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Keith Hamon

Can We Teach Creative and Critical Thinking? - Education - GOOD - 1 views

www.good.is/...creative-and-critical-thinking

Zoe Burgess critical thinking writing

shared by Keith Hamon on 05 Oct 10 - No Cached
  • Critical thinking is, among many things, the ability to understand and apply the abstract, the ability to infer and to meaningfully investigate. It’s the skills needed to see parallels, comprehend intersections, identify problems, and develop sustainable solutions.
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 05 Oct 10
       
      We have not adequately accounted for abstraction in our discussions of CT or investigation. I wonder if CT is such a large, amorphous category as to be almost meaningless? Perhaps not, but it is clear to me that almost every discussion of CT must begin with a clear delineation of just what we mean when we say critical thinking.
  • sound critical thinking is imperative to social progress.
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 05 Oct 10
       
      This social imperative is somewhat troubling to me. Is not good critical thinking its own reward?
  • Cultivating critical thinking may be accomplished with modeling
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 05 Oct 10
       
      Modeling is a promising technique, but how often do teachers expose their own thinking processes to students? Don't we usually let them see only the polished final product of our thought, and not the messy critical thinking we went through prior to our polished position?
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • School trips, service learning requirements, and various other kinds of hands-on situations allow students to make connections at their own pace
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 05 Oct 10
       
      Nice methods that change the complexion of the typical classroom from one of content-delivery to content application.
  • teachers suggest, and insist, that students investigate further, making—but more importantly, justifying—inferences and conclusions.
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 05 Oct 10
       
      Is it not obvious how the focus on the "right answer" undermines this willingness to explore? Why would most students expend any energy on an issue when they already have the answer that will be on the test, the "correct answer"?
  • It’s hard to design test questions that effectively measure a child’s ability think creatively.
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 05 Oct 10
       
      Note the writer's confusion of critical thinking and creative thinking. Are they usually confused? Should they be? Is there any advantage to distinguishing between them?
  • At the heart of teaching critical and creative thought is the ability to ask the right questions to students. In turn, they need to be able answer in a way that demonstrates their ability to see the parallels and intersections;
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 05 Oct 10
       
      This kind of open-ended discussion and work in class is key to the QEP classroom.
  • Keith Hamon on 05 Oct 10
     
    But how is creative or critical thought defined and taught? And by what assessment can we measure it, if at all?
Keith Hamon

From Degrading to De-Grading - 0 views

www.alfiekohn.org/...fdtd-g.htm

grading critical thinking

shared by Keith Hamon on 16 Feb 10 - Cached
  • Grades tend to reduce the quality of students’ thinking.  Given that students may lose interest in what they’re learning as a result of grades, it makes sense that they’re also apt to think less deeply.  One series of studies, for example, found that students given numerical grades were significantly less creative than those who received qualitative feedback but no grades.  The more the task required creative thinking, in fact, the worse the performance of students who knew they were going to be graded.  Providing students with comments in addition to a grade didn’t help:  the highest achievement occurred only when comments were given instead of numerical scores (Butler, 1987; Butler, 1988; Butler and Nisan, 1986).
  • what grades offer is spurious precision – a subjective rating masquerading as an objective evaluation
  • Grades spoil students’ relationships with each other.  The quality of students’ thinking has been shown to depend partly on the extent to which they are permitted to learn cooperatively (Johnson and Johnson, 1989; Kohn, 1992).  Thus, the ill feelings, suspicion, and resentment generated by grades aren’t just disagreeable in their own right; they interfere with learning.
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 16 Feb 10
       
