This blog was created as an assignment for the Multimedia course (525). Now that the course has been concluded, I have been wondering what to do with this blog. I have decide to continue to use this blog, but shift its focus to science education, which is very relevant for me as I plan to teach science. There is no need to change the title, as it is just as appropriate, or probably more so, for the new focus. I will keep the archive entries, as well as the links to the other 525 blogs as some of them may be updated as well. I have created a page on my wiki site that is a collection of science education links, and I have connection to this under the Other Links section. Additional links that I could add to this blog in the future could include other science education blogs, and possibly direct links to other science education websites (instead of via the Wiki site).
The 525 course demonstrated some of the ways blogs could be used in education. One that looks quite useful is that of current events. Students and teachers could use a blog to point out and discuss news stories and events. In science education this is very helpful because it would be a good way of keeping track of new discoveries, which occur very frequently as science is very dynamic. For instance, I am currently taking an astronomy course, and at the begining of each class the professor discusses relevant science news stories about research and discoveries. A blog would be another way of doing this, and with this blog I could practice doing so. There are different formats that could be used for such a blog. It might be an individual blog. Under this setup, everyone would have their own individual blog on which they would handle all the posts. This could potentially be done with only the teacher, bloging. The advantage of the blog for the teacher is that it could be used the blog to demonstrate news items rather than simply telling the students about them in class. But a more constructivist and better idea would be for all the students to have their own indiviual blog, in addition to the teacher. Each student could use their blog to discuss science news. This could mean focusing on one article, as we did with the blogs in the 525 class, or one one topic or a more general dicussion of several topics the students consider relevant and newsworthy. The students might be required to make an entry once a week, as was the case with the 525 class. This could be done by having it due on the same day for all the students, or staggering them so that each day in the week would have some students doing an entry. Using blogs in this manner would allow for looking at new events closely and for not needing as much class time to do so. Another way blogs could be used in class would be to have students look at, reflect, and write about topics or areas highlighted or directed by the teacher. This was the predominate use of the blogs in the 525 class. Both uses of the blogs could also have the students read and post comments on each other's blogs. I am about to start a course on science teaching methods (514) and material and ideas from that course will probably end up on this blog. But the blog should continue with the same focus past that class as it will still be relevant. The new focus and purpose of this blog is to practice using blogs for science education. In my case, that will mean focusing more on secondary education level material. This would have some impact on the types of articles and sources, and would probably allow for more options than earlier levels.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Friday, March 21, 2008
Science Education Links Page
It's a bit messy, but I have a page of science education links up on my Wikisite.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Blogs, Multimedia, and Education
When it came to blogs, before this class I had read many - usually political ones, but I had never written one myself before. It is a bit addictive, and I think its best educational value is the ease with which the writer can direct the reader to more information - its a step above citations.
I had never heard of Wikis prior to this class. And I am now maybe also getting hooked on them, and it has become rather easy to think of many projects that could be done with them. I think the most exciting thing about this course has simply been become aware of more tools, or become aware of just how useful tools I already knew about could be. Another thing this class introduced me too is Open Software - and the potentially wide range of possibilities it has.
What things are challenging for the use of multimedia ahead? Well I think one thing is always going to be loosing sight of the purpose of the activity - you should be looking for multimedia that will help your learn objectives and use it if you can find one - as opposed to looking for some subject to try a new piece of multimedia with. This was demonstrated to me quite recently, as I was constructing my final project. It is an oceanography project, and the NOAA website has many links and other features, including among other things animations. I eneded up spending a absurd amount of time unsuccessfully attempting to get incorporate it into my project. It was nice - but it didn't really help understanding the material in any fundamental way. I was desperate to include because it looked neat and would impress people, not because it would useful.
Another problem may simply be keeping up with the technological capablities of my students. I may have been born into a world with computers, but I am often reminded of how slow I can be compared to other people.
I had never heard of Wikis prior to this class. And I am now maybe also getting hooked on them, and it has become rather easy to think of many projects that could be done with them. I think the most exciting thing about this course has simply been become aware of more tools, or become aware of just how useful tools I already knew about could be. Another thing this class introduced me too is Open Software - and the potentially wide range of possibilities it has.
