Month: October 2012

Oct.26, 2012 Insights

Post author By pcollins
Post date October 27, 2012

If there was a cartoon drawn for comparison’s sake of the differences between a behaviorist approach and a constructivist approach to teaching it could be summarized with the following narrative.

B: Please sit still and I will tell you everything I know…. because you know very little – and I get paid to share this information with you. And stop talking

C: But I’m only chatting with my partner about something I saw on TV related to this topic

B: You couldn’t possibly have anything insightful or relevant to contribute. Please open your text resource to p. Wahhmmp wahhhmpp wahhhmpp wahhhmpp wahmp.

C (internalized): Man I get tired of this guy yipping at us. And this textbook is out of date. When do we get to go into the lab and do something fun?

It was easy to appreciate the author’s strong opinions on this issue because it sincerely mirrored much of my personal experience with education from the age of 11-16. And truth be told, I’m rather surprised I stuck it out with continuing education because my experience in post secondary paralleled high school quite closely. It was the love of new knowledge that really kept me hooked, and this type of motivation isn’t always present in the students I work with currently.

When Von Glaserfeld argues that communication is about so much more than a vehicle for the knower to transfer his/her understanding to the learner I almost danced a gig. This ties strongly into my cultural understanding and experience in Aboriginal Education, specifically with oral history and Aboriginal epistemology. The author further elaborated how Western education has been “heavily conditioned by centuries of use of written language.” And maybe this means we’ve thrown the baby out with the bath water…. Perhaps in our efforts, since the Industrial Revolution, to design education around written language we have dismissed some of the key effective strategies that have been a part of our pedagogical practices since the beginning of our beginning? Like story-telling, mentoring practices, play, and shadowing.

On another note, I have never given much thought to how I impart skills through my coaching vs. my classroom teaching. And I really had to chuckle when I realized that almost all of the activities that I use when introducing the skills and fundamentals of my sport have a seed of ZPD. I don’t give the players a rule book, a lecture and then an assessment on what they’ve learned the next day. They get a basic introduction – and then we play. And it is directly through the experiential aspects of this play that they build their understanding of the further fundamentals required for fuller proficiency in the sport. As to how this might unfold in a Biology 12 classroom when I am trying to teach Biochemistry, I am not sure that I have the answer. Does anyone else have any ideas?

ETEC 522 Posts

Appshed a Hit!

Post author By pcollins
Post date October 23, 2012

I loved the opportunity to try out building an app. Last year some colleagues were talking about how easy it can be, but I seriously thought it would be way beyond me. Just for fun, I started an app for my town (unpublished) that allows people to follow and comment on food trucks. You never know where they are, or what they have to offer here in town. We were at a wine festival last weekend and I couldn’t believe the array of food trucks that must of have been hiding in some food truck forest I didn’t know about. And I was thinking how great it would be if there was a means for them to let it be known where they are and what’s on the menu.

The affordances are endless!

I was wondering if anyone has found any apps that are specific for schools or teacher’s classrooms? What I would have liked to see would have been some more examples of what people have built in appshed. If there was page on their site specific to this I missed it. Great job OER apps group.

ETEC 522 Posts

Week 4 – Entrepreneurial Bootcamp

Post author By pcollins
Post date October 3, 2012

The year was 1977 – three young and upcoming programmers from Ampex (producers of digital storage systems) took a risk and branched off to start their own company. One of them was Lawrence J. Ellison

Serving as Chief executive officer from the beginning, Larry Ellison has been a man with far reaching dreams. When the company was awarded a contract from the CIA to produce a program allowing “relational database management” they developed a revolutionary software – code name Oracle.

Oracle has since been integrated into IBM operating systems and made available for public consumers. They have also become the overseers of the open source Java programming script. The recent launch of their Oracle Academy has provided a means for students, both secondary and tertiary, to be exposed to the Java fundamentals and programming for no cost or a nominal yearly fee. Fostering early student interest in computer science and programming in over forty countries. The company has come a long ways, and surpassed expectations, as has it’s founder.

Born to a single mother in the Bronx, he was subsequently adopted by family. His Uncle and Aunt raised him in a very modest, lower-income environment. And although his natural aptitude for science and math was identified early, he clashed with formal education dropping out of both the University of Chicago and the University of Illinois. Like many other successful entrepreneurs, Larry emerged from a disadvantaged background and was decidedly rebellious as a youngster. As an adult he openly seeks the thrill of physical adventures.

Research into Oracle Academy has brought to light the altruistic aspects and community-minded commitments of this software giant. Their team seems genuinely interested in promoting ways for computing to be brought to the next generation by producing savvy and relative educational opportunities. It is also a good marketing strategy, ensuring that future leaders in the tech field have a familiarity with the company’s software platform.

Resources:

about.com: Tech Careers

Java Magazine: March/April

ETEC 512 Posts

Expansion Pack – Oct 2.

Post author By pcollins
Post date October 3, 2012

It was interesting to try and find a comparison in my own life for transactive memories, only because there were so many.
“Oh, Mom will have the recipe for that”
“I can phone Kevin, he can give us directions”
“Don’t you think Nicole’s friend Tim would know that?”

As I first started thinking about it, I had to ask, “am I too lazy to find the answers myself… I mean really I have the Internet right?” And then I realized that it seems I have a fairly successful transaction memory network. From the neurological perspective, even though I have my own set of recall memories, I also have created a portion of memories that category what other people know, a type of classification that has really helped me in the past – that is before the Internet.

