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Hedy Lowenheim

How Do I Invest? | Beginning Investing - 4 views

  • What is investing?Any time you invest, you're devoting your own time, resources, or effort to achieve a greater goal. You can invest your weekends in a good cause, invest your intelligence in your job, or invest your time in a relationship. Just as you undertake each of these expecting good results, you invest your money in a stock, bond, or mutual fund because you think its value will appreciate over time.
    • Hedy Lowenheim
       
      Very useful site for my course in personal finance. The site explains personal finance in very simple terms. Most anyone should be able to relate to how the information on investing is presented. Great information on topics such as investing, goal setting, active and passive management, etc., that correspond to many of my course's learning objectives.
  • Planning and setting goalsInvesting is like a long car trip: A lot of planning goes into it. Before you start, you've got to ask yourself: Where are you going? (What are your financial goals?) How long is the trip? (What is your investing "time horizon"?) What should you pack? (What type of investments will you make?) How much gas will you need? (How much money will you need to reach your goals? How much can you devote to a regular investing plan?) Will you need to stop along the way? (Do you have short-term financial needs?) How long do you plan on staying? (Will you need to live off the investment in later years?
    • Hedy Lowenheim
       
      The car trip analogy that the authors use in this article for planning & setting personal financial goals, is something everyone can relate to. This gave me some excellent ideas that will definitely be of use to me in my course since financial goal planning is another one of my learning objectives. I felt that the car trip analogy used on the site will assist with understanding the planning that goes into creating medium and short term goals was brilliant, and something everyone should be able to relate to. Creating medium and short term goals are also learning objectives in my course, (module 3). It should be an excellent way to engage students, since most everyone travels and has to put energy into planning out their trips, for example what to bring on the trip, how long it will take, how many stops there will be along the way, etc.
    • Hedy Lowenheim
       
      Another one of my learning objectives is understanding cash management and cash flow and having the students understand how important it is to save, and put that money to work. Site has some very useful examples on how to save and put away money automatically in a disciplined fashion.
  • Active and passive strategiesThe two main methods of investing in stocks are called active and passive management, and the difference between them has nothing to do with how much time you spend on the couch (or the exercise bike). Active investors (or their brokers or fund managers) pick their own stocks, bonds, and other investments. Passive investors let their holdings follow an index created by some third party.
  • ...1 more annotation...
    • Hedy Lowenheim
       
      Another one of my learning objectives is understanding the difference between active and passive management. This site will definitely be helpful in refining some of the learning objectives in my course. It might also be a good site to post a link to for more information on specific person investing topics.
    • alexandra m. pickett
       
      how will you use this resource in your course, Hedy?
    • Hedy Lowenheim
       
      Alex I plan on using this Motley Fools web site which focuses on investment basics since the personal investing terms and strategies are presented very clearly, simply and with humor and relate directly to learning objectives in my modules; such as active and passive strategies in relation to investing (module 6), cash management/cash flow (module 2), and short and medium goal planning (module 3). The site will be an excellent resource for the students. This will also introduce them to the Motley Fool web site which should be helpful to them throughout the course and afterward. I felt that the car trip analogy used on the site to help understand the planning that goes into creating medium and short term goals was brilliant and something everyone should be able to relate to. Creating medium and short term goals are also learning objectives in my course, (module 3). It should be an excellent way to engage students, since most everyone travels and has to put energy into planning out their trips, for example things like what to take on the trip, how long it will take, how many stops there will be along the way, etc. I added some comments under the highlighted areas in Diigo with sticky notes (you should also be able to view them on the site) that reference a few of my learning objectives. By the way, I did find some useful sites on Merlot & OER, but many of linked to PDF files. A link on Merlot led me to the Motley Fools web site. I hope this helps! Hedy
    • alexandra m. pickett
       
      this looks great Hedy! thanks! not sure what you meant by the comment about pdfs. you should be able bookmark pdfs... : )
    • Hedy Lowenheim
       
      I am under the impression that you cannot highlight text & create sticky notes in PDFs (just tested again), that was why I was having a hard time finding an acceptable site for the assignment in Merlot, most were PDF files. I guess I could have bookmarked them in Diigo and entered my comments write on the Diigo site instead of on the actual URL. I was thrilled once the Merlot site linked to the Motley Fool site!
    • alexandra m. pickett
       
      ahhh. yes, that is true, put you can bookmark the resource, and annotate it on the diigo site - exactly as you describe! just wanted to be sure you knew that : )
    • Hedy Lowenheim
       
      I thought you might have wanted us to do highlighting and sticky notes for the assignment and right from the actual URL site. I must say that in the past 24 hours I have became much more familiar with Diigo, sink or swim, but I still need to work with it. Love the tool! Will we have access to Diigo after the course? Thanks and get some rest!!
    • alexandra m. pickett
       
      yes. i want to be sure you can use this tool, so i am glad you persisted!! and i am really glad you love the tool. me too! yes you will have access to this group and this tool beyond the end of the term. that is one of the reasons i use the tool!
    • Hedy Lowenheim
       
      Excellent!! Be great if students continue to use it. Looks like these messages b/t us are not for public viewing. Is that a setting you turned on? I know there is public/pvt setting for sticky notes when you first create one (that's what was giving a bunch of students issues), but I do not see that setting on these notes. Hope this makes sense. Thanks& hope swimming is going well! Hedy
abeukema

Motivation - Emerging Perspectives on Learning, Teaching and Technology - 0 views

  • Setting up rigid and realistic goals based on the learner's competence, therefore, is more effective than setting easy goals.
  • Performance goal: I want to avoid mistakes so I can get a good grade.
  • Mastery goal: Understanding the class materials is more important than earning a high grade, and that's why I work hard to learn. My performance is better than it was at the beginning of the semester.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Table 1. Classroom structure and instructional strategies supporting a mastery goal Structure
  • reasonable challenge
  • Bandura pointed out that negative messages have an even greater effect on lowering efficacy expectations than do positive messages to increase it.
  • Successful experience: It is the teachers' responsibility to help learners achieve academic success by providing challenging, yet attainable tasks . Successful experience is the most important source of fostering self-efficacy.
  • attributional theories
  • Challenge: Design challenging activities which convey the message to the learners that they have competitive skills. It is essential to find a balance between learner competence and the difficulty of the goals. Overly difficult goals are unlikely to increase learner motivation to continue the task if the learners perceive they will never reach the goal. Likewise, goals that are too easily attained do not sufficiently challenge learners to encourage skill development.
  •  
    Well organized webpage with information, power points and pdfs on goals, motivation and learning.
Amy M

Surveys of Student Learning Goals - Enhancing Education - Carnegie Mellon University - 0 views

  • The goal of the surveys was two-fold. The initial survey helped me to develop an understanding of the skills and capabilities that students hoped to learn from the course. Subsequent surveys enabled me to evaluate how well the course was meeting their learning goals and whether students reported any increase in their own level of domain expertise.
  •  
    a survey to access student learning goals
alexandra m. pickett

Small Town Girl in the Big Cyber City - 1 views

  •  My original goal was to get an A in the class, and every other class until I reached my objective of  my Master’s w/ a 4.0. Now my goal is to become a teacher that is there for my students, who isn’t assuming any good or bad about them, who’s only goal is to help them grow and learn, (and hopefully to get at least a B in this class.)
    • alexandra m. pickett
       
