[TOS] [Osdc-edu-authors] POSSE SA lead-in article on opensource.com

[Heidi Ellis]

Hi Folks,

<snip>
Just for this article, I made a nod in a better direction by amending the
paragraph with a final sentence; as published:

  One of the most important programs at Teaching Open Source is the
  Professors' Open Source Summer Experience (POSSE). POSSE is a
  weeklong bootcamp that gets professors and POSSE instructors
  productively lost.  The idea is to help educators understand how to
  include being productively lost in their curriculum.
<snip>
Perhaps another way to phrase this would be to say something like: 

One of the most important programs at Teaching Open Source is the
Professors' Open Source Summer Experience (POSSE). POSSE is a weeklong
bootcamp that immerses professors in FOSS projects along with POSSE
instructors, allowing them to become productively lost. The idea is to help
educators understand the dynamics of an ongoing FOSS project and how to
provide students with the tools for students themselves to find their way
when they become lost in a FOSS project.

Too wordy, but gives the idea. 

I agree that the term "productively lost" is likely to grate on the ears of
some academics. I think it also likely that most academics are fine with
applying the term to students but less so applying it to themselves (we're
supposed to be in charge you know, can't have the leader be lost :-) ) Some
part of what POSSEs do is put the instructor in the students' shoes which is
almost always a great learning experience.
	
And I do think that being "productively lost" is different in the FOSS world
from being productively lost in research. Research has guiding principles
about how to go about it (1. Identify the problem to be solved, 2. Identify
the research questions, 3. Identify the boundaries and scope, etc..) where
as these guidelines are much less clear in FOSS (at least for profs :-) ).
Whereas being productively lost in FOSS has much more to do with the
community and processes than the actual content of the projects. 

I definitely agree that presenting FOSS in the classroom as evolutionary is
going to be helpful. For one, the term "evolutionary" implies small changes
which most profs are more likely to adopt. 

As for tailoring the POSSEs, I might suggest tailoring to "institution type"
rather than "institution". I think it likely that as more POSSEs occur,
we'll be able to identify the commonalities among types of institutions.
Tailoring for a group of like institutions is more scaleable than tailoring
for individual institution.

Just my 2 cents.
Heidi

-----Original Message-----
From: tos-bounces at teachingopensource.org
[mailto:tos-bounces at teachingopensource.org] On Behalf Of Karsten Wade
Sent: Thursday, September 30, 2010 8:49 PM
To: tos at teachingopensource.org
Cc: osdc-edu-authors at redhat.com
Subject: Re: [TOS] [Osdc-edu-authors] POSSE SA lead-in article on
opensource.com

Folks not on osdc-edu-authors list -- the original thread for this starts
here:

https://www.redhat.com/archives/osdc-edu-authors/2010-September/msg00063.htm
l

I'm sort-of moving this discussion over to tos@ mailing list, although Matt
is wisely suggesting we don't get too deep until after the next POSSE is
done.

On Wed, Sep 29, 2010 at 07:07:57PM -0400, Matthew Jadud wrote:

> ===
> Everything past this point is really just a "marker" for further 
> conversation that really doesn't apply to this particular article, 
> given the timeframe. Perhaps it should become a blog post that could 
> be responded to later? However/wherever you think it is best to kick 
> off some more conversation on this topic.
> ==
>
> I still find the rhetoric around introducing faculty to being 
> "productively lost" far from ideal. I personally don't like it. I'm 
> glad it's a watchword for the community, but it doesn't map cleanly to 
> higher ed, in my opinion*. It conflates too many things.

Just for this article, I made a nod in a better direction by amending the
paragraph with a final sentence; as published:

  One of the most important programs at Teaching Open Source is the
  Professors' Open Source Summer Experience (POSSE). POSSE is a
  weeklong bootcamp that gets professors and POSSE instructors
  productively lost.  The idea is to help educators understand how to
  include being productively lost in their curriculum.
 
> * (Also, note that it might map better to some other educational 
> contexts... but we'd have to make a case for that.)

Are we moving toward a sort-of glossary?  Something to map terms and
concepts between FOSS and ACAD?

> 1. Researchers know how to be productively lost.
> 
>  As researchers, we have (and must continue to demonstrate) this 
> ability in spades.
> 
> The difference between open projects and research projects is that 
> most contributions seem to involve being productively lost long enough 
> to fix a bug, or use a tool, or whatever. After accomplishing a 
> short-term goal, you move on. (If you're a leader in a project or 
> long-term contributor, you move past being "productively lost,"
> because you become an expert in the codebase/documentation/tools/etc.
> Or, if you prefer, you've made the novice/expert transition, and this 
> concept really doesn't apply anymore.)

