What are your goals for graduate school? What are your goals for this class? How do you see them intersecting?
My goals for graduate school are to find the resources and develop the skills that will allow me to bring best practice teaching, curriculum design, and educational philosophies to the medical community. In particular, I would like to apply this educational knowledge to surgical education.
For this class, I hope to learn about the physical space of learning and the extended physical space of the learning environment as it applies to teachers and learners. Ideally, I would like to see the effect of learning space in informal and nontraditional environments.
I believe the two will intersect by allowing me to see how the surgical learning environment can be tweaked or manipulated to optimize learning as an efficient process. Much of medical residency training revolves around informal and unstructured activities. I would like to find methods to bring learning to the extra space in and around the operating room, ward, and lecture hall.
Dan Wow, great to have this focus on an area that is fascinating, critical, yet shut off from so many of us not in the medical education world. If you haven't already done so, be sure to check out Stanford's Medical Media and Information Technologies Group (SUMMIT); they have some amazing projects there related to medical training. The med school also manages an innovative learning space (M112) that is worth a visit. Throughout our class, be thinking about what the goals of medical education might have in common with the wide variety of organizations we will talk about.
Andrew I love that you have such focus and that it is so different than mine. The diversity of interests at Stanford has floored me and made my learning experience much much richer. I am excited to hear how spaces such as a museum or a preschool realte to surgery. Do they relate? Should they relate? Are there parts of surgery that could be improved simply by changing the space in which surgical training and surgery take place?
Hiro Hi Barnard, it's great to know you are interested in medical education. Although I am not familier with a medical field, it would be great if we could bring an unprecedented learning space idea and contribute to medical community! You may be interested in Lucile Packard Children's Hospital School for your project... and me as well. I think learning space concepts have important implications for students staying in hospital. From your library friend
Whitney I am really entrigued to learn how the surgical learning environment can optimize learning by making it more efficient. Has there been any recent innovation in surgical education? I look forward to hearing your ideas about how to make other learning environments more efficient.
Hannah : I did not know that you are interested in the surgical learning environment. That industry, nowadays, has lots of innovative tehcnologies (robotics) used in real field. The curriculum also has included most up-to-date tehcnologies for learning purpose. Immersive virtual reality has been emerging in the medical education. You might want to check about it. Nice to see you again.
Rolf - Great goals Barnard. I think it will be interesting to see the parallels between surgical learning spaces and places like schools and museums. I suspect that you'll have some nice opportunities to be innovative.
Neha - Hey Barnard - I love your ideas :). I didn't have much of an interest in medical education until I did this project last quarter that dealt with paramedics training. It was an awesome experience. If you'd like to do more with it, let me know :).
What have I learned this year, and how to I know it?
The learner comes first.
Too often, teachers, curriculum designers, implementers, and policy makers forget that education is about the learner. We get caught up in standards, rhetoric, and personal motives that neglect and even take away from the learning experience. One example that comes to mind is the course evaluations on Axess.They may offer a score report but speak nothing for the class experience, lessons learned, or quality of the class.
The value of collaboration in education.
I tended to think of education as a process that centers around individuals. But I now realize the power of learning in groups. It serves to promote communication while offering motivations and solutions that could not be otherwise achieved. My eyes were opened as I stumbled across the realization that most examples of human achievement occur through teamwork. Although strong leaders are needed, the most significant progress is made when these individuals use communication and cooperation to achieve larger goals.
Qualitative research can offer insights that quantitative cannot.
Qualitative research is slowly gaining acceptance in the academic community. As consumers of knowledge, many of us tend to look at students as numbers, scores, and categories when we should be seeing them as people and learners. However, quantitative data only holds relevance within constructs that are based on theories and observations that are often generated qualitatively. A math test-score provides no insight into the mind of a student, but appreciations for learning style preferences and the effects of home environment on learning do.
Educational research is in its infancy.
The science of education has a long way to go in terms of discovery and understanding. This is most evident in that one of the most fundamental and central concepts, “learning,” remains ill-defined.However, this does provide hope for groups and classes individuals who are seen as underachieving. Perhaps we may be better served by thinking of how we might be misunderstanding their needs or undervaluing their intelligences.
