3100 and yet another blog profile

this is a link to the VCC Facebook page.

• https://www.facebook.com/VCCSchoolOfInstructorEducation#

Of course we all have partners in crime, and this is the one that I have been given for this course. I hope that you visit her profile and comment on her progress

• Michelle Colley
• Her blog 

I realize this is a repeat to some of you that saw my 3250 blog but I don't want to have to write this again.

•  A brief autobiography

Well this is not too bad, as I am not really a modest guy. I grew up in Vancouver, even though half of my life has been in other parts of the world. I returned recently to raise my family here.

I have been teaching something or other for the last twenty years, ever since I left York University. I have a degree in Biology, so as soon as I finished university in late 1992, I headed to Japan to teach English. Yes I know, it did not seem practical at the time either. However, I had gone through university without taking any summers off in order to graduate in three years, rather than four, so I wanted a vacation. Japan seemed like a good choice, and I could also teach EFL legally, because I had a university degree. Note to anyone thinking of doing this; it might be a good idea to learn a bit more Japanese before you head off to the land of the Children of the Sun. I had only thought about staying six months, but left seven and a half years later. Yes, I speak Japanese, which really impresses some people, even though 123 million other people in the world can also speak it. The trouble with learning Japanese is I always have to order at the sushi restaurant, even though most don't speak Japanese.

Not having learned my lesson about university, I returned to Toronto to take a Post-Graduate in IT Management. I graduated just after 911 in November 2001. You might also remember there was a dot com crash, and the need for IT project managers declined over night, so I returned to Vancouver, since the weather is nicer.

I took a TESOL course and started teaching ESL in Vancouver, which was nice at the time. Not but they don't pay a lot, so I decided to travel again.

I qualified for an ancestral visa to the UK, so I got on a plane for London and spent all my money before I got a job. Note to those doing this; the banking system is different there, and it took me two months to get accepted at a bank to cash my first pay cheque. This is why they have direct deposit. I started off doing government employment training teaching, which seems to have a fair bit of ESOL involved, so I did well. I received an assessor's certificate there, and was also an internal moderator for a work placement program. I transferred to the National Vocational Qualification programs, so by the time I went to my second company, I was promoted to a quality assurance coordinator. In my last position I was given the title of academic manager and put in charge of the post-graduate diploma program for management in the health and social care sector.

Six years later, I returned to North Vancouver with a wife and a child on the way. You might say that year was busy. I found work with the First Nations Technology Council as a Technology Training Specialist. We delivered IT programs to 203 First Nations communities in British Columbia.

Experience is one thing, but I still did not have a instructors diploma. And as I am looking for work again, I thought I would get my PIDP. But if you are reading this, probably you have a similar story.

end of the course

This entry is just to show the end of the course. I tried to limit my entries to one a day, and they were summaries of the material that was learned in the program. Although not in order, they reflect the work don in the program. I did not put a blog entry for movies about teachers, because I don't as a rule watch them or think much of them. They are still fantasy and not reflective of what it is actually like. I have also worked on movies, so another reason for not worrying about them. I have looked at and contributed to the other students' blogs, but did not see much from them on mine. This is okay, as there really is a lot out there, and I am more concerned about my own learning with this blog. If for some reason you are reading this, then by all means use anything here. Most of the entries are reviews of the work done in the forums and the text. I normally would have just assimilated the information by reading and participating in the forums, but as there is no other way to see if I retained anything, this blog was born. Again, thank you if you are reading this, and I will contribute more in the next course taken for the PIDP.

"so long and thanks for all the fish"

Appreciative inquiry

History

The idea of appreciative inquiry came about as a different way of approaching problems. Whereas some organizations look for problems in reviews, and then attempt to analyse the cause so that they can find a solution and set up an action plan to make it happen, AI uses a more positive approach.  With AI the people reviewing look at what is going well, what might be possible, and then engaging in talk about what should  be while innovation what will be. This approach has also been looked at with education. Instead of looking at what people are doing wrong and trying to correct it, they look at what they are doing well, and try and work with that.

In previous models and the reason AI was developed, too much emphasis was placed on the negative, and irradiating it. However, this purposes that everything that we believe to be bad, is. Victorian fashion dictated a very conservative dress code, and the 60’s promoted a very liberal one, almost completely different from the former. If we were to look at what is an appropriate style of clothing based on these two time periods, then how would we conclude which was correct, and which was wrong.

With AI, we don’t, but work with the positive aspects of both. It is also believed that focusing on the negative problems will only promote them more. If you do not acknowledge a negative behaviour in the classroom, then it brings notice to it and can exasperate it more. Publishing the actions of mass murder’s only gives them power, encourages more and is counterproductive.

