Group items tagged

fostering student engagement or creating effective student interactions with faculty, peers, and content.

rapport

One way that Bain identified highly effective teachers was by how they treated their students

Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action. In its exemplary form, it is based on universal intellectual values that transcend subject matter divisions: clarity, accuracy, precision, consistency, relevance, sound evidence, good reasons, depth, breadth, and fairness.

Critical thinking can be seen as having two components: 1) a set of information and belief generating and processing skills, and 2) the habit, based on intellectual commitment, of using those skills to guide behavior. It is thus to be contrasted with: 1) the mere acquisition and retention of information alone, because it involves a particular way in which information is sought and treated; 2) the mere possession of a set of skills, because it involves the continual use of them; and 3) the mere use of those skills ("as an exercise") without acceptance of their results.

Critical thinking of any kind is never universal in any individual; everyone is subject to episodes of undisciplined or irrational thought. Its quality is therefore typically a matter of degree and dependent on, among other things, the quality and depth of experience in a given domain of thinking or with respect to a particular class of questions. No one is a critical thinker through-and-through, but only to such-and-such a degree, with such-and-such insights and blind spots, subject to such-and-such tendencies towards self-delusion. For this reason, the development of critical thinking skills and dispositions is a life-long endeavor.

With the pedagogical learning model, students do not take the initiative to acquire new knowledge, rather they wait until the educator believes that they are ready to absorb new ideas, subjects and practices. In this model, the learning orientation of a student is centered around the subjects studied, content of the instructional materials, and teacher experiences that are required to reach their academic goal, and any learning motivation that they possess usually comes from an external source, i.e., grades, favorable or unfavorable rewards from parents or teachers, and family duress.

An adult learner must first investigate why they must undertake the learning task, and assess the possible positive or negative outcomes associated with learning this body of knowledge, or not. Once this has been accomplished, the adult learner will focus an extreme amount of energy and time into the task of obtaining this knowledge, and be responsible for his own decisions with regards to that knowledge. Adults possess a deep desire to be recognized as self-disciplined, self-motivated, and independent self-helping individuals. If they are treated like the students in the pedagogical learning model, they become psychologically conflicted as the need to be independent and self-focused battles with the dependency that was established in early on in their education.

The andragogical learning model was designed to encompass the adult learner, and it works extremely well in that capacity, however, there are instances where a pedagogical model can be more appropriate for the adult learner, i.e., when learning unfamiliar subject matter.

I appreciate the chance to reflect and recognize that the “me” that comes out in the blog is different than the “me” in the discussion area. I want my students to have various opportunities to express themselves.

Most colleges do not have the resources to build their own mobile applications from scratch. The environment is changing quickly, and developing new products for each new major device—iPhones, BlackBerrys, Android phones, iPads—can be prohibitively expensive.

One key to these projects is recognizing the mobility of mobile devices, and not treating them as if they were small desktop computers. Among colleges, even the leading mobile applications and Web sites still function like add-ons; students and others can get much the same information on a personal computer, although perhaps not as quickly.

Creating a cohesive mobile platform does not mean that colleges should try to move everything from their Web sites to a smaller screen. It can be impossible to know in advance what people want to do on a smartphone, and what they would prefer to leave to a full-size computer.

Classroom Behavior Your behavior in class, or the manner in which you conduct yourself, is also an ethical choice. One of the most common set of rules for interactions within a technologically-enabled environment is called Netiquette, which is important because “the distance imposed by computer networks disrupts our interactions so that people may become more vocal (mostly a good thing), but also more careless.” What I’ve noticed during class discussions is that students may forget that their classmates are people and can read, interpret, and misinterpret what has been posted. That’s why I remind students to read their messages aloud before posting them and consider both the content and possible tone of the messages. I also encourage students to find specific elements of their peers’ responses to focus on when they are posting messages – in other words, keep it academic, not personal.  Another ethical choice to make, concerning your classroom behavior, is related to the issue of cyber safety, which involves how you behave or act towards others online. Cyber safety for students “includes the language they use and the things they say, how they treat others, respecting people's property (e.g. copyright) and visiting appropriate websites.” Also related to cyber safety is cyber bullying. Forms of cyber bullying can include: •    “Insulting: Posting or spreading false information about a person that will cause harm to that person or that person’s reputation. •    Targeting: Singling someone out and inviting others to attack or make fun of her or him. •    Excluding: Pressuring others to exclude someone from a community (either online or offline). •    Harassment: Repeatedly sending someone nasty, mean and insulting messages.” It is your responsibility as a student to act ethically in your class. Instructors know the importance of monitoring online interactions to ensure that students have a safe classroom environment to work in. For example, if I observe a message within the discussion board that may be perceived as threatening or hostile, I’ll address it right away with that student and should the problem continue I can file a Student Code of Conduct violation with the school.

The first course carrying the name MOOC was offered in 2008, so this is new phenomenon. Second, the pedagogical style of the early courses, which we shall call cMOOCs, was based on a philosophy of connectivism and networking. This is quite distinct from the xMOOCs now being developed by elite US institutions that follow a more behaviourist approach. Third, the few academic studies of MOOCs are about the earlier offerings because there has been no time for systematic research on the crop of 2012 xMOOCs. Analysis of the latter has to be based on a large volume of press articles and blogs. Fourth, commentary on MOOCs includes thinly disguised promotional material by commercial interests (e.g. Koller, 2012) and articles by practitioners whose perspective is their own MOOC courses.

The term MOOC originated in Canada. Dave Cormier and Bryan Alexander coined the acronym to describe an open online course at the University of Manitoba designed by George Siemens and Stephen Downes. The course, Connectivism and Connective Knowledge, was presented to 25 fee-paying students on campus and 2,300 other students from the general public who took the online class free of charge (Wikipedia, 2012a).

Can xMOOCs make money?

Respond to all answers with a further question (that calls upon the respondent to develop his/her thinking in a fuller and deeper way)

Treat all thoughts as in need of development

Recognize that any thought can only exist fully in a network of connected thoughts. Stimulate students — through your questions — to pursue those connections

as much about passion as it is about reason

Good teaching is about substance and treating students as consumers of knowledge.

listening, questioning, being responsive, and remembering that each student and class is different.

A study of the initial implementation of California's state funded technology programs found that technology was not becoming institutionalized because it was often treated as a separate component within the state's education infrastructure. It was initially funded as an "add- on" rather than being integrated into the curriculum and incorporated into the mainstream of instructional programs.

In summary, systematic planning as an approach to technology implementation provides: a rationale for the technology and related resources the stakeholders get involved in the decision making process a way to promote thinking about the most cost-effective uses of technology assurance that technology applications are aligned with the curriculum help in determining the specific training and assistance needs assurance that existing resources are used in the plan a needed vehicle for procuring funding a method for determining how to evaluate the impact and progress of the technology a vehicle for communicating steps for others to follow adapting the plan a process for coordination with other programs and projects that the teaching addresses the needs of all learners guidelines and a context for the insertion of new technologies software developers with a definition of the technological needs of users

Curricula must drive technology; technology should not dictate curricula.

Researchers found that the few who focus primarily on teaching tend to share certain characteristics - including teaching without tenure.

A recent study by the University of Michigan on the work experiences of non-tenure track faculty found that one of their most common reasons for entering the profession was 'a love of teaching.'

Nevertheless, academic culture seems to prioritize research over teaching. Graduate assistants teaching undergraduate classrooms with hundreds of students and infamous practices like 'publish or perish' all point to a system designed to sacrifice quality instruction for research pursuits. As Boyer argued back in 1990, academia and its students would be better served by treating instruction as an equally valuable pursuit.