Fook and +Askeland (2007) explore the benefits of critical reflections. They point out that reflection is an intentional practice of exploring underlying assumptions in thought processes, for the purpose of achieving growth. They explain that this practice is useful for an individual to be able to understand their own thinking, and gain better insight into what drives their behaviors.
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ETAP640student FIR reflections - 1 views
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Did You Know Video
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It has taken nearly 2 years for the administration on our campus to support the request of one of our faculty members to provide infrastructure and equipment to use Elluminate. Elluminate (http://www.elluminate.com) is a web based tool that provides opportunities for distance learners to stay in their location and participate in synchronous, real time lectures, seminars, or presentations with other members in a different location.
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Furnborough and Truman (2009)
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June 20th, 2011
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it is ideal to make the online environment as effective as possible to meet the learning objectives, and the learners needs.
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Yes, very good point - and as I'm learning week after week, there are many technologies out there to help with meeting the objectives. What I've realized in the past 2 weeks or so is that I didn't have very clear objectives. Once I clarified those, I found it easier to begin to build my course and visualize the modules.
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This includes the feedback I so diligently write on their assignments.
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I honestly don’t see how all of this technology has necessarily improved life for the poor, the hungry, and the uneducated
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I agree that perhaps these populations aren't benefiting from the technology yet, but the potential is huge. Imagine being able to reach out to poorer communities via online learning. Urban schools have a really difficult time recruiting and retaining quality teachers. It's not unheard of for an uncertified teacher to teach in an urban school, because they are so desperate for teachers to man the classrooms. If some of the learning can happen online, or if they could offer blended classes, it could have real potential to raise graduation rates. Online learning is still fairly new in the grand scheme, but it is spreading like wildfire. More people will come on board, great minds will (have) come together for Best Practices, and the proof will be in the student outcomes.
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Taxonomy of Learning Theories « E-Learning Provocateur - 0 views
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In 1956, George Miller reported that the “span of immediate memory” is limited to the magical number 7±2 items. From this, he deduced that the amount of information that could be processed at any one time could be increased by “chunking” it.
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In 1977, Richard Anderson extended the work of earlier theorists such as Frederic Bartlett and Jean Piaget. His Schema Theory of Learning maintains that within long-term memory (or more specifically, declarative memory), knowledge is arranged in a hierarchical network of constructs called “schemas”.
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Understanding by Design: The Backward Design Model - 0 views
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shared by Diane Gusa on 18 Jun 11
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Study Hacks » Blog Archive » Adventure Studying: An Unconventional New Approa... - 0 views
calnewport.com/...w-approach-to-exam-preperation
adventure studying study writing vacation moodle ACTIVITY teaching
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Conventional wisdom says: studying happens on campus, or, if you’re feeling particularly crazy, maybe in a Starbucks near campus. And that’s it. It is supposed to be a grind that takes place in in the same old boring libraries surrounded by the same old boring people.
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Just because it’s “tradition” to spend the week before exams holed up in the library in some macho display of academic self-flagellation, this doesn’t mean that you have to follow this path.
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Study Hacks » Blog Archive » The Notebook Method: How Pen and Paper Can Trans... - 1 views
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The idea is simple… Buy a sturdy college-ruled notebook dedicated to the relevant class. (I use the 100 page, 1 subject, college-ruled Stasher by Roaring Spring, but many people also swear by the Black n’ Red.) Buy a good pen. (Nothing beats a black uniball micro 0.5mm.) Take your notebook and pen and go to the most relaxing, meditative, non-distracting place possible. The deep stacks of the library is okay. Hiking 30 minutes into the woods or onto the dunes overlooking a windswept springtime beach is even better. Spend 1 – 3 hours working out your thinking on the task at hand in the notebook. Spend the last 20 minutes carefully summarizing your results on a clean page that you mark with the date and a title.