There are five principals to AI, which are:

1) The constructionist principle proposes that what we believe to be true determines what we do, and thought and action emerge from relationships. Through the language and discourse of day to day interactions, people co-construct the organizations they inhabit. The purpose of inquiry is to stimulate new ideas, stories and images that generate new possibilities for action.

2) The principle of simultaneity proposes that as we inquire into human systems we change them and the seeds of change, the things people think and talk about, what they discover and learn, are implicit in the very first questions asked. Questions are never neutral, they are fateful, and social systems move in the direction of the questions they most persistently and passionately discuss.

3) The poetic principle proposes that organizational life is expressed in the stories people tell each other every day, and the story of the organization is constantly being co-authored. The words and topics chosen for inquiry have an impact far beyond just the words themselves. They invoke sentiments, understandings, and worlds of meaning. In all phases of the inquiry effort is put into using words that point to, enliven and inspire the best in people.

4) The anticipatory principle posits that what we do today is guided by our image of the future. Human systems are forever projecting ahead of themselves a horizon of expectation that brings the future powerfully into the present as a mobilizing agent. Appreciative inquiry uses artful creation of positive imagery on a collective basis to refashion anticipatory reality.

5) The positive principle proposes that momentum and sustainable change requires positive affect and social bonding. Sentiments like hope, excitement, inspiration, camaraderie and joy increase creativity, openness to new ideas and people, and cognitive flexibility. They also promote the strong connections and relationships between people, particularly between groups in conflict, required for collective inquiry and change.

A comparison of the two methods

Problem Solving	Appreciative inquiry
Felt need, identification of problem(s)	Appreciating—valuing "the best of what is"
Analysis of Causes	Envisioning what might be
Analysis of possible solutions	Engaging in dialogue about what should be
Action Planning (treatment)	Innovating what will be

Digital Tools

The idea of technology in the classroom is not new, but they type is new. While in the UK, I helped build a Student management system, a database to track your students. In 2010 this was the state of the art, and it was connected with an awarding body’s data system.  I put the new student’s information into the system, checked the other database (awarding body) to see if there was an existing student. If there was not, it updated both systems. We tracked the entire student journey from induction, assessment, attendance, training, assessment, grades, certification, exit strategy and progression. This was a very good digital tool, but pales in comparison to some of the tools today.  We have digital tools for creating, publishing, presentations, file management, discovering information, collaboration and productivity.  Almost everything that used to be done on a paper, black board or an overhead projector can now be done digitally.

In the forum there was talk about the technology taking over as a novelty and the idea of teaching being a second. People lover their gadgets and latest tech. I have had an iPhone, but that was only because my company bought it. My two year old son uses my wife’s iPad more than she does. And the quest for the latest toy is never ending. Now to be certain, they are fun to have, but are they needed? For certain, you can still teach a class without them. And in some cases, if they are not available because of an internet problem, they are not useful.

I have a Sync account, Dropbox, Google Docs and One Drive (formerly Sky Drive). And I have something stored in all of them, because it is free and it is readily available. But if I don’t have the internet, I don’t have access to any of this data. This idea is most apparent when you use Microsoft products. If you do not register a Microsoft product on the internet with in a week (like a Windows install) it will stop working. Without the internet, you cannot use the templates or clipart, etc. At one time, not everyone that bought a computer necessarily went on the internet, now it is usually.  What about learning out in nature? It is hard to use digital tools without electricity and data from the internet. You can still use some, but it is just not as effective.

Of course this being said, there are a lot of really ‘cool’ things you can do digitally that if you have the resources. And when was the last time that you went to the library to read an encyclopedia?

• ·         This course for example
• ·         Flipped classrooms
• ·         Digital projects
• ·         Social media and blogs
• ·         Videos
• Skype
• ·         Research
• ·          Etc.

http://nyit.edu/library/tools/?=ln

There are many free tools, but the best ones cost. The problem is knowing, where they are and what they are. In the forum we only listed a few tools (Prezi, Wordpress, Wordle, Moovly, Glogster). However, there really are a lot more. We all know the Office suites of programs. We use search engines and storage. Basically anything that can be an aid for class in presenting information and getting the student to learn would be considered a learning tool. The digital part is just the electronic version. 

Flipped classroom

As the name implies, there is a shift in the hierarchy of the classroom. Traditionally, classes were attended by students that attended lectures, took notes and studied text books, took tests and so on. In a flipped classroom however, the teacher gives up their role at the head of the class, and becomes a facilitator. The class relies on peer teaching and collaborative work.  There are some advantages and disadvantages to both systems; we are looking at the flipped concept today.

