Scratch and Sniff Education?

What does it mean to lack certain senses in the virtual environment?  Thinking of smell, it led me to the inevitable: scratch and sniff technology.  

I discovered a couple of examples where this technology was used for educational purposes.  In 1987, the Baltimore Gas and Electric Company sent scratch and sniff cards to customers to teach about natural gas leaks.  On the back of the brochure was a drawing of a red flame and the words: ''Scratch this flame with your fingernail. Sniff it. Let your family sniff it and be sure everyone recognizes the odor.''  Unfortunately, the smell penetrated the envelopes without ever being scratched, leading to a lot of false alarms by customers. 

In Northern Ireland, there was a card distributed by police that smelled like cannabis.  It came with other telltale signs of what to look for with marijuana grow-ops, in order to get the public to help identify these operations. 

London's Odette Toilette is a "purveyor of olfactory adventures," offering "adventures which range from education and communication workshops for groups in the fragrance industry, through to corporate entertainment for people who want to offer their team or clients something unusual." 

Then, there was the 1960 Scent of Mystery which tried to incorporate aromas into theatres with "Smell-O-Vision."  It released 30 different scents in the air in conjunction with the movie.   Needless to say, it didn't make it as a part of our ongoing movie experience. 

These experiments with smell do bring up interesting questions around the issue of senses and how they connect to learning in the virtual environment.  Are there ways online educators can capture and capitalize on students' senses in order to create increased engagement and learning?  

Wise Practices

Round Dance Drummer Photo: L. Fors

Interconnections. Protocols. Wisdom.   Yesterday,  I attended a Round Dance in Driftpile, Alberta, a First Nations community.   It reminded me of the first time I heard the term "wise practices." (It was in the document Best Practices in Aboriginal Community Development: A Literature Review and Wise Practices Approach (2010) by Cynthia Wesley-Esquimaux and Brian Calliou).


O. Davis Jr.  (1997) wrote about this approach in an article "Beyond best practices' toward wise practices".

According to Davis (1997), “wise practice, by its very nature, is idiosyncratic, contextual, textured, and probably inconsistent. It is not standardized, not off-the-shelf, and not a one-size-fits-all concept.” 

Interesting. 

This "wise practice" approach as defined by Davis is in response to the tendency to capture a best practice, as the practice, which "unrealistically elevates expectation beyond possibility."  It is the one size fits all mentality, that "commonly ignores reasonable options by its insistence upon a singular path."  

Wise Practices according to Davis operates on three assumptions:

1) Many teachers and administrators understand what guides their professional endeavor. They possess wisdom of practice.2) Wise practices always are situated thoroughly in their context, and recognizable, commonly ordinary individuals use them in real, specific life circumstances.3) Circumstances and life seldom unfold as individual teachers and administrators wish they would. Consequently, reality will be—not just must be—a central consideration of their teaching and administration.

When it comes to online delivery and basic education learners, and the virtual learning environment in general, the tendency for cookie cutters are inevitable due to the nature of the landscape.  It is a space that lends itself to standardization in many ways.  In this teaching place, is essential to question, evaluate and apply an approach that recognizes protocols, is aware of interconnections, and practices wisdom that honours our students' reality.

Davis Jr., O. (1997). Beyond `best practices' toward wise practices. Journal Of Curriculum & Supervision, 13(1), 1-5.

Online Quality versus Instructional Autonomy

Conveyor belt thinking or standardized goodness? The need for predefined structure, organized curriculum and predefined planning for online delivery  far surpasses the onsite classroom. 

In a face to face classroom assignments and information are reviewed as a group. Teacher checks for understanding.  The student jots down notes on the paper that has just been handed out.  Questions, negotiations, clarifications are done within those parameters.  It is immediate and often student directed. Spontaneity is required. Last minute supplements common. 

Online, everything is in print. It is done ahead of time. The course shell on a learning management system is is like a teacher's file cabinet from the old days. Lesson plans, units, assignments, rubrics, handouts, supplemental materials - they are created and defined before the course starts. They are static and teacher directed until a student interacts with it. Questions and negotiations are delayed in a sense.  Email, text, phone calls are an intermediary step to dialogue.  More time has to be given to creating interaction and connections with the students. Lasting minutes that create connections and relations with students have to become common. 

As such, developing a course for online delivery is a lot of work.   Materials need to match between the LMS, synchronous online classes, and student materials. Everything from titles to rubrics to the information and instructions posted on the LMS, to powerpoint slides and recordings, to course outlines and course expectations.   All assignments are created and organized ahead of time, with explicit instructions and rubrics attached to them.  Powerpoint slides and presentations have to anticipate where students are at, what they will need, and how to engage them in the materials.   

Standardization that ensures quality and standards are met may seem a little like conveyor belt thinking.  Structure of an LMS course shell for instance, based on sound pedagogy and research makes sense from a student perspective. Allowing for and accommodating the sweet, tart, tangy goodness of instructional input, creativity and personality  sounds delicious.   The fear in the quest for standardization is that quality comes prepackaged in a course that remains sealed until opened.  Then we have to ask, "Where is the flavour in that?" 

"Most Good" Practices (MOGO)

A discussion around  "best practices" is always an interesting one.  What constitutes "best," who is defining it, and for whom?  In my experience, "best" practices are just good pedagogy.  And good pedagogy relates back to the student, the context and the learning environment.  

I was reminded of this when I ran across a  workshop at the Institute for Humane Education. "Do most good - do less harm" is a mantra that fits with spiritual and environmental practices.  How, I thought, does it fit in with education and the idea of what is "best?" 

"Best" implies a competition.  Sometimes, it's is interpreted as not only the next best thing, but the only thing, the thing that will reach students, get them engaged, reduce attrition and promote success.  Some schools have archives or basements filled with the next best thing, brought in by various teachers throughout the years.  

Often "best" is seen as the panacea to all that ails a particular content area or programming need.  The need to define our learners in their particular context is key to ensuring most good pedagogy.  What is best is dependent on the multifaceted nature of learning and teaching.  The interplay between the complexities of interactions. 

But You Can't Smell It - What is lost in the virtual world?

Full disclosure.  My epiphany.  Face to face teaching as opposed to online teaching - what is lost in the transition to a virtual environment?   You can't smell it.  

I just presented at a conference about online learning for adult basic education students.  I found a part of me felt a little like an imposter.  Like I betrayed (a little) the conventional adult basic education classroom that is literally in your face.  Can virtual learning replace face to face instruction?  Yes (though there is a caveat about needing a mentor that is physically present).  Can it provide the same support that a face to face environment does for under-represented learners at a basic/foundational learning level?  For me right now, that is the predominant question.

After all, at the other end of the virtual superhighway is a person.  A smelling, smelly, noisy, unconsciously vibrating, smiling, nodding, frowning, yawning, feeling student.  Who brings a myriad of experiences, prior knowledge, baggage, barriers, and interpersonal needs.  Teachers who are intuitive, instinctual, and respond to the immediacy of learners sitting in front of them, lose some of those facilities in the transition to online programming.  

Yes, there is good virtual pedagogy.  Yes, there are  ways to translate what works face to face into online teaching strategies.  But I still need to investigate: what are we not smelling?