Joined on May 15, 2009 at 7:46 AM --------------------- Moderator (martin): you have to pay the premier service rate tho D'Arcy --------------------- Moderator (D'Arcy Norman) to George Siemens, martin, D'Arcy Norman: http://homepage.mac.com/dnorman/identity/ppt/Identity.ppt --------------------- Moderator (George Siemens): i'm now blazing in at 16% --------------------- Moderator (George Siemens): woohoo --------------------- Glen: Hollow sound --------------------- Kate Sim: here we go again - afternoon everyone. --------------------- Glen: He he --------------------- Moderator (George Siemens): lol --------------------- Michael Andersson: I am a mac --------------------- Glen: Pat would be great! --------------------- Gerry: Are you using your headset D'Arcy? --------------------- Kate Sim: bettr --------------------- Kate Sim: or better even --------------------- Moderator (George Siemens): woohoo!!!!! --------------------- Kate Sim: use a straw --------------------- Eingang: (-: --------------------- Kate Sim: Hi Ein! --------------------- Moderator (martin): don't pretend you haven't got a coffee foam dome d'arcy --------------------- Moderator (George Siemens): that adds a nice touch --------------------- Eingang: Good afternoon, Kate. --------------------- Eingang: Welcome back for another exciting afternoon of thought-provoking discussions. --------------------- Moderator (George Siemens): great --------------------- Moderator (George Siemens): --------------------- Gerry: LOL - Go down and CNR this afternoon D'Arcy --------------------- Gerry: visit --------------------- Kate Sim: Everyone else is very quiet today.... --------------------- Sarah Horrigan: Hey Kate --------------------- Kate Sim: Hi Sarah --------------------- Glen: Not seeing slides --------------------- Glen: see them now --------------------- Manish Malik: hello @Sarah --------------------- Sarah Horrigan: Hi Manish! Good to 'see' you --------------------- Manish Malik: Good to "see" you too @Sarah --------------------- cervus: excellent, tuned in just in time. hello everyone from germany! --------------------- Eingang: I'm quiet because I'm feeling overwhelmed. --------------------- Eingang: Next time, I'm not coming back from Canada. :-P --------------------- Kate Sim: Yes you will - unless a certain person moves there. --------------------- Stylianos Mystakidis: Hello to all from Patras, Greece --------------------- Moderator (George Siemens): disc09 --------------------- Eingang: Ah, Cowtown. --------------------- Alec Couros: hey Stylia, great to see you here. --------------------- Alec Couros: Styli --------------------- Gerry: And don't forget an accomplished amateur photographer. --------------------- Stylianos Mystakidis: hey Alec, great to meet again here --------------------- Moderator (George Siemens): Moodle forum for this symposium: http://ltc.umanitoba.ca/moodle/course/view.php?id=59 --------------------- Alec Couros: awwww, I thought I was in an LDAP session. --------------------- Moderator (George Siemens): we need an identity repository --------------------- Joseph: I'm glad it's not about LDAP --------------------- Manish Malik: emotional --------------------- Alec Couros: I like where D'Arcy is going with this --------------------- Sarah Horrigan: That's some family! --------------------- Moderator (martin): I don't know that many people --------------------- cervus: am reminded of dick hardt's identity 2.0 presentation --------------------- Manish Malik: @martin but they know u --------------------- Manish Malik: @martin 1000+ follower --------------------- Gerry: Even in Alberta --------------------- cervus: oh no, web 2.0 is made of people :p --------------------- irasocol: not so easy to claim you are not a dog on internet now. much information out there to control --------------------- cervus: (soylent green) --------------------- Manish Malik: twitnest does that for twitter network --------------------- steven greene: "are the connections as deep as what we see in the traditional classroom" --------------------- Sarah Horrigan: @irasocol depends if you claim that identity and make it your own. --------------------- Alec Couros: important that we deconstruct words like friends, followers, communities ... they don't mean what they used to mean, or what they will mean. --------------------- Gerry: How important is the teacher in fostering those connections in the f-2-f and online classroom? --------------------- Lisa M Lane: "friend" certainly is different now --------------------- steven greene: I felt alienated at those events, just me maybe --------------------- Anda: totally agree --------------------- cervus: had a similar form of constructed identity, orientation week, identdity based on country, major, dorm, floor... --------------------- Emmadw: v. much agree about close relationships really take off when you get to meet online people off line. --------------------- Anda: it's actually quite an interesting experience to meet face to face people you are connected to just online.. --------------------- Alex: Isn't the "group" association kind of feudalistic though? Why do learners need to have a group identity? --------------------- Lisa M Lane: I've had a group just like this attack me mercilessly, even sitting nicely in chairs --------------------- Gerry: Can we have online events outside of the curriculum to help with this? --------------------- Claudine - @bearclau: love that movie! --------------------- Gerry: And people build these same type of classrooms in places like 2nd LIfe - go figure. --------------------- Sarah Horrigan: @Gerry I think there's a lot of replication of environment in education rather than replication of learning --------------------- steven greene: One of the most important groups/roles that can not be had online is athletic membership --------------------- Glen: Agree label like "student" problematic. Slots people in to preconceived roles --------------------- Lisa M Lane: there are reasons for prescribed roles --------------------- Manish Malik: @sarah @gerry what we understand more is the environment, learning is way to difficult to prelicate --------------------- Emmadw: @Gerry re. SL - I suspect that it's because replication is, in general, an easy way in ... also can concentrate on learning activity, rather than environment & learning activity! --------------------- Manish Malik: @emmadw hello --------------------- Glen: Roles labels can imply power relationships --------------------- Alec Couros: Western Dean's Agreement --------------------- Gerry: It's funny that I hardly interact with any educators outside of work any more. --------------------- irasocol: @Glen "student" is a power-construct label, "learner" should indicate all in any school --------------------- steven greene: @Glen those power relationships almost disappear online, people pay attention to the value of an idea rather than accreditation --------------------- Jason: The boy scouts, apparently --------------------- cervus: inbox zero, hah! --------------------- Julia Young: I seems to me that there is a difference between social interaction and substance driven interaction (for want of a term). In education we can be very creative - f2f and online- to engage people effectively in the substance. Do we need to be responsible for their social lives too - perhaps not. They have other worlds for this. --------------------- Glen: @irasocol agree, also all people are learners not matter what role --------------------- Lisa M Lane: badges might be an interesting idea for learning objectives --------------------- irasocol: @stevengreene online communities build authority in "pre-credentialist" way. Valued for what you bring, not your title. --------------------- cervus: @julia social live happens on facebook & IM, no? --------------------- Alec Couros: my four year is watching this and she liked the badges. --------------------- Lisa M Lane: @Alec exactly, the idea that a badge implies competence, that's cool --------------------- Eingang: Hey, I'm reading that book. --------------------- irasocol: Best book for educators --------------------- Lisa M Lane: oldest example of a wiki? try the Talmud --------------------- cervus: what's the title again? --------------------- Alex: The most important thing we'll be seeing in the next 20 years is an increased granularity of credentials --------------------- Moderator (George Siemens): Teaching as a Subersive Activity --------------------- Jason: Not that much competence. Have you ever done a merit badge? --------------------- irasocol: went to a HS designed by Postman and Weingartner, fantastic --------------------- cervus: cheers! --------------------- Julia Young: @cervus - yes, I agree and these happen on their own. Teacher doesn't need to go there. --------------------- Sarah Horrigan: Neil Postman's writing is great --------------------- Kate Sim: @Ein what have you written on p61 then? --------------------- Gerry: We're taught not to write in books, esp library books. --------------------- irasocol: Postman wasn't anti-tech with Charlie Weingartner either, understood the possibilities --------------------- Eingang: Mine is filled with typed text on page 61, i.e. the actual book content. --------------------- Manish Malik: @gerry thats were rules need to be re-written i never followed that rule for my own books --------------------- sguilana: my version too! p.61 with type text --------------------- irasocol: Best Subversive quote: Teachers should be prohibited from asking any question they already know the answer to" --------------------- Glen: @Gerry true we are taught to not write in books but marginalia is a huge source of data --------------------- Lisa M Lane: I teach my students to gloss text --------------------- Eingang: Mine is the Penguin copy from 1971. --------------------- Alex: Can we talk about self-education a little bit in this context? These tools empower self-educators more than ever before. --------------------- sguilana: my blank page is page 66, and no handwriting... --------------------- cervus: @alex just started to read unschooling blogs, question would be how to acquire that self-learner