Let's explore some cognitive scientists, educational researchers, and philosophers who argue their own visions of critical thinking based in diverse research traditions (e.g., Ennis, 1992; Facione, 1984; Halpern, 1993; Johnson, 1996; Lipman, 1988; McPeck, 1981; Paul, 1993; Perkins, Jay, & Tishman, 1993; Resnick, 1987).
References
•Perkins, D., Simmons, R. & Tishman, S. (1990). Teaching cognitive and metacognitive strategies. Journal of Structural Learning, 10(4), 285-303.
•Perkins, D., Jay, E., & Tishman, S. (1994). Assessing thinking: A framework for measuring critical thinking and problem solving at the college level. In A. Greenwood (Ed.), The national assessment of college student learning: Identification of the skills to be taught, learned, and assessed (pp. 65-112). Washington, DC: The US Government Printing Office.
•Tishman, S. (2005) From Edification to engagement: Learning designs in museums. College Art Association News, 30(5), 12-13, 41.
•Patterns of Thinking Project, Project Zero, supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, http://www.pz.harvard.edu/Research/PatThk.htm.
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Do Learning Styles Matter?
Coffield, F, Moseley, D, Hall, E & Ecclestone, K 2004, Learning styles and pedagogy in post-16 learning: a systematic and critical review, LSRC reference, Learning & Skills Research Centre, London.
The above report documents work from a project funded by the Learning and Skills Development Agency (LSDA) to carry out an extensive review of research on post-16 learning styles, to evaluate the main models of learning styles, and to discuss the implications of learning styles for post-16 teaching and learning. The authors identified 71 different theories of learning styles, while criticizing many instruments used to identify an individual's learning style. Coffield and his colleagues chose 13 of the models they regarded as most for closer scrutiny.
The models were classified on a continuum from theorists believing in strong genetic influences and inherited traits of interaction of personality and cognition (styles should be worked with not changed) to middle ground, models that work with an interplay of self and experience (experience and personality), and the other end of the continuum including personal and environmental factors (student choice in environment). These are models that are constitutionally based, reflecting cognitive structure, stable personality types, flexibly stable learning preferences, and learning approaches, strategies, orientations and conceptions of learning:
The report presents the origins and terms of each of the 13 models, and the instrument that was used to assess the learning styles defined by the model. They reviewed claims made by authors of each of the models' authors, research on the model, and evidence of the relationship between the 'learning style' identified by the instrument and students' actual learning. Coffield et al reported that none of the 13 models they assessed had been validated by independent research. they concluded that the concept of learning cycle, the consistency of visual, auditory and kinesthetic preferences and the value of matching teaching and learning styles were all "highly questionable."(Coffield 2004)
The Dunn and Dunn Learning Styles Inventory (LSI)is widely used in United States elementary schools, and Kolb's (LSI) and Honey and Mumford's Learning Styles Questionnaire are widely used in the United Kingdom.
Falling under the classification of constituionally based (the stongest belief in genetic determination for learning style), the learning styles model of Dunn and Dunn, a VAK (Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic) model, was assessed by the team. This model has widespread acceptance in the United States, and 177 articles have been published in peer-reviewed journals referring to this model. The conclusion of Coffield et al. was as follows:
David Kolb's model of learning styles, developed in the 1970's, was one of the most influential. Kolb was not satisfied with traditional teaching. When he experimented with teaching techniques, he observed student preferences for certain activities. His model defines a
'differential preference for learning, which changes slightly from situation to situation. At the same time, there is some long-term stability in learning style.' (Kolb 2000)
Kolb claims that the scored on the LSI are stable throughout a person's lifetime, a claim which has yet to be proved by longitudinal research. Kolb's publication, Experiential Learning: experience as the source of learning and development, in 1984, credited him with launching the modern learning styles movement. In 2000, a bibliography of research since 1971 on Kolb's LSI, containing 1004 entries, was produced by David Kolb and his wife Alice. The Dunn and Dunn website LSQ has a bibliography with 1140 entries. Articles about the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) between 1985 and 1995 are estimated to number about 2000. (Coffield 2004)
Anthony Gregorc built his learning styles model on Kolb's, differing in not representing the learning cycle derived from experiential learning. He described learning style as the manner in which the learner orders the concrete and abstract perceptions of her or his environment. Gregorc defines four distinct learning styles: Concrete Sequential (CS), Abstract Random (AR), Abstract Sequential (AS), and Concrete Random (CR). Grogorc claims that each style is associated with specific learning dispositions. A former educator himself, Gregorc argues that understanding learning styles is especially important for teachers. Gregorx believed that a misalignment of their own styles and the teaching methods will negatively impact students. (Greogr 2002) Coffield's team assessment of another constitutionally based model, Gregorc's Style Delineator (GSD), a 10-item self-report questionnaire requiring ranking of descriptors to the self, was that the model was
"theoretically and psychometrically flawed ...not suitable for the assessment of individuals." (Coffield 2004)
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator was designed by by Katherine Cook Briggs and her daughter Isabel Myers. They began to apply Jung's theory of human personality to an assessment instrument in the 1940's. They published the first MBTI manuel in 1962, and then in 1985 and 1998. (Myers and McCaulley 1985, 1998) The MBTI is the most popular personality testing instrument in the US and the UK, as it uses the factors of extraversion, openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness. The 1998 version is a 93-item test which has a series of forced-choice questions.
The forced-choice format of the MBTI has been criticized as yielding 'negative intercorrelations that are difficult to interpret'. The research is inconclusive, according to Coffield and his team in 2004.
In 1999, David Kolb claimed that concrete experience and abstract conceptualism are reflections of right and left brain thinking. Kolb adopted the Piagetian concepts of accomodation and assimilation and called them prehension and transformation.
Mark K. Smith criqued Kolb’s model of learning styles in his article, “David A. Kolb on Experiential Learning”. Smith identifies six key issues regarding the model: 1) the model doesn’t adequately address the process of reflection; 2) extravagant claims about the four learning styles; 3) different cultural conditions and experiences not addressed; 4) the idea of stages/steps doesn’t necessarily match reality; 5) only weak empirical evidence; 6) the relationship between learning processes and knowledge is more simplified in Kolb's model. (Smith 2001)
Kolb's work was the theoretical base for the 4MAT system, 'teach around the learning cycle' is an eight-step instructional sequence created by McCarthy in 1990. (www.aboutlearning.com)
Some comments made by Coffield et al on learning styles:
This table matches the 13 learning style model against psychometric criteria:
One of the final report comments:
References
•Coffield, F, Moseley, D, Hall, E & Ecclestone, K 2004, Learning styles and pedagogy in post-16 learning: a systematic and critical review, LSRC reference, Learning & Skills Research Centre, London.
•Dunn, R., Dunn, K., & Price, G. E. (1984). Learning style inventory. Lawrence, KS, USA: Price Systems.
•Dunn, R, & Dunn, K (1978). Teaching students through their individual learning styles: A practical approach. Reston, VA: Reston Publishing Company.
•Willingham, Daniel. Willingham: No evidence exists for learning style theories. Retrieved on February 24, 2010, from http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/daniel-willingham/-my-guest-today-is.html
•Massa, L. J.; Mayer, R. E. (2006). "Testing the ATI hypothesis: Should multimedia instruction accommodate verbalizer-visualizer cognitive style?". Learning and Individual Differences 16: 321–336. doi:10.1016/j.lindif.2006.10.001.
•Glenn, David. Matching Teaching Style to Learning Style May Not Help Students. Retrieved on February 24, 2010, from http://chronicle.com/article/Matching-Teaching-Style-to/49497/
•Holden, Constance. Learning with Style. Retrieved on February 24, 2010, from http://www.sciencemag.org/content/vol327/issue5962/r-samples.dtl
•Smith, M. K. (2001). David A. Kolb on experiential learning. Retrieved October 17, 2008, from: http://www.infed.org/biblio/b-explrn.htm
•Gevins, A., Smith, M.E., McEvoy, L.K., & Ilan, A. (2003). EEG and ERP signals of working memory. International Society for Brain Electromagnetic Topography, November, Santa Fe, NM.
•Hargreaves, D., et al. (2005). About learning: Report of the Learning Working Group. Demos.
•Atherton J S (2011) Doceo; Learning styles don't matter [On-line: UK] retrieved 27 March 2012 from http://www.doceo.co.uk/heterodoxy/styles.htm
The above report documents work from a project funded by the Learning and Skills Development Agency (LSDA) to carry out an extensive review of research on post-16 learning styles, to evaluate the main models of learning styles, and to discuss the implications of learning styles for post-16 teaching and learning. The authors identified 71 different theories of learning styles, while criticizing many instruments used to identify an individual's learning style. Coffield and his colleagues chose 13 of the models they regarded as most for closer scrutiny.
The models were classified on a continuum from theorists believing in strong genetic influences and inherited traits of interaction of personality and cognition (styles should be worked with not changed) to middle ground, models that work with an interplay of self and experience (experience and personality), and the other end of the continuum including personal and environmental factors (student choice in environment). These are models that are constitutionally based, reflecting cognitive structure, stable personality types, flexibly stable learning preferences, and learning approaches, strategies, orientations and conceptions of learning:
The report presents the origins and terms of each of the 13 models, and the instrument that was used to assess the learning styles defined by the model. They reviewed claims made by authors of each of the models' authors, research on the model, and evidence of the relationship between the 'learning style' identified by the instrument and students' actual learning. Coffield et al reported that none of the 13 models they assessed had been validated by independent research. they concluded that the concept of learning cycle, the consistency of visual, auditory and kinesthetic preferences and the value of matching teaching and learning styles were all "highly questionable."(Coffield 2004)
The Dunn and Dunn Learning Styles Inventory (LSI)is widely used in United States elementary schools, and Kolb's (LSI) and Honey and Mumford's Learning Styles Questionnaire are widely used in the United Kingdom.
Falling under the classification of constituionally based (the stongest belief in genetic determination for learning style), the learning styles model of Dunn and Dunn, a VAK (Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic) model, was assessed by the team. This model has widespread acceptance in the United States, and 177 articles have been published in peer-reviewed journals referring to this model. The conclusion of Coffield et al. was as follows:
Despite a large and evolving research programme, forceful claims made for impact are questionable because of limitations in many of the supporting studies and the lack of independent research on the model
David Kolb's model of learning styles, developed in the 1970's, was one of the most influential. Kolb was not satisfied with traditional teaching. When he experimented with teaching techniques, he observed student preferences for certain activities. His model defines a
'differential preference for learning, which changes slightly from situation to situation. At the same time, there is some long-term stability in learning style.' (Kolb 2000)
Kolb claims that the scored on the LSI are stable throughout a person's lifetime, a claim which has yet to be proved by longitudinal research. Kolb's publication, Experiential Learning: experience as the source of learning and development, in 1984, credited him with launching the modern learning styles movement. In 2000, a bibliography of research since 1971 on Kolb's LSI, containing 1004 entries, was produced by David Kolb and his wife Alice. The Dunn and Dunn website LSQ has a bibliography with 1140 entries. Articles about the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) between 1985 and 1995 are estimated to number about 2000. (Coffield 2004)
Anthony Gregorc built his learning styles model on Kolb's, differing in not representing the learning cycle derived from experiential learning. He described learning style as the manner in which the learner orders the concrete and abstract perceptions of her or his environment. Gregorc defines four distinct learning styles: Concrete Sequential (CS), Abstract Random (AR), Abstract Sequential (AS), and Concrete Random (CR). Grogorc claims that each style is associated with specific learning dispositions. A former educator himself, Gregorc argues that understanding learning styles is especially important for teachers. Gregorx believed that a misalignment of their own styles and the teaching methods will negatively impact students. (Greogr 2002) Coffield's team assessment of another constitutionally based model, Gregorc's Style Delineator (GSD), a 10-item self-report questionnaire requiring ranking of descriptors to the self, was that the model was
"theoretically and psychometrically flawed ...not suitable for the assessment of individuals." (Coffield 2004)
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator was designed by by Katherine Cook Briggs and her daughter Isabel Myers. They began to apply Jung's theory of human personality to an assessment instrument in the 1940's. They published the first MBTI manuel in 1962, and then in 1985 and 1998. (Myers and McCaulley 1985, 1998) The MBTI is the most popular personality testing instrument in the US and the UK, as it uses the factors of extraversion, openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness. The 1998 version is a 93-item test which has a series of forced-choice questions.
The face validity of the MBTI is generally accepted
as fairly sound by researchers from personality theory
backgrounds, with the caveat (not accepted by MBTI
researchers, see quote from Quenck 2003 above) that
the omission of neuroticism is a theoretical weakness
(Eysenck and Eysenck 1985).(Coffield 2004, p 133)
The forced-choice format of the MBTI has been criticized as yielding 'negative intercorrelations that are difficult to interpret'. The research is inconclusive, according to Coffield and his team in 2004.
In 1999, David Kolb claimed that concrete experience and abstract conceptualism are reflections of right and left brain thinking. Kolb adopted the Piagetian concepts of accomodation and assimilation and called them prehension and transformation.
Mark K. Smith criqued Kolb’s model of learning styles in his article, “David A. Kolb on Experiential Learning”. Smith identifies six key issues regarding the model: 1) the model doesn’t adequately address the process of reflection; 2) extravagant claims about the four learning styles; 3) different cultural conditions and experiences not addressed; 4) the idea of stages/steps doesn’t necessarily match reality; 5) only weak empirical evidence; 6) the relationship between learning processes and knowledge is more simplified in Kolb's model. (Smith 2001)
Kolb's work was the theoretical base for the 4MAT system, 'teach around the learning cycle' is an eight-step instructional sequence created by McCarthy in 1990. (www.aboutlearning.com)
Some comments made by Coffield et al on learning styles:
For some learning style developers, there is no
special category of students with learning difficulties,
only teachers who have not learned that their
teaching style is appropriate for perhaps a quarter
of their students and seriously inappropriate for the
remainder. Those teachers who have incorporated
the Dunn and Dunn model into their practice speak
movingly at conferences of how this re-categorisation
of the problem (where students’ failure to learn
is reformulated as teachers’ failure to teach
appropriately) has transformed their attitude to
students they previously dismissed as stupid, slow,
unmotivated, lazy or ineducable. This is not an
inconsiderable achievement.
The theorists warn of the dangers of labelling,
whereby teachers come to view their students as
being a certain type of learner, but despite this warning,
many practitioners who use their instruments think
in stereotypes and treat, for instance, vocational
students as if they were all non-reflective activists.
The literature is full of examples of practitioners
and some theorists themselves referring to ‘globals
and analytics’ (Brunner and Majewski 1990, 22),
or ‘Quadrant Four learners’ (Kelley 1990, 38),
or ‘integrated hemisphere thinkers’ (Toth and Farmer
2000, 6). In a similar vein, Rita Dunn writes as
follows: ‘It is fascinating that analytic and global
youngsters appear to have different environmental
and physiological needs’ (1990c, 226). Similarly,
students begin to label themselves; for example,
at a conference attended by one of the reviewers, an
able student reflected – perhaps somewhat ironically –
on using the Dunn and Dunn Productivity Environmental
Preference Survey (PEPS): ‘I learned that I was a low
auditory, kinaesthetic learner. So there’s no point
in me reading a book or listening to anyone for more
than a few minutes’. The temptation to classify,
label and stereotype is clearly difficult to resist.
Entwistle has repeatedly warned against describing
students as ‘deep’ or ‘surface’ learners, but these
warnings tend to be ignored when instruments move
into mainstream use.
