One of the themes of our engagement in #ALTC Winter Conference and #LTHEchat was that the terminology we have chosen to use ‘disruption’ and ‘active learning’ smell too much of buzz-word bingo to sit comfortably with colleagues. And we agree. But …
There is also a but … what else are we to use. We can go into long drawn out debates over semantics and emptiness of terms—what ever happened to experiential learning? Penultimately I think there are two ways things can go. We come up with an entirely new/different word, and establish clear boundaries for it. Or we need to come up with a sound theoretical framing (theoretische Verortung) for the terms we use. Experiential learning fell by the way side because it was lacking an agreed and refined definition and framework. Active learning may at the moment be somewhat overused and under-defined, but what also came out of our conversations was that everyone kind of sort of knew what it meant to them, with a core of overlapping defining characteristics.
bring some of these here
So would it not make more sense to chisel away the the fluffy boundaries and come up with a framework?
Or is it indeed better to create our own coin, make a stamp and flood the educational arena with yet another term that may or may not become part of the buzz word bingo.
I have no answer by the way … really would like to know what people think.