Index:

Overcoming Stove-piped Systems

In a full version of demand pedagogy, used in multiple classes, students will be assisted to explore the relationship between courses of study.  They will assist each other, and be assisted by the common classroom experiences. 

The individual will have his or her own experience, and a set of topics that have been selected by the individual from all possible topics. 

The set of all possible topics will have two instances;

• those discovered by at least one individual in the class, and
• the set of all topics enumerated by the faculty members. 

Each topic has three levels of comprehension or skill;


Example:

So for example, the individual might make up two points and find the equation, and then graph this equation.  He or she will do this to demonstrate, on blank paper, that he or she has skill in graphing linear equations.  The purpose selected by the student is to illustrate the concept of the slope of a linear function.  Each individual will choose a unique set of points.  A second example might be in the use of HTML to create a unique web page, or developing of a data set that is normally distributed.

The Global Picture:

Demand theory also works globally.  Participating school, colleges and universities, may use bridge service architecture to develop class management tools and other administrative tools.  Various groups are developing virtualization so that a virtual machine loaded with the appropriate software is delivered to the desk top on demand.  The lifting of software for educational purposes is reducing costs and increasing capacity in many college, universities and schools .  The BIM plus POP Working Group  is active in lifting virtual software into virtualized architecture.  The Bridge will integrate virtualization, or cloud computing, with immersive Virtual Worlds (iVM) using the innovation and discoveries talked about in The Education Bridge . 

One part of the proposed tool set comes in the form of knowledge management methods.  Faculty members will use these tools to construct curriculum.  The topic focus grid developed by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics is one example of a topic focus grid .  Once many curriculums are in a digital form, we may shift institutional assessment to a kind of e-governance system.  This system will allow the normal and healthy evolution of curriculum. 

The tools that we expect to be deployed may unify governance and education.  These tools in turn aid student, parents, and the government in assessing the school, college or university’s outcome metrics. The technology empowers the individual to bring awareness of problems, while also introducing a multi-coherent capacity to problem solving.  Multi-coherence, as discussed in Chapter Two, sees the natural paradox that arises because there are many minds, and because in a real sense there are many physical worlds.

Definition of Stove piping

The schools, colleges and universities form the same type of stove piping we see in government agencies.  Each stovepipe is created due to the exercise of egotism self centeredness and egotism.  The collapse of system wide efficiencies develop due to the extraordinary force of an individual will over others. 

Overcoming the inefficiencies created by stove-piped public sector system is important.  Our educational system must assist our children in learning how to collaborate and how to resolve cultural problems in a multi-coherent world.  The use of e-governance tools is how we might address our structural deficient.  But if our children are being educated to be competitive and unnecessarily wasteful, then they will not be able to use these tools. 

The Purpose of the Education Bridge

The Bridge between high school and college breaks the localized control underlying stove piping.  This is a big deal since our public sectors suffer from the consequences of stove piping.  However, the need remains for localized governance.  This is paradoxical.  Localization of human insight is the key function involved in human learning.  So localized control may lead to a re-enforcement loop. Creating a stovepipe. 

My experience in 2009-2010 at Norwich University came close to the type of evidence that might have gained positive national light.  From this experience, best practices may be advanced. 

We now seek to create a process that is seen as not being any different from what is current practice, and yet is able to provide a demand framework.  As stated, there are two steps towards a successful use of demand pedagogy.  The next step is in the use of a focus topic grid as a replacement for a syllabus.  The step after that is to bring the focus topic grid into a virtual world. 

The second step will take maybe two more years.  To take the first step we must make the demand pedagogy feel almost as if it is the traditional


cycle. 

The New Practice hoped for during the next academic year (2010-2011)

The topics to be lectured on in class have to be governed by a calendar schedule.   Homework has to be assigned and graded.  But we could still use demand pedagogy with blank paper tests.  Composing from an internalized awareness onto blank paper provides a means for the student to demonstrate his or her level of understanding. 

Notation

Remember the notation used:



Class notes

Class notes presented as video or scanned images.

Students could compete with each other to post scanned images of really good class notes. 

Again we return to the conjecture that education is stuck in local optima that are defined by how the educational system interacts with other large systems, such as our economic and political system.  To think that concerns are not present at all schools, colleges and universities is to not have looked carefully.  The experience I have had helps me see how to create a mission statement that is well communicated and respectful of the current causes of these types of problems. 

The new Immersive Virtual Worlds

One of the positive consequences of our work in 2009-2010 was our development of some understanding of open source development in virtual world systems like Reaction Grid and RealXTend.  We also saw educational use of Second Life virtual world software accelerate.  We have started putting into place a virtual world environment, based on the use of Reaction Grid, where students may practice discovery of topics and create compositional assessments.