9 November: Placeholder

Many thanks to Emma and Laura for their contributions on Wednesday.

My further apologies! I never expected it would take a whole week, but here are a few notes.

Emma's session raised issues about demonstration and participation; time constraints aside, whether it made more sense to demonstrate first and get learners to practise afterwards, or to go straight for them doing it for themselves. It's really a question about the level of skill required, I think, and where learners are starting from. This topic (mixing cocktails, in the unlikely event that you have forgotten!) only demanded a possibly unfamiliar skill in one small area, which was layering a liqueur in the glass by pouring it over the back of a spoon. Otherwise Emma could rely on your possession of pre-existing transferable skills so she did not need to demonstrate.

In theoretical terms, she was making a judgement about the Zone of Proximal Development, associated with Vygotsky, which sounds very grand but really comes down to making a judgement about where a learner is, and which is the next step for her, and how much assistance is required to stretch the envelope of existing skill or knowledge. It's the same kind of judgement regardless of the simplicity or complexity of the task, and of course it is made easier and more accurate by getting feedback from the learners.

Laura's session was of course completely different, and yet it shared a common theme, in terms of making use of what you all brought to it. In this case you didn't think you were bringing anything, of course, which made the construction of an improvised performance out of barely-conscious acts all the more impressive. And there was another commonality, in the use of demonstration--this time at the end of the session, on video.

Perhaps more than any of the other micro-teaching sessions, Laura's demonstrated the importance of defining the situation. She rapidly dispelled (to a nicely-balanced extent) the confusion you were experiencing about what was expected, and provided the structure through a sequence of micro-exercises (given the time, once again) through which you were drawn into a participatory event, imparting confidence that it was going somewhere. That sequence also provided something of a demonstration of Bloom's taxonomy in the psycho-motor domain--although it was of course clearer in the case of the dancers on the video.

She also demonstrated the distinctive frame of reference which an accomplished practitioner of any discipline exhibits in sensitivity to areas of practice and experience which would never be noticed by an "outsider" for the want of a better word. It's something each of you has in relation to your own area of expertise, of course.

In mentioning plans for the rest of the term after 16 November, there was a request for something on Schemes of Work; go here for something to be going on with.