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Writing down your thoughts forces you to clarify what you’re thinking and confront ambiguities or inconsistencies
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Study Hacks » Blog Archive » Heidegger with Hefeweizen: Rethinking the Power ... - 0 views
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the context in which you do academic work is extremely important, yet most of us give it little consideration…
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seeking the unusual and mentally-stimulating over the standard and easy — you’ll reap benefits in two crucial areas: the sophistication of your understanding, and, more importantly, your enjoyment of student life.
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Why Parents Hate Parenting -- New York Magazine - 0 views
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Before urbanization, children were viewed as economic assets to their parents. If you had a farm, they toiled alongside you to maintain its upkeep; if you had a family business, the kids helped mind the store. But all of this dramatically changed with the moral and technological revolutions of modernity. As we gained in prosperity, childhood came increasingly to be viewed as a protected, privileged time, and once college degrees became essential to getting ahead, children became not only a great expense but subjects to be sculpted, stimulated, instructed, groomed. (The Princeton sociologist Viviana Zelizer describes this transformation of a child’s value in five ruthless words: “Economically worthless but emotionally priceless.”) Kids, in short, went from being our staffs to being our bosses. “Did you see Babies?” asks Lois Nachamie, a couples counselor who for years has run parenting workshops and support groups on the Upper West Side. She’s referring to the recent documentary that compares the lives of four newborns—one in Japan, one in Namibia, one in Mongolia, and one in the United States (San Francisco). “I don’t mean to idealize the lives of the Namibian women,” she says. “But it was hard not to notice how calm they were. They were beading their children’s ankles and decorating them with sienna, clearly enjoying just sitting and playing with them, and we’re here often thinking of all of this stuff as labor.”
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A dialogic approach to online facilitation - 0 views
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Social construction of understanding has long been a significant underlying principle of learning and teaching
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cognition is situated in particular social contexts (Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989; Lave & Wenger, 1991); knowing is distributed across groups (Cole, 1991; Perkins, 1993); and learning takes place in communities (Lipman, 2003; Scardemalia & Bereiter, 1996; Wenger, 1998).
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the integration of concrete experience and abstract thought; the integration of reflection and action; the spiral nature of these two; the relationship between separate and connected knowing; and the balance between collaboration and leadership.
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The Community of Inquiry model is based not on the Community of Practice model but, at least in part, on Lipman's work with children (2003) in which "tutor and children collaborate with each other to grow in understanding, not only of the material world, but also of the personal and ethical world around them" (Wegerif, 2007, p. 139)
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Although reflective dialogue has strong connections with Lipman's notion of multidimensional thinking, in that reflection allows synthesis, there may be difficulties with the use of this term as it has been used elsewhere with different connotations (Brookfield, 1995; Schon, 1983).
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Yet students often find this kind of thinking difficult to express when they are learning something new, perhaps because emerging ideas are very vulnerable to criticism
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the dialogic space is broadened to include other types of dialogue which contribute to the development of understanding yet which are easier for students to express. Creative dialogue opens up a reflective space in which issues can be explored with encouragement and trust.
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Another technique is "thought shower" - similar to but perhaps less intense than brainstorming - in which even implicit judgement is suspended. Creative thinking, or dialogue, is not the same as creativity, which is often associated with art and design, yet it appears to have an important role in discovery
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each of the participants really has in mind the other or others in their present and particular being, and turns to them with the intention of establishing a living mutual relation between himself and them."
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The focus is on listening and understanding (Bakhtin, 1986), or reading and understanding in an asynchronous online environment
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Caring thinking also includes caring about the topic or subject (Lipman, 2003, p. 262), which Sharp (2004) calls pedagogic caring,
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Identifying (information responsive): Students explore the knowledge base of the discipline in response to questions or lines of inquiry framed by teachers ("What is the existing answer to, or current state of knowledge on, this question?") Pursuing (information active): Students explore a knowledge base by pursuing their own questions and lines of inquiry ("What is the existing answer to, or current state of knowledge on, my question?") Producing (discovery responsive): Students pursue open questions or lines of inquiry, framed by tutors or clients, in interaction with a knowledge base ("How can I answer this open question?") Authoring (discovery active): Students pursue their own open questions and lines of inquiry, in interaction with a knowledge base ("How can I answer my open question?") (Levy, 2009).
