I've been asked to explore the assessment end of andragogy a bit, something I am happy to wrestle with, as I'm been experimenting rather heavily this academic year with my students. Before I launch into my thoughts though, I'd like to capture Karen's comments that include her middle school perspective, as I believe they lay a nice foundation. Below was posted by Karen earlier in the week:
To give a bit of reference, my professional students are studying dentistry, and I am the course director for their first clinical experiences with one another. In years past, I was not the director, but served as an attending during the clinical exercises that accompany the didactic material. In this course they cover introductory basics, things such as infection control, ergonomics, patient interviewing, and begin their very early clinical examination experiences. In past years the "what are we doing today" as they would enter clinic would make me crazy, as we lost at least 30 minutes to organization that I felt they should be responsible for BEFORE coming into the clinic. This year having the latitude of course director for the first time, I decided to apply andragogical assessment principles to address what I saw as weaknesses in the course structure.
Specifically, my students are being asked to blog individual learning plans (ILP) and self-assessment reports (unfortunately abbreviated to "SAR") before and after each clinical exercise. The ILP requires each student to blog a plan before entering the clinic based on the outline of the clinical assignment I provide, and the SAR requirement includes blogging a self-assessment within 48 hours after the clinic. Both ILPs and SARs use a template I have provided that guide the student through the process of planning or self-assessing. Part of why I felt this was an appropriate approach is that each individual student only has clinic rotation every other week. In the intervening week they have other rotation activities, as well as the remainder of their courses, and I know from experience, that novice clinicians do not retain clinical behaviors well over a two-week span. In the past, I often felt that each clinic was the first clinic, as very little transferred from exercise to exercise. By instituting the blogging requirement I hoped to solve clinic inefficiencies on both ends. I want my class to come in prepared and knowing exactly what they need to accomplish, and I don't want them to have to learn the same things over and over again. I want the act of planning their own approach to the clinical exercise to guide them in becoming self-directed clinicians. I want their self-assessment reports to allow them to remember what they learned each time they were in the clinic and enable them to build upon those skills rather than simply re-learning them, as well as prepare them for a career of self-assessment as is necessary for any professional.
There are other things that are a bit outside the norm that I am having them do, but I think these required reflections are the meat of the alternative assessments I've employed thus far. So, how's it working? Better than I'd hoped is the short answer. I received my course evaluations from fall this week, and only one student commented on "busy work" relative to the blogging. I expected much worse (don't we all get a little queasy when the evals come out?). Further, the blogs themselves, yes I am reading 88 blogs a week, give the best indication of their success. Over the 12 weeks of instruction this class has had thus far, I can already clearly see indications of increased self-awareness in the class. I do give them an outline for each, and they answer the questions I pose, but it is clear that they are able to correct themselves when they recognize their weaknesses. Example: I ask in the SAR outline, "Where did you feel weak in clinic today and how can you approach remedying this identified weakness?", many students have blogged that they have trouble obtaining vital signs, and plan to take their equipment home and take blood pressure on their roommates over the weekend. A perfect example of an adult directing their specific learning needs! I get very happy to read such posts.
Do all the posts contain outstanding reflection? No. Clearly a minority of the class is doing what they are told and no more, but even then, I occasionally see evidence of self-correction and over time I see that the value of these exercises is becoming more apparent to a larger group.
I feel I have a long way to go, but I also feel I've made significant progress in highlighting the need to my students to continue to develop meta cognitively. To rely more on their OWN opinions of their work and hone their ability to assess themselves and remediate their self-identified weaknesses. Do I have a role in all that? Of course. I'm the net. I'm the place they come when they are lost and need more specific guidance. I'm the voice that replies to their posts and congratulates great ideas and affirms correct approaches when it's clear that the need for validation is present. They are not alone. I am right beside them, where I think I should be. Instead of following my every step, I feel more authentic to what I know they will need in practice by guiding and not directing their progress.
That is the state of andragogical assessment in my course at the moment. Are there others working with this type of guided self-assessment?
Showing posts with label self-reflection. Show all posts
Showing posts with label self-reflection. Show all posts
Friday, January 23, 2009
Thursday, January 22, 2009
What Constitutes an "Adult"?
Now, granted those who know me well may think by the title of this post that I am kidding, but truly I pose this as a real question for education. I deeply appreciate the comments to previous posts around that point in particular, as it is lovely to engage around a great question.
I have to preface my remarks with the disclaimer that I am about to share my opinion - gasp! I will not have references, and can't do much name-dropping (well, I'll try a little on this one), but I do have a strong personal sense of this idea of when is a learner a "child" and when is a learner an "adult".
