Work in Progress

My new blog

2008-04-02T14:20:00.000-07:00

If you have been following this blog, you will probably want to update your reader/bookmark, etc. to the address of my new blog, (No Longer) Alone in a Library. If that link doesn't work, you can copy and paste the following URL: http://kamccollum.wordpress.com/. Thank you for reading.

Yugma

2008-03-10T12:04:00.000-07:00

In my role as a teacher of an "Instructional Technology in Teaching" course, I spend a lot of time looking for new tools that could be useful for teaching. Sometimes though, I find them without with out trying. One of these tools is Yugma, an add in for Skype. I found out about this lovely tool from Stacy Baker when she guest presented in my class. By using Yugma, she was able to share her desktop with us through Skype. We were able to see her and the applications, websites, etc. that she wanted us to see. My students were much more engaged in this guest presentation than in previous guest presenters that we've had via web-conference. There are way too many variables to attribute my students' attentiveness to Yugma, but it had to have helped.

Professional Networking

2008-03-05T15:11:00.001-08:00

Last week, I attended two different seminars on Professional Networking. One was delivered by a business man, the second by a professor in Instructional Psychology and Technology. Unfortunately, the first seminar into a sales pitch for a new Facebook application. The second provided good tips for networking at professional conferences. One thing that both presenters agreed about was the usefulness of Facebook as a professional networking tool, which surprised me.

After the second presentation, everyone in the room partitioned off into small groups. They were networking. Being a naturally shy person, I looked around the room for a group to join, but couldn't think of way to "break in" to any of the conversations in progress, so I got more refreshments to buy time. I started thinking about the online connections I've made by contacting the authors of blogs that I follow. I feel like I'm better at online social networking than I am at face-to-face social networking. Still, in a moment a friend came over to me and we lamented our waste of a networking opportunity. I mentioned that most of the people in the room didn't share my research interests. My friend and I, both former k12 teachers, share a common interest in k12 education, which sets us apart from the corporate training and higher-education focus of most of our peers. Soon, she and I had the seed of a collaborative project to begin in April. Maybe I'm not so good at making new face to face contacts, but the ones I make are good ones.

Professional Development 2.0

2008-02-27T19:43:00.000-08:00

It's been over a month since my last post, and my only excuse is that it's been a busy semester. I've sat down more than once to write about how my experiment with Just in Time teaching is going in my Educational Psychology class or how my IPT 286 students are reacting to learning contracts and personal learning networks, but I think I've deleted every post I've attempted. I must be superstitious and feel that by prematurely blogging about my successes, I'll doom myself to failure.

What's prompted me to write this time is my first conference presentation. I chose a local conference, UCET, for my first venture into the public realm of academia and I find that I am very nervous. I don't know whether I'm more nervous that lots of people will come or that no one will come (the conference presentation most aligned with my topic, a presentation titled "Open Professional Development", is in the same time slot as mine, so no one coming is a very real possibility.)

My conference presentation is called Professional Development 2.0, and it focuses on creating Personal Learning Networks to guide professional development. I felt qualified to give this presentation when I submitted the proposal. After all, I use my PLN daily and have found it highly beneficial. This semester, I have made it a component of the technology class that I teach. I'm familiar with a variety of tools and I've made valuable connections with other professionals through my network. So what's my problem?

Learning Contracts

2008-01-15T22:50:00.000-08:00

After a lot of thought and discussion, I decided to significantly redesign my "Teaching with Technology" course. My goal in the redesign was to provide my students with more flexibility to pursue learning goals that were important to them. This requires the assumption that teaching with technology is something that they want to learn about. When a course is required, that's a big assumption.

The day that the learning contracts were due, I overheard a conversation in my class that made me think that I might be on the right track. One student excitedly said to a friend, "What's on your learning contract? I'm going to learn PowerPoint." I have to admit, that I had hoped (and still hope) that my student would set her sights higher than PowerPoint as the pinnacle of educational technology, but she was excited about learning and excited about being in my class.

This semester, I've noticed a different attitude among my students and I can't help but think that the learning contract has something to do with it. The other thing that I think makes a big difference is that I now have a personal philosophy about technology and learning, something that I was just beginning to figure out last semester. Last semester, I was trying to help students "teach with technology", this semester I am hoping to help them learn with technology (and about technology) so that they can help others learn as well.

Busy-ness

2008-01-15T19:04:00.000-08:00

I am teaching three university courses this semester. I am taking four university courses this semester. I work ten hours a week at the Center for Teaching and Learning. I teach a children's Sunday School class and I am the treasurer for my home owner's association. I am a busy person.

Several faculty members of commented on my schedule this semester. However one professor in my department constantly tells graduate students how easy we have it, and how much busier professors are. I frequently hear him talk about "faculty member's valuable time". The context in which he uses this phrase implies that other people's time is less valuable than his own. This bugs me to no end. I hope that I never make my students feel like their time is less valuable than my own. I am NOT the only busy person in the world.

Last Semester's Projects

2008-01-06T16:54:00.001-08:00

You can view some samples of my student's work on my webpage. I thought a lot of them came up with good ideas and I wish more of them were in web-ready formats. Maybe after some file conversion, I'll post a few more.

New Semester's Eve

2008-01-06T16:27:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow I'll be teaching again and it suddenly dawned on me that because I plan to introduce my students to Classroom 2.0, my students are more likely to discover this blog than last semester. Now, one of the positive comments on my student evaluations was from a student who stated that I treated students as equals rather than inferiors, but I find myself wondering if I really did. After all, I did blog about some of my frustrations with teaching the class and isn't that kind of like talking behind my students' backs?

So, how would I treat my students if I saw them as true equals? First of all, I'd let them have a lot more of the responsibility for their own learning. I am planning to do this, but based on survey responses from last semester, I'm not sure that they want the responsibility. Do they really want to be equals?

My class sizes this semester are less than half what they were last semester, which should make it easier to talk to students and get to know them. Right now, I'm planning to spend most of the first day of class having the students talk about teaching and learning and what they perceive as the role of the teacher and the role of the learner. Maybe if all of our assumptions are out in the open from the beginning, we'll be able to talk about the role of technology in teaching and learning with fewer misunderstandings.

New Year

2008-01-05T12:06:00.000-08:00

I survived my first semester as a university instructor and will start my second on Monday. I've been busily preparing syllabi and other lesson materials all week, so I figure it's time to end the charade and admit that I'm back at work. I spent much of today catching up on email, updating websites, reading blogs that I'd fallen behind on, etc. I have one major project to complete before I'm ready for the first meeting of my 286 class on Tuesday. Fortunately, everything is squared away for the 301 class on Monday.

The remaining project is a guide to Personal Learning Networks. I've become enamored with the concept, though I'm far from an expert. I had an middle school principal who was over-fond of saying, "Learn as much as you can, as quickly as you can." I believe he started and ended almost every utterance with that phrase, and at 13 it wore on me a little. However, at 31 I find myself thinking about it fairly often. I've also been advised to learn using "all that is available to me." Now I'm sure that back in the late 80's Mr. Wise (seriously, that was his name; I also once had a college professor named Dr. Wisdom) had no idea of how much knowledge we'd soon have at our fingertips and how quickly it would be possible to access it, but his advice seems particularly relevant to me now.

The challenge for me in the new year is to convince my students of the relevance of Mr. Wise's advice and also of the usefulness of technological tools for applying that advice, for themselves and for their future students.

Asking the Impossible

2007-12-20T12:05:00.001-08:00

I should be writing a paper right now, but I'm not because I'm distracted. I just received a request from a student asking if it was still possible to turn in any late assignments that he hasn't yet completed. Grades aren't due for another two weeks, so I suppose that I could allow the work to be submitted, but I decided not to accept it. Generally, I tend to be merciful when it comes to late work. When I taught high school, I told my students "I believe in repentance" and would accept late work until "judgment day" when grades were due. It created some extra work for me, but it fostered good will between my students and myself and also encouraged some of my borderline students put it the extra effort that they needed.

What was different about this situation? Probably the fundamental difference is that my students are adults now, not children. I am more willing to cushion students from the consequences of their bad decisions when they are 16 than when they are 26. The student in this story stopped coming to my class in October (and he'd already missed two weeks before that). I met with him in November after repeated emails encouraging him to submit late work. In the meeting, he expressed to me that he had fallen behind simply because the class was only worth 1 credit and he had placed it on the bottom of his list of priorities. Still, we discussed the requirements for him to pass the class. At the meeting he acknowledged the generosity and fairness of the 'deal' that we had made. However, he still didn't turn in any assignments, come to class, or even bother to show up for the final. And then today he asked if he can turn in late assignments and some how miraculously change a 13% to a passing grade.

I relayed the facts of the situation to the student and told the student that he had earned the grade of a UW, unofficial withdrawal. I also informed him that I hoped he would do better the next time he takes the class.

It is clear to me that the student earned his UW, but I still feel mean.

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation

2007-12-14T12:21:00.000-08:00

Before I make this post, I think I have a confession to make. In first grade, my teacher announced a contest to see who could read the most books during the school year. For each book read, we added a yellow circle of construction paper to a growing "book worm" that hung from the ceiling. By the end of the school year, my book worm touched the floor before curving back up to the ceiling. Both before and after the contest, I read a lot, even a lot more than my peers, but something about that contest motivated me to read even more. When that contest was announced, I set a goal for myself to read every book in the school library's young readers' fiction section. I started with Amelia Bedelia and was only dissuaded from my goal when my teacher got tired of reading my formulaic book reports about the formulaic Berenstein Bears. I have to admit that I respond to external rewards, at least when the task is in line with my own proclivities and I believe that there is a place for external rewards because they sometimes can motivate us to set internal goals that allow us to come just a little closer to knowing our true potential.

After the above confession, it probably doesn't surprise anyone that I was motivated to get straight A's as soon as I learned what an A was. At least partially because of my grades, I got a free college college education; I owe a lot to the current system of grading students.

Though it may seem like ingratitude, I dislike grades. I played school as a game, and I know my students do as well; rule #1 is "find out what the teacher wants and give it to them." Now that I'm a doctoral students, I feel that I have academic freedom to direct my own learning, and though I still jump through a few hoops, on the whole I feel better about my course of study. I certainly feel that I am learning more now than ever before. How can I create the same sense of empowerment for my undergraduate students? I want my students to be able to follow their own questions and build their own answers, but what do I do when their questions seem to have been drilled out of them?

I feel that some of my teacher education students are among the most "point-hungry" teacher-pleasing students that I have ever come across. They were all great people, but some lacked intrinsic motivation and had little initiative for solving their own learning-related problems. I worry that they will become textbook dependent teachers and that they will not have either the desire or the skill necessary to constantly improve their practice. What has to happen for extrinsically motivated adults become intrinsically motivated?

Internet Collaboration Project

2007-12-13T11:50:00.000-08:00

I'm trying to redesign at least one section of my IP&T 286 course around an authentic service learning experience involving Internet collaboration. Right now, I have a collaborative project set up for my students to collect and exchange data with high school students in Georgia. I'm excited about this, but I'm afraid that the Health and the Home Ec teachers will not be. I want to provide a good experience for these students so I am trying to set up a collaborative Internet project for them as well.

My idea is that my students could use the technologies that we are studying in class, Blogs, Google Docs, various websites, etc. to collaborate with people around the world to create an electronic cookbook complete with nutritional and budgetary analysis. The problem is that no one reads my blog and I'm not sure how to get the word out. I've contacted a few authors of cooking related blogs, but I don't know if they will even read my email. I've also asked a friend to ask her friend who teaches Home Ec if she'd be willing to get involved (and possibly spread the word to others).

I once heard a coworker say, "If you can't fix it, feature it." I guess if I can't figure out a way to get collaborators lined up, maybe that will become part of the project. The students could design a website that is optimized for search engines and also use their own social networks, through email and Facebook, to find contributors. I think it would be best if my students are able to collaborate with teachers and students at the 7-12 level, because that would be most authentic for their future jobs. However, I guess I'll have to take what I can get.

I think a cookbook could be a great interdisciplinary project for secondary-age students. History students could research what kinds of food people ate and prepared in different time periods; literature students could be involved in this as well as they research the setting of stories they are reading. Science students could be involved in analyzing nutritional analysis, researching the taxonomic origin of certain food products, and/or researching why certain food preparation techniques work the way they do (for example, making meringues). Art students could be involved in food photography and layout.

Reality Check

2007-12-11T14:41:00.000-08:00

Official course evaluations aren't in yet, but I now have some results from a survey that I've given my students about what worked in my course and what could be improved. Looking at the results, I can immediately see some changes I'd like to make to the survey instrument to give me a better idea of student growth during the course. I think I may give a survey at the beginning of next semester to get an idea of my students attitudes toward teaching with technology as well as their familiarity with specific technological tools. Then I'll be able to get a better idea of the "added-value" of my course.

Beyond issues of instrumentation, I'm not sure how to interpret all of the results. In general, students seemed to appreciate being introduced to a wide variety of technologies and many of them indicate that they plan to use technologies in their classroom that previously they had little to no experience with. A few mentioned that they learned how to evaluate the merit of a particular technology integration. At least one student stated that they had learned that they can find networks of teachers for collaboration. The majority of respondents stated that they learned "something" or "a lot" from each class assignment/activity (excepting one activity).

Student responses to some of my question seem to indicate that my students and I have different educational philosophies. In response to a question about what they learned from the class, one student wrote, "how to use imovie/advanced power point; however, I don't feel like we really did those in class, I felt that most of my learning about that stuff came from people in my group teaching me it." Well, that was kind of the point of the activity. This statement seems to imply that learning doesn't count unless it results from a teacher-centered activity. Another student wrote, "It would be more useful to DEMONSTRATE some technologies in class instead of having students do it." I don't agree. For example, I had 50 minutes to teach my students how to make a podcast. I recorded my own podcast describing the assignment specifications, provided my students with handouts to guide them through the process and let them go to work. By the end of class, each group had recorded a podcast. I don't think that they would have learned as much from watching me do it, but apparently this student doesn't agree with my constructivist-inspired approaches.

Additionally, students came to my class with preconceived attitudes about technology that a whole semester with me (granted only one hour per week) didn't do much to shake. For example, "Time saving strategies sure took a lot of time to integrate sometimes." I don't remember ever stating in or out of class that the instructional technologies that I was teaching about were meant to save my students time. Instead, I tried to emphasize that good use of technology was meant to enhance their future students' learning.

Some students pointed out flaws with the class that I have to admit: class size too big, too many content areas shoved into one class, not enough time to delve into individual technologies. Fortunately the powers that be have seen fit to amend some of these problems. Next semester, we will have smaller classes that are grouped according to content area so we can focus on more content-specific technologies. Unfortunately, the course will still be one credit hour, which means the class will still be designed as a survey of technologies rather than an in-depth study of any particular technology. Still, I'll see what I can do to provide students with a "level of confidence" in at least some of the technologies. Additionally, several students mentioned the lack of "how-to" guides for using these technologies. Part of me groans at this. After all, they are just as capable of using a Google search as I am, but I realize that most of them are neophytes when it comes to purposeful use of technology and I'm getting paid to teach them. Side note--these kids tell me that they've been Instant Messaging since they were 10--the Internet wasn't even in existence when I was 10--and I'm not that old. At any rate, even before getting these results, I started designing an electronic "textbook" for this class that will be comprised of pdfs that state the what, the why, and the how for the main technologies that I'll be teaching in class. Students overwhelming think that Second Life should be dropped from the course topics and I agree.

