Co-Creation.
And on the eighth day, instructors constructed knowledge with students.
Co-creating or co-constructing knowledge with students as a pedagogical practice has been gaining attention of late, but it isn’t really all that new. Kant’s students took notes at his lectures and published those; natural scientists have worked with students in labs for years. But with the rise of interest in open educational resources and open educational practices generally, co-constructing course materials has made it easier for students to get into the game.
(A quick note on terminology: “co-constructing knowledge” is the term most often used by the open pedagogues; it implies that knowledge is contextual, a product of human activity and interaction. But I have a fondness for “co-creation.” It seems more special, somehow.)
As a collaborative learning exercise, co-constructing knowledge can include student-student cooperation, but it can also involve student-instructor collaboration on learning materials, and it’s this aspect that is becoming noticed on the pedagogical radar. Co-constructing knowledge can work in any discipline, but the creation of course content might be especially useful in the humanities and social sciences where there are fewer opportunities, especially at the undergraduate level, for instructors and students to work together on projects, and where authentic assignments may not be as common as in other disciplines.
As far as what kind of course content can be co-constructed, examples abound:
working with students on open access anthologies (of early American literature and Hispanic literature) seems to be popular;
having students contribute to other open textbooks by contributing different kinds of content (e.g. a “student view” on the material);
working with students to contribute to Wikipedia articles that can be used in the course;
involving students in projects to adapt existing open textbooks or OERs for a course.
Having students contribute to the development of content for themselves and those who follow them in their courses makes good sense. It gives them some insight into the effort and thinking that goes into the design of learning materials, which in turn should give them a better understanding of how their learning is constructed. And it also gives them a taste of that old adage that if you want to learn something, you should teach it.
Instructors who do want to work with students in this fashion should take a couple of things into account. The first is that if students are going to be contributing to material that will be used in a teaching and learning situation, instructors need to do what they can to make sure that the students’ work is the best it can be. That means providing really careful editing if they’re contributing written material, or coaching students if they are contributing audio-visual material. This is more intensive work than marking and grading, and instructors need to be aware of this. Another consideration is how such work should be graded. Instructors should probably take an approach that treats this more like an internship rather than a normal assignment. This would mean, for example, providing the kind of feedback that might be given in a job performance review as opposed to the usual term paper comments or rubrics.
Given the special nature of the exercise, it’s likely that student expectations will need to be managed a little differently, too. It can be exciting to be part of a project that has authentic value; creating courseware is the ultimate in non-disposable assignments. At the same time, students may not be up to the task. That’s why instructors need to find the right kind of tasks that suit the students’ abilities and the stage of learning at which they find themselves.
For Fall Term 2020 this blog will be exploring issues informing education during a pandemic. It is appearing as part of a graduate seminar on online teaching and learning. You can read more about the seminar or see the other posts.
Post 53/60.