identity --------------------- Eingang: Sguilana: Ah, you're right. Left-hand side of the book, p. 66. Mine's blank as well. --------------------- steven greene: @Alex the students that I work with right now are majority frightened by self-education. Top 10% dig it the rest are frightened and have to be forced --------------------- Alex: @Cervus - Can you send any unschooling links to my email? I just updated my profile - thanks! --------------------- cervus: that would be a german blog actually --------------------- Eingang: I bought mine used, but obviously the previous owners didn't write in it and I haven't reached that far yet. --------------------- Moderator (George Siemens): Important point: activities we do shape how we identify --------------------- Alex: @Steven - What makes self-education frightening? This is really curious to me... --------------------- Glen: @cervus to become self-learner one might have to unlearn many ingrained habits of learning picked up from tradition ed process --------------------- Lisa M Lane: the present classroom has all kinds of technology, just not electronic technology --------------------- sguilana: @gsiemens K. Yancey " What we ask students to do is who we ask them to be" --------------------- Gerry: You said this was only 18 minutes. --------------------- Eingang: Glen: How do we teach people how to do that, though? Those habits are what lead people to expect "right" answers, spoonfeeding, etc. --------------------- irasocol: @Lisa books are technology, chalkboards, pens, paper, chairs, lights, roof --------------------- cervus: @glen yes, very much so. that's why there's such a divide between the educational system & open learning --------------------- Alex: @Glen - Agreed, a lot of conditioning from formal ed dampens creativity - but also obscures the idea that learners should have personal passions and goals that drive their learning. --------------------- Sarah Horrigan: My favourite quote about technology is that 'technology is the stuff that doesn't work yet' - if people notice it, then it's not truly embedded or just part of 'what we do' --------------------- Jason: Muy six yr old prefers the tilt-a-whirl --------------------- irasocol: lower cost of failure and students will self-learn - see Gee, video games --------------------- Glen: @ unlearning is a growing field of interest in ed --------------------- steven greene: @Alex - they are comfortable with top-down direction, tell them what they need for the grade, difficult to encourage genuine interest and excitement --------------------- Glen: @alex agree --------------------- cervus: @glen also nice what michael wesch refers to as anti-teaching --------------------- Glen: @cervus agree --------------------- sguilana: Wesch refers to Neil Postman contstantly @cervus --------------------- Alex: But...isn't it a matter of meeting students where they are? Isn't there tons of self-education going on via web 2.0 that is occurring 100% outside of institutions? --------------------- Moderator (George Siemens): btw - follow discussion on twitter http://search.twitter.com/search?q=disc09 --------------------- Gerry: Can a student take risks by participating anonymously? --------------------- Anda: i guess it's just a matter of incorporating all these placesin education --------------------- irasocol: @Alex - in school the paradigm is different. Failure is a huge negative. Compliance is primary goal of school. Students respond to that --------------------- Glen: @alex agree but that isn't really considered "education" in some quarters. --------------------- steven greene: @alex I agree, but how do we make our objectives mesh with their authentic culture, look at the most dugg articles (usually trash) everyday, can gaming help them understand Shakespeare? --------------------- Eingang: Students don't like to fail. We're encouraged to not allow students to fail. Failure, however, is an excellent learning tool. --------------------- Gerry: But known to their cohort I would assume? --------------------- sguilana: success is the number one learning tool to crave for more --------------------- cervus: students should self-identify as bloggers, rest will fall into place. but how do you get there? --------------------- irasocol: @steven greene - no, but low cost of failure, different routes in, different choices of presentation can help with Shakespeare --------------------- Glen: @irasocol compliance is very important at all levels of traditional ed, Right up to Phd --------------------- steven greene: @Einang failure more valuable than success occassionally --------------------- Sarah Horrigan: private vs. public - do individuals really owns anything these days? --------------------- Glen: @irasocol, compliance my be even more importatn at doctoral level --------------------- Cindy Jennings: Difficult to make the case for 'openness' here with faculty concern for such things as FERPA & latest higher ed. reauthorization act calling for strict user authentication... --------------------- Gerry: And the FOIPPA laws we have now. --------------------- Eingang: