Motivating…

January 25th, 2005
by Cleve

I have to say that the last paragraph of Aaron’s post this morning is one of the most motivating things I’ve read in a long while.

The post also helps me see more clearly the how and why of the resistance to management and the value of subversion in this type of institutional context. Coming from the corporate training environment, I just couldn’t get it (note to self: accelerate learning curve!).

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From “management” to “open management”: semantics and learning outcomes

January 25th, 2005
by Cleve

One way to think of semantics is as the study of the larger system of meaning created by words, which as why I think the dialogue on the term learning “management” among James Farmer (and here), Aaron Campbell, and others is important as well as interesting. Words have power…what larger system of meaning do we refer to when we use the word “management”?

On the one hand management connotes rigidly stifling, top-down, centralized control from an authority (think: Mordor). On the other hand, it connotes goal-setting, resource gathering and allocation, task planning, and interim results monitoring….approaches that are empowering for both learners and teachers. But how can we speak of the latter good stuff without the Saurons of the former overpowering us with their orc-driven connotations? (Which would make WebCT and Blackboard…Saruman? the benign wizard that due to an inherent character flaw is seduced by power and becomes an evil minion?…)

In a wonderful comment to my previous post, Omar Johnstone offers an alternative for when we refer to the Good Stuff:

Expropriating a word is often a labor of Sisyphus, but the only alternative that comes to mind is ‘husband’ as a verb, and rather than conjure up the whole Herstory thing, I’d prefer to address your ultimate point…

…So what can a teacher do? My role, as I see it, is to facilitate a natural process. To help learning along by offering prudent advice, by revealing resources, and by constant encouragement. I cannot teach anyone anything, but I can help people in lots of other ways.

This, I think, is husbanding. It is what the Arabs call “tarbiyyah”, the act of helping something to grow.

(I’ve distorted the comment by quoting selectively, so please go read it.)

With a nudge from Omar, I’ve been thinking about this and have decided that -provisionally- I’m going to hijack the term “open management” when referring to the Good Stuff. I think it conveys much of what we’re going to do with our English360 application, while the qualifier “open” slays the orcs. So for learning platforms (which could be OLEs or purely analog learning infrastructures) open management refers to structures and processes that promote:

• self-management skills that foster learner independence and accountability
• self-directed inquiry - independent and/or collaborative
• multiple assessment approaches with a focus on introspection/self-assessment
• transparency: system and data are open to all stakeholders
• learner-driven (”bottom-up”) orientation
• recognition and validation of all stakeholders (although traditional roles may change)

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be adding, subtracting and fleshing out how I feel the open management term applies to language learning OLEs, and the larger system of meaning it entails for learner outcomes. Remember, I’m coming from the corporate language training space, and as always please help me out with your comments.

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In defense of learning “management”

January 22nd, 2005
by Cleve

In an excellent post James Farmer has started a dialogue on blogs and the future of online learning environments, making a most valid contrast between educational software designed to provide closed, centralized control (chorus of booing) vs. software that allows open, decentralized learner independence (delirious applause). In this context he also makes a critical point regarding the issue of learner blog “ownership”, which I won’t summarize here, but which really, really needs to be defined by both educators and their institutions.

Boy, do we ever need to move towards software that allows open, decentralized learner independence - all for it - and the post provides some cogent analysis and examples of how to do it. But I’m worried by how this contrast (closed, centralized vs. open, decentralized) has been framed, because closed, centralized control (bad) is equated with “managed” and “management”.

So what’s the problem?

The problem is that the concept of management is one of the all-time great things we humans have come up with. I know that in the post the word “management” is referred to in the context of current learning management systems and their limitations, but unfortunately the edublogosphere has picked up the meme “management = bad“ from this post and I think it’s a mistake for educators to think that way.

Now I’d certainly agree that “bad management = bad”, or that “Dilbert’s clueless yet authoritarian pointy-haired boss = bad” or that “œtop-down, closed, centralized control = bad” (well, usually). And I hope that’s what everyone means. But reading this, I’m not sure:

We’re obsessed with management, I reckon. Managing our finances, managing our workplaces, managing our kids schooling, managing our expectations, managing our knowledge, managing things to such a degree that we have squashed personality, differences, argument and life.

If we understand management as visualizing a desired future, establishing that as a goal (say, the best schooling possible for our kids) then coordinating and scheduling resources and tasks to achieve that vision, then, well, management doesn’t squash “œpersonality, differences, argument and life”, management empowers these things.

So for teachers, management is a pretty important ability to help students be able to achieve, because it helps students to be active, independent, and to have a voice. For school administrators, management allows teachers the freedom to focus on facilitating their students’ learning (bad management, of course, impedes this, as do clueless yet authoritarian pointy-haired bosses).

As a business English teacher/consultant in Latin America, I work with adult learners in multinational companies. The overall success rate of our learning programs is, basically, unacceptable. As a result, thousands of people feel stuck, frustrated, and voiceless within their own organizations, and one of the two main reasons for this is a lack of learning management (I’ll discuss both reasons in upcoming posts). Words have power, so let’s not use the word “management” as a synonym for what’s wrong with learning software or education in general.

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