I always thought the Socratic Method was just what lawyers do where they keep challenging every one of a speakers' premises until one is found to be wrong. Here's my take on the articles:
I very much agree with Metzger's assertion that fast reading doesn't necessarily mean good reading, but that students are kind of made to feel that it's a good indicator, or required. This is why it's vaguely frustrating when classes at SI stipulate the 9 hour per week quota of work...as if that number necessarily has something to do with how long each of us are going to take to get what we need or deserve out of a class. Which should be the focus. Anyway. Metzger was obviously teaching from the experience of working in a somewhat feisty school with some unmotivated students, which perhaps slightly distanced it from how I might imagine things working in a typical library setting...at least libraries I am most used to and discussions I've helped lead. I'm a little bit skeptical that the socratic method makes discussions more "non-competitive" especially in a class setting as there are still grades to be had, along with the satisfaction of saying something really great and compelling before anyone else. In fact, from my limited experience of participating in these kinds of discussions, being in the "inner circle" and having an audience explicitly told to monitor and break down your every move in a rather personal way is a bit nerve-wracking, and certainly can come off as a popularity contest.
I do very much like how it facilitates a teacher "standing back" and allowing discussion to progress naturally, showing in a more natural and organic way the problems and issues students have with a text. And I agree that getting students to abstractly name or "label" their understanding processes is very tricky...I was always one of the more confident English students in high school and I didn't like to and probably couldn't really describe the processes I was going through...part of the beauty of English is that to some degree different perspectives or paths can be taken to get to the meaning of a text. And while the idea that Romeo and Juliet has nothing to do with broccoli farming in Idaho is well taken and true especially in a high school classroom setting...the creative in me really wants to write on how Romeo and Juliet absolutely has something to do with broccoli farming in Idaho. Part of mastering a great text sort of has to do with making those sorts of connections. Maybe I'm just insane.
Finally, the breaking down and airing of group dynamics seems good in a class setting, especially one where folks aren't being as respectful or productive as they could...but I reeeally don't see that as a stage I'd want to go to as a Public Librarian leading a discussion. People (I'm thinking adults mostly) come to discuss, and are generally motivated to discuss, not to be told how they present themselves. In most library discussions, participants will be relative strangers, so there's little background or ongoing usefulness of that aspect. Then again, if the discussion was framed as a sort of "learn how to be a rhetorician" sort of workshop, feedback on group dynamics could be very useful.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Book Clubs, Last Week's class
I thought the Hoffert article was pretty much a slam dunk in that I didn't disagree with anything and felt enthusiastically about it. I love book groups and hope that leading them will be a big part of my work in the future--imagine, getting to discuss literature (including non-fiction) without even having had to get a tenure track job in the cutthroat world of English! And no grading! I think the idea of having book clubs be thematic, with a wide range of possible items to discuss is a cool idea, and has the potential for great conversations. I would also say restricting things to a particular book of interest to the community also has its merits though--I'd look at "thematic book discussions" as an option, not a revolution. It's also great where institutions have limited copies of something--spreading things out means the library can provide something for everyone to read. Expanding things to media like movies or non-traditional discussions like poetry or graphic novels is another slam dunk, and I for one plan to propose some sort of weekly or monthly film discussion at whatever library I work at.
I guess the one thing I must say "meh" to is teleconferencing. I think it's an awesome idea in the sense that it's a way for authors to be involved when they otherwise couldn't be. But I'm not personally geeked about the idea of having all discussers do so remotely...but that may just be because I've never had a terribly positive teleconference experience, at least compared to face-to-face. Still, something to think about for the digital library world.
Oh and last week's class. I loved the animated visuals and old time valentine cards (they're so edgy and so relatively product placement free!) My mostly positive thoughts on the idea of transfer as something libraries can and should do can be found in my earlier posts. I will say, it might have been better to have had these readings on book clubs and Socratic seminars before being prompted to think about something to discuss for the assignment. I happened to do much of my thinking before doing the readings and after having done them I think I would have looked at things differently and been a bit more efficient with my time? But still it's been fun looking through things. I'm glad my group make Karmen and I anticipated the idea of book clubs becoming more "multimedia" a bit by suggesting poems or graphic novels. I'll be interested to see the sorts of things different groups choose and how discussions go.
