The medium is the message...
The community is the curriculum!
Well, we've made it to Week 5 of Rhizomatic Learning, and this week's topic shares it's title with the course itself! The Community is The Curriculum. Odd, to me this would have made a perfect final week (you know every end is a new beginning, circle of
Anyone, the community as curriculum poses some interesting questions for me and I'll explore the first two that came to mind (otherwise we'd be here all day).
Background of Learners
It seems to me that courses like this one (and other highly engaging OOCs, engaging to me anyway) is that we are relying on two things from the participants of the MOOC. The background of the learner (i.e. they aren't complete novices in the discipline), and they are self-starters. We don't care about a certificate of completion or no stinkin' badge. We do it because we love this stuff. Even when we're sick we engage. I'd love to be able to apply the community is the curriculum mantra to the courses I teach, but none of them are seminar style. This mantra can work in a seminar style course, but students are scaffolded into being able to participate in that academic discourse. I didn't just show up one day in LAK11 (my first MOOC), or CCK11 and was able to participate readily. This was years in the making, and several masters degrees later. It was mentorship from previous professors who got me to a point where I could wrangle with the abundance of information, to filter, sort, and use it, and engage with peers. It was also the breaking away from the shackled of academic credit that enabled this.When I was a for-credit student, I looked for the most efficient way through an assignment. Get the rubric, follow it to the T, and get a good grade (and hopefully some learning would have occurred in the process;) ). WIthout having to worry about grades, credits, and an investment, I freed my learning. Now, students who still have to worry about those things are a little apprehensive about the community being the curriculum since certain learning objectives have to be met, and what they say is that they pay for a subject expert to put together a curriculum for them and help guide them through it. This is something we see all over in our field from students, from professional organizations, and now from MOOCs (you know, the "best" professors from the "best" universities giving you their "best" material for free - BS rhetoric). To make things worse, there are some students who are only in it for the credential, which potentially means efficient at getting a grade, but not necessarily learning.
Anyway, when working with those constraints, how does one turn things around in their own classroom (assuming it's not a OOC and you need to deal with someone else's constraints)?
What about participation?
The second thing that comes to mind is about participation. Ever since the days of my first MOOCs, I have enjoyed reading posts by people like Jaap whom I met back then in CCK11 if I remember correctly. I looked forward to the Daily which had all of the blog posts, tweets, delicious links, and discussions happening on gRSShopper for the past 24 hours. The community can be the curriculum, but only if the community participates.I've been flamed (well, lightly flamed ;) not burned to crisp) in past MOOCs for really calling lurkers to carpet and not participating. Essentially consuming, but not putting anything back into fire to keep it going. I've grown to be a little more accepting of lurkers (especially seeing the untenable nature of forums in large scale MOOCs), but the issue of lurking is still something of an intellectual brainteaser. I too lurk. I lurked on #rhizo14 most of last week. but there is ample content there for the community to engage with without reading my stuff, and I've established a pattern that I am comfortable with (intro post, Fb posting and reading, final post). But what happens when there are few to participate? Then the curriculum is the view of a handful of people. This somehow seems unbalanced. Also, depending on the constitution of the group, you may end up with a virtual echo chamber where the curriculum might be the same nonsense replicated over and over again, with the thought provoking voices being silenced. What sort of measures do we have when things like this happen? If we've established that the community is the curriculum, we can't really swing the other way and take the reigns of our course again, can we? Now, of course, there is probably a middle ground here, but the black and white approach is probably more conducive for an argument ;)
So, what do you think?
Comments
For the second, I think that may be true - is it ingrained or something that can be learned this self-starting? I feel sure that must involve some element of confidence that could be at risk if expectations are dashed.
For the self-starter bit, this isn't ingrained, as far as I know at this point. I think this being a self-starter can be cultivated, and being in environments that contain ideas and topics that are naturally appealing to the participants goes a long way to getting self-started individuals going.
Confirmation bias assures me that I will zero in on ideas that make sense to me and reject others that do not fit with my experiences or personal disposition. Is it even possible to create a diverse though not divisive community/curriculum? A degree of like-mindedness is required for a community to be productive.
I desperately want the systems and structures of education to be more learner-centered, but it seems the majority of educators are not participating in communities like #rhizo14 or deep discussions about learning and knowledge and meaning. They want the packaged course to teach and the packaged course to learn from. We should be happy if they at least become lurkers.
Often (usually) you don't know how engaged you will be, in what areas -- or even if at all -- until you are in it.
The community part is variable -- post course stickiness is a marker but not the only one or even a pre-req. Community get stickier (does adhesive sound better?) the motr
But the great questions of what happens when few participate? The large size of MOOCs usually takes care of that (and that characteristics of some will be the risk-takers, the highly connected, etc). You can't truly know your learners as you plan a course like this (or can you?) to know how to engage them. But i guess u try to draw a certain kind of person in.
But the point about nonsense being recycled? That is a good point and can happen. Community won't necessarily take itself forward on just anything, for example, bring together a group of Nazis and ask them to learn as a community about tolerance? Hmmm
I always thought cMOOC-type things work more smoothly when participants are adults, educators, and generally tech savvy. That excludes a whole bunch of folks. In my f2f classes, i teach teachers who want to become tech savvy, so it is still slightly easier than trying to do the same with an immature bunch of teens (will be trying it later this semester, and see how it goes, as i may be underestimating them). Trying to empower (impose power and independence?) on young learners unused to any measure of it? That must take some time... More time than doing it with adults (even if adults not used to independent learning, they must take decisions, etc. in other areas of their lives).
Last point: i don't consider ppl who dont post blogs as lurkers. Commenting on others ' posts, tweeting them, facebooking is alo participation,.. But yeah, lurking as in not participating at all? Happens in a MOOC that does not engage me but has some good content - don't we all lurk online in non-MOOC environments? But i do always try to respect lurkers in a course i am active in while resenting their consumption and non-production... Because i am one occasinally!
I am actually surprised that I am using FutureLearn's discussion forums as a much as I am given my dislike of massive forums in courses.
As far like-minded, and not-likeminded participants, that's very true! I'd get really bored if everyone agreed all the time in MOOCs. It's when I've gotten "angry" at posts that I do my creative thinking. When I say "angry" I don't mean it in the "hulk smash!" way, but rather in the "how can this person claim X when we have A, B, and C and proof of the opposite?" way :)
By the way, even though in instructional design we say we do a learner analysis before we design something for them, it's hard to know a priori who is going to be in the class. I think the learner analysis is basically creating some typical personas that exemplify who the course is geared toward, rather than an actual learner analysis.
Fostering independence is challenging, particularly if it could be dashed by a poor learner experience.