So, I've had my first reality check about what we've accomplished in my classroom this year. We'll have to see what I learn from it next year.

Wow!

2007-12-07T15:54:00.000-08:00

Some of my students really impress me. I just had a conference with a student who currently has a low grade in my class because of some missing assignments. She came in to show me her "work in progress". She hasn't finished her degree yet, but she is already teaching Arabic at a charter school. I was impressed by her idealism, her hope that teaching about Arabic language and culture will make the world a better, more tolerant place. I was also impressed by her innovation as she showed me her class blog and her middle school students Arabic music videos. Then she began to describe her plans for her unit on Arab-Israeli relations.

The course coordinator for IP&T stresses consistency in grading between sections, so we have to have common assignments and point values between classes, but what do grades mean when a teacher who is actively teaching with technology has a low grade in her "Teaching with Technology" course?

Back to Basics

2007-12-06T15:30:00.000-08:00

I haven't been blogging much lately because I keep going back and forth about why I keep a blog. Do I really have anything to blog about? Recently, I've decided it doesn't matter. I started this blog with two objectives.

To have a place to record reflections on what I'm doing and learning as I work my way through graduate school.
To encourage myself to get into the habit of writing daily (at least on work days).

Obviously, I've fallen far short of the second goal and I am rededicating my self to my original objectives.

I've been working on a literature review on Just-in-Time teaching and I've come across some references on teaching in higher education that I'd like to investigate further. They are:

Teaching on Solid Ground: Using Scholarship to Improve Practice by Menges & Weimer
Teaching Tips by Wilbert J. McKeachie
Applying the seven principles for good practice in undergraduate education by Chickering & Gamson
The Power of Mindful Learning by Ellen Langer

Connection

2007-11-29T15:29:00.000-08:00

Next semester I will be teaching two sections of the class I teach now, "Teaching with Technology", but with twist. One section will be for future teachers of English (and Foreign Language) and the other section will be for future teachers of Science (Health, and Family and Consumer Science). This semester I was lucky enough to connect to two excellent language arts teachers who use technology in their classrooms. I really feel that my students benefited from the interaction with these practitioners. I've been hoping to find a science teacher who could do the same for the science section next year and now I have! Miss Baker from Miss Baker's Biology Blog has agreed to talk to my students about blogging in the science classroom.

Overcoming Writer's Block

2007-11-02T14:40:00.000-07:00

In August, I almost finished a report. Then, for a number of reasons, the report got pushed to the side and every time that I tried to revisit it, I quickly pushed it to the side again. I just couldn't figure out what I wanted the rest of the report to say. Sometimes I even considered gutting it and starting over. I sent the report to my boss for feedback a couple of times and never seemed to get a response (so I felt justified in placing it on the back burner). However, I recently met with my boss and explained my situation. My boss, who happens to be a very helpful person, suggested that we set up a meeting between the two of us to talk about this project. Immediately after the meeting, I came back to my desk and took a look at the report. All of the sudden the task no longer seems daunting. Words and ideas are coming to me again. It would seem that a good conversation about a project can be an effective way to remove the dam that is writer's block.

Guest Speaker

2007-10-30T09:41:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I conducted my first web conference. It was a simple affair using Skype for audio but no video. The visuals were from a slide show presented using Slideshare. The technology used was basic, but it worked smoothly, giving my students the opportunity to hear from a guest speaker thousands of miles away in another country.

One of the ideas that the speaker shared that impressed me the most was the idea of having his students create their own textbook using a Wiki. That idea seems to have inspired at least one of my students to try it. Another idea that impressed me was a collaborative project, inspired by Thomas Friedman's The World Is Flat, between students in Asia, South America, and North America. I'm glad that I was able to expose my students to these ideas.

Full speed ahead!

2007-10-25T12:02:00.000-07:00

After taking a look at my study plan, I realized that my plan included two courses beyond what I was required to take. When I eliminated those courses, I realized that it is possible for me to graduate in December of 2008 instead of August 2009.

The Flash

2007-10-23T15:45:00.000-07:00

I bought a new flash drive last week. It holds 2 GB and is about the size of my car key. The drive is my virtual file cabinet for the literature reviews that I am conducting. Already, it contains copies of over one hundred articles, thesis, and dissertations with room for at least three times more. It is amazing what technology can do.

The Importance of Needs Analysis

2007-10-19T13:16:00.000-07:00

I just finished a first draft of an evaluation for a project that the main stakeholders never asked for and even objected to when it was proposed; they thought it was a lot of money being spent for something that would make very little difference. I was brought in to evaluate the project when it was very near completion. I'm not surprised to find out that the stakeholders were right. Why didn't we listen? I don't know, but to me it shows the importance of a thorough needs analysis.

Second Life

2007-10-18T09:55:00.000-07:00

I have arranged for two guest speakers to visit my classroom via the Web. One will visit using Skype and the other using Second Life. Now I'm trying to figure out both technologies before using them in my class. I feel entirely lost in Second Life, but I also feel excited that I'm experimenting and exposing my students to new technologies and their application for educational purposes.

TechTactics

2007-10-12T20:10:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading TechTactics: Instructional Models for Educational Computing by Carolyn Thorsen. The class that I teach doesn't have a textbook, but TechTactics has a wealth of information that I think my students would find useful. The book is from 2003 and some of the websites it refers to are no longer in existence, but despite its age, it contains much relevant information for teachers interested in integrated computer technology into their lessons.

Chapter 3 discusses information retrieval and addresses copyright issues and web searches. One of the exercises suggested teachers compare search engines for number of hits and relevance. I think that would be an excellent activity for students as well. Science and math teachers could focus on data comparison, while English and social studies teachers could examine potential for bias. All subjects could have students draw conclusions about which search engine is best and defend their conclusion.

Chapter 4 is about email and discussion boards. The "Field Trips" in this chapter are excellent case studies for using email and discussion boards within a class and also to connect a class to outside resources, including other classrooms.

Chapters 5-8 deal with educational use of presentation software, like PowerPoint, but moves beyond the typical "Death by PowerPoint" Lecture. Thorsen advocates student use of presentation software to create interactive, hypertext presentations.

Chapter 9 is about educational applications of word processing. The example activity was the creation of a newspaper for a particular point in history. Even though I felt it was the weakest chapter in the book, I can still see the value of technology in the project. In my print production class this semester I have been studying typography and I can see how using historical typefaces can make a huge difference in the feel of a project for a history or literature class.

Chapter 10 and 11 covered databases. Honestly, I had never thought of using databases (other than library databases for research) to have students analyze data and problem solve. Now I'm eager to share the idea with my students. I just don't know how I'm going to give the idea justice in a 50 minute class period.

Chapter 12 dealt with acquiring data for databases (many of the same sites could be used to get data for spreadsheets as well).

Chapter 13 was titled "Using Spreadsheets to Think About Numbers". I'm surprised this chapter didn't come before databases because in my opinion, spreadsheets are easier applications to use than databases. Still, this chapter emphasized how spreadsheets allowed students to focus on concepts rather than calculations.

The appendices had information on navigating a school network, file management, Internet conferencing, concepts maps, and a sample database lesson for an English class. There was a lot of practical information for teachers in these appendices (like checking on the storage space available for a teacher and his or her students during the year). I do wonder about the lesson in that is Appendix E. Why only one lesson and why is that one singled out?

Each chapter ends with references and an annotated resources section. By looking at these references and resources, I've found even more good ideas for teaching with technology. Now my challenge is to figure out which are the best ideas for my students and how best to teach them. It's a shame the class I teach is only 1 credit hour.

A Compliment

2007-10-05T15:15:00.000-07:00

This week one of my students, after completing an assignment wrote to me saying, "Thanks for this opportunity to opening my mind to more ideas!" That makes it all worth it, doesn't it.

Personal Contacts

2007-10-02T12:19:00.000-07:00

Recently, I've come across some literature on personal learning networks, which intrigues me. At the same time, my Research Synthesis class has been talking about the value of both personal contacts and "Invisible Colleges" as sources for gathering studies for a literature review. Also, the student association for IP&T students at BYU, IPTSO has been resurrected and is stressing the importance of networking among our fellow students. So, I've had reason to think about my own network of professional contacts, which isn't very big, but is growing.

This week, I've contacted two classroom teachers who exemplify teaching with technology and invited them to present to my class. They accepted! I also contacted a researcher of teaching with technology for more information and she responded. Today, as I was answering email on a computer in the IP&T grad lab on campus, a fellow student who resides in another state sat down at the computer across from me. It just so happens that this student was someone that I had contacted previously because we are working in a similar area. After one fifteen minute conversation, it appears that roadblocks have been removed and my work can soon push forward. Even if my network of professional contacts isn't very big, it is proving to be useful.

Del.icio.us

2007-09-27T14:42:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I was introduced to Del.icio.us when I watched one of my fellow instructors demonstrate the site to her students. I have now created an IPT286 username and filled my site with links for teaching with technology (feel free to add me to your network or to recommend links). I have spent hours over the past two days searching the net for resources that would help the students in my class (and other teachers as well). I'm kind of tired of doing it, but at the same time, totally fascinated by the quantity and quality of what is out there and intrigued by challenge of assembling the "best" collection of the "best" resources for teachers that I can find. I am far from my goal, but I think I may teach my next class on creating Personal Learning Networks (an idea I ran across in my search) using sites like Del.icio.us, Google Reader, etc. I may also introduce concepts of using Internet communication to teach.

Evaluation of College Teaching

2007-09-25T11:31:00.000-07:00

I was recently given an article at work from the IDP Newsletter Archive: April 1984 that talks about "The Evaluation of College Teaching". Apparently it is a condensed version of a report from the University of Oklahoma Faculty Senate committee report.

I was interested in this article because, at the moment, my major research interest concerns evaluating college teaching in blended learning settings that use Course Management Systems like Blackboard and I am trying to figure out what does "good teaching" in this context look like?

The article begins with the bold statement, "There are few tasks at a university more important than the evaluation of teaching." I think I agree that the evaluation of teaching is an important task at a University. However, once teachers are evaluated, what happens with that information? Is it used to improve teaching, and as a result learning? I haven't seen much evidence to convince me that it is.

Finding and Evaluating Digital Resources

2007-09-20T09:38:00.000-07:00

On Monday I'm supposed to be teaching my students about finding and evaluating digital resources. I want to show my students how to use the Internet to find lesson plan ideas, reference information, Internet applications, and free educational software. I need to make sure that they have the tools necessary (some of them already do) to differentiate between reliable and unreliable sites. Also, I have to be sure that the lesson prepares them to complete their homework assignment, which involves using the Internet to find an example of an exemplary instructional use of technology in a classroom. In a 50 minute class period, where do I start?

I've got a long list of resources to share with them. Probably, I'll post most of them on Blackboard and just highlight a few in each category during class. The categories that I currently have are

links for ideas on innovative teaching
links for free software
webquests
Web 2.0 technologies:

video
blogs
wikis
podcasts

Other resources (including subject specific)

Another question I have for myself, when I introduce them to blogs, do I disclose this blog as an example? I'm leaning towards no.

Libraries

2007-09-13T09:44:00.000-07:00

As a small child, my mother would take me, my brother, and our red Radio Flyer wagon to the library almost weekly. I loved to browse the shelves and fill our wagon with books for the week.

As a high school student, I would spend my lunch period in the library browsing for books to read during the classes that I had decided were not worth my attention. I came to the realization that I would never have the time to read all of the books in my high school library. This depressed me, especially because I realized that my high school library contained a pretty meager collection of the world's published knowledge. I was doomed to remain ignorant.

As an undergraduate, I spent a sizable percentage of my time in Virginia Tech's library. Once, when doing a group project, I discovered that one of my classmates had spent five years in college without ever checking out a book from the library. The rest of us in the group were initially amazed, though we later decided that his lack of library research skills probably contributed to his taking five years to get a four year degree. However, I have to admit that I was also appalled. At the time, I truly didn't believe that someone who had never checked a book out of his college library deserved a college degree.

With the growth of the Internet, I don't think I physically checked a book out of the library for either of my masters degrees. However, I have become a frequent library patron once again as a PhD student. Yesterday, I spent another several hours in the library to complete an assignment designed to familiarize me with some additional reference materials in the library. I realized that I'm not only doomed to ignorance of most of the world's knowledge, I'm doomed to ignorance on most of the topics in my own narrowly chosen field of specialization.

A Professor's Life for Me

2007-09-11T15:07:00.000-07:00

I am an instructor for a one credit undergraduate course for secondary education majors. I am getting paid for ten hours of work each week. As a former k-12 teacher, I'm amazed by this. True, I have to hold office hours, grade papers, plan lessons, attend team coordination meetings, etc., but I had to do all of that as a k-12 teacher, too. As a classroom teacher, I would get one hour of planning time for every 6 hours of teaching. Now, I get 9 hours of planning time for every one hour of teaching. Astounding!

I left class yesterday thinking about how easy it is to teach college students: no fights to break up, no parent conferences, etc. Then I started thinking about how, in my case, I only have to teach one lesson all week, not 25 or 30 like when I was teaching at the secondary level. A professor with a "full" teaching load teaches four to nine lessons a week, plus, professors frequently have graduate teaching assistants. Maybe experience will teach me that the pressure of research more than compensates for the reduced teaching load, but right now, I'm highly skeptical.

Blackboard for Dummies and Development Projects

2007-09-07T12:51:00.000-07:00

One of my job duties is the administration of a survey designed to obtain information about student and instructor perceptions of Blackboard, the course management system that we use at BYU. As I read responses to open-ended questions during coding, I get ideas--research ideas, development ideas, evaluation ideas, etc. This is good because the IP&T department at BYU requires PhD students to complete two projects as well as a dissertation. Yesterday, my boss called me into his office to check on my workload and see what work I could do for him that would also satisfy my PhD requirement and dissertation projects. I pitched my ideas and he loved them. Fortunately for me, my projects will feed straight into my dissertation and will be valuable to my employers--allowing me to be paid to write my dissertation.

For my development project, I will be creating a Blackboard course to teach Blackboard instructors how to use Blackboard as an instructional tool as well as an efficiency tool. This puts some pressure on me--it is only my first semester as a Blackboard instructor. Right now, I'm reading Blackboard for Dummies by Howie Southworth, Kemal Cakici, Yianna Vovides, and Susan Zvacek and scouring the Internet for examples of best practices for instruction using course management systems. Any suggestions?

I've avoided the "Dummies" series of books in the past because I don't like being referred to as a dummy (who needs a book to insult you when you've got siblings?), but so far I've found the information useful and have to recommend the book despite the title.

