Metaphors for Reflection (1799-7b)

Last week our group moderated discussion on Reflection and Evaluation. I was responsible for the section on metaphors. The other topics were reflection, peer and self-assessment, portfolios and journals – which were all issues that I could connect to right away as part of my professional practice. However, ‘metaphors as a way of reflection’ was sort of new to me. It gave me a renewed sense of interest towards analysis and interpretation. It would seem that assigning a metaphor to a situation, event or object (concrete or abstract) would limit the latter to the boundaries of the metaphor. But, when I attempted the application, I found that it actually broadens up one’s perspective of the situation. It helps one make connections to things that one understands more concretely than the object being studied, and thus aids in bringing the new learning to the existing mental schema.

In my religious upbringing (Hindu Vedic), I have been taught to understand reincarnation as rebirth on the basis of one’s actions. Whatever one does can thus be likened to either an act deserving human birth in the future or befitting merely another living soul. In that sense, I have often used metaphoric language to describe my daily activities. This course reminisced me of those spiritual understandings. I now see how delimiting our understanding can be an elevating process, giving us new dimensions to think of, taking us towards holistic development.

My hope is to create a metaphoric resource for the individual project that would help me continue using this form of reflection in the future as well.

Team Earth: An Evaluation of Collaboration (1799-7)

Team Earth:

Four of us were put together as a team called Earth. The goal was to come up with a plan for a group project that would be web-based. The idea was to hit common ground on a topic of interest, to explore a web-builder and then to work collaboratively to create the final product. It seemed like it could be a huge task, given the fact that one of us had a two-month old baby, one was traveling and had to deal with jetlags and different time-zones, one was in India spending the summer and the fourth had a pretty packed schedule. And the very diverse professional backgrounds did not even count!

Well, when we got together, we realized that we were all tolerant and respectful of each other’s needs and ideas. Evaluating on the basis of Johnson, Johnson and Smith’s cooperative learning model, it would seem that we were doing quite well on the following fronts:

Individual accountability – we all had our own parts to deal with.

Positive Interdependence – we knew that the project would be incomplete without even one member’s participation. Everyone had a role to play and it might not be the same as the other, but was equally significant.

Collaborative skills – we were using decision-making, trust-building, taking initiatives and regular communication to keep the collaboration smooth.

Group process – we had created deadlines, were reviewing them regularly, keeping each other updated about our progress and ensuring that work was being done the way it should be.

The only factor that can be stated as missing was ‘Face to Face interaction’ as this was an online course. Our meetings were both synchronous and asynchronous.

Our project itself turned out to be quite a success in the end. Our website (IT with VT – Instructional Technology with VoiceThread) is a resource for anyone wishing to utilize VoiceThread as a collaborative tool using audio and text comments for discussion. We all learnt a great deal throughout the process. The instructor’s review and suggestions further made it valuable, as they gave us a chance to not only improve upon our work but also to take direction from the suggestions for any future work we did using web-based technology.

Checkpoint (1799-6)

As I ponder over what I have learnt in this course so far, I find there have been lots of opportunities for meaningful education:

- - There has been a lot of choice in review of articles which means that we could choose what really meant to us.

- - Our group project was also based on group consensus. The suggested list of topics was very broad and additional thoughts were welcomed as well.

- - The individual project was an overwhelming idea but we had the opportunity of thinking about what we were passionate about and thought would be a worthwhile topic to explore and express. There was also an ongoing discussion about our topics which helped to get review and feedback as to the credibility of the idea.

At a PD workshop once, I had realized the importance of offering choice. In fact, the facilitator had suggested offering choice of assessment as well. I have used this approach occasionally in my classroom and found it to be extremely beneficial in harnessing the strong points of all the learners.

I guess, having control is what makes a big difference because then the learner can work with what best suits him.