This table matches the 13 learning style model against psychometric criteria:
Table 44 presents our psychometric findings
diagrammatically. It can be seen that only Allinson
and Hayes met all four of the minimal criteria and
that Riding and Sternberg failed to meet any of them.
Jackson’s model has still to be evaluated. In more
detail, the 13 instruments can be grouped as follows.
Those meeting none of the four criteria: Jackson;
Riding; Sternberg.
Those meeting one criterion: Dunn and Dunn; Gregorc;
Honey and Mumford; Kolb.
Those meeting two criteria: Entwistle; Herrmann;
Myers-Briggs.
Those meeting three criteria: Apter, Vermunt.
Those meeting all four criteria: Allinson and Hayes.
One of the final report comments:
This report has sought to sift the wheat from the chaff
among the leading models and inventories of learning
styles and among their implications for pedagogy:
we have based our conclusions on the evidence,
on reasoned argument and on healthy scepticism.
For 16 months, we immersed ourselves in the world
of learning styles and learned to respect the
enthusiasm and the dedication of those theorists,
test developers and practitioners who are working
to improve the quality of teaching and learning.
We ourselves have been reminded yet again how
complex and varied that simple-sounding task is and
we have learned that we are still some considerable way
from an overarching and agreed theory of pedagogy.
In the meantime, we agree with Curry’s summation
(1990, 54) of the state of play of research into learning
styles: ‘researchers and users alike will continue
groping like the five blind men in the fable about the
elephant, each with a part of the whole but none with
full understanding’.
References
•Coffield, F, Moseley, D, Hall, E & Ecclestone, K 2004, Learning styles and pedagogy in post-16 learning: a systematic and critical review, LSRC reference, Learning & Skills Research Centre, London.
•Dunn, R., Dunn, K., & Price, G. E. (1984). Learning style inventory. Lawrence, KS, USA: Price Systems.
•Dunn, R, & Dunn, K (1978). Teaching students through their individual learning styles: A practical approach. Reston, VA: Reston Publishing Company.
•Willingham, Daniel. Willingham: No evidence exists for learning style theories. Retrieved on February 24, 2010, from http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/daniel-willingham/-my-guest-today-is.html
•Massa, L. J.; Mayer, R. E. (2006). "Testing the ATI hypothesis: Should multimedia instruction accommodate verbalizer-visualizer cognitive style?". Learning and Individual Differences 16: 321–336. doi:10.1016/j.lindif.2006.10.001.
•Glenn, David. Matching Teaching Style to Learning Style May Not Help Students. Retrieved on February 24, 2010, from http://chronicle.com/article/Matching-Teaching-Style-to/49497/
•Holden, Constance. Learning with Style. Retrieved on February 24, 2010, from http://www.sciencemag.org/content/vol327/issue5962/r-samples.dtl
•Smith, M. K. (2001). David A. Kolb on experiential learning. Retrieved October 17, 2008, from: http://www.infed.org/biblio/b-explrn.htm
•Gevins, A., Smith, M.E., McEvoy, L.K., & Ilan, A. (2003). EEG and ERP signals of working memory. International Society for Brain Electromagnetic Topography, November, Santa Fe, NM.
•Hargreaves, D., et al. (2005). About learning: Report of the Learning Working Group. Demos.
•Atherton J S (2011) Doceo; Learning styles don't matter [On-line: UK] retrieved 27 March 2012 from http://www.doceo.co.uk/heterodoxy/styles.htm
Monday, March 26, 2012
Critical Thinking, Learning Dispositions
Critical Thinking, Learning Dispositions
History of debate about thinking goes back to Plato in ancient Greece, who showed us logic as a process of dialogical thinking, as he modeled it through his teacher, Socrates. Aristotle refine the logical analysis that was not changed until the twentieth century. In Western culture, philosophers have relied on logic to reason the soundness of an argument. In the twentieth century, Bertrand Russell, John Dewey, Edward Glaser, Max Black, Israel Schefler, R.S. Peters, Gilbert Ryle, and John Passmore have argued refinements to critical thinking theory. (Thayer-Bacon, 2000)
Plato
Rene´ Descartes mind-body distinction is his most famous theses. His thesis that the mind and the body are completely distinct from each other is now called "mind-body dualism". He argues that the nature of the thinking, non-extended thing, the mind, a non-physical substance, is different from the extended non-thinking thing, the body. He further states that because of this it is possible for one to exist without the other. In Cartesian dualism, the immaterial mind and the material body are considered ontologically different substances. (Descartes, 1641)
Descartes was confronted by Pierre Gassendi, the author of the Fifth Objections, and Descartes’ correspondent, Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia about the distinction of mind and body being completely separate or opposite things. Descartes argues that he is a
“thing that doubts, understands, affirms, denies, is willing, is unwilling, and also imagines and has sensory perceptions” (Descartes, 1641).
He surmises that therefore a mind cannot be shaped or be put into motion, and likewise a body cannot sense anything around it. Therefore, the mind can exist separate from its body, and as this distinct substance, its essence is thought.
Gilbert Ryles (1900-1976) was a philosopher who taught at Oxford, writing a classical critique of the idea that body and mind are separate, in The Concept of Mind (1949). Ryle argued against Descartes imagining of the 'ghost' inside of us that works our clearly mechanical body. This theory of the separability of mind and body is described by Ryle as "the dogma of the ghost in the machine." He argues that if mind and body were truly separate, every human action would result from the two causes of the physical brain and the mental state. He states that knowing how to skillfully perform an act is not only possible because of being able to reason practically, but also a matter of being able to put this practical reasoning into the action. Ryle says that mental processes are just intelligent acts.
"is not to be in a particular state, or to undergo a particular change; it is to be bound or liable to be in a particular state, or undergo a particular change, when a particular condition is realized" (Ryle, 1949).
Ryle explains that a person can be cigarette smoker, and this means that s/he has a disposition to smoke, even if s/he is not smoking at a particular point in time.
Robert Ennis wrote "A Concept of Critical Thinking" for the Harvard Educational Review in 1962, in which he discussed and explored key themes in critical thinking including skills and dispositions, rationality and absolutism, and power and knowing. (Thayer-Bacon, 2000) Ennis's original definition of critical thinking in terms of skills was
Harvey Siegel, Israel Scheffler and Richard Paul argue Ennis's assumptions:
Harvey Siegel
Stephen Norris further specifies that critical thinking dispositions give one the tendency to think a certain way under certain circumstances (Norris, 1994).
"...individuals must either have formed habits to use certain abilities, or overtly think and chose to use the abilities they possess. A person with an ability to think critically under certain conditions will do it, only if so disposed" (Norris, 1994).
Gavriel Salomon agreed with Norris, stating that thinking dispositions as not just a "summary label for a cluster in interrelated and relatively stable behaviors". Dispositions have a causal function and an explanatory status. Dispositions are seen by Salomon as a cluster of preferences, attitudes, and intentions, with capabilities which allow the preferences to be realized in certain ways (Salomon, 1994). Peter and Noreen Facione, who developed the Thinking Dispositions Inventory, define a thinking disposition as a constellation of attitudes, intellectual virtues, and habits of mind (Facione, Sanchez, Facione 1994). Norris discusses the difference in disposition and ability, as one can have the skill or ability to do something, but not be inclined, or disposed to do so. Therefore, critical thinkers who reason well must have the abilities and the dispositions.
Researchers are coming to recognize that content and skills is not as useful if learners do develop the capacity to look at the world critically. Ennis argues a critical person should seek reasons be well informed, but also s/he should have a tendency toward these things. (Ennis 1987, 1996). Critical thinking now comes to mean not only the capacity or skills to seek the truth and evidence by reason, but the disposition to apply these skills.
David Perkins, Eileen Jay and Shari Tishman have put forth what they call a "triadic conception of thinking dispositions," which includes the concept of ability. They delve into the concept of dispositions from a psychological viewpoint; they propose there are three psychological components which must be present in order to run dispositional behavior. These three elements are: (1) sensitivity - the perception of the appropriateness of a particular behavior; (2) inclination - the felt impetus toward a behavior; and (3) ability - the basic capacity to follow through with the behavior (Perkins, Jay & Tishman, 1993). For example, someone who is genuinely disposed to seek balanced reasons in an argument is (1) sensitive to occasions to do so (for instance while reading a newspaper editorial); (2) feels moved, or inclined, to do so; and (3) has the basic ability to follow through with the behavior, for instance, he or she can actually identify pro and con reasons for both sides of an argument.
David Perkins
Ennis still maintains an academic website devoted to critical thinking. http://faculty.ed.uiuc.edu/rhennis/ When I accessed the site on March 26, 2012, there was a note that the website was last updated on September 6, 2011. The critical thinking that appears on the website is:
Assuming that critical thinking is reasonable reflective thinking focused on deciding what to believe or do, a critical thinker:
David Perkins and Robert Ennis are both currently listed as being on the faculty of the National Center on Teaching Thinking (NCTT). (http://www.nctt.net/ncttfaculty.php)
More to come about critical thinking and learning dispositions-- let's explore some cognitive scientists, educational researchers, and philosophers who argue their own visions of critical thinking based in diverse research traditions (e.g., Ennis, 1992; Facione, 1984; Halpern, 1993; Johnson, 1996; Lipman, 1988; McPeck, 1981; Paul, 1993; Perkins, Jay, & Tishman, 1993; Resnick, 1987).
References
•Burbles, N., Berk, R., Critical Thinking and Critical Pedagogy: Relations, Differences, and Limits, Published in Critical Theories in Education, Thomas S. Popkewitz and Lynn Fendler, eds. (NY: Routledge, 1999).
•Descartes, R. (1641) Meditations on First Philosophy, in The Philosophical Writings of René Descartes, trans. by J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff and D. Murdoch, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984, vol. 2, pp. 1-62.
•Gilbert Ryle, The Concept of Mind (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1949).
•Ennis, R.H. (1962). A concept of critical thinking. Harvard Educational Review, 32, 81-111.
•Ennis, Robert H. (1980). "A conception of rational thinking." Philosophy of Education 1979 , Jerrold R. Coombs, ed. (Bloomington, IL: Philosophy of Education Society), 3-30.
•Ennis, Robert H. (1984). "Problems in testing informal logic/critical thinking/reasoning ability." Informal Logic, vol. 6 no. 1: 3-9.
•Ennis, Robert H. (1987). "A taxonomy of critical thinking dispositions and abilities." Teaching Thinking Skills: Theory and Practice, Joan Boykoff Brown and Robert J. Sternberg, eds. (New York: W.H. Freeman, 9-26.
•Ennis, Robert H. (1996). Critical Thinking (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall).
•Ennis, Robert H. academic website, accessed on March 26, 2012, http://faculty.ed.uiuc.edu/rhennis/(a note that the website was last updated on September 6, 2011)
•Facione, P., Giancarlo (Sanchez), c., Facione, N., & Gainen (Kurfiss), 1. (1995). The disposition toward critical thinking, Journal of General Education, 44 (l), 1-25.
•Facione, P., The Disposition Toward Critical Thinking: Its Character, Measurement, and Relationship to Critical Thinking Skill, lnformal Logic Vol. 20, No.1 (2000): pp.61-84.
•Facione, P. A., Sanchez, C. A., Facione, N. C. & Gainen, J., The
Disposition toward critical thinking. Journal of General Education, Volume 44, Number(1). 1-25, 1995.
•Kaplan, Laura Duhan (1991/1994). "Teaching intellectual autonomy: The failure of the critical thinking movement." Educational Theory, vol. 41 no. 4: 361-370. Republished in Re-Thinking Reason: New Perspectives in Critical Thinking, Kerry S. Walters, ed. (Albany: SUNY Press).
•Norris, Stephen P., Testing for the Disposition to Think Critically, Informal Logic: Reasoning and Argumentation in Theory and Practice, Vol 14, No 2 (1992). ISSN: 0824-2577
http://ojs.uwindsor.ca/ojs/leddy/index.php/informal_logic/article/view/2538
•Paul, R. W., (1995). Critical thinking: How to prepare students for a rapidly changing world. Santa Rosa, CA: Foundation for Critical Thinking.
•Perkins, D., Jay, E., & Tishman, S. (1994). Assessing thinking: A framework for measuring critical thinking and problem solving at the college level. In A. Greenwood (Ed.), The national assessment of college student learning: Identification of the skills to be taught, learned, and assessed (pp. 65-112). Washington, DC: The US Government Printing Office.
•Perkins, D., Jay, E., & Tishman, S. (1993). Teaching thinking: From ontology to education. Educational Psychologist, 28 (1), 67-85.
•Perkins, D., Jay, E. & Tishman, S. (Guest editors, Special Issue of Educational Psychologist). (1993). New Directions in the teaching of thinking, 28 (1), 1-6.
•Salomon, G. (1994). To Be or Not To Be (Mindful)? Presented to the American Educational Research Association Meetings, New Orleans, LA.
Siegel, H. editor, Scheffler, I., Reason and Education, Essays in Honor of Israel Scheffler, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, The Netherlands, 1997.
•Siegel, H. (1988), Rationality and epistemic dependence.Educational Philosophy and Theory, 20: 1–6. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-5812.1988.tb00487.x (abstract: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-5812.1988.tb00487.x/abstract)
•SIEGEL, H. (2008), Autonomy, Critical Thinking and the Wittgensteinian Legacy: Reflections on Christopher Winch, Education, Autonomy and Critical Thinking. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 42: 165–184. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9752.2008.00611.x (abstract: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9752.2008.00611.x/abstract)
Siegel, H. (1999), WHAT (GOOD) ARE THINKING DISPOSITIONS?. Educational Theory, 49: 207–221. doi: 10.1111/j.1741-5446.1999.00207.x
•Thayer-Bacon, B., Transforming Critical Thinking: Thinking Constructively, Teachers College Press, New York, 2000.
History of debate about thinking goes back to Plato in ancient Greece, who showed us logic as a process of dialogical thinking, as he modeled it through his teacher, Socrates. Aristotle refine the logical analysis that was not changed until the twentieth century. In Western culture, philosophers have relied on logic to reason the soundness of an argument. In the twentieth century, Bertrand Russell, John Dewey, Edward Glaser, Max Black, Israel Schefler, R.S. Peters, Gilbert Ryle, and John Passmore have argued refinements to critical thinking theory. (Thayer-Bacon, 2000)
Rene´ Descartes mind-body distinction is his most famous theses. His thesis that the mind and the body are completely distinct from each other is now called "mind-body dualism". He argues that the nature of the thinking, non-extended thing, the mind, a non-physical substance, is different from the extended non-thinking thing, the body. He further states that because of this it is possible for one to exist without the other. In Cartesian dualism, the immaterial mind and the material body are considered ontologically different substances. (Descartes, 1641)
“thing that doubts, understands, affirms, denies, is willing, is unwilling, and also imagines and has sensory perceptions” (Descartes, 1641).
He surmises that therefore a mind cannot be shaped or be put into motion, and likewise a body cannot sense anything around it. Therefore, the mind can exist separate from its body, and as this distinct substance, its essence is thought.
Gilbert Ryles (1900-1976) was a philosopher who taught at Oxford, writing a classical critique of the idea that body and mind are separate, in The Concept of Mind (1949). Ryle argued against Descartes imagining of the 'ghost' inside of us that works our clearly mechanical body. This theory of the separability of mind and body is described by Ryle as "the dogma of the ghost in the machine." He argues that if mind and body were truly separate, every human action would result from the two causes of the physical brain and the mental state. He states that knowing how to skillfully perform an act is not only possible because of being able to reason practically, but also a matter of being able to put this practical reasoning into the action. Ryle says that mental processes are just intelligent acts.
"is not to be in a particular state, or to undergo a particular change; it is to be bound or liable to be in a particular state, or undergo a particular change, when a particular condition is realized" (Ryle, 1949).