      B R I L L I A N T ! ! !
  • Again, I find myself writing for a college professor rather than a middle school student. Even this past September, I handed out my “course syllabus” to each of my classes. Looking back now I wonder if they knew it was one of my course information documents or is they were trying to figure out how to clap out the syllables.
  • Why did I need to call it a syllabus? That wasn’t for them, it was for me. 
    • alexandra m. pickett
       
      i LOVE this observation!
  • ...14 more annotations...
  • I want them to know that I understand that some activities will suck and be difficult and that they’ll want to rip their hair out but that I also know which activities are the most fun and how rewarding and accomplished they will feel when it’s all said and done.
  • I really don’t know why I do things the way I do. Is it from years of routine as to this is how it needs to be done? Is it from no one stopping and helping me break these habits?
  • At first my fear was that I was a “dead-thinker”
  • I was predispositioned to not question, to memorize and regurgitate information. I was scared that I was passing this trait on to my students.
  • I’m losing that with all the hours it takes to create these.
  • I really began to question whether I am a teacher or a web designer.
  • After Alex asked me to think about how this may hold true in my daily life and routine I realized I really don’t speak up any where let alone in class.
  • I think this is not only my biggest challenge in this class but in my life as well
  • I think I’m just scared. 
    • alexandra m. pickett
       
      This is a brilliant self-reflection. Now what are you going to do about it? There is NOTHING wrong with being shy, or an introvert ( http://www.diigo.com/user/alexandrapickett/introvert ) WATCH this NOW! http://www.ted.com/talks/susan_cain_the_power_of_introverts.html You need to get MAD and use that anger to get over the fear that is preventing you from doing/being/experiencing. Anger is a powerful force that can help you stop focusing on yourself -when you flip it to use it to advocate for those less powerful than you - your students!
    • Erin Fontaine
       
      Oh, I'd love to get angry and actually stand up for myself and others. Unfortunately that only seems to happen with a few glasses of wine in me. Not too feasible in the classroom, lol. That should be my next goal, find strength without liquid courage!
  • Ya know Alex, I love you and all and this class has been amazing but I honestly think you are killing my laptop!!
  • Well no more soul searching I have a course to design. Best of wishes to all my fellow classmates as we begin to wrap up this amazing journey!
  • Lisa, I can’t believe how amazing your course is! I want to take it!!
    • Lisa Martin
       
      Thank you, thank you, thank you...I'm finally now starting to spend a good amount of time looking through other people's courses. Looking forward to seeing yours!
  • Less than 24 hours later this article appeared in my inbox. At first I was really aggravated by this article because it seemed like it was ripping to shreds everything I have been working at this summer and I felt like he was sitting at home with an “I told you so” smirk. This quote just floored me “In terms of learning on the college level, the Department of Education looked at thousands of research studies from 1996 to 2008 and found that in higher education, students rarely learned as much from online courses as they did in traditional classes.” Really, what study? Everything that we have read seems to be in the complete opposite direction of this statement! I agree that for some there will be a financial obstacles and internet issues like we’ve all had but that’s where as a teacher we come into play and offer solutions and options. Upon reading it for a second time I feel that this article and any other article discrediting online teaching should be looked at as a challenge! I am strong and passionate about this endeavor of mine and no article or fuddy duddy teacher is going to come in the way of that. Well I hope you all have an amazing weekend. I will be attempting to cool my boiling blood as I sit by the calming cool waters of the Kinzua Dam with a delicious glass of Riesling.
    • alexandra m. pickett
       
      That article prompted response from the online learning community. Here is a particularly excellent articulate and respectful response: http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/technology-and-learning/open-letter-professor-edmundson
    • alexandra m. pickett
  • As this class come to an end and I look back at where I was in May, I can only say I wish I knew then what I know now. This class has given me so much academically, personally and technologicially, lol. In only a short time I feel like I have grown so much as person and as a teacher.
Irene Watts-Politza

ScienceDirect.com - Computers & Education - Learning presence: Towards a theory of self-efficacy, self-regulation, and the development of a communities of inquiry in online and blended learning environments - 1 views

  • This line of research indicated that the multivariate measure of learning represented by the cognitive presence factor could be predicted by the quality of teaching presence and social presence reported by learners in online courses. The relationship between these constructs is illustrated in Fig. 1 below.
  • Given the electronic, social, and “self-directed” nature of online learning, it seems imperative that we examine learner self- and co-regulation in online environments especially as they relate to desired outcomes such as higher levels of cognitive presence as described in the CoI framework.
    • Irene Watts-Politza
       
      Is this an aspect of assessment that is adequately addressed?
  • We suggest that this constellation of behaviors and traits may be seen as elements of a larger construct “learning presence” (Shea, 2010).
  • ...19 more annotations...
  • self-efficacy can be viewed as a subjective judgment of one’s level of competence in executing certain behaviors or achieving certain outcomes in the future. Self-efficacy has been identified as the best predictor of college GPA and among the best predictors of college persistence through meta-analytic research (Robbins et al., 2004). Further, commenting on the state of the art in self-regulated learning research Winne suggested that self-regulation is contingent on positive self-efficacy beliefs, arguing that “learners must subscribe to a system of epistemological and motivational beliefs that classifies failure as an occasion to be informed, a condition that is controllable, and a stimulus to spend effort to achieve better” (Winne, 2005). This contrast of failure attribution as trait (e.g., “I’m just not good at math”) versus failure as occasion to be informed (“I can control, adapt, and learn from this”) is a classic view of maladaptive and adaptive self-efficacy beliefs.
  • In the current study we therefore examine the relationship between CoI constructs and elements of self efficacy in order to begin to investigate the larger theme of collaborative online learner regulation and learning presence.
  • Thus, self-efficacy is “concerned not with what one has but with belief in what one can do with whatever resources one can muster” (Bandura, 2007, p. 6).
  • Bandura has noted that slightly elevated efficacy can have a bigger impact on subsequent performance. Overestimating one’s capabilities to produce a behavior and outcome may boost performance and give rise to motivation to persist in face of obstacles and seatback, while the opposite is true for underestimating one’s capabilities, which may suppress productive goals, persistence and effort (Bandura, 2007). Thus there is an important connection between self-efficacy, effort, and subsequent performance.
    • Irene Watts-Politza
       
      This has implications for course attrition rates.
  • Positive psychological and emotional states in the aftermath of successful execution of certain academic behaviors naturally lead to sense of competence and subsequently results in enhanced sense of efficacy.
    • Irene Watts-Politza
       
      This is the "feeling of satsfaction" Lisa Martin referred to in her Module 3 posts on social presence.
  • We suggest here that elements within the CoI framework may serve as mechanisms for supporting self-efficacy. Specifically we conjecture that effective teaching presence and positive social presence should serve as sources of social persuasion and positive affect supportive of self-efficacy.
  • (Bandura, 1997). These and other studies have suggested that self-efficacy has a substantial role in predicting student engagement, motivation and performance ( [Bong, 2004], [Caraway et al., 2003], [Chemers et al., 2001], [Choi, 2005], [Smith et al., 2001] and [Vrugt et al., 2002]).
  • The participants in the study were a random sample of 3165 students from 42 two- and four-year institutions in New York State.
    • Irene Watts-Politza
       