Desigining a course: Critical thinking and Media (1799-5)

The world is constantly engaged – or rather, immersed – in media. It could be the perfect platform for students to apply some thinking and ‘see’ the reality behind media. This formed the basis for our team assignment. As my team partner, Gus and I discussed how to teach critical thinking skills, it dawned on us that kids these days ‘believe’ a lot of what they see and hear on media (besides Santa of course!). We could either hold media responsible for ‘dumbing down’ their thinking or actually put it to use to encourage their reasoning and critical thinking.

We read a chapter from the book Designing Instruction for Technology-Enhanced Learning. The chapter discussed the structure and organization of a higher-ed course set up in a blended learning format. A point that really struck me in the reading was creating an opportunity for students to experience a variety of different tasks and activities. Often, when using online forums, it is very easy to get into the rut of posting text and reading papers. We totally lose out on the multiple intelligences theory and diversity of learners. However, while using online platforms, it is just as simple – if not easier, actually – to utilize audio and video resources and to harness the power of Internet to connect with field experts.

For the course design, the types of activities we organized were influenced in part by the activities in the present course. Free exploration and exchange of ideas guide the direction of our assignments here. While doing some independent academic research, I read that “the methods of constructivism emphasize development of learners’ ability in solving their real life problems. As a result, problem solving and free discovery come together” (Huang, 2002). On the same lines, we wanted to ensure that the course we design allowed for sufficient flexibility for students to exercise their own opinions and perspectives around the topic being taught.

So, the course design we have in mind will give students an opportunity to explore, discuss and evaluate some media forms (like music, Reality Shows, ads etc) on the basis of a Critical Thinking Framework that will be taught and reinforced. It already looks and sounds like a course I might want to teach!

Critical Thinking (1799-4)

Last week, we got a chance to explore the collection of papers from TCC Online conference (http://etec.hawaii.edu/proceedings/). In choosing a paper to review, my criteria were that it should be current (something that would give me a glimpse of the present day direction in this field), something that would relate to online learning as well as something that would give me a chance to apply in the classroom as soon as possible. I found Shenkman’s article to be a suitable fit for this purpose.

I found myself nodding in agreement to the statement that critical thinking is like a disciplined approach to evaluating information. At the end of a teaching day, I often ask myself whether what I taught today encouraged students’ independent thinking and gave them an opportunity to stretch their minds to consider perspectives they had not seen before. And the answer often does not leave me satisfied. In an article titled ‘The Thinking Teacher’ from the journal Educational Leadership, Scherer states, “Being able to respond to both "why" and "how to" questions requires that the teacher have not only content knowledge and expertise but also the instructional skill and the time to intelligently guide students toward meaningful thinking about the content.”

The reading made me look into more resources for Critical Thinking and reminded me of a useful conference I had attended two years ago titled ‘Critical Thinking Workshop’ led by Garfield Gini-Newman. I fished out the notes and resources from there as well (feeling sad that some of our learning sits on shelves and in binders) and hope to apply some of this disciplined approach to my teaching this coming year.

What is Holistic? (1799-3)

We have been discussing course outlines and overviews and structure and organization for some time now in this course. Amidst everything I had lost focus of the fact that I am here to learn what holism is and how I will adopt a holistic approach to information technology (the title of the course).

Selia’s posting in the All-Class discussion forum titled ‘What is Holistic’ was quite stirring for me. She talked about one of her ‘aha’ moments of realizing that student-centred teaching and learning had a name: holistic learning. Things started falling in place in my brain. To me, holistic was a vision of ‘all-roundness’, but I was not quite being able to place it in the context of constructivism. A link provided by Selia (http://astralsite.com/holistic/HolisticLearning.html) gave me a clear idea of how holistic learning is about touching all aspects of the learner’s personality and life. Thus ensues meaningful learning. Students need to take charge of their own learning in order to acquire from it what they need according to their circumstances and contexts. Holistic learning is a practical and pragmatic approach to learning involving concepts like making connections, problem-solving approaches, cooperative learning, inquiry process, community building etc. Since holistic learning has so much to do with the mind and the spirit of the learner, I feel that the process would not leave the facilitator untouched either. Such a process would be holistic for the teacher too.