What's the Point of a Dissertation?

2007-09-06T10:20:00.000-07:00

One of my courses this semester is on research synthesis and is meant to prepare graduate students to write the literature review for their dissertations. As our first assignment, we were required to read an academic conversation that began with an article by Boote and Beile and was followed by a response by Maxwell.

Among other things, the authors disagreed about the purpose of a dissertation. Boote and Beile feel that the dissertation should be a capstone experience highlighting the doctoral candidate's scholarly knowledge of his or her field as well as the candidate's research skill. Maxwell appears to see the dissertation more narrowly, as evidence of the candidate's research skill.

I prefer Boote and Beile's conceptualization of the dissertation to Maxwell's. I would hope that my dissertation would be a capstone experience.

Back to School

2007-09-05T17:14:00.000-07:00

It's only two days into the new semester, so I am still figuring out the new routine. Today, my department held an opening luncheon where, among other things, they passed out advice for faculty members. Among the advice was the suggestion to read widely and smartly. Specifically, faculty were counseled to read a newspaper with an international focus and more than one journal outside their field.

I've become lax in reading the newspaper, so I'm going to recommit now. Also, at the recommendation of one of my professors, I'm going to get a student membership to AERA. I'm going to have to think for a bit on which journals outside my field that would be most fruitful for me to read, but I'm committing now to find at least two that I can follow.

Classroom Activity Types

2007-08-27T13:16:00.000-07:00

I'm back from vacation and an even longer vacation from blogging. I just finished reading "Teachers' Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge: Curriculum-based Technology Integration Reframed" by Judith B. Harris, Punya Mishra and Matthew J. Koehler. This article described again the TPCK framework, but unlike the previous Mishra and Koehler article about TPCK, this article made practical suggestions for using the framework. Specifically, they suggest using a content-based approach to differentiate and document learning activity types in each content area. Apparently this has already been done for social studies by Harris and Hofer (see below). I would love to see a break down like this for other content areas: language arts/English, foreign language, science, mathematics, music, art, technology education, physical education, etc. If anyone has seen one, please let me know.

Knowledge-Building Activity Types

Read Text -Students extract information from textbooks, historical documents,
census data, etc.
View Presentation - Students gain information from teachers, guest speakers and their peers
View Images - Students examine both still and moving (video, animations) images
Listen to Audio - Students listen to recordings of speeches, music, radio broadcasts,
oral histories, and lectures
Group Discussion - In small to large groups, students engage in dialogue with their
peers
Field Trip - Students travel to physical or virtual sites connected with the
curriculum
Simulation - Students engage in paper-based or digital experiences which mirror
the complexity and open-ended nature of the real world
Debate - Students discuss opposing viewpoints with their peers
Research - Using a variety of sources, students gather, analyze, and synthesize
information
Conduct an Interview - Face to face, on the telephone, or via email, students question someone on a chosen topic
Artifact-Based Inquiry - Students explore a topic using physical or virtual artifacts
Data-Based Inquiry - Using print-based and digital data available online; students pursue original lines of inquiry
Historical Chain - Students sequence print and digital documents in chronological
order
Historical Weaving - Students piece together print and digital documents to develop a story
Historical Prism - Students explore print-based and digital documents to understand
multiple perspectives on a topic

Convergent Knowledge Expression Activity Types

Answer Questions - Students respond to questions posed by the teacher, peers, or
the textbook
Create a Timeline - Students develop a visual representation of sequential events
Create a Map - Students label existing maps or produce their own
Complete Charts/Tables - Students fill in teacher-created charts and tables or create their own
Complete a Review Activity - Students engage in some format of question and answer to review course content
Take a Test - Students demonstrate their knowledge through a traditional
form of assessment

Divergent Knowledge Expression Activity Types

Write an Essay - Students compose a structured written response to a
teacher prompt
Write a Report - Students author a paper from a teacher or student
derived topic
Develop a Presentation - In oral or multimedia format, students share their
understanding with others
Develop a Knowledge Web - Using teacher or student created webs, students
organize information in a visual/spatial manner
Generate an Historical Narrative - Using historical documents and secondary source
information, students develop their own story of the past
Create a Diary - Students write from a first-hand perspective about an event from the past
Create a Newspaper/News Magazine - Students synthesize and present information in the form of a print-based or electronic periodical
Create an Illustrated Map - Students use pictures, symbols and graphics to
highlight key features in creating an illustrated map
Engage in Civic Action - Students write government representatives or engage
in some other form of civic action
Engage in Historical Impersonation - Students portray an historical figure
Produce an Artifact - Students create a 3-D or virtual artifact
Build a Model - Students develop a mental or physical representation of
a course concept/process
Design an Exhibit - Students synthesize and describe key elements of a
topic in a physical or virtual exhibit
Craft a Poem - Students write poetry connected with course
content/ideas
Create a Mural - Students create a physical or virtual mural
Develop a Metaphor - Students devise a metaphorical representation of a
course topic/idea
Draw a Cartoon - Students create a drawing or caricature of a course
concept
Create a Film - Using some combination of still images, motion video,
music and narration, students produce their own movie
Prepare a Performance - Students develop a live or recorded performance (oral,
music, drama, etc.)

My First Focus Group

2007-08-15T14:26:00.000-07:00

Today at work I moderated my first focus group. I think it went well (one of the participants even complimented me on how well facilitated it was as he left). The success of the focus group is due to the books that I read earlier this year. I'm glad that I took notes and used those notes to select activities and prepare my moderator's guide. Honestly, I wouldn't mind running several more of these.

By tomorrow the recordings should be transcribed and I should be able to code the data and add it into my report by Friday (at least that is my hope).

Job Security

2007-08-14T15:42:00.000-07:00

I have been assigned to the ongoing evaluation of the University's course management system. Since the evaluation is interminable, it provides a sense of job security. (It also makes it difficult to describe since it technically doesn't qualify as a project.) Today, I think I might have made my job more secure by suggesting improvements to our ongoing evaluation process. My suggestions have made enough additional work for me that I am quite certain that they'll need my position filled for at least as long as I want to fill it. Additionally, it appears that I'm going to have to abandon my idea of evaluating the Legislators Back to School Program. There simply won't be enough hours in my day. Instead, it appears that I will be evaluating Blackboard as my project, which makes senses since I will be doing it regardless.

Multidimensional Scaling

2007-08-09T15:17:00.000-07:00

I did an assignment earlier this term that my professor thinks I should expand into a paper. The catch is, to write the paper properly, I have to figure out how to apply multidimensional scaling to my work. Below are some online books that describe the technique. When I get the time, I'll try to figure them out.

Multidimensional Scaling (1978) by Kruskal and Wish
Modern Multidimensional Scaling: Theory and Applications (1997) by Borg and Groenen
Multidimensional Scaling (2001) by Cox and Cox

Related to multidimensional scaling is Webgrid III, which is intended for applying George Kelly's repertory grid technique.

Skills

2007-08-08T14:17:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading an article called "Developing a Well-Reasoned Response to a Moral Problem in Scientific Research", which basically about developing ethical skills. For me, this article continued a previously interrupted line of thought about what skills we should be teaching students and when we should be teaching them.

One college that I know of has created the following list of skills it hopes to teach its graduates: communication, analysis, problem solving, valuing in decision-making, social interaction, global perspectives, effective citizenship, and aesthetic responsiveness. Another college has compiled this list: critical thinking, effective writing, effective oral communication, library and information literacy, computer competence, creative thinking and problem solving, quantitative reasoning, and moral reasoning. Yet another college has this list: appreciation, collaboration, conceptual, implementation, inquiry, presentation, materials, technology, qualification, and quantification. These list contain a fair degree of overlap, but do not entirely correspond to each other.

Another blogger has created a list of big skills and middle skills that he feels are essential for success in today's business world. There is even a website for The Partnership for 21st Century Skills.

I played around for a few minutes this morning trying to create a hierarchy of skills that could be used when designing a k-16 curriculum. I discovered, not surprisingly, that it was more than a few minutes worth of a project. However, I came to the conclusion that any skill we teach must be one that we believe will increase a student's quality of life. From that perspective sprang two ideas:

We should place the greatest emphasis on those skills with the greatest possibility to increase a given student's quality of life.
We should teach the skills in such a way that the student can himself (or herself) recognize the value of the skill.

Next Fall

2007-08-06T14:59:00.000-07:00

Today I took another look at my class schedule for next summer. I'm going to be very busy this fall. I am taking two classes on MWF. One is a programming course and the other is a statistics lecture on survey sampling. Wednesday is also the day scheduled for the graduate seminar that I'm required to attend. On TH, I will have a research synthesis class and the lab for the statistics course, which I really hope will be optional. Tuesday evenings will find me in a instruction print production course. On Monday evenings, I will be teaching a one credit undergraduate course, which will count as internship credit for me and I will still be working at my current job, but probably only about 15 hours per week. I'm hoping to squeeze my evaluation project into this mess, but if not, I can take a "T" grade and finish it in the Winter semester.

All of the courses described above are on my study plan and all of them will help me with my current job. For personal and professional reasons, I've put a lot on my plate. Hopefully, I won't choke while chewing on it.

The best defense is a good offense

2007-08-03T15:38:00.000-07:00

One of my classmates defended his evaluation project yesterday and invited me to watch. It was my first experience with a defense, since my previous graduate degrees were non-thesis programs. Fortunately for my friend, he passed. Fortunately for me, I got to hear the advice his committee gave him so I can hopefully apply it to my own projects and dissertation. Here is a sampling:

Whenever you're saying something that can be dealt with in numbers you ought to say it in numbers.
Completely describe the qualitative or quantitative analysis procedures that you use and, if at all possible, name them and give citations.
Test your instruments using specific procedures, again, preferably with names and citations.
Precisely define all terms used.
In a meta-evaluation if you don't give yourself a perfect score, explain why.
External evaluators shouldn't make recommendations unless a client asks for them, and even then they should provide evidence to support every recommendation.

The faculty members liked how my friend included the aspects of a good evaluation report in his project, so I should look at his project before I do my own. Also, I liked how he reported his qualitative data on the PowerPoint slides he gave me. He had a two column table. In the left hand table he listed the number and percentage of responses that he coded in each category. In the right had column he included a quote that represented the responses in the category.

Speedwriting

2007-08-02T14:42:00.000-07:00

When I was interviewing I found that I couldn't write as fast as I'd like. Even though I was recording the interviews, I wished that I was a more proficient note taker. After I finished interviewing, I went to the library and checked out a book on a type of alphabetic shorthand called "Speedwriting" that was developed in the 1920s by a woman named Emma Dearborn. Every so often, I do some of the exercises in the book and try to learn the assigned words. iv vn bg tus t fm titoti vn tu i don no mc .

I keep thinking that a computer program would be better for learning this kind of skill than a book. Maybe I'll make one for one of my class projects this fall in Advanced Computer-based Instruction or maybe it'll just be another hobby for me.

Performance Engineering

2007-08-01T18:23:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week, my boss sent us an article by Steven Kerr "On the folly of rewarding A, while hoping for B". The article was published in the Academy of Management Executive, 1995 Vol. 9 No. 1. Kerr's arguments about flawed reward systems reminded me of information about incentives presented Thomas F. Gilbert's work, Human Competence:Engineering Worthy Performance.

Kerr's article provided examples of reward systems that provide no reward for the desired behavior but instead reward the behaviors the rewarder wishes to discourage. Kerr suggests, "Managers who complain about lack of motivation in their workers might do well to consider the possibility that the reward systems that they have installed are paying off for behavior other than what they are seeking."

Gilbert provides a behavior engineering model with six components. Three components, data, instruments, and incentives relate to the environment. The rest, discrimination, response capacity, and motives relate to an individual's behavior repertory. Gilbert argues that lack of motivation is almost never a cause of incompetence and suggests that those who wish to improve performance instead first focus their attention on data (in the form of guidance and feedback) that is provided to individuals about their performance. Next, he suggests examining the possibility of improving the tools and materials that individuals are using to complete their tasks. Then he suggests considering the appropriateness of reward systems. Finally, he suggests that performance engineers look at the potential for training to improve performance.

A portion of Kerr's article discusses faulty rewards systems in the context of higher education, but does not deal with the lower grades. Gilbert devotes a chapter of his book to the problems of K-12 education. In my opinion, both authors shed light on problems that exist in education, but neither author examines those problems in an educational context with enough sensitivity to provide realistic solutions.

E-Curriculum

2007-07-30T13:51:00.000-07:00

I surfed into this article today. The article interested me for two reasons.

I'm interested in "open curriculum" efforts for K-12 teachers. This isn't completely open, but it is on a district wide scale.
I am a graduate of Charles County Public Schools and I taught in the Charles County Public Schools for four years.

I don't really need another research idea right now, but I can't help but wonder about the potential of an open-source curriculum at the district level. Also, how can you evaluate the effectiveness of such a curriculum? How do teachers make decisions about what parts of the curriculum to use? How can systems help teachers to make such decisions data-driven?

Teaching Multiple Site Evaluation

2007-07-27T14:02:00.000-07:00

So, I finally led my training session on Multiple Site Evaluation and here is my self-critique. Starting with the positive:

People seemed to enjoy the case studies (as much as anyone enjoys a case study at a training session).
People engaged in discussion and asked each other intelligent questions about the different types of multiple site evaluations.

Moving on to the less than positive:

I think it took 20 minutes instead of 10.
The main points that I wanted people to get out of the case studies were not as clear as I thought they would be.

In the future, I'll try to test out training materials before I use them in the actual situation.

Self-Efficacy

2007-07-26T12:59:00.000-07:00

One of my students in Baltimore, lets call him "James", used to joke about being a "four year veteran" of our school. Middle school, of course, is only supposed to last three years, and when he had neglected class assignments or homework I would warn him that if he weren't careful, he'd be a "five year veteran" of our school. To me, James didn't appear to care about education in the least.

In Baltimore, at least when I taught there, middle school students had to apply to high school. The best students were skimmed by the "city-wide high schools" and the rest were relegated to zone schools. At the zone schools the drop out rates were so high that the freshman classes are larger than the sophomore, junior, and senior classes combined.

For my eighth graders, the period between applying for high school and receiving their acceptance letters was a time of terrible anticipation. During this time, a student of mine, lets call her "Suzie", announced to her class that she had been accepted to Baltimore City College, one of the best of the city-wide schools, but that she wasn't going. Knowing Suzie's grades and test scores, I recognized her announcement as an attempt to save face, but smiled and said nothing. However, James turned on his friend and began to lecture Suzie about the importance of an education; telling her she had to go. "If I got into City," he said, "I'd bust my work." Suzie quickly admitted that she hadn't been accepted at city, though she had gotten into one of the less competitive city-wides. The class went back to work, but that moment stayed with me. It wasn't until then that I realized that James, despite appearances, valued education highly, but simply saw it as an unattainable goal.

