Saturday, 20 November 2010
Gresham's law
Bad money drives out good. Hence, it is unprofitable in the long term to sell bad goods.
Thursday, 18 November 2010
creativityaccelerators.org
Ken Robinson 1999 all our futures
National foundation for educational research 2008 creati
ve partnerships.
Ideas foundation 2004
National foundation for educational research 2008 creati
ve partnerships.
Ideas foundation 2004
Sunday, 22 August 2010
Politics - First Past the Post
Key terms:
Disolution of Parliament
A constituency with a Party with 10 000 votes clear of the competitors - safe seat.
Small majority - a marginal
Advantages of First Past the Post:
Key Elections:
1945 Atlee takes over from Churchill - Six years of setting up the Welfare State
1979 Thatcher (The Iron Lady) Privatisation, breaking the unions, lower taxation
1997 New Labour - After 18 years of the cons UK wanted a change. Landslide. Even at its most popular New Labour only enjoyed 43% of votes cast.
A
Disolution of Parliament
A constituency with a Party with 10 000 votes clear of the competitors - safe seat.
Small majority - a marginal
Advantages of First Past the Post:
Key Elections:
1945 Atlee takes over from Churchill - Six years of setting up the Welfare State
1979 Thatcher (The Iron Lady) Privatisation, breaking the unions, lower taxation
1997 New Labour - After 18 years of the cons UK wanted a change. Landslide. Even at its most popular New Labour only enjoyed 43% of votes cast.
A
Tuesday, 3 August 2010
Key Points of Interest from the LTUC Project 2012: The Prospectus
Formal transmissive lectures are increasingly replaced by active, problem-based learning through seminars; lecture theatres have interactive technology; powerpoint is used sparingly and combined with video on the web; classrooms are less crowded and have much more flexible furniture.
Use of moodle is standard and increasingly interactive and imaginative; it is more normal to use multi-media authoring software as write a lecture for transmission of information.
Forms of assessment are designed for learning and for development of future professional skills, such as presentations and printed posters.
There are fewer assignments – reducing marking loads but engendering higher performance because they are more challenging and higher stakes - although there are opportunities to practise, make mistakes and gain formative feedback.
• Students need to be doing much more rather than the emphasis on the lecturer goldplating “delivery”.
• But challenge is hard to sell when evaluated by students preferring comfort zones
• We must not reinforce passive behaviours, perhaps carried over from school.
• Graduateness is a kind of charter of certified qualities in the learner - rather than charter of provision and delivery.
The following text is adapted from a section in the prospectus for Lancaster University.
"The fundamental element of study in higher education is your individual reading and research; formal contact time with lecturers and fellow students is designed to guide, consolidate, apply, practise and test out your understanding gained through private study".
and...
"Formal lectures are diminishing in frequency and significance; powerpoint slides crowded with text to copy are being hunted to extinction. You will spend much more effective time accessing online materials on our virtual learning environment (moodle)".
The sheer neuro-physiological inefficiency of learning from lectures is well shown in What’s The Use of Lectures [Bligh, Intellect Books, 2004]
“The formal lecture is a refuge for the faint-hearted, both lecturer and students. It keeps the channels of communications closed, freezes hierarchy between lecturer and students and removes any responsibility on the student to respond..." Barnett, R [1999] Realizing the University in an age of supercomplexity. SRHE/OUP
Use of moodle is standard and increasingly interactive and imaginative; it is more normal to use multi-media authoring software as write a lecture for transmission of information.
Forms of assessment are designed for learning and for development of future professional skills, such as presentations and printed posters.
There are fewer assignments – reducing marking loads but engendering higher performance because they are more challenging and higher stakes - although there are opportunities to practise, make mistakes and gain formative feedback.
• Students need to be doing much more rather than the emphasis on the lecturer goldplating “delivery”.
• But challenge is hard to sell when evaluated by students preferring comfort zones
• We must not reinforce passive behaviours, perhaps carried over from school.
• Graduateness is a kind of charter of certified qualities in the learner - rather than charter of provision and delivery.
The following text is adapted from a section in the prospectus for Lancaster University.
"The fundamental element of study in higher education is your individual reading and research; formal contact time with lecturers and fellow students is designed to guide, consolidate, apply, practise and test out your understanding gained through private study".
and...
"Formal lectures are diminishing in frequency and significance; powerpoint slides crowded with text to copy are being hunted to extinction. You will spend much more effective time accessing online materials on our virtual learning environment (moodle)".
The sheer neuro-physiological inefficiency of learning from lectures is well shown in What’s The Use of Lectures [Bligh, Intellect Books, 2004]
“The formal lecture is a refuge for the faint-hearted, both lecturer and students. It keeps the channels of communications closed, freezes hierarchy between lecturer and students and removes any responsibility on the student to respond..." Barnett, R [1999] Realizing the University in an age of supercomplexity. SRHE/OUP
Wednesday, 14 July 2010
http://www.leedstrinity.ac.uk/departments/foe/cyf/staff/pages/nathan%20loynes.aspx
http://www.leedstrinity.ac.uk/departments/foe/cyf/staff/pages/nathan%20loynes.aspx
Monday, 7 June 2010
Reflection
13.1 Definitions of Reflective Learning and Teaching
[Reflection is the] active, persistent and careful consideration of any belief or … knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it and the further conclusion to which it tends.
Dewey (1933, p.9)
Reflection in the context of learning is a generic term for those intellectual and affective activities in which individuals engage to explore their experiences in order to lead to new understandings and appreciations.