By not allowing people to fail (being too safe!), they're not always being challenged as much as they should be. --------------------- irasocol: @Glen, at PhD level compliance is the only thing. That's why nothing changes - a current PhD student --------------------- sarah: I know that when a HE place fails a failing student, it raises the value of the other students' work --------------------- Cindy Jennings: So...While I LOVE what you are saying... I don't make much progress here. We must live behind the CMS... --------------------- sguilana: pseudonyms as a solution to open work ? --------------------- Eingang: Working slightly beyond your comfort zone and being successful is a great motivator. Being successful when the bar is set too low doesn't encourage long-term motivation. --------------------- Alec Couros: And, with everything in the open, society has to adapt to just about everyone having accessible "skeletons in the closet". --------------------- sguilana: @eingang, agreed! --------------------- irasocol: My "Postman" HS had "credit/no record" grading, lowest possible cost to trying --------------------- sarah: and seeing low performers being rewarded is postively unconstructive --------------------- Stylianos Mystakidis: Google Lively was an example of a safe place --------------------- Glen: @irasocol Phd can be the ultimate hostage taking incident --------------------- Moderator (George Siemens): as weinberger states, we have become the panopticon by participating openly online --------------------- Kate Sim: so how do we support the weak students? Is there a better way than pass/fail --------------------- steven greene: I think this discussion on lack of privacy and openness is ignoring some of the isolating, closing off from the physical world, that use of this system enables --------------------- Glen: @irasocol as with other hostage taking situations the Stolkholm syndrome comes into play --------------------- sarah: except that nobody is interested --------------------- Jason: There's even a lecture capture company called panopto. Not the assoc. I would want. --------------------- cervus: i think mostly it's a feeling of community, better than to do work for an audience of one (the teacher) --------------------- irasocol: @Glen - exactly how I feel, a hostage to nonsense --------------------- steven greene: I prefer the chaos circle --------------------- sguilana: students have to decide, ok, but when asked they dont' want to be open, generally! --------------------- steven greene: chaos is where the existential discovery occurs --------------------- sguilana: it takes a literacy to see the learning point --------------------- sarah: nor do they want to share their work... --------------------- sguilana: exactly! they don't see the value and don't care about others' work --------------------- irasocol: Students least interesting speech, writing is to teacher, because they know teacher already has answers. authentic audiences provide richest communication --------------------- laura pasquini: i think online identity should be something modelled and considered early on in their educational experience. --------------------- Alec Couros: and I'd add, "how others perceive me" --------------------- Moderator (George Siemens): questions for D'Arcy? --------------------- Lisa M Lane: people still say "on the web" as if it's one place --------------------- irasocol: questions here are often concerns about efficiency, if we stopped using an ed timeline for students, might we free educators from these concerns? --------------------- sguilana: how can we ask students to see the benefit of open collaboration if they don't experience it? --------------------- steven greene: @Lisa, but it still is one place - it is the non-physical interface for communication and information --------------------- Gerry: So, as people become more and more open online, will society become less sensitized to what is put up there? The politician squeezing a breast at a party or the swimmer bonging. --------------------- Lisa M Lane: @steven but some is wholly public, some interconnected, some more private and controlled --------------------- irasocol: @steven greene one place like "society" or "culture" is one place --------------------- sguilana: not for me! I prefer the good old exam... I heard that a lot of times --------------------- steven greene: @irasocol: one place like in a chair in front of a screen. --------------------- Karen L.: Seems important to engage students in ongoing metathinking about their roles & identities, particularly as thinkers, creators etc, and *then* talk with them about how to make choices abt. (especially n secondary ed.) --------------------- sarah: ah - sounds very familiar! --------------------- cervus: how do we get to identity of a self-learner, who feel empowered by open ed? --------------------- Manish Malik: @darcy i have one or 2 students each year like that --------------------- jenny: But what if a student doesn't know what is best for them? --------------------- Karen L.: @jenny? who decides if a