“The changing experience of learning for undergraduates” Charles Crook Learning Sciences Research Institute University of Nottingham

1) Protecting the traditional residential experience

2) Querying some impacts of modern tools and designs

“The changing experience of learning for undergraduates” The “social turn”….

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Relative frequency of highlighted word year-on-year

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“The changing experience of learning for undergraduates” Mediating the social experience Digital technology tensions

Two symptoms of changing social structures…

UK: 1986 – number of students (for each teacher)

UK: number of students (for each teacher)

Representations of « learning » in University prospectuses:

1980

2009

Motives for embracing educational technology in HE The innovation imperative The efficiency imperative The accountability imperative

Mediating and re-mediating the social 1.The lecture as an interpersonal event 2.The assessment relationship 3.The voice in the curriculum 4.Peer collaborative review 5.The ecology of informal collaboration

1.The lecture as an interpersonal event 2.The assessment relationship 3.The voice in the curriculum 4.Peer collaborative review 5.The ecology of informal collaboration

Lost in the darkness…

Eclipsed by the image…

Deference to lists…

1.The lecture as an interpersonal event 2.The assessment relationship 3.The voice in the curriculum 4.Peer collaborative review 5.The ecology of informal collaboration

Assessment feedback Digital feedback

“You feel as if someone’s marking your work...they don’t know who you are. They don’t care who you are, they just want to get it done as quickly as possible so they can move onto whatever it is they have to do next.. It might be the wrong impression I get, but that’s the impression I get” (3C). “My French teacher used to sit me down for every piece of work that I did. And there was red ink all over the page, and even if, you know, you got nineteen out of twenty there was red ink all over the page and he’d tell you how you could improve regardless of how good it was”. (3B)

1.The lecture as an interpersonal event 2.The assessment relationship 3.The voice in the curriculum 4.Peer collaborative review 5.The ecology of informal collaboration

Virtual learning environment: one course homepage

A voice on the learning platform?

1.The lecture as an interpersonal event 2.The assessment relationship 3.The voice in the curriculum 4.Peer collaborative review 5.The ecology of informal collaboration

Reviewing around teacher online notes Reviewing from students’ own notes

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1.The lecture as an interpersonal event 2.The assessment relationship 3.The voice in the curriculum 4.Peer collaborative review 5.The ecology of informal collaboration

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“Open world” Comfortable disposition Possible social frictions “Opened library” Comfortable disposition Lost structure >frictions enter? Student voice

Open world: Neighbours from hell Open library: Neighbours from hell “When they were playing a Formula 1 on the big screen with the volume out, I thought that was a little bit excessive” “like if you’re here at 8 or 9 o’clock at night, people then start to get like a bit silly and there’s no kind of control over it and there’s no like exact knowing of how silent like the place is supposed to be, because you are allowed to talk, but, you know, screaming is not really..”

Open world: Obstructive territoriality Open library: Obstructive territoriality “..there is a tendency for people just to plonk their stuff on one of those group things, chat about the night, blah-de-blah, do a little bit of work, have some lunch, come back and it’s like you’re taking up quite a lot of space” “..there was this girl that literally every day she’d come to the same booth and she left her stuff. And there was one guy in the booth in front that put posters up! It’s like it’s not yours! It’s actually personalising a desk to make it his. Yes, and that is really taking it too far.”

Open world: Guerrilla parking Open library: Guerrilla parking “Do you remember that guy who [was trying really awkwardly to plug his thing in where I was sitting? And in the end I said ‘Do you just want to sit here and I’ll go and sit over there?’ and he was like ‘That would be great.’ And then I noticed that the next day he’d like sat there” “Basically there was a girl using a big table with some guy and I think it was like the small table was for mouse usage, it was basically a large mouse pad and we didn’t have any table and we were like ‘Can we use it?’ and they were like: ‘Errrr, no!’”

Open world: “Just one more drink” Open library: “Just one more drink” “if there’s like three or four of you that will come to work you’ll like chat, but you’ll just still work unless someone comes down and then sometimes you just get an hour wasted” “I mean, I’ve got like a large group of mates here and I could go with them, but I don’t necessarily always do, just because I know that it’s more distracting with a group”

Summary The “social turn” goes beyond (narrow) collaboration The social experience of learning has been reconfigured There are new tools for mediating the communication These can create interpersonal distance The lecture is a dialogue Assessment is a relationship The curriculum has a voice Collaboration is animated by resources But… social practice must be imported with care and insight