It has been noted that many students gain more insight and understanding from their peers than a traditional teacher. This is not too uncommon as there is a higher ratio of trainee to trainer in these class settings. More class time can be spent on giving the direction to the student that needs it and the other more advanced student can gain more insight by training the other students.

The facilitator can give assistance to groups of students that are tasked with teaching themselves in the subject. This has many advantages such as;

1. 1.       Gives students exposure to material, prior to lectures – As the student is now becoming a trainer as well as a learner, they have the opportunity to research work for the group and present it as learning material, similar to the forum that we are doing.
2. 2.       This intern gives students an incentive for study – because they must produce resource materials, they are more likely to be active, or they run the risk of letting the group down.
3. 3.       Provides a method for student assessment – with pre-assignments or quizzes, the student has the ability to see what they know and what they don’t know, and thus the teacher can concentrate on what they don’t know.
4. 4.       Provide higher cognitive activities – because the students have done all the basic knowledge outside of class time, they can now concentrate on more specialized activities in the classroom. This could be assignments or utilizing the previously acquired knowledge for more practical purposes.

In theory this is great, but you can see that the facilitator and the collaborative learning have some weaknesses. These are usually based on the assumption that;

1. 1.       All students know how to research the topics that they are given
2. 2.       Their basic understanding will be adequate for the higher cognitive activities with the pre-exercises.
3. 3.       That they do not rely on the others in the group to do all of their work
4. 4.       They have the skills, aptitude and desire to work like this.
5. 5.       It must also be noted that resources must be adequate for the tasks of pre-learning research. If a student does not have facilities to do this, then they will not be able to accomplish their tasks.
6. 6.       It this is done, the knowledge must be clear enough for the other students to assimilate it from the student providing it. If the firs student does not fully understand it, then they will only convey part of the knowledge or not an adequate amount. Not everyone can teach after all.
7. 7.       With a large portion of time spent on research, if the objective are not well defined or understood, this time may be lost on irrelevant material.

It is unfortunate, that not everyone will be able to embrace this type of training model, but if they are not aware of this prior to signing up for a class, they are in trouble. It also takes a bit more discipline that a new student might not have. Giving the task of setting the learning objectives (or at least the interpretation of them) to the student can lead to deviations for the true course outcomes. It only takes one error in reading a set of instructions and the student that spent time getting his blog up and running will not get any marks.

Critical Thinking

Critical Thinking Defined by Edward Glaser

In a seminal study on critical thinking and education in 1941, Edward Glaser defines critical thinking as follows “The ability to think critically, as conceived in this volume, involves three things:

1.      an attitude of being disposed to consider in a thoughtful way the problems and subjects that come within the range of one's experiences,

2.      knowledge of the methods of logical inquiry and reasoning, and

3.      some skill in applying those methods.

Critical thinking calls for a persistent effort to examine any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the evidence that supports it and the further conclusions to which it tends. It also generally requires ability to recognize problems, to find workable means for meeting those problems, to gather and marshal pertinent information, to recognize unstated assumptions and values, to comprehend and use language with accuracy, clarity, and discrimination, to interpret data, to appraise evidence and evaluate arguments, to recognize the existence (or non-existence) of logical relationships between propositions, to draw warranted conclusions and generalizations, to put to test the conclusions and generalizations at which one arrives, to reconstruct one's patterns of beliefs on the basis of wider experience, and to render accurate judgements about specific things and qualities in everyday life. 

(Edward M. Glaser, An Experiment in the Development of Critical Thinking, Teacher’s College, Columbia University, 1941)

There is some criticism on teaching students to be critical thinkers, as may be that what teachers are teaching is not actually ‘critical think, but questioning’. According to Mathew Arnold, critical thinking is

is more like a character trait – like having “a critical spirit”, or a willingness to engage in the “give and take of critical discussion”. Criticism is always about the world and not about you.

Socrates on the other hand includes the idea of uncertainty in his view of criticism.

“The Socratic education begins … with the awakening of the mind to the need for criticism, to the uncertainty of the principles by which it supposed itself to be guided.”

However, for the purposes of this topic we are talking about learning the underlying reasons for the answer, rather than just being fixated on the answer. If you teach to solve a problem, the student will only know the answer to that problem. But teach them why, and they will be able to solve any similar problem. This in essence is what we are trying to convey. In this field we look at the separate steps to analyse the processes of thought and problem solving. In this we look at

·         analysing

·         conceptualizing

·         defining

·         examining

·         inferring

·         listening

·         questioning

·         reasoning and

·         synthesizing

This in turn helps us to identify and reject false or flawed ideas or ideologies. One concept to take into consideration is that to truly engage in critical thinking, one has to take into consideration one’s own biasis and possible flawed thinking. This can be influenced by culture or upbringing. One has to recognize knowledge and evidence as being more important than opinion. This may go against held beliefs, and cause conflict for these ideas.