      SLN? See how many things you can learn with one really great data set?
  • Gaining knowledge about the reasons for learning and achievement of online students has attracted a great deal of attention among both researchers and practitioners. Understanding the factors that have an influence on the success of online education has significant implications for designing productive online communities.
  • Reviewing studies that investigated elements of online learner self-regulation
  • This ongoing project to document all instances of teaching, social, and cognitive presence in complete online courses also resulted in identification of learner discourse that did not fit within the model, i.e. could not be reliably coded as indicators of teaching, social, or cognitive presence ( [Shea, 2010] and [Shea et al., 2010]).
  • Additional work on the CoI model (Shea, Vickers, & Hayes, 2010) suggested that past research methods may have resulted in a systematic under representation of the instructional effort involved in online education.
  • These exceptions represent interesting data for refining and enhancing the model as they suggest that learners are attempting to accomplish goals that are not accounted for within the CoI framework.
  • In this paper we examine the Community of Inquiry framework (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 2000) suggesting that the model may be enhanced through a fuller articulation of the roles of online learners. We present the results of a study of 3165 students in online and hybrid courses from 42 two- and four-year institutions in which we examine the relationship between learner self-efficacy measures and their ratings of the quality of their learning in virtual environments. We conclude that a positive relationship exists between elements of the CoI framework and between elements of a nascent theoretical construct that we label “learning presence”. We suggest that learning presence represents elements such as self-efficacy as well as other cognitive, behavioral, and motivational constructs supportive of online learner self-regulation.
  • the CoI framework attempts to articulate the social, technological, and pedagogical processes that engender collaborative knowledge construction. It therefore represents an effort to resolve the greatest challenge to the quality of online education
  • Learner discussions also included efforts to divide up tasks, manage time, and set goals in order to successfully complete group projects. As such they appeared to be indicators of online learner self and co-regulation, which can be viewed as the degree to which students in collaborative online educational environments are metacognitively, motivationally, and behaviorally active participants in the learning process (Winters & Azevedo, 2005).
  • the authors concluded that all the studies converged on advantageous outcomes for providing support for “metacognitive” learning strategies including self-reflection, self-explanation, and self-monitoring.
  • successfully orchestrating a dialogue demands fairly sophisticated skills. Conversational contributions need to be simultaneously parsed according to their disciplinary value, their location within the chain of collective argumentation, their relevance to the instructional goals, and their role as indicators of the student’s ongoing understanding. The outcome of this complex appraisal is a sense of the amount and quality of the guidance that specific contributions and the conversation as a whole require to support learning.” (Larreamendy-Joerns & Leinhardt, p. 591)
  • Zhao et al. also concluded that studies in which instructor interaction with students was medium to high resulted in better learning outcomes for online students relative to classroom learners.
  •  
    This article also addresses the relationships between each of the presences and proposes an additional presence- Learner Presence.
alexandra m. pickett

Factors Influencing Faculty Satisfaction with Asynchronous Teaching and Learning in the SUNY Learning Network - 0 views

  •  
    Eric Fredericksen, Alexandra Pickett, Peter Shea State University of New York William Pelz Herkimer County Community College Karen Swan University of Albany Abstract "…100% of faculty reported that they were either satisfied or very satisfied with the SUNY Learning Network." Spring 1999 SLN Faculty Satisfaction Survey The State University of New York (SUNY) Learning Network (SLN) is the on-line instructional program created for the 64 colleges and nearly 400,000 students of SUNY. The foundation of the program is freedom from schedule and location constraints for our faculty and students. The primary goals of the SLN are to bring SUNY's diverse and high-quality instructional programs within the reach of learners everywhere, and to be the best provider of asynchronous instruction for learners in New York State and beyond. We believe that these goals cannot be achieved unless faculty receives appropriate support. This paper will examine factors that have contributed to the high level of faculty satisfaction we have achieved in the SLN. The analysis will be done on several levels. This first section will look at the SLN at a program-wide level and will provide information regarding the systemic implementation of our asynchronous learning environment. The second section examines issues that contribute to on-line teaching satisfaction from a faculty- development and course-design perspective. This section will present the evolution of the four-stage faculty development process and a seven-step course design process that was developed by SLN and comment on lessons learned. The third section presents results from the SLN Faculty Satisfaction Survey conducted in spring 1999. This section examines factors from a quantitative analysis that significantly contributes to faculty satisfaction with on-line teaching and offers recommendations for course and program design based on these factors. The fourth section e
Diane Gusa

Learning-Centered Syllabi - 0 views

  • Learning-Centered Syllabi Workshop
  • Creating and using a learner-centered syllabus is integral to the process of creating learning communities.
  • students and their ability to learn are at the center of what we do
  • ...22 more annotations...
  • we focus on the process of learning rather than the content, that the content and the teacher adapt to the students rather than expecting the students to adapt to the content, that responsibility is placed on students to learn rather than on professors to teach.
  • facilitate student learning rather than to act as "gatekeepers" of knowledge
  • A necessary first step in creating a learning-centered syllabus, according to most sources, is to spend some time thinking about the "big questions" related to why, what, who and how we teach.
  • thoughtful discussions with ourselves and our colleagues about our teaching philosophy and what it means to be an educated person in our discipline
  • We also need to think about how we encourage responsibility for learning in our students.
  • students should progress from a primarily instructor-led approach to a primarily student-initiated approach to learning.
  • participate in planning the course content and activities; clarify their own goals and objectives for the course; monitor and assess their own progress; and establish criteria for judging their own performance within the goals that they have set for themselves, certification or licensing requirements, time constraints, etc.
  • Your first objective is to facilitate learning, not cover a certain block of materia
  • According to Johnson, "course objectives should consist of explicit statements about the ways in which students are expected to change as a result of your teaching and the course activities. These should include changes in thinking skills, feelings, and actions" (p. 3)
  • Don't use words that are open to many interpretations and which are difficult to measure. Make sure that all students understand the same interpretation.
  • here are three primary domains of development for students in a course
  • The Cognitive Domain is associated with knowledge and intellectual skills. The Affective Domain is associated with changes in interests, attitudes, values, applications, and adjustments. And the Psychomotor Domain is associated with manipulative and motor skills
  • An effective learning-centered syllabus should accomplish certain basic goals (Diamond, p. ix): define students' responsibilities; define instructor's role and responsibility to students; provide a clear statement of intended goals and student outcomes; establish standards and procedures for evaluation; acquaint students with course logistics; establish a pattern of communication between instructor and students; and include difficult-to-obtain materials such as readings, complex charts, and graphs.
  • Students need to know why topics are arranged in a given order and the logic of the themes and concepts as they relate to the course structure
  • Clarify the conceptual structure used to organize the course.
  • Does the course involve mostly inductive or deductive reasoning? Is it oriented to problem-solving or theory building? Is it mostly analytical or applied? In answering these questions, acknowledge that they reflect predominant modes in most cases rather than either/or dichotomies.
  • Identify additional equipment or materials needed and sources.
  • "Any student who feels s/he may need an accommodation based on the impact of a disability should contact me privately to discuss your specific needs. Please contact the Disability Resources Office at 515-294-6624 or TTY 515-294-6635 in Room 1076 of the Student Services Building to submit your documentation and coordinate necessary and reasonable accommodation."
  • Use a variety of methods.
  • "A learning-centered syllabus requires that you shift from what you, the instructor, are going to cover in your course to a concern for what information and tools you can provide for your students to promote learning and intellectual development" (Diamond, p. xi).
  • Critical Thinking
  • Critical thinking is a learned skill. The instructor, fellow students, and possibly others are resources. Problems, questions, issues, values, beliefs are the point of entry to a subject and source of motivation for sustained inquiry. Successful courses balance the challenge of critical thinking with the supportive foundation of core principles, theories, etc., tailored to students' developmental needs. Courses are focused on assignments using processes that apply content rather than on lectures and simply acquiring content. Students are required to express ideas in a non-judgmental environment which encourages synthesis and creative applications. Students collaborate to learn and stretch their thinking. Problem-solving exercises nurture students' metacognitive abilities. The development needs of students are acknowledged and used in designing courses. Standards are made explicit and students are helped to learn how to achieve them.
Maree Michaud-Sacks

