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James L.
Facilitating the adoption of technology-enhanced active learning strategies in Asian colleges and universities
This discussion was originally developed in December 2009 when Ideagora was using the Ning platform. As you may know, Denise Easton moved Ideagora to the Grou.ps platform, which turned out to be a temporary fix. Now that Denise has moved Ideagora activities to Linkedin, this discussion now resides in an archived state at http://www.uliveandlearn.com/ideagora/Asia_Discussion.docx
Although there can be no further discussion of this topic in the archive, we can use Linkedin’s comments section to continue the discussion. I look forward to reading and responding to your comments. Below is a description of the topic, slightly modified from the original.
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We have had an extensive discussion of the general issue of facilitating the adoption of technology-enhanced active learning strategies (see http://tinyurl.com/328xxtb). In beginning this discussion I noted that current approaches to broaden the instructional repertoires of faculty members included faculty workshops, summer leave, and individual consultations, but that these approaches work only for those relatively few early adopter faculty members who seek out opportunities to broaden their instructional methods. The major problem is how to affect organizational culture as a whole so that most professors will be receptive to adopting active learning methods and using IT tools to enhance these methods in their classes. I argued that engaging faculty members at the departmental level in thinking about the future and its implications for their institution, their curriculum, their students, and their careers could act to modify organizational culture. The basis of this argument stemmed from an experience I had with Lincoln University in Christ Church New Zealand where the trustees, facing a 25% reduction in public funding over a four-year period, were concerned that their Oxbridge faculty would not be sufficiently entrepreneurial to make up the deficit. Lincoln’s registrar, Allen Sargison, had taken a weeklong anticipatory management workshop from me in England and thought that the approach I used would be appropriate for Lincoln's situation. In over an eighteen-month period we were able to literally transform Lincoln's organizational culture (see "Using the Futures Program as a Tool for Transformation at http://horizon.unc.edu/courses/papers/transforming.html). I adapted the approach in a workshop designed for a conference in Bahrain titled "Using a Futures Approach in Organizational and Instructional Development." (See http://horizon.unc.edu/projects/seminars/ELME.html). However, the conference was cancelled and I have not yet implemented this approach in a real-life setting.
It has occurred to me that the approach that I advocate might need to be tempered by regional culture. We have already addressed how Middle Eastern culture may affect approaches to working with faculty members (see http://tinyurl.com/3xu894v). The question for this discussion is how would this approach fare in Asian colleges and universities?
I look forward to additional discussion of this topic in Linkedin.
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4 comments
Jeff
Jeff B. • It seems as if you are interested in getting faculty to do two different things, not one. First, adopting active learning techniques in their pedagogy. Second, incorporating IT-based instruction. In order to overcome resistance, it might make more sense to focus on one over the other. Furthermore, given that using IT-based active learning techniques takes more work than face-to-face active learning techniques, the path of least-resistance --- and the more useful for students' development --- would be to adopt face-to-face active learning techniques.
An additional problem --- in my experience --- is that persons who advocate active learning are less interested in students covering all the material necessary to be deemed competent in a discipline, and more interested in all students developing some degree of deep knowledge about a subject, but not necessarily enough to meet the minimum level necessary to be deemed competent. Active learning would be easier to sell if it didn't often come off as a backdoor to lowering expectations.
Finally, I suspect that the variations in Asian uptake operate at a finer geographical scale: national institutions and traditions are probably the most important factor in determining uptake.
James L.
James L. M. • Jeff, attempting to get faculty members to adopt (or at least consider) technology-enabled active learning strategies may require having them develop competency in both using IT tools and active learning strategies, particularly if the faculty members don’t have technological competency to begin with. However, if faculty members who use the lecture method as their predominate pedagogical strategy know how to use the Internet, develop web sites, et al, they would have little difficulty, for example, in setting up an arrangement whereby their students work on web-based projects with students in a partner class in another country. However, these faculty members won’t engage in such strategies if they think that their job is to cover the material that their students should know in order to be competent professionals via lecture. So I agree with you; within an institution, it is more feasible to focus on first on pedagogy rather than technology-enabled pedagogy.
And I agree with you that people who advocate active learning are less interested in students “covering the material;” they are more interested in having students engaged in problem-based or project-based activities in order to gain competency in accessing, processing, evaluating, analyzing, and communicating information; in gaining competency in working effectively in teams, particularly (if possible) teams composed of people from different cultures; in developing problem-solving and in developing independent learning attitudes. Such advocates hold that pedagogies that focus on developing these competencies are more important than just covering the material. In essence, active learning and lecture refer to two different paradigms, one focusing on students receiving knowledge and one focusing on students constructing knowledge.
With respect to variations in “uptake”, my personal experience in Asia has been limited to workshops, presentations, and informal interaction at five institutions in Malaysia, three in Japan, and one in Singapore. In all of these situations I found about the same diversity of pedagogical styles that we have in the western world, with lecture/recitation predominant. But, as I stated, my experience is limited.
Donald
Donald H. • James, very true. Education needs major investment dollars.
With the economic crisis and budget cut, California, New Jersey and New York State are trying to get rid of teachers, professors, etc. It is not a healthy trend.
Looking at the world, many countries are doing the same. Middle East countries such as Saudi Arabia, UAE, and others are providing funds for Education. This is the model that will ensure success for the next generation leaders.
Henry
Henry S. • Of the many problems with the American business climate is the lack of foresight by corporations to continue to develop products in the USA. The Federal government and our legislators are pushing aside the need for government intervention with the wholesale export of all industry and technology. Without regard for education, the survival of it's people, this country will continue to slide downwards and accelerate our country's demise. You can't balance a budget or pay off the deficit if no money is being generated in our economy. I'm not interested in the Wall street folks who play the hedge fund game. This is failing now as layoffs have been announced last week for Wall street as well. So far none of the economic plans of this administration have been working and they have given up, as stated by our government.