CT encourages scepticism, which reasons that not everything that is presented is necessarily true. This is sort of like the internet and Facebook. Sceptics withhold judgement until is adequately provided that is not refutable. This is the basis for reason above persuasion. A disregard for reason eliminates the process of CT.

One of the problems with Critical Thinking is the concept that many people like to see problems in either right or wrong, and not pursue more complicated outcomes. I find this very often in college students that will think this way. Problems are not always a dichotomy. The idea of good vs evil looses weight, when one views a perceived evil person, and find that they had some good qualities. The refusal to accept complex solutions for an answer could be a person’s refusal for the idea of uncertainty. Uncertainty does not allow for the person to be right, and thus, appears to be a flawed system or stance. The world used to be flat, because the thought of not know what shape it was seemed intolerable to a demanding audience. Uncertainty or ambiguity promotes doubt, and if there is doubt about an authority figure, then all of their hypothesis may be wrong. Critical thinkers must:

·         Demands the ability to handle uncertainty

·         Secure in knowing that they may be wrong, and accept this

·         Must be able to wait for valid, evidence based answers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OLPL5p0fMg

There are apparently nine standards for making questions in this area

Intellectual standards (nine of them):

1. Clarity: Could you elaborate further? Could you give me an example? Could you illustrate what you mean?

2. Accuracy: How could we check on that? How could we find out if it is true? How could we verify or test that? 

3. Precision: Could you be more specific? Could you give me more details? Could you be more exact?

4. Relevance: How does that relate to the problem? How does that bear on the question? How does that help us with the issue?

5. Depth: What factors make this a difficult problem? What are some of the complexities of this question? What are some of the difficulties we need to deal with? 

6. Breadth: Do we need to look at this from another perspective? Do we need to consider this from another point of view? Do we need to look at this another way?

7. Logic: Does this all make sense together? Does your first paragraph fit with your last? Does what you say follow from the evidence?

8. Significance: Is this the most important problem to consider? Is this the central idea to focus on? Which of the facts are most important? 

9. Fairness: Do I have vested interest in this issue? Am I sympathetically representing the viewpoints of others?

It is important to know that we may need to look at our problem/issue and take them/it apart. Define our purpose and ask, "Is this relevant"? Do our research on these facts so that we consider alternatives and differing points of view. Think about the implications, assumptions and dynamics of reasoning in our minds. Use this framework to help us make decisions on a daily basis...especially the really important ones!

Motivation

Of all the subjects that we looked at and researched, this is the foundation to engagement, positive learning environments and active learning, which were in themselves separate topics.

Motivation is a theoretical construct to explain reason or a reason that we engage; Interest or enthusiasm. Brophy and Cross concluded that there is expectancy multiplied with value is a good measure of motivation.

There are two types of Expectancy though.

·         Controlled – dependent on effort, and the outcome is not to chance

·         Non-controlled – luck, chance, not dependant on any amount of effort

It was found that if students expectancy was controlled, they were more motivated to succeed. Low probability of success is an outcome because there is a perceived non-controlled expectancy. Students that think there is no way to learn will not learn.

The other aspect of motivation is value. Many students that did not perceive the value of their lessons had lower motivation to achieve.  In this case, their concepts were not grasped, they could not see how they would utilize the lessons, or they thought the material irrelevant.

Thankfully there were many ideas to influence motivation. Our text suggest to

1.       Promote synergy by creating community in the classroom – this comes from the idea of social media and cell phone use. It is very important for many students to Tweet, text, blog, and update their status on other social media. By encouraging this type of community, it will inherit this motivational activity into a learning environment. This works if you Tweet, text and use social media. It is the motivation of socializing.

2.       Helping students work on optimal level of challenge – It is found (McKeachie) that tasks that are too easy to preform do not challenge the student enough for engagement. Challenging the student with assignments helps keep engagement and more motivation. This can be aided by

a.       feedback,

b.      assessments (summative, formative, educative and authentic)

c.       teaching metacognitive skills

d.      empowering students as partners in their learning

3.       Teaching holistically – this helps the student use their work in a broader sense, outside of just learned facts or skills. If they are able to use their newly acquired skills. This is done by engaging in several domains

a.       Affective domain – how the student feels which includes memory and learning

b.      Psychomotor domain – the physical learning aspects of the learning.

c.       Cognitive domain – what it means to the student, or how they understand it

Thankfully we have a whole book on motivational techniques, and to put them all into this report is a bit redundant. However, there were some categories that were used. The value of these techniques are up to social values and the engagement techniques. We are just looking at engagement in order to promote motivation.