I just finished reading "Self-Efficacy", an article by Albert Bandura. The article is more real to me because I have known James. "There are countless attractive options people do not pursue because they judge they lack the capabilities [I would add opportunities] for them." This is a sad reality for inner-city children. I believe one of the most important ideas with which we can equip our children, either as parents or as a society, is a sense of self-efficacy.

Fortunately for James, one of our administrators took him under her wing and helped him to transfer from the zone high school to a city wide after ninth grade. When I last saw him, he was on the football team and planned to be the first in his family to graduate high school. I've lost track of him, but I hope he made it.

Teach for America and Me

2007-07-25T08:19:00.000-07:00

"Teacher trainers often remark that the brightest and most able students often experience considerable difficulties in their first placements as teachers. The diligence, attention seeking, and strong self-image that in the past rewarded them with teacher approval and fine grades are not traits that help others –i.e. students—to personally interact with ideas."
-- Facilitating Online Learning p.167

The quote above made me think of my first placement as a teacher. I mentioned a few posts back that I am an alumna of the Teach for America program, selected largely because of my success as a student. By the time I graduated University, I was no longer an academic attention-seeker; I preferred to sit quietly and go unnoticed in the back row of any lecture hall. Still, I was diligent with a strong self-image and had considerable difficulty in my first placement as an 8th grade physical science teacher in inner-city Baltimore. I was a much better teacher my second year than my first, but I still felt inadequate.

Linda Darling-Hammond and others have criticized TFA for placing unqualified teachers in the classrooms that need qualified teachers the most. There is some truth to this criticism; I admit that I was not "highly qualified" to teach in an inner city school. However, the uglier truth is that the certified teacher who worked in my classroom before me had stopped teaching. Every day students came to her class to watch movies, usually R rated. Unqualified though I was, I was better than the alternative, and science test scores went up both years that I taught there.

Darling-Hammond argues that teacher quality is the most important variable in the education production function and tends to define teacher quality as pedagogical content knowledge. In her studies, she uses Praxis test scores, education courses, certification or some combination of these variables to serve as proxy variables for teacher quality. I passed the Praxis, even the pedagogy section, without ever having taken an education course, which lead me to suspect that either a flaw in the test or that value of the courses was highly overrated. Based on my personal experience, I think both explanations have value. As soon as I started teaching, I enrolled in a graduate program in Curriculum and Instruction. Some of the courses were helpful and all of them were easy. Still, I felt that the skills that I learned in my courses could have been taught on the job in a good professional development workshop.

One of the most pivotal moments in my teacher training came when I was being observed during my first year teaching. One of my instructors was sitting in the back of my classroom, observing my lesson when the fire alarm went off. She hurriedly packed her belongings and then stared at me aghast as I continued teaching my lesson without interruption. I really believe that she thought I was oblivious and that I would allow my students to be consumed by flames. I watched for her confused reaction when the announcement that my students and I knew would come, "Please disregard the fire alarm," came. This scenario repeated itself, as it usually did, three or four times during the course of my 55 minute lesson. At the end of my lesson, my instructor asked if this often happened. "Almost daily," I replied. She looked at me, horrified, and asked, "How can you teach like this?" I remember thinking, "Aren't you supposed to be teaching me?"

As you might imagine, I don't have a lot of confidence in traditional teacher training programs.

Facilitating Online Learning

2007-07-23T08:34:00.000-07:00

I often feel behind the curve on technology. I did not get my first personal computer until after I graduated from High School. I had never read a blog before last summer. I hate text messaging. Despite this, I am a student of Instructional Psychology and Technology and keenly interested in how technology can be used to improve education. Still, my experience with educational technology is limited. I know how to design a web page, or create a piece of instruction using Flash animation, but I have never taken an online course that lasted more than an hour.

I just finished reading Facilitating Online Learning: Effective Strategies for Moderators by George Collison, Bonnie Elbaum, Sarah Haavind, and Robert Tinker. The book provides a framework for moderators of online, asynchronous discussion groups. The central message is that moderators should strive to be "guides on the side" rather than "sages on the stage". The advice in the book seemed practical and I hope that I will be able to try it out in the class that I will teach this fall. However, I really wish that I had experience as a participant in a moderated discussion group.

I often wonder why the professors in my IP&T program don't model technology use in their courses more often. It seems that each course should have some sort of technology component. I can think of several courses that I have taken that would have been enhanced by well-moderated online discussions: Principles of Learning Theory, Qualitative Research, Evaluation, and Instructional Design all come to mind. I also think the 1/2 credit seminar course would be enhanced by online discussion.

Classification of Data

2007-07-20T11:56:00.000-07:00

These are terms that tend to escape my mind when I most need them. My hope is that by writing them down here I will lock them permanently in my memory, and if not, I will always know where to find them:

Nominal/Categorical - qualitative classifications
Ordinal - ordered but doesn't say "how much more"
Interval - absolute position, discrete distance.
Ratio - ordered, constant scale, natural zero

Open Source Curriculum

2007-07-19T12:06:00.000-07:00

My reading leads my thoughts in strange directions. I just finished the section on learning foundations in the book Technology Applications in Education: A Learning View. My purpose in reading the section was to help shore up my foundation in learning theory and its application to the use of technology in the classroom. Richard E. Mayer's article "Theories of Learning and Their Application to Technology" on pages 127-157 met my purpose very well.

I now find myself thinking about another chapter in the same book, "Connecting Learning Theory and Instructional Practice: Leveraging Some Powerful Affordances of Technology" by the Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt. In the article they describe two specific applications of instructional technology: the Adventures of Jasper Woodbury problem solving series and STAR.Legacy. I was intrigued enough to visit the website for each program. Eventually, I learned the Jasper costs between $200 - $400 per unit and I learned that the STAR.Legacy shell could no longer be authored.

If these applications of technology really had the positive impacts described in the article, then its a shame that they (or programs like them) aren't more accessible to students and teachers. I am aware of open source curriculum movements. I am aware of websites where teachers can share lesson plans. However, I haven't seen any evidence of a concerted effort to draw on the talents of in-service teachers to create a well-articulated and integrated (interdisciplinary) k-12 curriculum using the tenets of the open source movement. I can't help but wonder, what would it take to start one?

A Thought Experiment

2007-07-18T14:30:00.000-07:00

"Imagine such new technology as was available hundred fifty years ago, before we constructed the school systems we have today. What would we design and how would it differ from what we have now? How much of what we currently have in our schools is only an unintended side effect of the lack of any technology beyond blackboard and printing press when the system was created?"
-Klahr quoted by John T. Bruer in "Learning and Technology: A View From Cognitive Science" in Technology Applications in Education: A Learning View edited by Harold O'Neil, Jr. and Ray S. Perez (p. 171)

This is a thought experiment I'd like to carry out someday. I hope other people take a look at these questions as well.

Resume Rater

2007-07-17T15:39:00.000-07:00

Last night I participated in a webinar to become a volunteer resume coach for Teach for America Corps Members and Alumni. (I am an alumna of TFA: Baltimore '98.) In a strange alignment of personal life and work, I also am the instructional designer of record for a webpage that is intended to help MBA students improve their resumes and job hunting skills.

At this moment, I am attempting to design a "resume rater" based on the content provided by the subject matter expert (a faculty member in the business school) as well as a number of other checklists (for networking, interviews, etc.) that could be used by an individual in the midst of a job search. I'm trying to see it from the perspective of a person looking for a job. This approach has already helped me come up with a number of worksheets to guide people through the process, but I'm still stumped on how to make a checklist that appropriately reflects the content of the webpage.

When this project is finished, I am definitely linking to it from this blog!

isms

2007-07-16T15:00:00.000-07:00

"..those who are looking ahead to a new movement in education, adapted to the existing need for a new social order should think in terms of education itself rather than in terms of some ism about education." -- John Dewey

I have been reading about a number of "isms": behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism, etc. In the past, I never paid much attention to theoretical debates because my mind tends more toward practical applications. To me, most theoretical arguments seemed to hinge on semantics.

Lately, I have undergone a transformation. I find myself increasingly interested in theories of learning, though I cannot profess to be a disciple of any particular "ism". Theoretical purists will shun me, but I have to admit to being a theoretical eclectic. I will wear whatever theoretical lenses I need to help me see the educational problem at hand in the greatest focus.

Interviewing

2007-07-13T12:41:00.000-07:00

I have conducted six interviews already today and still have one more this afternoon. Five more are scheduled for Monday and two for Tuesday. I already did two yesterday. By the end of this project, I will have interviewed 28 faculty members including 4 deans.

This has been an interesting, albeit exhausting process for me. I got the opportunity to develop the instrument that we are using (with huge amounts of feedback from the originators of the study). As I'm using it, I'm finding that some phrases are just a mouthful to say. Having conducted telephone interviews in the past for Harris Interactive, it is something that I should have thought to check, but just didn't. In the future I'm going to pay closer attention to . . . I'm not sure what to call it . . . pronounceability? I kind of wish that I had conducted a "mock" interview with someone from work just practice the flow of the questions, so in the future, I'll try to do that as well.

I'm enjoying the varied perspectives that I'm being exposed to. Even some of the more predictable interviews have had at least one "fresh" idea to share.

At first, I found myself almost biting my tongue as I fought my desire to turn the interview into a conversation, but now I find it easy to just listen. I've realized that some of the most valuable moments have come from my silence as I try to catch up in my notes. Most people will fill the silence with talking, much of it redundant, but occasionally they throw out a previously unmentioned idea.

Presentation and Beyond

2007-07-12T14:56:00.000-07:00

I am exhausted. I was up until nearly 1:00 AM working on my presentation for class, but I do feel that some good ideas came out of it. I proposed a plan to restructure teacher education based on Tagg's learning paradigm, Lave and Wenger's communities of practice, and Gong's fourfold. I even went so far as to propose restructuring the organization of teachers within schools and districts to better facilitate communities of practice. When I finished, I realized that for this project at least, I have clearly identified the intellectual foundations of my work, though I certainly haven't worked out the implications.

I also realized that I had failed to completely capture some of the key points in The Learning Paradigm College. I couldn't remember the names of the two self-theories: entity and incremental. I also couldn't remember that learning goals was the term for the contrast to performance goals. So I've gone back to look at them again.

Some key differences between entity and incremental theory:

Entity theorists perceive ability as fixed, see effort as a sign of low ability, are attuned to summative external judgments about performance, set performance goals, and attempt to withdrawal from, avoid, or excuse failure because it is seen as a sign of low ability.
Incremental theorists perceive intelligence and ability as having the capacity to grow, see effort as necessary for the accomplishment of goals, are attuned to formative judgments that help to improve performance, set learning goals, and increase effort and/or modifies strategy in response to failure.

These self theories are related to, but not synonymous with surface and deep approaches to learning:

Individuals with a surface approach to learning focus on appearances rather than meanings, envision the learner as a static recipient of information, have an atomistic view of knowledge, fail to connect information to past experiences, and dislike the process of learning.
Individuals with a deep approach to learning focus on meanings, envision the learner as a conscious agent of understanding, have a holistic view of knowledge, seek to make connections between information and past experiences, and enjoy the process of learning.

I really hope that my professor provides me with some useful feedback about my presentation.

WfSP: Exercise 2

2007-07-11T16:27:00.001-07:00

The next exercise in Writing for Scholarly Publication suggested that I "Identify potential members of my 'writing community'."

So I've invited my husband (a writing instructor and a fellow IP&T PhD), and two other IP&T PhD students that I know to form our own writing community. Basically, we'll give each other feedback on writing projects that we are doing. I also figure that all of the members of my dissertation committee will be part of my writing community.

Report on Exercise 1 (CMS Reading)

2007-07-11T16:06:00.001-07:00

A while back, I stated my intention to:

Identify the people, topics, and specific works that provide the intellectual foundation of my project.

I have since read 23 articles, reports and book chapters about various topics related to course management systems. I'm not sure that I've found my foundation quite yet, but I've got to start somewhere. So . . .

People I know two professors at my University who have done quite a bit of work in this area and whose attitudes and beliefs on the subject are similar to my own. Fortunately, they have both already agreed to be on my committee.

Topics There have been a couple of studies on student and perceptions of Course Management Systems. These studies didn't focus on differences between student and faculty perceptions. Also, these studies didn't examine perceptions of how a CMS could (or even should) be used to transform education. I would like to delve into faculty and student perspectives on potential transformative uses of a CMS.

Works I would like my work to be consistent with the Learning Paradigm described in Tagg's book. Additionally, I have high hopes for a section on "Learning Foundations" in a book, Technology Applications in Education: A Learning View, but I have to admit that I haven't read it yet.

Principles of Learning Theory

2007-07-10T11:07:00.000-07:00

I have extra homework and I'm happy about it. My professor in my Principles of Learning Theory Class asked me to do a presentation in class next time we meet. The presentation is an outgrowth of some ideas, stories and opinions I shared today during class and especially after class. My professor suggested that I have the germ of an article (or even a book) in my ideas. The presentation he is asking me to do is to help me to I organize my thoughts in preparation for writing a publication. Once I tackle it, maybe I'll post some of it here.

However, I have to comment on the fact that I'm kind of excited about extra homework, because this is not a natural condition. I feel that it exemplifies the model of teaching and learning that he is presenting in his class. For once, I see someone in the educational profession practicing what he preaches. His espoused theory and his theory-in-use are consistent with each other. Really, this extra homework is just a directed expansion of my own line of thought on the subject. He is helping me to pursue my own interests as they relate to his subject.

I have a confession to make: I am surprised to be enjoying this class. I had heard nothing positive from my peers in my program. They had warned me about the workload and recommended that I be prepared to only truly study one theory of learning. So far, the workload has been manageable and I've actually found the reading engaging. However, I will admit that the assignments have been unevenly dispersed; the assignments that he gave were extremely time consuming, but we haven't had one for over a week's time now. We have only discussed one theory of learning in any depth in class, but our next book is on another theory, so I hope that implies that we will broaden our horizons.

The class isn't perfect. Some of the assignments come dangerously close to busy work and he tends to go off on tangents--BYU is a religious institution, but Principles of Learning Theory is not in the religion department. Still, I'm enjoying the class . . . so far.

Multiple Site Evaluation Expansion

2007-07-09T15:34:00.001-07:00

After the weekend, what I most clearly remember from my reading about multisite evaluation, on-site evaluation at multiple sites, and cluster evaluation is that multisite evaluation is used for big programs that are being implemented on a large scale at many different locations, e.g. the federal student loan program. These evaluations attempt to use experimental or quasi-experimental designs for the evaluation and generally don't require the physical presence of the evaluator at the site.

On-site evaluation at multiple sites is a more qualitative approach used when a more quantitative experimental or quasi-experimental design is not feasible or desirable. This happens often when readily available objective, quantitative indices for measuring a programs effects simply don't exist. Examples of these would be educational programs that aren't intended to raise student scores on standardized tests.