Robert Ennis wrote "A Concept of Critical Thinking" for the Harvard Educational Review in 1962, in which he discussed and explored key themes in critical thinking including skills and dispositions, rationality and absolutism, and power and knowing. (Thayer-Bacon, 2000) Ennis's original definition of critical thinking in terms of skills was
the correct assessing of statements.(Ennis, p. 83, 1962) He discussed issues of evaluating critical thinking skills. His list of critical thinking proficiencies was "the most detailed, complex, and useful to be developed, as credited by other philosophers." (Thayer-Bacon, 2000) He designed critical thinking tests, and is the coauthor of the Cornell Critical Thinking Tests (Ennis & Millman, 1982), and the "Problems in Testing Informal Logic/Critical Thinking/Reasoning Ability", (Ennis, 1984) Ennis argues that a critical person not only is well informed and seeks reason, but has a tendency to do so. (Ennis 1987, 1996)
Harvey Siegel, Israel Scheffler and Richard Paul argue Ennis's assumptions:
Siegel criticizes Ennis somewhat for seeing dispositions simply as what animates the skills of critical thinking, because this fails to distinguish sufficiently the critical thinker from critical thinking. For Siegel, a cluster of dispositions (the "critical spirit") is more like a deep-seated character trait, something like Scheffler’s notion of "a love of truth and a contempt of lying" (Siegel 1988; Scheffler 1991). It is part of critical thinking itself. Paul also stresses this distinction between skills and dispositions in his distinction between "weak-sense" and "strong-sense" critical thinking. For Paul, the "weak-sense" means that one has learned the skills and can demonstrate them when asked to do so; the "strong-sense" means that one has incorporated these skills into a way of living in which one’s own assumptions are re-examined and questioned as well. According to Paul, a critical thinker in the "strong sense" has a passionate drive for "clarity, accuracy, and fairmindedness" (Paul 1983, 23; see also Paul 1994).(Burbles & Berk 1999) (http://faculty.ed.uiuc.edu/burbules/papers/critical.html)
Stephen Norris further specifies that critical thinking dispositions give one the tendency to think a certain way under certain circumstances (Norris, 1994).
"...individuals must either have formed habits to use certain abilities, or overtly think and chose to use the abilities they possess. A person with an ability to think critically under certain conditions will do it, only if so disposed" (Norris, 1994).
Gavriel Salomon agreed with Norris, stating that thinking dispositions as not just a "summary label for a cluster in interrelated and relatively stable behaviors". Dispositions have a causal function and an explanatory status. Dispositions are seen by Salomon as a cluster of preferences, attitudes, and intentions, with capabilities which allow the preferences to be realized in certain ways (Salomon, 1994). Peter and Noreen Facione, who developed the Thinking Dispositions Inventory, define a thinking disposition as a constellation of attitudes, intellectual virtues, and habits of mind (Facione, Sanchez, Facione 1994). Norris discusses the difference in disposition and ability, as one can have the skill or ability to do something, but not be inclined, or disposed to do so. Therefore, critical thinkers who reason well must have the abilities and the dispositions.
Researchers are coming to recognize that content and skills is not as useful if learners do develop the capacity to look at the world critically. Ennis argues a critical person should seek reasons be well informed, but also s/he should have a tendency toward these things. (Ennis 1987, 1996). Critical thinking now comes to mean not only the capacity or skills to seek the truth and evidence by reason, but the disposition to apply these skills.
David Perkins, Eileen Jay and Shari Tishman have put forth what they call a "triadic conception of thinking dispositions," which includes the concept of ability. They delve into the concept of dispositions from a psychological viewpoint; they propose there are three psychological components which must be present in order to run dispositional behavior. These three elements are: (1) sensitivity - the perception of the appropriateness of a particular behavior; (2) inclination - the felt impetus toward a behavior; and (3) ability - the basic capacity to follow through with the behavior (Perkins, Jay & Tishman, 1993). For example, someone who is genuinely disposed to seek balanced reasons in an argument is (1) sensitive to occasions to do so (for instance while reading a newspaper editorial); (2) feels moved, or inclined, to do so; and (3) has the basic ability to follow through with the behavior, for instance, he or she can actually identify pro and con reasons for both sides of an argument.
Ennis still maintains an academic website devoted to critical thinking. http://faculty.ed.uiuc.edu/rhennis/ When I accessed the site on March 26, 2012, there was a note that the website was last updated on September 6, 2011. The critical thinking that appears on the website is:
Critical thinking is reasonable reflective thinking that is focused on deciding what to believe or do.On this website, Ennis lists his "Super-Streamlined Conception of Critical Thinking" (6/20/02):
Assuming that critical thinking is reasonable reflective thinking focused on deciding what to believe or do, a critical thinker:
1. Is open-minded and mindful of alternatives
2. Tries to be well-informed
3. Judges well the credibility of sources
4. Identifies conclusions, reasons, and assumptions
5. Judges well the quality of an argument, including the acceptability of its reasons, assumptions, and evidence
6. Can well develop and defend a reasonable position
7. Asks appropriate clarifying questions
8. Formulates plausible hypotheses; plans experiments well
9. Defines terms in a way appropriate for the context
10. Draws conclusions when warranted, but with caution
11. Integrates all items in this list when deciding what to believe or do.
David Perkins and Robert Ennis are both currently listed as being on the faculty of the National Center on Teaching Thinking (NCTT). (http://www.nctt.net/ncttfaculty.php)
More to come about critical thinking and learning dispositions-- let's explore some cognitive scientists, educational researchers, and philosophers who argue their own visions of critical thinking based in diverse research traditions (e.g., Ennis, 1992; Facione, 1984; Halpern, 1993; Johnson, 1996; Lipman, 1988; McPeck, 1981; Paul, 1993; Perkins, Jay, & Tishman, 1993; Resnick, 1987).
References
•Burbles, N., Berk, R., Critical Thinking and Critical Pedagogy: Relations, Differences, and Limits, Published in Critical Theories in Education, Thomas S. Popkewitz and Lynn Fendler, eds. (NY: Routledge, 1999).
•Descartes, R. (1641) Meditations on First Philosophy, in The Philosophical Writings of René Descartes, trans. by J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff and D. Murdoch, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984, vol. 2, pp. 1-62.
•Gilbert Ryle, The Concept of Mind (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1949).
•Ennis, R.H. (1962). A concept of critical thinking. Harvard Educational Review, 32, 81-111.
•Ennis, Robert H. (1980). "A conception of rational thinking." Philosophy of Education 1979 , Jerrold R. Coombs, ed. (Bloomington, IL: Philosophy of Education Society), 3-30.
•Ennis, Robert H. (1984). "Problems in testing informal logic/critical thinking/reasoning ability." Informal Logic, vol. 6 no. 1: 3-9.
•Ennis, Robert H. (1987). "A taxonomy of critical thinking dispositions and abilities." Teaching Thinking Skills: Theory and Practice, Joan Boykoff Brown and Robert J. Sternberg, eds. (New York: W.H. Freeman, 9-26.
•Ennis, Robert H. (1996). Critical Thinking (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall).
•Ennis, Robert H. academic website, accessed on March 26, 2012, http://faculty.ed.uiuc.edu/rhennis/(a note that the website was last updated on September 6, 2011)
•Facione, P., Giancarlo (Sanchez), c., Facione, N., & Gainen (Kurfiss), 1. (1995). The disposition toward critical thinking, Journal of General Education, 44 (l), 1-25.
•Facione, P., The Disposition Toward Critical Thinking: Its Character, Measurement, and Relationship to Critical Thinking Skill, lnformal Logic Vol. 20, No.1 (2000): pp.61-84.
•Facione, P. A., Sanchez, C. A., Facione, N. C. & Gainen, J., The
Disposition toward critical thinking. Journal of General Education, Volume 44, Number(1). 1-25, 1995.
•Kaplan, Laura Duhan (1991/1994). "Teaching intellectual autonomy: The failure of the critical thinking movement." Educational Theory, vol. 41 no. 4: 361-370. Republished in Re-Thinking Reason: New Perspectives in Critical Thinking, Kerry S. Walters, ed. (Albany: SUNY Press).
•Norris, Stephen P., Testing for the Disposition to Think Critically, Informal Logic: Reasoning and Argumentation in Theory and Practice, Vol 14, No 2 (1992). ISSN: 0824-2577
http://ojs.uwindsor.ca/ojs/leddy/index.php/informal_logic/article/view/2538
•Paul, R. W., (1995). Critical thinking: How to prepare students for a rapidly changing world. Santa Rosa, CA: Foundation for Critical Thinking.
•Perkins, D., Jay, E., & Tishman, S. (1994). Assessing thinking: A framework for measuring critical thinking and problem solving at the college level. In A. Greenwood (Ed.), The national assessment of college student learning: Identification of the skills to be taught, learned, and assessed (pp. 65-112). Washington, DC: The US Government Printing Office.
•Perkins, D., Jay, E., & Tishman, S. (1993). Teaching thinking: From ontology to education. Educational Psychologist, 28 (1), 67-85.
•Perkins, D., Jay, E. & Tishman, S. (Guest editors, Special Issue of Educational Psychologist). (1993). New Directions in the teaching of thinking, 28 (1), 1-6.
•Salomon, G. (1994). To Be or Not To Be (Mindful)? Presented to the American Educational Research Association Meetings, New Orleans, LA.
Siegel, H. editor, Scheffler, I., Reason and Education, Essays in Honor of Israel Scheffler, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, The Netherlands, 1997.
•Siegel, H. (1988), Rationality and epistemic dependence.Educational Philosophy and Theory, 20: 1–6. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-5812.1988.tb00487.x (abstract: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-5812.1988.tb00487.x/abstract)
•SIEGEL, H. (2008), Autonomy, Critical Thinking and the Wittgensteinian Legacy: Reflections on Christopher Winch, Education, Autonomy and Critical Thinking. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 42: 165–184. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9752.2008.00611.x (abstract: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9752.2008.00611.x/abstract)
Siegel, H. (1999), WHAT (GOOD) ARE THINKING DISPOSITIONS?. Educational Theory, 49: 207–221. doi: 10.1111/j.1741-5446.1999.00207.x
•Thayer-Bacon, B., Transforming Critical Thinking: Thinking Constructively, Teachers College Press, New York, 2000.
TEL (Technology Enhanced Learning)
Technology enhanced learning refers to the support of learning through technology. It is often used synonymously with E-learning. TEL support pedagogical approaches using technology. The interplay between the activities of learning and the technology being used is the focus of TEL. Technology used for TEL may include computer software programming environments (Galas, Kafai ), virtual worlds, OLPC XO project and Squeakland (Galas, Kay, Negroponte) learning management systems, content management systems, content animation and simulation systems (Mathematica, Biologica, Genscope (Galas)).
The EU supports a number of projects in the area of TEL.
There are several Networks of Excellences that contribute, or concontribued, to research around TEL:
PROLEARN: ended http://www.prolearn-project.org/
Kaleidoscope: ended http://www.noe-kaleidoscope.org/telearc/
STELLAR: running http://www.stellarnet.eu/
The Teaching and Learning Programme is a UK TEL project running from 2000-2011. It is a research and practioner collarboration project covering early years education to higher education and lifelong or workplace learning.
Seven projects were funded in the second phase of the project 2006-2011.
A Learning Design Support Environment (LDSE) for Teachers and Lecturers
Echoes 2: Improving Children’s Social Interaction through Exploratory Learning in a Multimodal Environment
Ensemble: Semantic Technologies for the Enhancement of Case-Based Learning
Inter-Life: Interoperability and Transition
MiGen: Intelligent Support for Mathematical Generalisation
hapTEL: Enhancing Learning through Haptics
Personal Inquiry (PI): Designing for Evidence-based Enquiry across Formal and Informal Settings of Learning
SynergyNet: Supporting Collaborative Learning in an Immersive Environment
Most college and university campus have a a TEL that is dedicated to helping faculty and students explore and implement technologies both in on-campus settings and in distance learning settings.
The third international conference on Technology Enhanced Learning, Quality of Teaching and Reforming Education is taking place this July 2012 in Barcelona. http://reform-education.org/
Journals specifically concerned with TEL:
•Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning (RPTEL) http://www.worldscinet.com/rptel/
•International Journal of Technology Enhanced Learning (IJTEL) http://www.inderscience.com/browse/index.php?journalCODE=ijtel
•
References
"TLRP-TEL Current Projects". Teaching & Learning Research Programme Technology Enhanced Learning. 2009. Retrieved 2009-04-15.
http://www.tlrp.org/aims/index.html
The TLRP Digital Repository http://www.tlrp.org/dspace/index.jsp
"Case study of TLRP". Teaching & Learning Research Programme. 2005. Retrieved 2007-06-27. (pdf)
"TLRP-TEL Development Projects". Teaching & Learning Research Programme. 2009. Retrieved 2009-04-15. http://www.tlrp.org/proj/teldev.html
The EU supports a number of projects in the area of TEL.
There are several Networks of Excellences that contribute, or concontribued, to research around TEL:
PROLEARN: ended http://www.prolearn-project.org/
Kaleidoscope: ended http://www.noe-kaleidoscope.org/telearc/
STELLAR: running http://www.stellarnet.eu/
The Teaching and Learning Programme is a UK TEL project running from 2000-2011. It is a research and practioner collarboration project covering early years education to higher education and lifelong or workplace learning.
Seven projects were funded in the second phase of the project 2006-2011.
A Learning Design Support Environment (LDSE) for Teachers and Lecturers
Echoes 2: Improving Children’s Social Interaction through Exploratory Learning in a Multimodal Environment
Ensemble: Semantic Technologies for the Enhancement of Case-Based Learning
Inter-Life: Interoperability and Transition
MiGen: Intelligent Support for Mathematical Generalisation
hapTEL: Enhancing Learning through Haptics
Personal Inquiry (PI): Designing for Evidence-based Enquiry across Formal and Informal Settings of Learning
SynergyNet: Supporting Collaborative Learning in an Immersive Environment
Most college and university campus have a a TEL that is dedicated to helping faculty and students explore and implement technologies both in on-campus settings and in distance learning settings.
The third international conference on Technology Enhanced Learning, Quality of Teaching and Reforming Education is taking place this July 2012 in Barcelona. http://reform-education.org/
Journals specifically concerned with TEL:
•Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning (RPTEL) http://www.worldscinet.com/rptel/
•International Journal of Technology Enhanced Learning (IJTEL) http://www.inderscience.com/browse/index.php?journalCODE=ijtel
•
References
"TLRP-TEL Current Projects". Teaching & Learning Research Programme Technology Enhanced Learning. 2009. Retrieved 2009-04-15.
http://www.tlrp.org/aims/index.html
The TLRP Digital Repository http://www.tlrp.org/dspace/index.jsp
"Case study of TLRP". Teaching & Learning Research Programme. 2005. Retrieved 2007-06-27. (pdf)
"TLRP-TEL Development Projects". Teaching & Learning Research Programme. 2009. Retrieved 2009-04-15. http://www.tlrp.org/proj/teldev.html
TEL (Technology Enhanced Learning) Interactive Maths (Wolfram)
Wolfram Education Portal http://education.wolfram.com/
Take a look at the new Educational Portal from Wolfram, the company behind the Mathematica computational application and the Wolfram|Alpha ‘knowledge engine’. One needs to first register on their site, and then you are allowed to download a browser plug-in, the CDF (Computable Document Format) player which allows you to access to the coursework and the 2D and 3D demonstrations.
