e Learning

The only thing I want to register here today is an e book I just got from Amazon about teaching. The book is a compilation of articles published at The Teaching Professor. Teaching Strategies for the College Classroom: https://www.amazon.com/gp/css/order-history/ref=oh_menu_yo_new_digital?ie=UTF8&digitalOrders=1&orderFilter=last30&unifiedOrders=0

It's About Expectations

Two books that are helping me with the way I teach are Mind Over Mind by Chris Berdick and http://www.chrisberdik.com/ and The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt  http://people.stern.nyu.edu/jhaidt/home.html. In these books the main topic is that we are not really rational humans but instead we use rationality to justify our  feelings and desires. So pedagogically what would be the implications of these thoughts? More so as we teach science that is supposed to be the epitome of objectivity an rationality. True one thing is the object of study, the content in a science class and another how do we approach pedagogically the students both individuality and as a group. Based on what Haidt said we are dealing with emotional beings that will only go where their emotions lead them, so the pedagogical question then becomes how can the teacher influence the student's emotions? Or as Berdick postulates it is all about "expectations"! So, can the teacher establish or modify the student's expectations?  One has to say "yes" to the last question if one is on the mission of education; and for the first question one has to say that "art" the art of teaching that includes compassion and empathy.

This art of teaching that is based on empathy is not new but has evolved in recent years as students come to class with a strong sense of entitlement, more so in the United States where parents have done everything in their power to be complacent, they will say supportive of their inheritors. The teacher in this situation must continue with support without diminishing the need that students have for affirmation but with the knowledge that the educator is not only a gate keeper for later studies but a guarantor, certifier of studies and degrees.

How can the educator provide the safe context for the student's emotions? How can the educator establish the frame of reference for the expectations for the course?  One must acknowledge that these have to be done since before the class, one has to start with the design of the course i.e the syllabus.

The critics of long syllabi may state that students don't read the syllabus, therefore is dangerous to write a long one that discourages reading. One can argue that a long syllabus aka syllabook is a document that can be read in sections and can be read during the course of the class. The other avenue for the syllabook to be a living document is to have it online in the course management system where students have access and will be using practically every day during the course of the term.

Mid Term

Mid term is subjectively the point at which one can evaluate and prognosticate how students are doing and will do at the end of the course. This evaluation has many elements, several of these are related to information coming from precious courses more so when students in the present course are known to the professor from previous courses. One of this elements is the stage or level of knowledge the student had previous to this course another (and most important) is the change in attitude that the student has had during previous courses and now can be compared to the changes in attitude during the present course.
There are other external factors to consider that are more difficult to change, going from cultural values in the education previously obtained by the student to the variety of skills necessary for that particular discipline, such as mathematics in the case of science. One aspect one is finding hard to deal with is the disconnect between the rational interpretation necessary of problem solving and the emotional connection with the rationality of the individual. It is a roadblock when the professor asks the student: can you see this? can you feel if it? does it makes sense? and the students with the problem and answer in front of her/him is unable to feel the rightness of wrongness of the answer.
It is not that the student is not engaged, of course is even worse when is not engaged and not much can be done except to help the student get engaged.
As the student doesn't "feel" the connection between answer and problem when developing skills s/he moves away from being engaged, then keeping attention to the class becomes impossible and if the teacher doesn't stop and makes a personal appeal to the student to continue being engaged that student will be lost for the rest of the class and maybe the rest of the course. Teacher have to develop techniques (eye contact, moving around in the room, etc) so s/he can keep an individual connection with each student in the class. Of course this one-on-one participation will at the end be determined by the student! So the question is: Can students be forced to engage? and if so: How?

Fun Theory

A very important drive in science education is the interest that generates having some kind of fun. So now I have the problem of defining what is fun and how can be achieved in the learning of scientific principles and concepts. This video shows clearly the strong motivating force that having fun has in the attitude of a wide variety of people.

