It appears we have had very different weeks and not only weatherwise...
This is what I have been up to.
Hesitations, blanks and repetitions included, but a podcast no longer (?!) than 10 minutes. Lucky you!
Put the SoundCloud app on your phone or your browser and give it a go, suggest to your students to create an account, start recording anywhere anytime and share wherever (including MyPortfolio!) It even works for words list :-). Could be useful for revision prior to mock exams!
Enjoy your long week end and keep warm and happy!
Good to chat just now. I've had a listen to your soundcloud. It's great to see (and hear) your reflections on the wider role of e-portfolios, enriched by your conversations, both scheduled and unscheduled, with other e-learning enthusiasts. It's interesting to see how much of value arises out of unplanned events. I think this is one of the things I notice particularly now that I find myself once again subject to rigid time and planning constraints. I would say that a good number of the very important encounters that I have had over the years (those that have really enriched my life and moved my thinking forward) are attributable to chance and the time to recognise the potential of such encounters. In other words, in order to be able to make something of these encounters you need the space and time go down that path, however far it might take you. If your life is cluttered with deadlines and timetables, predetermined expectations and other constraints that dull your receptiveness to opportunities you risk having them pass you by. This is one of the reasons that I regard our present conversation, and meetings with people such as Anne Kennelly, essential to my sense of proportion and self-worth. When you are so at odds with the way things are done in your establishment it is natural to call your own beliefs into question. Was I being idealistic to imagine I could sweep in and create a climate of student independence in such a short time? Yes, it seems. I see that it's something that has to be fostered from early in the learning cycle and endorsed by all teachers and leaders. Students have to want to be independent and that's the challenge one faces. I think the best solution is, as ever, to work with the willing and showcase their success through their autonomous learning. With time we may gather some converts but it won't happen overnight. I must find time to keep the dialogue about learning a constant rather than an occasional event. If I expect my students to be mindful, I must be ever mindful myself. Easier said than done when the mind feels cluttered.
ReplyDelete^..^
=+=
It makes me happy that you make the time and comment on my post, as I think it has served on of the purposes we discussed when we started this blog "à quatre mains": in writing here you have put down what has been occupying your mind of late and hopefully decluttered it in the process. And in doing so keeping our dialogue about learning going! I am very interested in your choice of words: mindful. I am yet to decide if it is a conscious state about outer or inner environment or both!
ReplyDeleteI am conflicted when thinking about independence. I see the World as being full of constraints and timetables and deadlines and silos and "have to" and "must do". And I know I can't change anything about this. The only thing that I can do anything about is how I am in this world: self organise make my own choices, be proactive, act independently, self regulate, reflect. This sense of agency I have developed quite late in life.
Thinking of what ultimately drives me to "invent ways" to stay involved with education and elearning, I believe that all learners ought to develop a similar sense of agency. A large range of factors lead to its development. It s different for each individual, in their culture, in their context. Teachers, like you, play a massive role in raising awareness, developing the related competences, making explicit the connections and providing many opportunities for this to happen.
Would that it were so easy to unclutter the mind!! It's relatively uncluttered when I'm not on the treadmill but as the week gathers momentum it becomes more dysfunctional as it tries to cope with too much information and interpersonal stimulation. Requests coming from right, left and centre and so many diverse things to remember. It has an impact on ones creativity, needless to say. I think the answer would be to take German out of the equation for a start. I think we all become aware of our own rhythm, what it needs to remain on an even keel and when it feels out of kilter. I know I need plenty of time to tame things, in whatever domain (the NZC being a case in point), but once I have understood them, they seem to become part of me.
ReplyDeleteBeing mindful, for me, is having a constant awareness of the bigger picture and the 'why'. It's often difficult to find a worthwhile answer to the 'why' in an assessment-driven environment. Things just roll on without most people seeing the need to question the validity of what they're doing.
What I'd like to see is something closer to the blue-sky picture where students decide when they're ready to be assessed, which leads to self-pacing and more ownership of learning. I understand this is NZQA's not-so-long-term goal and it's a very worthy one.
When I talk about independence I don't mean complete independence from the system but rather 'autonomy' as you describe it. Agency. I think I've always had this feeling of agency which has probably enabled me to become a successful language learner. I've always questioned things. At the end of the day the most honest approach I can think of is to share with students some of the ways in which I have gained that competence. The number one item for me is doing things without having to be asked, because I'm intrinsically motivated to do them and judge that this is the best thing to do next. This happened only after I had an inspiring teacher who encouraged us to take responsibility. He made us aware that we weren't doing homework for him but for our own learning and that if we didn't do it, we were the only one's likely to lose out. The idea of doing something to avoid punishment is anathema to me, as it erodes the students' agency. The other big truth about learning is that there's no quick way around it. If you want to be successful at anything, you have to expect to invest time in it. The only shortcut perhaps, is through the sharing of good ideas!!
^..^
=+=
Ah! In one comment you mention two things I have focused on this last wee while: the "Why?" (and I am slowly getting around the idea that asking, rather than answering it, is sometime plenty!) and Mastery (one of the 3 pillars to drive as Dan Pink puts it so expertly, the other two being Autonomy and Purpose). Unlike you, I have had a long road on this knowledge of self and hesitate often. The use of social media and Twitter in particular, believe it or not, often presents the right idea at the right time, I don't know if it is that I have heaps of ideas to investigate or spend heaps of time on Twitter and the like! Anyhow this is one way I build a learning path. Right now it feels to me it has been aphazard hence this focus on Why?
ReplyDeleteBring on the haphazard, I say. Je suis adepte de l'aleatoire. More and more I tend to learn things when the need or interest arises. I don't think I've ever been one for learning because it happened to be the next thing in the book, although I was probably forced to learn that way when I was at school. The learning I remember certainly centred around student-generated or self-generated activity, such as working on the school newspaper or borrowing an old reel-to-reel tape recorder to record myself reciting Le Petit Prince, or spending days sewing soft toys. Now that it's so easy to do audio/video things, with your 'soundcloud' for instance, I wonder whether students are getting a bit blase.
ReplyDeleteAnother motivating factor for me was open-endedness. I gained much better results at university with lecturers who weren't expecting a regurgitated essay but encouraged students to defend their own arguments. Very liberating for me but perhaps too unstructured for others. Horses for courses. I also love going off on tangents when I'm learning. You never know what you're going to discover and I like that, though it must be very frustrating for the linear learner.
I can see how valuable Twitter can be for sharing of ideas but as I mentioned above it's a question of knowing ones rhythm. Twitter feels too much like my treadmill for me to be comfortable with. I'm not keen on running. I also like the more visual aspect of Facebook, it's less punchy. I'm just an old ruminant. Meuh!!!
^..^
=+=
LOL and vive la Personalisation and Individualisation! And you noticed how I spelt aphazard, very French isn't it? Just like Urry Hup story Lesley told me! Bonne nuit!
ReplyDelete