Barr and Tagg's "From Teaching to Learning" calls for a paradigm shift in higher education away from teacher-centered, instruction-centered, static, and lecture-based education to a student and learning-centered approach made possible by dynamic, collaborative, and outcomes-based learning. I was surprised that this was published back in 1995, as some colleges are only now just getting to this point (and many not even there yet). Overall, I favor this learning paradigm over the teaching paradigm (with a few concerns noted below). This paradigm shift engenders a change in emphasizing student success and learning (success=learning) over mere access to education. Access, of course, is important, and it's more important now than ever to ensure that we safeguard access to higher education, but access alone isn't enough, especially given the alarming statistics surrounding student success and completion; for example, the authors point out how educators in CA community colleges seemed surprised that "45 percent of first-time fall students do not return in the spring and it takes an average of six years for a student to earn an associate's (AA) degree" (5). As disturbing (and, unfortunately, not uncommon) as these statistics are, the authors' point was that the educators were surprised by this data due to a lack of outcomes knowledge. More to their point, it was largely due to a lack of an outcomes-based culture (which can be very good or very bad, to me, depending on the validity of the assessment method). 

          As I was reading, I couldn't help think about the recent changes at my home institution, Cuyahoga Community College, which is the largest and oldest community college in Ohio, spread across four campuses (each with its own culture despite us being "one college"). In Ohio, the funding formula for the state colleges has done a complete 180 degree turn. We used to receive funding based 100% on enrollment numbers, and now, just recently, that funding formula has transitioned to be based 100% on completion numbers, as part of the larger "completion agenda" seen gaining momentum across the country, which is precisely what Barr and Tagg suggest in their "Productivity and Funding" section it would take to effect the cultural and institutional changes needed to shift from Teaching to Learning. The response from the College to work towards "student success and completion" has been amazing and amazingly fast. 

          I've been involved in some accelerated dev. ed. initiatives that prove Barr and Tagg's points about the inefficiency of the "3 credit course" mentality. The success that students are having (success based on learning outcomes, not standardized tests) has been amazing. To illustrate the point, some students are doing in 1 credit hour what they previously would have had to take 6 credit hours to do (which sounds scary, but it's not: this particular case is related to how we place students with the Compass writing test). I also serve on the Committee of Learning Outcomes Assessment and help faculty across disciplines write objectives/outcomes and then assess those outcomes using a powerful assessment tool (Tk20). We have been moving towards outcomes-based assessment for a while now, but the completion agenda and funding changes have really helped accelerate that process and give it, institutionally, the support it needs to grow. 

          Some of the rhetoric coming out of the assessment field makes me a little nervous, I must admit. I think Brian Huot's knowledge about how different assessment fields (K-12, college, private assessment companies) fit together for student learning is very good. His book, (re)Articulating Writing Assessment, sets up a great theory of writing assessment and writing assessment validity; and in fact, I wrote a grant that brought him to Tri-C for a workshop earlier this year. His resources and keynote address are available at http://writingassessment.boards.net. Back to Barr and Tagg, I think we have to be very careful with who is responsible for achieving an outcome. I get what they're saying about multiple people taking responsibility, and I like that, but let's face it: when students don't achieve, the "blame game" is going to play out in either paradigm, so I'm not sure there isn't an internal contradiction when they say, "To take responsibility for achieving an outcome is not to guarantee the outcome, nor does it entail the complete control of all relevant variables; it is to make the achievement of the outcome the criterion by which one measures one's own efforts" (4). I get it, and I agree with it to a large extent, but I also question some of the practicalities related to it.

          I also am concerned that there seems to be little mention of the danger of inauthentic assessments and too much emphasis on assessment and data. The authors make a gesture towards the fact that there are some very crucial aspects of an education that can't be measured effectively in a short paragraph on page 6, but I think that's a point worth reiterating. At Tri-C, we have been trying to measure some of these things with seven Gen. Ed. Outcomes (oral communication, written communication, information literacy, global awareness, civic responsibility, cultural sensitivity, critical thinking), which is all still very much a work in progress. I think when people hear assessments, they fear standardized tests, teaching to the test, and inauthentic assessments, which have plagued education (particularly K-12) in America. An authentic, even individualized assessment that follows students from course to course to gauge that person's learning and growth over the course of they higher education, personalized in tailoring what they need to the coursework they need is the way of the future. Again, with funding changing across the country to a completion model, we have to be careful that we're not shutting access to those who are not viewed as likely to complete; a similar danger arises in just "passing everyone" which would be just as catastrophic. Lots more to say about this article, but I'll stop here. 