      In QEP, we seek to enable students to connect to one another. Grading systems that promote competition among students tend to undermine that willingness to connect and collaborate.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • The competition that turns schooling into a quest for triumph and ruptures relationships among students doesn’t just happen within classrooms, of course.  The same effect is witnessed at a schoolwide level when kids are not just rated but ranked, sending the message that the point isn’t to learn, or even to perform well, but to defeat others.  Some students might be motivated to improve their class rank, but that is completely different from being motivated to understand ideas.  (Wise educators realize that it doesn’t matter how motivated students are; what matters is how students are motivated.  It is the type of motivation that counts, not the amount.)
  • Even when students arrive in high school already accustomed to grades, already primed to ask teachers, “Do we have to know this?” or “What do I have to do to get an A?”, this is a sign that something is very wrong.  It’s more an indictment of what has happened to them in the past than an argument to keep doing it in the future.
  • Research substantiates this:  when the curriculum is engaging – for example, when it involves hands-on, interactive learning activities -- students who aren’t graded at all perform just as well as those who are graded (Moeller and Reschke, 1993).
  • abolishing grades doesn’t mean eliminating the process of gathering information about student performance – and communicating that information to students and parents.  Rather, abolishing grades opens up possibilities that are far more meaningful and constructive.  These include narratives (written comments), portfolios (carefully chosen collections of students’ writings and projects that demonstrate their interests, achievement, and improvement over time),  student-led parent-teacher conferences, exhibitions and other opportunities for students to show what they can do.
  • Keith Hamon on 16 Feb 10
     
    Grades tend to reduce the quality of students' thinking.  Given that students may lose interest in what they're learning as a result of grades, it makes sense that they're also apt to think less deeply.  One series of studies, for example, found that students given numerical grades were significantly less creative than those who received qualitative feedback but no grades.  The more the task required creative thinking, in fact, the worse the performance of students who knew they were going to be graded.  Providing students with comments in addition to a grade didn't help:  the highest achievement occurred only when comments were given instead of numerical scores (Butler, 1987; Butler, 1988; Butler and Nisan, 1986).
  • Keith Hamon on 16 Feb 10
     
    The spurious nature of grading seems particularly true in the case of writing. Most any piece of writing can, and often does, receive any grade.
Stephanie Cooper

100+ Google Tricks That Will Save You Time in School | Online Colleges - 0 views

www.onlinecolleges.net/...t-will-save-you-time-in-school

Google Tricks Google Tricks Education search technology

shared by Stephanie Cooper on 18 Mar 10 - Cached
  • Google Specifically for Education From Google Scholar that returns only results from scholarly literature to learning more about computer science, these Google items will help you at school. Google Scholar. Use this specialized Google search to get results from scholarly literature such as peer-reviewed papers, theses, and academic publishers. Use Google Earth’s Sky feature. Take a look at the night sky straight from your computer when you use this feature. Open your browser with iGoogle. Set up an iGoogle page and make it your homepage to have ready access to news stories, your Google calendar, blogs you follow in Google Reader, and much more. Stay current with Google News. Like an electronic clearinghouse for news, Google News brings headlines from news sources around the world to help you stay current without much effort. Create a Google Custom Search Engine. On your own or in collaboration with other students, put together an awesome project like one of the examples provided that can be used by many. Collect research notes with Google Notebook. Use this simple note-taking tool to collect your research for a paper or project. Make a study group with Google Groups. Google Groups allows you to communicate and collaborate in groups, so take this option to set up a study group that doesn’t have to meet face-to-face. Google Code University. Visit this Google site to have access to Creative Commons-licensed content to help you learn more about computer science. Study the oceans with Google Earth 5. Google Earth 5 provides information on the ocean floor and surface with data from marine experts, including shipwrecks in 3D. Learn what experts have to say. Explore Knol to find out what experts have to say on a wide range of topics. If you are an expert, write your own Knol, too.
  • Stephanie Cooper on 18 Mar 10
     
    There's so much Google can do that most of us aren't even aware of! Some of these might come in handy for yourself as well as your students.
Keith Hamon

Thinking out loud about Connectivism « iterating toward openness - 1 views

opencontent.org/...1408

connectivism George Siemens Stephen Downes David Wiley

shared by Keith Hamon on 22 Apr 10 - Cached
  • Keith Hamon on 22 Apr 10
     
    Explores 2 questions about connectivism.
Keith Hamon

Beyond Current Horizons : Reworking the web, reworking the world: how web 2.0 is changi... - 0 views

www.beyondcurrenthorizons.org.uk/web-20-is-changing-our-society

Justin Reich Web 2.0 collaboration wikinomics

shared by Keith Hamon on 31 May 10 - Cached
  • Lowering communication costs doesn’t just lead to more communication, it leads to qualitatively different behavior by web users.
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 31 May 10
       
