Technology for Open Collaboration

How to Harness the Power of the Digital in an Interdisciplinary Studies Curriculum

Robin DeRosa

@actualham

The Story of IDS at Plymouth State

• Small, comprehensive public university in NH

• 4,100 undergraduates, 2,000 graduate students

• IDS began in 1974

• Averaged 10.1 enrolled majors from 1978-2014

• Added introductory and research methods courses in 2012

• Shifted to Connected Learning pedagogy in 2014

• Currently 90 majors (and growing by 25 per semester)

• 750% growth in enrollments

• Projected to be 3rd largest major at university within 2 years

Framing the Narrative: Connected Learning

• Students create their own majors

• Write entrance essays explaining how their coursework integrates to move them toward their personal, intellectual, and professional goals

• INTEGRATION is intentional

• AGENCY was incidental

• In 2014, I relaunched the courses and advising protocols around a Connected Learning approach

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Connected Learning: My Journey

Effects of Textbook Prices

• 60% of students report not purchasing a required textbook because of cost, and 23% regularly go without books due to cost

• 50% of students report taking fewer courses due to textbook costs

• 14% have dropped a course and 10% have withdrawn from a course due to textbook costs

2012 Survey of 22,000 students, Florida Virtual Campus, comprised of the

12 universities and 28 colleges in the Florida state system.

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Open Educational Resources (OER)

OER are teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and repurposing by others. Open educational resources include full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge.

Hewlett Foundation Definition

Cre

ativ

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om

mons

The 5 R’s of OER

•Reuse

•Remix

•Revise

•Retain

•Redistribute

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons

Attribution 4.0 International License.

Hypoth

es.is

Students contribute as authors, editors, artists, project managers…

Connected Learning: My Journey

Interdisciplinary Studies: A Connected Learning Approach

• Leverage the principles of Open Pedagogy to fuel an IDS program

• ACCESS: lower course costs, build case for public investment in Higher Ed by linking courses and projects to wider community.

• AGENCY: see interdisciplinary pathways as learner-driven rather than institutionally prescribed.

• CONNECTION: use tools that enable students to enter ongoing scholarly and civic conversations.

• CONTEXT: imagine the classroom as a node in a wider public ecosystem.

Connected Learning ↔ Interdisciplinary Study

• Sticky edges encourage the broadening of fields.

• Linked nodes encourage interdisciplinary collaboration.

• Rhizomatic structures encourage intellectual humility.

• Open gates encourage transdisciplinary partnerships.

• Learner-driven education encourages the emergence of new fields of study: the interdisciplines and the interdisciplinary.

Connected Learning for IDS

Social MediaTwitter

Hypthes.is

ePortsUser-designed & -controlled websites

NondisposableAssignmentsBlogs

Books

Social Media: Networks for Learning

Twitter: classes, programs, PLNs

Hypothes.is: dialogic, public reading

Social Media provides the infrastructure to allow for productive, energizing, and supportive collaborations across departments, fields, and constituencies.

#PlymouthIDS

• Program announcements

• Social musings that build community

• Sharing student work

• Group collaboration

• News about education, IDS, and interdisciplinary research

• Synchronous guest chats

• Async live tweets of readings or events

• Class activities (fishbowls)

Personal Learning Networks (PLNs)

PLNs matter even more for IDS students than they do for students in traditional majors. PLNs help students connect to more of a cohort of scholars and practitioners in their fields, and they help create a mosaic-oriented professional community appropriate for the shape of interdisciplinary research and activity.

Hypothes.is: Annotate the Web

Annotating the web helps students engage with content, rather than consume it.

It also contributes to the expansion of knowledge by treating all texts as unfinished, open to improvement and analysis.

Connected Learning for IDS

Social MediaTwitter

Hypthes.is

ePortsUser-designed & -controlled websites

NondisposableAssignmentsBlogs

Books

the ePort: portfolio & portal

INTRO

• Nick Scola: Wildlife Management

• http://nicholasscolawm.com/

• Mickey Damon: Criminal Behavior

• http://mickeybea.com/

• Kayleigh Bennett: Marketing & Creative Services

• http://kayleighbennett.com/

CAPSTONE

• Alexander Boudreau: Innovation Through Design

• Marina Phillips: Treating Anxiety with Dance & Movement

ePorts are one part

portfolio, where students can showcase their best work and present their best digital footprints, and one part

portal, where students can invite commentary and collaboration on the research and ideas they are beginning to contribute to the world.

Connected Learning for IDS

Social MediaTwitter

Hypthes.is

ePortsUser-designed & -controlled websites

NondisposableAssignmentsBlogs

Books

Nondisposable Assignments

BLOGSWicked problems; interdisciplinary success

stories; higher education innovation; new

research in their fields; their own educational

paths; application of theory to practice;

responses to news articles, capstone projects…

BOOKSFoundational terminology; metaphors for

interdisciplinary learning; history of

disciplinarity and the academy; emergence of

interdisciplinary studies; research rubrics; PLN

guides…

Interdisciplinary Studies:A Connected Learning Approach

Mission-Driven IDS Pedagogy

• Jennifer Sasser & Chantelle A.M. Richmond: interdisciplinarity as not only integrative but also as applied, learner-driven, Freirian, empowering.

• Let’s build programs that integrate knowledge, interrogate/challenge/redesign learning structures, and put learners at the center of their educational processes.

• Let’s make Interdisciplinary Studies synonymous with access-oriented, learner-driven, and applied pedagogies.

The Digital World Enables OPEN Education

•Lowering costs to increase access

•Empowering student drivers

•Connecting conversations

•Contextualizing the academy

• More OpenPed Examples

• Building an OER Textbook with PressBooks

• ePorts, Hypothes.is, Twitter, Creative Commons

• Challenges of Working on the Open Web

• Obstacles to “Open”

• Why IDS Should Be “Open”

• Who to Follow to Get Involved