What we're gonna be talking about today is technology mediated learning environments.
And whenever I'm talking about education, whether it's technology mediated or
classroom based, I always start at the same place.
Start with the learner.
And what the challenge is for higher education is we are being
asked to educate not only a much greater number of learners,
but also, a greater diversity of learners, and I don't just mean cultural diversity.
Socioeconomic diversity, religious diversity,
gender diversity, sexual orientation diversity,
all of those dimensions of diversity are critically important.
But in an education standpoint so is diversity with respect
to the learners' prior knowledge, what they bring to our class,
their future goals, what they're hoping to achieve by being in our class, and
the skills that they have to learn what we want them to learn.
And another dimension of diversity is diversity in the attributions
students make, the meaning they make out of the experience they're having.
And we need to consider all of those dimensions of diversity
when we're thinking about differentiating instruction.
Learners are also working in multiple contexts.
We still have learners coming to classrooms, but we also have learners
learning in museums, learning in the workforce, learning online,
learning on their cellphones, learning on computers, diversity of context.
So, now that takes us to the question, technology.
I'm sure you've all heard about how technology is going to transform
education.
Now, I just said, from the graduate school of education, and one of the things we
know about learning is that you don't actually do it really well when you're
just sitting there passively listening to me or someone else tell you stuff.
So when you go to those classes without quizzes, I would actually recommend that
you quiz yourself because it'll help you learn things.
So I'm gonna give you an opportunity to participate.
So when I talk about technology and I ask a large room of people what
is the power of technology that's going to transform education,
I usually get one of three answers.
And here's what I get.
The first one, access and convenience.
If you have a computer you can learn any time, any place.
That's what MOOCs were all about.
How many of you have tried MOOCs?
So access and convenience, okay.
That's the power that's gonna transform education.
Other people say, no, Candace.
That's kind of old school thinking.
The real power is what you can do with the technology,
that we couldn't do in classrooms when you were in classrooms.
We can, for example, if you're an engineer,
we can have students construct bridges.
They collapse and nobody gets killed.
So we can simulate what we want students to be able to do and
have them get actual experience.
So simulation, that's what's gonna transform education.
The third thing, that people say is no.
The real power here is not just the individual interacting with a computer.
It's that that computer is connected to an Internet.
And through that Internet I can connect the learner to other learners,
to other experts, to the world.
Okay, so now here comes your part.
Since I can't ask you, cuz there are too many of you,
I'm gonna ask you to just vote.
If we had technology media classroom here, I'd asking you to vote on your cellphone,
but instead we're gonna just use the old way of raising hands.
So for a moment, turn to the person next to you and just maybe have a quick
talk about which of these three powers you actually think it is, and
then get ready to make your voice heard, okay?
>> [NOISE]
>> Okay, for
those of you who think the big power that's gonna transform
education is this power of access and convenience raise your hand.
Access and convenience.
Okay, great, okay great.
Okay, put your hands down.
How about for those of who say, no,
it's really all about that simulation capability, simulation.
Okay, okay.
Okay, and then how about the folks that are like, you guys are all old-school?
It's really about connection.
Okay, okay now how many of you are thinking all of the above?
>> [LAUGH] >> How many of you are thinking Candice,
you said you're an educator why are you giving us a crummy multiple choice
question?
>> [LAUGH] >> How many of you were
thinking none of the above?
Okay, and how many of you just don't raise your hands when you're asked?
>> [LAUGH] >> So actually I agree with all of you.
These are all important.
However, I think the real transformative power is really none of the above.
The transformative power of this technology is
what Google has all ready figured out.
It's what Amazon has figured out.
It's what Netflix has figured out.
The power of this technology is not just pushing
stuff out at you, but pushing it to the interface.
Because in the interface we can observe the learner.
Now Amazon, Netflix, Google,
they are observing us in their interfaces all the time.
Why?
>> [INAUDIBLE] >> Cuz they wanna understand
us better as consumers.
So they know better what to target to us,
they want to understand us individually as consumers.
And they wanna understand us collectively as consumers.
So you might think, okay, Candice, that's creepy,
that you're talking about using education that way.
But the idea is not to understand learners as consumers,
but to understand learners as learners.
Because this is the big power.
If we design the technology mediated learning environments properly,
then every interaction a student makes is a piece of evidence about their learning.
And we can use that data we collect and model it to give really important
feedback to the actors, the human actors, in the education system.
For example, we can tell learners,
we can give them just in time targeted feedback to support their learning.
We can give instructors information about their class.
I teach data analysis and interpretation here at Stanford and I have my students
work through a technology mediated environment before they come to class,
I teach at 10 AM, I tell then to finish working through the environment by 6 AM.
Because between 6 AM and 10 AM I can look at the data generated by their
interactions and plan how I'm gonna help them in class that day.
The other feedback loop is to the design teams.
Now these kinds of learning environments are not invented or
designed by individual faculty.
We bring together faculty who have the domain expertise, who have human computer
interaction expertise, who have learning research expertise, software.
It takes a community to build these environments, and
we give them feedback from all of the students using these environments.
And then we can feed our science, the last feedback
loop is to those of us that consider ourselves learning researchers.
Because all of this data that is being generated by all the learners, and
all of the environment across the world can help us improve our theories in
cognitive science, in neuroscience, in social-psychological sciences.
And of course the mother of learning science right now,
computer and data science.
Computer and data science is revolutionizing every other industry.
These new algorithms are allowing computers to learn themselves to beat
the best Go player in the world.
Allow computers to drive cars, allow computers to recognize our speech,
allow computers to learn to generate original art.
It's really exciting.
These new algorithms provide this potential of human in a looped AI,
to allow us to truly revolutionize eduction.
However, there's a lot of fear about this too, and with good reason.
Because right now, many of the systems and
coursewares that are being developed to support learning,
we're outsourcing to the commercial sector.
And all of those decisions that are being made, every time we collect a piece of
evidence and use that to make a recommendation to a learner, or
make a recommendation to instructor,
if we don't know how that recommendation is being built.
And the systems are just saying trust us, it works,
I would posit to you that that's alchemy, it's no longer science.
And what we need to do is insist that as we're building this
new model of education, that the algorithms, the features,
the representations be open, be peer reviewable, be challengeable.
And in that way, we can build the future of higher education which integrates and
feeds back Into our understanding of human learning.
And we set up this virtuous cycle where we use what we believe we know about human
learning to design the learning environment.
We use the learning environments to collect this massive amount of data.
We use that data to refine the learning environment and
we set up this cycle of continuous improvement.
So I'm gonna leave you with a quote from my former colleague at
Carnegie Mellon, Herb Simon and he said back in 1991,
improvement in post secondary education will require converting teaching from
a solo sport to a community-based research, activity.
Powerful statement, 1991.
I modified it, so I've changed it to say, improvement
in post secondary education will require converting teaching and
courseware, platform, and analytic system development
from a solo sport to a community-based research activity.
And I'll leave you with one last quote from an economist, Bill Baumol,
who said back in 1967, without a complete revolution in our approach to teaching,
we cannot go beyond our current levels of productivity.
And he's right.
The escalating cause of education rivals healthcare.
My message used to be when I worked with Baumol, this revolution is now possible.
My message now is this revolution is happening.
It's here, and my question is the same.
Who's going to lead it?
And my answer is, higher education needs to lead.
Higher education especially institutions like Stanford need to lead this
revolution.
Thank you.