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MIT OpenCourseWare | Writing and Humanistic Studies | 21W.755 Writing and Reading Short... - 0 views
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different writers have addressed issues of plot, character, place and theme
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devoted to workshops of original student stories.
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Reading the stories and articles as assigned and participating in discussion of these works is the center of our exploration.
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We shall workshop stories by both professional writers
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your journal
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The requirements to receive an A are harder to quantify, but they include more sophistication and grace in the writing, lively storytelling, and prose that approaches publishable quality.
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Teaching Creativity - 0 views
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Most five year olds are totally confident that they can draw, sing, and dance. Tragically, within three or four years this child, if she is typical, will experience a crisis of confidence
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When allowed to do what we want to do, we are most likely to revert to whatever we previously found enjoyable and/or successful.
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In order to force a new idea to the surface, an artist might reverse the order of work, change the medium, change the scale, forbid a certain common component in the work, and so on. These are limitations to jog or jump start the creative impulse.
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people have developed problem solving habits that lack confidence in their own ability to bring any life experience or judgement to the situation.
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a society that values conformity above indiviual creativity and choice making probably should teach drawing as a series of prescribed symbols rather than teaching actual observation, thinking, feeling, and interpretation skills.
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True creativity happens when intuitive imagination brings forth the previously unknown and unimagined
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When we show an end product in order to help explain something, we risk that students will not be challenged to think creatively
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To teach process, we avoid posting charts that gives answer unless the students themselves have invented the charts.
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The scientific method says that questions must be answered experimentally and the results are repeatable.
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the scientific method takes more time in the short run, but if a student learns that they can design experiments to solve their own problems, they have learned not only the scientific method, they have learned one of the important components of artistic thinking and artistic behavior. Ultimately, time is saved because students have learned to figure out how to answer their own questions. They are empowered.
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shared by Diane Gusa on 21 Jun 11
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leading and learning: Experience and Education -John Dewey 1938 - 3 views
leading-learning.blogspot.com/...-and-education-john-dewey.html
learning experience education dewey meaning making
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The primary responsibility of educators is to assist shaping the experience by providing environing conditions and to utilize the surroundings to build up experiences that interact with the personal desires of he students.
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A worthwhile experience arouses curiosity, strengthens initiative and provides a desire to learn sufficiently intense for students to apply effort and to persevere through difficulties.
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Dewey believed there needed to be an intimate relationship between experience and education and that students had to construct their own learning.
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Teachers need to be on the alert to see what attitudes and habits are being developed and this requires that the teacher has some ideas of what is going on in the mind of the learner. The teacher is an important part of any learning experience.
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IIER 20(2): Khine and Hayes - Investigating women's ways of knowing: An exploratory stu... - 0 views
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Personal epistemological beliefs, one's beliefs about the nature and acquisition of knowledge, and their role in the learning process have become a focus of a growing body research in recent years. Studies show that a person's epistemological beliefs play an important role in their intellectual development as well as in learning specific subjects (Hofer, 2008)
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Baxter Magolda (1992) describes ways of knowing as being "related to, but not dictated by gender" (p.8)
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Their subjects described five ways of knowing - received knowledge, subjective knowledge, constructed knowledge, procedural knowledge, all similar to those of Perry, and silence. From their data Belenky et al. distilled these five epistemological positions down to focus on two: preprocedural and procedural knowing, which corresponded to 'relativism' in Perry's scheme. In 1986 this work culminated in the publication of "Women's ways of knowing: The development of self, voice and mind".
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Importantly, they saw that CK and SK scores were not related to performance and thus concluded that 'ways of knowing' were more reflective of a learning style or approach rather than a reflection of ability or intellectual capacity (Gallotti et al., 1999)
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Research in personal epistemology looks into ways of knowing, focusing on the nature of knowledge (certainty, structure and source of knowledge) and beliefs about learning (speed and ability to learn). The exploration of different learning or cognitive styles and in particular the relationship between gender and epistemological beliefs in tertiary education contexts is an area of much current research focus.