The focus is on maths, and the first two courses are the key foundation topics of Algebra and Calculus. “In the portal you’ll find a dynamic textbook, lesson plans, widgets, interactive Demonstrations, and more built by Wolfram education experts.”
One can access the content via Windows, Mac, or Linux, or online with desktop browsers. The website says that mobile apps are on their way. The Algebra coursework includes a comprehensive collection of matching lesson plans and textbook pages, with interactive demos. Calculus includes 19 demonstrations and 12 problem-solving widgets.
Since teachers or students are able to create their own CDF resources using Mathematica, we may see the creation of free Open Educational Resources. The licensing agreement allows you to give away your OER (open educational resource), but if you sell it, Wolfram gets a percentage. This seems to be a wonderful symbiotic relationship between the corporate world and the world of free open educational resources.
Take a look at the new Educational Portal from Wolfram, the company behind the Mathematica computational application and the Wolfram|Alpha ‘knowledge engine’. One needs to first register on their site, and then you are allowed to download a browser plug-in, the CDF (Computable Document Format) player which allows you to access to the coursework and the 2D and 3D demonstrations.
The focus is on maths, and the first two courses are the key foundation topics of Algebra and Calculus. “In the portal you’ll find a dynamic textbook, lesson plans, widgets, interactive Demonstrations, and more built by Wolfram education experts.”
One can access the content via Windows, Mac, or Linux, or online with desktop browsers. The website says that mobile apps are on their way. The Algebra coursework includes a comprehensive collection of matching lesson plans and textbook pages, with interactive demos. Calculus includes 19 demonstrations and 12 problem-solving widgets.
Since teachers or students are able to create their own CDF resources using Mathematica, we may see the creation of free Open Educational Resources. The licensing agreement allows you to give away your OER (open educational resource), but if you sell it, Wolfram gets a percentage. This seems to be a wonderful symbiotic relationship between the corporate world and the world of free open educational resources.
TEL (Technology Enhanced Learning) NPTEL
National Programme on Technology Enchanced Learning
NPTEL provides E-learning through online Web and Video courses in Engineering, Science and humanities streams. The mission of NPTEL is to enhance the quality of Engineering education in the country by providing free online courseware. (Mission Statement from the NPTEL website: http://nptel.iitm.ac.in/index.php, accessed March 26, 2012)
NPTEL is funded by the Ministry of Human Resources Development of the Government of India. The focus is to develop curriculum-based video and web courses to enhance the quality of engineering education in India. NPTEL funds seven Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT), and IISc Bangalore to collaboratively develop the web and video based online coursework in basic science and engineering.
Over 250 courses were available online in 2009. The course videos are available in streaming mode, and may also available for offline viewing after download. The video files are also available on the IIT Channel in Youtube.
Participating Institutions
Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore
Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi
Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati
Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (coordinating Institute)
Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai
Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee
Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur
References
Official NPTEL Website http://nptel.iitm.ac.in/index.php
YouTube IIT Channel http://www.youtube.com/iit
NPTEL provides E-learning through online Web and Video courses in Engineering, Science and humanities streams. The mission of NPTEL is to enhance the quality of Engineering education in the country by providing free online courseware. (Mission Statement from the NPTEL website: http://nptel.iitm.ac.in/index.php, accessed March 26, 2012)
NPTEL is funded by the Ministry of Human Resources Development of the Government of India. The focus is to develop curriculum-based video and web courses to enhance the quality of engineering education in India. NPTEL funds seven Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT), and IISc Bangalore to collaboratively develop the web and video based online coursework in basic science and engineering.
Over 250 courses were available online in 2009. The course videos are available in streaming mode, and may also available for offline viewing after download. The video files are also available on the IIT Channel in Youtube.
Participating Institutions
Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore
Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi
Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati
Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (coordinating Institute)
Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai
Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee
Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur
References
Official NPTEL Website http://nptel.iitm.ac.in/index.php
YouTube IIT Channel http://www.youtube.com/iit
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Onine Mentoring
Online mentoring is an emerging approach. It is sometimes used as an adjunct to face-to-face-meetings, but sometimes the primary method of meeting is online chatting. It is used by organizations and teacher development programs. (New Teacher Center, Santa Cruz) Mentors and mentees could communicate via emails back and forth, meetings in person, chatrooms, instant messages, skype, or phone calls. Little seems to be published about the depth and success of these mentoring relationships. Much of the literature tends to measure success in terms of the number of matches that are made. I am more interested in the length of the relationship, the success seen from both sides, the duration, and the outcomes resulting from the mentor/mentee relationship. Mentor programs usually elicit an agreement from mentors to stay with the mentee for a time period of at least six months to one year.
Researchers evaluating an online mentoring program for those suffering from depression. They found that most of the participants communicated in similar ways to face to face contacts. Participants felt high levels of support, acceptance and positive feelings, and felt the group participation helped their general feeling of well being. (Salem, 1997)
E-therapy research observes that online counseling may be helpful with addressing many difficulties that people bring to their in-person therapist. As of 2002, there were over 200 therapy sites providing access to many different kinds of counselors. (Segall, 2000)
Online mentoring may provide many affordances that are not alwsys possible for face-to-face mentoring. Access to mentoring by providing it online solves geographic, physical distance and time constraints that both mentors and mentees face. The time spent is not in getting somewhere, but in the actual discussion forum online. This may help the matching of appropriate mentors to mentees, since there is not a geographic distance problem to be overcome. Time constraints are also solved if mentees have nothing to share during a daytime session but asynchronously connect via email or a forum late at night to leave disclosures or new ideas about goals to their mentor. Instant messaging can also provide real time bite sized communications to occur between mentor and mentee. Some kind of written correspondence between the mentors and mentees allows monitoring of the relationship and creates rich data to evaluate the process and the outcomes. The digital divide is still a reality that may block access of disadvantaged youth to mentoring programs.
The absence of the social cue of age, race, physical appearance or dress may be an advantage in the initial stages of building the mentor/mentee relationship. Sometimes these first impressions can shape the relationships, and when they are removed in the beginning, the relationship develops based on deeper characteristics and commonalities. (Ensher, 1997)
Different ties are developed through online mentoring. Sometimes the online ties can be more compelling and replace closer ties. (Saito, 2003) Email only relationships created weak ties characterized by less contact, more narrow focus, more superficial and easily broken bonds, contrasted with better social and emotional outcomes from strong ties characterized by frequent contact, sharing across life areas, deep affection, and a mutual obligation. (Kraut, 1998). The researchers found that individuals who meet online have discussions and support that are less applicable because they don't have access to each other's lives. There seems to be a slower development of the mentoring relationship online. Females also tend to share more through email than males, using personal information as building friendships. (Boneva, 2001)
References
•Ellen A. Ensher, Christian Heun, Anita Blanchard, Online mentoring and computer-mediated communication: New directions in research, Journal of Vocational Behavior, Volume 63, Issue 2, October 2003, Pages 264-288, ISSN 0001-8791, 10.1016/S0001-8791(03)00044-7.
(http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0001879103000447)
Keywords: Mentoring; E-mentoring; Online mentoring; Computer-mediated communication
•Mentoring Online about Mentoring: Possibilities and practice, Catherine Sinclair, •Mentoring & Tutoring: Partnership in Learning, Vol. 11, Iss. 1, 2010.
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1361126032000054826
•Duff, Carole, Online Mentoring, Educational Leadership, October 2000 | Volume 58 | Number 2 Teaching the Information Generation Pages 49-52.
•Salem, Deborah A; Bogat, G. Anne; Reid, Christina. Mutual help goes on-line. Journal of Community Psychology. Vol 25(2) Mar 1997, 189-207. Lawrence Erlbaum, US.
•Segall, R. (2000).Online shrinks. Psychology Today 32 (3), 38-44; Hatcher, S. (2002). Using email with your patients. Austrailasian Psychiatry, 9, 207-209.
•Ensher, E. & Murphy, S. E. (1997). Effects of race, gender, perceived similarity, and contact on mentor relationships, Journal of Vocational Behavior 50(3), 460-481.
•Saito, R. N. & Sipe, C. L. (2003). E-mentoring: The digital heroes campaign Year Two Evaluation Results. Unpublished report prepared for MENTOR/National Mentoring Partnership and AOL Time Warner Foundation.
•Kraut, R, Lundmark, V., Patterson, M., Kiesler, S., Mukopadhyay, T., and Scherlis, W. (1998). Internet Paradox: A social technology that reduces social involvement and psychological well-being? American Psychologist, 9, 1017-1031. Click here (http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~kraut/RKraut.site.files/articles/kraut98-InternetParadox.pdf)
•Boneva, B., Kraut, R., Fronhlich, D. (2001). Using e-mail for personal relationships: The difference gender makes. American Behavioral Scientist, 45, 530-549.
Researchers evaluating an online mentoring program for those suffering from depression. They found that most of the participants communicated in similar ways to face to face contacts. Participants felt high levels of support, acceptance and positive feelings, and felt the group participation helped their general feeling of well being. (Salem, 1997)
E-therapy research observes that online counseling may be helpful with addressing many difficulties that people bring to their in-person therapist. As of 2002, there were over 200 therapy sites providing access to many different kinds of counselors. (Segall, 2000)
Online mentoring may provide many affordances that are not alwsys possible for face-to-face mentoring. Access to mentoring by providing it online solves geographic, physical distance and time constraints that both mentors and mentees face. The time spent is not in getting somewhere, but in the actual discussion forum online. This may help the matching of appropriate mentors to mentees, since there is not a geographic distance problem to be overcome. Time constraints are also solved if mentees have nothing to share during a daytime session but asynchronously connect via email or a forum late at night to leave disclosures or new ideas about goals to their mentor. Instant messaging can also provide real time bite sized communications to occur between mentor and mentee. Some kind of written correspondence between the mentors and mentees allows monitoring of the relationship and creates rich data to evaluate the process and the outcomes. The digital divide is still a reality that may block access of disadvantaged youth to mentoring programs.
The absence of the social cue of age, race, physical appearance or dress may be an advantage in the initial stages of building the mentor/mentee relationship. Sometimes these first impressions can shape the relationships, and when they are removed in the beginning, the relationship develops based on deeper characteristics and commonalities. (Ensher, 1997)
Different ties are developed through online mentoring. Sometimes the online ties can be more compelling and replace closer ties. (Saito, 2003) Email only relationships created weak ties characterized by less contact, more narrow focus, more superficial and easily broken bonds, contrasted with better social and emotional outcomes from strong ties characterized by frequent contact, sharing across life areas, deep affection, and a mutual obligation. (Kraut, 1998). The researchers found that individuals who meet online have discussions and support that are less applicable because they don't have access to each other's lives. There seems to be a slower development of the mentoring relationship online. Females also tend to share more through email than males, using personal information as building friendships. (Boneva, 2001)
References
•Ellen A. Ensher, Christian Heun, Anita Blanchard, Online mentoring and computer-mediated communication: New directions in research, Journal of Vocational Behavior, Volume 63, Issue 2, October 2003, Pages 264-288, ISSN 0001-8791, 10.1016/S0001-8791(03)00044-7.
(http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0001879103000447)
Keywords: Mentoring; E-mentoring; Online mentoring; Computer-mediated communication
•Mentoring Online about Mentoring: Possibilities and practice, Catherine Sinclair, •Mentoring & Tutoring: Partnership in Learning, Vol. 11, Iss. 1, 2010.
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1361126032000054826
•Duff, Carole, Online Mentoring, Educational Leadership, October 2000 | Volume 58 | Number 2 Teaching the Information Generation Pages 49-52.
•Salem, Deborah A; Bogat, G. Anne; Reid, Christina. Mutual help goes on-line. Journal of Community Psychology. Vol 25(2) Mar 1997, 189-207. Lawrence Erlbaum, US.
•Segall, R. (2000).Online shrinks. Psychology Today 32 (3), 38-44; Hatcher, S. (2002). Using email with your patients. Austrailasian Psychiatry, 9, 207-209.
•Ensher, E. & Murphy, S. E. (1997). Effects of race, gender, perceived similarity, and contact on mentor relationships, Journal of Vocational Behavior 50(3), 460-481.
•Saito, R. N. & Sipe, C. L. (2003). E-mentoring: The digital heroes campaign Year Two Evaluation Results. Unpublished report prepared for MENTOR/National Mentoring Partnership and AOL Time Warner Foundation.
•Kraut, R, Lundmark, V., Patterson, M., Kiesler, S., Mukopadhyay, T., and Scherlis, W. (1998). Internet Paradox: A social technology that reduces social involvement and psychological well-being? American Psychologist, 9, 1017-1031. Click here (http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~kraut/RKraut.site.files/articles/kraut98-InternetParadox.pdf)
•Boneva, B., Kraut, R., Fronhlich, D. (2001). Using e-mail for personal relationships: The difference gender makes. American Behavioral Scientist, 45, 530-549.
Origins of Mentoring (Socrates)
Mentoring is a process for the informal transmission of knowledge, social capital, and the psychosocial support perceived by the recipient as relevant to work, career, or professional development; mentoring entails informal communication, usually face-to-face and during a sustained period of time, between a person who is perceived to have greater relevant knowledge, wisdom, or experience (the mentor) and a person who is perceived to have less (the protégé)".(Bozeman 2007)
Mentoring has been used throughout Europe since times of ancient Greece, but the US began using mentoring in the 1970's to help organizations bring in new employees successfully.
Some organizations have paired new people with more veteran in a mentoring relationship. Getting good new employees to stay in their job is more likely under the circumstances where they have a mentor to "show them the ropes", give examples, learn the organization ecosystem. Kaye (2005) claims that the employees paired with a mentor are twice as likely to stay in the organization.
Training mentors is important, as their relationship with their mentee requires certain wisdom that is applied to new contexts over time. Mentoring is a broad term used to indicate a relationship where one is helping the other develop the whole person, and therefore, the relationship and values of trust are key in successful mentoring. (Daloz, 1990) Different techniques are used as appropriate to current mindset of the mentee and the mentor wisdom in its application. Many techniques used in modern organizations come from ancient cultures, especially the Socratic method. (Aubrey 1995)
The Socratic method (also known as method of elenchus, elenctic method, Socratic irony, or Socratic debate), is names after the classical Greek philosopher Socrates. This is a method relying on questioning as logic tests to stimulate inquiry, debate, and critical thinking. Discussion may often represent opposing viewpoints in order to lead each other to contradict their own argument, thus strengthening the other argument. (Jarrett, 1991) The questioner teacher asks many kinds of questions to guide students to discover truth. Questions are designed to test student knowledge, understanding, and to lead students to explore points of their argument, and ultimately to THINK about their argument and its' viability.
The Socratic Method is described as:
“There is no single, generally agreed upon, answer. There is noanswer. All answers are equally correct.” (Stevenson, 2001).
Our earliest known mentors are Socrates and Plato. Plato was a student of Socrates who began the "Academy" based on Socratic method after Socrates' death. The school operated for more than 900 years. (Dowling, 2004) “The Academy served as the model forinstitutions of higher learning until it was closed by the Emperor Justinian in 529 CE, almost one thousand years later.” (Beavers & Planeaux, 2004).The idea of teaching by questioning and argument was to develop critical thinking skills, deep curiosity, fearless questioning and answering. (Maxwell, 2008)
In many traditional classrooms, rote learning or Platonic model is used. In the rote model, students are taught that there is one right, correct answer that they must find to answer a question. The Platonic model encourages all answers as long as there is sufficient explanation and evidence given to support the proposition. (Stevenson, 2001)
Table of philosophical affiliations
http://www2.iastate.edu/~honeyl/621/philosophers.html
References
•Ullmann, Thomas Daniel; Ferguson, Rebecca; Buckingham Shum, Simon and Deakin Crick, Ruth (2011).Designing an online mentoring system for self-awareness and reflection on lifelong learning skills. In: 1stWorkshop on Awareness and Reflection in Personal Learning Environments. In conjunction with the PLE Conference 2011., 11-13 July 2011, Southampton, UK.
