How inclusive are your networks?

CC0 Public domain by geralt on Pixabay

We all live in filter bubbles, no matter how hard we try to widen our horizons. Information in languages we don't understand are automatically filtered out and we tend to rely on a limited number of trusted sources and contacts even in academic work. There are many studies on citation bias showing that authors of articles in scientific journals tend to cite sources in their own country or in culturally similar countries. Added to this is the tyranny of rankings and impact factors that give greatest weight to articles published in the major American and European journals. How often do you cite work by academics active in China, Russia, India, Africa or South America? How is the gender balance? A similar bias is evident in our networks. Have a look at who you follow on various social media: how diverse are they? If you can see that they are nearly all white Europeans and Americans then maybe it's time to widen your scope.

I was alerted to this problem by a fascinating article by Maha Bali in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Inclusive Citation: How Diverse Are Your References?. Inclusive citation involves searching outside your usual sources and actively connecting with colleagues from different parts of the world and with different cultural backgrounds to yourself. The article gives some practical advice about expanding your horizons by reviewing your present networks and sources and then connecting with people outside that sphere. Even if you have one contact from outside your standard sources, find out who they network with and cite and work from there. You will undoubtedly expand your horizons by doing so.

Have a look at the reading lists you recommend for students. Are we reinforcing a cultural bias and demonstrating to students which types of academic sources are the "right" ones to cite.

If you teach, check your syllabus. How diverse is your reading list? How is the White of your reading list compared to the diversity of your student body? Will a student taking your class find someone like them in the reading list, and imagine themselves as scholars of this field one day?

We need to widen our perspectives and acknowledge that there is excellent research and academic work in all parts of the world. Much of it is written in languages other than English and this of course limits its impact. Maybe translation software will soon be able to help us access these sources but until then it is difficult to be truly inclusive. We can at least review our own biases and try to offer more diverse perspectives.

If your citations aren’t diverse and inclusive enough, chances are, you’re missing some valuable perspectives. Chances are, you’ll learn something new and it will resonate with you. And eventually, it will become habit, and you won’t have to count references any more because you will naturally already have a diverse list of authors whom you respect and read regularly.

Open distance learning is thriving in Pakistan

The more you travel the more you learn that the world is so much more complex and fascinating than you could ever grasp by staying at home. By meeting and discussing with people you realise that we all have so much in common even if we live in different circumstances and have been raised in different cultural frameworks. Our news feeds present an extremely narrow window on the world and only by visiting and meeting people can you uncover some of the complexities and begin to build bridges. The only way forward is through meetings and discussion rather than confrontation.

Campus

I have just returned from Islamabad, Pakistan, where I was privileged to be invited to speak at a conference held at the world's fourth largest university, Allama Iqbal Open University. The image of Pakistan presented in western media is rather negative and that makes me curious to find out more. The contrast between media image and reality could not have been greater and I was warmly welcomed everywhere by friendly and very gifted colleagues. Even when wandering around the city and the sights there were always people who wanted to take selfies with us and there was a genuine curiosity to find out who we foreigners were.

Allama Iqbal Open University, founded in 1974, is the second oldest open university in the world (after the UK pioneer) and has an annual enrollment of 1.3 million students, 56% of whom are women. Their main objective is to provide education for all those who would not otherwise have access, in particular the rural and urban poor, a particularly marginalised and massive group in Pakistan. The rural/urban student balance is 58% against 42%. Anyone can study and students can also study at their own pace since the majority of them also work. Women in poor rural areas are a particular focus area and many qualify for free tuition, as do prisoners and transgenders (possibly a unique initiative in higher education). The university's social responsibility agenda is impressive and demonstrates a commitment to transforming the country by offering education for all.

