Critical Instructional Design

Sean Michael Morris Director, Digital Pedagogy Lab

@slamteacher

All photos by Fio, unless otherwise noted. bit.ly/fioflickr

We amplify silenced voices by listening. Because it’s never safe to speak.

Today most students of online courses are more users than learners … the majority of online learning basically asks humans to behave like machines.

Remember. Understand. Apply

Personalized learning. Adaptive learning. Competency-based learning.

Vive la Revolution.

“Most honest Schoolers are locked into the assumption that School’s way is the only way because they have never seen or imagined convincing alternatives to impart certain kinds of knowledge … almost all experiments in purporting to implement progressive education have been disappointing because they simply did not go far enough in making the student the subject of the process rather than the object.” ~ Seymour Papert

Image by lili chin CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Image by Axel Tregoning CC BY 2.0

“At the heart of my lecture was my search for a presentation that could unveil a compelling reality to the students.” ~ Ira Shor

Something pretty horrendous happens when we assume all ears are the same ears. And that all ears are trained to listen in the same way to the person at the podium. When we do that, we’re silencing voices that might speak.

“This school seemed like a jail, and level two...was the psych ward. Students bolting up and down the hallways, desks taking flight, a trail of graded and ungraded papers scattered everywhere, fight videos being recorded on cellphones, Rich Homie Quan turned to the highest level, crap games and card games going down...everywhere – all bottled up and sealed with that same shitty smell, so bad it was loud enough to hear, a shit stench I hoped wouldn’t stick to my flannel.” ~ D Watkins

When we’re talking about designing for outcomes, designing for skills, or designing for emergence, we are not talking about this. And we must.

“To teach in a manner that respects and cares for the souls of our students is essential if we are to provide the necessary conditions where learning can most deeply and intimately begin.” ~ bell hooks

“As I writhed under it, I would at times feel that learning to read had been a curse rather than a blessing. It had given me a view of my wretched condition, without the remedy. It opened my eyes to the horrible pit, but to no ladder upon which to get out. In moments of agony, I envied my fellow slaves for their stupidity. I have often wished myself a beast. I preferred the condition of the meanest reptile to my own. Any thing, no matter what, to get rid of thinking!” ~ Frederick Douglass

• Give tongue to interesting thoughts of your own soul;

• Gain from dialogue the power of truth; • Abhor and detest your enslavers; • Understand how the silver trump of freedom

rouses the soul.

With this gray beard of mine, I am the institution. I am the LMS.

We need to change our minds about speaking as coming from a single mouth, a single amplified signal.

Thank you.