Branner Library, Earth Sciences, Stanford University
Brief description
At first glance, Branner appears crowded, non-technical, antiquated, and stiff. But on further review, it offers an opportunity for a lot of different learners to find a home. How does it do this? First and foremost is the separation of space into areas that can be comfortable to a variety of people. The space itself has been divided into a variety of different “spaces”. There are meeting areas, study rooms, open tables, individual study desks, a computer lab, and an open reading area. All of this is housed amidst tightly stacked atlases, books, magazines, and most importantly, fantastic geoscience specimens. Noted in the space are long rectangle tables with wooden chairs, cloth arm chairs, leather armchairs, small round tables and massive easel type tables. The result, a place for everyone to find a niche.
What kind of learning happens there?
It’s tough to say, but most of what appears to go on is self-directed reading, computer use, and usage of the massive book collection. Most of what I would call learning is introspective. The space that it provides is probably better likened to a collection of study areas.
What kind of learning could happen there?
What definitely was not seen was collaborative work or if I may dare say, active work. What I witnessed was study in the most traditional sense. Book learning. Self-study. Quiet and individual contemplation. The space is a tribute to books and science. It caters to the educational pedagogies of a prior decade. What it could be is a collaborative space for individuals to combine their own learning with that of others. It could be a medium for connecting the past and present and research with practical application. In essence, it could have a new educational energy.
What some roles of libraries could or should be?
With my newfound perceptions of libraries and future directions, I imagine libraries as places where everyone can go to do any type of activity related to learning. This includes everything from computer research and word processing to class activities and interactive group projects. I now see libraries more as educational development centers rather than resource collections. But what do I know.
Dan - Thanks Barnard, I liked your point about how further exploration changed your mind a little about what might happen here. Your emphasis on collaboration of course appeals to me, but I wonder what would the students, faculty, and librarians in the Earth Sciences community think? Are there connections between the work people do in the library with what they do in the classrooms and labs?
The Watsonville Library lived up to the hype. As described, it is a brand new, multimillion dollar learning space with modern technology and all of the amenities one could imagine. But more than that, it is a library shaped by and built for the community which it serves.
This brand new space was expertly tailored to the Watsonville learning community. It is separated into multiple areas that serve each learner. There is a Toddler space, Children’s area, teen space, and even a children’s story area each with the appropriate resources and materials. There is a computer lab with over 20 computers and headphones. Study rooms and meeting rooms form the outside of the space while central areas are open and loud. The attention to detail with regard to the learner goes much further still. There is a lamp and outlets in/on each desk in the study areas. There is wi-fi throughout the library and numerous computer stations including between stacks, in addition to the computer lab And fitting the demographic, the colors and art have a Hispanic influence.
There are some negatives, however. Despite plenty of open spaces, there appeared to be little noise and more importantly, little collaboration. What is more confusing is how people managed to avoid collaboration in a space like this. Visitors are supposed to come face to face. They are supposed to talk. The tables and chairs were placed a certain way to reach that specific goal. Yet the Teen Room was occupied by 3 teenagers separately using 3 computers without interaction. Clustering around eachothers’ work in the computer lab was notably absent. Finally, those at open tables failed to acknowledge the presence of fellow library goers as they read in silence. Even with a mild roar of activity that filled the second floor from the people below, the protocol of silence was strictly upheld.
I suppose the real question is “what is supposed to be learned here” and “how do we know?” My answers are anything that the learner wants to learn and we don’t. Assessment is a particularly difficult issue as I have come to find. Although I cannot say that learning is occurring here, I will say that there is motivation to learn here. On a Saturday, numerous people including teenagers visit the space, read books and magazines, and use computers.
This leads us to an all too common conclusion. Perhaps the cultural remnants of what a library is supposed to be (silent, proper, and historical) still prevent today’s learners from taking full advantage of the space. Despite all of the space changes, the clients remain the same. As for the NOCCA project, this is one of the major details we hope to address: how to change the culture of the library to one that is noisy and collaborative. Clearly, building it a different way is not enough.
Dan - Thanks for sharing this. Your last point about changing the culture of a place called library really points towards changing the name of these places wehre people come together to learn something. I agree that building it a different way is not enough, there is also a significant need for inovative programming, creative staff, and a willingness to try new things with the understanding that some will fail. I look forward to seeing how some of this surfaces in your final presentation.
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