Personally, I think on-site evaluation at multiple sites would be the most useful type of evaluation for the types of evaluations our team members would most likely deal with. Of course, it kind of depends on how you define multiple site. It is easy to see the campus as a single site, but since individual colleges and even departments and programs have some autonomy, I can envision them as multiple sites, even though they have a great deal of overlap in their physical space. So, for example, an evaluation of the process of developing learning outcome statements at the University could be seen as an on-site evaluation at multiple sites.

Cluster evaluation is a more nebulous beast. I got the impression that the authors of the text were biased against it, or at least cautious about it. They said something about cluster evaluation being in its "awkward adolescent" stage. Basically, you evaluate a group of programs that are related by a common theme, or even a common funder, and report back in aggregate about strengths and weaknesses. I could see a cluster evaluation being done on technology use in the classroom, where the goal is basically a set of broad "best practices".

I have four days left to prepare the ten minute presentation teaching my team about Multiple Site Evaluation Methods. I really want to use this as an opportunity to practice what I've been learning in my learning theory class.

Cluster, Multi-site, and Multi-level Evaluation

2007-07-06T15:05:00.000-07:00

I recently volunteered to present the training portion of my next team meeting at work. The topic? Cluster, multi-site, and multi-level Evaluation. I volunteered not because I am an expert, but because there was a good chance that I'd be assigned anyway (I haven't had a turn since I joined the team) and because I knew that I could use a refresher on the topic. The presentation is a week away, but I figured that today would be a good day to re-familiarize myself with the source material. Again, I'm going to apply the fourfold learning approach that I'm learning in my class. The following information comes from Chapter 19 of Program Evaluation: Alternative Approaches and Practical Guidelines by Fitzpatrick, Sanders and Worthen.

CAPTURE
Purpose
What is a multiple-site program evaluation and when and how would you conduct a multiple-site program evaluation?

Central Message

The distinguishing feature of an MSE is its implementation at different sites with an analysis of original data.
evaluators use MSEs for multiple reasons, including: to increase generalizability of findings, to maximize sample size, and to respond to political and social demands.
Page 467 has a diagram "Dimensions for a Typology of Multiple-Site Evaluations"

Validations/Applications

Multisite Evaluation

There are three common types of multiple-site evaluations

Multisite evaluations (large scale experimental or quasi-experimental studies of major social or human services programs)
On-site evaluations at multiple sites (on-site evaluation teams visit all or a sample of sites implementing the program)
Cluster evaluation (multiple-site, multilevel evaluation approach developed to evaluate "clusters" of projects clustered together because they were funded by a specific targeted funding initiative or because they deal with the same theme or topic.

Two subtypes of Multisite Evaluation (MSE)

an evaluation of a program that is implemented in the same way at different geographical locations

an evaluation of a program that is implemented in different ways at different geographical locations

How much local adaptation can be tolerated before you are no longer evaluating a single program at multiple sites but multiple programs at multiple sites? In most structured, multisite programs there are essential ingredients that should be present and specific criteria that should be met
Practical Issues

Understand the system
Staff the MSE
Train the staff
Budgeting
Identifying and overcoming cross-site obstacles
Maintain Quality Control
Conducting Appropriate Statistical Analyses
Conducting Multi-level MSEs

On-site Evaluation

is most often used when:

it is not feasible or desirable to use experimental or quasi-experimental designs for evaluation
there are no readily available objective, quantitative indices that can be used as a basis for determining program effects
For educational programs that are not intended to raise student scores on standardized tests, on-site evaluation is probably the most common form of evaluation

Essential Activities include:

selecting the on-site evaluation sample
collecting data before the on-site visit
developing the evaluative questions that will be used at all sites;
develop on-site instruments, including rating scales to be used by site-visit teams
determining the duration of the site visit
deciding on the number of team members
assigning responsibility for managing a multiple-site system of on-site evaluation
make necessary arrangement for site visits in ways that will reduce or eliminate site-visitor bias
summarize and report site-visit results so commonalities and idiosyncrasies can be understood.

Cluster Evaluation

four key characteristics of a cluster approach:

looks across a group of projects to identify common threads and themes
seeks to learn not only what happened, but why those things happened
it takes a collaborative approach involving stakeholders
The relationship between the projects and the external evaluators is kept confidential; evaluation findings are only reported in aggregate.

Values
The authors seem to have more confidence in multisite evaluations and on-site evaluations at multiple sites than they do in cluster evaluation.

Help: Toward a New Ethics-Centered Paradigm for Instruction Design and Technology by D. Inouye, P. Merrill, and R. Swan

2007-07-05T10:24:00.001-07:00

Another required Reading

CAPTURE
Purpose:
Identify the central concern of Instruction Design and Technology

Central Message:

Since help is at the center of the concern of IDT, IDT belongs in the realm of praxis
The central concern of IDT is to improve learning by providing help to learners and teachers

Validations/Applications:
Validations

episteme or theoresis identified with the scientific paradigm; poesis identified with design paradigm; a combination of episteme and poesis identified with the paradigm of modern technology
Aristotle' classification of the three activities of rational intellect is still valid; however, the modern world has attempted to reduce the other forms of knowing to espisteme, recognizing it as the only legitimate kind of knowing.
Unlike the laws of physics used by engineers, the principles of learning used y instructional designers do not exhibit unvarying originative causes, but are subject to situational and contextual factors.

Applications

The properties of praxis should be the properties of IDT.
IDT belongs to the realm of choice. The laws that govern agents are prescriptive rather than descriptive.
Many opportunities for phonomenological research.
IDT's principal virtue is phronesis (prudence or practical wisdom). That makes the goal of IDT to exercise sound judgment aobut what to do to optimize learning for individuals in specific situations. The mission of IDT should be designing help and organizing the resources for it.
Ask questions like the following:

how can we help learners and teachers make better choices, or decisions?
How can we help learners learn for the right reasons and continue learning after formal instruction is over?

Instructional designers should see themselves primarily as teachers.
The knowledge base of IDT should become increasingly contextual, person( and agent)-centered, psychology centered, learner-centered, general-education oriented.
The ideal learning experience would help the learners make valuable improvements in what they are, do, know, or think and they would want to share those improvements with others.
Evaluation focus should shift to formative evaluation, and especially to on-going self-evaluation by learners
Assessment should shift away from high-stakes testing to diagnostic measurement that provides useful feedback to learners; tell them what is, what ought, and what they could do to improve

Values:
The authors of this paper value service to others and believe strongly in social responsibility. They feel that a change in perspective about the central purpose of IDT will result in changes in practice which will benefit learners.

EXPANSION
Assimilation: I came into the field of IP&T because I have a strong feeling that it is my duty to help others and that I can think of no better way for me to help others than to help others learn. I had assumed that the majority of my colleagues in IP&T had the same motivation, but this article implies that the motivation to help is lacking, or at least disguised, in most of the current practice in Instructional Design and Technology.

The organization for which I work is undergoing a reorientation in focus. It's name has recently changed from the Center for Instructional Design to the Center for Teaching and Learning. It's mission is being changed from designing instructional products to assisting professors in helping their students achieve learning outcomes. I think that these changes reflect the ethics-centered paradigm presented in the article, but I am not sure how these changes will be reflected in practice. So far, my job has been the same.

Expanding a Capture When You Agree

2007-07-03T14:50:00.000-07:00

Reorganize information into a format to present for your own purposes

Key attributes of learning/teaching success

Roles

Knowledge (fourfold framework)

purpose
central message
validations/applications
values

Experiences

Capture
Expansion

Reorganize
Assimilate
Apply
Research
Evaluate

Teaching
Evaluation

Three-person problem

Assimilate - write about an experience that is redefined or clarified in light of your capture.

My habitual behavior in classes is not to pay attention. I complete all of the assignments, including readings, and participate in class discussions, but when a professor lectures, I tune out. I have a talent for recognizing key words that pull me back in when there is something from the readings for which I need clarification. This talent combined with my participation in class discussions provides professors with the illusion of an engaged student.

The L/T model requires engagement. To adopt this model in my own learning would take a huge behavioral change. I'm not 100% sure that the effort is necessary to produce learning. After all, I've been an extremely successful student without it. However, the idea that I should give the teacher my complete attention out of obedience to the commandment to love my neighbor as my self carries weight with me. I've learned a lot doing things my way, but I'm willing to believe that I could learn more with Gong's way.

Apply - Make a plan and act on the ideas you have learned

I am going to attempt to apply capture and expansion to what I read for school, work, and even church. I am also going to attempt to apply capture and expansion to the talks and lectures that I attend. I will record capture and expansion for work and school in the notes that I keep on Compendium for each course or project. I will record capture and expansion from church in my personal journal.

Learning and Teaching for Exponential Growth

2007-07-03T14:18:00.000-07:00

One of the required readings for my Learning Theory class is a small book called Learning & Teaching for Exponential Growth by Susan Peterson Gong. I am going to attempt to apply the principles of this book to this blog entry about it.

CAPTURE
Purpose (answers the question "Why?"): The stated purpose of this book was to share the story of Walter Gong and his learning/teaching model as well as some of the stories and elaborations of the people who learned from him.

Central Message (answers the question "What?"): The key attributes of learning/teaching success are roles, knowledge, and experiences and the simplest case of learning and teaching is the three-person problem, in which the learner becomes the teacher for another individual.

In this model, a person must envision himself as both a learner and a teacher. Knowledge is a fourfold framework composed of purpose, central message, validations/applications, and values; this knowledge can be repackaged into a story, image or example that is easy to study and remember (called a reference example). Walter Gong described four experiences: Capture, Expansion, Teaching, and Evaluation.

Validations and Applications (answers the question "How?"):

Susan Gong provides examples for how to use the Fourfold framework for Capture. She applies the framework to describe the scientific thinking that guided Newton and Einstein and shows how the framework can be used to extract meaning from the story of Cinderella and the Declaration of Independence. Susan Gong also provides criteria for evaluating a capture. A capture should be concise, complete, correct and connected.
The process of expansion may include the activities of reorganization, assimilation, application, research, and evaluation. However, the implementation of these activities vary depending on whether you agreed, disagreed, or were indifferent to the knowledge captured.
When teaching, it is important that an individual not to simply provide others with his own completed capture, but to create experiences for others that allow them to create their own captures. It is also important for the individual teaching to capture knowledge provided by his students.
Examples of parents using the framework with their children.
Example of a professor using the framework for an online course.

Values (answers the question "So what?"):
The model of learning presented in this book is clearly based on Christian values as interpreted by the doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Still, the central value professed is the Golden Rule, "Love thy neighbor as thyself" and Susan Gong establishes the universality of this value by quoting similar statements from Mohammed, Buddha and Hindu literature.

Expansion will have to wait for a future entry.

The Learning Paradigm

2007-07-02T11:09:00.000-07:00

I used to think that the focus of my efforts in education would be at the secondary level, but now that I have I just finished reading The Learning Paradigm College, I feel I may have more success changing secondary education by changing higher education.

In his book, John Tagg, describes the instruction paradigm, which he claims pervades our entire educational system. I agree with him. Our educational system teaches students a surface orientation toward learning. (Side note: I believe the Carnegie unit to be the bane of my existence). I think most successful students recognize school as an obstacle to be overcome. The basic rule of the game is to "find out what the teacher wants and give it to her." As educators, we profess the desire to create "lifelong learners", but our institutions, kindergarten through university, are not set up to do so.

After describing the instruction paradigm, Tagg suggests a new vision for our educational system, the learning paradigm. In the process, he suggests a number of questions for us to ask ourselves, including:

What are colleges for?
Who shall learn what and how shall they learn it?
How can we prepare students not for this or that, but for the different?
Think what it would mean to create a learning-centered university. What would you do? What kind of majors would you have? What kind of general education would you have?
What do you want your students to do? to be? to become?

He also suggests a number of questions to pose to our students?

What do they think has been important in their own education?
Do they believe that they will have to reflect on their own beliefs and make thoughtful decisions about the course of their life to get a college degree?
Do they believe they will have to get high scores on multiple choice tests to get a college degree?
Who am I?
What do I value?
What is my worldview?
How do I learn?
How can I connect (and balance) my professional and personal life?
Why and how does this object of learning, the subject or knowledge being put before me now, matter? Or does it?

In the book, Tagg recognizes several institutions as making significant progress toward replacing the instructional paradigm with the learning process. Here are some sample broad-level outcomes identified by these institutions of higher education: communication, problem solving, valuing in decision-making, social interaction, global perspectives, effective citizenship, aesthetic responsiveness, critical thinking, effective writing, effective oral communication, library and information literacy, computer competence, creative thinking and problem solving, quantitative reasoning, moral reasoning, appreciation, collaboration, conceptual, implementation, inquiry, presentation, materials, technology, qualification, and quantification.

One of the points that Tagg makes is that individual teachers have limited ability to combat institutional ills. This doesn't mean that I shouldn't attempt to implement the principles of the learning paradigm in my classroom, but that effective implementation will require interdisciplinary cooperation.

Compendium

2007-06-26T20:02:00.000-07:00

I have found a great open source software tool for mind mapping (at least the kind of mind mapping that works best for me) and note taking. I am using it to organize my research and my thinking for my projects and dissertation. I find it particularly useful for this purpose because I can make external links to websites and files such as pdf documents. I am also using it to take notes during my Learning Theory class this term. The first day of class was today so it might be the novelty of the tool, but I did pay more attention than I usually do in classes. I'm curious to see what the mind map will look like by the end of the course.

I think I will recommend this tool to students when I teach, but I might want to look into the literature on assessment using concept/mind mapping before I formally include it in any course that I teach.

You can find it for yourself at the following website:

http://www.compendiuminstitute.org

Enjoy!

Exercise: 1

2007-06-22T08:10:00.000-07:00

Last fall, I participated in a graduate seminar on scholarly writing. As new PhD student with no publications to my name, I felt that I contributed little to the discussions, but I feel that I gained a lot. One thing the seminar emphasized was the importance of writing daily. It took several months, but I am finally attempting to develop the habit of writing daily.

The seminar also introduced me to the book Writing for Scholarly Publication by Anne Huff. The book encourages readers to think of individual scholarly publications as part of larger, ongoing conversations. Before publishing, an aspiring writer should discover which conversation or conversations she desires to join.

I am one year into my program and I am beginning to develop clear research interests. I think I'm now at a point where I can begin to apply what I learned in the seminar and from the book. The book suggests a number of exercises for aspiring scholarly writers. The first is, "Identify the people, topics, and specific works that provide the intellectual foundation of your project." I'm going to do some library legwork and then report back in a week or so.

Learning Outcomes

2007-06-21T15:46:00.000-07:00

My department chair recently sent all of the students a link to the newly revised "Learning Outcomes" for my PhD program. When I finished here, it's expected that I will be able to:

Demonstrate the ability to produce appropriate written and oral professional communications.
Critique professional communications produced by others.
Manage projects, including planning, budgeting of time and resources, and implementation of work plans.
Teach competently, employing appropriate technological means.
Act in harmony with professional standards and the aims and goals of BYU education.
Demonstrate the ability to use technology tools in the production and operation of instruction.

