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Crowdsourced Syllabus “Mapping the Futures of Higher Education: Teaching, Learning and Research in the Age of Google”

The first week of October has certainly been a busy one! Students and educators at both Duke University’s PhD Lab and The Graduate Center, CUNY attended workshops to design an open, collaborative, peer-generated syllabus for a course on “Mapping the Futures of Higher Education: Teaching, Learning and Research in the Age of Google.” Check out–and more importantly, contribute to–our syllabus!

As stated in the syllabus, “We are also making this into an open public Google Doc that anyone can add to, remix, download, and use for any classroom purpose. We are hoping that many classes around the world use this syllabus as a starting point for their own collaborative “intellectual hackathons” to generate new topics, new descriptions, new public or interactive learning and research activities, and new bibliographic resources.”

The first course hosted by the Futures Initiative will be taught by former Graduate Center President William Kelly and HASTAC co-founder, and now Distinguished Professor at the Graduate Center, Cathy N. Davidson.

5 Responses to Crowdsourced Syllabus “Mapping the Futures of Higher Education: Teaching, Learning and Research in the Age of Google”

  1. Lisa Tagliaferri October 7, 2014 at 7:02 pm #

    We can set up a GitHub for classroom use: http://education.github.com/guide

    Let me know if anyone has started anything or if we should start a FuturesInitiative GitHub account.

  2. Cathy N. Davidson October 5, 2014 at 3:42 pm #

    Here’s the current state of the Syllabus. Please add, edit, remix on the Google Doc!

    Mapping the Future of Higher Education:
    Teaching, Learning and Research in the Age of Google
    ________________________________________
    Topic: Input Devices: Definitions, Affordances, Pitfalls

    Description:

    Engaged or Public Learning Activity
    Get out and see, draw, photograph �

    Go out and look at something, explore it carefully with your eyes/hands, attempt to recreate it with by drawing it, and then take a photograph. What were these experiences like? What was the same, what was different.

    To impress upon students the difficulty (and importance) of digitization and the fact that the sources they use don�t magically appear on the internet, have them digitize something themselves. They should find a scholarly article from the pre-digital era or a newspaper article that is only available in a paper archive and digitize it. This can be as simple as taking a photograph and putting it on a web page or as complex as using a professional-grade scanner (if your library has one) and building, but the process of doing so should help students think about where information comes from and how it becomes digital.

    Resources/Bibliography
    Kittler, Friedrich A. Gramophone, Film, Typewriter. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999.
    McGann, Jerome. �Philology in a New Key.� Critical Inquiry 39.2 (2013): 327-346.
    McLuhan, Marshall. The Medium is the Massage + The Essential McLuhan
    Manovich, Lev. The Language of New Media, Cambridge: MIT, 2002.
    ________________________________________

    Topic: Technological Determinism and the Problem of Free Will

    Description: How can we conceptualize agency and free will (including the agency that engages with technology) as a continuum instead of a binary? How can we think of ourselves as interconnected with technology instead of fighting against it or capitulating to it?

    Engaged or Public Learning Activity
    behavior experiments – pressing buttons that donâ��t do anything
    recreate experiments by Dan Ariely, Daniel Kahnemann and others that demonstrate how human behavior is influenced by the choices presented

    Resources/Bibliography
    Jacques Ellul, The Technology Society, New York: Vintage, 1967
    Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality: An Introduction (Vol. 1) (focus on panopticon principle)
    Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Touching Feeling
    ________________________________________

    Topic: Understanding the Differences in the New Medium of Discursive Exchange (Rights and Responsibilities)

    Description:

    Engaged or Public Learning Activity
    –Having students serve as ‘trolls’
    -Have students explore (and add to?) the â��Talkâ�� pages of controversial Wikipedia pages (ex.: â��Ideologyâ��–itâ��s so meta!)
    -Encouraging students to explore ‘Twitter wars’

    Resources/Bibliography
    ________________________________________

    Topic: ¡Búscalo! – the Borders of Knowledge and Collaboration

    Description: Just look it up! It is ok to not know everything. Share knowledge and don�t be afraid to ask. Yet, be critical and aware of what you search for and how. Interpret the information you compile. Consideration, reflection, awareness of language and tools. Teach how to (re)search.