• ·         Our first set of techniques use Knowledge, skills, recall and understanding – this is good for the thinking student
• ·         Our next set are analysis and critical thinking – this is good for interpretation
• ·         Next is synthesis and creative thinking – similar to the last, but with the idea of creativity based on the understanding of the lesson
• ·         We have problem solving – this utilizes the skills learned in the class to solve set problems
• ·         Application and performance – another creative idea but with application of set skills
• ·         Attitude and values – works on the affective domain previously talked about
• ·         Self-awareness as learners – is a developmental technique
• ·         Learning and study skills – is also developmental with practical applications to further learning

Gamification

Coming into this topic, I thought there was not much more to it than having an alternate to the regular class setting. But there actually appears to be a lot of science involved in games. It comes down to the negative stereotypes we have for game playing and how it is considered a waste of time or for leisure.  After looking at the forum for this section though one gets a slightly different picture of the situation.

I believe that they mentioned that we engage in 3 billion hours of gaming every week and that this may not be a bad thing. One of the regrets of most dying people is that they did not enjoy themselves as much as they should have. Well gaming could have helped, but most people feel guilty about it. Yet, is pleasure and thinking a guilty pursuit?

To be sure, there are some people that are fixated on games and can spend an unhealthy amount of time pursuing anti-social gaming experiences. But even gaming can be social if it is on line.  It is more the content of the game that should be addressed rather than gaming per say.

Some other benefits of gaming that are not noticeable at first are how we deal with learning techniques. Many people avoid learning environments or work because they do not wish to fail. In many cases, the idea of success through failure is not a favourable idea in the work environment. Yet, there is no real problem with learning from mistakes in games. In fact it can be quiet enjoyable, which is not the case in real life. The idea of taking a test until you get the answer right appears to be more effective than just getting wrong answers. This comes from the idea that we learn more from taking tests than we do from studying for them. This in turn has health benefits due to lower stress and is a motivational tool for engagement.

Of course there is also the aspect of instant feedback in gaming that is not always available in education or working life. If you started a proposal for a new project, and found out that it was rubbish immediately, then you could start a new one right away, and continue until you got it right. Of course there are some other factors involved, but usually feedback from a report or project in education has a gap of time. And the moment of creativity and inspiration is lost with that gap. As well, multiple failures rarely make a negative impression in games, but they are disastrous in education and work. This is one of the reasons that people engage in games so much, because they know with enough game time there is a reward of achievement, which is not so in education or work with a failure in the way.

There were some very good game sites that were talked about in the forum, and I must admit, I did not know most of them. However, choosing the right game for your subject was a bit trickier. Yes, there are some for my area of teaching, but the development is better in some of the other subjects. There were specializations in VR and simulators, and even avatar worlds in which to play them. I preferred the low tech versions of the gamification, even though I teach IT. I did a digital project on a game in fact.

Of course there is a break from the traditional approach to learning with games. But is this such a bad idea? If people enjoy the game and it is a social, educational experience, removed from negative connotations of failure, then I think it might be a winner. The object is to find the game for the lesson.

Learning styles

To be honest, we have covered this topic in some of the other forums that were in the 3250 class, but it is worth noting that learning styles are used in order to help teach an individual. However, there are a few things to realize.

1. First there are usually more than one type of learning style per classroom
2. There is the learning styles of the students and the teaching style of the teacher to consider, not to mention all of the other input that is received in a student's education. In other other words, it is not just that teacher that teaches
3. Learning styles are not personality types, but they have bearing on them
4. Just as personality types change (Myers-Brigs) and may be different at two different testing times, so too learning styles may vary with time
5. Learning styles are more tendencies than absolutes, and usually people are combinations of styles to varying degrees

At it's basic level, we can break learning styles into three main types. Visual, auditory and kinaesthetic.

When we look at multiple intelligence, we realize that the brain has areas that are stronger and weaker than others. We have a learning preference based on these strengths and weaknesses.

Least we forget Kolb's Learning styles, and things start to get interesting.

all of these factors are involved when looking at how a student studies. Of course we have forgotten one more thing that was mentioned earlier. and that is personality. Are they introverted or extroverted, and so on. Jung has a lot to say about that, but his work was taken over by Myer-Brigs. But as just stated, there is a bit of debate about how accurate those tests are, because they do not supply consistent results over time.

Reflective practice:

These forums are getting pretty good, or at least I think they are giving me a bit more. My take on this topic is a bit of everything that was on the forum. As it states, this is a type of reflection. One student mentioned Kolb’s Cycle of experiential learning. We have talked about Kolb before, but yes, I can see his theory a bit better now.