Life and Career Skills - The Partnership for 21st Century Skills - 0 views

  • Be Self-directed Learners Go beyond basic mastery of skills and/or curriculum to explore and expand one’s own learning and opportunities to gain expertise Demonstrate initiative to advance skill levels towards a professional level Demonstrate commitment to learning as a lifelong process Reflect critically on past experiences in order to inform future progress
  • Work Independently Monitor, define, prioritize and complete tasks without direct oversight
  • Manage Goals and Time Set Goals with tangible and intangible success criteria Balance tactical (short-term) and strategic (long-term) Goals Utilize time and manage workload efficiently
Amy M

Research Study: Self-regulated learning in massive open online courses « Learning in the workplace - 0 views

  • How do participants plan, implement and reflect upon their learning goals within Change MOOC?What strategies do they use to self-regulate their learning?What tools do they use to self-regulate their learning? How do participants draw upon collective knowledge – people and other environmental resources – when planning, implementing and reflecting upon their learning goals within Change MOOC? What are the environmental factors, in particular those related to the coherence of the information space and structure of the MOOC, that constrain or enable SRL? What are the similarities and differences in the use of SRL strategies between learners who have diverse self-regulatory profiles? For example, do learners who score higher on self-regulatory skill measures use significantly different goal planning, implementation and reflection strategies than participants who score lower on the SRL measures?
  •  
    research on self-regulated learning and MOOCs
diane hamilton

Successive Aproximations - 0 views

  • The first step would be to identify the undesired behavior you wish to change. The next steps are the trickiest and depends on many factors. This include developing a conscious and deliberate plan which includes 1) the ultimate goal, benchmarks (smaller more obtainable goals to reach the ultimate goal), 2) the steps to the first benchmark, 3) the rewards to reinforce desired reactions which approach the steps to the first benchmark, and 4) the criteria to use to mark progress. It may be helpful to work with a partner (someone else with the same phobia or undesired behavior) as a support person or a mentor (someone who has done it or has some counseling background). This is a very difficult strategy to accomplish alone. Reinforce the positive steps away from the undesired behavior and steps toward the desired behavior with the selected rewards. Monitor your progress. Change the size of the steps, the rewards, or the benchmarks if any do not seem to be working. You may hit plateaus or periods of backslides. Accept them as a temporary setback and identify potentials of self-sabotage, negative self-talks, or situations which should be avoided for the time being. Make a conscious decision to continue with your plan (or modification of it). This may be a life-long "work in progress" if you are trying to change a deep-rooted fear or a behavior which feeds an addiction. Again, this is very difficult to do alone. You may need to work with a partner, mentor, or counselor.
dkiesel

The Technology Source Archives - Ten Ways Online Education Matches, or Surpasses, Face-to-Face Learning - 6 views

  • Students are empowered to learn on their own and even to teach one another.
    • Erin Fontaine
       
      Students are made accountable for their own education and are able to reflect on what they are learning.
    • Heather Kurto
       
      Students work together with professors to create a learning style that meets their needs. The students guide information that is important to them making the experience meaningful.
  • Students served as instructors to their classmates, and together they worked toward learning goals more effectively than if they had been provided with the answer by the instructor.
    • Erin Fontaine
       
      I have seen my own students achieve better comprehension when they are able to see the information through the eyes of their peers rather than my perspective.
    • Irene Watts-Politza
       
      This also supports Shift 4 in ELA Common Core which calls for students to have "rich" conversations centering on a text.
  • When an instructor posts a question on the asynchronous discussion board, every student in the class is expected to respond, respond intelligently, and respond several times.
    • Irene Watts-Politza
       
      This expectation is supported by the online instructor's facilitation of discourse and intellectual leadership, identified by Jones et al. as two aspects of teaching presence.
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  • On a more formal note, online tests and quizzes can be constructed with an automatic grading capability that provides immediate feedback and references to text and class notes that explain the correct answers. Assignments, including grades and editorial comments, can be returned to students more promptly and usually with more detail than in the F2F environment.
    • Irene Watts-Politza
       
      This is something to consider with respect to formative assessment, RtI evidence/data, and computer-based grade books. Wondering how it would work in an open source learning platform for collecting data on teacher effectiveness at the university level?
    • Teresa Dobler
       
      I have used online homework systems with my middle school students, and it works wonderfully. Many students use the immediate feedback to their advantage, reviewing the questions they got wrong. I know they use it well because whenever I happen to make an error in marking the correct answer, I will receive a flood of emails from students quoting resources stating why they believe their answer to be correct.
  • They say that it is common for participants in online courses to develop a strong sense of community that enhances the learning process.
    • Irene Watts-Politza
       
      Bodes well for gobalization of education, especially when supported by language conversion apps.
    • Teresa Dobler
       
      Reminds me of a community of inquiry model. See Garrison, Anderson, and Archer, 2000.
  • thrilled
    • Irene Watts-Politza
       
      This is indeed the perfect verb for this experience!
  • The thinking, planning, research, learning, and effort that goes into constructing and teaching an online course has rejuvenated many faculty members who were frankly going through the motions after numerous years of teaching the same courses, semester after semester, in the same classroom environment.
    • Irene Watts-Politza
       
      As online learning increases at the secondary level, is it possible that responsibility for curriculum development will become an APPR bargaining issue under the Regents Reform Agenda?
  • the best way to teach students how to write more effectively is to have them write more often.
    • Erin Fontaine
       
      One of my main concerns about creating and online class for a junior high (7th/8th) grade is about how technology is affecting their writing abilities. I was afraid of how all the short hand phrases we all use are affecting students and their abiliity to write. Yes, online courses are writing intensive and a great means of keeping students writing but as the teacher I feel like I have to make sure that the work I recieve is of quality. As I continue to research this fear I am seeing both sides of the argument. Text talk may be both positive and negative. Still looking into this... Here is just one of many articles I have found on this topic: http://www.nst.com.my/nation/extras/zero-to-12-is-technology-deteriorating-language-skills-1.89256
    • Teresa Dobler
       
      Thanks for the link. I know with my students, I emphasize the need for using conventional English in typed school work no matter what device they are using. Most of my middle school students are adept at transitioning from the language they would use while texting to the language I expect in their lab report, even if they are typing the lab on their phone.
  • Students with family or work responsibilities are often unable to commit to a traditional course because they cannot be in the same place at the same time for 15 consecutive weeks.
    • Amy M
       
      This is a huge factor is accessibility for adult-learners.
  • Although some instructors may discover more than they wanted to know about their students, my online teaching experience disproves the notion that online courses are impersonal and do not foster relationships, either between students and instructors or among students themselves.
    • Amy M
       