      Higher ed must tap into these "qualitatively different" behaviors by our students.
  • Lowering the interaction costs of communication leads to perhaps the most important feature of Web 2.0: its inclusive, collaborative capacity. The new Read/Write web is allowing people to work together, share information, and reach new and potentially enormous audiences outside some of the traditional structures of power, authority, and communication in our society. The social developments that have resulted from the Web 2.0 phenomena are best understood through a lens of democratization, but we must keep in mind the caveat that democracy means many different things in many different places (Haste and Hogan, 2006).
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 31 May 10
       
      The democratic tendencies of inclusive collaboration are a challenge to the traditional classroom, I think, demanding changes in the behavior and expectations of both students and teachers.
  • Web logs, or blogs
  • ...26 more annotations...
  • Wikis, websites which are authored by a community of people
  • Podcasting tools allowed for the uploading and syndication of audio files, and podcasts
  • YouTube pioneered online video sharing
  • Online social networks also fall within the domain of Web 2.0
  • Virtual worlds, including online games, are, to some degree, other forms of online social networks
  • In America in 2006, over 50% of teenagers – across racial and socioeconomic lines – have created pages on online social networks like Facebook and MySpace, and in all likelihood this percentage has increased in the last two years (Lenhart, Madden, Macgill, and Smith, 2007).
  • Web 2.0 refers to these simple, often free tools for adding content to the Web, but it also refers to systems that allow users to evaluate content. Tagging refers to the process of allowing users to apply key word labels to discrete bits of content.
  • convergence is one of the most common features in the evolution of Web 2.0 tools.
  • Whether or not the democratic possibilities of Web 2.0 are realized depends a great deal upon the degree to which users can negotiate for freedom and autonomy within the networks created and controlled by established political and corporate interests.
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 31 May 10
       
      Education, esp. higher ed, has always been a bastion for the free and open production and distribution of information. This is the best platform yet for disseminating information as widely as possible.
  • The driving force behind Web 2.0, the desire to lower the costs of communication, will continue to be a force shaping the web in the decades ahead, and innovations in time-cheap communications are going to present a future full of new surprises. Three other trends at various levels will continue to act on and shape this driving force. First, new platforms will continue to emerge. Second, the functionality in platforms will continue to converge. Third, we should expect to see greater integration between Web 2.0 tools and handheld devices. Finally, we should consider the efforts to those who seek not to extend the Web 2.0 regime, but to transcend it.
  • No facet of modern life will remain untransformed by the innovations of the Web 2.0.
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 31 May 10
       
      I think this is especially true of education.
  • Online networks may also upset hierarchical corporate structures.
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 31 May 10
       
      Online social networks are rhizomatic, and thus, they always subsume and subvert hierarchical structures.
  • These new platforms may allow different kinds of talents – talents related to online networking, communication and collaboration – to be more highly valued in the work place. They also may allow for employees at the bottom of the corporate hierarchy to more easily bend the ear of those at the top, and the examples of both Linux development and the Toyota production system lend support to this hypothesis (Evans and Wolf, 2005). These flatter, more democratic, more meritocratic social organizations may allow firms to draw out the strengths of their employees with less regard towards their position in the organization.
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 31 May 10
       
      Flatter is a perhaps unfortunate visual metaphor to contrast with hierarchical. Rhizomatic is more accurate, richer, fuller.
  • The fans were not the simple recipients of the movie; instead, they helped to design the film.
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 31 May 10
       
      In their book Wikinomics, Tapscott & Williams closely examine the emergence of the prosumer and its consequences for business. What about for education? Can students be prosumers, both consumers and producers of information? I think so.
  • If myBO becomes another media for the Obama administration to spread a centrally constructed message, then it becomes another instrument of elite political power. If, however, myBO morphs into my.americangovernment.gov, a space where citizens have the opportunity to contribute and collaborate on solving problems and speaking truth to power, then the democratizing power of Web 2.0 tools may indeed lead to a more democratic republic.
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 31 May 10
       
      Government is very conservative and generally resists change until change is forced upon it. Web 2.0 could be one of the most peaceful revolutions ever. Most people will likely not notice that it has happened until it's done.
  • Relationships developed in virtual or online worlds are not pale reflections of “real” world phenomena. They are a new class of meaningful and profound interactions which researchers will have to consider seriously as they try to understand the evolving nature of society in a Web 2.0 world.
  • hypothesized benefits for using Web 2.0 tools in the classroom with students, which can be organized into four major categories. The first category involves increasing engagement.
  • Web 2.0 tools provide new avenues to teach fundamental skills, like writing, communication, collaboration, and new media literacy.
  • In addition to developing both old and new fundamental skills, students also need to rehearse for 21st century situations.
  • emerging Web tools can enlighten the critique of the contemporary state of education.
  • The Flat Classroom Project of 2007
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 31 May 10
       
