I am starting a one week holiday this afternoon sometime.
I had to push really hard but I have got right up to date with my assignments readings etc. I am getting a real affirmation of the benefits of staying on track.
At the same time I am enjoying the refreshing nature of having a break. I only went to the gym twice this week. it was five times last week. I just physically needed that rest.
not much time to discuss. More later.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Monday, April 20, 2009
Metacognition, technology and learning
This last week or so have been pretty hard going with the learning in these courses. I have done a lot of reading in 5601 but it is really hard to put it all together and synthesize something meaningful out of them to post something meaningful for the starter wrapper exercise.
I have been taking a little bit of luxury I feel in taking a little extra time to ponder and consider what I have been learning. I have also been thinking about a lot of changes I could and even need to make to my teaching and to my design and materials choices.
Two days ago I didn't even know what metacognition meant, now here I am pondering it. I am going to ponder a bit more on how to put the new ideas I have encountered into practice, in particular with my assignment, then I will do the starter wrapper thing, then I'll come back to this again. Hopefully this can all be done in the next couple of days.
I have felt this week that I have really been bootstrapping, as in starting from scratch a lot. This is probably a lot to do with hitting a wall physically. I took a 4 day break from my exercise routine, (2 extra days after the weekend cos I don't exercise on weekends anyways). This was hard to deal with and I do think that the physical and cognitive interrelate quite a bit.
My highlights from this weeks metacognition, my understanding of my own learning and knowing of my knowing are as follows: Assessment should be much more than just a normative (bad) or even just a summative thing (necessary) but should also be formative and when it needs to be summative it should be mixed. I suppose the aha in this is that there really are great opportunities for learning from assessment feedback and it really is a shame to miss these. But then consider pure formative assessment (practice assessments, comparison to exemplars etc) these really have a powerful opportunity for learning.
Seimens learning domains I mentioned in my previous post, these seem to almost have a requirement for technology in order to reach domains of; accretion, emergence and aquisition. I can also see a strong link between new technologies and developing learning ecologies, especially considering asynchonous discussion forums.
Biggs discussion of quality was very reminiscent of TQM but bring this into the education realm. I liked the prospective / retrosspective dialectic, this was very TQM like. the levels of teaching and learning model I found to be quite enlightening and I can see the benefit of focussing more on level 3 what the student does.
Reushle et. al I think will be quite useful and practical when designing and building onn-line learning modules. Crowe et al made a good point for peer assessment which i think I can use with a mix of PBL and discussion forums in my project. I will definitely also be using Critirion referenced assessment.
I have been taking a little bit of luxury I feel in taking a little extra time to ponder and consider what I have been learning. I have also been thinking about a lot of changes I could and even need to make to my teaching and to my design and materials choices.
Two days ago I didn't even know what metacognition meant, now here I am pondering it. I am going to ponder a bit more on how to put the new ideas I have encountered into practice, in particular with my assignment, then I will do the starter wrapper thing, then I'll come back to this again. Hopefully this can all be done in the next couple of days.
I have felt this week that I have really been bootstrapping, as in starting from scratch a lot. This is probably a lot to do with hitting a wall physically. I took a 4 day break from my exercise routine, (2 extra days after the weekend cos I don't exercise on weekends anyways). This was hard to deal with and I do think that the physical and cognitive interrelate quite a bit.
My highlights from this weeks metacognition, my understanding of my own learning and knowing of my knowing are as follows: Assessment should be much more than just a normative (bad) or even just a summative thing (necessary) but should also be formative and when it needs to be summative it should be mixed. I suppose the aha in this is that there really are great opportunities for learning from assessment feedback and it really is a shame to miss these. But then consider pure formative assessment (practice assessments, comparison to exemplars etc) these really have a powerful opportunity for learning.
Seimens learning domains I mentioned in my previous post, these seem to almost have a requirement for technology in order to reach domains of; accretion, emergence and aquisition. I can also see a strong link between new technologies and developing learning ecologies, especially considering asynchonous discussion forums.
