Monday 9 November 2009
VLE's: Creating Collaboration
Saturday 7 November 2009
How to use moodle
Sunday 25 October 2009
Skills for Life Resources
Key skills: Standards and guidance 2004
Functional Skills Standards
Sunday 24 May 2009
Conversation as Experiential Learning with NEET Learners
Warm-up exercise
- Forming abstract concepts
- Concrete experience
- Testing in new situations
- Observation and reflection
v Grounded in the theory of experiential learning (ELT)
v Theoretical framework for conversational learning
v A process whereby learners construct meaning and transform experiences into knowledge through conversation.
v Experiential Learning Theory (ELT) provides the holistic model of the learning process.
- Four-stage experiential learning cycle
- learners resolve the tension of two dialectically opposite learning dimensions in a cyclical fashion
1. Cycle begins with immediate or concrete experiences
2. CE's serve as the basis for observations and reflections3. Reflection are assimilated into abstract concepts4. AC's prove the basis from which new implications for action can be drawn
- These implications can be actively tested and serve as guides in creating new experiences for the next cycle
- Experiential learning process occurs in conversation
- Same cyclical process experience, reflection, abstracting and acting
- Meaning and understanding constructed from experiences in conversation
v A conversational space is opened within which opposing ideas can be explored, resolved or embraced though conversations.
v The conversational space can be equated to the autopoietic (self-making/maintaining system) process of a living system
v Self-organized, autonomous system by specifying its laws and determining what is proper to its existence
v Governed by two primary tasks
o To regenerate and realize the network of processes that enables its existence through their continuous interactions and transformations (mind mapping through conversations)
o To specify the boundary of its realization as a concrete unity in the space they exist (understanding with definition)
v These are not separate sequential processes, but two different dimensions of the same phenomenon.
v The five dialectics serves as a network of dynamic processes that opens up a conversational space
Apprehension and Comprehension: concrete knowing and abstract knowing
v Concrete knowing is called apprehension – an immediate, feeling-oriented, tacit, subjective process
v Abstract knowing is called comprehension – a linguistic, conceptual, interpretative process
v Learning based o the complex inter-relationship of these two knowing processes.
o Knowledge of acquaintance based on direct perception (apprehension)
o Knowledge about based on mediating conception (comprehension)
o Perception is solely of the hear and now
o Conception is of the like and unlike, of the future, and of the past, and of the far away
v Conversation is more than an exchange of concepts; it is a perceptual process as well
Intension and extension: reflection and action
v Simple perception of experience alone is not sufficient for learning; something must be done with it.
v Transformation alone cannot represent learning, there must be something to be transformed
v Learning is like breathing; if follows a rhythm of taking in and putting out
v Incorporating ideas and experience to find meaning
v Expressing that meaning in thought, speech and action
In essence: Read it, hear it, experience it and gain better understanding by talking about it
Conversational learning occurs within two distinct by interconnected temporal dimensions: linear time and cyclical time
v The discursive process is guided by linear time
v The recursive process follows a rhythm of cyclical time
v The discursive process is an epistemological manifestation of individuals’ ideas and experiences that are made explicit in conversations
v Recursive proces is an ontological and subjective manifestation of the desire to return to the same ideas and experiences generated in conversations
The discursive process follows a linear time progression from pre-course, discourse to post-course
v Pre-course – reflecting back on what has been previously discussed and sets the structure and ground rules for conversation
v Discourse – the framing and naming or aims and objectives
v Post-course – the process of sorting what to keep and what to throw away, which then becomes the pre-course for future conversations
v Tension between individuals
v The balance of maintaining a sense of self while being aware of and open to the influence of others
v Combining together the stands of rational and emotive thought
v Intergrating objective and subjective knowing
v Being able to enter into dialogue with another and allowing oneselve to be carried along further by the dialogue
v Requires mutual respect and understanidng toward one another
v Status refers to positional ranking in the group
v Solidarity refers to interpersonal link within a network or relationships
v Both status and solidarity required to sustain conversation
v Without status conversation can lose direction
v Without solidarity can lose connection and relevance
v Can occur in many dimensions
v Dialectic dominants impede conversational learning
v Dual knowledge dialectic opens conversational space
v Speaking without listening or listening without speaking is futile
v Reflection without action is just idle chatter
v Activism by itself become just action for action’s sake
v Discourse without recourse is just brute force
v Extreme individualism results in alienation
v Total relatedness leads to conversations that go nowhere
v Totalitarianism crushes other voices
v Laissez faire egalitarianism produces aimless talk
v As conversation progresses normative core values and structure develops
v Boundaries that define the conversational learning space are created
v These norms determine
o What can be said and not said
o Who has a voice and who does not have a voice
v These norms create boundaries that define
o Who is in and out of the conversation
o Exclusion for those who do not know or who refuse to abide or participate by the rules
“From this perspective, boundaries are not con fines by ‘shape-givers’ that can provide us with healthy space to grow… boundaries are not prisons, rather, they serve an essential function to make our existence more alive and vibrant” (Wyss, 1997)
Module Assignment Structure
- Content of action research (100)
- Research focus (100)
- hypothesis or main questions to be addressed (100)
- Type of research (150)
- Research paradigm (150)
- Purpose of research (150)
- Type(s) of data (150)
- Evaluate and critically appraise the effectiveness of key pedagogical and androgogical concepts and approaches to chosen area of research (300)
- Evaluate and critically appraise theories of teaching and learning, including those advocated by the schools of behaviourism, cognitivism and humanism in the context of ones own teaching practice (300)
- Discuss the role of ICT in teaching and learning in relation to ones own teaching practice and the facilitation of learning for students in ones own practice(300)
- Discuss the benefits and strategies used for reflective practice for both the teacher and learner in ones own practice(300)
- Discuss how preferred learning styles of your students influence ones delivery of pedagogy to make learning more effective (300)
- Discuss the use of reflective practice in a professional context to critically evaluate the effectiveness of delivery and learning(300)
- Discuss the link between the learning process and motivation in respect of social, cultural and institutional contexts (300)
- Demonstrate the use of reflective practice to critically evaluate current learning and professional practice
- develop, apply and critique ones own hypotheses to teaching methods within their own professional contexts to extend practice
- Synopsis of action research of the teaching and learning methods used
- Justification of the strategies taken
- Outcomes and suggestions for further development
- Demonstrate how this will advance practitioner methods and skills