Since there was so much information in this article, I'd like to focus on the section related to multi-tasking, a topic I always find to be interesting, especially now in light of Brain Rules. I think this paper errs by not addressing some of the considerable neurological evidence surrounding multi-tasking in its evaluation of the task. I agree that multi-tasking is an increasingly important skill and that it is not the same as "being off task" (36). Being able to "handle multiple tasks simultaneously" (36) is important in a variety of fields, but I think this ability must always be tempered with the requisite caution: multitasking always comes at a loss. Sometimes that loss is tolerable, but not always. As John Medina points out in Brain Rules, "Multitasking, when it comes to paying attention, is a myth" (115) when related to attention (obviously, the body can do more than one thing at a time; if not, we'd all be in serious trouble!). To focus on more than one thing at a time doesn't really include much focusing at all, often to the detriment of accuracy and efficacy (see video below). I don't buy the optimistic (albeit kind-hearted) sentiment that Brown describes toward his student in Growing Up Digital who watches a web browser wired to his glasses while holding a conversation with him (qtd. in Jenkins 35). The brain cannot pay close attention to a conversation and scanning a web page at the same time. It can do it, but not well. It's why we don't (or shouldn't) text and drive at the same time (or talk and drive at the same time). 

I also found it funny that Jenkins et. al. use television news as an example to justify the need and validity of multitasking: "the multitasking process is already evident in the 'scrawl' on television news: the screen is a series of information surfaces, each containing a relevant bit of data, none of which offers the complete picture" (35). To me (and forgive me if you're in news journalism), this is one of the major depredations in news media: the 24/7 news "scrawl" with bite-size information that reflects bite-size thinking. It's enough to keep people barely informed about a lot of stuff, but there's a loss there. In the 90s, it wasn't uncommon for a journalist at the WSJ to spend 6 months to a year working on an article. Those articles were of such high quality, much more so than now (this started to change at the WSJ with their new ownership about 7-10 years ago). We've traded in-depth, quality reporting (by and large, not in every case) for the quantity of always updating, quick news. This is a loss for journalism and for a public that wants not only to be informed on a lot of topics but also think through those topics. So, with multitasking, I think it's important to emphasize that while it is a skill that is necessary, the ability to spend time and think with singular attention on one thing at a time is not only needed (as Jenkins says on page 36) but preferable. Yeah, I get it, this is the age where nothing is superior over anything else, but just because that is ideologically pleasing to those preoccupied with unimpeachable enlightenment values (see Jean-Francois Lyotard's The Postmodern Explained and The Postmodern Condition for caution on Enlightenment ideology), that doesn't mean that what a student can produce through careful, deliberate, singular attention isn't, in reality, superior to that which is produced in and through multitasking. We have to be careful not to accept that which merely sounds right, sounds more equitable, sounds more enlightened; that's not always the case. 

Below is my Glog for chapter 1 of Brain Rules. I've embedded it, but here is the external link as well: http://mikepiero.edu.glogster.com/brain-rules-1/

I've reflected on using Glogster within the glog itself. Grr...spellcheck keeps changing glog to blog. Watch out for that :)

I reviewed Amy's Glog for her notes on Brain Rules 1, since we both used Glogster. She used much more imagery than I did to express the core concepts of the reading. I, too, found Glogster to be a bit buggy, but it did make you 'look again' and how you were organize what you just read (by having to fit it into a more visually driven blog format). The evolution picture captured hot Medina began the book very well. 

Kim's Coggle diagram for New Learning was awesome in how it broke down the main points in such an organized way. I felt like I was looking at a bulleted list (concise and organized), but one that was arranged in a way that also told a timeline and showed a hierarchical structure. It was bursting with color, too! I've never used Coggle before, but I could imagine having students work on one of these together after doing a reading. I look forward to trying it.