Month / November 2020

by fpucoladmin

A Social eReader

Contributed by Prof. Darren Duerksen, PhD

Perusall is a social e-reader that allows students to access course textbooks through Moodle. They can mark up a common copy and interact with each other about their comments. Perusall can be set up to grade the comments and automatically enter the scores into Moodle. Students have commented that this has increased their interaction with the books and each other while increasing their comprehension. I’ve made two videos giving an overview for Perusall, a 2-minute version and a 8 1/2-minute version for those interested in seeing more. Visit the Perusall website and also check out their upcoming webinars.

Here is a Youtube video by Harvard professor Eric Mazur on Perusall:

by fpucoladmin

Conversations about Wicked Problems

Contributed by Greg A. Camp, PhD

The term “wicked problem” was coined by Horst Rittel in the late 60’s to refer to a problem that is difficult or impossible to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements; one that cannot be fixed or where there is no single solution or is resistant to resolution. We are teaching remotely and more online in part because COVID-19 is proving to be a “wicked problem”. Social justice and even education itself are others. These types of problems create superb learning situations.

The signature assignment in ED-779 Values in School & Society asks groups of students to create a model school program or project to address an ongoing problem in education. The goal is not to create a solution, but to demonstrate their views on the aims of education, view of learning and the learner within a specific context. This is done in teams in order to build on the backgrounds, perspectives and social capital of each participant. The past few weeks as we covered as diverse of authors as Confucius and John Locke, we discussed the role of familial relationships. One student from India provided perspective about the honor due to his older brother and parents and how that affected his education, while another student commented on how the reading pushed him to be more considerate as a parent of his own children’s development. Different social capital was being tapped to address challenges in education that seem to defy resolution. Time for conversation around enduring questions or “wicked problems” in small online breakout rooms are proving to be far more effective than my normal talking head approach because it respects everyone as teacher in a joint venture of our community of learners.