In our group presentation, we decided on the topic plastic cards. In the following, is the Zaption that I created.
Friday, 29 May 2015
Session 4 - Collaboration through dialogue
One of the four 21st century competencies is collaboration, which creates communication between different stakeholders. A sense of learning community is created as the stakeholders, such as educators and learners, continuously learn from each other.
In this reflection, I ask whether, irrespective of my role in a learning process, how can I communicate effectively to achieve the fullest in a collaboration environment?
In the article “Exploring Collaborative Dialogue”, the author makes a clear distinction between competitive dialogue and collaborative dialogue. Competitive dialogue is based on debates and arguments whilst collaborative dialogue is the learning between peers as a team, where they can build the same understanding together even when they disagree.
For a learning community to have the best dialogue, it is necessary to have effective persuasion. In the interview with Don Rothman, he argues that
‘persuasion is an ugly word that reveals a desire to abuse others rather than an act of social responsibility that can be performed with respect, even love.’
Rothman states that effective persuasion is constructed through three behaviours, namely:
- Respecting the views of others - persuasion works to understand what other people are thinking.
- Respectfully describing sources of disagreement - first understand the position of others so one can articulate them respectfully and clearly. Then, one can stand a better chance of pointing out the fault.
- Sustaining conversation - being persuasive depends on careful listening.
In 21st century education, effective persuasive dialogue is the way forward towards a comprehensive communication strategy within the collaborative learning community.
References
Exploring Collaborative Dialogue. Retrieved on 25th May 2015 from http://plugusin.pbworks.com/w/page/40688602/Exploring%20Collaborative%20Dialogue
The writing classroom as a laboratory for Democracy: An interview with Don Rothman. Retrieved on 25th May 2015 from http://www.nwp.org/cs/public/download/nwp_file/9032/Writing_Classroom_as_Lab.pdf?x-r=pcfile_d
Session 4 - Achieving Bloom’s Taxonomy in Adult Learning
Churches (2009), in his report on Bloom’s Taxonomy, remarks that
It’s not about the tools, it’s using the tools to facilitate learning.
The use of tools in education is an important result of the second generation web, or Web 2.0. The second generation web has increased the usability and accessibility of online tools for a variety of tasks. This, coupled with the increase in cheap, ubiquitous and mobile computing, has made technology accessible to students and brought to the foray an ever increasing amount of tools that can be used even in classroom as an agent of collaboration and engagement.
Benjamin Bloom developed a taxonomy of educational objectives in 1956 which has become a key tool in reasoning about the learning process. Bloom proposed fitting the learning process into three psychological domains, namely the cognitive domain in which the learner processes information, the affective domain which concerns attitudes and feeling and the psychomotor domain which is concerned with physical skills.
Bloom’s Taxonomy focuses on the cognitive domain, and focuses on categorising the thinking skills and objectives. Students transition from basic lower level thinking skills to more elaborate higher order thinking skills, and the challenge to educators is to help students make the transition. Wood, Bruner and Ross (1976) developed the term scaffolding to describe the processes offered by a teacher or peer to help the student in those areas where s/he is unable to master independently.
From an adult educator’s perspective, I think that to achieve scaffolding, Web 2.0 tools need to be used in such a way that they can help the student practice what s/he has learned. This can be done as a means to reinforce learning and clarify the learning objectives. Web 2.0 tools allow the students to practice outside of the classroom, independently of the teacher and peers. Adult learners are self-motivated learners and these tools provide an opportunity to allow them the freedom of an enhanced independent learning experience with a fallback on the class and peers if some concept is difficult or unclear.
Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy ((Churches, 2009) quoting (Anderson, 2001))
References
Anderson, L.W., and D. Krathwohl (Eds.) (2001). A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching
and Assessing: a Revision of Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. Longman,
New York.
Churches, (2009). Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy. Retrieved 19th May 2015 from http://edorigami.wikispaces.com/file/view/bloom%27s%20Digital%20taxonomy%20v3.01.pdf/65720266/bloom%27s%20Digital%20taxonomy%20v3.01.pdf
Wood, D., Bruner, J.S., & Ross, G. (1976). The role of tutoring in problem solving. Journal of Psychology and Psychiatry. 17.
Session 3 - The Jigsaw Method
During this lesson, the lecturer used the jigsaw method. Tuparova & Tuparov (2009) state that this method “manages collaborative activity in which every participant is extremely important for the realization of the ultimate goal”.
The Jigsaw method is an active learning strategy and collaborative method that encourages students to engage in individual or small group activities. It is an active learning exercise where a generic topic is divided into smaller inter-related pieces, each team member is assigned to read and become an expert on a different piece of the puzzle, who then shares the acquired knowledge with his/her team mates. Finally, the puzzle is re-assembled and each team member then knows something valuable about each piece of the jigsaw.
