An overview of 10 lessons I learnt about teaching from lectures I attended or gave. Presented as a Pecha Kucha to Coventry University staff as 10 questions to be discussed rather than 10 answers to be remembered

1. A History of Teaching in 10 Lectures
@ fredgarnett Coventry University
19 September 2018
Pecha Kucha

2. 1. "That's what you are paid to do!!"
• After many years of teaching in the USA and the U.K. I
got really good at teaching. I designed my courses,
having got approval for the syllabus and curriculum,
wrote the handbook, printed off the handouts, prepared
the overheads and tried to replace the lecture with
workshops, games and discussions. A few weeks into the
first time I implemented this approach one of my
students asked when I was going to lecture them.

3. 1. "That's what you are paid to do!!"
• When challenged on my lack of lectures…
• I smugly pointed out the genius of my alt.ed approach to
which he replied; "You have to lecture us, that's what
you are paid for!"
• (Or, put another way, discussion is not seen as "work" and
they wanted to see me work "hard" for my money)
• Lesson 1 is?

4. 2. The Lectern @OxfordUniversity
• Of course when I got really good at lecturing, actually really good
at e-learning, I was then asked to research it. We first developed
the "Community Development Model of Learning" and I was asked
to talk about it at Oxford University's "Shock of the Old" in the new
Said Business School in a state of the art lecture theatre. As we
were all e-learning gurus they apologised for putting us in a
"lecture" "theatre" but explained that they had invented the lecture
when they were founded in 1093. They only had 30 books, all hand
written, all locked away in the Library. They were unlocked,
carried painfully from the library, rested on a "lectern" and then
were read out to the assembly…

5. 2. The Lectern @OxfordUniversity
• So the original lecture came about because handwritten
books were extremely expensive.
• Each "pupil" was just making a personal copy for
themselves to read and understand later; not in the
"lecture."
• So copying was the original form of education...
• Lesson 2 is...?

6. 3. Behind the desk or in front of the desk?
• Once I had earned some confidence in the classroom I
realised I needed to stand in front of the desk rather
than behind it. Behind the desk, and the lectern, I was
just the distant deliverer of content, in the 1,000 year
old Oxford University style, a fake expert because I
owned THE text book (just a book of text!).

7. 3. Behind the desk or in front of the desk?
• In front of the desk I was open to questioning, an
approachable facilitator of learning. Q&A stimulates
learning, if your students pop out (to the orchard) and
chat amongst themselves learning will happen…
• (e-chat is not cheat).
• Lesson 3 is...?

8. 4. Misunderstanding the Academy
• Despite the Renaissance #fakenews about Platos
Academy it had a completely non-academic model of
learning. It was in 3 parts. Building, Orchard and
Gymnasium. Here was no syllabus or pedagogy.
• You talked to Socrates in the building, who moaned that
the emergence of books would ruin memory, chatted to
your mates in the garden (read Platos Republic for lots of
bits from this part) then exercised to refresh your body
and brain. Learning was whatever was left over after
that three-part process.

9. 4. Misunderstanding the Academy
• Pedagogically curated Education emerged in the
exceptionally mechanical 19th century when, first, the
1860 Museum Act provided a justification for taxonomies
and, second, the 1870 Education Act encouraged local
authorities to open schools; oh dear
• Let the students create your subject Taxonomy…
• Lesson 4 Is...?

10. 5. Community of Scholars or…
• My very first class, scheduled for 50 minutes, lasted just
10 minutes.
• I rushed through the material delivering all the content I
had prepared, asked if there were any questions and fled
the room.
• Straight into the staff room where I poured out my
problems to my colleagues…

11. 5. Community of teachers…
• They patiently explained that you had enough material
to fill the time IF you included students and went
through the material on a step by step basis checking;
• If they had understood what you had said, and what
problems they had in understanding what you were
trying to say…
• And add some responsive Q&A which eventually will…
• Lesson 5 is...?

12. 6. Cognitive Dissonance
• There is much confusion about clarity of content, and
many millions of wasted hours filming lectures. Along the
lines of, if the smartest person on the planet tells you
about XXX just think how much you can learn!!! (As we
have seen) lecturing isn't learning, it's content delivery
from someone else's book.
• In fact, once you have the experience you can stimulate
more learning by creating mild confusion in your learners
rather than offering crystal-clear clarity…

13. 6. Cognitive Dissonance in Lectures…
• As long as you clarify "meaning" in the following week...
• Let the student own the "Eureka" moment of
understanding. Do not tell them what the Eureka
moment is, rather give them just enough information to
work it out for themselves.
• Lesson 6 is...?

14. 7. Flawed handouts are better than perfect
• The Eureka moment, when students really learn, is best
achieved with poor, or acceptable resources; handouts
and lectures.
• They need a way into your materials, something that isn't
intimidating in its perfection, something that can be
chewed over in discussion with others.
• I accidentally discovered this (like Bernie Dodge did with
WebQuests) when…

15. • I accidentally discovered this when I realised that a
handout on Information Systems from a definitive
textbook had a flaw…
• The diagram missed a critical information flow.
• I prompted students until they found it.
• The result was they assumed all handouts had flaws and
looked for them...
• Lesson 7...?
7. Flawed handouts are better than perfect

16. 8. It's the Q & A that matters…
• AND - students accept any lecturing style, as long as you
know what you are talking about; they will decode your
lecturing style and make sense of it for themselves.
• Some years ago, on a Masters Degree on Information
Systems and Technology we had a lecturer who was the
number one expert on Intellectual Property and had
written the number one textbook on IP.
• But! She couldn't lecture…

17. 8. Q&A – Guerrilla Questioning…
• So we students got together before and after each
lecture and worked out what we needed to learn. And
started asking questions (which she was brilliant at
answering) when she lost her way.
• In my experience sharp questions from students,
guerrilla questioning, provokes the best learning.
• Lesson 8 is...?

18. 9. Becoming Craft Professionals
• I've spent many years developing e-learning, and working
with new pedagogies, like Heutagogy.
• The big learning for e-learning developers is that your
pedagogies have to be "perfect" as the tech will always
fail you.
• As someone said in a workshop I facilitated at e-learn
2006 "all learning is a mix of theorising and
socialising."

19. 9. Craft Professionals (10,000 hours)
• In the main we are far too scared to "socialise" in the
lecture theatre, but we are very happy to theorise.
• We need to become craft professionals in teaching to get
really good at relaxing and allowing student "socialising"
to drive the learning; 10,000 hours. ITT! CPD!! CPD2!!!
Academic Working Lives are 10,000 hours of prep,
perhaps 3-5 years, to allow our own distinctive "craft
professionalism" to emerge...
• Lesson 9 is...?

20. 10 The Digital Practitioner
• I met Simon Beard of Coventry University (who asked me
to do this) on the national EMFFE project where we were
looking at creating "e-mature," or e-learning ready
educational institutions, in Further Education.
• We provided some funding to test the model and Geoff
Rebbeck lead on Human Resources and lecturing. Some
years later Geoff helped us survey 1,000 "early years
professionals" to establish emerging digital practice…

21. 10 Digital Practice personal curious confident
• We found, unexpectedly, some digital practitioners were
using personal technology with confidence in colleges,
and so were able to express curiosity in their learning
design.
• We decided that they were creating "Artfully-crafted,
student-centred, learning experiences"
• Lesson 10 is...?

22. •In sum you are a "broker" between;
• the learner, who is interested in learning &
•the education system, which is interested in
accreditation...
A History of Teaching in 10
Lectures

23. A History of Teaching in 10 Lectures
@ fredgarnett Coventry University
19 September 2018