I guess the one thing I must say "meh" to is teleconferencing. I think it's an awesome idea in the sense that it's a way for authors to be involved when they otherwise couldn't be. But I'm not personally geeked about the idea of having all discussers do so remotely...but that may just be because I've never had a terribly positive teleconference experience, at least compared to face-to-face. Still, something to think about for the digital library world.
Oh and last week's class. I loved the animated visuals and old time valentine cards (they're so edgy and so relatively product placement free!) My mostly positive thoughts on the idea of transfer as something libraries can and should do can be found in my earlier posts. I will say, it might have been better to have had these readings on book clubs and Socratic seminars before being prompted to think about something to discuss for the assignment. I happened to do much of my thinking before doing the readings and after having done them I think I would have looked at things differently and been a bit more efficient with my time? But still it's been fun looking through things. I'm glad my group make Karmen and I anticipated the idea of book clubs becoming more "multimedia" a bit by suggesting poems or graphic novels. I'll be interested to see the sorts of things different groups choose and how discussions go.
The DPLA
I was actually recently asked to give ideas about what the DPLA should be, or what should be understood about it by the public, and has utterly no idea what to say about it because any literature I could find was extremely vague. So this article, as an advertisement for it, was very enlightening. First, I balked at the statement that even Harvard was being hit by tough times. Really? Really??
Well. Anyway.
That more book titles are being published than ever before is really something to think about, and supports the argument that the "death of books" is a bit of an overstatement. Meanwhile, the assertion that professors don't know (I would assert that they don't feel they need to know) about the serials crisis and what their libraries have to deal with is well taken, and initiatives/petitions to support open-access journals seem like a good idea. I certainly hope that universities like Harvard are vocal about their willingness to hold up their end of the bargain by rewarding people who are published in less-prestigious open access journals with grants, jobs, promotions, etc. I also want to mention (sorry I think I better not cite) a conversation I heard recently with a high ranking U of M faculty member on the serials crisis. It's a problem, he said, sure. It's also a "drop in the bucket" for an institution like U of M or certainly Harvard. When I look at my tuition bills this sort of statement really hits home. So while I think it's awesome that institutions like Harvard and U of M are coming up with ways to get around the serials crisis, I would warn that there is a lot in play, things are complicated, and everyone has obscure interests at stake. I'll be very interested to see how the DPLA thing unfolds.
Well. Anyway.
That more book titles are being published than ever before is really something to think about, and supports the argument that the "death of books" is a bit of an overstatement. Meanwhile, the assertion that professors don't know (I would assert that they don't feel they need to know) about the serials crisis and what their libraries have to deal with is well taken, and initiatives/petitions to support open-access journals seem like a good idea. I certainly hope that universities like Harvard are vocal about their willingness to hold up their end of the bargain by rewarding people who are published in less-prestigious open access journals with grants, jobs, promotions, etc. I also want to mention (sorry I think I better not cite) a conversation I heard recently with a high ranking U of M faculty member on the serials crisis. It's a problem, he said, sure. It's also a "drop in the bucket" for an institution like U of M or certainly Harvard. When I look at my tuition bills this sort of statement really hits home. So while I think it's awesome that institutions like Harvard and U of M are coming up with ways to get around the serials crisis, I would warn that there is a lot in play, things are complicated, and everyone has obscure interests at stake. I'll be very interested to see how the DPLA thing unfolds.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Transfer
Sorry for the belated post, though I'm glad I can comment on the trends Karen noticed. I'm shocked that so many people felt transfer was something that didn't have to do with libraries! I guess I'm one of those people that, in a time when libraries seem to be scrambling to figure out exactly what they bring to the table these days, I tend to say "libraries can do that!!" to just about anything. Maybe TOO much. Assuming schools aren't going to massively change the way they do things to promote transfer in the super short-term, libraries are a great place to offer affordances to knowledge transfer, even if they aren't doing the initial teaching. And libraries CAN and SHOULD know what schools are teaching, even if they're not literally in the same building, which is the case with most public libraries. Aren't we places of "lifelong learning"? And shouldn't knowing about how learning works be key to all of us? Sheesh.