To begin, I think that perhaps the discussion is better served by substituting the term "adult" with "independent learner". I personally believe that the academics that began struggling with the differences in learning approaches between children and adults got a bit too stuck on the Latin roots when they went with "andra" to counter "peda" as a means of differentiating their ideas. To me the core idea lies not in the age of the learner but in the approach the learner takes to their learning. I also believe that some learners reach levels of independence far before their peers, just as some lag far behind. In short, once again, individual differences in learners is the key.
To follow this idea I would propose that independent learning does not occur all at once, like a switch. I think that learners phase in and out of this orientation around subject matter, or even mood, over time until they hopefully, arrive at independence, at which point the tenets of andragogy are more appropriate guides than those of pedagogy. As I mentioned in a reply to a comment to an earlier post, I believe that for some, this transition occurs in middle school, and sadly, for some it hasn't yet occurred and they are somehow in professional school!
I believe my strongest connection to these ideas is that at some point my job as a "teacher" is to give that job to the "student". I don't follow my learners throughout their professional lives, yet they must continue to learn. How can I expect them to be successful if at somewhere along the journey they were not scaffolded and guided into evaluating and assessing their own learning needs and strategies? Yet, sadly, I see that there is very little obvious work in the direction of taking explicit steps to that end. Yes, in every professional program there is the salute to "critical thinking" and "life-long learning", but I don't always see the HOW that will accomplish those goals. I believe the how lies primarily in the informal curriculum. While that has worked, obviously, as we have compete professionals all around us, I would like to see this important aspect of learning moved to a more obvious place in the formal curriculum.
Ideally, in my view, aspects of the tenets of "adult" learning would be introduced very early, so as to ease the transition from depending on an expert to becoming one's own expert. I'd love to hear what Karen has to say on this, being in the middle school trenches as she is. I believe that she could confirm that some of her students are capable of evaluation and planning at the level andragogy expects. Regardless, I would believe there would be value in bringing these concepts to the learner as early as is feasible.
I'll admit that perhaps that last bit is highly selfish, as I will confirm that there are times when I am sick to death of prying the spoon from the lips of my "adult learners", especially when they scream and cry when I attempt to give them their own control. I can't blame the students though. They have been conditioned to need my approval to confirm that they have learned. They have been taught over and over to ask what is on the test as a means of determining what I think is important. I have to practice patience as I hope to work towards putting more weight on the students' own beliefs of importance, which if I've done my job right, will have direct relevance to their current and future learning needs.
So, not entirely sure if I've answered what is an adult, or where should andragogy appear in education. But I am rather sure I've given a clearer picture on my own thoughts on the topics. What are yours???
I have to preface my remarks with the disclaimer that I am about to share my opinion - gasp! I will not have references, and can't do much name-dropping (well, I'll try a little on this one), but I do have a strong personal sense of this idea of when is a learner a "child" and when is a learner an "adult".
To begin, I think that perhaps the discussion is better served by substituting the term "adult" with "independent learner". I personally believe that the academics that began struggling with the differences in learning approaches between children and adults got a bit too stuck on the Latin roots when they went with "andra" to counter "peda" as a means of differentiating their ideas. To me the core idea lies not in the age of the learner but in the approach the learner takes to their learning. I also believe that some learners reach levels of independence far before their peers, just as some lag far behind. In short, once again, individual differences in learners is the key.
To follow this idea I would propose that independent learning does not occur all at once, like a switch. I think that learners phase in and out of this orientation around subject matter, or even mood, over time until they hopefully, arrive at independence, at which point the tenets of andragogy are more appropriate guides than those of pedagogy. As I mentioned in a reply to a comment to an earlier post, I believe that for some, this transition occurs in middle school, and sadly, for some it hasn't yet occurred and they are somehow in professional school!
I believe my strongest connection to these ideas is that at some point my job as a "teacher" is to give that job to the "student". I don't follow my learners throughout their professional lives, yet they must continue to learn. How can I expect them to be successful if at somewhere along the journey they were not scaffolded and guided into evaluating and assessing their own learning needs and strategies? Yet, sadly, I see that there is very little obvious work in the direction of taking explicit steps to that end. Yes, in every professional program there is the salute to "critical thinking" and "life-long learning", but I don't always see the HOW that will accomplish those goals. I believe the how lies primarily in the informal curriculum. While that has worked, obviously, as we have compete professionals all around us, I would like to see this important aspect of learning moved to a more obvious place in the formal curriculum.