student doesn't know? --------------------- sguilana: yes, in particular if they havent' tried? --------------------- Jason: Do you buy that younger students are more comfortable with being in the open? Will this make privacy less of a concern for students in 10 yrs? --------------------- Lisa M Lane: The best teachers have always included their students in a meaningful way. --------------------- Manish Malik: @darcy but i try to harness the blurred boundaries between the students and myself --------------------- jenny: @Karen - a teacher has a lot of experience to draw on which the student might not have --------------------- Glen: Great tie in to the topic of these sessions. Identification of a learning activity as a "course" triggers all sorts of associations, not all helpful for learning but often unexamined, unchallenged --------------------- irasocol: @steven greene, or on the tube with your blackberry, or in the park with iPhone, or... --------------------- steven greene: a lot of these ideas are being used and taught extensively in several junior and senior high schools across Alberta, but will it occur at the larger universities in the under-grad process? --------------------- Eingang: "We're paying to be educated." --------------------- steven greene: @irasocol: pwned --------------------- Karen L.: @jenny Yes. Seems impt to think about the power aspect of it-- how does a teacher actually facilitate student awareness of choices & how to decide --------------------- Lisa M Lane: quite a few of my students have great disdain for their fellow students --------------------- sguilana: younger students are open in FB and social sites but when it comes to learning... it's different --------------------- irasocol: In Kindergarten/Reception we start breaking students of the habits of human collaborative learning, if we stop doing that, we'll have fewer problems later on --------------------- jenny: @ Karen - power is not a problem if it is not abused --------------------- Moderator (George Siemens): i like shiny --------------------- Karen L.: I find many of my M.A. students are sick of group projects & want to work alone. --------------------- Manish Malik: @darcy I do a lot of group work but supprt the students online using e-logs - formitive feedback --------------------- Jason: @LisaMLane disdain for students in general or for particular classmates? --------------------- Julia Young: Seems to me that opportunity here is to create a collaborative learning environment. This has something to do with technology but mostly to do with how we engage the students in a collaborative discussion by asking good questions and prompting exploratory learning. --------------------- Gerry: That was an issue with the TLITE (Teaching and Learning In a Technology Environment) program at SFU - students has trouble with the self-directed aspect, but most love it in the end. --------------------- Claudine - @bearclau: got my masters degree online and i hated group work --------------------- laura pasquini: I concur, D'Arcy. It's not about the online tools, it's about the learning objective. --------------------- sguilana: I think it's aquestion of beliefs... traditional models are deeply rooted in the system of learning, as the only way of learning --------------------- Lisa M Lane: @Jason disdain for the many students "beneath" their level --------------------- irasocol: @Lisa if students have disdain for other students, the school is creating that, through grading, through social modeling. --------------------- Alex: I'm back...looks like I can't access user profiles or IM people individually. My email is alex@selfreliantllc.com to anyone who cares to continue the conversation on self-education. --------------------- Lisa M Lane: @irasocol I'm sorry, but I see their point - not everyone's contribution is valuable --------------------- Lisa M Lane: why should they have to be a part of everyone else's learning journey? --------------------- Jason: @isamlane Does this improve as the learners get to know their classmates? --------------------- Lisa M Lane: @Jason not usually --------------------- Carmen Tschofen: @steven greene-- Certainly a concern-- when students are directing their own learning at young ages, they're going to hit a wall when trying to fit into some current higher ed environments. --------------------- jenny: Perhaps students need to know that they have to accept the consequences of their decisions - if they ignore the advice of those with more expertise and experience --------------------- Lisa M Lane: we are a community college -- many different levels of knowledge --------------------- Jason: Then is the question - How do we get learners to value their fellows? --------------------- sguilana: good point! assessment is the key point --------------------- Stylianos Mystakidis: Are there more information about that case study? --------------------- Lisa M Lane: @Jason not everyone's input is valuable --------------------- irasocol: @Lisa - disdain is something else. Everyone can learn something from everyone. If your school saw more