There is nothing new in this chapter that he has not been alluding to in the previous chapters. But he clearly articulates why he expects higher ed to change in response to the online educational resources becoming freely available. He uses the example of the music and book industry to illustrate his point. It was recording & print technology that transformed these two professions/industries. In both cases performing music and providing books was a local, social, live experience. In the 19th C, you could only hear music if you played it yourself or went to hear a live performance. As a result, local performers and composers had a niche livelihood. This changed first with the ability to print sheet music - international compositions could now be played and heard - and then recording which increased listeners’ expectations for a flawless performance. Online availability of music and books again changed the industry and professions by enabling a few star performers to monopolize what was read and listened, but it also changed the nature of performer vs composer. With recording, the performance became more important than the composition. Online consumption of music and books changed from being social and local to individualized/private and global.
Bowen thinks the same thing will happen with higher ed with a few gatekeepers producing standardized introductory courses (History 101, Chemistry 101, Biology 101, etc) available online but perhaps, as has happened with online sales of books, produce sufficient numbers to warrant more niche courses locally produced. Bowen’s advice is to embrace the coming change and remake traditional courses into hybrids which use freely available online lectures delivered by excellent lecturers but still meet face to face with students and instructors. Course instructors then become curators of online content and in-class guides for how to think with that content. This coalesces well with the movement to change higher ed teaching from sage on the stage to guide on the side. Hybrid courses (blended learning) could facilitate this revisioning of what it means to teach. Rather than teaching being the delivery of content, teaching becomes coaching to think with that content. And Bowen argues that this has already been available and possible with textbooks. Textbooks can play the same role as online content - something I have always also argued. Use the textbook for delivering the rote learning outside of class and use the in-class experience to practice thinking and applying that content.
This is basically what Bowen is arguing for with Teaching Naked: stop being the sage and become the guide. Instructors should curate the course content not deliver the course content. Of course, he is more nuanced than this. It is not a cookie cutter approach. Each course and locality will require particular approaches for the local students because teaching in higher ed will continue to primarily cater to the local populace. But the principle is still sound: move content acquisition out of the classroom and move engaged thinking with the content (I like the idea of playing with the content) inside the classroom.
This is something that I have been trying to do with my implementation of Team-Based Learning in my classes which has been met with some resistance from students. And student resistance to this sort of active learning that results from flipping the classroom has been documented many times in the literature by different educators. Reading Tanner’s reflection on teaching a large introductory biology course and also rereading Weimer’s Learner-Centered Teaching reminds me that it is possible to transition a class from passive didactic lecture to engaged active learning if the time is taken to acculturate students to a new way of viewing what teaching and learning are. This requires a myriad of things to keep in mind when becoming a naked teacher. It requires being transparent with students about the pedagogical reasons for doing so but also being mindful of students’ cognitive load and time for the effort at being independent learners outside of class. Higher education aspires to produce self-regulating independent learners, but it does not happen on the first day of students' first year of university. So, I think it is even more nuanced than Bowen asserts about curating content in large introductory courses. Of course, this could change if students are given the experience of flipped learning in their primary and secondary education. But until students are experienced learners with naked teaching, it will require instructors to be careful with its implementation nurturing their students’ understanding from passive recipients of knowledge to active seekers and creators of knowledge.
Resources
Bowen, J. A. (2012). The educational product in the internet age. In Teaching naked: How moving technology out of your classroom will improve student learning, Chapter 9. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, an imprint of Wiley. p 217-242.King, A. (1993). From sage on the stage to guide on the side. College Teaching, 41(1), 30–35.
Prince, M., & Weimer, M. (2017, November 2). Understanding student resistance to active learning. Faculty Focus Premium.
Seidel, S. B., & Tanner, K. D. (2013). “What if students revolt?”—Considering student resistance: Origins, options, and opportunities for investigation. CBE-Life Sciences Education, 12(4), 586–595.
Tanner, K. D. (2011). Moving theory into practice: A reflection on teaching a large, introductory biology course for majors. CBE-Life Science Education, 10(2), 113–122.
Weimer, M. (2013). Taking a developmental approach. In Learner-centered teaching: Five key changes to practice (2nd ed., pp. 218–238). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, a Wiley imprint.