•Bozeman, B.; Feeney, M. K. (October 2007). "Toward a useful theory of mentoring: A conceptual analysis and critique". Administration & Society 39 (6): 719–739. doi:10.1177/0095399707304119.
•Daloz, L. A. (1990). Effective Teaching and Mentoring. San Francisco: Jossey Bass. pp. 20.
•Aubrey, Bob and Cohen, Paul (1995). Working Wisdom: Timeless Skills and Vanguard Strategies for Learning Organizations. Jossey Bass. pp. 23, 44–47, 96–97.
•Kaye, Beverly; Jordan-Evans (2005). Love 'Em or Lose Em: Getting Good People to Stay. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc. p. 117. ISBN 978-1-57675-327-9.
Elements of Effective Practice for Mentoring™, Third Edition
•Dowling, B., Powell, M. and Glendinning, C. (2004), Conceptualising successful partnerships. Health & Social Care in the Community, 12: 309–317. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2524.2004.00500.x
•Jarratt, Susan C. Rereading the Sophists: Classical Rhetoric Refigured. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1991., p 83.
•Sprague, Rosamond Kent, The Older Sophists, Hackett Publishing Company (ISBN 0-87220-556-8), p. 5.
Mentoring has been used throughout Europe since times of ancient Greece, but the US began using mentoring in the 1970's to help organizations bring in new employees successfully.
Some organizations have paired new people with more veteran in a mentoring relationship. Getting good new employees to stay in their job is more likely under the circumstances where they have a mentor to "show them the ropes", give examples, learn the organization ecosystem. Kaye (2005) claims that the employees paired with a mentor are twice as likely to stay in the organization.
Training mentors is important, as their relationship with their mentee requires certain wisdom that is applied to new contexts over time. Mentoring is a broad term used to indicate a relationship where one is helping the other develop the whole person, and therefore, the relationship and values of trust are key in successful mentoring. (Daloz, 1990) Different techniques are used as appropriate to current mindset of the mentee and the mentor wisdom in its application. Many techniques used in modern organizations come from ancient cultures, especially the Socratic method. (Aubrey 1995)
The Socratic method (also known as method of elenchus, elenctic method, Socratic irony, or Socratic debate), is names after the classical Greek philosopher Socrates. This is a method relying on questioning as logic tests to stimulate inquiry, debate, and critical thinking. Discussion may often represent opposing viewpoints in order to lead each other to contradict their own argument, thus strengthening the other argument. (Jarrett, 1991) The questioner teacher asks many kinds of questions to guide students to discover truth. Questions are designed to test student knowledge, understanding, and to lead students to explore points of their argument, and ultimately to THINK about their argument and its' viability.
The Socratic Method is described as:
“There is no single, generally agreed upon, answer. There is noanswer. All answers are equally correct.” (Stevenson, 2001).
Our earliest known mentors are Socrates and Plato. Plato was a student of Socrates who began the "Academy" based on Socratic method after Socrates' death. The school operated for more than 900 years. (Dowling, 2004) “The Academy served as the model forinstitutions of higher learning until it was closed by the Emperor Justinian in 529 CE, almost one thousand years later.” (Beavers & Planeaux, 2004).The idea of teaching by questioning and argument was to develop critical thinking skills, deep curiosity, fearless questioning and answering. (Maxwell, 2008)
In many traditional classrooms, rote learning or Platonic model is used. In the rote model, students are taught that there is one right, correct answer that they must find to answer a question. The Platonic model encourages all answers as long as there is sufficient explanation and evidence given to support the proposition. (Stevenson, 2001)
Table of philosophical affiliations
http://www2.iastate.edu/~honeyl/621/philosophers.html
References
•Ullmann, Thomas Daniel; Ferguson, Rebecca; Buckingham Shum, Simon and Deakin Crick, Ruth (2011).Designing an online mentoring system for self-awareness and reflection on lifelong learning skills. In: 1stWorkshop on Awareness and Reflection in Personal Learning Environments. In conjunction with the PLE Conference 2011., 11-13 July 2011, Southampton, UK.
•Bozeman, B.; Feeney, M. K. (October 2007). "Toward a useful theory of mentoring: A conceptual analysis and critique". Administration & Society 39 (6): 719–739. doi:10.1177/0095399707304119.
•Daloz, L. A. (1990). Effective Teaching and Mentoring. San Francisco: Jossey Bass. pp. 20.
•Aubrey, Bob and Cohen, Paul (1995). Working Wisdom: Timeless Skills and Vanguard Strategies for Learning Organizations. Jossey Bass. pp. 23, 44–47, 96–97.
•Kaye, Beverly; Jordan-Evans (2005). Love 'Em or Lose Em: Getting Good People to Stay. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc. p. 117. ISBN 978-1-57675-327-9.
Elements of Effective Practice for Mentoring™, Third Edition
•Dowling, B., Powell, M. and Glendinning, C. (2004), Conceptualising successful partnerships. Health & Social Care in the Community, 12: 309–317. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2524.2004.00500.x
•Jarratt, Susan C. Rereading the Sophists: Classical Rhetoric Refigured. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1991., p 83.
•Sprague, Rosamond Kent, The Older Sophists, Hackett Publishing Company (ISBN 0-87220-556-8), p. 5.
Friday, March 23, 2012
Making Thinking Visible
I just opened a new Amazon box containing Ron Ritchhart’s latest book (co-authored by Karin Morrison and Mark Church) ‘Making Thinking Visible’. Ritchhart's culture of thinking, discussed in his book Intellectual Character, has had transformative effects on teachers (like me!) in understanding classroom culture as a place where the class and each student thinking is "valued, visible, and actively promoted" daily and routinely. Teaching in a progressive school in Los Angeles, this was a part of the entire school culture, which makes for an especially rich experience. When students come into a classroom in the fall and already expect to share their own thinking, build on each others' ideas, and contribute freely to explore new ideas, the teachers' responsibility then is only to continue to nurture and build. This is much easier than the norm. I remember sharing something I wanted to bring up in class with my older son, who had been in several more traditional classrooms. He began telling me I should have the class sit in a circle and pass something around that each person would hold and ask them to share about the topic. I asked why, and he said "well that way people have to start talking about it". The starting to talk about it was luckily not a problem in my classes, but it made me think about how teachers could begin building that up. It must be more and more difficult as students get older and they are more used to just sitting in class, not engaged.
Unpacking Thinking…
The first chapter of ‘Making Thinking Visible’ unpacks thinking. This initial list of ’thinking moves that are integral to understanding’:
1. Observing closely and describing what’s there
2. Building explanations and interpretations
3. Reasoning with evidence
4 Making connections
5. Considering different perspectives
6. Capturing the heart and forming conclusions
7. Wondering and questioning
8. Uncovering complexity and going below the surface of things
This builds the culture in the classroom of respect for each other and each others' ideas. This is meaningful learning.
Reference
Ritchhart, R., Church, M., Morrison, K., Making Thinking Visible: How to Promote Engagement, Understanding, and Independence for All Learners, Jossey-Bass, 2011.
Unpacking Thinking…
The first chapter of ‘Making Thinking Visible’ unpacks thinking. This initial list of ’thinking moves that are integral to understanding’:
1. Observing closely and describing what’s there
2. Building explanations and interpretations
3. Reasoning with evidence
4 Making connections
5. Considering different perspectives
6. Capturing the heart and forming conclusions
7. Wondering and questioning
8. Uncovering complexity and going below the surface of things
This builds the culture in the classroom of respect for each other and each others' ideas. This is meaningful learning.
Reference
Ritchhart, R., Church, M., Morrison, K., Making Thinking Visible: How to Promote Engagement, Understanding, and Independence for All Learners, Jossey-Bass, 2011.
Structure Determinism, Emergence
[Chandler] This is the stance that the pre-given structure of some signifying system-such as language or any kind of textual system-determines the subjectivity (or at least behaviour) of individuals who are subjected to it. Louis Althusser was a structural determinist in this sense (see Interpellation).
Semiotics Glossary http://www.cs.oswego.edu/~blue/xhx/books/semiotics/glossaryS/section261/main.html
Donald, M., A mind so rare: the evolution of human consciousness, New York: W.W. Norton, 2002.
Mason, J., Practioner research using the discipline of noticing (London:Routeledge-Falmer, 2001); I Namuksasa, Attending in mathematics: a synamic view about students' thinking (Edmonton, AB: University of Alberta, unpublished doctoral dissertation, 2004.)
Davis & Sumara, "Constructivist discourses and the field of educational problems and possibilities," in Educational Theory, vol. 52, no. 4 (2002), 409-428.
Korotayev, A.; Malkov, A.; Khaltourina, D. (2006), Introduction to Social Macrodynamics: Compact Macromodels of the World System Growth, Moscow: URSS, ISBN 5-484-00414-4
Miller, Peter. 2010. The Smart Swarm: How understanding flocks, schools, and colonies can make us better at communicating, decision making, and getting things done. New York: Avery.
Philip Clayton & Paul Davies (eds.) (2006). The Re-Emergence of Emergence: The Emergentist Hypothesis from Science to Religion Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Fromm, Jochen (2004), The Emergence of Complexity, Kassel University Press, ISBN 3-89958-069-9* Fromm, Jochen (2005a), Types and Forms of Emergence, arXiv, arXiv:nlin.AO/0506028
Fromm, Jochen (2005b), Ten Questions about Emergence, arXiv, arXiv:nlin.AO/0509049
Goldstein, Jeffrey (1999), "Emergence as a Construct: History and Issues", Emergence: Complexity and Organization 1 (1): 49–72
Hofstadter, Douglas R. (1979), Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid, Harvester Press
Weinstock, Michael (2010), The Architecture of Emergence - the evolution of form in Nature and Civilisation, John Wiley and Sons, ISBN 0-470-06633-4[3]
Wolfram, Stephen (2002), A New Kind of Science, ISBN 1-57955-008-8
Semiotics Glossary http://www.cs.oswego.edu/~blue/xhx/books/semiotics/glossaryS/section261/main.html
Donald, M., A mind so rare: the evolution of human consciousness, New York: W.W. Norton, 2002.
Mason, J., Practioner research using the discipline of noticing (London:Routeledge-Falmer, 2001); I Namuksasa, Attending in mathematics: a synamic view about students' thinking (Edmonton, AB: University of Alberta, unpublished doctoral dissertation, 2004.)
Davis & Sumara, "Constructivist discourses and the field of educational problems and possibilities," in Educational Theory, vol. 52, no. 4 (2002), 409-428.
Korotayev, A.; Malkov, A.; Khaltourina, D. (2006), Introduction to Social Macrodynamics: Compact Macromodels of the World System Growth, Moscow: URSS, ISBN 5-484-00414-4
Miller, Peter. 2010. The Smart Swarm: How understanding flocks, schools, and colonies can make us better at communicating, decision making, and getting things done. New York: Avery.
Philip Clayton & Paul Davies (eds.) (2006). The Re-Emergence of Emergence: The Emergentist Hypothesis from Science to Religion Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Fromm, Jochen (2004), The Emergence of Complexity, Kassel University Press, ISBN 3-89958-069-9* Fromm, Jochen (2005a), Types and Forms of Emergence, arXiv, arXiv:nlin.AO/0506028
Fromm, Jochen (2005b), Ten Questions about Emergence, arXiv, arXiv:nlin.AO/0509049
Goldstein, Jeffrey (1999), "Emergence as a Construct: History and Issues", Emergence: Complexity and Organization 1 (1): 49–72
Hofstadter, Douglas R. (1979), Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid, Harvester Press
Weinstock, Michael (2010), The Architecture of Emergence - the evolution of form in Nature and Civilisation, John Wiley and Sons, ISBN 0-470-06633-4[3]
Wolfram, Stephen (2002), A New Kind of Science, ISBN 1-57955-008-8
Monday, March 19, 2012
ELLI
ELLI is a self-assessment instrument that allows the learner to "self"report" their own perceptions of themselves as a learner at a point in time. This tool can be given repeatedly to assess changes in learning power dimensions.
From: The Effective Lifelong Learning Inventory (ELLI)
For further information, see www.vitalhub.net and www.bristol.ac.uk/education/enterprise/elli
From: The Effective Lifelong Learning Inventory (ELLI)
For further information, see www.vitalhub.net and www.bristol.ac.uk/education/enterprise/elli
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
C21 Skills
Twenty-first century skills are talked about constantly in education. Yet, we seem to still be in an industrial age educational system for the most part. Of course, there are exceptions that push the envelope to what can be: "progressive schools", c21schools, individual classrooms. But let's take a look at some different definitions of the C21 skills.
In the US, the Partnership for 21st Century Skills has created a Framework for 21st century Learning, which they view as a holistic teaching and learning framework, defining student outcomes and support systems. This organization was formed in 2012 through efforts of the U.S. Department of Education, and several large tech sector corporations (http://www.p21.org/about-us/our-mission/history). Thei mission is : "To serve as a catalyst to position 21st century readiness at the center of US K12 education by building collaborative partnerships among education, business, community and government leaders." (http://www.p21.org/about-us/press-kit)
http://www.p21.org/overview/skills-framework, accessed March 12, 2012
The P21 blog can be accessed here: http://www.p21.org/tools-and-resources/p21blog The interesting thing about this group is that it has a strict use policy? : "Permission for use of the Framework for 21st Century Learning or other information produced by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills must be made in writing with a clearly defined request and description of how the material will be used. Permission will be granted provided that the content remain unchanged and that attribution be given to the Partnership for 21st Skills.
Please send all requests to requests@p21.org ." (http://www.p21.org/overview/use-of-p21-content), which is usually not the case with government sponsored efforts at spreading the word for educational reform.
The Center for 21st Century skills at Education Connection, consisting of a team of US educators who define their work as a vision for innovation in education using 21st century skills in teaching and learning. The organization is a not-for-profit, receiving funding from federal, state, and private funds. They build and sell curricula, training, and support to schools in Connecticut and Massachusetts, in the United States. They too define their work as "developing a generation of successful American innovators to encourage the converagence of art, business, creativity, innovation, engineering, and science. " (http://www.skills21.org/). They define six critical that form the foundation for C21 success: information literacy, collaboration, communication, creativity and innovation, problem solving, and responsible citizenship. This organization offers professional development, conferences, and courses. They have partnered with the Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences to develop a series of courses that can be easily included in any high school curriculum. The Academy funds technology and student events.
http://www.skills21.org/programs/the-academy-of-digital-arts-and-sciences/scope-and-sequence/
The Academy courses include Algebra21, Geometry21, Earth and Energy Essentials (E3), Bio21, Chem21, Physics21, Foundations of Health Science and Technology, and Public Health. They are conducting a longitudinal study, in partnership with the Education Development Center (EDC), of the effects of their courses, with the research question: "Do high school students who participate in the Academy demonstrate a greater interest in and college career readiness in STEM areas than comparable students who do not participate in the Academy?" (http://www.skills21.org/programs/the-academy-of-digital-arts-and-sciences/research/)
The ATCS, the Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills, http://atc21s.org/, is an Australian effort at defining C21 skills, headquartered at the University of Melbourne. This effort reaches across Europe, in March 2012, holding a pan-European event, with real time events in Finland and the Netherlands.
