Students in online courses that include discussions frequently complain the task is a burden, the discussions are disappointing, and they contribute little to their building of new knowledge. Students report that the prompts used to focus discussions can make the board more interesting. If the prompt simply has them restate information from a text, they Read More
Those who are aware of what they know, capable of judging the situations in which they can solve problems, and reacting to fil gaps in their knowledge with their existing knowledge are demonstrating their metacognitive abilities. They know what they know and they know what to do if they don’t know. Greater metacognitive understanding is Read More
While I am a distance learning professional and I spend most of my time working at a computer and encouraging educators to use computers, I am an educator before I am a technologist. Teaching decisions must be made to benefit students. For much of my career, it has been easy for many individual educators to reject all technology-based and distance learning options categorically. They were justified in reasoning they could Read More
211: On Extended Minds “The extended mind” has focus some of my attention recently. It seems to be one of the basic epistemological assumptions upon which many teaching, learning, and schooling decisions are made. First, the mind. Let’s adopt the materialist view that it exists in the brain. There can be little debate in the Read More
The word “essential” is interesting. It describes that which we cannot do without. Food, water, and oxygen (in the right concentration) is essential to human life. It also describes the fundamental character. When we remove the unimportant or marginal parts of something we are left with its essence; removing anything more changes what it is. Read More
John Dewey wrote “education is not preparation for life, it is life itself.” While this may be true, many students enroll in higher education to be better prepared for the profession they will enter after they graduate. It seems reasonable, then, that educators should take steps to ensure their students can use what they learn Read More
Education is about changing humans. When our students leave our classrooms, we expect they can do things, see things, and think things they could not before the class. If our students leave with their abilities unchanged, then they (and we) have wasted their time and energy and money while there.
Humans are social creatures. Our brains function differently when we are engaged with others compared to when we are engages alone. We have capacity to solve much more complex problems when working together compared to when we work alone, but we also have greater capacity to deceive ourselves. This summer, I finally read Edwin Hutchin’s Cognition Read More
As we return to “normal,” teachers will be building classrooms in which teaching and learning happens in both physical places and online spaces. Until now, most educators have perceived clear boundaries between online teaching and face-to-face teaching. That separation is no longer tenable. For decades, educators have heard “the jobs your students will have do not exist yet.” Until recently that has not been true; as we Read More
Merrill (2002) placed real-word problems at the center of effective teaching. The problems, however, must be judged “interesting, relevant, and engaging” (p. 46) to the lead to learners so they have a sense of caring that was labeled “ownership.” Such problems are also selected so that students understand the problems, care the problem be solved, Read More