Group items tagged

Author states "this has been a long, rambling article....My basic thesis is that IoT technology can be a tool for behaviour change for social and environmental benefit, through involving people in making systems which address problems that are meaningful for them, and which improve understanding of the wider systems they're engaging with. "We're heading into a world of increasingly complex engineered systems in everyday life... "Yet there is a disconnect between the potential quality of life benefits for society, and people's understanding of these - often invisible - systems around us." Worth a read to inspire several thoughts and arguments.

"These constructive quotes communicate that mistakes are desirable, which is a positive message and part of what we want students to learn. An appreciation of mistakes helps us overcome our fear of making them, enabling us to take risks. But we also want students to understand what kinds of mistakes are most useful and how to most learn from them. "

"I believe in the professorial mandate, the deep commitment we must have to giving back knowledge because we get the privilege of being able to spend our days thinking. But that isn't just a matter of toiling in our worlds and then throwing knowledge out of the ivory tower. It's not just about making material open and hoping people will come. It's about actively engaging the very people that we seek to understand, contributing to the communities we spend time analyzing. To treat them respectfully and to understand our moral and ethical responsibility to them."

"OK, so how do we fix this problem? How do I help these students understand that there is value in being confused? I think the only solution is to keep confusing students. Sorry students, there is no shortcut to real understanding."

Maxine Greene (1995) writes:

"The role of the imagination is not to resolve, not to point the way, not to improve.  It is to awaken, to disclose the ordinarily unseen, unheard, and unexpected" (p. 28)

In this age of constant information and busy lives, it's difficult to get teachers and parents to read large amounts of research, or to understand the importance of boycotts, resolutions or petitions. The information we wish to share regarding the ill purpose and effects of corporate ownership of education must be expressed using all of the senses, in our bodied actions-instantaneously and with the emotion it warrants. As Nick Sousanis considers, we have to remember that conception (i.e as what we believe, what we think of as "real") largely comes through our perception (i.e what we see with our eyes and how we construct meaning).

Greene writes that through the "art of knowing"-"The experience and knowledge gained  by this way of knowing opens new modalities for us in the lived world; it brings us in touch with our primordial landscapes, our original acts of perceiving" (p. 149).

We need to redesign the social landscape with new images, new stories, new ways of understanding what corporate reform "is" and how it works.  What we need is action-creative action collectively inspired in local communities and through national organizing-to UNFLATTEN our worlds.

"I'd say the biggest observation I've come across in the last couple weeks, is that the online co-learning model breaks down the barriers of the traditional teacher/student relationship. Collaborating, sharing, and building ideas and understanding through open discuss instead bland lecture (here's the information, learn it, regurgitate it for a test). Creating the open platform to express ideas, and then expand upon them with easy reference to the information on the web (i.e., youtube videos, spotify, etc.). The responsibility then lies with each of us (student and teacher) to clearly express our meaning, intention, interpretation, and understanding of material, and back it up with an openness to build on criticism, and defend our viewpoint. And as we've discussed, they, the students, have full ownership of their work, so they may use it for future reference, when needed. In a way, it's like what Beethoven, Debussy, and punk rock have done with music. Each in their own right said, screw the "rules" I'm going to create the music I feel is necessary. The music inside me." h/t to Joyce

"Intellectual skills, in contrast, have to do with a person's ways of reasoning, hypothesizing, exploring, understanding, and, in general, making sense of the world.  Every child is, by nature, an intellectual being--a curious, sense-making person, who is continuously seeking to understand his or her physical and social environments.  Each child is born with such skills and develops them further, in his or her own ways, through observing, exploring, playing, and questioning.  Attempts to teach intellectual skills directly inevitably fail, because each child must develop them in his or her own way, through his or her own self-initiated activities.  But adults can influence that development through the environments they provide.  "

"But imagine for a moment that you didn't have to rely on maps to navigate the unknown-that your memory, instincts, and knowledge of the environment sufficed. This is the art of Polynesian wayfinding." The metaphor breaks down but I think it's close to navigation vs maps . . . skills & understanding vs step by step. One is a path to freedom- the other a kind of shackle masquerading . . .

Certainly true for me in a variety of areas of learning . . . "Programming was taught to me in a similar way - and for students to attain true understanding, this doesn't feel like it's the best way to learn. There is a literal learning curve to programming, and once you hit the inflection point of that curve you become somewhat self reliant. You know what to ask Google, you know the process of debugging, and you start to realize you're capable of accomplishing anything by yourself. But if you haven't hit that point yet, it can feel like you may never hit that point. Traditional methods of testing and gauging progress among students who are at different points in their capacity to learn programming don't feel quite fair, and I believe this discourages many (particularly underrepresented minorities) from continuing to learn how to code."