    Engaged or Public Learning Activity
    Reflect on the process of searching – learn how to learn- and compare various dictionaries – books both new and old, different online and phone app dictionaries, card catalogs, think about our tools and how we use them

    Have students make something material (like a kite) using instructions from the internet (to reinforce the �do it yourself� ethos)

    Have students decide on a skill they want to learn and get as far as they can with it over the course of the semester using YouTube videos and other internet sources. This can often give an object lesson in pedagogy: you quickly find out who are the best teachers on the internet.

    Unlearning aspects of your own skills or your native language or whatever is hindering you from learning new concepts in your target language/skill/tool you want to learn or practice

    Resources/Bibliography
    Borges, Jorge Luis The Library of Babel/La biblioteca de babel 1941.

    The Trial of Galileo (Activity: figure out how to create a precise timekeeping device)
    ________________________________________

    Topic: Using technology to enhance communication

    Description: While teaching language skills, especially, technology like skype can be used to make students of multi/intercultural groups to interact. Skills related to communication can be enhanced by peer group learning. Pronunciation, for example, can be corrected by the native speakers. Other aspects of communication like presentation and group discussion can also be developed.

    Engaged or Public Learning Activity

    Resources/Bibliography
    Malcolm M. MacDonald & John O�Regan, Language and Intercultural Communication. Online. Taylor and Francis, 2014.
    ________________________________________

    Topic: Access to information / Information control

    Description: A critical examination of who has access to information. How are certain bodies of knowledge controlled?

    Engaged or Public Learning Activity
    -Using foreign portals to access sites like al Jazeera, news media sites
    -Using Google incognito window to compare search results and patterns / Use Duck-Duck-Go and comparing search results with Google
    -Privileges of geography – doing a geolocated/non geolocated search
    -After writing a research paper – putting a price tag on the bibliography of sources used
    -Reading terms of agreement on technology
    -Buy or sell a form of cryptocurrency

    Resources/Bibliography
    Suber, Peter. �Knowledge as a Public Good.� SPARC Open Access Newsletter, November 2, 2009. http://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/4391171

    Addressing Trust Challenges in Connected Learning
    http://dmlcentral.net/blog/jade-e-davis/addressing-trust-challenges-connected-learning
    ________________________________________

    Topic: Techno-skepticism and techno-utopianism

    Description: Identify frameworks, language, theories, approaches to help student develop a reflexivity, a self-awareness, a distance, a critique of technology (need to define technology)

    Engaged or Public Learning Activity
    -Cathy�s card catalog activity
    -writing project with no �technology� after 1993
    -the telephone game with google translator – student 1 says something, translates it into google translator, student 2 back translates, adds a new comment, etc
    -Translation Party
    -a day without technology

    Resources/Bibliography
    Carr, N. The shallows: What the Internet is doing to our brains. W.W. Norton & Company, 2011.
    Davidson, C. N. Now you see it: How the brain science of attention will transform the way we live, work, and learn. New York: Penguin Book, 2011
    Forster, E.M. �The Machine Stops�
    Haraway, Donna. �Cyborg Manifesto�
    ________________________________________

    Topic: Technology and Democracy

    Description: What is the long-standing historical relationship between technology and democracy?

    Engaged or Public Learning Activity

    Resources/Bibliography
    Sclove, R. Technology and democracy. New York: Guilford Press, 1995.
    Weaver, R.L. From Gutenberg to the Internet�. Durham: Carolina Academic Press, 2013.
    Lawrence Lessig.
    ________________________________________

    Topic: Self-awareness of learning �habitudes� and the way institutions help/obstruct how students form them++

    Engaged or Public Learning Activity
    (that promote collaboration and the generativeness of collective thinking)

    Collective Reflective Annotated Bibliography (these are instructions, this is an example of what this document could look like, and here�s an example of how to contribute to one)