      I wonder what the limit on class size is for an online course to feel "intimate."
  • In the traditional F2F classroom, the instructor asks a question, and the same four or five extroverted students inevitably raise their hands. They offer spontaneous, often unresearched responses in the limited time allotted for discussion. In the online environment, discussions enter a new dimension.
    • Heather Kurto
       
      This is huge for online learning. Students are able to thoughtfully respond which deepens discussions.
  • . Online education is neither right for all students nor right for all faculty, but it frequently meets the needs of both for an exciting, high-quality educational experience.
    • Teresa Dobler
       
      How do we make the jump and empower students to actually take on the role as a teacher?
  • explain, share, comment upon, critique
  • explain, share, comment upon, critique
  • unresearched responses in the limited time
  • unresearched responses
    • Teresa Dobler
       
      I personally have seen a big difference in my thought and contributions when given time to think, research, and craft a response to an argument.
    • sherrilattimer
       
      There is also something to be said abou the "delete" button. Once you say something, you cannot undo it.
  • can refer to their course materials and think through their answers
    • efleonhardt
       
      I think this is a very important piece of online learning I hadn't thought about t before. When students are online they are able to actually process the information and not be afraid if they're processing skills are slower than other students.
    • Teresa Dobler
       
      The goal is for the student to continue learning throughout life, not just for the course. This links back to the Minds on Fire reading: http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/minds-fire-open-education-long-tail-and-learning-20
  • However, I have heard from very few faculty members who are not energized by the creative process of achieving the same instructional goals in an entirely new format.
  • On average, online courses are far more writing-intensive than traditional classes have ever been.
  • he first response that comes to mind rather than the best possible response
    • George Dale
       
      and you don't have the, "Doh! I should have said ..." as you're walking out of the classroom.
  • Many online students have indicated that this is the first time they have ever "spoken up" in class and that they enjoy the opportunity
  • Geared to lifelong learning
    • George Dale
       
      While I'm not a LMS hater, I do see this as a problem in the way LMSs keep a death grip on the content and learning. I'd like to develop a plugin for Balckboard that allows a student to easily "pack up" and take their work with them as they complete a course.
  • as a result of the relative anonymity
    • George Dale
       
      It's almost ironic that the initial anonimity can lead to deeper connections relative to F2F interactions.
  • online education can be done well,
    • George Dale
       
      It seems that some examples that are used to demonstrate a poor online course are often as good as a "normal" (i.e. F2F) class. Being as good as a traditional lecture class is a low bar to set.
    • Arnaldo Robles
       
      I can see this serving as a useful tool for writing activities!
  • In their everyday lives, individuals do not have a teacher at their side to direct them in their acquisition of new information. One of the roles that we need to perform as educators, then, is to teach students to find and learn information on their own or in concert with their colleagues. The online environment fosters self-motivated education. Students direct their own use of Internet links, search engines, discussion boards, chat, e-mail, and other media. While such resources cannot guarantee student initiative, they establish a framework that gives precedence to the autonomy of the learner.
    • Arnaldo Robles
       
      I like this!
  • develop course materials among themselves in a manner rarely seen in the F2F classroom.
    • dkiesel
       
      In f2f classes at masters public health program, we do extensive group projects. I think that k--12 classes may not have had many project-based classes of which hopefully will be more as we are seeing the influence of online teaching and how for practical learning the online environment can greatly compliment a practical session.  But I don't agree that all the practical project based work I have done for my profession with other students and teachers is not as well integrated compared to all the practical group work I have done in my profession with students and teachers. Also the quality of spoken live discussion in group work is very challenging when it is live. Maybe online is helping by giving us more time to think before we say something. 
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    Sorry I didn't want these to go public. These were just my notes to myself so that I could further do some research. Is there a way to remove these or make these private again. Guess I'm still testing the water.
alexandra m. pickett

Social Studies Another Way - 0 views

  • don’t use it as a source in research
    • Joan Erickson
       
      Look at what we do in etap, we pull research sources off of the web left and right. Does it make it OK for us to do?
  • . I’m thinking that by creating a mission video that emphasizes their own creativity as the goal that they will see that this is self-directed and endless in its possibilitie
    • alexandra m. pickett
       
      fantastic idea!!
  • I notice that I don’t read everything on each direction page, so I’m sure my students won’t either.
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  • Having to support my ideas is cumbersome, and it requires work
    • Joan Erickson
       
      Shoubang left a message on my blog saying the same thing: it is WORK. But we learn a lot from one another!
  • I was always annoyed in grad classes when people would just shoot off their mouths about random things, totally wasting class time on their own rants (usually at 9pm). This definitely alleviates that situation!
  • I don’t accept laziness or haphazard work, but I usually reject it with a smile and a joke
    • Joan Erickson
       
      Melissa, I want my son to have a teacher like you! I want to have a teacher who knows how to gracefully reject silly work !
  • At this point, I need stick notes to track down sticky notes
    • Joan Erickson
       
      melissa you are too funny!
  • I resisted activities where the students “taught” each other for fear that they would leave something out
    • Joan Erickson
       
      of course you would have that fear. I think every teacher has that concern when they use peer-learning activities. state exams put so much pressure on the teachers and the kids.
    • Melissa Pietricola
       
      They do, it is truly counterproductive!
  • I will be extremely busy
  • I am eliminating much of the homework requirements so students can work on the online course
  • It will be an enormous challenge for me to let students take the lead and not dominate the airspace. If I want my students to make it to that “performance” or “resolution” stage I see this stepping back as being essential. I want them to “Perform” in the sense that they build their learning into webpages. If I dominate their peer critiques, for example, they might as well become my webpages. The intent is for them to run wild with their creativity, and to step away from me as the direct instructor. He also discusses the steps groups take to make decisions, “forming, norming, storming, and performing.” Garrison emphasizes that groups not only need time, but also clearly stated goals to function productively. I am very familiar with his claim that, “groups do not naturally coalesce and move to integration and resolution phases.” I loathe group work for this very reason! I have avoided it much of my teaching career, afraid of losing control of the classroom and the content, and often seeing little progression in student learning when I do venture to use it. He goes on to argue that, “direction and facilitation is required to establish cohesion and ensure messages are developed.” I guess I assumed this, that you need to give clear directions, state your goals for the activity, and facilitate its progression. I’m concerned with how this will go online.
  • This reminds  me of Kelly as a “thread killer.”
  • time consuming
    • Joan Erickson
       
      me too. you mentioned about this in your earlier blog. Compposing a post felt like writing a mini-essay for me, I just couldn't produce a coherent, educated, and educational post in a matter of minutes. It is time-consuming to produce intelligent work.
    • Melissa Pietricola
       
      It is! I felt like I would wander through the Internet in a thousand directions, getting irritated with myself for being so scatterbrained. It took me forever!
    • Joy Quah Yien-ling
       