The curriculum requires that I complete a dissertation and two projects. The department's "Learning Outcomes" website does a good job showing how the projects and the dissertation lead to the desired outcomes. I also feel that the internship requirement naturally supports the outcomes.

What about all the other classes I have to take? I think that some of the classes that I have taken directly contribute to the learning outcomes. Others do not. Will there be a concerted effort by the faculty to align individual courses to the learning outcomes? I hope so. It would be nice to practice what we preach.

Emerging Research Questions

2007-06-20T09:13:00.000-07:00

I've written very little on this blog about my actual "work in progress." Instead, I've been focusing on summarizing and/or reflecting on a backlog of reading and course work. I haven't quite reached the end of the old stuff, but I feel that I've gone through enough of it that I can bring myself back to the present. So . . .

I am on the evaluation team at the Center for Teaching and Learning at a large, private university. I have been tasked with the continuous evaluation of the University's course management software (Blackboard 6.0). For the past several weeks, I've been reviewing and coding faculty and student comments from open-ended survey items about Blackboard and as a result am in the process of become the local expert on faculty and student perceptions of the software and its implementation. As I've examined the data, I've become curious about a couple of things.

The list of student-recommended "good Blackboard users" and faculty-recommended "good Blackboard users" has almost no overlap--only one name. Why? I find myself wondering if faculty and student perceptions of "good Blackboard use" differ.
When asked to describe their best use of Blackboard, nearly all faculty describe administrative uses of Blackboard. Students list similar administrative uses, but several also comment on the large number of unused instruction features. It is fairly clear that Blackboard as it is currently used at this institution is predominantly an administrative tool. However, I wonder if I can find examples of professors at this institution who are successfully using Blackboard as a transformative instructional tool.

So, I've been given permission by my boss to conduct follow-up studies to answer my questions, which is great. I may even be tasked with creating a "Best Practices" guide to be used in training sessions at the university. I'm beginning to think that there is a germ of a dissertation buried in all this work.

Project Management: The Book

2007-06-19T07:38:00.000-07:00

For my project management class, I read Project Management by Gary Heerkens. I now work in an organization that uses formal project management, so the things I studied have become more relevant to me. As a result, I've decided to sum up some of what the book taught.

First, a project is a well-defined collection of tasks that generally results in the creation of one or more deliverables following a schedule in the process. Projects are one time deals that use resources and entail some risk.

The project cycle can be divided into eight steps, each falling into one of four phases. Under some of the steps, I've outlined the necessary parts of documents produced during that step.

Initiation phase

Identify and frame the problem or opportunity

Requirements Document

Description of the problem or opportunity
Impact or effects of the problem
Identification of who or what is impacted by the problem
Impact of ignoring the problem or opportunity
Desired outcome
Value or benefit associated with achieving desired outcome (including intangibles)
Strategic fit
Uncertainties and unknowns
Key assumptions
Constraints
Environmental considerations
Background or supporting information

Identify and define the best project solution

Project Definition Document

Problem need or opportunity
Proposed Solution
Statement of work and strategy for execution
Major deliverables
Completion criteria
Risks, uncertainties, and unknowns
Assumptions
Preliminary execution plan
Project stakeholders
Success criteria

Project Proposal

Needs statement
Background
Recommended action
Benefit
Action risk
Inaction risk
Costs
Cost savings
Schedule
Metrics
Unknowns and uncertainties
Assumptions
Constraints
Liaison
Impact on others
Sponsorship
Critical success factors

Planning phase

Identify task and resource requirements
Prepare the schedule and resource allocation

Network or logic diagram

Estimate project costs and prepare project budget

Execution phase

analyze risk and establish stakeholder relationships
Maintain control and communicate as needed during project execution

Close-out phase

Manage to an orderly close-out

Punch list
Lessons learned studies

Project teams evolve over time, moving through four stages: forming, storming, norming, and performing. Some basic meeting types include: progress, decision, agreement, information, opinion, instruction, and review. Project success can be measured on four levels: meeting project targets, project efficiency, customer or user utility, and organizational improvement.

Quick reference guide to useful information in the book:

Practical Tips for Creating a Motivational Climate (p. 20)
Functional Competencies of the Project Manager (p.41-43) (one of my classmates suggested that this list would be a good tool for self-evaluation)
Screening Candidates for Your Team (p. 82)
Common problems encountered on projects (p. 146)
Interviewing Techniques (p. 182)
Communication Skills and the Project Manager (p.214-215) (another useful tool for self-evaluation)
Sample Voice of the Customer questionnaire (p. 217)
Project Completion Checklist (p. 236)

Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge: A Framework for Teacher Knowledge

2007-06-18T13:38:00.000-07:00

I read this article by Punya Mishra and Matthew J. Koehler at the request of the professor supervising the undergraduate course that I will be teaching this fall, Instruction Technology in Teaching. The professor is redesigning the course based on the conceptual framework presented in the article. Below is a diagram taken from page 1025 of issue of the journal Teachers College Record in which the article appeared.

The diagram summarizes the central concept of the article, that a teacher's technological knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and content knowledge interact in complex ways. The implication is that teacher training that attempts to decontexualize technology skills will prove ineffective at changing classroom practice.

I like the framework presented in the article, but I feel that their case studies exemplified technological pedagogical knowledge rather than technological pedagogical content knowledge. I'm not yet sure how I'm going to incorporate the TPCK framework into my class in the fall, but we're working on it.

If you'd like to read the article yourself, you can access it here.

Project Management: The Class

2007-06-15T10:01:00.000-07:00

As I take classes, I often try to think how I might teach the same material. When I took Project Management, I enjoyed the format of the class and found both the class activities and readings to be useful. However, I had difficulty with the course requirement of managing a small project. To gain the experience that I think our professors were hoping to create for us, I feel we needed to have projects that involved managing other people. Not all of us had project teams, though I think that we all had projects that could have benefited from additional team members.

If I were to teach the course, I would redesign it so that each of class member would be assigned as a team member on at least one project managed by another classmate. The size of the project teams would vary depending on the enrollment of the class. Each class member (project manager) would have to write a proposal (in response to an RFP provided by the professors) that explains how their proposed project meets class requirements (laid out in the RFP) and how the team of classmates that they are assembling has the experience to achieve the project goals. The professors (in their role as bosses) could impose changes to the proposals as necessary. These changes could include reassigning team members to better suit the needs of the organization (the class as a whole). Class members would evaluate each other in their roles of team members or as project managers. After the projects are completed, each class member would lead a discussion on how their project could have been better managed.

Qualitative Inquiry

2007-06-12T15:21:00.000-07:00

I am currently working on creating a "mind map" of what I have learned from my qualitative inquiry course this term as one of the final assignments for the course. I have gone back through my readings and some of my assignments to create a list of important terms relating to qualitative inquiry. At this moment, I am trying to think of how best to arrange them to show how I perceive the connections between them. However, the list includes more than 100 terms and I do not think I need to try to fit them all on my "map". So, I thought I might use writing to help me figure out the terms that I believe are most important to include.

Looking at the terms on my list, I can see certain categories. I have a long set of terms on methods of data collection. I have a smaller, but still significant set of terms related to analysis. Another significant set of terms relates to standards for evaluating qualitative studies. I believe that the data collection terms could be subdivided into two subsets, one for sources/methods and another for record-keeping.

I noticed that my list is short on terms describing approaches to qualitative research. This leads me to a critique, perhaps even a criticism, of the course. The only approach that the professor introduced us to any depth was that of phenomenology as described by Max van Manen. I think we would have been better served by spending less time discussing phenomenology in class and more time reading and discussing other approaches.

As I take classes, I try to think about how I would teach the same material. If I were teaching this class, I would do many things the same way as my professor. I liked that the professor gave us opportunities to apply what we were learning to our own projects, so I would continue to require students to conduct their own "mini-study". I also liked the assignment that we had of reading and critiquing a qualitative study of our own choice, so I would give the same assignment. Additionally, I noticed from the syllabus that when this class is taught in a semester rather than a term, each class member is required to find, read, and report on a separate book on qualitative research methodology. I think this would have been a valuable activity for me, so I would require it as well (at least in semester long courses).

Because I would have liked more practice using specific techniques, I would change the structure of class somewhat. I think for the first half of the semester, I would require students to conduct a qualitative study of the class. Each student would be required to develop their own focus for their study of the class. Their class notes would then become their field notes, to be expanded after class. Certain class discussions/interactions could be recorded (audio or video) and as homework, students could access electronic copies to to practice transcription using open-source software. I think it would be valuable to have students compare field notes they have taken to video-recordings to see what they observe. It would also be interesting to have students discuss the differences in their perceptions as recorded in their field notes. We would then discuss any differences in transcriptions and later use the transcriptions to practice coding, and discuss the coding (and coder reliability issues) in class. Additionally, students would be required to interview a number of their classmates (the number would depend on the number of students enrolled in the class). The required readings for class would be viewed as part of a document review. Each student would be required to analyze his or her results and present them as a mid-term assignment. Then, during the second half of the class, students would conduct their own studies, perhaps in teams, and we would use class time to discuss the progress of their research, review literature relevant to the methodology of their study, and to review additional techniques required to conduct their studies.

Reinventing Government

2007-06-11T12:25:00.000-07:00

Not much of Reinventing Government is applicable to my current line of work. Still, if my career path turns back towards public policy, it raises a number of interesting ideas. The authors suggest that governments ask themselves, "How could we profit from solving this problem?" This is a question that schools and institutions of higher education should be asking as well. Something I'd be interested in doing in the future is to compare their list of alternatives to standard service delivery to Eugene Bardach's list of "Things Governments Do" in his A Practical Guide for Policy Analysis.

Additionally, there were several programs described in the book that I'd like to learn more about. These include:

District 4 in east Harlem
HIPPY in Arkansas
Governance Management Teams in New Haven, Connecticut
councils that run public schools in Chicago
Kenilworth-Parkside Community
Fox Valley Technical College in Wisconsin

Power, Knowledge, and Politics

2007-06-08T08:18:00.000-07:00

This is yet another book that I read while I was working for the state legislature after completing my master's in public policy. Power, Knowledge, and Politics: Policy Analysis in the States by John A. Hird, was a recommendation from the office librarian.

Policy analysis, according to Hird, involves structuring knowledge about public policy options in order to help policymakers make informed decisions. Some of this knowledge is specific to the public policy problem being discussed, but sometimes, according to Hird, the knowledge is much more general, such as providing a state legislator with knowledge about opportunity costs, sunk costs, or conceptions of the public good.

Hird quoted Peter Szanton who advised that policy analysts must "develop deep expertise" within their issues by long exposure to them in order to recognize opportunities for change, and the crucial evidence to support change. Analysts must appear authoritative and convincing and be determined to present their findings as often and as in as many places as required. Other authors would describe this type of analyst as a "policy entrepreneur" who is taking advantage of "policy windows". Hird also quoted Mary Joe Bane who stated, "The most important thing we should do, I believe, is to shift our perception from seeing ourselves mostly as expert problem solvers to seeing ourselves mostly as participants in democratic deliberation."

I turned down a full-time policy analysis job at a small, non-partisan think-tank in order to continue my education. I am studying Instructional Psychology and Technology, which may seem like a huge deviation from public policy until you consider that my concentration was education policy and my other master's degree is in curriculum and instruction; plus, I taught secondary school science for six years. I would like to apply my education and experience to education reform. The central question that Hird poses in the beginning of his book is, "If knowledge is power, then what type of knowledge is powerful, and in which circumstances is it most likely to be used?" I believe Hird's question has as much or perhaps even more relevance for educators as it does for policy analysts, but I fear that we don't ask it often enough.

Effective Communication with Legislators

2007-06-08T07:05:00.000-07:00

The following suggestions are quoted from Inside the Legislative Process, a manual published by the National Conference of State Legislators. I read this manual last summer when I was working for the state legislature, shortly after receiving my master's degree in public policy. Suggestions 1, 2, 4 and 9 are most relevant to my work with legislators as I try to evaluate the Legislators Back to School Program.

Know who your legislators are and how to contact them.
Understand the legislative process. Even the most basic understanding of the process will help you more effectively express your ideas and improve the timeliness of your communications.
Contact your legislator about a particular issue before the legislature takes action on it.
Use a variety of communication methods. Telephone, write, visit, email or fax your legislator. Also consider giving testimony at public hearings held by the legislature.
Do not assume that a lawmaker has prior knowledge of an issue. Thousands of bills are introduced into the legislatures each year, so a legislator personally may not know each one.
Tell your legislator what effect you think a particular bill will have if it becomes law. Use personal or local community examples concerning the effects. Be specific and concise, and use your own words.
Suggest a course of action or offer alternatives.
Be polite even if you strongly disagree with the legislator. There are many sides to every issue and each one has merit. Try to understand the difficulty lawmakers may have reaching their decisions.
Lawmakers split their time between their legislative districts and the capitol. While at the capitol, they often must attend committee or caucus meetings and floor sessions. Therefore, it usually is best to prearrange personal visits with legislators and determine a meeting hour and length that is convenient for all parties.

Evaluating Survey Questions

2007-06-06T09:28:00.001-07:00

(The following information is adapted from Survey Methodology.)

All of the questions in a survey should be evaluated to see if they meet content, cognitive, and usability standards. The content standard asks if the questions are asking what they are meant to ask. The cognitive standard asks if respondents understand the questions and if so, are they able and willing to answer the questions. The usability standard asks if the respondents (and interviewers, if used) can complete the questionnaire as intended and without problems.

The following are types of problems that would affect whether or not a survey question meets the above standards:

grammatical ambiguity (vague or ambiguous noun phrases, vague or imprecise predicate or relative terms)
excessive complexity (complex syntax)
misleading or incorrect presupposition
vague concepts
vague quantifiers
unfamiliar terms (technical terms, etc.)
false inferences
memory problems (working memory overload, difficult to recall information)
respondent unlikely to know the answer
unclear question purpose
unclear question categories
amalgamation of more than one question category

Some ways to evaluate questions include:

Expert review (can flag ambiguous terms and concepts, response tasks that are difficult to perform)
Focus group discussions (can identify words that are not consistently understood, ambiguous or heterogeneous, and questions that respondents are unable to answer)
Cognitive interviews

concurrent think-alouds
retrospective think-alouds
Confidence ratings
Paraphrasing
Definitions (in which respondents define key terms in the question)
Probes (follow up questions designed to reveal response strategies)

Field pretests
Randomized or split-ballot experiments

Writing Survey Questions

2007-06-06T08:51:00.000-07:00

The following suggestions are adapted from Sudman and Braeburn's guidelines for writing good questions in Survey Methodology.

For nonsensitive questions about behavior, make the questions as specific as possible and if the question is close-ended, be sure to include "all reasonable possibilities as explicit response options". Be sure to use vocabulary that nearly all respondents will understand. To help respondents remember, add memory cues. You may use a life event calendar to improve reporting over long recall periods. You may also ask respondents to refer to household records, if appropriate. If you are asking questions about infrequent, but important (at least for your study) events, consider asking respondents to keep a diary.