One dichotomy used in the chapter was on "learning" versus "performance" focused learners, and I thought this was a good way of thinking about two different kinds of student. As much as I am consciously a "learning" based learner, I think subconsciously I am performance based, because I do end up being stressed when I make mistakes during learning processes. I think it all links back to formative versus summative assessment too...growing up in a summative dominated educational system, we all come to see education as a sort of vetting process, and look at what we learn in terms of whether we can perform to some standard.
I also think the section on motivation and learning provides a huge opportunity for libraries to offer and facilitate transfer. One thing the chapter pointed out was that students are more likely to be motivated when they see their knowledge can be used to do something immidiately useful, and another was that students are motivated when they are learning something to help others, or do something that is socially significant. Libraries (should) do a great job of planning and executing programs that do these things, creating activities where people put what they've learned into some tangible product or project, and bringing people together to discuss and work on issues facing the community. As long as they are in the know about what's being taught, and how it can be used or what the community could stand to gain from it, they can put themselves in a position to offer motivating learning environments.
One dichotomy used in the chapter was on "learning" versus "performance" focused learners, and I thought this was a good way of thinking about two different kinds of student. As much as I am consciously a "learning" based learner, I think subconsciously I am performance based, because I do end up being stressed when I make mistakes during learning processes. I think it all links back to formative versus summative assessment too...growing up in a summative dominated educational system, we all come to see education as a sort of vetting process, and look at what we learn in terms of whether we can perform to some standard.
I also think the section on motivation and learning provides a huge opportunity for libraries to offer and facilitate transfer. One thing the chapter pointed out was that students are more likely to be motivated when they see their knowledge can be used to do something immidiately useful, and another was that students are motivated when they are learning something to help others, or do something that is socially significant. Libraries (should) do a great job of planning and executing programs that do these things, creating activities where people put what they've learned into some tangible product or project, and bringing people together to discuss and work on issues facing the community. As long as they are in the know about what's being taught, and how it can be used or what the community could stand to gain from it, they can put themselves in a position to offer motivating learning environments.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Learning for Understanding and it's Obstacles/Last week's class
I'm at least going to break posts into two for this week, so expect another one on the How People Learn chapter soon.
Before I start going "not so fast!", I want to say that the Wiggins Mctighe article was a great restating of the problem of American education favoring covering content for its own sake versus educating for understanding (and, as the article could have put it yet more frequently and explicitly "for application"). It also gave a great outline of what such education should actually look like as it takes place over a class or term. I especially like bookending things with a "hook question" and then revisiting the question later to emphasize how far the class has come as a productive group of people. Now, I think we'll more or less all agree that the aim of this article was worthy and applicable, so let me attempt to wonder about what could stand in the way.
I seem to have found myself harping on the idea that, while its not right--in fact because its not right, we have to be cognizant of the fact that in a very big way, American education (at least as I know it and people in high school and college I personally know now do) is grading and ranking of students. Parents (including mine) do not ask "can you apply your knowledge of mathematics?" but "what [grade] did you get in math?"
This doesn’t mean its right, it’s not. But it’s slightly alarming when articles are based on a premise that “The mission of high school is not to cover content, but rather to help learners become thoughtful about, and productive with, content” as this article says. If this were completely and unequivocally true, the article would likely not exist in the first place. Beyond high school, even the GRE has sections based on recall. The point is, it might be slightly misguided to say "education is about giving learners knowledge in a way thats actually going to make them productive" when--and I repeat that articles like this one are all the more important because of it--that's not quite true. Usually.
As educators are typically very bright people with nothing but the best intentions for their students, and many of them are (I'm pretty confident) at least dimly aware that learning processes like the one outlined in this article help students apply knowledge and be productive rather than content for content's sake, there must be something in the way of learning processes like this being adopted in a widespread way.
To make curriculums geared towards learning for application really viable and sustainable nation-wide (I keep using application rathe than understanding...I think I'm compelled to because it seems to emphasize that application is a requisite for true understanding) the incentives and culture of schooling has to change in a big way. Beyond any political shifts (and these are needed to change the way schools get funded) parents need to accept that their children may not be getting drilled on facts and figures like they did.