      I agree! Takes forever - days and days to write. Blogging is agonizing!! But ultimately satisfying :-) We survived.
    • Joan Erickson
       
      wheeew! Now I feel better. For the longest time I thought it was due to my inadequacy that it took me days to pull research together and write up a coherent reply. If you two felt this way, who am I to complain?! Thanks!
  • By that I mean it keeps me thinking. I wake up in the middle of the night and wonder on it, it makes me uncomfortable, and it appears on my to-do list in the strangest way. One thing I think of is the idea of student-centered learning. Its not that this is new to me entirely, but it has been a bit of a shocker to learn how to do it effectively and how to readjust my thinking and teaching to make the student at the middle. The idea that my activities should be engaging has always been moderately important, but I’ve thought about it in the past as “entertaining.” I always came back to the thought that I wasn’t here to entertain my students, they get entertainment everywhere else.
  • But, as a student, I completely understand and empathize with the idea that they should be engaged and want to be a part of what they are learning. This is a new thought to me. That I should make the activities engaging (by using technology, by encouraging connections, and by making purposeful learning) not simply so students have fun, but so that they learn more!
  • whether I’d catch the next episode of the “Backyardigans.”
    • alexandra m. pickett
       
      i love backyardigans!! : )
  • It stimulated a different part of my brain and gave me an adult purpose to my day. Very important for my sanity and helpful for me as a mother, as well. I truly agree that being an educated woman makes us better caretakers for our children (especially our girls!)
  • The truth is, though, that it did help me to learn and it was a challenge I could meet.
Kelly Gorcica

Metacognition: An Overview - 1 views

  • Metacognitive experiences involve the use of metacognitive strategies or metacognitive regulation (Brown, 1987). Metacognitive strategies are sequential processes that one uses to control cognitive activities, and to ensure that a cognitive goal (e.g., understanding a text) has been met. These processes help to regulate and oversee learning, and consist of planning and monitoring cognitive activities, as well as checking the outcomes of those activities.
  • Self-questioning is a common metacognitive comprehension monitoring strategy. If she finds that she cannot answer her own questions, or that she does not understand the material discussed, she must then determine what needs to be done to ensure that she meets the cognitive goal of understanding the text.
  • Knowledge is considered to be metacognitive if it is actively used in a strategic manner to ensure that a goal is met. For example, a student may use knowledge in planning how to approach a math exam: "I know that I (person variable) have difficulty with word problems (task variable), so I will answer the computational problems first and save the word problems for last (strategy variable)." Simply possessing knowledge about one's cognitive strengths or weaknesses and the nature of the task without actively utilizing this information to oversee learning is not metacognitive.
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  • Cognitive Strategy Instruction (CSI) is an instructional approach which emphasizes the development of thinking skills and processes as a means to enhance learning. The objective of CSI is to enable all students to become more strategic, self-reliant, flexible, and productive in their learning endeavors (Scheid, 1993). CSI is based on the assumption that there are identifiable cognitive strategies, previously believed to be utilized by only the best and the brightest students, which can be taught to most students (Halpern, 1996). Use of these strategies have been associated with successful learning (Borkowski, Carr, & Pressley, 1987; Garner, 1990).
  • Metacognition enables students to benefit from instruction (Carr, Kurtz, Schneider, Turner & Borkowski, 1989; Van Zile-Tamsen, 1996) and influences the use and maintenance of cognitive strategies.
  • Metacognition and Cognitive Strategy Instruction
  • The study of metacognition has provided educational psychologists with insight about the cognitive processes involved in learning and what differentiates successful students from their less successful peers. It also holds several implications for instructional interventions, such as teaching students how to be more aware of their learning processes and products as well as how to regulate those processes for more effective learning.
  • Metacognition refers to higher order thinking which involves active control over the cognitive processes engaged in learning. Activities such as planning how to approach a given learning task, monitoring comprehension, and evaluating progress toward the completion of a task are metacognitive in nature. Because metacognition plays a critical role in successful learning, it is important to study metacognitive activity and development to determine how students can be taught to better apply their cognitive resources through metacognitive control.
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    metacognition
Nicole Arduini-Van Hoose

Classrooms: Goals, Structures, and Student Motivation - 0 views

  •  
    examines the classroom learning environment in relation to achievement goal theory of motivation
abeukema

Achievement Goals Presentation - 0 views

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    Narrated power point presentation.
Mary Huffman

Supporting Reading Goals through the Visual Arts - 0 views

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    Reading and writing across the curriculum.
Heather Kurto

Analysis of a Rubric for Assessing Depth of Classroom Reflections - 0 views

  • Retention and transfer of learned material are important—although too often merely implicit—goals of classes at the university level. Factors that enhance retention and transfer of learning are now key areas of research, and one frequently recommended method of enhancing these goals is to incorporate reflection into classroom practices (Saito & Miwa, 2007
  • Boyle, Duffy, and Dunleavy (2003) demonstrated that deep learners are characterized by being intrinsically motivated, able to relate new materials to previously learned information, and able to critically evaluate information; deep learning is also positively related to grade point average (GPA) and average exam scores
  • Finally, reflection has been linked
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  • incorporating reflections into the classroom is an important opportunity to increase depth of learning in the classroom. This study adds to this growing body of literature by presenting a new method for collecting and assessing reflections to make this incorporation more feasible
  • to deeper thinking (Short & Rinehart, 1993
  • Retention and transfer of learning are two variables related to knowledge, and their relationship to reflections should be studied explicitly rather than inferred from correlates (e.g., the relationship between reflection depth and GPA)
Heather Kurto