Ideally, in my view, aspects of the tenets of "adult" learning would be introduced very early, so as to ease the transition from depending on an expert to becoming one's own expert. I'd love to hear what Karen has to say on this, being in the middle school trenches as she is. I believe that she could confirm that some of her students are capable of evaluation and planning at the level andragogy expects. Regardless, I would believe there would be value in bringing these concepts to the learner as early as is feasible.
I'll admit that perhaps that last bit is highly selfish, as I will confirm that there are times when I am sick to death of prying the spoon from the lips of my "adult learners", especially when they scream and cry when I attempt to give them their own control. I can't blame the students though. They have been conditioned to need my approval to confirm that they have learned. They have been taught over and over to ask what is on the test as a means of determining what I think is important. I have to practice patience as I hope to work towards putting more weight on the students' own beliefs of importance, which if I've done my job right, will have direct relevance to their current and future learning needs.
So, not entirely sure if I've answered what is an adult, or where should andragogy appear in education. But I am rather sure I've given a clearer picture on my own thoughts on the topics. What are yours???
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Andragogy & Assessments
I'm beginning to try to tie down my view of adult learners and how they interact with their academic assessments. Below is a short essay I wrote primarily for myself to get the thoughts moving in the direction they seem to be pushing me...
If this makes sense to anyone else at all, I'd love to hear that news.
Brief outline of Andragogy and Alternative Assessments
Andragogy, or principles of adult education, is primarily concerned with bringing the unique aspects of adult learners into the planning and execution of the teaching. Adult learners bring with them skills, experiences, successes and failures that play a role in their future learning, things that are not accounted for in pedagogy.
Another way of viewing this idea is that pedagogy centers on the teacher as the content expert and the student as the novice that needs to be directed through content in a prescribed manner. Andragogy places a different role upon the teacher. The teacher becomes a content-facilitator, serving more to guide the learner through experiences designed to make the content accessible to the learner.
Principles of Andragogy that underline this approach are widely recognized to be the following:
• Adults are not a blank slate and do best when participating in planning and evaluating their learning
• Experience is a valuable teacher for adults, including mistakes
• Adults need connections to the immediate relevance of the subject matter to their learning goals
• Learning to learn, or problem-centered approaches vs content-centered approaches, is more inline with the innate approach to learning of adults
Looking at these basic tenets, it is easy to see that professional schools do some of these very well, for example the experiential learning that takes place in lab or clinic, but it is also clear that there are areas within which we have yet to recognize the differences between child and adult learners.
Academic assessments in particular are an area where capitalizing on an adult’s ability to self-assess and evaluate their own work is underutilized. Assessments such as peer and self-evaluations using a rubric, or reflective blogging fall right into the arena of adult learners. Yet far too often assessments are limited to lengthy multiple choice examinations, which sadly fall at the very bottom of Bloom’s taxonomy, meaning they do not lead to transfer or synthesis of knowledge and sit squarely on recall alone. Recall of information is not necessarily the type of learning that needs to take place in professional school as much as learning how to navigate the field of study should be.
Perhaps by trusting in our learners more and trusting in our ability to guide them through their own discovery of their abilities and weakness we can build upon an andragogical foundation in professional schools instead of hoping to inspire the type of knowledge gain we would like while testing for simple recall.
If this makes sense to anyone else at all, I'd love to hear that news.
Brief outline of Andragogy and Alternative Assessments
Andragogy, or principles of adult education, is primarily concerned with bringing the unique aspects of adult learners into the planning and execution of the teaching. Adult learners bring with them skills, experiences, successes and failures that play a role in their future learning, things that are not accounted for in pedagogy.
Another way of viewing this idea is that pedagogy centers on the teacher as the content expert and the student as the novice that needs to be directed through content in a prescribed manner. Andragogy places a different role upon the teacher. The teacher becomes a content-facilitator, serving more to guide the learner through experiences designed to make the content accessible to the learner.
Principles of Andragogy that underline this approach are widely recognized to be the following:
• Adults are not a blank slate and do best when participating in planning and evaluating their learning
• Experience is a valuable teacher for adults, including mistakes
• Adults need connections to the immediate relevance of the subject matter to their learning goals
• Learning to learn, or problem-centered approaches vs content-centered approaches, is more inline with the innate approach to learning of adults
Looking at these basic tenets, it is easy to see that professional schools do some of these very well, for example the experiential learning that takes place in lab or clinic, but it is also clear that there are areas within which we have yet to recognize the differences between child and adult learners.
