Week 6 Reflections

In class last week we discussed the survey for the gaming talk in terms of whether we would hire McGonigal back and what we would change if we were McGonigal. I originally would have said that a library should for sure hire her back. I thought she was a good speaker, interesting, and very enthusiastic. However, after talking with my group, I'm no longer completely certain. She did not really explain her ideas clearly and, based on the survey, did not make huge impacts in people's personal or professional lives. It's kind of sad how easily impressed I am and how easily I am persuaded to completely change my opinion. We also got into our cohort groups to discuss the bloggers we have been following. It was interesting to hear about some of the issues that came up in other blogs and to hear different interpretations of the blogs I did read. The best part for me was discussing the Librarian in Black with some of my cohorts. I knew there was something about her I didn't quite like but I couldn't put my finger on it. I guess a lot of people got a bad vibe from her because she is self-promoting and comes across as slightly full of herself. That made me feel better about not liking her. The rest of the time was mainly spent on transfer, which is interesting but not my favorite topic.

I loved this weeks readings about book clubs and Socratic Seminars. Barbara Hoffert's article ("The Book Club Exploded") had great ideas for book clubs. From author participation to having participants read different books, the suggestions all seemed like good ways to add excitement to book clubs, especially for patrons who don't normally like book clubs. They were also very doable for a public library. I love reading about new ideas that will attract more people to the library. The only thing that I didn't agree with was the implication that the "old" book clubs are no longer a good choice. Personally, "chitchat about beloved beloved classics or recent best sellers" sounds like fun to me, and not just because I am a library student. I think a lot of patrons would still like this type of book club and getting rid of it just to attract new patrons seems a little unfair to them. I think trying new types of book clubs is a great idea, but not at the expense of the traditional book club.

The other two readings focused specifically on Socratic Seminars. Lynda Tredway explained the idea behind Socratic Seminars, while Margaret Metzger showed how it could be put into practice. I had no idea what a Socratic seminar was before this, but the idea is actually not that complicated. It's basically a discussion where students respectfully question themselves and each other to get at the meaning of a passage (or whatever the discussion is about). I was very impressed by the success of Margaret Metzger's seminars with her freshman students. I would have loved having an experience like that in my high school English classes. Well, probably at the time I would not have liked it, but based on the improvements the students experienced in thoroughly analyzing texts, expressing themselves, and accepting constructive criticism, I think I really could have benefitted from it. I am kind of looking forward to our demo Socratic Seminar in class and kind of dreading it.

Week 5 Reflections

Class this week was interesting. I really enjoyed Dr. Jane McGonigal's talk on how gaming can make the world better. I personally have little interest in gaming, but her enthusiasm was catching. I thought her discussion of why gaming appeals to people (because they feel like they are better or more accomplished in the game than in real life) and her explanation of the positive aspects of gaming (advanced problem solving skills, perseverance, sense of accomplishment...) made a lot of sense. I just have to wonder if if is a good idea to encourage gaming when it already had such a strong hold on so many people. I have a younger brother in high school who spends a lot of time playing World of Warcraft. Last year it got to the point where he was failing multiple classes because he was spending so much time playing WoW and my parents made him stop playing altogether. They let him play again this year and he is managing his time slightly better but it is still all he really wants to do. It just seems like he is withdrawing more and more from the world and that is scary. Even though it would be cool if games started solving real problems, I just don't think I like the thought of people having such much online interactions and so few "real" interactions. Regardless, Dr. McGonigal did give me a new perspective on gaming. A little less helpful was all the time spent classifying the survey questions. Most people (other than the tree people) had very similar ways of classifying the questions. Differences were more due to interpretations of the question, rather than actual classification. Still, it was good to see how to write, format, and distribute a good survey.

Wiggins and McTighe's "Put Understanding First" explains that the goal of school should be teaching for meaning and transfer. It also describes the different teaching methods (direct instruction, facilitation, and coaching) that are necessary for reaching this goal. I loved their suggestion for teaching mean, median, and mode. It seems like students would have a very thorough understanding of all the concepts involved. I remember learning mean, median, and mode, and we definitely only learned how to compute them. It was really boring because the math involved is really easy. We never learned how to use them, so I always thought (and still do a little) that the mode was pointless and that the the median was the only thing worth knowing about. Clearly my education on this was lacking something. However, their method seems like it would take a ton of time on a concept that isn't all that difficult. If teachers covered every concept in every subject like that, they would not get far. I guess that is kind of the point of teaching for understanding and what Wiggins and McTighe point out as the point of school, however. Instead of students having a shallow understanding of everything, they have a complete understanding of a few things and they learn how to learn in general. That idea seems good, but I think it could only work if ALL schools in the country worked that way. Otherwise it would be very difficult for kids who move and would probably be a mess at college where students from different schools come together.

