Group items tagged

Thinking about thinking to think about learning . The PRACTICAL purposes of learning or ACTIVE outcomes of learning are worth noticing

Useful thinking about thinking resouece

How people learn...

Common wisdom holds that we learn best from our mistakes. But researchers at Michigan State University have published a new study that suggests something more is needed: We must be conscious of our mistakes to reap the benefits of improved performance. "Those with traumatic brain injury or other brain injuries that result in impairments in self-awareness suggest that your level of awareness of your own symptoms, for example, actually correlates with the probability that you'll recover from them," he says. "But there is still quite a bit we need to learn about conscious awareness and the role it plays in performance and judgment before we can say for certain." Hmmm. what does this mean in relation to the errors our students make?

Another article about so-called 'learning styles'

Part of the NY Times' Learning Network, this series on English language teaching offers ideas and plans for using newspaper articles in the classroom. Nothing groundbreaking here, but a nice selection of scalable activities.

I enjoyed how he started, but he lost me when he used Newton under an apple tree and Moses in the wilderness to point out integrated learning. It may have been an homage to myth, but it missed the mark. Also, he conflates the oral tradition with Aristotelian poetics. In general, his interpretation of myth and narrative denies any acknowledge of postmodernity and post-structuralism. It is like he never left his cave after reading Levi-Strauss. I think you could learn more about 21st C. metaphors of cyberspace by skimming a Cory Doctorow novel.

No worries, Kris. I did enjoy his metaphors, but I think he took a bit of license with his appropriation of Native American oral stories. I get heated about this because it is what I have dedicated my life to, especially narrative theory. I have spent hours upon days with people fighting for their narratives - poststructural/postcolonial movement - and who believe a narrative, and all it tropes or figures of speech, unbinds truth, which allows for not just malleability but multiplicity. Cory Doctorow is the new William Gibson or Ursula Le Guin, so might put him in the same league as Philip K. Dick, but all in all, he is a cyberpunk writer cultivating a community neocyberpunks. His literary website is craphound.com, and he is the co-founder of the tech blog boingboing. He has help redefine narrative fiction in the cyber age.

Oop! *has helped

This TED talk is about the question formation technique which we experimented with on ADS/NZ this year.

This makes it a bit more clear. You did this as an orientation activity, right? I think we should do it earlier and more often.

This article seems to connect with habits of mind claiming that eastern cultures are more able to persevere with difficult tasks that western cultures. I question whether the cultural differences are accurately described but found it has some good reminders in relation to habits of mind.

It reminds me that I need to be more specific when I point out achievement. I tend to acknowledge what has been done and the actual practice, but I tend to leave out the overall skill or concept. Also, I am reminded that I privilege creativity over perseverance. If a student works diligently to find a solution, and they arrive at a creative solution, then I praise the creativity and not the diligence or downplay the diligence.

What do you think of these three pillars of Web literacy? I wonder if this year we can do even better at highlighting the importance of these in IL. The section about the use of Diigo is interesting. We exploited last year as an information sharing site but perhaps we need to approach it more as a personal library???

"Again, intellectual virtues are the character traits required for good thinking and learning. They presuppose no controversial moral commitments. " Yes. This. An important distinction to keep in mind. If we come in to the classroom teaching moral or even civic character directly, then we rightly run the risk of being accused of educational imperialism. But, if the moral and civic values we may hold have any real worth, then the inherent value of them should be revealed through the application of intellectually virtuous learning and thinking actions.

and if moral/ethical positions are reached (or deconstructed) either in the classroom, or outside, through the sound application of intellectual actions, they have validity. Anything does not go, not all opinions, values etc... are valid unless we can expose the process by which they were reached and allow that process to be scrutinized.

I know this is just a bit of redundancy, but this suggests that not all values are created equal, and they are not. The must have good reason. Good might be defined imperialistically as Jeremy stated, in that a unilateral agency imposes them, but a reciprocal communicative action may prevail, especially within the ideal or virtuous framed by intellectual character. I have been accussed of esoteric comments, but I think this warrants a visit from Habermas: "We can only exercise tolerance towards other people's beliefs if we reject them for subjectively good reasons. We do not need to be tolerant if we are indifferent to other opinions and attitudes anyway or even appreciate the value of such 'otherness'. The expectation of tolerance assumes that we can endure a form of ongoing non-concurrence at the level of social interaction, while we accept the persistence of mutually exclusive validity claims at the cognitive level of existentially relevant beliefs." In other words, Habermas believes you can't just say, "I don't care" or "This doesn't matter" or "This doesn't happen here" and claim tolerance. You must engage to be tolerant, and you must engage in a way that presents your ideas or beliefs in contrast to the other, and that contrast must be relatable, or what Habermas means by "relevant" is communicable in the logical sense that rational ideas are modular, and they may be fitted into intellectual chains of rational arguments and "ongoing non-concurrence" in social interactions. Through this lens, intellectual virtues occupy toleration/tolerance because intellectual virtues "naturally" lend themselves or, as Jeremy stated, display the inherent value of the ideas through engagement and action which must be communicable and reciprocal, i.e. function as tolerant.

More on the quest for the balance between being supportive and helpful and backing off so students develop autonomy and perseverance in the messy work of learning.

I can almost hear the students saying "but where is the cause and effect marker????" (as neatly provided by making connections!)

A few of the ideas discussed from one section of the workshop I'm attending.

Interesting TED Talk about how we don't need a teacher, but we need interest and collaboration to learn.

This is a great article that supports how rubrics can support the learning process.

Learning styles...

Last year about this time in an AAS/NZAS meeting an article about 10 short assessments was looked at. The team then created some suggested applications of these. This article has extended that list and has some good ideas for wrapping up the term. PS If anyone wants a copy of the concrete ideas from last year, let me know.

This is the article Leon shared at the meeting today...