A detailed explanation of the concepts of the Jigsaw method are given in the following animated YouTube video:
Mengduo & Xiaoling (2010), quoting John & Holubec (1993), state the five main principles for the jigsaw strategy. These principles are positive interdependence, face-to-face promotive interaction, individual and group accountability, interpersonal skills and group processing.
In fact, through the jigsaw method, I noticed that all of my peers were engaged with the activity as everybody took responsibility and accountability to teach the others what they have been become experts in. A great advantage of this method was that we worked with different peers and not work same peers that would otherwise allow us to stay in our comfort zone. It was a positive learning process to work collaboratively for the first time with different peers as every person in the group felt important to share the newly acquired expertise on the particular teaching method.
References
Tuparova, D & Tuparov G (2009). The “Jigsaw” Collaborative Method in Blended Learning Course “Computer Games and Education” - Realization in Moodle Retrieved on 19th May 2015 from http://www.icl-conference.org/dl/proceedings/2009/program/pdf/Contribution_071.pdf
Mengdu, Q & Xiaoling, J. (2010). Jigsaw Strategy as a Cooperative Learning Techniques: Focusing on the Languages Learners. Retrieved on 19th May 2015 from http://www.celea.org.cn/teic/92/10120608.pdf
Session 2 - 21st Century Learning
For this session, I have researched an infographic on 21st Century Learning. The following graphic identifies four competencies that 21st Century Learning strives to achieve, namely
- Digital-Age Literacy
- Inventive Thinking
- Effective Communication, and
- High Productivity
In this reflective post, I will describe each of these pillars which are necessary for 21st Century Learning.
Digital Age literacy involves building on the basic skills (such as reading, writing and calculating) to acquire new skills. These include language and numeracy skills at a level that helps the learner be more efficient on the job and in society. This is also true of other skills such as health and fitness literacy, where the learner would apply skills for lifetime fitness and well-being.
Inventive thinking aims at preparing students to think critically and assess options in order to make informed decisions. Students should be prepared to think out of the box and possess a desire to learn and engage in learning activities during their lifetime. They should be able to accept and learn from their mistakes and be prepared to face challenges that may at first appear intimidating.
While information may be only a few clicks away, students need to be prepared to ask pertinent questions and extract relevant information for the task they are trying to solve. They should use social media responsibly and adopt ethical practices online. The modern workplace requires workers to work together respectfully and share responsibilities sometimes with colleagues who are not physically present.
In the modern workplace, as well in schools in general, people are expected to prioritise and plan their tasks to increase productivity. With high productivity, the 21st century learning process tries to make effective use of relevant high-quality products that boost productivity.
Bibography
21st century learning and learners - http://education.alberta.ca/media/1087278/wncp%2021st%20cent%20learning%20(2).pdf
enGauge 21st century skills : for 21st century learners - http://pict.sdsu.edu/engauge21st.pdf
Values at the Core of 21st Century Competencies - http://www.moe.gov.sg/education/21cc/files/annex-21cc-framework.pdf
Session 1: Quotes
The following collage are a few of my peers’ favourite quotes when they thought about education. I found this post very inspiring being an adult learner myself.
Session 1 Keeping Lessons Relevant to Adults
This week’s additional reading, “How to Teach Adults: 15 secrets” (Busy Teacher, 2015) discusses how to deal with adults in a classroom where the learners are older than the teacher. This has certainly been my case over the past years that I have been teaching basic computer skills to adult learners. From my experience, adults come with a baggage of experience.
In a nutshell, the article describes how one of the most common mistakes that younger teachers commit when teaching older students is that they provide examples that are outside of sphere of experience of the learners. When I started teaching the course, I re-used some of the material that I use to teach secondary school students. I noticed that the I could not engage the students as well as I had done with the younger students.
To mitigate this, I changed the approach. To my more mature audience, I have provided an instruction pack that with detailed examples of how to do things. During the lesson, I engaged the students by adding more hands-on group activities. Each group could choose a topic to their liking to practice (such as typing out a recipe or tabulating the results of the football season). Once the students were able to use analogies that they were familiar with, they assimilated the subject much quicker.
The approach that I have found the most effective with adult learners is one which relies on practical tasks that complement the theoretical aspects of the lesson. I have found that using this approach, adults learn better and are more predisposed to engage and ask questions.
References:
Busy Teacher, (2015). How to Teach Adults: 15 Secrets, Busy Teacher. Retrieved from http://busyteacher.org/7273-teach-adults-15-secrets.html. Last accessed 10 May 2015.
Friday, 8 May 2015
Introduction
A requirement for this course is to write a reflective diary in our own personal blog. This is not my first experience creating and using a blog. I used blogs with in different studies and with my students. I know that this is an innovative idea that our tutor, Dr Joseph Vancell, is introducing in our diploma course.
In the end, though, I felt relieved that at last we are going to have a course with a blended learning approach. Using a Web 2.0 tool, I can express myself multimodally as an autonomous reflective learner.
Looking forward to put my thoughts to words in the coming weeks!
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