28 March: final formal session...

...although there may be more after Easter on request, as well as the individual tutorials.

Critical Incidents


Lest there be any extra confusion beyond what I may well have already engendered--

• You do not have to construct your submission around one or more "critical incidents." That was merely a suggestion and an informal exercise for our class discussions. The actual requirements are all in the Handbook--if all else fails, fall back on them.
  
• Critical incidents can be "good" or "bad"; as we discussed when we talked about the Interest Groups at the Study Day, sometimes the puzzle is "where did it all go right?" and that can be more revealing than picking over problems.
  
• They can be exceptional or routine; the exceptional highlights features through their variation from the normal, and the routine because their taken-for-granted quality points to the key features which make your sessions what they normally are.

We briefly re-visited Laura's incident from our previous session, and discussed what it said about the selection of elements, packets, or sequences of skills to be practised and rehearsed together. I suggested that the definitive reference is: Charness N, Feltovich P, Hoffman R and Ericsson K (2006) The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance Cambridge; C.U.P. (But warned you that it's 900 pages!) Much of the interesting stuff is covered more accessibly and indeed entertainingly in Syed M (2010) Bounce; the myth of talent and the power of practice London; Fourth Estate.

And that linked to the issue of repetitive exercises, and when one can move on. That raises the issue of the  learning curve, and the point at which one has to take the risk/plunge of going on to the next stage. (And as we discussed in another context, that underpins the approach to the assessment, too...)

Rebecca C posed the problem of transferability--material learned in one session is apparently forgotten in another. This illustrates a couple of issues:

• Coding: Material needs to be learned at the appropriate level to be portable/transferable. The Dale/Bruner model is discussed here. (Note that I got the labels wrong-I thought I might. Sorry! The arguments stands.)
  
• ...and that led to a brief note on how other cognitivists like Ausubel (advance organizers) rely on rich experience-based material as a hook on which to hang other more abstract learning
  
• Cuing: This interesting study on Why Walking through a Doorway Makes You Forget suggests that how and where a memory is formed is an important cue for its recall, and may complicate the transfer of learning from one setting to another.

...and, in the light of Sue Cowley, Emma raised the matter of ground rules for behaviour. What happens when there is a difference of opinion within the class about the operation of the ground rules--over a trivial infraction, in the last class of the course? An insightful discussion had you digging behind the scenes, as it were, to discuss how a member might feel excluded by fellow-learners conversing in their first language (thus excluding a native English speaker) even about an on-task topic;  whether all members can appreciate priorities and exceptions in the application of the rules...

Stuff we have not covered...

We've mentioned a great deal of material in passing but not gone into it in detail--this blog serves as a means of reminding us about it. One issue we have not discussed at all, however, is technology and learning.

You all work in largely low-tech environments, so I consider myself excused from having to introduce the much-vaunted wonders of e-learning, and contented myself with a simple take-away message--the technology is not neutral. From the hand-written book to Twitter on your mobile, it changes not only how you teach but what you can and can't teach....

The assessment (no, it's NOT an assignment!)

Rebecca raised an interesting point about the "angle" of this unit in relation to that of those of Year 2. Year 2 zooms out a bit as it were, and mostly looks at issues in broader contexts (with the conspicuous exception of the action research project), so keep this unit's submission close to your actual practice, as we have discussed--and as the presentation from a fortnight ago recommends.

(Incidentally this set up some discussion/speculation about the latest report and consultation from BIS.)

We consulted about tutorials on the submission proposal, and provisionally fixed dates and times--please let me know if you need to change anything, and feel free to send me a draft of the proposal. There is no deadline for the proposal--its principal function is to provide you with peace of mind about the acceptability of your plan, and your submission will be accepted even without it (apart from the ethics undertaking), but it does make sense to run it past me, and the deadline is 11 May, although of course submissions are welcome earlier.

Have a good break!

PS; All relevant presentations on SlideShare have been set to be downloadable until the deadline.