This module’s topic really seems to be taking a close look at how our neural-evolution is potentially changing because of changes in our communication patterns with the advent of technology. And really, isn’t that what our evolution has always been about? In fact, that is what made us more successful (primarily) then our Neanderthal cousins. We had a more advanced set of vocal cords resulting in a greater range of communicable sounds and voila! Language & Survival.

Reflecting on what Dr. Willis would have in the way of comments in regards to transactive memory is a bit difficult. I took the time to read some more of her blog posts and watch a few videos and she is really quite the neuroscientist-teacher-lecturer-authoress-winemaker. Her primary focus seems to be on helping teachers support 21st century children and empowering children to understand their own brains, and also to learn the skill sets to make their brains as functional and resilent as possible. She also highlites what changes occur in the brain’s processing when it is trying to function in a sympathetic response state. How the prefrontal cortex gets turned off and the “rat brain” gets turned on in these situations (caused by boredom as well interesting enough) resulting in very little knowledge absorption and some rather destructive behaviors.
I could see her wanting educators to acknowledge potential changes in memory systems due to the advent of a need for digital transactive memories. However, I couldn’t see her changing her own underlying modus operandi which is to make learning attractive, desirable, curiosity-peaking and engaging for youth. I find it difficult to draw strong parallels between the Sparrow, Lui and Wenger research and Dr. Willis’ own. Perhaps if Dr. Willis focus was on using computer games in the classroom I could make the linkages, but she only uses the elements of the video games and not the actual games themselves in her practice.

PC\

Part 2:

For those of you who are not familiar with expansion packs (anyone miss the WOW commercial’s for mists of Pandaria?) It is simply the newest component to the gaming program that needs to be added in so that you can achieve higher levels, get more gear, have more daily’s for gold and basically ignore your wife for several weeks.

And yes, I live in a gaming household.

I am not a gamer myself. They have some term for people like us, it’s not derogatory, it’s just a sign that we are outsiders and potentially don’t understand the draw to games. I cannot fathom what eleven million people find so enticing that they are willing to pay a monthly subscription for it, and have been on a personal quest to resolve this. I’ve thought about it, and discussed it, and researched it and I think I have the answer.

Dopamine

If you really boil down the details for any activity that completely hooks a percentage of the population – It has to be the release of dopamine and the subsequent feelings of success, confidence, elation, belonging, and achievement. It just so happens, I get the same results from canning and crocheting so who am I to judge :]

What I saw in Dr. Willis’s blog is that she has effectively extracted the portions of gaming that are most instrumental in securing this dopamine release and applied them to education. A clever move – keep them excited and enticed… as curious and desperate as Christmas morning…. and they actively seek participation. Cover a student in worksheets, while you lecture from afar and assign readings from boring textbooks and your result is a disruptive or sleepy crowd? Doesn’t seem like rocket science.

The question is, how do you keep coming out with expansion packs for teaching?

ETEC 512 Posts

Music 101 – September 28th

Post author By pcollins
Post date October 3, 2012

I can’t help but express how amazed and excited that I am that this particular type of research between brain development/modification and learning is finally underway. As Coch and Ansari point out – there is a significant ways to go, but it’s a start. The readings certainly challenged me, but also supported some of what I have seen in my teaching and with my own learning. It really took me some extra time to extract different definitions for “brain” and “mind”. Truth be told, they have always been one in the same for me and I think that’s because I have always been applying the definition of mind and overlaying it on top of brain. Here’s how I understand it now.

A person’s brain is the actual organ with it’s roughly 100 billion neurons and the connections (synapses) that either occur or don’t occur between them. To contrast this, a person’s mind is actually a higher order set of functions that is contrived from a combination of personality traits, memories, environmental stimuli and experiences. In essence, as I heard it explained quite eloquently by a colleague a few years ago – the brain is the car and the mind is the driver. And sometimes the driver wants to go somewhere…. but there’s four flat tires and a leaking transmission.

Returning to the question of would I still employ the basic drill&kill approach to math after reading these papers and the answer is yes. I consider it an effective learning tool, when used in conjunction with other techniques. From the second reading, it became clear that neuroimaging studies show positive changes from intensive drill based practice for both mathematics and other subjects. Personally, I have seen the benefits in other aspects of my own learning as well. I first learned to play instruments as a young person in school. We were taught the basics for reading music – given drill based scales (to practice alone and with the class) and then we played some songs. I became fairly proficient and was able to adapt to other instruments. Then as an adult, I picked up the guitar. I paid for lessons from a teacher (he was much younger then me) and we would play songs together but I never really felt that I developed the proficiency that I had with the other instruments that I played…. until on my own I picked up a scales book for guitar. And started drilling myself at home. Now I have the competence to sight read new pieces of music.

Given this example and the question would neural imaging studies help us if retrieval wasn’t the goal, but creative writing was – I would answer a resounding yes! As the articles mentioned – as we get older and more proficient with our learning, the way that we use our brain changes. These changes could be seen on the scan and could provide significantly important information to the teacher. It could almost be used for prescriptive purposes. If we could see an image of a student’s brain ability map, so to speak, we could use it to inform our practice. I could have had a scan of my brain done while trying to play new songs (would have showed minimal activity) and the music teacher would have known I wasn’t ready and sent me home with some scales to practice. Might have even saved myself a few dollars:]

Even as I have finished writing this, I can also see a potential downside to such prescriptive practice. It might prevent teachers from challenging students to try something outside of their comfort zone… I have read other literacy research that has said 95% of the time you should be working within your ability level and then 5% of the time you should approach something that is really challenging to increase ability. What if this never happened? Would this potentially slow down your learning? Definitely, gives us some food for thought.