What things are challenging for the use of multimedia ahead? Well I think one thing is always going to be loosing sight of the purpose of the activity - you should be looking for multimedia that will help your learn objectives and use it if you can find one - as opposed to looking for some subject to try a new piece of multimedia with. This was demonstrated to me quite recently, as I was constructing my final project. It is an oceanography project, and the NOAA website has many links and other features, including among other things animations. I eneded up spending a absurd amount of time unsuccessfully attempting to get incorporate it into my project. It was nice - but it didn't really help understanding the material in any fundamental way. I was desperate to include because it looked neat and would impress people, not because it would useful.
Another problem may simply be keeping up with the technological capablities of my students. I may have been born into a world with computers, but I am often reminded of how slow I can be compared to other people.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Is this class R-rated?
Daniel Pink’s ideas in a Whole New Mind about Right brain domination (doesn’t that sound like the title to a bad science fiction movie?) are interesting in that they seem to go against what one would expect. Given the growing and growing importance of technology, would not one think that analytical thought –engineering, programming etc., would be even more important?
The website of The Partnership for 21st Century Skills defines what it thinks students need to learn in the new century; it includes a core curriculum, which looks traditional, but also several 21st century interdisciplinary themes that should be woven into the core subjects. In other words, the basic subjects students learn will not really be different, but rather is it how they study them, what is emphasized, and how they are connected that changes.
One of the interdisciplinary themes is global awareness, which in many ways sounds similar to multicultural education. Some people have frowned on multicultural education, saying that it softens the curriculum or is just PC fluff. However, clearly the Partnership does not think so. It would also fit in with the importance of empathy, which both Pink and Wiggins and Mctighe (in the book Understanding by Design) stress. The other 21st century themes – each a literacy – essentially seem to involve knowing how to use and apply information and skills into areas such as health, business, and citizenship. This clearly is in accord with the “interpret” and “apply” facets of understanding that Wiggins and McTighe describe. In addition, the whole idea of interdisciplinary themes matches Pink’s concept of “Symphony” which
“isn’t analysis but synthesis – seeing the big picture, crossing boundaries. "
All of this would imply that one should avoid teaching that is centered on drills and factual recall – indeed in UBD Wiggins and McTighe clearly caution against this.The subjects and themes are all part of a larger framework, which the Partnership represents with a graphic (I guess they want to appeal to visual learners). The website describes a number of skills it believes students need to learn in the 21st century, and groups them into categories. The learning and innovation skills seem more directed towards the right side of the brain and the facets described in UBD - towards empathy, interpretation, and application. The Information, Media, and Technology skills seem more analytical, but they still involve some right brain thinking, as the issue of ethics in the use of technology is stressed. The Life and career skills deal with many facets of learning, and can be seen as both “left and right”.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the Partnership thinks 21st century learning environments should feature communication, collaboration, and application, and that the purpose of technology in education should be to foster these themes. Again, this can help create empathy, as well as perspective (another learning facet of UBD)
However, what about assessment? It seems that test-focused, “drill and kill” assessments would not fit in well here. The Partnership recommends a mixture of assessment strategies – tests, but also less traditional methods, like portfolios. One of the criticisms of the modern No Child Left Behind Act is that it only uses standardized tests for assessing schools, when more than one method should be used. The Partnership stresses the importance of interpretation and application of knowledge, as well as using communication for learning. Technology should be used to support these goals. They also stress that know learning should involve “deep understanding rather than shallow knowledge” This is very much in agreement with the philosophy of Wiggins and McTighe, who stress the importance of understanding and caution against shallow “coverage” of topics. They warn that this often happens when teachers rush to cover everything required by government standards. All this makes it sound like American educational policy needs considerable adjustment if it is going to head in the direction that the Partnership recommends.
Although both the Partnership and Pink talk about these concepts with a focus on the future, they are not new. The famous progressive educator John Dewey felt that social interaction was an extremely important part of learning. In his 1897 Pedagogical Creed he wrote:
“I believe that the school is primarily a social institution. Education being a social process, the school is simply that form of community life in which all those agencies are concentrated that will be most effective in bringing the child to share in the inherited resources of the race, and to use his own powers for social ends.”
