Why personal knowledge management belongs in the classroom

An important part of learning is researching, taking notes and putting elaborated results into a form of expression. Often these learning steps take place in different stages and with different media: Research on the cell phone or in printed media, notes on the PC in a note-taking app, the saving of results in Word. The documents for the project are filed in different places, if at all. The focus is on the outcome, which is evidence of the work and is usually graded.

Economically and pedagogically this is a contradiction: Because a) the big time investment is in the individual work steps, in which b) the learning and working out and understanding of contexts takes place.

What if we focus on the work steps, i.e. the process, and the learning steps hidden therein, and at the same time use a method for knowledge work that enables us to intuitively manage research and interim results and use them for current and future knowledge work? What is required is dialogical learning combined with future-oriented personal knowledge management.

Dialogical learning

Compared to grades, written and oral feedback have the great advantage that they are more differentiated and often support the learning process. As a rule, performance assessment is not deficit-oriented, but is usually based on what has been done well in the work. This makes it possible to enter into a dialogue with the learners about their work and to continue working with them where good approaches already exist. In short, "working with feedback means working and speaking dialogically instead of monologically [...]" [1].

Such a step requires a change in thinking, towards a new culture of teaching and learning. "It is a matter of developing age-appropriate forms of participation, co-determination and self-organization that also include the learning process itself"[2]. The big challenge here is that teachers not only design dialogic teaching, but also build a dialogic culture of assessment and evaluation. In short, those who demand competency-based instruction must also demand competency-based testing and assessment. And it is precisely with this demand that a large and old discrepancy between teaching and testing comes to light: while schools and teachers:often successfully implement the new learning culture in the classroom, the majority of exams still test knowledge. Frey says: "Around 75% of all questions are pure knowledge questions. They do not require deeper understanding, application, or assessment, let alone a modifying use of what has been learned. In addition to the 75% knowledge questions, the exams contain about 20% simple comprehension questions. And only a few questions apply to higher cognitive performance."[3] So the call for a new culture of testing and assessment is more than justified.

If one takes this desire for a new learning culture seriously, it is a great challenge for teaching: teachers and learners meet at eye level and design lessons together. For teachers, this means getting involved in the process of learning, and for learners, the challenge is to develop a personal skill and not to follow the teacher's preconceived solution.[4] The main task of dialogic teaching is, as Hattie puts it succinctly. "At the heart of a successful learning experience is - still - a positive and intact teacher-student relationship" [6].

Positive feedback

Structured feedback is labor-intensive and time-consuming - not only for teachers. Structured feedback is an important working tool for a good working atmosphere and productive results. This is true for the working world as well as for school.

In order to meet this challenge productively and efficiently as a teacher, it is essential to be able to reuse the formulated feedback. This is best done in different situations on different topics.

The challenge is: How can these feedbacks - and other documents - be managed in a way that is both retrievable and intuitively manageable over the long term? In short: How can a successful, personal knowledge management be designed as a teacher and as a learner?

Personal knowledge management

Exactly these requirements are met in the course Network your memory. The intuitive thing about the method is that it supports and improves personal knowledge work.

Teachers and learners receive knowledge tools that help them to move from research to output in a structured and methodical way. In the process, competencies are trained in the individual steps, such as:

• Goal-oriented research (no procrastination)
• Project-based contextualization
• Managing information in a structured and retrievable way
• Converting collected information into meaningful and reusable notes and thoughts
• Continuous and goal-oriented securing of results

Teachers and learners alike are enabled to implement and document their work processes in a structured and intuitive way. At the same time, intermediate results can be made accessible and thus offer starting points for learning dialogues. The concrete step into dialogic learning is that the method always offers a possible connecting point for future learning steps in addition to the current securing of results. In short, it promotes the competencies for personal knowledge work that are needed for a dialogical teaching and learning culture.

Literatur

[1] Bastian, Johannes, Combe, Arne, Langer, Roman (2007). Feedback-Methoden erprobte Konzepte, evaluierte Erfahrungen. Weinheim und Basel: Beltz Verlag.

[2] Winter, Felix (2014). Leistungsbewertung: eine neue Lernkultur braucht einen anderen Umgang mit den Schülerleistungen. Baltmannsweiler: Schneider Verlag Hohengehren.

[3] Frey, Karl (2010). Allgemeine Didaktik Arbeitsunterlagen zur Vorlesung. ETH Zürich: vdf Hochschulverlag.

[4] Greift man in diesem Zusammenhang das Lernen von negativem Wissen [5] auf, wird deutlich, wie wichtig ein prozessorientiertes Lernen ist. Lernende entwickeln eigene Lösungswege und es spielt erstmal keine Rolle, ob dieser richtig oder falsch ist. Denn auch das Erarbeiten von negativem Wissen ist Lernen.

[5] Oser, Fritz, Spychiger, Maria (2005). Lernen ist schmerzhaft: zur Theorie des Negativen Wissens und zur Praxis der Fehlerkultur. Weinheim und Basel: Beltz Verlag.

[6] Hattie, John (2014). Lernen sichtbar machen. Überarbeitete deutschsprachige Ausgabe von Visible Learning. Baltmannsweiler: Schneider Hohengehren.