Last week's class:
I'll make one specific point (the better to comment on). I liked how we talked about the fact that on a five point survey scale (5 being 'completely agree' 3 being 'neutral' and 1 being 'strongly disagree'), many kind hearts will never go lower than a 'neutral', thus skewing results so as not to highlight rough aspects of an event as much as they need to be. I believe it was also mentioned that having a four point scale, without a 'neutral', might give people an incentive to admit they "disagree" with an item, perhaps because they might be nice enough to tell a little fib and put 'neutral' for an item they felt was lacking, rather than outright lie and say it was satisfactory. I might caution that having only a four point scale could be even more damaging or skewing where kind hearts are involved, as I bet many will be so kind as to answer with an "agree" or "satisfactory" on an item where they feel the opposite. From personal experience, I might also caution that a 4 point scale can make a survey taker more likely not to answer a question at all, perhaps because they don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, or perhaps because, as I find myself, they truly feel neutrally about a question and none of the responses provided apply to them. So, as I think we assumed anyway, there are pros and cons to both a 4 and 5 point scale.
Before I start going "not so fast!", I want to say that the Wiggins Mctighe article was a great restating of the problem of American education favoring covering content for its own sake versus educating for understanding (and, as the article could have put it yet more frequently and explicitly "for application"). It also gave a great outline of what such education should actually look like as it takes place over a class or term. I especially like bookending things with a "hook question" and then revisiting the question later to emphasize how far the class has come as a productive group of people. Now, I think we'll more or less all agree that the aim of this article was worthy and applicable, so let me attempt to wonder about what could stand in the way.
I seem to have found myself harping on the idea that, while its not right--in fact because its not right, we have to be cognizant of the fact that in a very big way, American education (at least as I know it and people in high school and college I personally know now do) is grading and ranking of students. Parents (including mine) do not ask "can you apply your knowledge of mathematics?" but "what [grade] did you get in math?"
This doesn’t mean its right, it’s not. But it’s slightly alarming when articles are based on a premise that “The mission of high school is not to cover content, but rather to help learners become thoughtful about, and productive with, content” as this article says. If this were completely and unequivocally true, the article would likely not exist in the first place. Beyond high school, even the GRE has sections based on recall. The point is, it might be slightly misguided to say "education is about giving learners knowledge in a way thats actually going to make them productive" when--and I repeat that articles like this one are all the more important because of it--that's not quite true. Usually.
As educators are typically very bright people with nothing but the best intentions for their students, and many of them are (I'm pretty confident) at least dimly aware that learning processes like the one outlined in this article help students apply knowledge and be productive rather than content for content's sake, there must be something in the way of learning processes like this being adopted in a widespread way.
To make curriculums geared towards learning for application really viable and sustainable nation-wide (I keep using application rathe than understanding...I think I'm compelled to because it seems to emphasize that application is a requisite for true understanding) the incentives and culture of schooling has to change in a big way. Beyond any political shifts (and these are needed to change the way schools get funded) parents need to accept that their children may not be getting drilled on facts and figures like they did.
Last week's class:
I'll make one specific point (the better to comment on). I liked how we talked about the fact that on a five point survey scale (5 being 'completely agree' 3 being 'neutral' and 1 being 'strongly disagree'), many kind hearts will never go lower than a 'neutral', thus skewing results so as not to highlight rough aspects of an event as much as they need to be. I believe it was also mentioned that having a four point scale, without a 'neutral', might give people an incentive to admit they "disagree" with an item, perhaps because they might be nice enough to tell a little fib and put 'neutral' for an item they felt was lacking, rather than outright lie and say it was satisfactory. I might caution that having only a four point scale could be even more damaging or skewing where kind hearts are involved, as I bet many will be so kind as to answer with an "agree" or "satisfactory" on an item where they feel the opposite. From personal experience, I might also caution that a 4 point scale can make a survey taker more likely not to answer a question at all, perhaps because they don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, or perhaps because, as I find myself, they truly feel neutrally about a question and none of the responses provided apply to them. So, as I think we assumed anyway, there are pros and cons to both a 4 and 5 point scale.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Learning Environments, and last week on Info Literacy
Hey! I'm going to condense my posts into one for this week due to time crunch. Sorry, I know smaller bite-sized posts are easier to scan and comment on.
First of all, I just want to remark how refreshing it is to read concise, straightforward literature like this which obviously affects my future directly. I spend so much time reading stuff by academics on academia, sometimes I forget that I'm not training to become an academic (thank goodness.)
