Another way to think about complexity

One of the subjects where I teach is “School Organization and Educational Resources” for the  bilingual group of first-year students at the degree in Primary Education at my University (University of Murcia).

One of the first things I like working with my students when we come to speak about “the organization”, is try to understand complexity in education, everything that has to do with it and, very specifically, to the school as complex context.
I must confess, however, that these kinds of topics I find difficult to work; I guess because in the first year of degree and especially for those very young people, it is difficult to see the importance of issues as “tacit” and little “touchable” as the complex relations between the elements of a system. So, I try to make approaches to content analysis involving the concept, but, as closer as possible to reality.

On this occasion I suggested to my students the following task:

They must review the first chapter of the book Teaching and learning in the digital age de Louise Starkey (we have also worked using the 4th, but I’ll tell you soon), which speaks “simply” about 6 issues related to complexity in schools:

  • Complexity theory
  • The context of a complex organization
  • The emerging knowledge through connections
  • Diversity and redundancy
  • The balance between randomless and deterministic order
  • Theory of complexity and change in schools

I asked students who, after reading the text, should seek in the news last year (national or international), 1 news illustrate each of these issues. Each group conducted a newspaper where he exhibited his news and the relationship between the news and issues we work (here you can see some example  1 , here another 2, another more 3  and  finally another more 4

Once they made the newspapers, the whole class chose 6 articles that will help illustrate the concepts worked and the performed -among all (self-management and self-organization)- a News TV Show, with 6 news that try to illustrate how complex is the complexity of schools. Here you can see the result:

Here the links from the real news:

1 Hoy comienza la Semana Cultural del colegio Camilo Hernández. http://goo.gl/zctD1d
2 BBC News Is South Korean education ‘best in world’? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFpTd…
3 Un colegio en Vallecas, sin libros ni deberes. http://goo.gl/8Q4JUj
4 Colegios innovadores… sin salir de España http://goo.gl/cbEwfz
5 Unique Uses of Twitter in the Classroom http://goo.gl/DrrdnL
6 La educación virtual http://goo.gl/CdiXsp

… It is not very long, so I invite you to watch it complete to value their work and give us some feedback: to students about whatever you want (please, treat them softly, take into account they already have enough with suffering a teacher like me), and to me, on the activity itself.

I worry that the video could “tarnishes” the important of the issue, the activity “eat” the content and the eflection, yet they continue to make their reflections in the group blog … nevertheless, “traditional” approaches do not ensure that they will focus on “the important thing” … so it only remains to explore and go in the direction of what we know: authentic learning, use of reality, reflection, collaborative work … at least try .. .

Well, you will say to me … I’m looking forward to hearing from you all…

 

(Español) ¿Qué materiales podemos usar en la docencia universitaria?

Sorry, this entry is only available in European Spanish.

Esta entrada debería llamarse: “Aprovechándonos del trabajo del CENT“, o mejor, “Aprovechándome del trabajo de mis alumnas internas (¡gracias María y gracias Alba!)”… o incluso mejor “Enanos a hombros de gigantes que comparten”… pero como véis si hemos optado por poner un título explícitamente funcional.

Durante mucho tiempo hemos tenido -al menos yo las tengo- dudas sobre qué que podemos o no usar en nuestras aulas universitarias de todo el material que tenemos recopilado (textos, libros, audios, vídeos) y estar seguros si usando qué cosas no nos pueden poner una denuncia (como se han puesto las cosas, no estoy segura de que no venga la SGAE a buscarme a mi clase algún día… o CEDRO)…

Pues el CENT de la UJI se dio hace tiempo a la labor de responder a las preguntas del sus profesores, e hicieron una guía de qué materiales se pueden usar en docencia universitaria. Problema, que la guía está en catalán, o problema para los que no somos catalano parlantes o catalano nativos :-).

En cualquier caso, gracias a la licencia CC que los del CENT  le pusieron a su guía, y al buen hacer de mis alumnas internas, hemos decidido hacer una traducción de la guía al castellano y la hemos querido dejar accesible a todo el que la necesite desde una página de esta web.

Docencia y propiedad intelectual. ¿Qué materiales puedo utilizar legalmente en la docencia universitaria?

Desde aquí un homenaje a todo el trabajo que hacen en el Centro de Educación y Nuevas Tecnologías de la UJI (Jordi, Carles, Toni, Luis, Puri, Suso) y a mis alumnas (Alba y María) que me ayudan a hacer realidad esas ideas absurdas -aunque creo que útiles-  que se me ocurren de vez en cuando.

Esperamos sinceramente que sea de mucha utilidad.

Próximo paso, traducirla al inglés…