Worth the Read: Applied Andragogy

A powerful piece at NPR makes some salient points about education, in the form of a Literacy Narrative. It tells the story of a "terrible" man who may have been an excellent English teacher - and highlights the difference between politics and teaching theory - and offers some warning about the direction education currently takes. The author Alva Noe says:

however depraved his behavior may have been in other respects, at least in my eyes, his practice as a teacher was grounded on respect. He didn’t tell us what to think. He didn’t manipulate us. He exemplified a phenomenon — a certain kind of caring about literature, and language, and argument — and he trusted us to form our own judgments about that phenomenon.

You’d have to be a fool to send your kids to school to learn what the teacher thinks or believes. So said Augustine, who, like Plato, believed that you can’t teach knowledge by telling. What a good teacher can do is afford his or her pupils an opportunity to learn something, not by telling, but by enabling something to be seen, experienced, learned.......Politicians — at least the politicians in this American culture we live in — use words not to communicate, or to argue, or persuade. They pretend to do this. But they don’t. Politicians, like sales people, are interested in outcomes. They want to influence you and they are interested in your beliefs and attitudes only in so far as these are potentially levers they can manipulate

Since no one reads student email, & I can't cut & paste into the LMS

A note from the Registrar re: Transcript Requests

At the end of the semester, we receive thousands of last minute requests from students who want their transcript sent to another institution as soon as grades are posted.

Students should submit their transcript request early to ensure timely processing. The Records Office will enter these requests in advance and schedule the transcript to be printed immediately after final grades are posted.

On Creating and Editing Audio

All students in comp 1 participate in team based learning where they create and edit audio. Many students already know about and have used Audacity - but for those who don't, it is a free open-source program for recording and editing sound using a computer. It's pretty amazing - and you could probably figure out how to download by going to their website, but KU has some great step-by-step instructions in a PDF here, but the web page here has more detail and better graphics.

• NOTE: downloading the Lame encoder is necessary to export the audacity project files as Mp3's.
• Note also that it will edit Mp3's but not WMA (Windows Media Audio - what my voice recorder uses), so I went to CNET and downloaded a free WMA to Mp3 converter.

Most Cell phones and personal media players will record audio, but what format they use to record sound varies. You will need to figure that out to find the correct program to download that would convert to Mp3. I recommend CNET.

Academic integrity and plagiarism

Lot in the news now about the moral depravity of students as evidenced by "cheating." The Philosophy Monkey treats it well. I like that he makes a point that instructors aren't as stupid as student's might think (with a video of an instructor calling his students on cheating), but any suppositions that there is a generational component are undercut by the current discussion of former President Bush's alleged plaigiarism of his own memoirs. See Christian Science Monitor, which cites Huffington Post. The embedded image is from Doone'sbury at Slate on 11-18-10 @ 10 am, that site has been running quotes from Bush's memoir with other sources. Yesterday's example was nearly identical- but I didn't do a screengrab.

I question that the ethics of our students are much different from that of our leaders, and therefore the issue is one of our culture as a whole rather than kids today; however, many readers of the article "Cheating and the Generational Divide" in Inside Higher Education may disagree. Prior to a test students researched online for publisher created tests - and the instructor used the test provided by the publisher. Some students claim the instructor said in class he would create his own test. I need to someday read this more carefully - but I gotta get ready for class.

I hope a student chooses plagiarism or ethics for an inquiry-learning research project. I'd like to hear a balanced and logical discussion of the issue.

Quotations and context

I've noticed a rise in "news" (infotainment?) organizations taking quotations out of context - sometimes to intentionally prove a false supposition, and sometimes out of cluelessness. In an Associated Press article Oct. 30, 2010, entitled "Retired Chaplains Warn Against 'Don't Ask Don't Tell' Repeal" I was struck by the pullquote - indicated in blue.

The quote reinforced an assumption about the sort of person who might lead a foundation with that sort of name. But what does this pullquote imply?

• Is it ambiguous?
• Did I read it the way most people would, or do different biases determine meaning?
• Who is the "you" implied by the pullquote?
• What is the "it" specifically?

When I came to the quote in context it surprised me. Examine the use of pronouns. In context, where does it appear Weinstein's sympathies lie?

For full text without the newspaper formatting, see LJW website here.

BTW: scans came from the LJW A5.

Why I want to do quantitative research

I'd like my dissertation to look at quantitative data related to student use of online educational network technologies and sucess in writing classes: that is if my committee will agree.

I've heard from a few colleagues - and at least one technology guru - that I should look at actual writing and do pre and post tests of authentic writing. Eventually I will - but that's not the research I need to do first.

Everyone understands that writing today involves technology - in the product and in the process - but I want to recognize in my research that success in writing involves more than coding lexical items in conventional syntax - it also involves crafting educational identities and finding one's voice, it involves negotiating new and fluid cultural rules, it involves making friends with one might have an authentic audience for one's writing, it involves peer feedback, establishing trust, complaining about teachers and having fun.

It has been thoroughly documented how difficult - if possible - it is to control an experiment on live humans for all the different linguistic input between a pre and a post test. In order to perform any meaningful analysis of authentic writing in order to examine the effects of technology - a monumental amount of research needs to be done on the specific context of the population.

Also, meaningful change on core educational skills like reading and writing happens over time. No intervention so far has had drammatic effect in less than a semester or even year, so what conclusions we gather over said intervention's effect is suspect.

One challenge is the bias against quantitative research among English teachers. I agree with an old business teaching colleague / reverend who used to say "statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is interesting, but what the conceal is vital;" however, that doesn't make swimwear irrelevant or useless. And while skinnydipping may be a more natural and authentic experience, I wouldn't do it in a river or lake without going in first with a suit. I've been in more than my fair share of ponds and rivers, and the first time you go in one should always wear a suit - and I recommend foot coverings as well. It may slow down your swimming, but cutting yourself or slipping on rocks can be worse.

Grammar in the news.

Even without a taser, a bear can be dangerous. Do you really think those fangs and claws are for eating berries?

Thanks to The fail blog.

Facebook and logic

If you need another addictive time-eater, Failbook.com has some funny stuff. This post in particular has some educational applications.