For sensitive questions about behavior, it is best to use open-ended questions to ask about the frequency of sensitive behaviors, you may even want to think about collecting data in diaries. Use longer questions that are deliberately loaded (i.e. everybody does it it, authorities recommend it, assume the behavior, reasons for doing it approaches) in order to reduce misreporting. When you ask about sensitive behaviors, start by asking about long time frames, like an entire lifetime, or about times far in the past and place sensitive questions together to make them stand out less. Use self-administration (or similar methods) to improve reporting. Include items at the end of the survey to assess the how sensitive the key questions were. Validate! Validate! Validate!

For attitude questions, clearly specify the attitude object and use close-ended questions with 5-7 point response scales. Label every scale point, starting from the low end. Be sure to measure the strength of the attitude, even if it takes a separate survey item. Use bipolar items whenever possible. Carefully consider which alternatives to mention in the question because they can have a big impact on the answers. If you are measuring change over time, make sure that you ask the same questions each time. Move from general questions to specific questions about any given topic. When asking about several topics, start with the least popular one. Only use rankings if respondents can see all the alternatives at once. If they can't, use paired comparisons. Do not use "Check all that apply" items.

For self-administered questions, be sure that you are asking only one question at a time. Place directions where they are going to be used, and make them highly visible. If information is to be used together, place it together. Use visual guides consistently to direct the respondent through the survey, especially if the survey changes conventions part way through.

Commitment

2007-05-31T17:31:00.000-07:00

My doctoral program requires two projects in addition to a dissertation. I am planning to complete an evaluation project and a design project. I now work at the evaluation team at an instructional design center, so many suitable projects will fall into my lap over the next few months. However, I already started work on an evaluation project last fall. In the beginning, my enthusiasm for the project was at best, lukewarm. I was going through the motions of writing an evaluation proposal to fulfill a requirement for my evaluation class. As things began to come together, I began to think that maybe this could really work to fulfill my project requirement . . . if nothing better came along. This spring, I have been taking a qualitative inquiry class and used the same project as my study for the course. Originally, my intent was to simply fulfill the course requirement of conducting a small study without having to go to the trouble of thinking of something else, but a strange thing has happened. I've become invested in the project; I want to see it through. I am making a commitment to finish this project this fall.

Survey Methodology, etc.

2007-05-30T11:29:00.000-07:00

Last summer, I conducted a web-based survey of charter schools in states of specific interest in order to gain information for a government report with which I was assisting. To prepare, I read a three survey methodology texts: Survey Methodology, Notes on Designing and Conducting Survey Research, and Methods for Testing and Evaluating Survey Questionnaires. I will be creating surveys for my new position as well, so here is my attempt to record some of the practical suggestions from those books.

The survey research process can be divided into the following stages: identification of the focus of the study and method of research, creation of the research schedule and budget, establishment of an information base, creation of a sampling frame, determination of the sample size and sample selection process, design of the survey instrument, pretest of the survey instrument, selection and training of interviewers (if necessary), implementation of the survey, codification of the completed questionnaires and computerized data entry, analysis of the data, and creation of the final report. While telephone surveys can sometimes be completed in under two weeks, mailed surveys take 3-4 months, and in-person surveys take even longer. Some good sources of population lists from which to create sampling frames include voter registration lists, water and electricity lists, the Department of Motor Vehicles, mailing services, and magazine/newspaper subscriber lists.

Except when introducing bias is a major concern, surveys should contain a brief introductory statement including the name of the organization or agency that is conducting the study and a description of the relationship between that organization and the potential respondent, the objectives and goals of the study and the significance of the results to the respondents, a description of how the respondents were selected for the survey, an assurance of the value of the respondents' participation in the survey and of confidentiality. If the survey is being conducted over the phone or in person, the interviewer should provide an estimate of the amount of time it will take to complete the survey; mailed surveys need return mail instructions.

Designing and Conducting Survey Research suggests a target response rate of 70% for mailed surveys. To reduce nonresponse the authors suggest that four weeks after the initial mailing, send a follow up letter stressing the importance of responding; this letter should contain a second copy of the survey. Six weeks after the initial mailing, give nonrespondents a reminder call and eight weeks after the initial mailing deliver another follow-up letter, this time using certified mail.

It takes somewhere between 12-50 individuals to reveal weaknesses in a questionnaire during pretesting. It is important to test the usability of the questionnaire as well as the questions themselves, especially with computer questionnaires. Generally, children under 7 cannot be expected to complete cognitive interviews about survey questionnaires.

For nominal and ordinal data, bar graphs or pie charts are the most appropriate graphic displays. Bar graphs, frequency polygons and pie charts will all work for data with equal intervals. For data with unequal intervals, frequency polygons work well for all audiences, and bar graphs and pie charts work well for non-technical audiences, while histograms are appropriate for technical audiences.

The appropriate test of statistical significance for nominal data is the Chi-square test, for ordinal data, the median test, and for interval data, the difference of means tests works when there are two categories of independent variables, while analysis of variance works when there are 3 categories of independent variables.

The above notes came from Notes on Designing and Conducting Survey Research, and Methods for Testing and Evaluating Survey Questionnaires. Truthfully, I found Survey Methodology much more informative than either of the other two books, but I'm struggling to condense the information in my notes. Still, here is a list of important questions to ask when beginning a new survey (from Survey Methodology):

What is the target population?
What is the sampling frame?
What is the sample design (how do you select the respondents)?
What is the mode of data collection?
Is it on-going or one-time?
How will the potential sample members be identified and selected?
What approach will be taken to contact those sampled and how much effort will be devoted to trying to collect data from those who are hard to reach or reluctant to respond?
How much effort will be devoted to evaluating and testing questions that are asked?
What mode will be used to pose questions and collect answers from respondents?
If interviewers are involved, how much effort will be devoted to training and supervising interviewers.
How much effort will be devoted to checking the data files for accuracy and internal consistency?
What approach will be used to adjust the survey estimates to correct for errors that are identified?

Developing Focus Group Research

2007-05-30T10:32:00.000-07:00

I just finished the second of the two focus group books that my boss gave me to read. Developing Focus Group Research provided some practical advice for moderating focus groups that Focus Groups did not, but for me, the most interesting chapters were those on analysis. Chapter 12, stressed the importance of interpreting the meaning of statements made during focus groups in context. It also provided useful information on conventions for making detailed transcriptions:

underlining -- for stressed syllables
. -- for pauses
/ -- for the onset of overlap
= = -- turns following without any gap
( ) -- inaudible section
[ ] -- comments added to transcription.

I found Chapter 11 even more interesting. This chapter described the analytic induction applied to focus groups.

Step 1: read the transcript all the way through.
Step 2: re-read and assign broad, general index codes as you read.
Step 3: As new index codes emerge in later transcripts, cycle back and add the new index code (where appropriate) to previously coded transcripts. Remember, index codes are like chapter headings and subheadings. When you go back to recode, you don't need to re-read the entire transcript, only the sections that have been coded with the appropriate "parent" index code.

As I read, the method seemed vary similar to the negative case analysis technique that we have been discussing in my qualitative methods course. It turns out that the other name for analytic induction is 'deviant case analysis'. Developing Focus Group Research is a UK text, and I am fairly confident that negative case analysis and deviant case analysis are really the same thing; as usual though, it sounds more interesting with a British accent.

Researching Lived Experience

2007-05-28T16:55:00.000-07:00

I am currently taking a qualitative research course and just finished reading Researching Lived Experience, one of the required texts for the class. In the preface, the author, Max van Manen, states that his purpose is "to introduce and explicate a hermeneutic phenomenological approach to human science research and writing." Chapters 1 and 2 introduced the hermeneutic phenomenological approach to human science research and writing and I felt that chapters 3, 4, and 7 presented information that explained how one might apply a hermeneutic phenomenological approach to phenomenon of interest. I have to confess that I am unlikely to become a phenomenologist in my own research. Overall, I believe the book is more likely to impact my lived experiences than my research, but I did find some of van Manen's statements intriguing.

Early in the book, van Manen asserts, "Then research is a caring act" (p. 5), an assertion at odds with traditional conceptions of research as dispassionate and objective, but van Manen challenges traditional conceptions of objectivity and subjectivity as well:

"Thus 'objectivity' means that the researcher is oriented to the object, that which stands in front of him or her. Objectivity means that the researcher remains true to the object. The researcher becomes in a sense a guardian and a defender of the true nature of the object. He or she wants to show it, describe it, interpret it while remaining faithful to it--aware that one is easily misled, side-tracked, or enchanted by extraneous elements. 'Subjectivity' means that one needs to be as perceptive, insightful, and discerning as one can be in order to show or disclose the object in its full richness and in its greatest depth. Subjectivity means that we are strong in our orientation to the object of study in a unique and personal way--while avoiding the danger of becoming arbitrary, self-indulgent, or of getting captivated and carried away by our unreflected preconceptions." p. 20

Having an undergraduate degree in Forestry and Wildlife, I am familiar with orienteering and easily see an analogy between a compass bearing, which if followed, will lead to a location and a research orientation, which if followed, will lead to a true understanding of the object of study. However, I have more difficulty seeing subjectivity as a strength.

Anyway

2007-05-27T13:57:00.000-07:00

The book Anyway by Kent Keith was a gift from my boss at my last job; I wasn't singled out, he bought copies for the entire staff. As I do (eventually) with most books that fall into my hands, I read it. It was a quick read and I'm only going to address a few things here.

First, Keith wrote, "If in doubt about whether a person is in need, think about the basics. People need food, clothing, and shelter. They need friends. They need meaningful activities. By observing, asking, and listening, you can identify needs and learn how best to meet them." This statement reminds of the idea of safety in Crucial Conversations. Before a person feels safe enough to add to the pool of shared meaning, you may have to work hard to meet their needs.

Keith also wrote, "This is the life you are given. Your job is to make the most of it. It doesn't matter what the world does in response. Personal meaning comes from giving the world your best, no matter what." I found this statement consistent with the idea of Covey's principle-centered life.

Finally, Keith wrote, "We need results and should focus on getting them. When we get negative feedback, we need to reconsider what we are doing. What did we learn? Should be do it differently next time? Are we really helping? Is there a better way to help? Would someone else be a better person to help? It is important to listen, observe, ponder, and make appropriate adjustments. But learning and adjusting are very different from giving up. You should not give up just because you weren't treated nicely or your efforts weren't as successful as you had hoped." This statement reminded me of the self-questioning encouraged in both Crucial Conversations and Bonds that Make Us Free. Additionally, it reminded me of another purpose for this blog, learning and adjusting. This should be the last reflection on my self-help/inspirational reading, at least for while.

Crucial Conversations, etc.

2007-05-27T12:40:00.000-07:00

Last semester I took a Project Management Course. During the course, the professor recommended that we read the book Crucial Conversations, so I downloaded it from audible.com. According to the authors, a crucial conversation is "A discussion between two or more people where (1) stakes are high, (2) opinions vary, and (3) emotions run strong." I rarely have opportunities for crucial conversations in my life because I rarely run into high-stakes issues. Still, I found the advice in the book sound and feel that it could help me improve my interactions with others. The book introduced the idea of a "pool of shared meaning", which is composed of the thoughts and feelings of all parties in a discussion. Dialogue is only successful when all feel comfortable adding to the pool.

To participate in dialogue appropriately, one should ask oneself, "What do I really want for myself? What do I really want for others? What do I really want for the relationship? How would I behave if I really wanted these results?" Also, one should also strive to avoid "suckers choices" that result from an either/or mentality.

When people feel threatened they either withdraw or attack (referred to as silence or violence in the book). One should always be on the lookout for signs that people don't feel safe. Common signs of silence include, masking or understating one's opinion, avoiding the issue, or withdrawing completely from the conversation. Some common forms of violence include coercion, labeling, and outright belittling or threatening.

In order to make it safe, one should establish a mutual purpose, meaning "that others perceive that we are working toward a common outcome in the conversation, that we care about their goals, interests, and values. And vice versa. We believe they care about ours." Ask oneself, "Do others believe I care about their goals in this conversation? Do they trust my motives?" When mutual purpose or mutual respect has been lost, first, apologize for mistakes made. Second, use contrasting to expressly state what you "don't" and "do" want to do. Address the other's concerns and confirm your respect and clarify your purpose. The authors use the acronym CRIB to list the steps to get mutual purpose. Commit to seek mutual purpose, Recognize the purpose behind the strategy, Invent a mutual purpose (if you reach an impasses, back up to a more encompassing long term goal that you can agree on), Brainstorm new strategies.

Another component to success at crucial conversations is the ability to recognize the stories that one tells oneself. Stories are one's interpretations of the facts. Victim, villain, and helpless stories are among the most dangerous stories to tell oneself. When one recognizes a victim story, it is important to ask, "What am I pretending not to notice about how I contribute to this problem? Am I minimizing my role while exaggerating the role of others?" With a villain story, ask, "what would cause a reasonable, rational, decent human being to do what they are doing?" With a helpless story, ask, "What do I really want? For me? For others? For the relationship? What would I do right now if I really wanted these results?"

In order to state one's case with out offending, honesty is key, but one also needs confidence, humility and skill. Another skill taught by the authors of the book is summed up in the acronym STATE: share your facts, tell your story, ask for others' paths, talk tentatively, and encourage testing.

When discussion turn ugly, use listening skills taught by AMPP and the ABCs. AMPP stands for: ask them to tell their stories, mirror to confirm feelings, paraphrase to acknowledge their story, and prime when you are getting nowhere (say what you think they are most likely to be feeling, but only if the other tools haven't worked). ABC stand for: agree where you do, build by adding in what others have left out, compare your two views without suggesting that the other person is wrong.

After reading, or more accurately, listening to Crucial Conversations, I read The Bonds that Make Us Free, recommended by the same Project Management professor, and How to Win Friends and Influence People. I felt that The Bonds that Make Us Free dealt with the idea of the "stories" that we tell ourselves, but much more deeply and completely than Crucial Conversations and I was honestly surprised by the worth of the advice in How to Win Friends and Influence People; the title had sounded manipulative to me, but the advice seemed genuine.

How to Win Friends and Influence People gives practical advice on becoming a friendlier person, much needed for an introvert like myself. The book advises people to smile and to remember people's names (and birthdays), basic social niceties that are often forgotten. Additionally, the book counsels not to criticize, condemn, or complain about others and to instead offer honest and sincere appreciation. These pieces of advice may seem like surface level fixes for a deeper problem, but the book also addresses the deeper issue of becoming genuinely interested in other people, listening to them and encouraging them to talk about themselves and their interests.

Dale Carnegie, the author of How to Win Friends and Influence People, also gives advice on leadership and persuasion. The advice is practical, but I feel that it could be enhanced by the skills taught it Crucial Conversations, especially the skill of questioning oneself and one's motives; winning people to your way of thinking will profit you nothing if your way of thinking is wrong.

The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People

2007-05-25T20:03:00.000-07:00

Last summer, the office library where I worked had a copy of The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People and going against long-held biases against self-help books, I chose to read it. The author, Stephen Covey, suggests that you read the book with the intent of sharing or discussing what you learn with within 48 hours after you learn it. A year is certainly more than 48 hours, but I guess now is better than never.