varieties of knowledge as valuable, you'd see less "disdain" --------------------- Jason: Why not? --------------------- sarah: but often nobody bothers to do anything about shirkers --------------------- sarah: there are no penalties --------------------- AJ Williams: @Lisa M Lane: same issue here. Plus getting students to spend time working on projects, publishing on blogs, etc since they work, have kids, etc. Hard to get them involved with each other and the content. --------------------- Lisa M Lane: @irasocol my school allows great freedom; this is not insitutional, most of our students 'swirl' --------------------- Jason: Even "bad"input exposes a learning gap. --------------------- Jason: Swirl? --------------------- Lisa M Lane: @Jason take classees at multiple institutions --------------------- Sarah Horrigan: @Jason what constitutes 'bad input'? --------------------- jenny: learning how to work in a group is a skill in itself --------------------- Alex: @Sarah - In my experience, most "shirkers" are shirking for very good and legitimate reasons. Perhaps an outside interest in a hobby lead them to devalue formal schooling. Mark Twain was quite likely thought of as a "shirker" --------------------- Lisa M Lane: @jenny yes, and their social skills are influenced by "reality" TV --------------------- Jason: was borrowing Lisa's term. --------------------- sarah: exactly, wiich is why it needs teacher input --------------------- Alec Couros: After taking a mostly po-mo/post-cons phd, I know that everything is indeed about power and influence. --------------------- Glen: @Lisa Does the distain for fellow students change in an online enviro? --------------------- Liz Preedy: @jenny - important skill even! --------------------- irasocol: @Lisa, got news for your students, outside of school they'll need to collaborate with people who might even know less than them --------------------- Lisa M Lane: @Glen it's actually more prevalent online --------------------- Lisa M Lane: @irascocol LOL that's what I tell 'em! --------------------- steven greene: @sguilana: how is assessment so important, it frustrates me that after creating a beutifully designed project the student is still concerned about how it will be assessed. I wait for the day, when they agree that the grade doesn;t matter. --------------------- Glen: @ lise is there a measrure for that? --------------------- irasocol: If a student was judged on their ability to bring others along, would that change things? --------------------- sguilana: @steve greene that day will never come --------------------- Doug Henry 4: Leading students into a subject vs pushing into it. --------------------- Alec Couros: if it's about support, it's about support to become (em)powered --------------------- Lisa M Lane: I'm not sure the students think about power and control --------------------- Alec Couros: @lisa not explicitly --------------------- sarah: no, they have horizontal issues! --------------------- Alex: @Steve - that day will come, but the machinations of credit in our education system don't map well onto genuine learning. --------------------- Gerry: And we have models in institions like Athabaska and Thompson Rivers University where there is never any f-2-f component and the intructors range from being "tutors' to be activiely involved in the learning. Makes this all hard to sort out. --------------------- Moderator (George Siemens): @Lisa - it's not just students. most people don't think about power/ideals until they are impacted directly --------------------- Karen L.: It might be interesting to have students create 2 identities online, in a class setting, and reflect on what happens, how the identity affects learning & experience of being in group --------------------- sguilana: @steve greene assessment is embedded in teaching and if we use transparent assessment, that may come --------------------- cervus: @irasocol that's a nice point, grade on whuffie. ability to use social capital as an important skill --------------------- Eingang: Aside: So if broadcast of content is not teaching and learning (and I'd probably agree, but…), what is it that we ourselves accomplished at university? I'd disagree that we didn't learn anything! --------------------- irasocol: @Lisa the problem is systemic. We don't help students learn about power and control, about collaboration. We train this out of them from the start. We grade on individual compliance, and of course kids respond to that --------------------- Stylianos Mystakidis: Coomey and Stephenson's diagram seems relevant --------------------- Carmen Tschofen: There's a difference between supporting novice learners and directing them. Ideally good learners recognize that they need to seek out and balance exisiting frameworks and new knowledge. --------------------- Moderator (martin): @eingang - learning is quite robust, we learn despite the boring lectures.... --------------------- irasocol: Working with pre-service teachers, maybe the ONLY grade should be on their ability to bring people along --------------------- Alex: Grades and credentials