14 March: Assessment preparation

Yesterday's session was largely about checking your understanding of the outcomes, and where the material you have looked at fits in with them, and discussing a possible strategy for producing the assessment.

This PowerPoint covers the assessment a little more systematically than our discussion, but along the same lines (at the time of writing SlideShare is a little erratic, I'm afraid):

Submission plan 10

There's also some advice on baking an essay here.

Please remember that you are welcome to send me your submission proposal any time from now on. We'll have a wind-up session on the afternoon of the 28 March, but if you would like a tutorial from the tea-break onwards, please let me know. I'll fit you in on a first-booked, first-served basis--but if you would prefer the tutorial in the Summer Term, I can fit in with that, too.

7 March: Humanistic and situated perspectives

We were down on numbers, and those of you who were here had not been able to read last week's blog. So most of the links stand for this week, too.

We did also spend some time this week on:

• The Subject-Teacher-Learner model. (Sorry! The interactive page has stopped working.) One point I didn't make was that making inclusivity a major principle in policy and practice has the effect of elevating the position of the Learner in the sculpt. In particular, if the Learner comes out higher than the Subject, there is the danger of dumbing down the Subject, and that is what some commentators periodically say about the UK education system.

Please be ready to share your critical incidents next week. And just a reminder that I shall be away on 21 March, so you have Carol all day then, and me all day for the final session on 28 March.

If any of you would like to email me your draft submission proposals, feel free!

I'll let you catch up!

Remember Little Albert?

Here is some new background on the case.

29 February: Gestalt and the Deep & Surface construct

Commentary

It was an interesting session yesterday, in which you illustrated some of the issues we have been trying to talk about. There was a palpable frustration that the whole thing is not coming together for several of you; the co-existence of different perspectives on learning is difficult to sort out--can they all be right at the same time?

Sort of. I'm not sure that "correctness" or "accuracy" is the best criterion to use. It is usefulness which matters. Learning and teaching is an activity too complex to be captured in just one model. Whether you adopt a behavioural perspective, or a neurological, cognitive, information-processing, humanistic or situated one, each will draw your attention to different aspects of the process and the task of teaching--and some will be more relevant to your own practice and context than others. (And you'll see from the list above that there are many more angles than we touch on...)

But your experience is normal--the picture is confusing, but you will bring it together. People do emerge at the other end (and for what it's worth, from a surface learning perspective, they do pass the assessment!) In the meantime cultivate what Keats called "negative capability":

Negative Capability, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts without any irritable reaching after fact & reason.

[Letter to George and Thomas Keats (21 Dec 1817).
in H. E. Rollins (ed.), (1958) Letters of John Keats, Vol. 1, p.193]

And of course your experience is just that kind of "liminality" which we discussed in relation to attempts to iron out the peaks and troughs of the learning curve, lest students be put off by their negative experiences and drop out of the course.


I brought that up in the discussion in relation to the idea of threshold concepts. The link is to a page introducing the idea, with lots more links at the end of it.

And here is a paper by Peter Hadfield and myself (2008) exploring how compliance and accountability, as the mantra of much PCE teaching, may be conspiring against genuine learning.

And for the last word see here.

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Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Here are the slides from the presentation (annotated):

Some notes on Gestalt learning theory

(I've enabled down-loading of the slides: to get at them click on "View in SlideShare" (bottom-left corner) and then "Download" across the top of the display.)

My major Gestalt link is here.There's a more academic and informative one here, with more pointers to Wertheimer, Kohler and Koffka.

Specific points;

A number of the slides were concerned with visual illusions; R L Gregory is the chief authority on them, and some can be seen in video format at the following link (including the mask illusion--which is also here );

• http://www.richardgregory.org/experiments/index.htm and
• http://www.richardgregory.org/papers/brainmodels/illusions-and-brain-models_p1.htm
• See Gregory R L (1997) Eye and Brain; the psychology of seeing (5th edn.) Oxford; Oxford U.P.
• and lots more examples here although these are illusions for the sake of illusions and take us off track a little.