Boud & Walker (1985, p.19)
Reflection involves the critique of assumptions about the content or process of problem solving … The critique of premises or presuppositions pertains to problem posing as distinct from problem solving. Problem posing involves making a taken-for-granted situation problematic, raising questions regarding its validity.
Mezirow (1991, p. 105)
The term reflective practice is particularly associated with the work of Schön (1983) and has proved to be immensely influential in professional education and training. Practitioners are encouraged to develop problem-solving skills relating to situations at work beyond just selecting from a pre-determined formula or procedure. This is done by reflecting on their experience of similar situations and the effectiveness of the solutions they have tried. The process of reflection involves generalising and making educated guesses about what will work in the future. These generalisations are then tested and their effectiveness as guides to practice is evaluated.
The reflective practice model goes beyond merely ‘thinking about one’s teaching’. By restricting reflection to practice, practitioners may not regard their own values, beliefs and assumptions, or those of the system within which they work as open to question. Schön describes reflection which is simply concerned with finding a better means to an unquestioned end as ‘single-loop’ learning. He encourages practitioners to engage in reflection that questions the ends themselves, what he calls ‘double-loop’ learning.
This second strand of reflection, in which we explicitly question underlying assumptions and aims, is known as critical reflection (Mezirow, 1991). It encourages learners to reflect on contradictions and dilemmas inspired by clashes between their own world-view and the value-system of the situation within which they work. This can lead to a fundamental re-making of the reflector’s value-system and is a direct product of the process of critical reflection. Mezirow calls this transformative learning and contends that it is more important than the solution of the problem that originally prompted the critical reflection
A third strand within the area of reflective learning is the idea of critical consciousness associated with Paulo Freire (1970) and his ideas of emancipatory learning. It emphasises group, rather than individual, discussion of issues and takes its themes from the collective concerns of group members. Its aim is largely political: to identify structural factors which constrain the lives, practice and understandings of specific groups and to recognise the political interests operating through such constraints.
When you wish to reflect on a particular issue, you may have good reason for operating entirely within one of these strands; at different times any one of them may be the most appropriate. Alternatively, when confronting a complex issue you may find it useful to bear in mind all three strands. For example, you might reflect on how to achieve a given objective in your work, such as implementing a quality assurance procedure (reflective practice). Going further, you might also consider the basis of your own judgements about what constitutes a desirable outcome in this situation (critical reflection, possibly leading to transformative learning) and to ask whose interests are served by the establishment of such a system (critical consciousness).
[Reflection is the] active, persistent and careful consideration of any belief or … knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it and the further conclusion to which it tends.
Dewey (1933, p.9)
Reflection in the context of learning is a generic term for those intellectual and affective activities in which individuals engage to explore their experiences in order to lead to new understandings and appreciations.
Boud & Walker (1985, p.19)
Reflection involves the critique of assumptions about the content or process of problem solving … The critique of premises or presuppositions pertains to problem posing as distinct from problem solving. Problem posing involves making a taken-for-granted situation problematic, raising questions regarding its validity.
Mezirow (1991, p. 105)
The term reflective practice is particularly associated with the work of Schön (1983) and has proved to be immensely influential in professional education and training. Practitioners are encouraged to develop problem-solving skills relating to situations at work beyond just selecting from a pre-determined formula or procedure. This is done by reflecting on their experience of similar situations and the effectiveness of the solutions they have tried. The process of reflection involves generalising and making educated guesses about what will work in the future. These generalisations are then tested and their effectiveness as guides to practice is evaluated.
The reflective practice model goes beyond merely ‘thinking about one’s teaching’. By restricting reflection to practice, practitioners may not regard their own values, beliefs and assumptions, or those of the system within which they work as open to question. Schön describes reflection which is simply concerned with finding a better means to an unquestioned end as ‘single-loop’ learning. He encourages practitioners to engage in reflection that questions the ends themselves, what he calls ‘double-loop’ learning.
This second strand of reflection, in which we explicitly question underlying assumptions and aims, is known as critical reflection (Mezirow, 1991). It encourages learners to reflect on contradictions and dilemmas inspired by clashes between their own world-view and the value-system of the situation within which they work. This can lead to a fundamental re-making of the reflector’s value-system and is a direct product of the process of critical reflection. Mezirow calls this transformative learning and contends that it is more important than the solution of the problem that originally prompted the critical reflection
A third strand within the area of reflective learning is the idea of critical consciousness associated with Paulo Freire (1970) and his ideas of emancipatory learning. It emphasises group, rather than individual, discussion of issues and takes its themes from the collective concerns of group members. Its aim is largely political: to identify structural factors which constrain the lives, practice and understandings of specific groups and to recognise the political interests operating through such constraints.
When you wish to reflect on a particular issue, you may have good reason for operating entirely within one of these strands; at different times any one of them may be the most appropriate. Alternatively, when confronting a complex issue you may find it useful to bear in mind all three strands. For example, you might reflect on how to achieve a given objective in your work, such as implementing a quality assurance procedure (reflective practice). Going further, you might also consider the basis of your own judgements about what constitutes a desirable outcome in this situation (critical reflection, possibly leading to transformative learning) and to ask whose interests are served by the establishment of such a system (critical consciousness).
30 credit module expectations Hud.ac
How much work you do on a module, and how it is divided between tutorial time and private study, will depend on the nature of the module. For a 30-credit module, it is normally expected that you devote a total of 300 hours study time to the module. Typically, this might involve 45-60 hours group time with the remainder being supervised teaching practice, reflection, tutorials, meetings with your mentor, directed study tasks and individual private study.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)