Yes you're probably right Julia. I certainly didn't mean to appear pointed or rude. I apologise to you Bill (and to you Deirdre about my last quip). I was really just trying to make a point in jest or at least a very broad point.
I agree that for certain situations it can be very appropriate. I am certainly sorry if I cause anyone any offence. None was ever intended and it's a good reminder to me to be more thoughtful and not to put my foot in my mouth so much.
Best Wishes,
Nick
Deirdre, my GP is exactly the same when it comes to empathy he says "Don't give me the background. Just tell me the problem." He might have studied with you (joking).
Have a great weekend.
Nick
Bill, I think you must be one of only a few behaviorists still alive. ;-) Surely if we were just slaves to the environment we are all just living out a pre-scripted life. What about our individual self-determination or our collective agency?
How could we reflect or step back and consider other options and wider frameworks if we were just reacting the whole time? I can see some circumstances where we are predictable and where we can do drill n practice to get the point but I don't see ourselves as only reacting to stimuli.
The idea of verbal behaviour, I guess is where you say that and I reply like this until I incorporate the script. I don't think we are organized as a set of scripts one for each situation. It seems like a very reductive view of humanity don't you think?
Nick, Glasgow
Yes I think that's an excellent point David. To my mind the task of creating and replicating a design - automating the production of the site/course - overlooks the values that are to be adopted.
Some of the problem comes from the need to have a fixed or known starting point and end-point in a course. Although on the face of it that seems sensible and reasonable its just stultifying in terms of creativity.
If it comes out of the group and they define their interests/agenda it may be far more engaging and creative. The tutor can support that (its not just facilitation).
That takes me to the other bug-bear about the way we design learning based on individual learning and individual assessment. I know that we would need confidence that a person can be a pilot but it doesn't mean that the best way to think about the design process is to start with individuals.
I guess I should check whether we're talking about designing a course with group learning in it, at the heart of it, and what we might mean by the idea of a group that learns.
I could go on and on but I need to shut myself up to let others come in. ;-)
Nick
Glasgow
Hello everyone, Great to see another of these sessions unfolding. It feels like a ages since the last one. I really love these sessions as a free space for thinking together.
This topic is interesting to me, as I'm sure it is for others here, from a number of angles. I feel that if you are wedded to the idea of 'instructing' people then it may indeed be helpful to have some kind of template library. We're seeing more and more of this in open source education and representations of course design movements. Although interestingly, these people are very interested in representing the structure but completely overlook any representation of the 'experience' of those designs (this is a paper I'm working on at the moment). So, in this sense, templates, automation etc would only be part of the story that needs to be shared.
Following Piaget, I can't help but think that there is a huge difference between 'instruction' and 'learning' as a goal for education. The whole idea of being 'told' what to think and what to do may fit easily into a corporate view of thinking to be judged, managed and benchmarked etc by others. Despite this, it sits very uneasily in a humane whole-person view of development.
So, from this latter perspective I would suggest a course is co-constructed by the participants and their learning-relationships each time it is implemented. You could still have a broad 'shell' that could be rolled out repeatedly or tweaked. You could even develop and build such a shell automatically. But it is the values behind it that need investment.
In saying all of that I guess that the design for instruction or learning could be automated if we are talking here about technology-based online development. We all re-cycle ideas, materials and structures. So maybe the answer is 'yes.'
This idea of designing 'instruction' does generate feelings of learning-farms and positivism though. It makes me think of the pursuit of total conformity which is a very sad view of learning. These days, we seem to think only of learning as something in the service of employment so maybe 'instruction' is the right word after all. ;)
Even so, if we automate the process and get rid of the people (as we always seem to have as an underlying agenda nowadays), that do the design work, then we must surely lose any further creativity and only replicate the same shell or content endlessly. So maybe the answer is really 'no.'
Nick
University of Glasgow, Scotland
http://sharedthinking.info - empathic pedagogy