Vientiane College Cyberspace Learning Community

Interesting discussion about the evolution of the concept of a fact. I think we all probably claim the authority of a 'fact' sometimes, so it's relevant to understand how they are changing. The psychology behind wanting to believe facts is fascinating.

This has some interesting perspectives, but it does little to address belief. The people interviewed seem frustrated by belief, so they take a negative stance. I would like to know more about the experiment where participants had a more open-minded response to climate change after writing an essay about a time they fought for something they believe in. In that case, belief played a constructive role because of their lateral entry. There is a greater thinking level to this issue.

Another interesting avenue my mind took while reading this was toward Owen Barfield's early 20th century investigation of history in English words. He shows how thinking develops through language. It is a good read if you can get past some of the antiquated language he uses to categorize his thoughts. It is titled, History in English Words. I have a copy if anyone wants to check it out.

I grabbed this after reading the transcript of Donald's post. It seems as though a few Wyatt Earps 'ave rustled inna Dodge City and ain't no lie which kern 'scape their skinwagons.

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???

To Ben and Leon: I think this documentary could be very useful for IIP next year if your doing the same topics, especially as it gives some very good examples of the use of nano-technology.

"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.

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.

Habits of mind....

I can't get this link to work. Was it a pdf file?

As you are preparing your IELTS specific skills and strategies, are you also preparing stress management techniques?

Opps...wrong group....then again, as teachers, are we not only preparing with skill area strategies but also reminding our students of stress managment techniques???

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?

The Institute for Habits of Mind

This is Ron Ritchhart's website that has some good links to readings about Making Thinking Visible.

"What are we afraid of? Would we rather be alone or better? Now that's a pair of essential questions."

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 reminds me of Issac Asimov's famous essay about the Eureka Phenomenon. Check it out: http://newviewoptions.com/The-Eureka-Phenomenon-by-Isaac-Asimov.pdf

Thanks, Troy. I hadn't read it before. I was always doubtful of Eureka moments but classifying them as unnoticed thinking makes sense to me.

I finally got around to reading this, and even though it is short, it outlines what we do internally very well. In AES this last year, we constantly modeled the series of questions they mentioned, especially the consciousness, craftmanship, and flexibility questions. Students often want us to provide them with the answers to these questions, but do not readily realize that the question is the important part. If you can experience conflict, which I tend to label crisis because of the cognitive or cultural gap, by calling it into question, then you can see both the origin and yourself in it. I know this is simplistic, but the courage to question plays a major role in validating the crisis and your stake in it.

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.

An interesting piece that could be used (carefully) in discussions in either the daytime of evening development classes; particularly in regards to development stakeholders. There's also a brief mention of Ajarn Sombath.

"people here recognise money, not people" an interesting quote from the article.

Discussion of the use of rubrics and the role of models. Wiggins argues these must be used hand in hand.