The framework for the ATC21S structure is more broad-based, defining the four categories of skills as ways of thinking, ways of working, tools for working, and skills for living in the world. (http://atc21s.org/index.php/about/what-are-21st-century-skills/). The proposal for moving the conceptual skills into the practical world are only two: collaborative problem-solving and ICT literacy -- learning in digital networks. (http://atc21s.org/index.php/about/what-are-21st-century-skills/)
ATCS's white papers on C21 skills is available here: http://atc21s.org/index.php/resources/white-papers/. ATC project is funded by Cisco, Intel, Microsoft and founder countries Australia, Finland, Singapore, and the United States, and the project is being conducted by the University of Melbourne. (http://atc21s.org/index.php/resources/white-papers/). Authors for these white papers include academics and researchers from all over Europe, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. This highly diverse group is creating a "country kit" to be adapted to any country or region of the world. The website states that the kit will be available in 2012, after data trials. (http://atc21s.org/index.php/resources/country-toolkit/). It seems that this group has a broader pedagogical base, and a vision for global education. The ATC has created a series of white papers, developed by more than 60 of the world's leading education researchers. The topics are 21st Century Skills; Methodological Issues; Technological Issues; New Assessments and Environments for Knowledge Building; and Policy Frameworks for New Assessments. ATC has internationally known and respected researchers and educators working on their program, writing white papers. In fact, Linda Darling-Hammond, the co-director of the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education (SCOPE), wrote the original policy white paper. The paper describes policy assessment system frameworks in Australia, Finland, Singapore, and the United Kingdom. (http://atc21s.org/index.php/resources/white-papers/#item5). A new book has been published, Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills, edited by Patrick Griffin, Barry McGaw, and Esther Care, by Springer, 2012. (http://www.springerlink.com/content/978-94-007-2323-8#section=975448&page=4&locus=64) I've just ordered the book, even though the cheapest price I could find was $138 at Amazon (ouch!). The online reading available is only the table of contents, and front matter.
In the US, the Partnership for 21st Century Skills has created a Framework for 21st century Learning, which they view as a holistic teaching and learning framework, defining student outcomes and support systems. This organization was formed in 2012 through efforts of the U.S. Department of Education, and several large tech sector corporations (http://www.p21.org/about-us/our-mission/history). Thei mission is : "To serve as a catalyst to position 21st century readiness at the center of US K12 education by building collaborative partnerships among education, business, community and government leaders." (http://www.p21.org/about-us/press-kit)
The P21 blog can be accessed here: http://www.p21.org/tools-and-resources/p21blog The interesting thing about this group is that it has a strict use policy? : "Permission for use of the Framework for 21st Century Learning or other information produced by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills must be made in writing with a clearly defined request and description of how the material will be used. Permission will be granted provided that the content remain unchanged and that attribution be given to the Partnership for 21st Skills.
Please send all requests to requests@p21.org ." (http://www.p21.org/overview/use-of-p21-content), which is usually not the case with government sponsored efforts at spreading the word for educational reform.
The Center for 21st Century skills at Education Connection, consisting of a team of US educators who define their work as a vision for innovation in education using 21st century skills in teaching and learning. The organization is a not-for-profit, receiving funding from federal, state, and private funds. They build and sell curricula, training, and support to schools in Connecticut and Massachusetts, in the United States. They too define their work as "developing a generation of successful American innovators to encourage the converagence of art, business, creativity, innovation, engineering, and science. " (http://www.skills21.org/). They define six critical that form the foundation for C21 success: information literacy, collaboration, communication, creativity and innovation, problem solving, and responsible citizenship. This organization offers professional development, conferences, and courses. They have partnered with the Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences to develop a series of courses that can be easily included in any high school curriculum. The Academy funds technology and student events.
The Academy courses include Algebra21, Geometry21, Earth and Energy Essentials (E3), Bio21, Chem21, Physics21, Foundations of Health Science and Technology, and Public Health. They are conducting a longitudinal study, in partnership with the Education Development Center (EDC), of the effects of their courses, with the research question: "Do high school students who participate in the Academy demonstrate a greater interest in and college career readiness in STEM areas than comparable students who do not participate in the Academy?" (http://www.skills21.org/programs/the-academy-of-digital-arts-and-sciences/research/)
The ATCS, the Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills, http://atc21s.org/, is an Australian effort at defining C21 skills, headquartered at the University of Melbourne. This effort reaches across Europe, in March 2012, holding a pan-European event, with real time events in Finland and the Netherlands.
The framework for the ATC21S structure is more broad-based, defining the four categories of skills as ways of thinking, ways of working, tools for working, and skills for living in the world. (http://atc21s.org/index.php/about/what-are-21st-century-skills/). The proposal for moving the conceptual skills into the practical world are only two: collaborative problem-solving and ICT literacy -- learning in digital networks. (http://atc21s.org/index.php/about/what-are-21st-century-skills/)
ATCS's white papers on C21 skills is available here: http://atc21s.org/index.php/resources/white-papers/. ATC project is funded by Cisco, Intel, Microsoft and founder countries Australia, Finland, Singapore, and the United States, and the project is being conducted by the University of Melbourne. (http://atc21s.org/index.php/resources/white-papers/). Authors for these white papers include academics and researchers from all over Europe, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. This highly diverse group is creating a "country kit" to be adapted to any country or region of the world. The website states that the kit will be available in 2012, after data trials. (http://atc21s.org/index.php/resources/country-toolkit/). It seems that this group has a broader pedagogical base, and a vision for global education. The ATC has created a series of white papers, developed by more than 60 of the world's leading education researchers. The topics are 21st Century Skills; Methodological Issues; Technological Issues; New Assessments and Environments for Knowledge Building; and Policy Frameworks for New Assessments. ATC has internationally known and respected researchers and educators working on their program, writing white papers. In fact, Linda Darling-Hammond, the co-director of the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education (SCOPE), wrote the original policy white paper. The paper describes policy assessment system frameworks in Australia, Finland, Singapore, and the United Kingdom. (http://atc21s.org/index.php/resources/white-papers/#item5). A new book has been published, Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills, edited by Patrick Griffin, Barry McGaw, and Esther Care, by Springer, 2012. (http://www.springerlink.com/content/978-94-007-2323-8#section=975448&page=4&locus=64) I've just ordered the book, even though the cheapest price I could find was $138 at Amazon (ouch!). The online reading available is only the table of contents, and front matter.
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Complexity in Education Bibliography
Davis, Brent. 2004. Inventions of teaching: A genealogy. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. (A short account of how teaching has been conceptualized from the modern to present day. Davis builds on these modernist "inventions" to propose a complexivist approach to teaching and learning that understands education as an emergent choreography - an expansion of the space of the possible. This text not only describes complexity science perspectives as they apply to education, but it also lives out those perspectives in the very structure and layout of the text. Of particular interest will be the sophisticated clustered glossary.)
Doll, William, E., and Noel Gough, eds. 2002. Curriculum visions. New York: Peter Lang. (A unique and multi-layered text that includes a series of diverse and visionary perspectives, problematics, and teaching implications on contemporary issues in curriculum from a distinguished list of contributing authors, including C.A. Bowers, Deborah Britzman, and William Pinar. Significantly, several authors explore and re-conceptualize curriculum as complexity. For a lucid example, see Doll's provocative article on the five C's - Curriculum as Currere, Complexity, Cosmology, Conversation, and Community.)
Egan, Kieran. 1997. The educated mind: How cognitive tools shape our understanding. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. (Egan juxtaposes critically current conceptions of education to demonstrate how they are often positioned as competing discourses. Egan posits a new theory of education that draws from the fields of complexity science, cognition, and education.)
Hoban, Gary, F. 2002. Teacher learning for educational change: A systems thinking approach. Buckingham, UK: Open University. (In this text Hogan explores the central question “What conditions will help to establish a framework for long-term teacher learning to support educational change?” To address this question, Hogan guides readers through a systems thinking approach, situated in complexity theory and nonlinear dynamics, to explore the dynamic relationship between teaching and learning that he utilizes to develop a new theoretical framework, which he situates as a Professional Learning System.)
Kincheloe, Joe and Kathleen Berry. 2004. Rigour and complexity in educational research. Buckingham, UK: Open University. 208pp (The authors investigate intensifying claims and mounting pressures for increased scientific rigour and evidence-based research practices in education. Knicheloe and Berry offer the alternative perspective of the bricolage as a new conception of rigour. Chapters include a focus on the need for interdisciplinarity, the bricolage and complexity, and feedback looping as a way of increasing complexity).
Doll, William, E., and Noel Gough, eds. 2002. Curriculum visions. New York: Peter Lang. (A unique and multi-layered text that includes a series of diverse and visionary perspectives, problematics, and teaching implications on contemporary issues in curriculum from a distinguished list of contributing authors, including C.A. Bowers, Deborah Britzman, and William Pinar. Significantly, several authors explore and re-conceptualize curriculum as complexity. For a lucid example, see Doll's provocative article on the five C's - Curriculum as Currere, Complexity, Cosmology, Conversation, and Community.)
Egan, Kieran. 1997. The educated mind: How cognitive tools shape our understanding. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. (Egan juxtaposes critically current conceptions of education to demonstrate how they are often positioned as competing discourses. Egan posits a new theory of education that draws from the fields of complexity science, cognition, and education.)
Hoban, Gary, F. 2002. Teacher learning for educational change: A systems thinking approach. Buckingham, UK: Open University. (In this text Hogan explores the central question “What conditions will help to establish a framework for long-term teacher learning to support educational change?” To address this question, Hogan guides readers through a systems thinking approach, situated in complexity theory and nonlinear dynamics, to explore the dynamic relationship between teaching and learning that he utilizes to develop a new theoretical framework, which he situates as a Professional Learning System.)
Kincheloe, Joe and Kathleen Berry. 2004. Rigour and complexity in educational research. Buckingham, UK: Open University. 208pp (The authors investigate intensifying claims and mounting pressures for increased scientific rigour and evidence-based research practices in education. Knicheloe and Berry offer the alternative perspective of the bricolage as a new conception of rigour. Chapters include a focus on the need for interdisciplinarity, the bricolage and complexity, and feedback looping as a way of increasing complexity).
What is Complexity?
Complexity
Complexity as an idea, a theory, a science, and a way of thinking is a recent phenomena (~30 years). It originated in the convergence of ways of thinking about physics, chemistry, artificial intelligence, chaos theory, fractal geometry, cybernetics, information science, and systems theory, but has expanded to the social sciences, and education. It is concerned with systems that learns in some way, for example, brains, consciousness, social collectives, emergent technologies, or knowledge bodies.
" The emergent realm of complexity thinking answers, that, to make sense of the sorts of phenomena mentioned above, one must "level jump"--that is, simultaneously examine the phenomena in its own right (for its particular coherence and its specific rules of behavior) and pay attention to the conditions of its emergence (e.g., the agents that come together, the contexts of their co-activity, etc.)."(Davis & Sumara, 2006)
The use of the term transdisciplinary is now used to describe complexity studies, as research teams may come from different backgrounds, but are adequately informed of each other's perspectives to work in sync as a collective.
For a phenomena to be classes as complex, it must be:
•self-organized
•bottom-up emergent
•short-range relationships
•nested structure
•ambiguously bounded
•organizationally closed
•structure determined
•far-from equilibrium (Davis & Sumara, 2006)
Here is a diagram of the complexity science tree from the Complexity and Education website:
accessed on March 10,2012, Complexity and Education, http://www.complexityandeducation.ualberta.ca/glossary.htm.
Origins
Physicist Warren Weaver published a paper in 1948 that provided a rubric defining complex and not-complex forms and events. He identified simple, complicated, and complex phenomena. His category of simple were the forms and events that Galileo, Descartes and Newton studied. The scientists developed analytic methods to reduce these mechanical phenomena to basic laws and elementary particles. (Davis & Sumara, pp. 8-9)
In the early days of modern science, this analytic approach, which cut apart and reassembled phenomena into unshakeable explanations. This evolved into the philosphy of determinism-- the understanding that all that will happen is already determined, there are no accidents, and all that has happened can be calculated. Determinism is still in effect in our sciences now, although even Newton realized that in his simple systems where three or more components were in play, understanding and study became intractable. Probability and statistics were developed to attempt interpretation at these more complicated systems. However, they did not seem to result in a shift in thinking.
However, by the early 1900s French mathematician Henri Poincaré explained:
[E]ven if it were the case that the natural laws no longer held any secret for us, we could still only know the initial situation approximately. If that enables us to predict the succedding situation with the same spproximation, that is all we require, and we should say the phenomenon had been predicated, that is governed by laws. But it is not aalways so; it may happen that small differences in the initial conditions producevery great ones in the final pheonmenon. A small error in the former will produce an enormous error in the latter. Predication becomes impossible." (Poincaré,1905)
Poincaré suggested that actions of systems may transform them; some systems are self-transformative. In complex systems, interactions are not fixed and may be subject to ongoing evolution and adaptations. Realizing the variability of complex systems is immensely important. New principles of this adaptation, or learning are now needed to study complex systems, as it becomes more and more clear that it may be impossible to predict behavior of these systems.
Reconsideration of Learning as Complex Activity
Learning becomes a transformative process, structural change occurs in the learner uniquely because of their own biologic and experiential structures. This is indeed, another argument to refute Skinner and behaviorism. The external stimulus does not cause the learning or behavior of the learner.
The learner must also be rethought. Understanding of multiple meanings of structure is important to define what a learner is. Buildings are fixed structures and can be mapped with blueprints, defined by scaffolds, platforms, foundations, hierarchies, etc. Biological structure is again complex. Structures of living systems and organisms are incomprehensible.
"Returning to the issue at hand, then, a learner in this text is understood to be a structuring structured structure, to borrow from Dyke. A learner is a complex unity that is capable of adapting itself to the sorts of new and diverse circumstances that an active agent is likely to encounter in a dynamic world." (Davis & Sumara, p14)
Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen recombine terms simplicity and complexity to generate simplexity and complicity. They discuss that simplexities have often been taken at face value to define the truth of how and what things are, mistakenly so. Complicities "totally different rules converge to produce similar features, and so exhibit the same large-scale structural patterns." (Cohen & Stewart, 1994, p. 414)
Bibliography
Davis, Brent, Sumara, Dennis, Complexity and Education Inquiries into Learning, Teaching, and Research, Routledge, New York, 2006.
Cohen, J., Stewart, I., The collapse of chaos: discovering simplicity in a complex world (New York: Penquin, 1994)
Dyke, C., The evolutionary dynamics of complex systems (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988)
H. Poincaré, Science and Hypothesis (London: Walter Scott Publishing, 1905)
Complexity Science tree diagram, accessed on March 10,2012, Complexity and Education, http://www.complexityandeducation.ualberta.ca/glossary.htm.
Complexity as an idea, a theory, a science, and a way of thinking is a recent phenomena (~30 years). It originated in the convergence of ways of thinking about physics, chemistry, artificial intelligence, chaos theory, fractal geometry, cybernetics, information science, and systems theory, but has expanded to the social sciences, and education. It is concerned with systems that learns in some way, for example, brains, consciousness, social collectives, emergent technologies, or knowledge bodies.
" The emergent realm of complexity thinking answers, that, to make sense of the sorts of phenomena mentioned above, one must "level jump"--that is, simultaneously examine the phenomena in its own right (for its particular coherence and its specific rules of behavior) and pay attention to the conditions of its emergence (e.g., the agents that come together, the contexts of their co-activity, etc.)."(Davis & Sumara, 2006)
The use of the term transdisciplinary is now used to describe complexity studies, as research teams may come from different backgrounds, but are adequately informed of each other's perspectives to work in sync as a collective.
