For November's Junto, let's continue with reading Weinberg's book, The Secrets of Consulting. We'll read and discuss chapters 4, 5, 11, and 14. This is 51 pages, but they're fairly fast reading.
Thanks!
Mark Werner
Additional Reading:
View the MindMap for Taking a Load Off a Learner's Mind!
Some questions to consider:
1) When do you see expert learners slip into novice learning mode? Why?
2) How can educators reduce cognitive load for novice learners?
3) Where should clicker questions fall in the learning task spectrum when teaching novice learners?
How does one become an expert learner? There are many ways to describe expert learners and theories about how to help others develop into expert learners. Given the uniqueness of each human being, would the most effective impartation from teachers occur one-on-one? How does self-knowledge play into becoming an expert learner?
Let me do and I understand: Cognitive Apprenticeship
At our last junto we discussed the state of Course Management Systems (CMS.) We talked about bringing survey questions to this meeting. This sparked a conversation with Mark and I about "how to write good survey questions?" This tapped into a significant portion of Mark's graduate work and he graciously offered to work together with me to select some readings that aim to "Demystify Research." Since we work with faculty to support them in their research, these readings are intended to help us to understand the challenges of developing research projects that provide reliable and valid data. One of the readings is also intended to shed light on the process of writing survey questions.
The readings are excerpted from two texts and are not available as pdf files. (39 pages.) Therefore, they have been copied and are located on a table outside of Mark's office in the Stadium. Please let me know if you need help getting a copy in time. Hope to see you Tuesday!
The topic for the next three meetings is focused on course management systems such as CULearn. For the first junto meeting on this topic, I have selected three shorter articles and divided up and assigned the one longer article labeled Model for CMF Research (Malikowski). I would like to follow Mark's model, and ask each of you to read and report on a segment of this paper.
The articles can be viewed or downloaded as pdfs from:
(I will send reminder log-in information to each of you by email. If you have trouble with any of this, I will send the articles to you individually upon request.)
When we get to the Junto, I will have an introduction and then have each of us summarize our section for the benefit of the group. My goal will be for us to have further insight into the current state of technology regarding course management systems and thoughts about its use and meaning in the future.
It is my hope that you will find this interesting. Thanks. Jill
I’d like to have everyone read this article by Roschelle, Jeremy, William Penuel, and Louis Abrahamson from AERA, San Diego, CA, 2004:
Then, I’d like to have each one of us take a second article and read it. When we get to the Junto, I’ll have us debrief on our article quickly and then we’ll try to get a discussion going from the various author’s points and from our own perspectives.
Hopefully this will be fun. -Mark
As the spring semester comes to a close, we look toward the summer as a time to reflect on the past year and consider what we could do better for the upcoming year. For this junto, let’s talk about helping faculty with this process in considering course redesign.
Have you ever wondered about the fact that all of us have such diverse educational and professional backgrounds, yet we bring to the table a shared set of skills and knowledge that helps us do our jobs effectively? I believe part of this has to do with a natural ability within each of us to understand adults as learners.
My background happens to be in adult education, so I thought I would introduce you to some theories and principles about adult learning. This understanding has really helped me learn to become a better facilitator of learning and a better learner. I hope you'll find this topic worthwhile too.
The first article will give you a down-and-dirty overview of adult learning theory. As you read it, you may very well recognize some of the same learner and instructor characteristics in yourself as well as in your students (i.e., the faculty we serve). The second article is intended to give you a sense of how these theories influence approaches to faculty development.
Some questions to consider are:
Thanks to Kimberly and Laura, there will be a screening of Declining by Degrees, the film that will serve as the basis for our next Junto, from 11-1p this coming Monday, February 5 in Telecom 215.
The documentary examines the challenges today's university faces, even suggesting that more interactive teaching (in this case, clickers) might help retain students and thus revenue streams.
Since I want to leave some time for us to talk about how things are going for us in our own positions, especially in light of the CULearn launch, I will keep questions short and sweet:
Hi Everyone,
The Sixth DATC Junto will be in UMC 404 from 11:00 to 12:30 on Tuesday, October 3rd.
The readings are:
The Young, Becker and Pike reading presents a heuristic for invention. I thought we could spend about half of the Junto talking about that. I've found their heuristic to be very helpful when my thinking gets stuck and I need to find a new perspective on a problem. I think this heuristic might be of use to DATCs as well. For this reading, don't worry too much about pp. 131-135; they go in-depth into a linguistic approach to the heuristic.
The Cooper reading presents models describing interface design. I think the concepts presented in the article could be quite helpful to DATCs as they work with faculty who are designing web spaces for their work.
Here are some things to think about as you read and prepare for Tuesday's discussion:
One way of thinking about DATC work is some assistance DATCs provide faculty members is helping them create analogs from the physical world to the information technology world. So for example, a DATC could help a professor create PowerPoint slides that match the overhead slides the professor used to use. Another method of assistance DATCs provide faculty members is in using information technologies in truly new and innovative ways. Here they move the professor out of the world of physical and mechanistic modes of using technologies into modes of using technologies that are possible because of the information technologies. One example might be working what-if scenarios in real time as professors analyze a data set. Another example might be creating a simulation that allows you to look at a data set from a perspective not seen before (for example the simulation Dave Underwood created where you fly towards a storm and then shift your perspective on the storm by 90 degrees nearly instantaneously). What do our readings tell you about helping faculty members in the latter mode? What methods can you use to engage faculty members in this more transformative use of information technologies?
I look forward to discussing these and other questions with you.