Textbooks everywhere

Packaging

The logistics of offering education at all levels, from basic literacy training to doctorate level, to over a million students spread all over a vast country like Pakistan are daunting indeed. They do this by operating both as an online institution and by the massive physical distribution of books and course materials by post. They have the largest publishing house in the country with over 1.8 million books printed per year and the Islamabad campus has, not surprisingly, its own postal office sorting office to deal with the astounding volume of parcels. The printing, binding and distribution operations are still very labour intensive and the equipment was rather old but that made it all the more impressive. We toured the printing and distribution facility where roughly 120 employees make sure that the right books and materials are delivered to the right student at an institution with such a vast number of admissions each term. Although so much of the process is still manual, the address labels have digital codes and students can track their parcels on the website if they have access. 
Of course, a large number of the students do not have access to the net and so the textbooks are vital. Those who do have access can read the books online since they are all available as open educational resources, something rather few western institutions can boast.

Radio studio

There is also a large media production and educational technology department producing video lectures, discussions and seminars as well as audio material to supplement the course material offered via Moodle. The university produces TV and radio programmes that are broadcast nationally as well as running an FM radio station.

Distance and online education requires support, especially when so many of the students are completely unfamiliar with this form of education, and the university has built up an extensive support organisation that reaches out to even the most remote regions.  This consists of 9 regional campuses, 33 regional centres, 41 approved study centres (for face-to-face programs) and 138 part-time regional coordinating offices. Here students can meet for workshops, classroom sessions, tutoring and examination. The physical meeting spaces are essential for student success because few would be able to complete the courses solely by self-study.

The conference I attended had the theme of connecting collaborative communities and there is a clear commitment from the top management to move towards more collaborative forms of online education. I sensed a clear interest among the faculty to adapt teaching practices to accommodate more collaborative digital tools and platforms. This starts with teachers learning by collaborating, both within the university and internationally and I hope that we three invited guest speakers were able to contribute to this process.

Is technology making us hyper-social?

"Texting on the train" (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) by scottgunn

Our relationship with digital devices, especially mobiles, is a complex one. We love them and use them constantly to communicate, find information and organise our lives. At the same time we are aware of our over-dependence and have a nagging feeling that we have possibly gone too far. We worry about our children's technology addiction and propose banning mobiles from school, the one place where they could learn to use those mobiles more wisely. Many of those who propose such bans are extremely active themselves in social media and presumably seldom turn off their own mobiles. Some say that technology has made us less social but it seems that the reverse is true.

Use of technology is often portrayed in the media as an addiction but the question is whether it is the technology or a particular device that we are addicted to or something else. A new study from McGill University in Canada, Hypernatural monitoring: a social rehearsal account of smartphone addiction, suggests that we are actually addicted to social interaction and that digital devices are simply channels for this need. The paper is also summarised in a post on the site Futurity, We’re ‘addicted’ to socializing—not our smartphones.

While admitting that today's hyper-connected technology contributes to over-dependency, the authors' study indicates that our real "addiction" is the human need to monitor and be monitored by others. We thrive on acknowledgement and recognition and so every like, comment and message fuels this desire. Before digital media we were dependent on the greetings, smiles and nods we receive from family, friends and colleagues every day but now we have added hundreds more potential sources of recognition pleasure to that list. Digital technology magnifies and exploits an already existing need. Our brains' reward system is running on overdrive and that leads to addictive behaviour.

“In post-industrial environments where foods are abundant and readily available, our cravings for fat and sugar sculpted by distant evolutionary pressures can easily go into insatiable overdrive and lead to obesity, diabetes, and heart disease… the pro-social needs and rewards [of smartphone use as a means to connect] can similarly be hijacked to produce a manic theater of hyper-social monitoring,”

The article stresses that the desire for social interaction is, of course, natural and that we need to become more aware of our excessive dependence on technology and try to control it. We need to discuss technology use more openly in classrooms, workplaces and at home and agree to common principles such as switching off the stress of notifications and developing attention strategies (switching off distractions when focusing on a demanding task). We also need to be more aware about how manipulative technology can be; that apps and tools are designed to be addictive (often referred to as sticky). Simply banning devices is just sweeping the problem under the carpet. We need to become more aware of the issues and how we can use digital devices and technology responsibly. If schools and colleges ignore this issue where else will we learn these skills?