Certainly true for me in a variety of areas of learning . . . "Programming was taught to me in a similar way - and for students to attain true understanding, this doesn't feel like it's the best way to learn. There is a literal learning curve to programming, and once you hit the inflection point of that curve you become somewhat self reliant. You know what to ask Google, you know the process of debugging, and you start to realize you're capable of accomplishing anything by yourself. But if you haven't hit that point yet, it can feel like you may never hit that point. Traditional methods of testing and gauging progress among students who are at different points in their capacity to learn programming don't feel quite fair, and I believe this discourages many (particularly underrepresented minorities) from continuing to learn how to code."

"But we also need to think and question and explore and understand, so that we can take up our particular responsibilities as educators as well as our general responsibilities as human beings. I might be wrong in my thinking, but I'm not going to stop thinking and putting it out there because that too, is an act of resistance."

1. For complex written assignments that require synthesis of material from the entire semester, divide the assignment into phases and have students submit interim deliverables for feedback. 2. Use rubrics to guide student activity on the discussion board as well as in written assignments. 3. For courses that teach dense, technical material, self-check quizzes can be very effective to oblige students to complete the required reading and help them (and instructors) gauge their understanding of the material. 4. Make use of synchronous technologies, where appropriate. Many of the challenges instructors face when teaching online are the result of the distant, asynchronous nature of most online learning. Web conferencing and telephone conferencing can help "close the gap" that asynchronous communication introduces. 5. Explore the use of peer-assessment strategies to foster community development and give students chances to learn through analyzing and critiquing the work of others. Rubrics are a must for this kind of activity. 6. Look for appropriate opportunities to address the entire class so as to reduce the time spent giving the same feedback to multiple students. After a big assignment, post an announcement summarizing some of the trends in the submissions, along with recommendations for next steps. Maintain a "Q&A" discussion board to which students can post questions for everyone to see. Monitor the board regularly, but also urge students to assist one another when appropriate.

Interdisciplinary teaching

"In 1998, a National Science Foundation report made a remark that begins to hit the mark a little closer: "It is important to understand how individuals assess their own knowledge of these subjects. For many purposes … it is the individual's self-assessment of his or her knowledge that will either encourage or discourage a given behavior." This starts to tear down the wall of judging people based on how "well-informed" or "attentive" they are (terms that permeate these statistics reports) to science, and instead places more significance on an individual's assessment of themselves. To go further, I'd argue that "knowledge" isn't as telltale of a measurement as "experience"."

"Guidelines for designing teaching and learning for a digital age The book examines the underlying principles that guide effective teaching in an age when everyone,and in particular the students we are teaching, are using technology. A framework for making decisions about your teaching is provided, while understanding that every subject is different, and every instructor has something unique and special to bring to their teaching."

"The emerging digital media ecology is opening/will open indeterminate capacities for thought and action that will shift (again, in a non-determining way) practices of rhetoric/communication, social institutions, the production of knowledge, and our sense of what it means to be human." PONDER THAT FOR A MOMENT...

Bet you never thought of the adjective "cool" when writing your syllabus. In case you want to start, this syllabus is very cool. I will be following this class as they publish their writing openly. I am optimistic that the teaching & learning will be pretty cool.

" This course is not one in which an instructor feeds you information and you regurgitate it for a good grade. You (the student) and I (the instructor) are almost certainly going to disagree on some things, and that's just fine (see the Grading section below). It's probably easiest to think of this course as a small, independent publication/think tank focused on the concept of 'cool'. Your job is to look carefully and thoughtfully at the world around you, and produce a series of essays that would help a potential reader understand your stance on what 'cool' means to you. You'll be using the process of writing and editing to help you define, and refine, that stance for yourself. You're also responsible for helping your fellow writers do the same. " h/t Stan

"Here is my grand vision. Imagine with me. What if your syllabi were beautiful? What if they were a pleasure for students to engage with? What if they provided opportunities to not only understand and access policies, expectations, schedules and such, but for our students to meet us?  What if the syllabus became a site where former students could share voices (stories, feedback, words of encouragement) with future students? Isn't THIS what our goal should be as we move into this amazing landscape of mobile, digital media?"

"Muller concluded that those "clear," "concise" and "easy to understand" expository videos that abound in science education do not appear to be particularly effective in teaching science. By contrast, videos with dialogue that address the underlying misconceptions students bring to science seem to be more educationally effective."

Key element in instructional design as well. "When I reflected on what I wanted people to understand, what the core thing was, it wasn't a technique. It wasn't a visual style. It wasn't learning a certain program. The core thing was making sure that you never thought about the product from your point of view, but from somebody else's point of view. That's what prompted the [The Paradox of Empathy] post. "

More recently, researchers have begun to adapt the model to better understand the how the connection between face-to-face and online learning might boost potential of hybrid formats to function as interactive communities of inquiry