Mind you this is an important step in most areas that we endeavour to peruse. Then it hit me. Hey, I have done this before.  I actually made learning materials on teaching courses in the UK about this. Okay to be fair, I was following the standards set out by the awarding bodies, but I actually wrote about this in two different courses that I help develop. The courses were part of the teachers in the lifelong learning sector; to be specific PTLLS and CTLLS. In it there is a whole section on reflective practice in order to improve personal performance, sort of a self-evaluation.

Here is a link to a resource that is using this technique. http://www.mheducation.co.uk/openup/chapters/9780335222407.pdf

In it they use Kolb’s Cycle, but they also use Gibbs model of reflection learning by doing. If anyone is interested I have the work on the PTTLS, which stands for Preparing to Teach in the Lifelong Learning Sector, but I don’t have the CTLLS anymore, due to copy write purposes.

learning how to learn

We start off with this TED Talk that was also in the Forum of PIDP 3250 Learning how to learn. I thought I would include this video, as it is a good example of the knowledge in this topic.

Generally speaking, everyone knows how to learn, because we have been doing it since we were born. We learn how to eat, speak walk and other basic functions that all humans do. However, some learn to speak faster than others, and some learn how to function better, because they have learned how to learn.

This topic touches on understanding the underlying ways in how we learn, and why some methods are better. It also points out that we don't all learn the same way, but have preferences.

We will start with the idea of the four levels of learning.

We start from a stage of not knowing something to that of mastery (or for some things we do). However, we have another pyramid about how we do this as well.

In this picture we look at the different ways in which we learn. Now this proposes that you  are a normal person. But let us say you have bad eye sight? Then your visual input will be less. This is just a general guide and everyone's pyramid is slightly different. However, it is still interesting to note that these things exist. How do you get your own pyramid? Well, that is where assessment comes in. And the better the assessment, or how well you know how you learn the better the outcome is.

Maybe you are more a mind map with connections?

The University of Stanford Linda-Darling Hammond, Kim Austin, Suzanne Orcutt, and Jim Rosso, says that there are  two sides learning —one psychological and one sociological.
The paper
It is a bit lengthy, but gives a good overview.

Positive learning environment

I am not sure if modern learning institutes are against the concept of a positive learning environment, but it appears that sometimes these are not always present. This partially to do with preconceived notions of what is needed for learning and because the person(s) designing the environment is not familiar with the ideas.

I am not suggesting that we are all subjected to the pressures of education such as Nicholas Nickleby when he tried to correct the teacher in the spelling of “winder”. However, coming from a system where few questions were asked, there was a lot of reading and sitting straight in your row of students, it is not altogether surprising. Few educators were concerned with learning styles or learning environments.  In this section of the course we looked at the idea and its importance for developing effective education.

Creating a positive learning environment is a student, motivational technique. It helps inspire adult learners to achieve more and better results. Of course there are several techniques in which to do this.

I like to use Carol Gerber Allred’s seven step method for this. Granted there are several methods, but as with most of the topics in this course, to quote all of the literature would be a bit much.  Anyway, Ms. Allred’s method is as follows:

1. Make Learning Relevant – this is because text books are made for a large audience, and it is hard to make them specific to a particular class. Working at the FNTC this was vital, least we lose the attention of the class at the beginning of the program. I am not sure if I can call it ‘indigenized’, but we always tried to incorporate the community into the lesson, so they knew that there was a use for the skills we were teaching them.

2. Create a Classroom Code of Conduct – yet another idea that takes time, but in the long run saves you from having to enforce rules that may not be agreed upon after the infraction. A good example is cell phone use. If you make it a rule not to text or surf the web during class, then most classes will self-regulate this. However, if it is not a rule and it later becomes disruptive to some of the members of the class, then you become the bad guy for enforcing strange draconian rules. I prefer the students to be the ‘bad cop’ in these cases.

3. Teach Positive Actions – this is basic courtesies, but believe it or not, this is not taught or encourage sometimes. Strange as it may sound, some people cannot see anything wrong with talking about sex in mixed company, whereas some others will be deeply offended. Here are some suggestions.

• ·         Do something positive to make yourself or other feel good
• ·         Encourage healthy choses (nutrition, exercise, sleep, etc.)
• ·         Encourage active intelligence (think, make decisions, solve problems)
• ·         Try self-management skills (schedule, learning styles, environment)
• ·         Learn to get along with others by promoting fairness, kindness and respect
• ·         To your own self be true (take responsibility and admit mistakes)
• ·         Learn to set and achieve goals

4. Instill Intrinsic Motivation – This one is a bit trickier, but it involves learning to engage in positive actions.

• ·         First, we have a thought;
• ·         second, we act consistently with the thought;
• ·         third, we experience a feeling about ourselves based on the action. That feeling leads to another thought, and the cycle starts again.