A fuller list of the movies on Betty the Crow's use of tools can be found here, and a write-up at here. More generally here's a TED talk on corvid intelligence:

 ...and here is a crow doing the same sequential tool process as the chimp in the presentation (mutatis mutandi):

One example of crows using stones to raise water level (which one of you referred to having seen elsewhere) is here.

The tendency of people to see patterns which are not there when they don't feel in control is discussed here 

Deep and surface learning.

This is almost the only work on "learning styles" which escaped unscathed from Coffield et al's review in 2004, introduced on the linked page.

The basic idea is introduced here, including Saljo's (1979) five conceptions of learning, which we looked at briefly.

And here is the SOLO taxonomy from John Biggs.

This is worth reading up about properly, especially if you work in more academic areas: see here for a potted account. And:

• Biggs J and Tang C (2007) Teaching for Quality Learning at University (3rd edn) Buckingham: SRHE and Open University Press

• Prosser M and Trigwell K (1999) Understanding Learning and Teaching; the experience in higher education Buckingham; Open University Press: SRHE (They have a useful self-assessment tools which you can use to work out whether your teaching style promotes deep or surface learning--if you would like to try it let me know.)

Next week

I hope you will have given some thought to your "critical incident". Remember:

• For discussion purposes all you need is a few notes; there's no need to write it up, although if you do, you might find it works as a starting point for the submission.

• "Critical" just means that the fact that it happened was significant rather than routine. It does not imply something which went wrong, or that you have to be self-critical.

• Indeed, examining how something went right, or better than expected, is often more of a challenge!

We shall be moving on to:

• Experiential learning--dear old Kolb re-visited. The page is here 

• And you might find this adaptation of his model of interest. Or not.

• The Humanistic tradition. This page is merely a taster. Follow some links.

• In particular, Malcolm Knowles on andragogy. And given that you are an all-female class, do see the bottom part of the page.

• Beyond that, there are the theorists of transformative learning and critical reflection, with whom you may find it useful to have a nodding acquaintance, but they go rather beyond the scope of this course.

• And then the proponents of situated learning, for whom the whole idea of pretending that you learn anything useful in an educational institution is rubbish, as cogently argued in this classic article by Howard Becker.

That makes quite a load; so please do as much advance reading as you can, and make a note of your questions, which I'll try to answer!

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Also:

Pancakes: a bit late for this year. These are not traditional Shrove Tuesday tossed thin crepes but more robust, thicker (up to 6mm) but more compact (about 100mm) American-style pancakes… for about a dozen:

• A heaped tablespoon of self-raising flour. (Plain flour for Yorkshire puds, s-r for pancakes)
• A heaped dessert spoon of sugar
• A rounded tea spoon of baking powder
• Half a flat teaspoon of salt (or less, but some at least)
• One egg (this poses the tricky scaling issue; you can multiply all the other ingredients quite happily, but at what point do you need another egg? I think it is when you reach three times the above amounts, but in practice there appears to be no harm in using more eggs, so err on the side of generosity).
• Milk (or milk and water) to mix the batter to the consistency of double cream.

Put it in the fridge and it will thicken, so you may need to add more liquid (carefully–a little liquid makes a big difference) before cooking. You can use the batter at once, but letting it rest seems to produce better results.
Lightly oil a frying pan and pre-heat until a drop of water turns into a dancing ball when dropped in the pan. Pour in the batter, sufficient to spread to about four inches. When bubbles have formed and burst on the top surface, flip over and cook for about fifteen seconds or so until lightly browned. “Children are like pancakes–always throw the first one away” (Peter  Benchley) Once you have the hang of the process, do them in batches of three or four at a time.

Serve with butter and maple syrup.

We'll re-visit the pancake case new week, and see how it works with the Kolb cycle.
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