For a phenomena to be classes as complex, it must be:
•self-organized
•bottom-up emergent
•short-range relationships
•nested structure
•ambiguously bounded
•organizationally closed
•structure determined
•far-from equilibrium (Davis & Sumara, 2006)
Here is a diagram of the complexity science tree from the Complexity and Education website:
accessed on March 10,2012, Complexity and Education, http://www.complexityandeducation.ualberta.ca/glossary.htm.
Origins
Physicist Warren Weaver published a paper in 1948 that provided a rubric defining complex and not-complex forms and events. He identified simple, complicated, and complex phenomena. His category of simple were the forms and events that Galileo, Descartes and Newton studied. The scientists developed analytic methods to reduce these mechanical phenomena to basic laws and elementary particles. (Davis & Sumara, pp. 8-9)
In the early days of modern science, this analytic approach, which cut apart and reassembled phenomena into unshakeable explanations. This evolved into the philosphy of determinism-- the understanding that all that will happen is already determined, there are no accidents, and all that has happened can be calculated. Determinism is still in effect in our sciences now, although even Newton realized that in his simple systems where three or more components were in play, understanding and study became intractable. Probability and statistics were developed to attempt interpretation at these more complicated systems. However, they did not seem to result in a shift in thinking.
However, by the early 1900s French mathematician Henri Poincaré explained:
[E]ven if it were the case that the natural laws no longer held any secret for us, we could still only know the initial situation approximately. If that enables us to predict the succedding situation with the same spproximation, that is all we require, and we should say the phenomenon had been predicated, that is governed by laws. But it is not aalways so; it may happen that small differences in the initial conditions producevery great ones in the final pheonmenon. A small error in the former will produce an enormous error in the latter. Predication becomes impossible." (Poincaré,1905)
Poincaré suggested that actions of systems may transform them; some systems are self-transformative. In complex systems, interactions are not fixed and may be subject to ongoing evolution and adaptations. Realizing the variability of complex systems is immensely important. New principles of this adaptation, or learning are now needed to study complex systems, as it becomes more and more clear that it may be impossible to predict behavior of these systems.
Reconsideration of Learning as Complex Activity
Learning becomes a transformative process, structural change occurs in the learner uniquely because of their own biologic and experiential structures. This is indeed, another argument to refute Skinner and behaviorism. The external stimulus does not cause the learning or behavior of the learner.
The learner must also be rethought. Understanding of multiple meanings of structure is important to define what a learner is. Buildings are fixed structures and can be mapped with blueprints, defined by scaffolds, platforms, foundations, hierarchies, etc. Biological structure is again complex. Structures of living systems and organisms are incomprehensible.
"Returning to the issue at hand, then, a learner in this text is understood to be a structuring structured structure, to borrow from Dyke. A learner is a complex unity that is capable of adapting itself to the sorts of new and diverse circumstances that an active agent is likely to encounter in a dynamic world." (Davis & Sumara, p14)
Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen recombine terms simplicity and complexity to generate simplexity and complicity. They discuss that simplexities have often been taken at face value to define the truth of how and what things are, mistakenly so. Complicities "totally different rules converge to produce similar features, and so exhibit the same large-scale structural patterns." (Cohen & Stewart, 1994, p. 414)
Bibliography
Davis, Brent, Sumara, Dennis, Complexity and Education Inquiries into Learning, Teaching, and Research, Routledge, New York, 2006.
Cohen, J., Stewart, I., The collapse of chaos: discovering simplicity in a complex world (New York: Penquin, 1994)
Dyke, C., The evolutionary dynamics of complex systems (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988)
H. Poincaré, Science and Hypothesis (London: Walter Scott Publishing, 1905)
Complexity Science tree diagram, accessed on March 10,2012, Complexity and Education, http://www.complexityandeducation.ualberta.ca/glossary.htm.
Friday, March 9, 2012
Learning Power, Learning Dispositions, ELLI
David Perkins (1995) research studies to measure and increase IQ. Perkins defines IQ as having three major components:
1. Neural intelligence. This refers to the efficiency and precision of one's neurological system.
2. Experiential intelligence. This refers to one's accumulated knowledge and experience in different areas. It can be thought of as the accumulation of all of one's expertises.
3. Reflective intelligence. This refers to one's broad-based strategies for attacking problems, for learning, and for approaching intellectually challenging tasks. It includes attitudes that support persistence, systemization, and imagination. It includes self-monitoring and self-management.
In 1997, Dunlap defined four separate instructional methodologies that nurture learning skills for lifelong learning. These four methodologies are: problem-based learning (PBL)(Barrows & Tamblyn, 1980), intentional learning (Palincsar, 1990), reciprocal teaching (Palincsar & Brown, 1984), and cognitive apprenticeship(Collins, Brown & Holum, 1991).
Learning Power
The concept of learning power emerged in the 1980s and 1990s, in the writings of Guy Claxton. Learning Power, seen as a form of intelligence, is not primarily intellectual, but related to personality and styles, practical, consisting of interwoven capacities, seen as capable of development and refinement, and often referred to as dispositions(David Perkins, 1995), Habits of mind (Art Costa, 2000) or 'capacities' (Guy Claxton, 2002), instead of skills.
According to Smith and Spurling (1999), “lifelong learning relates to learning that takes place throughout the lifespan. It includes the main types of learning, informal and formal education, as well as self-directed learning. Lifelong learning is continuous and is maintained throughout life. The process of learning in this capacity is intentional and is expressed through a strategy that may be appraised over time.”
Different researchers have defined and discussed learning power and the capacities necessary. American researchers such as Costa, Perkins, and Ritchhart focused more on formal, intellectual, school learning, whereas British researchers such as Claxton, Ruth Deakin-Crick, and Bill Lucas define learning in both informal and formal settings.
In Building Learning Power: Helping Young People Become Better Learners, Guy Claxton defines a framework to build learning power that lists seventeen different learning capacities that are grouped into the four clusters of resilience, resourcefulness, reciprocity, and reflection. (Claxton, 2002)
Learning to Learn
Ruth Deakin Crick visited Carnegie in late 2009 to introduce the Effective Lifelong Learning Inventory (ELLI), a framework for assessing the seven dimensions of student learning: changing and learning, meaning making, critical curiosity, creativity, learning relationships, strategic awareness, and resilience.
Video interview
The characteristics and components of effective lifelong learning are interdisciplinary in scope. Learning is a process carried out by individuals and groups (Crick, Broadfoot, & Claxton, 2004), where the learned material is considered a knowledge or skill, and can also be described as an ability to do something new, or as a new understanding.
The process of learning may take place beneath the “threshold of introspection” in the learner’s mind, or the learner may be fully aware of the learning process (Crick, Broadfoot, & Claxton, 2004).
The following variables that impact a learner's capacity and motivation to learn were proposed by Crick, Broadfoot, and Claxton in 2004:
self-esteem, locus of control, learning dispositions, goal orientations, learning styles, intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation, socio-historical environment of the learner.
(Crick, Broadfoot & Claxton, 2004)
Crick, Broadfoot, and Claxton developed ELLI, the Evaluating Lifelong Learning Inventory instrument to identify elements of capacity for lifelong learning, and assess lifelong learning. ELLI identifies dimensions of learning as self-efficacy and commitment, growth (an learner's belief that s/he can get better at learning over time), critical curiosity, meaning making, fragility and dependence vs. resilience and robustness, creativity, strategic awareness
Bibliography
Barrows, H. S. & Tamblyn, R. N. (1980). Problem-based learning. New York: Springer Publishing Company.
Claxton, Guy, Wise Up: The Challenge of Lifelong Learning, Bloomsbury: London and New York, 1999.
Claxton, Guy. Building Learning Power: Helping Young People Become Better Learners. Bristol: TLO, 2002.
Collins, A., Brown, J. S. & Holum, A. (1991). Cognitive apprenticeship: Making thinking visible. American Educator (Winter), 6-11, 38-46.
Costa, Art and Kallick, Bena, Habits of Mind, vols. I, II, III and IV, ASCD: Alexandria VA, 2000.
Crick, R. D., Broadfoot, P. & Claxton, G. (2004). Developing an effective lifelong learning inventory: the ELLI Project. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, 11:3, 247-272.
Deakin-Crick, Ruth, Patricia Broadfoot and Guy Claxton, Developing an Effective Lifelong Learning Inventory: The ELLI Project, Assessment in Education, 11(3), pp. 237-72, 2004.
Dunlap, J. C. (Ed.). (1997). Proceedings from AECT ’97: The 19th National Convention of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology. Albuquerque, NM. Retrieved November 20, 2008, from http://eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED409835&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED409835
Smith, J. & Spurling, A. (1999). Lifelong learning: Riding the Giger. London: Cassell.
Kahler, A. A., Morgan, B., Holmes, G. E., & Bundy, C. E. (1985). Methods in Adult Education (4th ed.). Danville, IL: The Interstate Printer & Publishers, Inc.
Overly, N. V., McQuigg, R. B., Silvernail, D. L. & Coppedge, F. L. (1980). A model for lifelong learning. Bloomington, Indiana: Phi Delta Kappa.
Palincsar, A. S. (1990). Providing the context for intentional learning. Remedial and Special Education, 11, p. 36-39
Palincsar, A. S. & Brown, A. L. (1984). Reciprocal teaching of comprehension-fostering and comprehension-monitoring activities. Cognition and Instruction, 1, p. 117-175.
Perkins, David, Outsmarting IQ: The Emerging Science of Learnable Intelligence, Basic Books: New York, 1995.
Perkins, David, Making Learning Whole: How Seven Principles of Teaching Can Transform Education, Jossey Bass, 2009.
From IQ to IC: A dispositional view of intelligence,Ron Ritchhart Roeper Review, 1940-865X, Volume 23, Issue 3, 2001, Pages 143 – 150
Smith, J. & Spurling, A. (1999). Lifelong learning: Riding the Giger. London: Cassell.
Von Wright, J. (1992). Reflections on reflection. Learning and Instruction, 2, p. 59-68
1. Neural intelligence. This refers to the efficiency and precision of one's neurological system.
2. Experiential intelligence. This refers to one's accumulated knowledge and experience in different areas. It can be thought of as the accumulation of all of one's expertises.
3. Reflective intelligence. This refers to one's broad-based strategies for attacking problems, for learning, and for approaching intellectually challenging tasks. It includes attitudes that support persistence, systemization, and imagination. It includes self-monitoring and self-management.
In 1997, Dunlap defined four separate instructional methodologies that nurture learning skills for lifelong learning. These four methodologies are: problem-based learning (PBL)(Barrows & Tamblyn, 1980), intentional learning (Palincsar, 1990), reciprocal teaching (Palincsar & Brown, 1984), and cognitive apprenticeship(Collins, Brown & Holum, 1991).
Learning Power
The concept of learning power emerged in the 1980s and 1990s, in the writings of Guy Claxton. Learning Power, seen as a form of intelligence, is not primarily intellectual, but related to personality and styles, practical, consisting of interwoven capacities, seen as capable of development and refinement, and often referred to as dispositions(David Perkins, 1995), Habits of mind (Art Costa, 2000) or 'capacities' (Guy Claxton, 2002), instead of skills.
According to Smith and Spurling (1999), “lifelong learning relates to learning that takes place throughout the lifespan. It includes the main types of learning, informal and formal education, as well as self-directed learning. Lifelong learning is continuous and is maintained throughout life. The process of learning in this capacity is intentional and is expressed through a strategy that may be appraised over time.”
Different researchers have defined and discussed learning power and the capacities necessary. American researchers such as Costa, Perkins, and Ritchhart focused more on formal, intellectual, school learning, whereas British researchers such as Claxton, Ruth Deakin-Crick, and Bill Lucas define learning in both informal and formal settings.
In Building Learning Power: Helping Young People Become Better Learners, Guy Claxton defines a framework to build learning power that lists seventeen different learning capacities that are grouped into the four clusters of resilience, resourcefulness, reciprocity, and reflection. (Claxton, 2002)
Learning to Learn
Ruth Deakin Crick visited Carnegie in late 2009 to introduce the Effective Lifelong Learning Inventory (ELLI), a framework for assessing the seven dimensions of student learning: changing and learning, meaning making, critical curiosity, creativity, learning relationships, strategic awareness, and resilience.
Video interview
The characteristics and components of effective lifelong learning are interdisciplinary in scope. Learning is a process carried out by individuals and groups (Crick, Broadfoot, & Claxton, 2004), where the learned material is considered a knowledge or skill, and can also be described as an ability to do something new, or as a new understanding.
The process of learning may take place beneath the “threshold of introspection” in the learner’s mind, or the learner may be fully aware of the learning process (Crick, Broadfoot, & Claxton, 2004).
The following variables that impact a learner's capacity and motivation to learn were proposed by Crick, Broadfoot, and Claxton in 2004:
self-esteem, locus of control, learning dispositions, goal orientations, learning styles, intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation, socio-historical environment of the learner.
(Crick, Broadfoot & Claxton, 2004)
Crick, Broadfoot, and Claxton developed ELLI, the Evaluating Lifelong Learning Inventory instrument to identify elements of capacity for lifelong learning, and assess lifelong learning. ELLI identifies dimensions of learning as self-efficacy and commitment, growth (an learner's belief that s/he can get better at learning over time), critical curiosity, meaning making, fragility and dependence vs. resilience and robustness, creativity, strategic awareness
Bibliography
Barrows, H. S. & Tamblyn, R. N. (1980). Problem-based learning. New York: Springer Publishing Company.
Claxton, Guy, Wise Up: The Challenge of Lifelong Learning, Bloomsbury: London and New York, 1999.
Claxton, Guy. Building Learning Power: Helping Young People Become Better Learners. Bristol: TLO, 2002.
Collins, A., Brown, J. S. & Holum, A. (1991). Cognitive apprenticeship: Making thinking visible. American Educator (Winter), 6-11, 38-46.
Costa, Art and Kallick, Bena, Habits of Mind, vols. I, II, III and IV, ASCD: Alexandria VA, 2000.
Crick, R. D., Broadfoot, P. & Claxton, G. (2004). Developing an effective lifelong learning inventory: the ELLI Project. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, 11:3, 247-272.
Deakin-Crick, Ruth, Patricia Broadfoot and Guy Claxton, Developing an Effective Lifelong Learning Inventory: The ELLI Project, Assessment in Education, 11(3), pp. 237-72, 2004.
Dunlap, J. C. (Ed.). (1997). Proceedings from AECT ’97: The 19th National Convention of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology. Albuquerque, NM. Retrieved November 20, 2008, from http://eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED409835&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED409835
Smith, J. & Spurling, A. (1999). Lifelong learning: Riding the Giger. London: Cassell.
Kahler, A. A., Morgan, B., Holmes, G. E., & Bundy, C. E. (1985). Methods in Adult Education (4th ed.). Danville, IL: The Interstate Printer & Publishers, Inc.
Overly, N. V., McQuigg, R. B., Silvernail, D. L. & Coppedge, F. L. (1980). A model for lifelong learning. Bloomington, Indiana: Phi Delta Kappa.
Palincsar, A. S. (1990). Providing the context for intentional learning. Remedial and Special Education, 11, p. 36-39
Palincsar, A. S. & Brown, A. L. (1984). Reciprocal teaching of comprehension-fostering and comprehension-monitoring activities. Cognition and Instruction, 1, p. 117-175.
Perkins, David, Outsmarting IQ: The Emerging Science of Learnable Intelligence, Basic Books: New York, 1995.
Perkins, David, Making Learning Whole: How Seven Principles of Teaching Can Transform Education, Jossey Bass, 2009.
From IQ to IC: A dispositional view of intelligence,Ron Ritchhart Roeper Review, 1940-865X, Volume 23, Issue 3, 2001, Pages 143 – 150
Smith, J. & Spurling, A. (1999). Lifelong learning: Riding the Giger. London: Cassell.