      Started by Ms. Vicki Davis, a high school teacher in Camilla, GA.
  • While no studies have looked widely across Web 2.0 tools, there is anecdotal evidence that this kind of project is a very rare exception to two normal states. The first normal state with Web 2.0 is failure. Of the hundreds of thousands of blogs and wikis created, most die on the vine. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as one of the advantages of Web 2.0 is that they are both inexpensive and time-cheap to create, and so one can fail repeatedly before finding a model that works. That said, these failed instantiations are not realizing any of the aforementioned hypothesized benefits. The second normal state for Web 2.0 tools are applications that fit neatly into standard, industrial models of education. In these states, a wiki might be used as an easy way for a teacher to create a website as a one-way delivery device for content, rather than a collaborative medium. Or perhaps a student creates a blog as a kind of online portfolio, but her writings are never published widely, never shared with others, or never commented upon by classmates. In a sense the blog has allowed the student to pass in her homework online, but none of the potentially benefits of publishing within a larger critical, collaborative community are realized. If these two states are indeed the norm, then right now Web 2.0 tools may offer tremendous potential for education, but this potential is not much realized.
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 31 May 10
       
      These are two critical pitfalls that ASU's QEP classes must work to avoid.
  • There is also anecdotal evidence that the distribution of the use of these tools, sophisticated or not, is skewed towards wealthy, suburban communities rather than poorer rural or urban communities.
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 31 May 10
       
      ASU can certainly be a correction to this trend, if it is the case.
  • very few systems have incentives that reward teachers for innovative instruction.
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 31 May 10
       
      This is a key element in the success of QEP at ASU. How do we reward faculty who participate and revolutionize their teaching?
  • Most teachers learn to teach from their own experience and from mentors, neither of which usually provide an exemplary model for technology use in the classroom.
  • The driving technical principle behind the evolution of Web 2.0 tools is the reduction of the interaction costs of communication, and these costs will continue to be driven down. As these costs are driven down, we will continue to see the emergence of qualitatively new behaviors and the products of these behaviors will be as or more bizarre to future peoples as Wikipedia and Twitter are to us now. These new behaviors will be at some level democratizing, as they will involve harnessing collaborative energy and collective intelligence to meet cooperative goals. Many of these innovations will level hierarchies and include and involve more people in social systems. They will accelerate globalization by making cross-cultural, cross-content, cross-time-zone conversations even cheaper and take less time to achieve.
  • Keith Hamon on 31 May 10
     
    To sum up the Web 2.0 phenomena in a sentence: lower communication costs have led to opportunities for more inclusive, collaborative, democratic online participation.
zhoujianchuan

TeachPaperless: Why Teachers Should Blog - 10 views

teachpaperless.blogspot.com/...why-teachers-should-blog.html

blogging education teachers web2.0

shared by zhoujianchuan on 18 Mar 11 - Cached
  • Because to blog is to teach yourself what you think.
    • Stephanie Cooper
      Stephanie Cooper on 18 Mar 11
       
      This is what Keith and Tom have been preaching! LOL  I like  the way this guy discusses the pros of blogging and refers to the students who "don't get it."  
    • pajenkins1
      pajenkins1 on 30 Mar 11
       
      It's interesting that there are no cons about blogging.
    • ypypenn67
      ypypenn67 on 31 Mar 11
       
      Blogging provides the opportunity for a teacher to express his or her ideas, too. (A teacher sometimes requires his or her students to blog, so the teacher should gain experience as well.) As a blogger, I want to restrict my comments; I do not want everyone to have access to my thoughts.
    • zhoujianchuan
      zhoujianchuan on 31 Mar 11
       
      Yeah, there are no cons, except what economists would call "opportunity cost." That is, every one of us only has so much (or so little) time. My colleagues and I are doing the annual faculty evaluation this week. I looked at the evaluation formular and could not find how blogging can add points for me and help me get tenure. Everything said in this article is right, and I agree. But everyone knows where his or her priority is, right?
  • Because to face one's ill conclusions, self-congratulations, petty foibles, and impolite rhetoric among peers in the public square of the blogosphere is to begin to learn to grow.
    • pajenkins1
      pajenkins1 on 30 Mar 11
       