Academic assessments in particular are an area where capitalizing on an adult’s ability to self-assess and evaluate their own work is underutilized. Assessments such as peer and self-evaluations using a rubric, or reflective blogging fall right into the arena of adult learners. Yet far too often assessments are limited to lengthy multiple choice examinations, which sadly fall at the very bottom of Bloom’s taxonomy, meaning they do not lead to transfer or synthesis of knowledge and sit squarely on recall alone. Recall of information is not necessarily the type of learning that needs to take place in professional school as much as learning how to navigate the field of study should be.
Perhaps by trusting in our learners more and trusting in our ability to guide them through their own discovery of their abilities and weakness we can build upon an andragogical foundation in professional schools instead of hoping to inspire the type of knowledge gain we would like while testing for simple recall.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
I need it, maybe you do too.
I'm making a commitment to myself as an educator and to my current and future students. I know that I will be a better facilitator if I regularly reflect on my teaching and learning experiences. I've had the opportunity to experience the power of self-reflection many times as a student, and now I have had the chance to see it's affect on my students. I'm awed by the apparent immensity of the impact of the simple act of stopping to think. Of course, like any educational process, there are varying levels of success, and much hinges on the amount of effort an individual employs, but I am seeing that the value is there regardless of whether or not the students can see it in the present moment.
I trust the andragogical process. I am resisting the urges to answer the questions immediately when I see that over the quarter the trends in the posts to the discussion forum grew to allow the possibility that the value in keeping a record of one's learning may be more apparent over time. The students can figure that out, they are already. The comments they made clearly indicated that on the whole, they know that they have to learn to learn as an individual, as they will never be in the position of being "done". That is the truth of health science practice, you are committing to always being a learner, as the field changes constantly. Once a clinician is graduated and licensed, the lesson-planning and evaluation falls to them. My thought is that it will be an easier transition if they begin to evaluate themselves as freshmen. We shall see...
For myself, I am going to walk the talk more regularly, and keep my own feet to the reflection fire. I will use this space to contemplate the educational process. I will share my triumphs and my blunders in the hope of growing my ability to focus on my learners and better facilitate their professional growth. I know I need the mental exercise, and perhaps at times I will say something that will be of use to someone else. Again, we shall see...
I trust the andragogical process. I am resisting the urges to answer the questions immediately when I see that over the quarter the trends in the posts to the discussion forum grew to allow the possibility that the value in keeping a record of one's learning may be more apparent over time. The students can figure that out, they are already. The comments they made clearly indicated that on the whole, they know that they have to learn to learn as an individual, as they will never be in the position of being "done". That is the truth of health science practice, you are committing to always being a learner, as the field changes constantly. Once a clinician is graduated and licensed, the lesson-planning and evaluation falls to them. My thought is that it will be an easier transition if they begin to evaluate themselves as freshmen. We shall see...
For myself, I am going to walk the talk more regularly, and keep my own feet to the reflection fire. I will use this space to contemplate the educational process. I will share my triumphs and my blunders in the hope of growing my ability to focus on my learners and better facilitate their professional growth. I know I need the mental exercise, and perhaps at times I will say something that will be of use to someone else. Again, we shall see...
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I kid you not, guess what we are doing in 8th grade English this week? Students are presenting SELF-designed projects demonstrating mastery of four content standards. Guess what their peers are doing? Using a CLASS-created rubric to assess their peers. After each presentation we debrief the rubric and share our thoughts on the content/presentation. Is it great and engaging? YES! Are the 13/14 year olds using critical thinking skills and metacognition? YES! Can they ALWAYS fairly grade the girl that is now "going out" with their ex? Not really. As a middle school teacher, I have the rare delight to interact with young adults. It is such a treat to see them take on adult skills and roles, and then cry because, "If I did exactly what was asked, why didn't I get a 4 (exceeds standard)?" More and more, teacher training programs and professional development for young people are leaning more towards what you are defining as "andragogy": prior knowledge, existing skills, metacognition, connection to schema. It is interesting to read the responses of those arguing that mature high school students qualify. You are right, but are underestimating the abilities of your middle-schoolers. The challenge comes with the fact that all of them are at different points on the spectrum of maturity and the ability to think critically. Some need to be coddled, others take your instruction and develop their own knowledge into something far more advanced than you had hoped. While it is exciting and satisfying, it is also "pull your hair out" frustrating! I have to remind myself 20 times a day that they are really just kids, and that just because some of them are capable of advanced thinking and social skills, we are working together for them ALL to attain those abilities. What if we teamed up some kids from middle school with college students? How would that turn out?