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Students' separate knowing and connected knowing scores, however, did predict preferences for different kinds of teaching.
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Separate knowing scores were always higher in males whereas females had always higher connected knowing scores. The connected and separate knowing scores of males were not significantly different, whereas females typically showed significantly higher connected scores.
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, learning occurs in different ways for different people in different situations, and may be affected by the learning styles of others who are present. According to Gallotti et al. (1999), students tend to prefer teachers whose style reflects their own. Schommer-Aikens and Easter (2006) find it likely that teachers' personal epistemological paradigms would impact on their decisions about forms of instruction, curriculum and evaluation. Should this be the case, an awareness on the part of the teacher and the learners of the predominant or favoured ways of knowing within a learning context might be seen as a useful tool in designing classroom activities which take into account student diversity.
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Women's Ways of Knowing Project - 0 views
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Connected knowers believe that truth is "personal, particular, and grounded in firsthand experience" (Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, and Tarule, 1997, p. 113). They attempt to find truth through listening, empathizing, and taking impersonal stances to information, whereas separate knowers completely exclude their feelings from making meaning and strictly rely on reason. The last way of knowing that Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger and Tarule define is constructed knowledge, where one integrates their own opinions and sense of self with reason and the outside world around them.
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Mary Field Belenky "works with a variety of educational and community organizations interested in supporting marginalized people to develop a voice, claim the powers of mind, and have a greater say in the way their families and communities are being run" (Instructor Bio, n.d.
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Nancy Rule Goldberger researches "diversity in ways of knowing, exploring how culture, social power differentials, and the bicultural experience in the U.S. affect individual strategies for knowing (p. xxiii).
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ETAP640amp2011: What makes an effective online instructor? - 0 views
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being available and around are what I believe you define as "teaching presence." But the kind of presence I mean, or mindfulness, comes from being present (in Buddist terms), being aware of every step, listening, paying attention to details, and stepping outside of oneself to assess the learner environment and relationships within it - without bias or judgement.
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shared by Diane Gusa on 21 Jun 11
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Notes on the Meaning of Education (1) « Calliope - 0 views
calliopemuse.wordpress.com/...notes-on-musel-education
Socrates educare educere education bringing out
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Well, my art of midwifery is in most respects like theirs; but differs, in that I attend men and not women; and look after their souls when they are in labour, and not after their bodies: and the triumph of my art is in thoroughly examining whether the thought which the mind of the young man brings forth is a false idol or a noble and true birth
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therefore I am not myself at all wise, nor have I anything to show which is the invention or birth of my own soul, but those who converse with me profit
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It is quite dear that they never learned anything from me; the many fine discoveries to which they cling are of their own making.
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shared by Diane Gusa on 27 Jun 11
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Bloom's Digital Taxonomy - 0 views
edorigami.wikispaces.com/...27s+Digital+taxonomy+v3.01.pdf
Blooms taxonomy digital strategies web2.0 mind teaching learning
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Learning to be - 0 views
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educating children for a given society, the challenge will be to ensure that everyone always has the personal resources and intellectual tools needed to understand the world and behave as a fair-minded, responsible human being. More than ever before, the essential task of education seems to be to make sure that all people enjoy the freedom of thought, judgement, feeling and imagination to develop their talents and keep control of as much of their lives as they can.
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Relational Context of Teaching - 3 views
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He continues that we can face the future with confidence if we know how to teach ourselves, read between the subjective lines of media, process the vast amount of information that will be available, work collaboratively, and reaching for resources that will expand our capacities – for example a resource like this course!!
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I believe that anyone can conquer fear by doing the things he fears to do, provided he keeps doing them until he gets a record of successful experience behind him.
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However, to be part of the social network and be actively involve citizens, each must become life-long learners.