The first habit discussed in the book is “Be Proactive” and Covey quotes both Thoreau, “I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor” and Samuel Johnson, “The fountain of content must spring up in the mind, and he who hath so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition, will waste his life in fruitless efforts and multiply the grief he proposes to remove.” In my words, to be successful takes a conscious effort; one doesn’t stumble into success, at least not consistently. We will meet with the greatest success when we focus our efforts for improvement upon ourselves.

The second habit discussed in the book is “Begin with the End in Mind.” Covey challenges individuals to write a personal mission statement to clarify the ends they seek. He also introduces the idea of centers and explains that individuals center their lives on one of the following things: spouse, family, money, work, possession, enemy, church, self, and principle. The most successful and happiest people center their lives on principle. Organizational and family mission statements require involvement from everyone. If people are not involved, they will not be committed. Covey also suggests that a good affirmation is personal, positive, present tense, visual, and emotional. For example, “It is deeply satisfying (emotional) to me (personal) that I respond (present tense) with wisdom, love, firmness, and self-control (positive) when my children misbehave.” I took Covey’s challenge and wrote a personal mission statement. However, because it is personal, I will not be sharing it here. I am striving to be more consistently principle centered.

Covey’s Third Habit, “Put First Things First”, encourages individuals to identify roles, establish goals, set aside a specific day of the week for each goal, either as a priority item or as a specific appointment. I find it easy to do the things that I have set times for, but if I allow myself too much flexibility in scheduling, “some other time” becomes “no time”.

Habit 4 is “Think Win/Win”. My notes for this habit are almost nonexistent and I can not remember what I read a year ago, so my lack of information teaches the importance of rapid reflection. I think the habit sounds self-explanatory.

Habit 5 teaches, “Seek first to understand, then to be understood” and cautions that ethos and pathos should come before logos. Use empathic listening by trying to rephrase the content and reflect the feeling. Only offer advice when it is asked for, never before. Even then, you can only use logos (and give advice) as long as the other person is using logos. Once they start making emotional rather than logical statements, you need to return to empathic listening. I have to admit that I have yet to consciously try empathic listening.

Synergize is one of the many overused catch phrases in business settings today. It is also Covey’s Habit number 6. “Synergy” reminds me of the old adage, “Two heads are better than one.”

The 7^th habit, “Sharpen the Saw” addresses the need for constant renewal. Four specific areas mentioned are: Physical (Exercise, Nutrition, Stress Management), Social/Emotional (Service, Empathy, Synergy, Intrinsic Security), Spiritual (Value Clarification & Commitment, Study & Meditation), and Mental (Reading, Visualizing, Planning, Writing). The 7^th habit also addresses the need for persistence. As a graduate student, it would be easy to focus only on mental tasks, but I believe that one’s education is incomplete if one hasn’t learned balance. I am still working at it, but balance achieved through prioritization is a goal.

Focus Groups

2007-05-25T11:37:00.000-07:00

Last week, my boss told me that I need to become an expert in conducting focus groups. He then handed me two books, Focus Groups edited by Langford and McDonagh and Developing Focus Group Research edited by Barbour and Kitzinger. Today I finished one of them.

To be completely honest, I skipped all of Part II of Focus Groups because I wasn't interested in case studies of focus groups in the field of ergonomics. I focused on Part I--logistics for conducting focus groups and Part III-- a toolkit for conducting focus groups.

According to Langford and McDonagh, a focus group is “a carefully planned discussion, designed to obtain the perceptions of the group members on a defined area of interest.” Focus groups typically have between 5 and 12 participants. A researcher should conduct at least three separate sessions of a particular focus group topic. Focus groups can be used to obtain background knowledge, to evaluate insights from other research, to gain information on impressions and perceptions of existing or proposed services or for stimulating new ideas or concepts.

To properly plan for a focus group, a researcher must decide on the purpose and required outcomes of the research, identify the available resources, select the most appropriate methods and techniques, decide on the time scale, choose the criteria for selecting target participants. Once planning is complete, a researcher needs to recruit participants, prepare a moderators guide, set up the sessions, conduct the session, and analyze the session.

Most of the logistical information seemed to be common-sense advice. However, having only observed a focus group once in my life, I was unaware of the range of possible activities that could be conducted as part of a focus group. Focus Groups provides information on a range of techniques that can be used to to warm up focus group participants and to analyze problems, generate ideas, or evaluate concepts through focus group discussions.

Some of the techniques that I would be interested in trying in my own research include the idea of a pre-session workbook, a photographic record, a video record, a day in a life exercise, a round robin questionnaire, and a word map or a concept map. Word association brainstorming could also be useful. I can even see how product personality profiling could apply to some of my research. Attitudinal scaling and questionnaires could be useful as well.

As an educator, I couldn't help but think that like a focus group, a good university course should be "a carefully planned discussion," designed, at least in part, "to obtain the perceptions of the group members on a defined area of interest.” I wonder how focus group techniques could be used to improve the quality of discussion in university courses.

Progress Blog

2007-05-22T12:09:00.000-07:00

In the fall of 2006, I attended a seminar on scholarly writing. During the same period of time, I worked at the State Legislature in a room off of the office library. In the library, I found a shelf of books on the subject of writing and in between projects, I read them: Secrets of Successful Writing, Thinking on Paper, The Random House Guide to Good Writing, Writing on Both Sides of the Brain, and Style: Toward Clarity and Grace. At the end of the semester, I created an outline containing what I felt to be the best advice from each book. However, I never bothered to synthesize the nine page outline into an actual written work, until now.

Now that I have seen the writing process described in many different places, and I am fairly confident that there is no single writing process. One author divided the writing process into three steps: generating, composing, and expressing ideas. Another described a more recursive process that included “5 R’s”: ruminate, rapidwrite, retreat, revise, and repeat. I can see an overlap between ruminating and generating ideas. I can also see an overlap between rapidwriting and composing ideas, and between revising and expressing ideas. Still, my writing process doesn’t fit either model, though I often feel that I should attempt to impose more structure on my writing.

Several authors use prewriting techniques to help them generate ideas or ruminate on a topic. I collect notes on everything I have read, organize the notes by topic and then start turning notes into sentences and paragraphs. I have never used branching or mind-mapping, free-writing or rapidwriting. I do outline, but only for larger papers. From the perspective of some authors, it would seem that I tend to skip pre-writing entirely and move straight to composing.

I read that the tendency to write and edit simultaneously is the work habit at the source of nearly all writing problems. I am guilty even now. I rarely create multiple drafts of a work, though I am constantly editing. I cannot seem to free-write for fear of what will result. I cringe when I reread my own prose. I am cringing now. I haven’t deleted the file yet, so I suppose that I am permitting myself to write garbage, as one book suggested. We’ll see if my written garbage works as fertilizer.

Every writing book that I read agrees on the importance of writing daily. I took the advice of one book so far as to write across the cover of a new notebook, “Progress Log” in all capital letters, but months later, it remains empty. I suppose this “work in progress” is my “Progress Log”. After all, blogger will automatically date entries, including the time.

One author described writing as a tool of understanding. I have nine pages of outlined notes that I made as I read various books about writing and what I’ve written above only touches on two of the pages, but now I feel that I learned something about my writing that I hadn’t thought of before. I need to pre-write. Reflections on the rest of the writing process will come when I get there.

Situated Learning

2007-05-22T10:56:00.000-07:00

(I origninally wrote this for a class assignment in Fall of 2006.)

Published in 1991 by the Cambridge University Press, Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation introduced a new theory of learning. Co-authors, Jean Lave, PhD in social anthropology, and Etienne Wenger, PhD in artificial intelligence, initially intended to revive the age-old idea of apprenticeship but instead finished by describing all learning and learners in terms of social practice.

According to Lave and Wenger, learning can be characterized as “legitimate peripheral participation in communities of practice.” They further assert that legitimate peripheral participation cannot be broken into its component parts; there is no such thing as illegitimate peripheral participation. Learners in Lave and Wenger’s theoretical construct move from legitimate peripheral participation toward full participation in the community of practice.

The book itself is brief; Lave and Wenger use less than 100 pages to describe their theory. Chapter one introduces the concept of legitimate peripheral participation. Chapter two contrasts the new concept with conventional concepts about learning. Chapter three illustrates legitimate peripheral participation with examples pulled from a variety of historical and cultural forms of apprenticeships including midwives, tailors, US Navy quartermasters, butchers, and even members of Alcoholics Anonymous. Chapter 4 analyzes the components of legitimate peripheral participation including transparency and identity. Chapter 5 is the conclusion.

Lave and Wenger write clearly and concisely with directness and impact. They use the first person, so the reader never forgets that the ideas presented are the ideas of real people, grounded in the experience of years of research. The organization of the book seems organic, with each new idea growing out of the one before. The authors’ skill makes for an extremely readable piece of scholarship.

Situated Learning introduces a a conception of learning as inseparable from the social practices in which it occurs. The authors’ stated purpose was to “convey the perspectives [legitimate peripheral participation] opens and the kinds of questions it raises”. Lave and Wenger successfully introduce their readers to a new perspective on learning and raise more questions in the minds of their readers than they explicitly raise within the pages of the book. Situated Learning is a thought-provoking work.

As I reflected on the concepts presented in Situated Learning, the most fundamental question that I had was what constitutes a community of practice? By their own admission, in Situated Learning, Lave and Wenger leave the concept of a community of practice “as a largely intuitive notion” in need of a more “rigorous treatment”. Wenger has since written two books, Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity and Cultivating Communities of Practice: A Guide to Managing Knowledge. I imagine that these books further develop the idea of a community of practice. However, as described in Situated Learning, the concept is too vague to be useful; if every social situation can be considered a community of practice, then no social situation should be considered a community of practice. If learning is characterized as legitimate peripheral participation in a community of practice, is learning that takes place outside of a community of practice no longer to be considered learning? Or must the concept of a community of practice be stretched far enough to include individuals who are truly self-taught?

Lave and Wenger should take more care to delineate the boundaries of what does and does not constitute a community of practice.

Lave and Wenger illustrate the concept of legitimate peripheral participation by using examples drawn from apprenticeships. They contrast the idea of legitimate peripheral participation to situation of young people in schools. An elementary school student is legitimized in the adult world and occupies a peripheral position to the adult world, but is kept from participating in the adult world. Thus, school is not a community of practice where children learn to take on adult roles through legitimate peripheral participation. Lave and Wenger borrow the idea from Scribner and Cole that learning how to be student may be the major part of what school teaches.

Additionally, Lave and Wenger contrast legitimate peripheral participation with conventional concepts of learning as internalization. They assert that learning as increased participation within a community of practice is fundamentally different from learning as internalization. Learning through legitimate peripheral participation in a community of practice, they claim, shapes one’s identity. Perhaps nothing in this world is as personal and therefore internal as an individual’s identity. How can learning through practice affect identity if it is not somehow internalized? I believe there is a link between internalization and participation that Lave and Wenger ignore in Situated Learning.

Because of the limited scope of the examples that Lave and Wenger provide in Situated Learning, I find it increasingly difficult to apply their conceptual framework as situations decreasingly resemble apprenticeships. For example, I learned to knit from a CD-ROM that my mother gave me for Christmas several years ago; I have sought no further instruction and for me, knitting is a highly individualized pursuit. I can become an expert knitter through individualized practice without ever interacting with another human being on the subject of knitting. In what community am I practicing when I knit on my couch in the quiet hours of the evening?

It is equally problematic for me to reconcile the ideas of legitimate peripheral participation in communities of practice with the idea of learning from books. I grant that I learned the skill of reading in a community of practice; before I reached my fourth birthday, my parents had taught me to read and I had internalized a love of books. Since that time, my reading (at least outside of work and school) has become an increasingly idiosyncratic and individualized pursuit.

The activity of reading physically isolates an individual from the community for a time and depending on the material read, the reader may connect with an idealized or fantastical community of an author’s invention. How do Lave and Wenger define the community of practice for readers (or any pursuit with potential to become increasingly individualized as expertise is obtained)? At what point would Lave and Wenger say a reader reaches full participation in the community of practice of readers? Must they participate in book clubs? Must they write books themselves? Do dead authors participate in the living community of practice?

Lave and Wenger contrast their ideas with learning in abstraction—including learning from books. Many of the important lessons of my life have come from abstract ideas in books that I read and digested without the input of any living being. When I read Robinson Crusoe, on a treadmill at the gym, I internalized concepts of self-reliance and trust in Providence. When I read Vanity Fair, on a train in Scotland, I increased my awareness of my identity through the distinctions between my character and that of Becky Sharpe. In Situated Learning, Lave and Wenger ignore this type of abstract learning from literature that I have just described.

My characterization of Situated Learning may seem critical, but that is not my intention. My intent is to follow the lines of thought proposed by Situated Learning into conceptual arenas that the authors did not venture, the arenas of highly individualized pursuits. Their purpose was to propose new perspectives that raise new questions, a purpose that they carry-out admirably well. I recommend this book to any student of learning.

Introduction

2007-05-21T09:52:00.000-07:00

The purpose of this blog is to keep track of what I am learning as I work my way through my studies in instructional psychology and technology. It will be a work in progress documenting my progress in my work.

My current research interests:

evaluating the effectiveness of the Legislators Back to School Program
examining the self-theories [entity v. incremental] of pre-service and in-service teachers
investigating the use of blended learning in charter schools and virtual charter schools at the secondary level

My current work/school-related reading:

The Learning Paradigm College by John Tagg
Researching Lived Experience by Max van Manen
Focus Groups edited by Joe Langford and Deana McDonagh
Developing Focus Group Research edited by Rosaline S. Barbour and Jenny Kitzinger
Democracy and Education by John Dewey
The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman

My work/school-related reading within the past year:

Experience and Education by John Dewey
Project Management by Gary Heerkins
Crucial Conversations by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, Al Switzler
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
The Bonds that Make Us Free by C. Terry Warner
Program Evaluation by Jody Fitzpatrick, Blaine Worthen, and James Saunders
Situated Learning by Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger
The Child and the Curriculum by John Dewey
The School and Society by John Dewey
CSS Mastery by Andy Budd
Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug
Writing on Both Sides of the Brain by Henriette A. Klauser
Writing for Scholarly Publication by Anne Huff
Style: Toward Clarity and Grace by Joseph Williams
Random House Guide to Good Writing
Thinking on Paper by V. A. Howard
Secrets of Successful Writing by ????
Survey Methodology by Robert Groves
Designing and Conducting Survey Research by Louis M. Rea and
Richard A. Parker
Methods for Testing and Evaluating Survey Questionnaires by Stanley Presser
Reinventing Government by David Osborne and Ted Gaebler
Inside the Legislative Process by the National Conference of State Legislators
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey

I've been slow to act on a suggestion from a professor that I write daily. This blog is an effort to come closer to meeting that goal. I'm going to start by writing reflections on what I've been reading.