      I do understand a need to grow as professionals, but I'd like to keep some 'growth spurts' personal.
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 30 Mar 11
       
      Yes, but no blogger automatically posts everything that comes to mind. One aspect of reflection is to think carefully about what you are writing and the wisdom of sharing it. For instance, I think it's worthwhile to post this.
  • I think both are achieved through the crucial practice of critical thinking and earnest self-analysis. And no where, if sincerely met with daily conviction, can both be better employed than in the practice of blogging.
    • malikravindra007
      malikravindra007 on 31 Mar 11
       
      I agree that self analysis and critical thinking go together, though it may come only after lots of practice and perseverance. I am still not convinced that blogging is the only way, could be one of the ways, not for me. Nevertheless blogging opens any one to a larger group of people which may help in sharing your thoughts, opinions etc..
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 31 Mar 11
       
      Blogging is just one mechanism. There are many tools for reflection.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • This is real maturity
Keith Hamon

Proposing an integrated research framework for connectivism: Utilising theoretical syne... - 0 views

www.irrodl.org/...1816

Bopelo Boitshwarelo IRRODL connectivism research

shared by Keith Hamon on 26 Jul 11 - No Cached
  • online communities of practice are necessarily a manifestation of connectivism.
  • Keith Hamon on 26 Jul 11
     
    This paper therefore proposes a research framework for connectivism that integrates approaches commonly used in online learning environments. The paper integrates the theories of online communities of practice, design-based research, and activity theory to construct a research framework that is characterised by a synergistic relationship between them.
Keith Hamon

DSpace at Open Universiteit: Stimulating reflection through engagement in social relati... - 0 views

dspace.ou.nl/3571

Kamakshi Rajagopal Steven Verjans Jan Van Bruggen Peter Sloep reflection writing social

shared by Keith Hamon on 29 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • Keith Hamon on 29 Sep 11
     
    Reflection on one's own behaviour and practice is an important aspect of lifelong learning. However, such practice and the underlying assumed principles are often hidden from the learner's vision, and are therefore difficult to evaluate. Social interactions with others stimulate the learner to re-asses and reflect on the nature of the learner's own behaviour and practice, such as in professional networking contexts and intercultural encounters. This paper describes the prerequisites of learning from these interactions and the possibilities of technological support. It presents one approach to providing support for developing the required skills, with the example of the CEFcult tool, which supports intercultural communicative competence building.
Keith Hamon

Digital Literacies for Writing in Social Media | DMLcentral - 1 views

dmlcentral.net/...iteracies-writing-social-media

writing John Jones digital literacy Education 2.0

shared by Keith Hamon on 02 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • students need to gain experience actually participating in social media. The best way to understand the expectations of a particular medium is to participate in that medium and identify its genre expectations as they emerge.
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 02 Nov 11
       
      This is one reason why QEP encourages a more open, social approach to writing. We want to move beyond "writing for grading" (which, by law, must be kept private) to "writing for learning and communicating."
  • Students need to think of their online data along the dimensions of: * accessibility* searchability* persistence
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 02 Nov 11
       
      Hmm … paper was so easy: everything was in my portable file folder. Now, I can't track where all my writing resides. New skills to be learned.
  • As more and more of our writing makes its way into digital form -- and as the increasing use of biometrics and other forms of behavior monitoring turns our behaviors into volumes of data -- it will become increasingly important for writers to take steps to ensure the integrity of their private data.
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 02 Nov 11
       
      Privacy is always a consideration, but putting your journal under your mattress no longer works. So what does? We'd best learn. And soon.
  • Keith Hamon on 02 Nov 11
     
    The question we are faced with, then, is this: how do we prepare our students to write effectively in environments that don't yet exist? While I'm sure there is more to add to this list, I suggest that there are three domains of literacy that, if students become aware of them, will prepare them for new digital writing environments. Namely, students should be aware of the speed of digital communications and the types of interactions that speed encourages, the ways in which digital writing environments preserve and provide access to data, and how writing technologies manage the divide between public and private.
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