Chapter 3 from How People Learn was all about transfer and what influences students' ability to transfer.  Most of it was pretty straight forward and unsurprising. The most interesting part for me was about the effect context has on transfer. It seemed like a big problem with some of my past classes is that they were so abstract. No context was given and so they seemed impractical. I thought this section was going to explain the need to provide students with context. However, the section actually stated that providing just one context can actually hurt students' ability to transfer. By over contextualizing, students can't see how to apply what they learned to anything but that specific context. The chapter suggests encouraging more flexible thinking by providing multiple contexts, explaining one context and then generalizing, or using problem solving to decide how a problem would be affected by changes. Even though I had never thought of it this way before it makes a lot of sense.

Week 4 Reflections

In class last week we discussed the concept of "information literacy." Even after reading the articles I was still unclear on what it was, and I guess for a good reason. Definitions tend to be very general and abstract, with words that don't really mean anything (like "use"). It was very helpful for me when we got into groups to create our own definitions. One of my group members had a teaching background and her view of "information literacy" was much more general than mine. She saw the "information" part as literally ALL types of information, while I was focusing on just information about researching (like finding and evaluating sources, connecting facts...) which doesn't take into account most of what students learn in school. Our final definition was "the ability to take information learned in a theoretical environment, evaluate its relevance and usefulness, use critical thinking skills to decide whether to employ or disregard it, and then implement it into practical situations." By looking at it from this point of view, "information literacy" really fits a lot more with our past classes about teaching so that students can make connections and gain more of an "expert" type of knowledge. 

I found the readings for this week pretty interesting. The Sadler article dealt with various forms of feedback and formative assessment. I mostly agreed with what was said. I think feedback is much more useful for students when it comes regularly and is in the form of comments, rather than just grades. I also liked that Sadler discouraged feedback and grades that are based on curves and giving a certain percentage of students high grades or low grades. Although I felt this extreme pride whenever I knew that I got the highest grade in a class, I still think that competition in school should be discouraged and more emphasis should be placed on improvement and learning. The only thing I really disagreed with in the article was how much importance was placed on students' being able to do self-assessment. Sadler makes it seem like the ability to accurately evaluate your own work will then improve it. I do not agree with this. I know when I have done a good job on an assignment, and I am usually (painfully) aware of just how bad certain other assignments are. Now, I know it seems silly that I  would knowingly turn in a bad assignment, but sometimes I really just don't know how to make it better. I know what needs to be fixed but I can't seem to get it. In cases like this, the ability to evaluate my own work accurately is of no help to me.

Chapter 6 of How People Learn discussed the different types of learning environments (learner, knowledge, assessment, and community centered) and how they all must be included and work together to create a successful learning environment. I had never thought of the different types, but they all seem extremely important, and it seems almost obvious that you would need a balance of the different environments. The way I see it, learner and knowledge centered environments are about the actual teaching. Learner centered takes into account the students' backgrounds, while knowledge centered focuses on the methods and activities that help students understand what is being taught. Assessment centered (very similar to the Sadler article) is about the feedback the teachers give. It is sometimes separate from the teaching (like in summative assessment), or very much a part of it (like in formative assessment). Community centered environments seem to have less to do with teaching and more to do with the feel of the class. This environment seems to be less of its own type, and more of a combination of the other three interacting (which is maybe why the diagram shows it as surrounding/including the other environments). The form of assessment will greatly affect the community, as will the degree to which the environment is learner and knowledge centered. I thought it was interesting that outside communities (and television) were included in the community centered environment, since there is little teachers can do to affect it. I guess teachers really just need to acknowledge it is there, it has an affect on students, and it can potentially be used to help students.

I'm not completely sure how the readings will relate to public libraries, where learning situations tend to be short, and on a one-time bases. The learning environments seemed pretty similar to the readings for our first class (chapters one and two) and probably relate in a similar way. It will be important as a teaching librarian for me to take into account my students'/patrons' past knowledge and find ways to teach to all learning types. I don't know how I will bring assessment into it, however. Hopefully class will relate it to libraries a bit.