John Seely Brown Lecture on Learning in the Digital Age

This is a long video, but if you are in to teaching and learning--it's well worth it.  What John Seely-Brown (JSB from here out) tells us is that not only does our old method of teaching as knowledge transmission, the Cartesian model, not make sense in a world where 90% of what we think we know will be outdated in 5-10 years, but that it actually hurts students who will live and work in a world in constant flux.  My job as a teacher is not to make students learn some laundry list of facts but to help them learn how to teach themselves--how to problem solve, how to collaborate, how to think like a nurse/be a nurse instead of learning about nursing.

I swear to you, and to my instructor reading this ;), I read JSB before this moment, watched a couple of JSB videos on YouTube;  but for some reason today, today I get it.  Here are a few things I'm taking away from this lecture to use in my classroom next semester.

Learning as participation--collaborative processes.  JSB mentions a study from Harvard that noted the single best predictor of academic success was participation in study groups; or even better, the formation of and then participation in study groups.  I can't make my students do it on their own, but I can sure design a classroom that mimics those dynamics.

Make work public.  JSB describes the atelier style desisn studios popular in architecture programs where not only is the work public, but the critique, redesign and problem solving is too.  I'll be doing group critiques of care plans, assessments and pathophysiology papers next semester.  This ties to another JSB nugget, when work is public (not just for the instructor) its quality and quantity increases.

Remixing--JSB refers to this as play that is happening on the web whereby an original piece (movie, play, song, poem, etc) is added to by contributors, commonly as back-story.  I do this all the time on my end when I write case studies, next semester my students will too.  In nursing it will look something like, "here's Mrs. Brown with complications of CAD.  Tell me how she got here."

Lastly, but certainly not least, is a note to myself.  Make your classroom one where problem solving is play, failure is a neccessary part of success, and out of the box thinking is rewarded.  Spend most of your time on the tacit knowledge, the learning to be part, and only go back to the explicit (learning about) when students are stuck.  Provide an atmosphere where learning is continuous, situated and socially driven.  Stop being a sage on the stage, or anything like it, and start mentoring.

Guess I know what I'm doing this summer!