Biggs discussion of quality was very reminiscent of TQM but bring this into the education realm. I liked the prospective / retrosspective dialectic, this was very TQM like. the levels of teaching and learning model I found to be quite enlightening and I can see the benefit of focussing more on level 3 what the student does.
Reushle et. al I think will be quite useful and practical when designing and building onn-line learning modules. Crowe et al made a good point for peer assessment which i think I can use with a mix of PBL and discussion forums in my project. I will definitely also be using Critirion referenced assessment.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Aha Design
Yes I am well into design now.
I have just submitted (2 days ago) my analysis discussion for 5601 and started doing the readings on Design.
I have also just about finished my Web site Design Critique for 5621.
It was a long hard weekend. I wish I could say that all of this has its own reward and it is totally compensates for the fact that I haven't even sat on a motorcycle all weekend but the truth is I feel kind of deprived at the moment.
However I have had some learning.
5601..
I have just finished reading a long article by Seimens (2005) Learning development cycle: Bridging learning design and modern knowledge needs. The learning module notes promised that the design phase is where the real fun would start in the course. I guess I could say that I agree. Reading this article I had numerous aha moments as I was able to connect with the theory in terms of my own teaching and learning experiences.
The Learning Development Cycles and its 4 domains; Transmission, Accretion, Aquisition, and Emergence all rang so true to me in considering my own experiences. Funnily enough a lot of the theory was directly related to web communities like Dubai4x4, thumpertalk etc. These sites provide informal models for Aquisition and to a lesser extems Emergency, Accretion and even Transmission. I can see that revisiting this material will be very helpful for me when I go to design tools to aid in blended learning modules such as the project I have planned for FET5601.
5621
The Web Design assignment that I just finished was a lot of work. One of the main learning points for me actually relates back to the other course. That is, the importance of networks and ecology in some learning. A large part of that assignment was to post to the web thoughts on the design of a group of 3 web sites according to (in my case, web standards). Posting publically does put some pressure on one to prepare properly, it also provides opportunities to learn unexpectedly and to develop social skills. The need to rely on others for part of the learning was underlined here.. In LDC theory I guess that would be seen as nodes in a network and ecology.
I have just submitted (2 days ago) my analysis discussion for 5601 and started doing the readings on Design.
I have also just about finished my Web site Design Critique for 5621.
It was a long hard weekend. I wish I could say that all of this has its own reward and it is totally compensates for the fact that I haven't even sat on a motorcycle all weekend but the truth is I feel kind of deprived at the moment.
However I have had some learning.
5601..
I have just finished reading a long article by Seimens (2005) Learning development cycle: Bridging learning design and modern knowledge needs. The learning module notes promised that the design phase is where the real fun would start in the course. I guess I could say that I agree. Reading this article I had numerous aha moments as I was able to connect with the theory in terms of my own teaching and learning experiences.
The Learning Development Cycles and its 4 domains; Transmission, Accretion, Aquisition, and Emergence all rang so true to me in considering my own experiences. Funnily enough a lot of the theory was directly related to web communities like Dubai4x4, thumpertalk etc. These sites provide informal models for Aquisition and to a lesser extems Emergency, Accretion and even Transmission. I can see that revisiting this material will be very helpful for me when I go to design tools to aid in blended learning modules such as the project I have planned for FET5601.
5621
The Web Design assignment that I just finished was a lot of work. One of the main learning points for me actually relates back to the other course. That is, the importance of networks and ecology in some learning. A large part of that assignment was to post to the web thoughts on the design of a group of 3 web sites according to (in my case, web standards). Posting publically does put some pressure on one to prepare properly, it also provides opportunities to learn unexpectedly and to develop social skills. The need to rely on others for part of the learning was underlined here.. In LDC theory I guess that would be seen as nodes in a network and ecology.
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