Pedagogical Love and Good Teacherhood | Määttä | in education - 1 views

shared by Heather Kurto on 15 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • A teacher’s proficiency is manifested by the ability to look at the subject from a learner’s point of view, to foresee the critical junctions in learning, and to design teaching to meet learners’ information acquisition and collection processes (e.g., Zombylas, 2007).
  • van Manen (1991) claims that as teachers embrace all children, regardless of their characteristics they become real educators, and thus, educators’ pedagogical love becomes the precondition for pedagogical relations to grow (p
  • Individualistic features, position, nationality, gender, abilities, race, or language do not determine a human being’s value. Those differences based on skills, intelligence, or knowledge are insignificant compared with that basic human presence that is the same for all people: the right and need to be loved, accepted, and cared for as well as the right and need to grow and develop (Bradshaw, 1996; Lanara, 1981; Sprengel & Kelly, 1992).
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  • A teacher’s ethical caring means genuine caring, aspiring to understand and make an effort for pupils’ protection, support, and development. Because of this pedagogical caring, the teacher especially pursues pupils’ potential to develop and thus help them to find and use their own strengths.
  • Pedagogical love has been considered the core factor in the definition of good teacherhood for decades, though the characteristics of a good teacher have always included a variety of features. Features such as the ability to maintain discipline and order, set a demanding goal level, and the mastery of substance have been especially emphasized (e.g., Davis, 1993; Zombylas, 2007; Hansen, 2009)
  • Love influences the direction of people’s action as well as its intensity. Positive emotions, joy, strength, and the feeling of being capable lead mental energy toward the desired goal (Rantala & Määttä, 2011). Negative emotions, grief, fear, and anger cause entropy, an inner imbalance that burns off energy, brands the target with negative status, and pursues nullifying and undervaluing (e.g., Isen, 2001).
  • he educator’s task is to provide pupils with such stimuli and environment where students are guided to limit their instincts by controlling enjoyment and vital-based values, in order to be able to achieve higher values and skills (Solasaari, 2003).
  • Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1990, 2000) has launched the concept that refers to an optimal or autotelic experience where people are riveted so comprehensively by a challenging performance that the awareness of time and place blurs. Flow is possible when the challenges in a task are balanced with an actor’s abilities. Flow is an enjoyable state of concentration and task orientation, leading to optimal performance, whether the case is wall creeping, chess playing, dancing, surgery, studying languages, painting, or composing music.
  • This sets challenges for skill development. If a task is too easy, it will bore. If it is too difficult, it will cause anxiety and fear. The exact experience of flow and the active sense of well-being resulting from the former, encourage people to develop and improve their skills. People are willing to strive for flow whether it was about love for math, art, programming, or orthopedics (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990).
  • In an interview, Gardner (as cited in Goleman, 1999) said flow is intrinsically rewarding without the hope for reward or threat of punishment. We should use learners’ positive moods (love) and through it get them to learn things about fields they can succeed in. People have to discover what they like, what things and doings they love and do these things. Even a child learns the best when he/she loves what he/she is doing and finds it enjoyable. (p. 126)
  • Pedagogical love might contribute to pupils’ learning and success by providing them with positive learning experiences, initial excitement, and perceived successes. These are the seeds of expertise as a positive feeling that can be considered the source of human strengths (Isen, 2001).
  • Pedagogical love springs from an individual learner’s presence persuading it to come forward more and more perfectly and diversely. A skillful educator does not just sit by and watch if a learner makes worthless choices or fails in his or her opportunities to grow and develop.
  • Haavio emphasized the meaning of pedagogical love in teachers’ work and considered that teachers’ work consists of the following two obligations: attachment to learners and dutiful perseverance of life values.
  • Pedagogical love speaks to interdependence—the recognition and acceptance that we need others.
  • Love appears in teaching as guidance toward disciplined work, but also as patience, trust, and forgiveness. The purpose is not to make learning fun, easy, or pleasing but to create a setting for learning where pupils can use and develop their own resources eventually proceeding at the maximum of their own abilities
  • A loving teacher reveals for a pupil the dimensions of his or her development in a manner of speaking. This is how a pupil’s self-esteem strengthens and he or she can develop toward higher activities from the lowest, pleasure-oriented ones. Achieving high-level skills is rewarding because it brings pleasure, and yet, it often demands—as mentioned previously—self-discipline and rejections
  • A teacher’s work is interpersonal and relational, with a teacher’s own personality fundamental to building relationships with students. A teacher’s work involves plenty of emotional strain. In addition, a teacher inevitably has to experience frustration in his or her work. There are many situations when a teacher will feel like she or he has failed regardless of the solution he or she creates.
  • Consequently, teachers are likely to experience guilt because they cannot sufficiently attend to all pupils in an appropriate way that is congruent with the notion of caring.
  • However, teachers have to realize that their own coping, motivation, and engagement require attention; they are not automatic.
  • Pedagogical love emerges through teachers’ emotions, learned models, moral attitude, and actions
  • Good teachers are examples to learners even in the most difficult life situations. Teachers have to believe in their work and endeavour to build a nurturing environment and a more humane world.
  • To be happy about life, to guide students to see the wonder and joy in the mundane is a teacher’s most important skill. Being able to help students find and negotiate the joy, wonder, happiness, and pain in the everydayness of life is an increasingly important quality in today’s insecurities, with the mounting pressure of increased demands for efficiency
Catherine Strattner

How Different Types of Knowledge Are Assessed - 0 views

  • Procedural knowledge is knowing how to do something; it involves making discriminations, understanding concepts, and applying rules that govern relationships and often includes motor skills and cognitive strategies
  • Declarative knowledge is knowing that something is the case
  • Problem solving may involve domain-specific strategies, suggesting that different strategies are employed when solving problems in different content a
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  • The ability to solve problems builds on declarative knowledge and procedural knowledge.
  • eas, such as math versus writing
  • problem solving involves a sequence of steps, beginning with establishing a representation of the problem, then selecting a strategy that seems appropriate for resolving the problem, followed by evaluating the results of employing that strategy
  • Declarative knowledge involves information one can state verbally. Therefore, tasks will require students to state, explain, discuss, or declare in some other way what they know
  • He described declarative knowledge as a network of propositions, whereas procedural knowledge represented productions. While declarative knowledge involves knowing that something is the case, procedural knowledge involves knowing how to do something
  • To assess problem solving, students are presented a problem to solve or a situation from which they must infer the problem that needs to be solved. Typically, any number of strategies might be used to successfully solve the problem. When scoring student performance where the focus of the assessment is on problem solving, proficiency with particular strategies or other types of procedural (or declarative) knowledge generally is not scored. What is scored are qualities such as the establishment of a clear and appropriate problem representation and sense of goal, the selection of a strategy that is reasonable given the goal to be achieved, and the adequacy with which outcomes from using the selected strategy are evaluated.
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    this item discusses different kinds of knowledge, their connection to Bloom's taxonomy, and how to assess each
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    Different types of knowledge and how to write performance objectives in line with each.
Erin Fontaine

Critical Thinking Development: A Stage Theory - 0 views

  • We must recognize the importance of challenging our students — in a supportive way — to recognize both that they are thinkers and that their thinking often goes awry. We must lead class discussions about thinking. We must explicitly model thinking (e.g., thinking aloud through a problem). We must design classroom activities that explicitly require students to think about their thinking. We must have students examine both poor and sound thinking, talking about the differences. We must introduce students to the parts of thinking and the intellectual standards necessary to assess thinking. We must introduce the idea of intellectual humility to students; that is, the idea of becoming aware of our own ignorance. Perhaps children can best understand the importance of this idea through their concept of the "know-it-all," which comes closest to their recognition of the need to be intellectually humble.
    • Irene Watts-Politza
       
      This is a great foundation for an icebreaker module.
  • recognize that they have basic problems in their thinking and make initial attempts to better understand how they can take charge of and improve it.
  • begin to modify some of their thinking, but have limited insight into deeper levels of the trouble inherent in their thinking. Most importantly, they lack a systematic plan for improving their thinking, hence their efforts are hit and miss.
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  • appreciate a critique of their powers of thought.
  • we must teach in such a way as to help them to see that we all need to regularly practice good thinking to become good thinkers.
  • We must emphasize the importance of beginning to take charge of the parts of thinking and applying intellectual standards to thinking. We must teach students to begin to recognize their native egocentrism when it is operating in their thinking.
  • since practicing thinkers are only beginning to approach the improvement of their thinking in a systematic way, they still have limited insight into deeper levels of thought, and thus into deeper levels of the problems embedded in thinking.
  • need for systematic practice in thinking.
  • Practicing thinkers recognize the need for systematicity of critical thinking and deep internalization into habits. They clearly recognize the natural tendency of the human mind to engage in egocentric thinking and self-deception.
  • regularly monitor
  • articulate the strengths and weaknesses
  • often recognize their own egocentric thinking as well as egocentric thinking on the part of others. Furthermore practicing thinkers actively monitor their thinking to eliminate egocentric thinking, although they are often unsuccessful.
  • intellectual perseverance
  • have the intellectual humility required to realize that thinking in all the domains of their lives must be subject to scrutiny, as they begin to approach the improvement of their thinking in a systematic way.
  • We must teach in such a way that students come to understand the power in knowing that whenever humans reason, they have no choice but to use certain predictable structures of thought: that thinking is inevitably driven by the questions, that we seek answers to questions for some purpose, that to answer questions, we need information, that to use information we must interpret it (i.e., by making inferences), and that our inferences, in turn, are based on assumptions, and have implications, all of which involves ideas or concepts within some point of view. We must teach in such a way as to require students to regularly deal explicitly with these structures (more on these structure presently).
  • Recognizing the "moves" one makes in thinking well is an essential part of becoming a practicing thinker.
  • Students should be encouraged to routinely catch themselves thinking both egocentrically and sociocentrically.
  • advanced thinkers not only actively analyze their thinking in all the significant domains of their lives, but also have significant insight into problems at deeper levels of thought. While advanced thinkers are able to think well across the important dimensions of their lives, they are not yet able to think at a consistently high level across all of these dimensions. Advanced thinkers have good general command over their egocentric nature. They continually strive to be fair-minded. Of course, they sometimes lapse into egocentrism and reason in a one-sided way.
  • develop depth of understanding
  • nsight into deep levels of problems in thought: consistent recognition, for example, of egocentric and sociocentric thought in one’s thinking, ability to identify areas of significant ignorance and prejudice, and ability to actually develop new fundamental habits of thought based on deep values to which one has committed oneself.
    • Irene Watts-Politza
       