I agree, with the addition that open projects seem to be like short spurts
of research that is in the vein of productively lost, and they continue to
happen.  I've been involved in the Fedora Project since the start, and I
still find myself lost all over the place -- admittedly much less so, for
much less longer, and I always know who to go to who can fix or redirect me
properly if I get to frustrated.

> Research agendas last years. We must choose research directions that 
> are productive over a long period of time with many avenues for 
> exploration. We target publications six months to a year in advance.
> We plan recruitment of researchers (students, often -- undergrad or
> PhD) based on funding cycles that may involve a year-long process of 
> developing a grant, followed by one to three years of work 
> implementing the project. During the same time, we're analyzing data, 
> implementing new explorations, and writing up the work. Every time we 
> bring a new researcher on board, we shepherd them through being 
> "productively lost," because they must explore a new space and begin 
> adapting/working within that space quickly without full knowledge.

It is this Zen-like patience, which many of just call, "Snail's pace,"
to be the hardest to grasp of all. ;-D

/me ducks and runs

> 2. As teachers, we don't like being lost at all.
>
> It takes a lot of work to get over being "productively lost" as a 
> teacher. Our students rate us down if we don't know the answer right 
> away, and they're especially harsh on women. (Numbers exist somewhere 
> on that.) In conservative departmental/institutional contexts, 
> changing pedagogic practice can be dangerous to one's career, because 
> students may react badly, or colleagues may react badly. That fear 
> alone is often enough to keep people from adapting their classroom 
> practice.

Good info, thanks.  One reason I added the sentence, "The idea is to help
educators understand how to include being productively lost in their
curriculum," is to show we don't mean to turn their classrooms in to chaos.
I think I understand the multiple, reasonable fears there.

> (This is why I think having multiple people from an 
> institution/department take part in a POSSE is a Very Good Idea. It 
> eliminates some/many of these concerns.)

That wisdom we really should consider applying, at least in terms of
removing the (I think Red Hat supplied) prejudice of multiple institutions
being preferable at one POSSE.

I reckon that we brought that multiple institutions to the table because of
the way we think of creating scalability.  In some countries, it might work
best that way -- if different institution are working more in step with each
other.  In the US, probably Western Europe, I can see the "all from one
institution" as being a good way to make an impact and scale within that
institution v. trying to blanket the region and not make enough individual
impact.

> I AGREE that we need to introduce students to working in this way, 
> because it relates well to the notion of "lifelong learning," which is 
> a popular buzzword nowadays. But I don't think faculty need to be 
> introduced to being productively lost... they need to be introduced to 
> how to work it into their curriculum effectively, and still meet 
> curricular requirements or checking off boxes for accreditation while 
> doing so. I felt we got this from Dave/Chris in the first POSSE, 
> because both of them have been integrating FOSS into their classrooms 
> for so long.
>
> Others might object/disagree, but I think the focus needs to be on 
> practical strategies for integrating this idea into the classroom 
> context. That's my 2p, anyway. And, it's a conversation for *after* 
> POSSE SA, not before. (I don't think I've articulated my concerns in 
> this space before... at least, I don't think I have.)

Yeah, and we can take this to the TOS list, actually?

What you say tells me, "We know how to talk to FOSS people and faculty that
are akin to that way of thinking, but to really make it good for them and to
reach many others, we need to map our ideas to different idioms that have
similar/same meaning in academia.  We need to also think about how to
position our ideas as being evolutionary instead of revolutionary.  People
attracted to revolution are likely already involved, it's the ones who want
a steady evolution they can count on, grade, accreditate, etc. -- those are
the people we need to reach from the start with our program."
 
> PS. Also note, my assumption is that there is an expectation of 
> research. Depending on institutional context, this expectation shifts.
> Community colleges have different expectations than four-year liberal 
> arts institutions than large state institutions. In thinking about 
> POSSE, these distinctions, and where impact might be best made, hasn't 
> been discussed. See the article on "Science in the Liberal Arts" that 
> I linked from my last os.com/edu post... it might give you a sense, in 
> a different context, for what I mean w.r.t. different kinds of 
> undergraduate institutions having different kinds of impact with their 
> students.

It seems like we may need to tailor (market) POSSE a bit for different types
of institutions.  We might also want to dive more in to the idea of
institution-specific POSSEs as a primary flagship.

- Karsten
--
name:  Karsten 'quaid' Wade, Sr. Community Gardener
team:                Red Hat Community Architecture 
uri:               http://TheOpenSourceWay.org/wiki
gpg:                                       AD0E0C41