With repeated reinforcement by the teacher, this simple explanation helps students understand and improve their behavior in any situation.

5. Reinforce Positive Behaviors – just like Pavlov’s dog, rewarded good behavior can train the brain to seek out the good behavior. Although dog food may not be an incentive for getting your homework done, maybe praise or recognition might (anything to reward good behavior).

6. Engage Positive Role Models – this is a learned response idea. If all movie stars engaged in stellar life styles, then so would some of their fans. The same could be done with students. Seeing success in people that have done the program that the students are doing promotes an idea of possible similar success. There is an aspect of relevance as well in this.

7. Always Be Positive – this is hard at times, because some of us are hardwired to complain. However this does not mean that you cannot correct bad behavior in a positive way. The idea is to eliminate the need for the student to be defensive and thus assimilate the corrective suggestions.

Setting up a Positive Learning Environment

Learning styles

I must admit that I don't like this subject as much as most teachers do, because it tries to label students into a set style. Although there are tendencies (my own observation), I do not see all students falling nicely into categories or styles. In this area of study we are looking at the following ideas from several psychologists. In no particular order they are

Fleming's (VARK) modalities 

David A Kolb’s Experimental Learning Theory

Myer-Briggs

Etc. The problem comes in when you wish to look at more than one theory at a time. You will notice that I did not mention anything about multiple intelligence or some of the other theories in the forums. I don't think it is as important to label the student with one of these categories as it is to be aware that there are these tendencies in students and thus be able to offer them education based on their preferences in their tendencies. Just as we did a report on introverts being a factor in training, A kinaesthetic learner will find more value in a tactile or hands on approach to learning. This does not mean they will not be able to learn from reading a book or listening to an audio, but that they will have their best results from their preferred tendencies.

With respect to the person that bought up emotional intelligence in the class, I think this a factor in learning, but I do not think this is a learning style per say. Sure there are some that will not learn because of a deficiency in some aspects of their emotional intelligence, but that is not a life long tendency for the student, and they could just become more mature in the future.

SDL, SRL, or SGL - adult learners

I never thought too much about this, but it would appear that we are embarking on new ideas of study here.
Self directed, self regulated and self guided learning. are all basically taking steps to teach oneself.

I am taking this course specifically to further my chances in my profession, it is in fact the direction that I am looking to head.  I have been doing this job for a while, but as this course is through VCC, I have the option for direction but not as much with self regulation or guidance. I have to follow the assignments that are in the course outline. To this extent I do not have full self regulation. this makes some sense as it is an industry standard that is required for the credit. As well, I have some self guiding, but not necessarily all.

With respect to self direction learning also known as Autodidacticism, I have the choice to chose what I will study. After all it is how we first learn in the basics of the world, prior to having others teach us. It puts more emphasis on me the learner, but it is also more control. A good PDF on this is  Jeanne M VanBriesen, Professor Department of Civil and Environmental

Self regulated learning is similar, but now we are talking about the autonomy here. According to Winne and Hadwin (Winne, P.H. & Hadwin, A.F. The Weave of Motivation and Self-Regulated Learning.In Schunk, D.H., & Zimmerman, B.J. (2008), Motivation and Self-Regulated Learning: Theory, Research, and Application (pp. 297–314). New York, NY: Routledge) there are four stages in self regulation.)

1. task perception, (this is where you gather information about the learning and personalize it)
2. goal setting and planning, (as the phase suggest, we plan how we are going to go through the assignments or goals for the learning)
3. enacting, (This is the doing stage of what was set out in the previous step)
4. and adaptation (The last stage is for evaluating what has been done and maximize what is yet to be done)

With self guided learning, there is a little confusion about this being the same as self directed learning. But where I may guide where I may want to go, it is not consciously directed as in the first part. In fact on Wikipedia it does not even rate its own page. But again, I go back to Autodidacticism, which looked at in self directed learning. The actual definition of Autodidacticism is self learning in a subject where there is little or no formal education. However, we do have formal education in this area, and there could be substantial, so we will have to change our definition to self guided, because of the academic implications associated to it with formal education.

Getting some more things in the course

I would say that I am learning a bit more in the course, but I have to say, this forum is a bit slower than I thought. Is it boring, or just that people are not as committed as they were in the beginning of the course. I was receiving 30 - 40 emails about previous forums, but I am lucky to get five now. I will have to try something a bit more drastic. I notice that half of the input on my forum is from the instructor.

The newer version of the Jeopardy game
https://www.powtoon.com/show/e2iY7Efc4Rp/i-taught-with-jeopardy/
honest, it is better than the last one that I put out.

