"effortful constructors"

[jrtom]

http://www.scientificblogging.com/carl_wieman/optimizing_science_education_what_we_will_need_for_the_university_of_2020

In the optimized university the role of the faculty will be as “educational designers,” utilizing their knowledge of the discipline and how best to learn that discipline to design optimized educational environments, activities, and assessment. Within those environments, students will have the role of effortful constructors of their understanding.

As soon as I saw the phrases "educational designers" and--even better!--"effortful constructors", I thought to myself, "You know, there may actually be some good ideas in here, but they're going to have a hell of a time getting past your prose."

gaaaaah.

Comments

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

For online courses through services like WebCT/Vista/Blackboard, they make a distinction between course designer and course instructor. It's kinda like if I took one of my face-to-face courses and handed my handwritten notes and syllabus to someone else and expected them to teach the same course without altering anything. I find it odd.

But yeah, there's LOTS of bizarre language in education. Put that together with administrators (who use language like businessmen) and it gets REALLY messed up.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

For example, I just got an email about a workshop entitled "Incorporating Best Practices Into Your Online Course Using Quality Matters".

[jrtom.livejournal.com]

The idea that one person designs the course and another person teaches it is (in my understanding and experience) not that unusual. The underlying assumption is in fact arguably basic to the existence of course textbooks. :)

I note with some cynicism that the paragraph I quoted appears to imply that the professor will design everything about a student's educational experience. However, university professors are not (in the context of research universities, at least) selected for their ability as teachers (or their knowledge of educational best practices), but for their specialized domain knowledge in their specific fields.

And yes, there's bizarre language in the education field. This is probably for the same reason that there's a lot of bizarre language in the military, i.e., lots of close interaction with government (and thus legalese) at various levels.