I’m pretty sure I didn’t follow a particular creative process as I was hard-pressed to simply get this done. It felt much more like cookbook, fill-in-the-blank more than I can certainly agree this is a worthwhile teaching/learning exercise but I am just as certain there isn’t a direct application to workforce development.
Frankly, this seems like a lot of “moving parts” for projects that I work on everyday. And that is probably the value from a classroom perspective. By breaking a large, complex task into its constituent parts, students can analyze, research, compile, and comprehend.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Sunday, November 9, 2008
One-handed (As Opposed To Off-hand) Observation
First off, forgive the terseness and perhaps greater ill temper in my responses this week. I had my right thumb re-built last Thursday (damned osteoarthritis) and typing one-handed gets tedious in a hurry.
What struck me most about these collaborative / communication tools (or, really, rather processes) is that the technology simultaneously makes the collaboration possible while not becoming the end result, the deliverable.
That’s why I call a fishbowl a process and not a tool. It’s an elegant metaphor – participants and participation are so wonderfully transparent. In looking at the several examples, there were different software programs involved.
You wouldn’t expect to go to Best Buy and buy fishbowl software in a box. And, after all, nothing previously actually prevented a “fishbowl” from occurring in ‘real life’, was there?
The technology also seems to aid in grading. To extend the metaphor of transparency, it’s much easier to see the quality of participation.
In one of the supporting documents for the Arapahoe “Fishbowl 101,” one of the expectations reads, “Also, there will be one chair for the presenters to select 5 random people (drawn names) who at some time must jump into the discussion and participate. If a drawn name individual does not participate, he or she will not be able to regain 2 of their 10 daily points. Any sign of a lack of preparation by a circle member will result in the loss of points for that particular day.”
This seems to be a quantum leap over “old-style,” “live” classroom discussions because of the logging / tracking capacity of most of the software programs available.
What struck me most about these collaborative / communication tools (or, really, rather processes) is that the technology simultaneously makes the collaboration possible while not becoming the end result, the deliverable.
That’s why I call a fishbowl a process and not a tool. It’s an elegant metaphor – participants and participation are so wonderfully transparent. In looking at the several examples, there were different software programs involved.
You wouldn’t expect to go to Best Buy and buy fishbowl software in a box. And, after all, nothing previously actually prevented a “fishbowl” from occurring in ‘real life’, was there?
The technology also seems to aid in grading. To extend the metaphor of transparency, it’s much easier to see the quality of participation.
In one of the supporting documents for the Arapahoe “Fishbowl 101,” one of the expectations reads, “Also, there will be one chair for the presenters to select 5 random people (drawn names) who at some time must jump into the discussion and participate. If a drawn name individual does not participate, he or she will not be able to regain 2 of their 10 daily points. Any sign of a lack of preparation by a circle member will result in the loss of points for that particular day.”
This seems to be a quantum leap over “old-style,” “live” classroom discussions because of the logging / tracking capacity of most of the software programs available.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Relating Bloom's Taxonomy and the Big6
I was nearly tempted, early on, to skip over this question because it seemed well ... just not really a question. They appear, again at first blush, to be related not at all. But the obvious doesn't always follow through.
After all, Bloom's Taxonomy is an organization of creative and thinking skills, of meta-skills, described in one of the Module 3 readings as " ... provid[ing] a way to organise (sic) thinking skills into six levels, from the most basic to the higher order levels of thinking." On the other hand, the Big6 is a prescription for getting a project or specified amount of work done and is, indeed, called a "model/tool" in the summary chart in Activity 3 of this module.
Both are solidly cognitive domain constructs, despite the revisions in Bloom's Taxonomy to incorporate the two other realms (affective and psychomotor).
Bloom's Taxonomy and the Big6 are strictly hierarchical and the temptation would be to map the levels of Bloom's to the steps of the Big 6. While perhaps an engaging intellectual exercise, it would seem ultimately futile:
The Creating level of Bloom's Taxonomy happens before the Big6 Evaluation step because its focus is on what happened. Similar arguments can be made against simple one-to-one matching of the other five levels and steps.
It seems that the best way to relate the two constructs is to consider each level of Bloom's Taxonomy as the method to explore or as a "checklist" for each step of the Big6. In other words, in order to complete Task Definition, you need to have answers relating to all of Bloom's Taxonomy from the literal, "What do I remember about this task, this subject, this project?" (remembering)) going through each level of Bloom's to arrive at the final definition of the task (creation).
After all, Bloom's Taxonomy is an organization of creative and thinking skills, of meta-skills, described in one of the Module 3 readings as " ... provid[ing] a way to organise (sic) thinking skills into six levels, from the most basic to the higher order levels of thinking." On the other hand, the Big6 is a prescription for getting a project or specified amount of work done and is, indeed, called a "model/tool" in the summary chart in Activity 3 of this module.
Both are solidly cognitive domain constructs, despite the revisions in Bloom's Taxonomy to incorporate the two other realms (affective and psychomotor).
Bloom's Taxonomy and the Big6 are strictly hierarchical and the temptation would be to map the levels of Bloom's to the steps of the Big 6. While perhaps an engaging intellectual exercise, it would seem ultimately futile:
The Creating level of Bloom's Taxonomy happens before the Big6 Evaluation step because its focus is on what happened. Similar arguments can be made against simple one-to-one matching of the other five levels and steps.
It seems that the best way to relate the two constructs is to consider each level of Bloom's Taxonomy as the method to explore or as a "checklist" for each step of the Big6. In other words, in order to complete Task Definition, you need to have answers relating to all of Bloom's Taxonomy from the literal, "What do I remember about this task, this subject, this project?" (remembering)) going through each level of Bloom's to arrive at the final definition of the task (creation).
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