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... and like it or not life is now technology mediated. No matter who you end up being "when you grow up" if you are not comfortable with technology, can't assess/evaluate information, can't find information when you need it, you will be at a disadvantage.
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I agree. I am concern for the students who are not exposed to this technology. In our district, the computer teacher was laid off, yet we kept all the coaches/sports. Adults, who are not on board with the technological needs of their students, are the ones making these decisions.
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Eleanor Roosevelt
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June 21st,
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What I would like is to have the option of posting and assessing it as NG (no grade)
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Finally, I carefully considers there are no place where Alex might say “can you tell me more”
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Since our blogs are shared work-spaces, we are suppose to engage in collaborative reflective discourses, creating a shared understanding, leading to collaborative knowledge
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Dewey states: “I assume that amid all uncertainties there is one permanent frame of reference: namely the organic connection between education and personal experience. (Dewey 1939:25).
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Dewey was a great believer in the connection between the educational system and the social community. "It was forgotten that to become integral parts of the child's conduct and chracter they must be assimilated; not as mere items of information, but as organic parts of his present needs and aims -- which in turn are social" (Dewey). In his book, The School and Society, he talks about the deep connection between home and school, between home and work, and the importance of the school as the connector.
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pay attention
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I had a doctor describe ADD very aptly to me. He said think about your child's surroundings as radio waves. Your child is picking up every radio wave that is out there and he does not have the ability to ignore any of it. When my son was 11 he described his inability to understand things in school like this: it's like I'm looking through a window that is foggy. I can see, but it's not clear enough to make sense.
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This was a good explanation of ADD. Do you know that there is a college that is set up for ADD students? It is called Landmark College and it is a remarkable place!
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then I go on an adventure and troll through the internet and my books to satisfy my desire to learn. I continue, immerse in my hyper-focus state of mind, until I feel that I have a deep understanding of whatever I am exploring.
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This is a good thing; it's what online learning is all about. I realize it's probably frustrating to you because you focus so intensely on what you're doing, but I definitely see your presence in this course, so I wouldn't worry that you're not interacting enough. Just for the record, 12 posts is difficult for me as well when you consider how much research goes into each one.
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I will investigate and use group Wikis
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detailed rubric
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I need to create a rubric for my "Book Club" forum. Any suggestions for where to start? Do I reinvent the wheel, or are there sites that have pre-fabricated rubrics that can be tweaked to fit my needs?
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Hi Donna, Whenever youi can do not reinvent the wheel. I am going to post either today or tomorrow a post on building a rubric. First I need to see what Alex wants us to do
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plan on using Alex’s rubric for my instructional design,
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Hey diane, sometimes I never know when I am ready to write. I thought I had the pattern down. Read the material, take notes, reflect and research on what interests or inspres me, but this module I was not ready to blog and i started writing something, and some crazy stuff just came out. It might have been the two best blog posts of the semester.
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While i agree with you I think I would not push myself sometimes if I wasnt forced. I might have chosen to slack instead of worked when I was tired or busy with life. Do you think you can use different models of teaching with different students in the same class?
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I agree with Ian...it reminds me of doing sports in high school. If my coach didn't push us harder and harder we wouldn't ever have been successful! Alex is our coach and we can either choose to step up to the plate and work our butts off or we can sit on the bench and let the game, or in this case the learning, pass us by!
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I am saddened and concern for the positivist, behaviorist methods she employs and models. I
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poor grade.
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This is the second time you've brought up this issue. The way I see, Alex is the instructor, and she has designed a course with rubrics. I really don't see that the rubrics are that difficult to understand. I understand you wanting to get an "A" but if you want the "A" you have to work hard for it. If your life circumstances prevent you from doing what she considers the fair amount of work, that's not her problem. I don't feel an instructor should change the syllabus or rubrics for every student that complains about the work load, unless the instructor has received numerous complaints. I think that perhaps you have a lot on your plate right now, atleast that's the feeling I get from reading some of your posts. I can understand that, I've been through a lot myself this semester. However, it's unfair to expect Alex to change the point system just for you. May I suggest something: Clearly you are a hard working student, but circumstances are obviously preventing you from putting in the amount of work needed to earn an "A." Just accept that and work toward a "B" which is a perfectly acceptable grade. Take the pressure off of yourself. It's just a grade. A year or two from now it won't matter. All that will matter is that you learned about online teaching and came away with a robust course that you can teach. I think that's a good deal.
