Commons Education Outreach
Inspired by Mary Beth Steisslinger and Jan Inglis, this forum topic, "Commons Education Outreach" is a place where we can explore new ideas. It's initial focus will probably be North American, but hopefully the conversation will be relevant for our colleagues from other continents. We invite everyone's participation.
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Mary Beth's and Jan's Original Comments
re line courses for credit, my experience to date
RE MB query: :
Concerning Paragogy, on-line univ credit commons course
Info from the Commoning List(note: can register for list at commoning@lists.wissensallmende.de)I wanted to share this info and get a collaboration going asap with a small initial group of people wanting to offer an on-line university level intro course on the commons, ideally next Fall. The parameters would be set by the collaborating group, and facilitating participants would connect with a college or university to offer this course through an existing environmental or sustainability program. It can be modeled after the existing Common Course and be a for-credit simple survey or intro course to start (perhaps incorporating some of the additional materials Leo has found useful in his ND common course) with appropriate assignments and regularly scheduled face to face meetings between the instructor/facilitator and the students? Methods of "Paragogy" and "open-learning" would be explored and we could document the learning experience to improve as we all learn together.lots of links and articles on p2p learning viahttp://p2pfoundation.net/Category:Educationmore can be found at http://delicious.com/mbauwens/P2P-LearningCategory:Education Our Motto: "TOGETHER WE KNOW EVERYTHING"and a warning from Robert Cringely: we've reached the point in our (disparate) cultural adaptation to computing and communication technology that the younger technical generations are so empowered they are impatient and ready to jettison institutions most of the rest of us tend to think of as essential, central, even immortal. They are ready to dump our schools. [1]The three key aspects of Open Education are: 1) Open Content; 2) Open Instruction; 3) Open AssessmentEDUCAUSE defines the range of openness to include:
* Open standards and interoperability
* Open and community source software development
* Open access to research data
* Open scholarly communications
* Open access to, and open derivative use of, content
If education is to be transformed, these seven aspects need to be tackled concurrently [2]:The Seven C’s of Education.
more can be found at http://delicious.com/mbauwens/P2P-Learning
I am glad this discussion
I am glad this discussion is up and running, I had checked a few days ago and could not get in.I like your focus MB. I have a couple of places in BC I could possibly send off something and was told that March is the time so that they can appear in Sept. calendars.
As per usual I think we need to define our outcomes, assuming different outcomes for different venues and audiences. We now have 3 commons course, our Cancun expereince and Leo's course to build observations from as well as the great info Sara offerred re online learning.
.From your list MB " But in the age of Internet, content has gone to being the least important. " ...I was wondering what would be considered the most important. Based on the commons course and other such on line projects I find that commitment is hard to sustain but it seems that getting credit does motivate people .
I really feel that besides the UN , universities are another place where we can add Commons approaches to over worked "sustainability" concepts.
Maybe we can get a sens of who is in on this conversation and get a workplan happenning.
Jan and Sara, thanks for
Jan and Sara, thanks for your responses... unfortunately, Jan, it was a bit hard to read yours because some programming code language seems to be included?
Anyway, i get the gist of what you are saying. As for the content thing... i am not sure i entirely agree with the P2P poster on the "content being the least important", but i guess they are essentially saying the sharing of diverse perspectives on the content is most important (ie much more knowledge is held in the community at large).
For me, some defined outcomes i see happening with a collaborative college-level course at least somewhat along the lines of what i suggested would be:
*this was another thing i wanted to ask Sara about... i also have a friend who teaches a green building course on-line for Chatham Univ.'s Sustainability Prog. and plan to speak with him about how that is going, platforms used, how much credit for how much time/ how many meetings fees/ pay per student etc
Great Thread Girls...
What is up with the wacky computer language mixed in with the posts... Leo, can you have your tech guy take a look at this?
MB, re your comment "*this
MB, re your comment "*this was another thing i wanted to ask Sara about..." I'm not sure if you meant info similar to what you plan to ask your friend about (hours/credits/costs) or not. But bumping it up to the earlier point you make about (what sounds essentially like) a consortium offering the courses and university/college programs "buy into it," I think this is supremely cost effective for online learning. Costs to students would probably be the same dollars per credit hour charged throughout the school, with x# clock-time hours of student engaged in course activities. It'd be different of course for in person courses. And that's what we're talking about creating here in the commons learning alliance, right?
I have been thinking a couple things. One, rudimentary, is that we created workspace in the CAUN moodle for the collaborative thinking about education, with the charge to come up with proposal for approaching commons education. I'm interested to see us use that space so we can attach documents, develop and follow threads of discussion, and use the wiki to put things in writing. Not just for CAUN strategy group but also for Leo and Robin who I understood would be involved in that too. Wonder what you all would think of us copying these posts and popping them over there in CAUN's education topic?