Von Wright, J. (1992). Reflections on reflection. Learning and Instruction, 2, p. 59-68
Personal Learning Environments, PLEs
Personal learning environments are systems that provide support for learners to control their own learning toward setting learning goals, managing the content and the way they process content, and communication with peers, teachers, and experts to achieve their learning goals. PLEs can refer to just one application or web service, or it may be many resources connected in a learning space.
Francesc Esteve's Photostream on Flickr, Creative commons licensing
Goldstein and Miller in 1976.
Colloquia-the first peer-to-peer learning space (2000) Oleg Liber
Epsilen Environment developed by Ali Jafari
Elgg system developed by Dave Tosh and Ben Werdmuller
PebblePAD developed by UK-based Pebble Learning
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_personal_learning_environments explains the origins of PLE's- 1976- present
2003: The ROMA project begins at the Open University of the Netherlands, focusing on the use of stigmergic connections within social networks to enhance individual learning experiences through the mining of anonymized information on the pathways chosen by successful learners. This work provided a foundation for the educational use and methods of social network analysis to support learning. (Similar work was also undertaken by INSEAD in France - more details needed)
PLNs, or personal learning networks consist of all the digital networks, people, and resources which play a role for individual learners.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/suewaters/2675052081/
http://e-language.wikispaces.com/plns
Technological platforms for linking different services together include automated aggregators like Flavors.me and Symbaloo, also listed on the PLEs page.
Bibliography
van Harmelen, Mark (August 2006). "Personal Learning Environments". Retrieved 2006-08-24.
Goldstein, Ira. P.; Miller, Mark L. (1976). "AI Based Personal Learning Environment". AI Memo. MIT. pp. 1–35. Retrieved 2010-08-29.
http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/6259
The application of artificial intelligence (AI) techniques to the design of personal learning environments is an enterprise of both theoretical and practical interest. In the short term, the process of developing and testing intelligent tutoring programs serves as a new experimental vehicle for exploring alternative cognitive and pedagogical theories. In the long term, such programs should supplement the educational supervision and guidance provided by human teachers. This paper illustrates our long term perspective by a scenario with a hypothetical tutoring system for elementary graphics programming.
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/6259
Liber, Oleg (2000). "Colloquia - a Conversation Manager". Campus Wide Information Systems 17(2). pp. 56–62. Retrieved 2006-08-27.
^ Downes, Stephen (October 2005). "E-learning 2.0". Retrieved 2006-08-28.
Community of Inquiry Resources
Garrison, D.R. (2007). Online community of inquiry review: Social, cognitive, and teaching presence issues. JALN, 11(1), 61-72. http://sloanconsortium.org/sites/default/files/v11n1_8garrison.pdf
Garrison, D.R., & Anderson, T. (2011). Community of inquiry. In E-learning in the 21st century: A framework for research and practice (2nd ed., pp.19-29). New York: Routledger. [UWA CMO]
Motteram, G. (2009). Social computing and teacher education: An agenda for course development. Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching, 3(1), 83-97. [UWA CMO]
Teaching & Learning Centre. (2007). Community of inquiry. http://communitiesofinquiry.com/
Francesc Esteve's Photostream on Flickr, Creative commons licensing
Goldstein and Miller in 1976.
Colloquia-the first peer-to-peer learning space (2000) Oleg Liber
Epsilen Environment developed by Ali Jafari
Elgg system developed by Dave Tosh and Ben Werdmuller
PebblePAD developed by UK-based Pebble Learning
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_personal_learning_environments explains the origins of PLE's- 1976- present
2003: The ROMA project begins at the Open University of the Netherlands, focusing on the use of stigmergic connections within social networks to enhance individual learning experiences through the mining of anonymized information on the pathways chosen by successful learners. This work provided a foundation for the educational use and methods of social network analysis to support learning. (Similar work was also undertaken by INSEAD in France - more details needed)
PLNs, or personal learning networks consist of all the digital networks, people, and resources which play a role for individual learners.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/suewaters/2675052081/
http://e-language.wikispaces.com/plns
Technological platforms for linking different services together include automated aggregators like Flavors.me and Symbaloo, also listed on the PLEs page.
Bibliography
van Harmelen, Mark (August 2006). "Personal Learning Environments". Retrieved 2006-08-24.
Goldstein, Ira. P.; Miller, Mark L. (1976). "AI Based Personal Learning Environment". AI Memo. MIT. pp. 1–35. Retrieved 2010-08-29.
http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/6259
The application of artificial intelligence (AI) techniques to the design of personal learning environments is an enterprise of both theoretical and practical interest. In the short term, the process of developing and testing intelligent tutoring programs serves as a new experimental vehicle for exploring alternative cognitive and pedagogical theories. In the long term, such programs should supplement the educational supervision and guidance provided by human teachers. This paper illustrates our long term perspective by a scenario with a hypothetical tutoring system for elementary graphics programming.
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/6259
Liber, Oleg (2000). "Colloquia - a Conversation Manager". Campus Wide Information Systems 17(2). pp. 56–62. Retrieved 2006-08-27.
^ Downes, Stephen (October 2005). "E-learning 2.0". Retrieved 2006-08-28.
Community of Inquiry Resources
Garrison, D.R. (2007). Online community of inquiry review: Social, cognitive, and teaching presence issues. JALN, 11(1), 61-72. http://sloanconsortium.org/sites/default/files/v11n1_8garrison.pdf
Garrison, D.R., & Anderson, T. (2011). Community of inquiry. In E-learning in the 21st century: A framework for research and practice (2nd ed., pp.19-29). New York: Routledger. [UWA CMO]
Motteram, G. (2009). Social computing and teacher education: An agenda for course development. Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching, 3(1), 83-97. [UWA CMO]
Teaching & Learning Centre. (2007). Community of inquiry. http://communitiesofinquiry.com/
Self-Organized Learning, Informal Learning Online, Further Reading
Thoughts about self-organized learning in SL/ELLI:
Learners must manage their own organization. We can create an environment conducive to self-organization. Self-organized learning falls into the scope of informal learning, wherein students take actions and responsibility to learn.
"Informal learning should no longer be regarded as an inferior form of learning whose main purpose is to act as the precursor of formal learning; it needs to be seen as fundamental, necessary and valuable in its own right, at times directly relevant to employment and at other times not relevant at all." (Coffield 2000:8)
The Necessity of informal learning by Frank Coffield, The Policy Press, 2000.
Coffield, F. (2000) The Necessity of Informal Learning, Bristol: The Policy Press. 80 + iv pages. Useful collection of material arising out of ESRC Learning Society Programme. Includes Coffield on the significance of informal learning; an excellent piece by Michael Eraut on non-formal learning – implicit learning and tacit knowledge in professional work; Field and Spence on informal learning and social capital; Barron et al on implicit knowledge, phenomenology and learning difficulties; Davies on the impact of accreditation; and Fevre etal on necessary and unnecessary learning.
"Too much schooling kills off a desire to learn...Schools and universities should become more like hubs of learning, within the community, capable of extending into the community..."
"More learning needs to be done at home, in offices and kitches, in the contexts where knowledge is deployed to solve problems and add value to people's lives". (Leadbeater 2000:111-112)
Leadbeater, C. (2000) Living on Thin Air. The new economy, London: Penguin.
Much learning takes place beyond the school walls, and the notion of informal learning can be replaced by the notion of lifelong learning. Learning is ultimately the important piece, but education is a societal process that has value and involves commitment and intention to learn specific topics. Education is an important function of society toward furthering the well-being of its citizenry. Reform in this process of education should judge on those merits.
The fundamental processes of understanding tacit knowledge, unpacking it to determine its origins, and repacking the expertise into tacit knowledge, looking at situated learning, all have relevance in our understanding and development of informal learning and education. Self-education, as a part of the informal process, requires people to be both learners and teachers, and thus constructors of knowledge. Self-educators often self-organize into communities sparked by dialogue and debate about their chosen topics. As educators, we should look at building relationships and interactions that encourage community participation and taking responsibility for our actions in the world.
Dreyfus, H. L. and Dreyfus, S. E. (1986) Mind Over Machine. The power of human intuition and expertise in the era of the computer, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Other Resources to read on self-organized learning:
Designing a Self-Organized Conversational Learning Environment.
Authors: Coombs, Steven J.; Smith, Ian D.
Descriptors: Constructivism (Learning); Criteria; Educational Environment; Educational Theories; Instructional Design; Models
Source: Educational Technology, v38 n3 p17-28 May-Jun 1998
ERIC Ed Record Details - EJ567618 ISSN-0013-1962
Introduces concepts underlying the conversational science model of self-organized learning, and explains how it can influence the systems-thinking design of tools and educational procedures. Outlines person-based learning and comparative-learning models and discusses the context of person-based learning theory, the conversational learning model, constructivist tools for conversational learning environments, and conversational design criteria. (PEN)
http://eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/search/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=EJ567618&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=EJ567618
Learning To Change. A Resource for Trainers, Managers and Learners Based on Self-Organised Learning.
Authors: Harri-Augstein, Sheila; Webb, Ian M.
Descriptors: Adult Education; Adult Learning; Change Strategies; Educational Psychology; Foreign Countries; Independent Study; Learning Processes; Learning Strategies; Organizational Change; Organizational Development; Performance Contracts; Program Development; Program Evaluation; Staff Development
ERIC Record Details - ED410430
This publication shows step-by-step how trainers may use self-organized learning (SOL) to achieve real and lasting change within an organization at all levels. Each of the eight chapters begins with an "agenda board" outlining the contents and ends with a section featuring suggested activities for developing the skills. An introduction explores how SOL relates to training. Chapter 1 defines SOL and covers benefits to individuals, teams, and organizations. Chapter 2 challenges personal and professional myths about learning. Suggested activities help increase understanding of how personal myths can affect learning. Chapter 3 uses the repertory grid as a tool to model the learning process. Chapter 4 introduces a process-based language for developing learning conversations and describes its overall form. Chapter 5 introduces the personal learning contract (PLC) as a major learning tool. Chapter 6 illustrates PLCs by presenting examples of "real life" applications. Chapter 7 introduces a "conversational evaluation model" to assess the effectiveness of learning and suggests a framework for measuring progress in SOL called the personal learning biography. Chapter 8 elaborates on the development of a learning system involving a learning manager and learning coaches and the setting up of learning networks among staff. Appendixes include an example feedback-for-learning package, examples of PLC and grid forms, and an index. Contains 47 references. (YLB)
Dewey, J. (1933) How We Think 2e, New York: D. C. Heath. Classic and highly influential discussion of reflective enquiry, with Dewey's famous five elements: suggestion, problem, hypothesis, reasoning, testing. For a discussion that focuses on learning communities see, J. Dewey (1915) The School and Society, 2e., Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Learners must manage their own organization. We can create an environment conducive to self-organization. Self-organized learning falls into the scope of informal learning, wherein students take actions and responsibility to learn.
"Informal learning should no longer be regarded as an inferior form of learning whose main purpose is to act as the precursor of formal learning; it needs to be seen as fundamental, necessary and valuable in its own right, at times directly relevant to employment and at other times not relevant at all." (Coffield 2000:8)
The Necessity of informal learning by Frank Coffield, The Policy Press, 2000.
Coffield, F. (2000) The Necessity of Informal Learning, Bristol: The Policy Press. 80 + iv pages. Useful collection of material arising out of ESRC Learning Society Programme. Includes Coffield on the significance of informal learning; an excellent piece by Michael Eraut on non-formal learning – implicit learning and tacit knowledge in professional work; Field and Spence on informal learning and social capital; Barron et al on implicit knowledge, phenomenology and learning difficulties; Davies on the impact of accreditation; and Fevre etal on necessary and unnecessary learning.
"Too much schooling kills off a desire to learn...Schools and universities should become more like hubs of learning, within the community, capable of extending into the community..."
"More learning needs to be done at home, in offices and kitches, in the contexts where knowledge is deployed to solve problems and add value to people's lives". (Leadbeater 2000:111-112)
Leadbeater, C. (2000) Living on Thin Air. The new economy, London: Penguin.
Much learning takes place beyond the school walls, and the notion of informal learning can be replaced by the notion of lifelong learning. Learning is ultimately the important piece, but education is a societal process that has value and involves commitment and intention to learn specific topics. Education is an important function of society toward furthering the well-being of its citizenry. Reform in this process of education should judge on those merits.
The fundamental processes of understanding tacit knowledge, unpacking it to determine its origins, and repacking the expertise into tacit knowledge, looking at situated learning, all have relevance in our understanding and development of informal learning and education. Self-education, as a part of the informal process, requires people to be both learners and teachers, and thus constructors of knowledge. Self-educators often self-organize into communities sparked by dialogue and debate about their chosen topics. As educators, we should look at building relationships and interactions that encourage community participation and taking responsibility for our actions in the world.
Dreyfus, H. L. and Dreyfus, S. E. (1986) Mind Over Machine. The power of human intuition and expertise in the era of the computer, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Other Resources to read on self-organized learning:
Designing a Self-Organized Conversational Learning Environment.
Authors: Coombs, Steven J.; Smith, Ian D.
Descriptors: Constructivism (Learning); Criteria; Educational Environment; Educational Theories; Instructional Design; Models
Source: Educational Technology, v38 n3 p17-28 May-Jun 1998
ERIC Ed Record Details - EJ567618 ISSN-0013-1962
Introduces concepts underlying the conversational science model of self-organized learning, and explains how it can influence the systems-thinking design of tools and educational procedures. Outlines person-based learning and comparative-learning models and discusses the context of person-based learning theory, the conversational learning model, constructivist tools for conversational learning environments, and conversational design criteria. (PEN)
http://eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/search/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=EJ567618&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=EJ567618
Learning To Change. A Resource for Trainers, Managers and Learners Based on Self-Organised Learning.
Authors: Harri-Augstein, Sheila; Webb, Ian M.
Descriptors: Adult Education; Adult Learning; Change Strategies; Educational Psychology; Foreign Countries; Independent Study; Learning Processes; Learning Strategies; Organizational Change; Organizational Development; Performance Contracts; Program Development; Program Evaluation; Staff Development
ERIC Record Details - ED410430
This publication shows step-by-step how trainers may use self-organized learning (SOL) to achieve real and lasting change within an organization at all levels. Each of the eight chapters begins with an "agenda board" outlining the contents and ends with a section featuring suggested activities for developing the skills. An introduction explores how SOL relates to training. Chapter 1 defines SOL and covers benefits to individuals, teams, and organizations. Chapter 2 challenges personal and professional myths about learning. Suggested activities help increase understanding of how personal myths can affect learning. Chapter 3 uses the repertory grid as a tool to model the learning process. Chapter 4 introduces a process-based language for developing learning conversations and describes its overall form. Chapter 5 introduces the personal learning contract (PLC) as a major learning tool. Chapter 6 illustrates PLCs by presenting examples of "real life" applications. Chapter 7 introduces a "conversational evaluation model" to assess the effectiveness of learning and suggests a framework for measuring progress in SOL called the personal learning biography. Chapter 8 elaborates on the development of a learning system involving a learning manager and learning coaches and the setting up of learning networks among staff. Appendixes include an example feedback-for-learning package, examples of PLC and grid forms, and an index. Contains 47 references. (YLB)
Dewey, J. (1933) How We Think 2e, New York: D. C. Heath. Classic and highly influential discussion of reflective enquiry, with Dewey's famous five elements: suggestion, problem, hypothesis, reasoning, testing. For a discussion that focuses on learning communities see, J. Dewey (1915) The School and Society, 2e., Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
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