Dewey stressed the need to teach children skills and social interaction, not facts that may soon be out of date:
“With the advent of democracy and modern industrial conditions, it is impossible to foretell definitely just what civilization will be twenty years from now. Hence it is impossible to prepare the child for any precise set of conditions. To prepare him for the future life means to give him command of himself; it means so to train him that he will have the full and ready use of all his capacities; that his eye and ear and hand may be tools ready to command, that his judgment may be capable of grasping the conditions under which it has to work, and the executive forces be trained to act economically and efficiently. It is impossible to reach this sort of adjustment save as constant regard is had to the individual's own powers, tastes, and interests - say, that is, as education is continually converted into psychological terms. In sum, I believe that the individual who is to be educated is a social individual and that society is an organic union of individuals. If we eliminate the social factor from the child we are left only with an abstraction; if we eliminate the individual factor from society, we are left only with an inert and lifeless mass.”
In other words, students need to learn the communicative and collaborative skills stressed by the modern writers like the Partnership. Students also need to know how to learn, not memorize facts. Dewey also alluded to what we would now call visual learning:
“I believe that the image is the great instrument of instruction. What a child gets out of any subject presented to him is simply the images which he himself forms with regard to it. I believe that if nine-tenths of the energy at present directed towards making the child learn certain things, were spent in seeing to it that the child was forming proper images, the work of instruction would be indefinitely facilitated. I believe that much of the time and attention now given to the preparation and presentation of lessons might be more wisely and profitably expended in training the child's power of imagery and in seeing to it that he was continually forming definite, vivid, and growing images of the various subjects with which he comes in contact in his experience.”
Jerome Bruner, in his 1960 book The Process of Education, discussed how intuitive and not just analytical thinking could be an important part of learning. He also stated that teachers needed to know how to adjust to it:
“It requires a sensitive teacher to distinguish an intuitive mistake – an interestingly wrong leap – from a stupid or ignorant mistake, and it requires a teacher who can give approval and correction simultaneously to the intuitive student.” p68
In other words, teaching should encourage the right side of the brain, not just the left.
What this means is that in the 21st century classroom we need to use learning and teaching styles that are not in conflict with these ideas if we are to encourage the right side of the brain. That would include visual learning, as well “global” thinking and learning. This would allow students to wholly understand material, and to apply it and make connections to other material with it. Learning and teaching should not focus on covering a wide range of issues in a shallow manner with the memorization of facts, but should involve deeper understanding of material – which requires interpretation, application, and even empathy to better see its role. This is not new; what is new is that technology can be used to foster this kind of learning; it does not need to make it cold, sterile, and impersonal. Technology has not rendered “soft skills” or the humanities obsolete. Instead, it has become a necessary part of using them. That is one of the big things to get from Pink and the Partnership. Moreover, from this perspective, current educational policy seems muddled.
The website of The Partnership for 21st Century Skills defines what it thinks students need to learn in the new century; it includes a core curriculum, which looks traditional, but also several 21st century interdisciplinary themes that should be woven into the core subjects. In other words, the basic subjects students learn will not really be different, but rather is it how they study them, what is emphasized, and how they are connected that changes.
One of the interdisciplinary themes is global awareness, which in many ways sounds similar to multicultural education. Some people have frowned on multicultural education, saying that it softens the curriculum or is just PC fluff. However, clearly the Partnership does not think so. It would also fit in with the importance of empathy, which both Pink and Wiggins and Mctighe (in the book Understanding by Design) stress. The other 21st century themes – each a literacy – essentially seem to involve knowing how to use and apply information and skills into areas such as health, business, and citizenship. This clearly is in accord with the “interpret” and “apply” facets of understanding that Wiggins and McTighe describe. In addition, the whole idea of interdisciplinary themes matches Pink’s concept of “Symphony” which
“isn’t analysis but synthesis – seeing the big picture, crossing boundaries. "
All of this would imply that one should avoid teaching that is centered on drills and factual recall – indeed in UBD Wiggins and McTighe clearly caution against this.The subjects and themes are all part of a larger framework, which the Partnership represents with a graphic (I guess they want to appeal to visual learners). The website describes a number of skills it believes students need to learn in the 21st century, and groups them into categories. The learning and innovation skills seem more directed towards the right side of the brain and the facets described in UBD - towards empathy, interpretation, and application. The Information, Media, and Technology skills seem more analytical, but they still involve some right brain thinking, as the issue of ethics in the use of technology is stressed. The Life and career skills deal with many facets of learning, and can be seen as both “left and right”.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the Partnership thinks 21st century learning environments should feature communication, collaboration, and application, and that the purpose of technology in education should be to foster these themes. Again, this can help create empathy, as well as perspective (another learning facet of UBD)
However, what about assessment? It seems that test-focused, “drill and kill” assessments would not fit in well here. The Partnership recommends a mixture of assessment strategies – tests, but also less traditional methods, like portfolios. One of the criticisms of the modern No Child Left Behind Act is that it only uses standardized tests for assessing schools, when more than one method should be used. The Partnership stresses the importance of interpretation and application of knowledge, as well as using communication for learning. Technology should be used to support these goals. They also stress that know learning should involve “deep understanding rather than shallow knowledge” This is very much in agreement with the philosophy of Wiggins and McTighe, who stress the importance of understanding and caution against shallow “coverage” of topics. They warn that this often happens when teachers rush to cover everything required by government standards. All this makes it sound like American educational policy needs considerable adjustment if it is going to head in the direction that the Partnership recommends.