Re educational design, I keep thinking a useful starting point might be to conceive what's needed in the related "branches" - 1) conceptual and 2) practical or "applied" which means 3) develop/supply "tools" such as social charter templates, pre-framed predictable issues for deliberation, and of course templates for trusts' language. I imagine we'd agree they intertwine.
So to have intertwined branches of progressive learning building upon each other, designing the progression that seems real-world sensible for both is very attractive to me. And I believe it implies the importance of practicum work within any curriculum - have to get hands-on experience.
I'd really like us to put our heads together on all this and come up with a sort of blueprint of the path; in other words, if we wanted to equip students to "go all the way" into competent commons work - which requires systemic stuctural change, is "big work" and long term, too - what would we hypothesize they'd have to have, conceptually, practically, and with tools to implement the practical? (Lots to do!!!!) It'a not just the "business as usual" of traditional activism. And that's possibly one of the attractive "hooks" for commons work, that it "goes somewhere" - at least will, when we have such learning opportunities in place.
Fall course offering
Jan wrote: ...am glad this discussion is up and running... I like your focus MB. I have a couple of places in BC I could possibly send off something and was told that March is the time so that they can appear in Sept. calendars.
MB writes: Jan, i too have the sense that if something is to be offered in Pittsburgh this coming fall, i have to propose it in March. Also, Leo and i may be meeting with Duquesne Univ sooner than later about the Commons MBA program, and it would be good to talk about what might be possible in the near-term as far as an introductory-level course then as well (they have an undergrad environ. studies program).
Jay and i spoke today about the idea of getting commons thinking into existing univ curriculum for sustainability or systems programs , even law programs over the next few years. It seems to me that the way to go would not be to try to transform each university to have a commons course of study immediately (unless we find more Leo Burke's;-), but rather to offer an introductory or seminar course as a seed of change and have many universities participate over a period of time (esp as we get more instructors to collaborate on the CLA site)
To move this along, it would seem we should have a conf call asap with anyone interested in facilitating such a course next fall. Leo said we could review the curriculum he has used for an undergrad course, and that he would post it on the CLA soon.
Yes ! A curriculum
I wrote i a few days ago but for some reason it did not seem to make it into the forum even though I wrote it here. Hope this response does.
Can't remember what all I said but it was something about voicing my flip side concern re credit courses as they often attract people who are justificably primarily concered re passing and getting out of student debt and less so from a passion re the topic which this pardigm shifting stuff needs. Also it was something about needing to strat small and build credibility which is what you MB I think are saying too. coordinating several universities to coordinate credit courses together is a looooong term process.
I also said something about an important outcome for me being stimulating critical analysis regarding the current political and economic sitituaion society as I feel untill we get less enmseshed in that we cannot see a need to create something new.
AndI was also missing hearing Leo's voice in here but assume he is stretched thin.
so I am up for more writing here and also for a skype/phone soon. Yikes March starts tomorrow.
.
I made a long post a few
I made a long post a few days ago (too) and have been waiting for it to be released to post, but worry now it's swallowed up somewhere. I will check my other computer, I might have saved it pasted into a Word doc as potential backup, not sure (but hope so). Darn! One of the things I proposed at the end of it was the idea of moving from this platform over to CAUN moodle just because we have the itme for strategy group to come up with proposed education goals for GCT (and maybe ND and Anthroposphere ) to consider. I'm skittish about the stablity of this blog-style site with losing posts.
is the problem that this is a moderated site so all posts have to be approved? And maybe if they sit too long waiting for approval, they "die"??? Just trying to understand what we're dealing with here!!
Sara
my posts dont' show up here!!
I saved this post as a backup last week in Word, and when I see it got lost here, I'm pasting it in now. Another post, which Ididn't back up, is seemingly gone.
MB, re your comment "*this was another thing i wanted to ask Sara about..." I'm not sure if you meant info similar to what you plan to ask your friend about (hours/credits/costs) or not. But bumping it up to the earlier point you make about (what sounds essentially like) a consortium offering the courses and university/college programs "buy into it," I think this is supremely cost effective for online learning. Costs to students would probably be the same dollars per credit hour charged throughout the school, with x# clock-time hours of student engaged in course activities. It'd be different of course for in person courses. And that's what we're talking about creating here in the commons learning alliance, right?
