Process: time & responsibility

on learner

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Outcomes = economics (managerialism)

15 wk sessions shrink to 7 wks

2 sessions p.a multiply to 6

Downtime becomes rollover time

Workload models become “chargeable time”

Quality reporting is up & out …

Don’t notice what is actually NOT happening

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Learning is “doing” … a process …

Takes time and practice and patience and perseverance

Nothing new in this at all …

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Archambault, on Dewey (1964)

Preface by Garforth … makes the point to be careful that the emphasis of empirical evaluation in the study of education does not

"obscure the vital truth that education is about persons in a context. [The study of the great educators] ... reminds us that education is concerned with value as well as fact and that educational theory is born of human

imagination and insight within a historical situation. At the same time it offers inspiration, guidance and the salutary knowledge that the most

important things about education have already been said."

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Is “doing” about OUTCOMES

or

the PROCESS to reach the outcomes?

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The luxury of time …

So why rush education?

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When was the last time you just stopped and REALLY noticed what was there … not what you had to do, where you had to be,

when you had to be there …

just what was around you?

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Getting to a conference … from a doctoral symposium …

… Time …

Contemplating education from my armchair over Canada (2010)

Fly across Canada

Drive across Canada

Walk across Canada

Think … then respond …

Which method of getting to Toronto will provide the greatest opportunity to learn the most?

A. Fly

B. Drive

C. Walk

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We are (unique) individuals!

stepwellconsulting.com

Anyone heard of Joshua Slocum?

The Spray

He (re)built 37ft sloop;

4/1895 – 6/1898

74,000 km

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Imagine Slocum’s thoughts (1895) in 2015!

“The time was when ships passing one another at sea backed their topsails and had a "gam," and on parting fired guns; but those good old days have gone.

People have hardly time nowadays to speak even on the broad ocean, where news is news, and as for a salute of guns, they cannot afford the powder.

There are no poetry-enshrined freighters on the sea now; it is a prosy life when we have no time to bid one another good morning.”

Slocum, Joshua (2004-08-01). Sailing Alone Around the World (pp. 41-2). Public Domain Books. Kindle Edition.

Anyone heard of Tim Cope?

Mongolia to Hungary

Moscow to Beijing

kickasstrips.com

heraldsun.com.au

What has all this to do with LMSs?

mikegwaltney.net

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Online pervasive … LMSs the baseline for content

LMSs make it “easy”

Provide stuff

Lots of it!

We like to give

The modern way is small chunks (short time!)

Are we putting too much at their fingertips (literally)?

I offer some examples (my own students)

spring11-eng05.wikispaces.com

Capstone unit student

“Are you going to provide readings?”

inhabitat.com/images/Newspaper-Bench-2

To be fair … first class …

“Are you going to provide readings like in other subjects … or will it be like in Auditing where we had to find them for ourselves?”

Student email 23/7/15 (Capstone)

“Where do I access the power point slides that you use for the collaborate session for this unit. It would be helpful if I can print

them and read them while I watch your lectures.”

Student email 23/7/15 (Capstone)

“Where do I access the power point slides that you use for the collaborate session for this unit. It would be helpful if I can print

them and read them while I watch your lectures.”

Be better if you watched what we are DOING?

File menu > Save > All Slides … (.pdf)

OR

File menu > Print > All Slides …

“Do” something

to get something

mikemonday.com

DF post 2/7/15 (Capstone)

“Do you have a weekly timetable to give us which indicates the spread of the course content for this unit, please?  I've usually

found such timetables provided in the UIG of other study units.”

DF post 2/7/15 (Capstone)

“Do you have a weekly timetable to give us which indicates the spread of the course content for this unit, please?  I've usually

found such timetables provided in the UIG of other study units.”

Not like other units Different structure …

More detail to cater for self-direction/flexibility … work out what is best for YOU

“Do” something … to get something

onlygags.com

What are they doing with the time they save on avoiding the process?

How do they “know” what is there

if all they do is see what we “give”?

Design to do … NOT give

Let them set their calendar

Let them set their reminders

Let them keep their mark tally

Let them find their readings (aka use the library)

Let them produce their evidence of learning

Focus on how, when & why more than what?

Design to do … NOT give

Allow the learner space and time to DO

Design for a Learning Responsibility System

for the learner (not us)

Affirmation from Kylie (last night)

Discussing this & the unit they create (no SG, text etc) … encourage sharing the messy space not the finished product

“Very true - sometimes we are very rushed and it as though subjects are 'filled' with readings, for the sake of it.”

“I think I have absorbed more in this subject having to do it myself - rather than the usual method.”

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Learning is “doing” … a process …

Takes time and practice and patience and perseverance

Design for process

NOT

outcomes

Northcote (2008, 678)

Elements for creating a sense of place in (online) learning environments

Maggie Savin- Baden

Learning spaces: creating opportunities for knowledge creation in academic life (2008)

Maggie Savin- Baden

distinguishes a variety of learning spaces we can benefit from recognising and supporting in an effort to engage possibilities:

writing, dialogic,

reflective, digital, 

troublesome and boundary.

Our challenge is to create these for our learners in a LMS

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The greatest gift you can give someone is time … encourage and let your learners “DO” … the clouds will clear