      What do YOU believe in? How and why do you believe it?
  • successfully engaged in systematically monitoring the role in their thinking of concepts, assumptions, inferences, implications, points of view, etc., and hence have excellent knowledge of that enterprise. Advanced thinkers are also knowledgeable of what it takes to regularly assess their thinking for clarity, accuracy, precision, relevance, logicalness, etc.
  • critique their own plan for systematic practice, and improve it thereby.
  • articulate the strengths and weaknesses in their thinking.
  • reduce the power of their egocentric thoughts.
  • a) the intellectual insight and perseverance to actually develop new fundamental habits of thought based on deep values to which one has committed oneself, b) the intellectual integrity to recognize areas of inconsistency and contradiction in one’s life, c) the intellectual empathy necessary to put oneself in the place of others in order to genuinely understand them, d) the intellectual courage to face and fairly address ideas, beliefs, or viewpoints toward which one has strong negative emotions, e) the fair-mindedness necessary to approach all viewpoints without prejudice, without reference to one’s own feelings or vested interests. In the advanced thinker these traits are emerging, but may not be manifested at the highest level or in the deepest dimensions of thought.
  • our students will not become advanced thinkers — if at all — until college or beyond. Nevertheless, it is important that they learn what it would be to become an advanced thinker. It is important that they see it as an important goal. We can help students move in this direction by fostering their awareness of egocentrism and sociocentrism in their thinking, by leading discussions on intellectual perseverance, intellectual integrity, intellectual empathy, intellectual courage, and fair-mindedness. If we can graduate students who are practicing thinkers, we will have achieved a major break-through in schooling. However intelligent our graduates may be, most of them are largely unreflective as thinkers, and are unaware of the disciplined habits of thought they need to develop to grow intellectually as a thinker.
  • have systematically taken charge of their thinking, but are also continually monitoring, revising, and re-thinking strategies for continual improvement of their thinking. They have deeply internalized the basic skills of thought, so that critical thinking is, for them, both conscious and highly intuitive.
  • As Piaget would put it, they regularly raise their thinking to the level of conscious realization.
  • Accomplished thinkers are deeply committed to fair-minded thinking, and have a high level of, but not perfect, control over their egocentric nature.
  • To make the highest levels of critical thinking intuitive in every domain of one’s life. To internalize highly effective critical thinking in an interdisciplinary and practical way.
  • Accomplished thinkers are not only actively and successfully engaged in systematically monitoring the role in their thinking of concepts, assumptions, inferences, implications, points of view, etc., but are also regularly improving that practice. Accomplished thinkers have not only a high degree of knowledge of thinking, but a high degree of practical insight as well. Accomplished thinkers intuitively assess their thinking for clarity, accuracy, precision, relevance, logicalness, etc. Accomplished thinkers have deep insights into the systematic internalization of critical thinking into their habits. Accomplished thinkers deeply understand the role that egocentric and sociocentric thinking plays in the lives of human beings, as well as the complex relationship between thoughts, emotions, drives and behavior.
  • Naturally inherent in master thinkers are all the essential intellectual characteristics, deeply integrated. Accomplished thinkers have a high degree of intellectual humility, intellectual integrity, intellectual perseverance, intellectual courage, intellectual empathy, intellectual autonomy, intellectual responsibility and fair-mindedness. Egocentric and sociocentric thought is quite uncommon in the accomplished thinker, especially with respect to matters of importance. There is a high degree of integration of basic values, beliefs, desires, emotions, and action.
  • For the foreseeable future the vast majority of our students will never become accomplished thinkers 
  • important that they learn what it would be to become an accomplished thinker. It is important that they see it as a real possibility, if practicing skills of thinking becomes a characteristic of how they use their minds day to day.
  • Thus it is vital that an intellectual vocabulary for talking about the mind be established for teachers; and that teachers lead discussions in class designed to teach students, from the point of view of intellectual quality, how their minds work, including how they can improve as thinkers.
  • in elementary school an essential objective would be that students become "beginning" thinkers, that is, that they will be taught so that they discover that they are thinkers and that their thinking, like a house, can be well or poorly constructed. This "discovery" stage--the coming to awareness that all of us are thinkers--needs to be given the highest priority. Middle school and High School, on this model, would aim at helping all students become, at least, "practicing" thinkers. Of course, students discover thinking only by discovering that thinking has "parts." Like learning what "Legos" are, we learn as we come to discover that there are various parts to thinking and those parts can be put together in various ways. Unlike Legos, of course, thinking well requires that we learn to check how the parts of thinking are working together to make sure they are working properly: For example, have we checked the accuracy of information? Have we clarified the question?
  • We are not advocating here that teachers withdraw from academic content. Rather we are suggesting that critical thinking provides a way of deeply embracing content intellectually. Within this view students come to take intellectual command of how they think, act, and react while they are learning...history, biology, geography, literature, etc., how they think, act, and react as a reader, writer, speaker, and listener, how they think, act, and react as a student, brother, friend, child, shopper, consumer of the media, etc.
  • to effectively learn any subject in an intellectually meaningful way presupposes a certain level of command over one’s thinking, which in turn presupposes understanding of the mind’s processes.
  • Thinking is inevitably driven by the questions we seek to answer, and those questions we seek to answer for some purpose. To answer questions, we need information which is in fact meaningful to us only if we interpret it (i.e., by making inferences). Our inferences, in turn, are based on assumptions and require that we use ideas or concepts to organize the information in some way from some point of view. Last but not least, our thinking not only begins somewhere intellectually (in certain assumptions), it also goes somewhere---that is, has implications and consequences.
  • Thus whenever we reason through any problem, issue, or content we are well advised to take command of these intellectual structures: purpose, question, information, inferences, assumptions, concepts, point of view, and implications. By explicitly teaching students how to take command of the elements of reasoning we not only help them take command of their thinking in a general way; we also provide a vehicle which effectively enables them to critically think through the content of their classes, seeing connections between all of what they are learning.
  • if I am to develop my critical thinking ability I must both "discover" my thinking and must intellectually take charge of it. To do this I must make a deep commitment to this end.
  • the human mind, left to its own, pursues that which is immediately easy, that which is comfortable, and that which serves its selfish interests. At the same time, it naturally resists that which is difficult to understand, that which involves complexity, that which requires entering the thinking and predicaments of others.
  • When we learn together as developing thinkers, when we all of us seek to raise our thinking to the next level, and then to the next after that, everyone benefits, and schooling then becomes what it was meant to be, a place to discover the power of lifelong learning. This should be a central goal for all our students--irrespective of their favored mode of intelligence or learning style. It is in all of our interest to accept the challenge: to begin, to practice, to advance as thinkers.
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