OLDaily

“The Future Started Yesterday and We’re Already Late”: The Case for Antiracist Online Teaching
David L. Humphrey Jr., Camea Davis, The Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy, 2021/05/12

This article makes a "case for antiracist online education." In particular, "Online learning remains an uncharted and underutilized discursive space for addressing anti-blackness and engaging in antiracist praxis." The authors use critical Black theory, or “BlackCrit”, as "a 'metatheory,' used to explicate the hidden whitened discursive context that undergirds and drives most theories, even theories that consider themselves to be 'critical'." As well, "BlackCrit also speaks to the ways that blackness signifies a being and deep embodied knowing" (which could perhaps be compared to indigenous ways of knowing that I've seen discussed in other contexts? In any case, "Antiracist education accepts the presence of bias and stereotypes but requires employing diligent and consistent investigation into the source of racism and how racist ideas manifest structurally, culturally, politically, and interpersonally." Which sounds eminently reasonable to me.

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5 Ways to Address Inequities in Higher Education
Rhea Kelly, Campus Technology, 2021/05/12

What I find striking about this list of recommendations (lead and inspire, lobby, form partnerships, monitor students, and innovate) is that none of them address fairness in recruitment and selection process, access and accessibility of learning resources, diversity in content selection and representation to reflect diversity in the population as a whole, or economic and social supports for historically marginalized populations. Maybe I'm just missing the mark and don't understand what students really need. Or maybe the article misrepresents what the study (41 page PDF) actually says and inserts some other agenda in its place. My reading of the study reveals "three primary themes... student support, funding, and operations." The first of these themes covers things like ability to attend, access to technology, funding, and more. But hey, don't trust me, read it yourself.

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On "Value-Laden" Science
Zina B. Ward, PhilSci Archive, 2021/05/12

"Equivocation about the relationship between values and choices has led to rampant confusion and  misunderstanding in the literature on values in science," writes Zina B. Ward (19 page PDF). So she proposes and argues for a four-part taxonomy to make this clear: "values can motivate, justify, cause, or be impacted by the choices we make." She then applies this taxonomy to a discussion of  “inductive risk”, that is, "the potential consequences of mistakenly accepting a false claim or rejecting a true one." How do our values related to the indctive risk we are willing to tolerate in different circumstances? It's an interesting discussion and of course is relevant to the discussion of the relation between values and other things - educational technology, say, or learning theories.

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Collaborative Note-taking as an Alternative to Recording Online Sessions
Nikole D. Patson, Faculty Focus, 2021/05/12

Most of this article is devoted to questions around recording class sessions. Having students participate in class is good for a variety of reasons, for example, to help restore some students' confidence. However, argues Nikole Patson, "being recorded increased their feelings of isolation and inadequacy." And that's why she suggests collaborative note-taking as an alternative (or, more accurately, a process where some students are assigned to take the class notes). I don't see how this solves the problem, since (in my experience) people are just as hesitant to show their skills in writing as on video. And also, I don't see why it has to be a choice - you can do both (in fact, I have in the past put some of the note taking onto the video recording, so viewers can see what's going on off the screen).

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The Progressive Teacher's Role in the Classroom
Alfie Kohn, 2021/05/12

Both sides in an argument can agree on a misinterpretation of something, if it serves their needs. But this misinterpretation may be blocking a better understanding of the issue in general. Take the concept of 'adult authority', for example. Both sides, writes Alfie Kohn, "share a key premise: Adult authority is necessarily autocratic and power-based. Their disagreement is about whether that’s a good thing." But there are other was to look at adult authority. For example, we can think of it as "the process of understanding ideas is facilitated by being gently challenged to reevaluate one’s assumptions. The teacher offers new possibilities for students to consider, to integrate, perhaps to rebel against." That, for me, is a key lesson of online learning. We can't force people to do things when they're at a distance, so the role of the adult - or the teacher in general - changes. (Also published in Psychology Today, which is where the image came from).

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