Reference

Veissière, S. P. and Stendel, M. (2018) Hypernatural monitoring: a social rehearsal account of smartphone addiction. Frontiers in psychology. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00141

The complexity of the flipped classroom

"reflections" (CC BY 2.0) by siaronj

Like many popular concepts, the flipped classroom model suffers from having a catchy name that invites over-simplification and the aura of being some kind of miracle cure. The idea of devoting classroom time to active learning and discussion rather than passive consumption is not new but the flipped classroom is about the application of digital media to offer pre-recorded lectures, demonstrations and instructions as preparation for the classroom collaboration. Flipping means that some content delivery is delivered asynchronously and that synchronous meetings focus on applying that information and developing skills.

One over-simplification is that the method is simply about teachers prerecording all input in video format. I would say that some content should still be delivered live since there is often a need for direct contact and the teacher is able to modify the delivery if the class seems confused. There is nothing wrong with a well-delivered and engaging lecture as long as it isn't an everyday occurrence. Similarly there is nothing in the rule book that says that the teacher has to record all the videos; there is a wealth of open educational resources that are free to use. Getting input from a variety of sources can widen the scope of the lesson and open students' eyes to different interpretations of the same topic. Audio input can also be used since it's easier to record and easier to listen to on a mobile device. You can even flip the classroom by asking students to read and reflect on a text! Basically the flipped classroom is just a snappy headline for a more complex process; developing a student-oriented approach to teaching and learning, helping students to move from consumption to active collaborative learning.

This complexity is discussed in a new special issue of the journal Education Sciences, The Flipped Classroom in Higher Education: Research and Practice. One of the articles, by Shawn R. Simonson, To Flip or Not to Flip: What Are the Questions? looks at barriers to flipping the classroom and, with reference to previous research, sees the following factors:

Situational factor examples were content coverage expectations, department norms, and infrastructure. Illustrations of instructor factors were time constraints, lack of experience, and preferred teaching methods. Student factors were responsibility, intention, motivation, and resistance.

Simonson presents a table to help teachers decide when or not to flip, taking all these factors into consideration. If the course and examination are heavily based on content delivery then the flipped classroom may not be very effective since the students will be focused on learning as much of the content as possible and the examination method rewards the demonstration of content mastery. This could be the case in basic courses in, say, medicine where students need to learn essential facts that underpin the rest of the degree programme. Another barrier is if traditional lecturing is the institutional norm then teachers will be reluctant to risk trying out new methods. To successfully flip the classroom teachers need time, support and resources and a poorly implemented version can have negative consequences for all concerned. Similarly if students expect to be fed with the facts they need to learn to pass the exam, then the flipped classroom model may cause frustration and increased stress since it generally demands more time and effort. 

The introductory article of the special issue, Flipped Classroom Research: From “Black Box” to “White Box” Evaluation, by Christian Stöhr and Tom Adawia of Chalmers university of technology, proposes a more nuanced approach to evaluating interventions, realist evaluation. This involves asking the following questions:

• For whom will the intervention work and not work, and why? 
• In what contexts will the intervention work and not work, and why?
• What are the main mechanisms by which we expect the intervention to work?
• If the intervention works, what outcomes will we see?

These questions should guide any teacher thinking of adopting a flipped classroom approach, or any new approach for that matter. Instead of rushing towards a new promising model we need to have these questions in mind and be able to adjust our practice as our exploratory attempts develop. The flipped classroom is one of many options available to teachers and the skill is deciding which methods best match the desired outcomes. Simonson's conclusion sums up the complexity that lies behind the flipped classroom.

Thus, the instructor who is considering flipping the classroom should contemplate the course content and at what level they want their students to understand that content. The situation in which they teach is important as external expectations and resources can make flipping the classroom more or less challenging. Motivating and appropriately challenging students is also critical and worthy of reflection. Perhaps most importantly, the instructor needs to determine their own willingness and ability to change pedagogies. Only when the complex interplay of these factors has been considered can a balanced decision be made and the learner-centered environment optimized.