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Researching elephants
If we see technologies as the orchestration of phenomena to some use, and some of that orchestration is done by people (which is what makes technologies soft) then it is not enough that the technologies should work well. We should also be able to use them skillfully, creatively, passionately, with artistry. A machine can be programmed to play an instrument 'perfectly' or to draw a 'perfect' picture, but that's not really what we seek. Similarly, a great musician can make beautiful music with limited technique and poor instruments, and great artists can get by with limited skill and limited tools. Teaching is a craft that requires artistry. Technologies, including pedagogies, can make a difference and they are relatively easy to research. But it is possible to teach very well indeed with bad technologies, including pedagogies, and it is possible to teach badly with good technologies, including pedagogies.
This gives us a problem. The vast majority of educational research, at least that which concerns interventions we have made, is about technologies: the repeatable methods, techniques, patterns and tools that we report on and compare with others. However, if the argument above is reasonable, then this means that the things which lead to success or failure may have little to do with those tools at all. This is the elephant in the room that we tend to ignore in most research into education and learning technologies.
So, how do we find a way to make the identification of artistry a part of our research agenda? Even if we can show it, how can we learn from it? How can we include such factors when we are reporting on the success or failure of interventions we have made, technologies we have created, designs we have used? Should our research be a variation on critiques of art, writing, music, dance and theatre? Is architecture a better analogy, or product design, or engineering? What should be the outcomes of our research, how should it inform practice?
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Soft things, hard things and invisible elephants
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, a great musician can make beautiful music with limited technique and poor instruments,
I am not a great musician, but I know some close. Great musicians do play great instruments, instruments that allow them to play good music. They buy expensive instruments if they can. Great musicians do practice lots of time, many times more than the average amateur musician. A great musician never ends rehearsing a piece. The ease and joy of a great musician takes a lot of practising.
Same with teachers, they need to practise, refine and think of their teaching to improve it. Great teachers are teachers that prepare lessons thougthfully. They try the hard technology and try again. The teacher needs skills to use these tools. Even working with a screwdriver needs practising. We agree on this, teachers must be skilled and trained well to use technical tools, be it a chalk on a blackboard or a PC with BlackBoard. It is this teacher skills research does not know of and researchers do not investigate. The elephant in the room is the skills of the teachers.
The thing you call artistry is the wisdom of skilled people with experience. In most educational systems the skilled and experienced people leave teaching and will become manager or consultant.
In teaching art and music and therapy feedback and training and comments of teachers are very important. When teaching art constant discussion is needed to fine tune skills. In teaching teaching this process of feedback and comments and discussions is not used very well. Teachers of teachers are experts in their fields, they might even have have a PhD in history or in English, but as a rule they are not not experts in practical training of teachers.
Of course sometimes lessons of teachers are taken on video and feedback is given, but that is not common practise in schools
- Jaap
I totally agree Jaap that we should learn to use the tools well and that we should have great tools. By and large, people who care about teaching tend to learn about such things and become proficient in their use, but it doesn't have to be that way or, to be more precise, great teachers may learn to be highly proficient in a small subset of tools.
And that is exactly my point, that the elephant in the room is indeed the skills of the teacher to orchestrate the whole thing, pedagogy, blackboard or Blackboard, email, classroom, whatever. I like 'artistry' more because it conveys the less definable je ne sais quoi that the word 'skill' does not quite capture. I've seen the work of highly skilled amateur photographers who have total technical mastery over their highly expensive and shiny electronically enhanced equipment but, in most cases, I'd rather look at photos by Cartier-Bresson taken with a battered old Leica any day of the week (the Leica is of course a wonderful machine that is very fit for its purpose, but that's kind of the point). Being able to use the tools is a starting point and most good teachers will learn to do that well because they care about teaching. But its not all about wisdom and proficiency. Among the best I've come across have been young, unschooled teachers without much skill but with a lot of passion and enthusiasm combined with a hard-to-pin-down capacity to communicate that to the learners. And that has an effect in every case, from writing a book-based lesson to engaging actively in a face to face classroom.
Closing the feedback loop is a really important thing that helps all who participate, the observer and the observed - peer review of teaching is a really good start in helping to develop that artistry.
Hello Jon,
As chaotic the change MOOC is, there are some hardened but often late followers. Thank you for a refreshing session. Here is my take on your week http://wp.me/1Rt6L. By the way is there an easy doodling tool out there? I felt I could have drawn a sketch to illustrate what I wanted to say better. Or is pencil and paper still the best option?
- lucky