The Paradox of success

It is believed that Yogi Berra once said about a restaurant: "Nobody goes there anymore, it is too crowded!"
This is what is happening to new technologies in pedagogy, people are becoming fed-up with the down times and other issues with websites providing services to academia. There are also issues with the inter-communication between servers. One case in particular is making me go mad. As our provider's firewall is keeping our students to access "bad" sites it is also impeding them to have access to textbook's websites that use a lot "handshakes". I guess this is just normal with the rapidly changing world of technology and as it has always been we will just get used to it in the same way we now use old technologies like electricity.

Time and space for learning

In our analytical mind we tend to separate, dissect, and categorize phenomena that is complex and transcends simple definitions, as important things are. One of those is learning, so many books have been written about it and have tried to, and to so some extent have accomplished, describe the steps and conditions in which learning take place. For me learning about the realm of hard sciences, within which the basic understanding of how the "world" works is so fundamental that represents the only way to find the elements necessary to move forward in what appears to be an incoming pedagogical revolution. Specially in higher education. This applies directly to the interaction between the teacher and the pupil. In the old tradition instruction takes place synchronously in what we call the classroom. Today with cyberspace being part of our reality synchronicity evolves into a new meaning. And asynchronous teaching starts to make not only sense in the economic world but in the pedagogical arena. One example of this is Khan Academy which has received support from Microsoft's Bill Gates and it is creating a new paradigm in transmission of information. So the challenge for higher ed is how to create an environment where information is assimilated at the same time (as it has been the objective so far) develop in the student the ability and skill to solve problems by critically thinking about the circumstances and relationships related to the issue. Not only for the short term, of course, but more important for the long term in the understanding that the solution will affect society as a whole. 

Creativity from Chaos

Reading the Book Chaos, Creativity, and Cosmic Consciousness by Sheldrake, McKenna, and Abraham one gets a feeling of pedagogical liberation. For a preview link here. Science has evolved in the last centuries to accept and frame change as a fundamental element in our understanding of reality. This change has not been incorporated in the way the we teach in higher education. Why do I say that? Because in many instances we continue with the old paradigm of lecturing in class as did our ancestors centuries ago. Some cosmetic changes have occured like the use of small group discussion and the introduction of electronic tools like data projection of "power points", videos, and clickers. But the fundamental relationship between teacher and learner has not evolved to satisfy the needs of today's students or -by the way- professors. One has to ask again and again what is the fundamental need or purpose of education. Oh yes, I know many will say that question has been answered so many times that repeating it only justify bad pedagogy. We all know what the purpose of education is! We all know that we need to train useful people to become citizens in today's economy, in today's society, and in today's wars. Both mission statements and values of higher education institution articulate how in an orderly fashion students will get rid of the chaos in their life but seldom will they embrace "chaos" as an accepted state in nature, as the uncertainty principle so well described by Eisenberg in physics is able to relate the knowledge of the position of a particle in space by sacrificing the knowledge about its motion.
One can understand the need for creativity in our society as our students look for a way in which they can be of service, in most cases this implies being able to be creative. Low income jobs will -as have always been, be for those incapable of creating. Those able to be creative will -as they have always been, be able to participate not only in the production process but in the benefits of these processes as well. That of course will mean being compensated in a way that will satisfy their standard of living.
(As I am preparing for my next assignment teaching general chemistry as well as organic chemistry next fall I am looking for ways to transform my teaching techniques in a way that will be liberating for my students.)
When one prepares for the change in the way we look at things finds that is hard to define what has to be changed. Unless we know that, how are we to know how to change it. Using the metaphor of a broken car we see that the diagnosis is based on functionality if something is not happening, if something is not doing what is supposed to to then we know what the part is broken, thus knowing what piece has to be replaced. In pedagogy this is more nuanced and most times is of course more difficult to diagnose.
Every course should start with a diagnosis of the relationship between the students taking the class and the program (syllabus- or as I call it syllabook) for that class.
What should be included in this diagnosis? That is what I'd like to know!