7 comments by 2 or more people

1. Chris May

   I’m not sure that a lecture theatre, library, or seminar really qualifies as “creepy treehouse” in the sense that Jared defines it. When he says it’s

   Any institutionally-created, operated, or controlled environment in which participants are lured in either by mimicking pre-existing open or naturally formed environments, or by force, through a system of punishments or reward

   I think (from reading some of the referenced articles) that the emphasis is on the luring and mimicking, rather than the punishment and reward. Simply being an established part of the insitutution isn’t enough.
   Students don’t go to lectures because the lecture theatre is disguised as a pub; the lecture theatre is quite transparent in it’s intentions.
   To qualify as C.T. I think there has to be an element of deception – you think you’re just chatting on facebook, but Hah! I’ve turned the conversation to one about particle physics. Gotcha!

   10 Sep 2008, 21:36

2. Robert O'Toole

   It’s an old argument.

   The seminar room is presented as a site for the open, democratic application of intellectual principle – but it’s really just the embodiement of social, economic and political expediecies. Althusser. Foucault.

   “Authenticity” – talk of which should always be met with suspicion.

   The real story here is the rejection of constructivism by the very people it is supposed to help. To develop the lame analogy further – the constructivist use of tree houses: temporary, trans-formal, itinerant, ad-hoc, transversal, social and private (control being devolved), interconnected, built from the best tools at hand (no matter where they come from) – creative assemblages for the production of knowledge – and that’s what a constructivist learning space is. What if the students don’t know how to make them? Or just will not take the risk? Give them a bit of scaffolding, get them started, stop being the absolute authority, start working with their tools in their space. Lecturers using Facebook? Whatever.

   The real big issue is that students are leaving school ill-equipped for the kind of learning that we expect them to undertake. Perhaps Facebook creepiness is just a reaction to the enormous depth of the problem.

   11 Sep 2008, 01:06

3. matthew

   But surely the point is not that Foucault thinks the “seminar room is presented as a site for the open, democratic application of intellectual principle”, but that students think it is presented as a site for seminars, and thus isn’t creepy.

   It seems odd to say that “The real story here is the rejection of constructivism by the very people it is supposed to help”. Constructivism isn’t supposed to help anyone. It is a theory of learning, it is supposed to accurately describe how they learn. Indeed, there seems to be growing evidence that the people who try to derive teaching implications from the theory tend to get it badly wrong.
   See DOIs 10.1207/s15326985ep4102_1 or 10.1111/j.0956-7976.2004.00737.x

   11 Sep 2008, 09:43

4. Robert O'Toole

   The more I think about this, the more naive and ill-informed it seems. Who ever uses Facebook without a sense of suspicion? – perhaps really naive people – but the students that I interviewed about this earlier in the year are smart enough to be suspicious. Facebook is creepy.

   Exactly when do students use an entirely self-constructed so called tree house over which they have control? Never.

   11 Sep 2008, 09:44

5. Robert O'Toole

   Constructivism is a theory of learning AND a movement for change. The argument being that education should work in a way that is compatible with learning.

   11 Sep 2008, 09:58

6. Robert O'Toole

   What is a seminar? Go ask the students – you’ll be surprised by the confusion.

   11 Sep 2008, 09:59

7. Robert O'Toole

   Does constructivism always fail when practised in isolation?

   Is it always too much of a battle against the prevailing pedagogy?

   Certainly innovative educationalists are interested in social networking, blogging etc because they show evidence of [young] people behaving actively and constructively, to an extent that would be welcome in more ‘official’ contexts. Is that a bad thing? Yes? Perhaps the worthwhile learning takes place somewhere other than the university, which is now reduced to the status of issuer of certificates. No! Universities have much more to offer – active, constructive, thoughtful, individual learning with guidance, opportunity creation, wisdom and experience.

   12 Sep 2008, 10:24