Breaking down learning environments into four areas was very helpful. It did take me a moment to realize that the chapter was implying that learning environments should be learner, knowledge, assessment, AND community centered. That's quite a challenge. Here's how I felt about each:
(Oh, first I agree that standards for education are through the roof. This is the price we pay for progress I suppose! I'd be interested to hear others' thoughts on how or if standards should be reeled in.)
Learner-centered:
Clearly, learning environments must take into account the culture and personality of students. To link to what we've been talking about, this is where using "prior knowledge" comes is; that is, teachers need to frame classes so as to work with rather than against what students already know or have been cultured to assume. By that I don't mean that teachers shouldn't challenge bad assumptions (they should) but rather that they need to be keenly aware of them.
Knowledge-centered: I agree that education is set up to be too broad, and not deep enough. I even must challenege our own U of M somewhat, particularly LSA. It's well and good to pride oneself on being an extremely "liberal" program, forcing students to take classes in a wide range of areas, and there are clearly benefits. However, while being well-rounded is important, employers want expertise. It seems that you get your foot in the door by having an obsession with a certain thing, getting references and connections, getting one's foot in the door, and THEN being a well-rounded, well-adjusted person helps you on your way. It kind of gets back to standards....what is demanded is both breadth and depth. A lot of places do well on breadth, but how can we get depth as well?
I like the notion of realizing that young kids are capable of doing more than we once assumed, and that realizing this may be to their benefit. However, I would also caution that any statement about "what students can do" is very tricky, as age doesn't go too far in determing "what students can do." Still, good notion in general.
I also like the idea of attempting to make curriculum more natural, allowing motives or providing needs for students to actually use skills and knowledge, rather than just having fractured chapters and units. This is somewhere information literacy could possibly fit in, as it focuses on not just finding but being able to apply knowledge. I can see it working particularly in humanities classes, as kids are asked to challenege or corroborate their ideas with information in the world.
Assessment-Centered:
I agree that formative assessment is lacking at all levels of education, even here at SI. One has to make a real effort and make time to get a lot of personalized feedback from professors beyond a few major assignments often, so I'm glad KF seems to be periodically checking and commenting on our blogs, for one thing. One does also have to realize that a large part of education is to rank and judge aptitude of students, rather than actually educate! It's going to take a massive political and cultural shift for this to change significantly and quickly. I think when this does change, Information Literacy will find its way into curriculums more systematically. I was remarking with my group in class that one reason its tough to get info lit classes is beacuse there is no AP Information Literacy, and its not explicitly addressed on standardized tests. It's easy to explain "when am I going to use this?!" to students inthe case of info lit, but more difficult to say "this is going to get you a high score on the SATs." Colleges should make a point of judging information literacy in applications, and then maybe schools will have to do a good job of teaching it.
On a personal note, I have to disagree very much with the assertion that Japanese culture makes students feel OK about making mistakes in class. I taught English in Japan and this couldn't have been further from the truth. It was like pulling teeth to get students to speak in class for fear of making a mistake, and this was particularly grevious in English because learning a language isnt something you can just study at home for and then ace. It actually requires active use, and is very much a trial and error proccess. So I dont really know what that study was getting at.
Cultural-centered:
Part of this seemed very much to overlap with user-centered in that it talked about taking culture and background into account. More interesting was the idea that the world outside of school is very important to successful education. This is where libraries come in! Libraries need to strive to be a place where education happens outside of school, as they always have, and work to promote themselves as legitimate and crucial places of learning. This probably means working with current education systems, flawed as they are, while trying to steer it in a better direction. Info lit is one thing, but we also have to facilitate more mainstream subjects to be sustainable.
Information Literacy in class:
Normally I despise talking a lot about definitions for vacuous terms, like information literacy. I very much believe that language is reflexive, not referrential, so I tend to look at definitions as arguing semantics. However, when looked at as a way of talking about what students need to learn, and how libraries are specifically suited to the task, I found the discussion to be extremely helpful. So in general: I don't care what the definition of information literacy is. I don't think it will ever be well defined. That's fine. What's important is all the myriad assumptions, problems, and trends that come out in the discussion. So.
