I was prompted to think about slowing down by something someone said at the Learning technologies conference I attended last week. They suggested that we spend time doing nothing so that we might be able to nurture our creativity. An excellent idea!
But then someone tweeted about a video that shows that a drop of water actually bounces! Filmed at 2000 frames a second, the video allows us to see exactly what’s going on when a drop of water hits the surface of water in a container.
I was struck by this amazing process that we can’t see with the naked eye – it happens too fast. This led me to think about how fast we are moving in our world of technology and education. I’m not sure if I can articulate this well, but I’ll have a go…
We need to see/know what is really happening at that interface between student/teacher/technology. What are the things that can’t be seen by observing? How can we slow down enough so that these things become explicit? They may be things like cultural understanding, world views, passions, interests, philosophical positions, or motivations. It may also even be useful for our students to come to understand what’s happening at the nexus between learning & teaching. We could help them see how learning occurs and what it does to them. This means we need to watch carefully – we need to employ tools to help us see what is hidden to the naked eye. We need tools like surveys, research projects, focus groups, feedback & evaluations etc. Can you suggest any others?
It may be paradoxical, but it takes time to slow down to see & understand the things that happen inside the hearts & minds of others. Time that needs to be invested (along with resources for tools) for us to understand more fully & to help us make considered responses to what we ‘see’.
Couldn’t agree more. One of the big problems I see in L&T in higher education is the lack of time taken to reflect.
The lack of time is created by a number of factors: pressure to improve, pressure to respond to new management (which happens often in an era of the continual restructure), pressure to do something a different way (e.g. e-learning as seen by a curriculum designer being replaced by e-learning as seen by an information technology manager) and pressure to adopt the new fad (Second Life, Twitter, Blogs….)
As for a suggestion for another tool, I think this is what we’re trying to do with the indicators project http://indicatorsproject.wordpress.com.
Though it’s still in the early days. It might grow and do something. Might not. But it can’t be the only thing. It needs surveys, focus groups, research projects etc to really find out.
But more importantly, it needs the time to reflect.
Thanks for your comment David, we do find ourselves in a quickly changing world, particularly in Higher Ed. I wonder if we need to start more slowly sometimes, and build up from there – rather than jump in at the deep end with, say our 1st year’s. I’m keen to see institutional support for more of this reflection and engagement in what we could call ‘slow learning’ (something like the slow food movement?).
Appreciate the link to your Indicators Project, it looks interesting and particularly useful in helping to prepare for the future. I’ll be keen to chat with you about that at it more at ascilite. In the review/evaluation of our new LMS (post forthcoming) we’re interested in having functionality that will enable us to use the system data to determine things like student progress, engagement, outcomes & those who may be at risk. More important information that will be useful alongside the things your project is interested in.