I have been thinking a couple things. One, rudimentary, is that we created workspace in the CAUN moodle for the collaborative thinking about education, with the charge to come up with proposal for approaching commons education. I'm interested to see us use that space so we can attach documents, develop and follow threads of discussion, and use the wiki to put things in wriiting. Not just for CAUN strategy group but also for Leo and Robin who I understood would be involved in that too. Wonder what you all would think of us copying these posts and popping them over there in CAUN's education topic?
Re educational design, I keep thinking a useful starting point might be to conceive what's needed in the related "branches" - 1) conceptual and 2) practical or "applied" which means 3) develop/supply "tools" such as social charter templates, pre-framed predictable issues for deliberation, and of course templates for trusts' language. I imagine we'd agree they intertwine.
So to have intertwined branches of progressive learning building upon each other, designing the progression that seems real-world sensible for both is very attractive to me. And I believe it implies the importance of practicum work within any curriculum - have to get hands-on experience.
I'd really like us to put our heads together on all this and come up with a sort of blueprint of the path; in other words, if we wanted to equip students to "go all the way" into competent commons work - which requires systemic stuctural change, is "big work" and long term, too - what would we hypothesize they'd have to have, conceptually, practically, and with tools to implement the practical? (Lots to do!!!!) It’s not just the "business as usual" of traditional activism. And that's possibly one of the attractive "hooks" for commons work, that it "goes somewhere" - at least will, when we have such learning opportunities in place.
The "philosophy" behind commons education
Hallo everyone - very glad to be able to participate in this very interesting discussion and look forward to being on the call today.
In answer to your question, Sara, it seems a good idea to have this forum running on the CAUN site. I'm having technical challenges using it here and am much more comfortable on the Moodle platform.
I'd like to respond to various points that have come up in earlier posts, but just wanted to post this first as a possible contribution to our phone call.
I’m trying to get clear for myself something about the fundamental context in which we are offering commons education courses.
Without wanting to make it sound too pretentious or ‘woolly’ – this area might be seen as being the ‘philosophy behind the commons education’.
Here's my first idea:
The ultimate goal of commons education is to re-discover that we are all, at heart, and already, commoners and that commoning is our natural inclination and talent – if we are given the right opportunities to do so.
This means we are not so much learning about the commons as something objective to us – a state that needs to be somehow attained.
Rather, we are learning that doing commoning is first a subjective process, that is then expressed, externally, as we relate to others and our environment from this new point of view to create the commons.
If this proposal were part of the starting point for designing commons education then it will have certain implications – on content, but also on context.
Because we’ve all learned, through our social conditioning, over several generations, to forget the essential reality that we are already, in essence, commoners, then we must acknowledge that any true commons education is inherently going to be subversive to our presently constructed presumptions about ‘how the world works’.
This means that if someone fully engages in commons education they will never be the same again.
This may sound dramatic – but it is, perhaps good, to be honest up front about our own intentions in offering commons education. Presumably we are not interested in anything else?
A commons education student will, if they choose to go the full way with commons education, automatically go through transformations that change how they see themselves, and how they relate to others and the world in general.
This sort of learning is sometimes referred to as ‘triple-loop’ learning.
This has implications on the context in which we are offering commons education – e.g. through colleges and universities.
1) Does ‘triple-loop’ learning work in such educational establishments or are they more designed to encourage single and, perhaps, some double-loop learning?
2) We would need to adapt our commons education courses to simply offer ‘single’ and ‘double’ loop learning. But we must be aware this is what we are doing and be careful not to compromise the inherent integrity and intention of our commons education courses in doing so.
And, must always, somehow, be communicating the real intent of commons education, even while being confined to offering education about the commons rather than inviting people into the adventure of seeing themselvs as already commoners and starting from that point of view.
accessibility of this conversation
> I'm having technical challenges using it here and am much more comfortable on the Moodle platform.
Robin, we did have some problem with the move to Drupal 7 that didn't go as smooth as we hoped for but now it's all settled, and everything is working fine.
Isn't the CAUN Moodle space a restricted-access community? If yes, the move risks to create a new enclosure, unless there's a specific reason to continue this conversation in a walled area. It's also an unfortunate timing because we are about to launch the Commons Cultivation Group, a London-based social enterprise focused on commons education in face-to-face settings, including university-sponsored workshops, and we hoped to exchange ideas with the commoners of this conversation threads.
In the spirit of commoning what do you suggest?
george
ABOVE posts, and discussion, moved to Campus CAUN moodle
per our agreement, the foregoing posts are copied into the education space on CAUN moodle site.
March 6 2011/SNR
education space on CAUN moodle site.
dear Sara,
> education space on CAUN moodle site.
who can have access to it?
warmly,
george