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Donna My comment is a pedagogical one and not an attack on Alex. The point I may not be making clearly, why the number 12? I am not the only student who has stated that a post takes several hours. Does Alex require this? No. Why I take this time is because of the quality I expect to bring to the discussion forum. I was not posting prior knowlege, but new understandings. Learning takes time and the #12 does not seem to recognize this time. I again do not see "choice" in this rubric. I agree the knowlege is the goal, and I have no problem with what I have learned and will continue to learn. However, with the exception of the last grading I have not gotten a "B" but failed every discussion forum except the last. Yes I was teaching a summer online course. I also have home responisblilites. These were stresses, but not obstacles. According to the expectations we were expected to do ~ 45 hours in class work and 100+ hours building our course. I don't know about you but the class work I have done over 150 hours just in class work. Finally, why do I bring this argument up for a second time. It is not for Alex to change; but for you all in this class to not simply copy and use Alex's rubric in your own courses. That is why I speak out.
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Again if I had scrolled down I would have seen that 12 posts were not required.
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In the future I will build my course off line,
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when a student finally understands that their discussions need to encompass teaching, cognitive engagement, and social presence, then the discussion forum truly becomes a awesome learning tool!!!!!!
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Alex, my Shifu, has diligently pushed me down the road of online pedagogy. There were many times when I landed hard and bounced a few times. However, just like the panda, I too will become capable in my bumbling ways. I too realize there is no secret ingredients in 21st century teaching….it still is best practices in education with technology embedded in it.
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I have changed in many ways as a result of this class. I am now and will continue to be a blogger, and use blogs as one way to facilitate learning for my students. I understand the Community of inquiry approach, and have now created a rubric for my discussion forums that reflect the elements of teacher, cognitive, and social presence. I was fortunate to be teaching online as I took this class, and I observed my discussion forums going from conversations to dialogue that exhibit depth of learning. I have observed the pedagogy of my professor and will incorporate similar ways of interacting with my students, using the tools that web 2.0 affords me. I have moved from having little enthusiasm for online learning to embracing it as an essential medium for learning.
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I knew I needed this course to become the better online teacher, what I didn’t know was the transformative change that I would experience this summer.
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ulnerability, especially with the knowledge that their efforts will be evaluated by their instructor.
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Author: When It Comes To High-Speed Internet, U.S. 'Falling Way Behind' : All Tech Cons... - 0 views
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They're just like the railroad in that if you were a farmer in the 1890s, the only way to get your goods to market would be to work through the railroad. ... We just can't operate without it. They're also like them in that they're expensive businesses to build in the first place — it's very hard to come in and compete against one of these guys once they've built one of these giant networks. They're also like the railroad in that it takes intentional policy to make them stretch all the way across the United States.
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We seem to currently assume that communications access is a luxury, something that should be entirely left to the private market unconstrained by any form of oversight. The problem is that it's just not true in the modern era. You can't get a job, you can't get access to adequate health care, you can't educate your children, we can't keep up with other countries in the developed world without having very high capacity, very high speed access for everybody in the country. And the only way you get there is through government involvement in this market. That's how we did it for the telephone, that's how we did it for the federal highway system, and we seem to have forgotten that when it comes to these utility basic services, we can't create a level playing field for all Americans or indeed compete on the world stage without having some form of government involvement.
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"Unless somebody in the system has industrial policy in mind, a long-term picture of where the United States needs to be and has the political power to act on it, we'll be a Third World country when it comes to communications."