    Talmudic Exegesis In-Class Exercise

    Cadavre Esquisse In-Class Exercise

    Resources/Bibliography
    Halberstam, J. �Unlearning�
    Vygotsky, Lev Mind and Society
    Barthes �To the Seminar�
    Torgorvnick, etal Writing Groups in Harold Veeser�s Confessions of the Critics
    �Framework for Success in Post-Secondary Writing� (NCTE, CWPA, NWP) http://wpacouncil.org/framework

    ________________________________________

    Topic: Blending Remote and Real-time Class Participation

    Description: An approach to blending traditional classroom participation with virtual/remote class participation for wider reach and accessibility

    http://mashable.com/2010/04/21/classroom-video-conferencing/
    http://bluejeans.com/blog/use-video-conferencing-education

    Engaged or Public Learning Activity

    Resources/Bibliography
    Pinker, Steven. �The Trouble With Harvard.� The New Republic.
    http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119321/harvard-ivy-league-should-judge-students-standardized-tests
    __________________________________________________________

    Topic: What is the purpose of community college and college education; if the purpose of education is to make us �better� how do we deconstruct current habits to achieve this?

    Description:

    Engaged or Public Learning Activity

    Resources/Bibliography
    http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/aug/19/readers-absorb-less-kindles-paper-study-plot-ereader-digitisation
    __________________________________________________________

    Topic: How higher education is being transformed by technology

    Description: How higher education is being transformed by technology–both being enhanced by the potential of technologies that enable additional collaboration and interaction with peers and with broader bodies of digital data and information and also the role if any that technology may play in increasing the contingency of the labor of educators.

    Engaged or Public Learning Activity
    Video seminar between CC students and graduate course; focus group to discuss/debate individual perceptions of what students believe their purpose is vs. institution�s purpose for them; society�s purpose for them.

    Resources/Bibliography
    Community College Education/College Education Resources:
    Academically Adrift
    Anyon, Jean Marx and Education
    Spring, Joel Wheels in the Head
    Barbatis, Peter Underprepared, Ethnically Diverse Community College Students
    Bettinger E. & Long B. Addressing the Needs of Underprepared Students in Higher Education
    Hughey, Aaron An Examination of the Potential Relationship Between Technology and Persistence Among At-Risk College Students
    __________________________________________________________

    Topic: Visualization and context of data

    Description: Throwing numbers out to students can be overwhelming and even meaningless if students are not given the tools to understand that data. Visualizing and contextualizing data can provide students with a richer understanding of data and statistics, grounding the data and giving it structure. Additionally, the purpose of data and the interpretation and critical analysis of it should be explored as a class.

    Engaged or Public Learning Activity
    � How to find data sets
    o http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/index.xhtml
    o http://www.google.com/publicdata/directory
    � Visualization websites
    o gapminder.org
    o capitolwords.org
    o google n-gram
    � More technical tools:
    o Mapping Data with Coding Libraries
    � http://maphub.github.io/
    � http://modestmaps.com/
    � http://kartograph.org/
    o Processing (visual-oriented Java-based language)
    � Data project examples
    � How can data be persuasive? Where does it come from? What does it say? (Analysis)

    Resources/Bibliography
    Projects
    � http://jgieseking.org/datavisualizing-lesbian-queer-space-time/
    � http://manovich.net/index.php/projects/data-visualisation-as-new-abstraction-and-anti-sublime
    � http://blog.quantifyingkissinger.com/
    � http://www.jasondavies.com/

    Readings
    � �Introducing Google Chart Tools and Google Maps API in Data Visualization Courses;� Ying Zhu
    � Design for Information: An Introduction to the Histories, Theories, and Best Practices Behind Effective Information Visualizations; Isabel Meirelles
    � �A Typology for Data Visualization on the Web;� Ana Figueiras
    __________________________________________________________

    Topic: How can we support students as they learn how to learn (or as they unlearn bad learning habits)? How do we teach students to listen, to read for information, to take notes, and to find out what they need to know?