What the heck is Realia?

So what the heck is realia, or did that guy just spell the word wrong?
Look at this YouTube video. Click here 

As some of you may know from my profile, I started by teaching English in Japan. The problem is I was a Canadian teaching American English in Osaka. The books were okay, except that I had to spell words wrong sometimes. But my biggest problem teaching was that the students did not always get the full benefit of their studies, because it was not tangible for them. It was at this time that I heard about using real examples of English documents (such as a menu, or magazine) instead of the text book. The idea of brining a real situation into the classroom to learn the language seems to work more effectively. The concept is called Realia.
Well, I don't teach much English these days, and my wife might joke that I could use some lessons myself. However, the idea of Realia still works with teaching IT skills. There are some contracts that I have wanted staff to learn MS Excel. In cases like this, I have found that utilizing the actual documents that the student will be using gives more purpose and understanding to the lessons that I could have taught out of the text book. And besides, they do not have to interrupt  my lesson to their work, which makes me look like a better teacher.
What about you guys? do you use realia?

Some Challenges Teaching First Nations

"Why fixing First Nations education remains so far out of reach

Aboriginal youth face a fate that should horrify Canadians and there’s an obvious fix"

My last employer was the First Nations Technology Council, and as such we tried to address some of the problems in education with 203 first nations communities in BC. Maclean's has an interesting article why we are failing these communities. 

Click here to read the article

It is a bit bleak, but this is how some feel in the communities. I might point out that I have a more optimistic view than Maclean's. However, these issues contribute to the difficulties teaching of these communities. What do you think?

Well this is the beginning of the thing. I hope it works. For the PIDP 3250 program all students must make a blog with the following items

•  A brief autobiography

Well this is not too bad, as I am not really a modest guy. I grew up in Vancouver, even though half of my life has been in other parts of the world. I returned recently to raise my family here.

I have been teaching something or other for the last twenty years, ever since I left York University. I have a degree in Biology, so as soon as I finished university in late 1992, I headed to Japan to teach English. Yes I know, it did not seem practical at the time either. However, I had gone through university without taking any summers off in order to graduate in three years, rather than four, so I wanted a vacation. Japan seemed like a good choice, and I could also teach EFL legally, because I had a university degree. Note to anyone thinking of doing this; it might be a good idea to learn a bit more Japanese before you head off to the land of the Children of the Sun. I had only thought about staying six months, but left seven and a half years later. Yes, I speak Japanese, which really impresses some people, even though 123 million other people in the world can also speak it. The trouble with learning Japanese is I always have to order at the sushi restaurant, even though most don't speak Japanese.

Not having learned my lesson about university, I returned to Toronto to take a Post-Graduate in IT Management. I graduated just after 911 in November 2001. You might also remember there was a dot com crash, and the need for IT project managers declined over night, so I returned to Vancouver, since the weather is nicer.

I took a TESOL course and started teaching ESL in Vancouver, which was nice at the time. Not but they don't pay a lot, so I decided to travel again.

I qualified for an ancestral visa to the UK, so I got on a plane for London and spent all my money before I got a job. Note to those doing this; the banking system is different there, and it took me two months to get accepted at a bank to cash my first pay cheque. This is why they have direct deposit. I started off doing government employment training teaching, which seems to have a fair bit of ESOL involved, so I did well. I received an assessor's certificate there, and was also an internal moderator for a work placement program. I transferred to the National Vocational Qualification programs, so by the time I went to my second company, I was promoted to a quality assurance coordinator. In my last position I was given the title of academic manager and put in charge of the post-graduate diploma program for management in the health and social care sector.

Six years later, I returned to North Vancouver with a wife and a child on the way. You might say that year was busy. I found work with the First Nations Technology Council as a Technology Training Specialist. We delivered IT programs to 203 First Nations communities in British Columbia.

Experience is one thing, but I still did not have a instructors diploma. And as I am looking for work again, I thought I would get my PIDP. But if you are reading this, probably you have a similar story.

• Links to your classmates Blogs- there are a heck of a lot of them, but let me put the ones that are available. I will add new ones when I can
• Alena Buis
• John Coomber - but it was locked when I looked
• Susan Doyle
• Ken Izumi
• Melissa Nuttall
• Henry Stavast
• Atoosha Zargar
• Stephanie Grenko
• Karen Deol
• Emma Leigha Munro
• Megan Bukta
• Nripjeet Randhawa
• Jennifer Aarestad
• Karon Wong
• Leslee Montgomery
• Sylvia Fraser

• Link to the SIE Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/VCCSchoolOfInstructorEducation#
• Two or more postings reflecting course content