First of all, I just want to remark how refreshing it is to read concise, straightforward literature like this which obviously affects my future directly. I spend so much time reading stuff by academics on academia, sometimes I forget that I'm not training to become an academic (thank goodness.)
Breaking down learning environments into four areas was very helpful. It did take me a moment to realize that the chapter was implying that learning environments should be learner, knowledge, assessment, AND community centered. That's quite a challenge. Here's how I felt about each:
(Oh, first I agree that standards for education are through the roof. This is the price we pay for progress I suppose! I'd be interested to hear others' thoughts on how or if standards should be reeled in.)
Learner-centered:
Clearly, learning environments must take into account the culture and personality of students. To link to what we've been talking about, this is where using "prior knowledge" comes is; that is, teachers need to frame classes so as to work with rather than against what students already know or have been cultured to assume. By that I don't mean that teachers shouldn't challenge bad assumptions (they should) but rather that they need to be keenly aware of them.
Knowledge-centered: I agree that education is set up to be too broad, and not deep enough. I even must challenege our own U of M somewhat, particularly LSA. It's well and good to pride oneself on being an extremely "liberal" program, forcing students to take classes in a wide range of areas, and there are clearly benefits. However, while being well-rounded is important, employers want expertise. It seems that you get your foot in the door by having an obsession with a certain thing, getting references and connections, getting one's foot in the door, and THEN being a well-rounded, well-adjusted person helps you on your way. It kind of gets back to standards....what is demanded is both breadth and depth. A lot of places do well on breadth, but how can we get depth as well?
I like the notion of realizing that young kids are capable of doing more than we once assumed, and that realizing this may be to their benefit. However, I would also caution that any statement about "what students can do" is very tricky, as age doesn't go too far in determing "what students can do." Still, good notion in general.
I also like the idea of attempting to make curriculum more natural, allowing motives or providing needs for students to actually use skills and knowledge, rather than just having fractured chapters and units. This is somewhere information literacy could possibly fit in, as it focuses on not just finding but being able to apply knowledge. I can see it working particularly in humanities classes, as kids are asked to challenege or corroborate their ideas with information in the world.
Assessment-Centered:
I agree that formative assessment is lacking at all levels of education, even here at SI. One has to make a real effort and make time to get a lot of personalized feedback from professors beyond a few major assignments often, so I'm glad KF seems to be periodically checking and commenting on our blogs, for one thing. One does also have to realize that a large part of education is to rank and judge aptitude of students, rather than actually educate! It's going to take a massive political and cultural shift for this to change significantly and quickly. I think when this does change, Information Literacy will find its way into curriculums more systematically. I was remarking with my group in class that one reason its tough to get info lit classes is beacuse there is no AP Information Literacy, and its not explicitly addressed on standardized tests. It's easy to explain "when am I going to use this?!" to students inthe case of info lit, but more difficult to say "this is going to get you a high score on the SATs." Colleges should make a point of judging information literacy in applications, and then maybe schools will have to do a good job of teaching it.
On a personal note, I have to disagree very much with the assertion that Japanese culture makes students feel OK about making mistakes in class. I taught English in Japan and this couldn't have been further from the truth. It was like pulling teeth to get students to speak in class for fear of making a mistake, and this was particularly grevious in English because learning a language isnt something you can just study at home for and then ace. It actually requires active use, and is very much a trial and error proccess. So I dont really know what that study was getting at.
Cultural-centered:
Part of this seemed very much to overlap with user-centered in that it talked about taking culture and background into account. More interesting was the idea that the world outside of school is very important to successful education. This is where libraries come in! Libraries need to strive to be a place where education happens outside of school, as they always have, and work to promote themselves as legitimate and crucial places of learning. This probably means working with current education systems, flawed as they are, while trying to steer it in a better direction. Info lit is one thing, but we also have to facilitate more mainstream subjects to be sustainable.
Information Literacy in class:
Normally I despise talking a lot about definitions for vacuous terms, like information literacy. I very much believe that language is reflexive, not referrential, so I tend to look at definitions as arguing semantics. However, when looked at as a way of talking about what students need to learn, and how libraries are specifically suited to the task, I found the discussion to be extremely helpful. So in general: I don't care what the definition of information literacy is. I don't think it will ever be well defined. That's fine. What's important is all the myriad assumptions, problems, and trends that come out in the discussion. So.
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