    Description

    Engaged or Public Learning Activity

    Resources/Bibliography
    __________________________________________________________

    Topic: Affective learning

    Description: Classrooms are emotionally charged spaced for everyone involved that requires particular tools to understand and negotiate. Ask students to reflect on their own experiences learning and teaching�including both conventional and non-conventional ways they�ve taught and learned both in and out of classrooms�bearing in mind the flexibility of the teacher/student roles and relationships.

    Engaged or Public Learning Activity
    Create a blog on which each participant in the course reflects on one experience of learning each week. At the same time, each participant will create an individual blog for an undergrad course they are teaching that semester (which might be linked to the main course blog). Periodically, they will post reports and reflections on what their students are saying and on how they themselves may be applying what they�re learning in the grad course to teaching their undergrads.

    Resources/Bibliography
    Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. �Teaching/Depression.� http://sfonline.barnard.edu/heilbrun/sedgwick_01.htm
    Tompkins, Jane. A Life at School: What the Teacher Learned.
    Chabot, Michel, and Daniel Chabot. Emotional Pedagogy.
    __________________________________________________________

    Topic: Meeting students where they are located, in the body, in the community, and in the institution and beginning the conversation there. Applying an historical analysis of bodies and space including an un-learning genders and sexualities, economies of neighborhoods and communities, and educational curriculums as have been outlined.

    Description

    Engaged or Public Learning Activity
    � Finding old college bulletins and seeing how course descriptions have changed and then mapping the evolution of curriculums.
    � Fact-Books over time and the shifting patterns and measurements
    � Engage in a Think-Pair-Share where students focus on three points of their identity and how they were constructed
    � (for undergraduate students) Engage in a Think-Pair-Share on what it is that you �Know� and how you �Know it� in reference to a particular topic from educational spaces and culturally

    Resources/Bibliography
    Ferguson, Roderick. The Reorder of Things: The University and Its Pedagogies of Minority Difference.
    an institution adrift beno schmidt report on cuny
    pathways curriculum

    Kate Bornstein, My Gender Workbook
    _________________________________________________________

    Topic: Debt and its history and strategies for handling it i and the way it intersects with achievement. sharing ideas while retaining recognition (possibly in the marketplace).

    Description:

    Engaged or Public Learning Activity

    Resources/Bibliography
    http://projectonstudentdebt.org/state_by_state-data.php
    http://occupystudentdebt.tumblr.com
    ________________________________________________________

    Topic: History of higher education and CUNY mission; pedagogy- why and how we should learn together?

    Description:

    Engaged or Public Learning Activity
    What would students contribute to the CUNY Digital History Archive? http://cdha.commons.gc.cuny.edu/

    Resources/Bibliography
    Rich, Adrienne. �On Teaching Language in Open Admissions�
    Ferguson, Roderick. The Reorder of Things: The University and Its Pedagogies of Minority Difference.
    Wilder, Craig Steven. Ebony and Ivy: Race, Slavery, and the History of the American University.
    Readings, Bill. The University in Ruins.
    Ranciere, Jacques. The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Five Lessons in Intellectual Emancipation
    hooks, bell. Teaching to Transgress
    Moten, Fred and Stefano Hardy. The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning and Black Study.
    Newfield, Chris. The Unmaking of the Public University.

  3. Cathy N. Davidson October 5, 2014 at 3:39 pm #

    Evan, can you do that for the community, repost this remixable syllable on Github and invite participation? That would be a wonderful contribution. Thank you!

  4. evan misshula October 5, 2014 at 12:15 pm #

    Awesome class. Apologies to the distinguished instructors for having arrived late. In this spirit, we should also post a copy to github. 🙂

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  1. Open Education at CUNY — Code and Resources at Open Education Initiatives at CUNY - October 19, 2014

    […] One of the many innovative projects is a new course on the Future of Higher Ed taught by Futures Initiative Director Dr. Cathy N. Davidson and former CUNY-GC President William Kelley. The course has a public collaborative syllabus (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hlbAHk_7GQ0o0pTJCozROya956M1CXYeChBPuBpyqsI/edit). Information about the course and open materials are available at (http://futures.commons.gc.cuny.edu/2014/10/05/crowdsourced-syllabus-mapping-the-futures-of-higher-ed&#8230😉 […]

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