Sean Michael Morris - Sean Michael Morris (Page 3)

Sean Michael Morris

Sean is Vice President, Academics at Course Hero, and co-founder of Digital Pedagogy Lab and Hybrid Pedagogy.

Critical Digital Pedagogy and Design

critical digital pedagogy

Critical Digital Pedagogy and Design

I was invited to speak to and work with teachers at the Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado in May 2017. What follows is the transcript of my presentation to the school's core faculty. The invention of the learning management system was a mistake. And here I’

Tobacco and Patchouli: Writing about Teaching

writing about teaching

Tobacco and Patchouli: Writing about Teaching

In one of the last conversations we had before he died, my father sat across from me at his small dining room table—among assorted framed pictures (of Native Americans, of Abraham Lincoln, of faraway mountaintops sketched with the plunk and pick of a banjo), curios, carved boxes, feathered dream

Deeply Aggrieved

education justice

Deeply Aggrieved

Last week, I was told a story about a computer science student who is dyslexic. She has found that taking notes in class using an app on her tablet helps immensely with her comprehension. At the start of this term, sitting down on the first day of a new computer

Once a fearsome murderer invaded a Zen master’s home

Once a fearsome murderer invaded a Zen master’s home

> Once a fearsome murderer invaded a Zen master’s home. > “Give me everything you own, or I’ll kill you,” he said, brandishing his sword. The Zen master said nothing. > “Don’t you know who I am?” the murderer roared. “I could put this sword through your

Nothing to Say

The truth is, I have nothing to say. It’s not that I don’t have words, or that my thoughts do not fly up. It’s that the angry stare with which I must now consider you—an unknown stranger who may have used your vote as a hate

Critical Instructional Design and Acts of Resistance

Critical Instructional Design

Critical Instructional Design and Acts of Resistance

Post once, reply twice: the epitaph for online learning. Post once, reply twice: the fundamental flaw of instructional design. Critical Instructional Design is new, and as such is grounded in the work of a very few people. I coined the term in January 2016 in an article on Hybrid Pedagogy

We Do Not Debate Civilly

We Do Not Debate Civilly

> You should really enable them. I'd bet you'd get a lot on your "RESPONSE TO RON SRIGLEY." I actually learned something from reading his well written and reasoned article. Your much shorter diatribe told me nothing, other than that you're the

Courses, Composition, Hybridity

critical digital pedagogy

Courses, Composition, Hybridity

The course is an old idea. In the old days of teaching, a course was a path, a set of obstacles, or a journey through ideas toward some end. The path was marked by learning objectives, and further broken down by units and lesson plans, exercises and quizzes. Scaffolding, people

Critical Pedagogy in the Age of Learning Management

critical digital pedagogy

Critical Pedagogy in the Age of Learning Management

A great deal of education today is fucking absurd. Or, if not a great deal, too much. Because in truth, there should be no identifiable quantity of fucking absurdity present in education at all. Hilarity, improvisation, wit, digression, performance—these lead to critical thinking, to fresh observation, to engagement (and

Collegiality as Pedagogy

critical pedagogy

Collegiality as Pedagogy

> In the really cheap academic seats, serial use of YouTube clips, movies, and “student-centered learning activities” will and does pass as course content … In slightly more affluent markets, something more middlebrow will be expected — say, an original Prezi presentation with YouTube bits thrown in only for spice and to

Microaggressions, "Coddling", Safe Spaces, and President Obama

Microaggressions, "Coddling", Safe Spaces, and President Obama

I was eight or nine. I was playing with my little brother at the playground adjacent to the apartment complex where my family lived. My mother and father were at a round of tennis nearby. Up to a point, the afternoon was peaceful and clear; but a ruckus disrupted that

On Love, Critical Pedagogy, and the Work We Must Do

critical digital pedagogy

On Love, Critical Pedagogy, and the Work We Must Do

Pedagogy is a felt practice more than an intellectual one. The same holds for scholarship.

Innovation through Reflection: A Call for Teachers

critical digital pedagogy

Innovation through Reflection: A Call for Teachers

> “Didn’t we have bigger dreams for instructional technology?” ~ Phil Hill at ITC 2015 [http://events7.mediasite.com/Mediasite/Play/d1292b23f34342efb3fced22bf4dc9dd1d?catalog=9331c15c-e46b-4775-9661-8b323dc957cb] It is a truism that learning can happen in any environment. Learning does not require a teacher, though traditional education relies upon the sage-on-the-stage (or at

Digital Pedagogy: A Case of Open or Shut

digital pedagogy

Digital Pedagogy: A Case of Open or Shut

Recently, there has been some lively debate online [https://twitter.com/Jessifer/status/499400468632961024] about whether devices like laptops, tablets, or phones should be allowed in classrooms. As well, during a digital pedagogy workshop that Jesse Stommel and I presented at Lewis & Clark College, discussion arose around whether students

critical pedagogy

Late Work

An instructor comes to me with a quibble about late policies in his department’s composition courses. I’m feeling ornery and rushed when he e-mails, I’m feeling curious and obstinate, so I ask him: “What is your pedagogical reason for penalizing late work?” I know when I ask

Is It Okay to Be a Luddite?

Is It Okay to Be a Luddite?

This post was written collaboratively with Jesse Stommel. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I feel a pinch as I approach the screen once more. A twinge, just the littlest bite of remorse. Sometimes, it’s sizeable, the feeling I have that I want the digital to be more, the Internet to be tangible, the

Instructional Design vs Online Pedagogy

critical digital pedagogy

Instructional Design vs Online Pedagogy

A colleague recently asked me about the difference between instructional design and online pedagogy. We’d been in conversation about learning, and I blithely remarked that these two fields had important differences. To address the distinction between instructional design and online pedagogy, let me first start by saying that not

Asynchronous Improvisation

Critical Instructional Design

Asynchronous Improvisation

When I was a grad student teaching creative writing I used to walk a mile-and-a-half to class. My walk was valuable time for me to think about my lesson plan, and to tune in—in that psychic way that teachers have—to how the day felt, and whether changes should

5 Things to Do When You Teach Digitally

critical digital pedagogy

5 Things to Do When You Teach Digitally

My first time working synchronously in Google Docs felt like a caffeine buzz. Cursors flew about madly on the page. My sentences were completed before I could finish them. New ideas sprung fully formed onto the page as I struggled to formulate my own. My first Twitter hashtag chat was

What Is Digital Pedagogy?

digital pedagogy

What Is Digital Pedagogy?

Entering a classroom, we think first about its walls. We think about where the desks sit. Where we will stand. Whether there are windows, where the doors are, how the chalkboard, whiteboard, or overhead projector are arranged. And then we make decisions about teaching based on these environmental considerations. Should

What Is a Pedagogue?

critical digital pedagogy

What Is a Pedagogue?

It’s not uncommon for people who teach to be unaware of pedagogy. That doesn’t mean they don’t practice pedagogy, or that they haven’t engaged in pedagogical discussion. It means they are less conscious, or unconscious, of the pedagogy they employ in their classrooms than, say, the

Collaboration—Learning Collectively

Collaboration—Learning Collectively

This post was written collaboratively with Jesse Stommel. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This article was written collaboratively. On one set of keys, Sean; on the other, Jesse. Typing on opposite sides of the country, simultaneously, to create an article where each author’s voice is indiscernible from the other. What did Sean write?