My Reflections: Educause Learning Initiative (ELI) 2010

26 Jan My Reflections: Educause Learning Initiative (ELI) 2010

After attending ELI last week, I have to say that I was inspired by all the presenters and attendees. Presenters such as W. Gardner Campbell from Baylor University summed-up real collaborative learning communities with “co-location is not a community. Something else has to signal that you are a community.” I was also inspired by Penn State University’s philosophy of openness in the learning process. They began using blogs as e-portfolios for all their students. These blogs have been a great source of both program and course assessment. Over the span of a few years, the participation jumped from 100 to 18000+ individual blogs.  This is astounding proof that an institution can change its culture if the right people serve as change agents.

I was most inspired by innovative professors such as Penn State’s Sam Richards (RaceRelationsProject) and The University of Mary Washington’s Steven A. Greenlaw. Richards records his lectures where he engages students in a very honest dialog about race. Immediately after the lecture, he and his staff record meta-reflections of the class discussion. These recordings are made available to all students and their parents for review, opening their own discussions on the topics. Greenlaw discussed how he instituted an alternative grading system in one of his economics courses. Students are graded on engagement and insight. First, Greenlaw initiates a discussion with his students on what constitutes engagement and insight. He then posts those discussion notes as a basis for his grading criteria. He challenges professors to focus not only on content coverage but also to develop practitioners in their respective fields.

The themes that emerged outside of the presentations were back-channel communication and open academic content (read our blog posting on the 2010 horizon report).  Be assured that I will be posting on both these topics in the near future.

Arturo