Steve+Heuristic+1

This heuristic reverses Mashall McLuhan’s seminal quotation ‘The medium is the message’ (1964). McLuhan focussed modern communication theorists to consider the influence of communication media independent of their content. His thesis included the idea that communication technology affects cognitive organization (Wikipedia, n.d.) in a way that would promote the ‘global village’. That is, change in communication media in and of itself would effect cognitive and social change. This underlying zeitgeist of focussing on the medium as ‘change agent’ may have led to an unquestioning acceptance of the benefits of new communication technologies, typified by the Web 2.0 banner, without an accompanying analysis of ‘the message’. By message, I am implying the entire gamut of pedagogical considerations for effective learning. The heuristic then, is signifying that we must attend to the pedagogical qualities and significance of the learning content, rather than being ‘bewitched’ by its delivery medium.
 * Heuristic 1: // The medium is not the message, use a medium that best supports the message. //**

The case study that forms the basis of this heuristic is DiPietro et al. (2008) who interviewed a carefully selected cohort of 16 teachers identified as highly competent instructors in a Michigan virtual school environment. This interview data, triangulated with supporting research, allowed them to distill a series of principles for best practice, categorized into General Characteristics, Classroom Management Strategies, and a variety of Pedagogical Strategies. To distill the essence of these best practices, we need to consider changing roles for teachers from face-to-face situations in two areas: the teacher as an interaction facilitator and the teacher as an instructional designer. Under the rubric of interaction facilitator and instructional designer, best practice guidelines sought to support // student // // interaction // using the available technology tools. This requires a ‘major shift’ in practice defined by the intersection of pedagogy, technology and content (DiPietro et al., 2008). Pedagogical practices included items such as: establishing mentor relationships, reflecting the interests of the student, organizing and structuring content, providing multiple opportunities to engage with the same content, multiple assessment strategies and so on. Technology practices included items such as skill with basic technology, willingness to explore new technologies and continually upgrade technological knowledge. Content practices include knowledge of content area, impact of course pacing and a clear organization and structure of content.

What is immediately apparent when considering the extensive list of best practices extracted from these experienced virtual instructors, is that none of these practices are unique to online and virtual instruction, they all seem equally relevant to face-to-face instruction and traditional pedagogy. While this study explicitly focused on ‘virtual teaching roles’, it extracted a set of pedagogical outcomes that appear equally relevant to traditional teaching roles. Hence the heuristic: while the new communication media may have altered the traditional teaching roles into ‘instructional designer’ and ‘interaction facilitator, the medium has little impact on the delivery of best practice pedagogy, the same considerations about quality instructional design and interaction facilitations apply. Additionally, the methodology utilized in this case study may be flawed. Even though these best practice indicators were defined by careful interview of purposefully sampled, highly experienced online teachers, the resulting list appears quite banal in its extent and scope. Perhaps practitioners may not be able to articulate or adequately self-reflect on their own practice (always a difficult task). Without context or a dimensionalised approach to the interview structure, practitioners may not be supported to reflect more deeply on the unique features of their approach. A more philosophically based indicator of quality teaching may be more apt to apply to online practices, the NSW Quality Teaching Model (Department of Education, n.d) serves as a prime example. It provides detailed indicators of quality under three broad dimensions, summarized below. If the interviews were structured around this type of organizing rubric, the extent of self-reflection may have increased, leading to a more useful enumeration of best practice principles.

 · Deep understanding  · Problematic knowledge  · Higher-order thinking  · Metalanguage  · Substantive communication ||  · Explicit quality criteria  · Engagement  · High expectations <span style="line-height: 17.0pt; margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-hyphenate: auto; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: 11.0pt 36.0pt; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;"> · <span style="color: #171411; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana;">Social support <span style="line-height: 17.0pt; margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-hyphenate: auto; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: 11.0pt 36.0pt; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;"> · <span style="color: #171411; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana;">Students’ self-regulation <span style="line-height: 17.0pt; margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-hyphenate: auto; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: 11.0pt 36.0pt; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;"> · <span style="color: #171411; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana;">Student direction || <span style="line-height: 17.0pt; margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-hyphenate: auto; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: 11.0pt; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;"> · <span style="color: #171411; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana;">Background knowledge <span style="line-height: 17.0pt; margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-hyphenate: auto; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: 11.0pt; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;"> · <span style="color: #171411; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana;">Cultural knowledge <span style="line-height: 17.0pt; margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-hyphenate: auto; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: 11.0pt; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;"> · <span style="color: #171411; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana;">Knowledge integration <span style="line-height: 17.0pt; margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-hyphenate: auto; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: 11.0pt; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;"> · <span style="color: #171411; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana;">Inclusivity <span style="line-height: 17.0pt; margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-hyphenate: auto; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: 11.0pt; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;"> · <span style="color: #171411; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana;">Connectedness <span style="margin-bottom: 14.15pt; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;"> · <span style="color: #171411; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana;">Narrative ||
 * <span style="line-height: 17.0pt; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; mso-hyphenate: auto; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">**<span style="color: #262626; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana;">Intellectual quality ** || <span style="line-height: 17.0pt; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; mso-hyphenate: auto; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">**<span style="color: #262626; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana;">Quality learning environment ** || <span style="line-height: 17.0pt; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; mso-hyphenate: auto; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">**<span style="color: #262626; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana;">Significance ** ||
 * <span style="line-height: 17.0pt; margin-left: 39.3pt; mso-hyphenate: auto; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: 36.0pt; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;"> · <span style="color: #171411; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana;">Deep knowledge

<span style="display: block; margin-bottom: 14.15pt; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: center;"> ** Table 1: NSW Quality Teaching Model indicators. **  So, this heuristic suggests that our focus should be on good pedagogical principles, independent of how that pedagogy is delivered. It is certainly true that teacher roles may change (viz instructional designer and interaction facilitator), but the outcome of those roles remains good pedagogy. It is certainly possible to lose this perspective: the Digital Education Revolution (DET website) is a case in point. The entire focus was on the provision of (cheap and nasty) hardware to students; additional support was the inclusion of extensive suites of Web 2.0 software. Very little support, training or consideration was given to how one might achieve quality teaching outcomes using this new technology. The magic lantern had indeed been rubbed, but the genie refused to appear.

Annette Lamb (2005), in reviewing 20 years experience with online learning environments, encourages us to focus on teachers as mentors, facilitators, nurturers and promoters of our students, rather than focusing on the tools themselves. She looks at ways that evolving relationships with students can be supported by new technologies. The qualities of the desired pedagogical relationship come first, how one might achieve this using new technologies comes second. This is the proper use of tools, rather than the ‘tail wagging the dog’. Lamb then summarizes how pedagogy has evolved in online environments: learning needs have changed in an information rich world, teaching needs can change with asynchronous lesson formats and 24/7 contact, course needs change with rapidly changing knowledge-scapes and curriculum change, communication patterns can change when the teacher is not longer the content expert, but the facilitation coach, and relationships can evolve when teacher pupil interactions are not constrained by time and location limitations of the classroom, In summary, the communication medium should not overshadow a solid focus on the essentials of good teaching, proper instructional design and facilitation of student interactions.