Randy Bass, noted authority on new approaches to teaching and learning, is encouraging ANAC member schools to create a "Teaching Commons" to share their work on the scholarship of teaching. Details…
Bass is assistant provost for teaching and learning initiatives, executive director of the Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship, and associate professor of English at Georgetown University.
He was a plenary speaker at the ANAC Summer Institute held on the Elon campus. He says new approaches to higher education are unleashing versions of learning that colleges and universities are not yet equipped to deal with or take advantage of.
Bass says schools are working to understand the benefits of innovative approaches, including such terms as experiential learning, community-based learning, learning through technology and multimedia, active learning and inquiry-based learning.
“We’re in over our heads,” Bass said. “We’re opening up forms of learning that we don’t quite know what to do with.”
Bass talked about teaching methods such as “design for difficulty” – an invitation for students to get to work and become engaged in tackling tough subjects. He also discussed social pedagogies, giving students concrete or authentic tasks that give them a sense of purpose and an opportunity to develop their own voice and receive feedback from people other than a teacher. An example of this method is to involve students as teachers of a subject – a great way to learn on a deep level.
>>Click here to listen to a portion of the presentation by Randy Bass…
Bass challenged faculty members to develop what he calls a “Teaching Commons,” where they can build on each other’s knowledge.
In that “middle space,” Bass says faculty can “contribute fragments of their insights to some kind of common store of knowledge” about best practices in teaching and learning.
“There’s an opportunity for ANAC schools to build that middle space where we can try to better understand the kind of learning you’re trying to promote,” Bass says.