will always be the key overarching, defining, thing that makes education - education's job is not to teach, it is to credential. It's just that the credentialing function is massively inflexible and ill-suited to recognizing real learning. --------------------- steven greene: @sguilana only because they have been trained to value the grade the credential rather than the creation, that could change, and should. what matters in the real world? credential or ability? merit or GPA? --------------------- Glen: Use power to empower --------------------- Claudine - @bearclau: @glen nice! --------------------- sguilana: empowering students to create, exactly glen --------------------- Julia Young: Goal seems to be the same whether f2f or online learning. --------------------- sguilana: i agree! many want to get the grade and move on --------------------- Gerry: We have a grade 10 student from our highschool that worked with a biochem prof at U of Calgary and now she is presenting at a science fair in Las Vagas. Winners get a trip to Cern. --------------------- Alec Couros: legally, being disempowered is the better way to go. --------------------- Jason: Could D'Arcy have done that kind of project in a 1st yr survey? --------------------- Eingang: It's definitely not the norm! --------------------- sguilana: Agreed! it's easy to follow the norm and be told what to do --------------------- Moderator (George Siemens): is that due to conditioning? --------------------- Eingang: And it brings us back to the whole notion of the differences between students now and previously and the revolution that took place there. --------------------- Karen L.: @sguilana If they take my class, too bad. (LOL) They have to move beyond grading because I don't do a ton of grading in a traditional manner --------------------- Gerry: The trades people want the 6 weeks and then get back to making $$$. --------------------- steven greene: not due to conditioning, but laziness, of course I would prefer the prof. to do the work for me, but how much was valuable or memorable? --------------------- sguilana: Gentle guide! good point --------------------- sguilana: we have to learn coaching first --------------------- Julia Young: Institution declares what a "pass" grade means and can decide if that includes processing content and/or engaging in a process. --------------------- Eingang: Partially, yes. I think teaching to the test has caused part of the problem, but it's also a societal problem arising because we're pushing people into universities who wouldn't have been in universities 20 years ago. 20 years ago the typical student was interested in learning moreso than in getting a piece of paper or at least reasonably interested. --------------------- Eingang: Their motivation now is often just the piece of paper so they can get on with making money, having a life, etc. --------------------- rose: agree @eingang and education often a small part of people's lives --------------------- Glen: Agree George. empowerment implies responsibilities, true for tradepeople or public intellectuals. --------------------- sguilana: For me the key point is CONVERSATION, talking to students and listening to their fears, --------------------- Alex: So - there's a lot of anti-credential sentiment here, and I completely understand that, but professors should understand that your singular and unique "product" is the grade that you give to your student. Credit is the key of why students come to your schools. --------------------- jenny: Some students won't be in the right place at the right time - so they won't be able to engage --------------------- Julia Young: I don't think we "empower" students, I think we look for ways to "engage" them. --------------------- Karen L.: @J Young Yes! --------------------- Manish Malik: @at last --------------------- sguilana: michael wesch says "love your students" that's the way they love/engage back --------------------- Eingang: One of our problems is that universities haven't handled this shift in motivation and student interest/ability. Should we be changing? Well, we didn't need to be good at teaching previously. I think we can be better teachers and that benefits everybody. Should the purpose of a university change to facilitate people just getting pieces of paper instead of becoming self-directed learners and thinkers? I'm not comfortable with that. --------------------- Glen: @alex agree "theory in use" of taditional ed --------------------- jenny: @sguilana - I think there's a lot in that --------------------- Gerry: The stories at Notthern Voice of the fellow from the Genome Lab at UBC were amazing in terms of a shifitng paradigm in learning, research and publishing. --------------------- Cindy Jennings: @Alex Isn't what students 'pay' for the OPPORTUNITY to earn a grade...and not the grade itself? Thus, creating the most effective opportunity is critical... --------------------- Alex: @Cindy - If I have a PhD level of knowledge from self-study, I'd still like to pay to have my knowledge assessed by academia and a PhD "equivalency" awarded.