Although both the Partnership and Pink talk about these concepts with a focus on the future, they are not new. The famous progressive educator John Dewey felt that social interaction was an extremely important part of learning. In his 1897 Pedagogical Creed he wrote:
“I believe that the school is primarily a social institution. Education being a social process, the school is simply that form of community life in which all those agencies are concentrated that will be most effective in bringing the child to share in the inherited resources of the race, and to use his own powers for social ends.”
Dewey stressed the need to teach children skills and social interaction, not facts that may soon be out of date:
“With the advent of democracy and modern industrial conditions, it is impossible to foretell definitely just what civilization will be twenty years from now. Hence it is impossible to prepare the child for any precise set of conditions. To prepare him for the future life means to give him command of himself; it means so to train him that he will have the full and ready use of all his capacities; that his eye and ear and hand may be tools ready to command, that his judgment may be capable of grasping the conditions under which it has to work, and the executive forces be trained to act economically and efficiently. It is impossible to reach this sort of adjustment save as constant regard is had to the individual's own powers, tastes, and interests - say, that is, as education is continually converted into psychological terms. In sum, I believe that the individual who is to be educated is a social individual and that society is an organic union of individuals. If we eliminate the social factor from the child we are left only with an abstraction; if we eliminate the individual factor from society, we are left only with an inert and lifeless mass.”
In other words, students need to learn the communicative and collaborative skills stressed by the modern writers like the Partnership. Students also need to know how to learn, not memorize facts. Dewey also alluded to what we would now call visual learning:
“I believe that the image is the great instrument of instruction. What a child gets out of any subject presented to him is simply the images which he himself forms with regard to it. I believe that if nine-tenths of the energy at present directed towards making the child learn certain things, were spent in seeing to it that the child was forming proper images, the work of instruction would be indefinitely facilitated. I believe that much of the time and attention now given to the preparation and presentation of lessons might be more wisely and profitably expended in training the child's power of imagery and in seeing to it that he was continually forming definite, vivid, and growing images of the various subjects with which he comes in contact in his experience.”
Jerome Bruner, in his 1960 book The Process of Education, discussed how intuitive and not just analytical thinking could be an important part of learning. He also stated that teachers needed to know how to adjust to it:
“It requires a sensitive teacher to distinguish an intuitive mistake – an interestingly wrong leap – from a stupid or ignorant mistake, and it requires a teacher who can give approval and correction simultaneously to the intuitive student.” p68
In other words, teaching should encourage the right side of the brain, not just the left.
What this means is that in the 21st century classroom we need to use learning and teaching styles that are not in conflict with these ideas if we are to encourage the right side of the brain. That would include visual learning, as well “global” thinking and learning. This would allow students to wholly understand material, and to apply it and make connections to other material with it. Learning and teaching should not focus on covering a wide range of issues in a shallow manner with the memorization of facts, but should involve deeper understanding of material – which requires interpretation, application, and even empathy to better see its role. This is not new; what is new is that technology can be used to foster this kind of learning; it does not need to make it cold, sterile, and impersonal. Technology has not rendered “soft skills” or the humanities obsolete. Instead, it has become a necessary part of using them. That is one of the big things to get from Pink and the Partnership. Moreover, from this perspective, current educational policy seems muddled.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)