What do you know about picture composition? What is 3 point lighting? What does calibration mean? These are all questions I frequently find myself asking in my classes at Kutztown University in the Electronic Media program and more than not I am met with blank stares. Transfer of information for some students has NOT happened.
While I have been teaching for 19 years in higher ed., this concept of “transfer” has never been formally explained to me. Many higher ed. instructors and professors only have degrees in their subject areas with no coursework in education. Just because we know a lot about our subject, does not make us good teachers as was discussed in a previous blog. Our many years of teaching may make us aware of various issues in teaching and learning, but we have never been formally taught about how people learn.
This weeks reading material was a gold mine for me. In my department we are currently faced with a situation that involves transfer. Our courses and the order in which students take them, is based on the assumption that skills learned in the early classes will be built upon as students move through the curriculum. Currently, this is not happening. This is being contributed to instructors who teach the beginning level courses and are not covering the material. While that may be part of the problem, I contend that a larger part of the problem is with student transfer.
I am in a program that is technology and equipment based. While students are supposed to learn how to use specific pieces of equipment, they are also supposed to learn the concepts and processes that go into creation of quality video productions. Too often students are learning what buttons to push rather than the functions of the buttons. If they don’t learn the process in the beginning they misinterpret new information because their base knowledge is incorrect and effects positive transfer.
The Electronic Media program lends itself to hands-on learning. The faculty should practice methods of dynamic assessment to determine whether students are “getting” the concept and whether the transfer of information is happening and will continue to happen. Students should be asked to take one concept and apply it to a similar but different situation to see if transfer is actively occurring and knowledge is being applied.
The type of subject matter that we teach in the EM department lends itself to active learning and collaboration, which motivates learning and helps with transfer and the practice of applying what you have learned.
Perhaps if the faculty in my area at KU would have a crash course in “Learning and Transfer” and would employ some of the techniques that assist in successful transfer and learning we would see an increase in the success of our students and not have to re-teach essential skills semester after semester. We could become more active and involved teachers.
It has been a rough week.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Thursday, September 18, 2008
A novice? An expert? Is there a difference?
What is the difference between a novice and an expert? On the surface it seems like a fairly simple question to answer. A novice is a person who is an amateur of sorts, only a minimal level of knowledge on a subject. An expert is someone who has a vast amount of knowledge of a subject, someone who knows more than the average person. Question answered. Not totally, there is more that needs to be said. The amount of knowledge that each has is certainly part of the difference between the two but knowledge acquisition and retrieval are two additional key points.
As an example, a history teacher is an expert; a student in a history class is a novice. At some point in the past, the history teacher was a student. Not all students become history teachers. A choice must be made on the part of the person to engage in further learning of a subject. I would suggest that most students in a history class are involved in task-conscious or acquisition learning. They attend class, do what is asked of them and are learning in a general way during the class. A student, who aspires to become a history teacher, chooses to move from novice to expert thereby engaging in learning-conscious or formalized learning. The kind of learning that is educative. So an expert has a desire to learn more information about a specific subject and sets out to actively “learn” more. I must mention that not all experts are effective teachers. They sometimes forget what it is like to be in a student’s shoes.
The retrieval of knowledge also sets experts apart from novices. Novices tend to have general knowledge, less on a specific subject. Experts have vast amounts of knowledge in a particular area. Their knowledge in not just a list of facts but it is information organized around “big ideas.” This organization helps experts to retrieve knowledge in a more fluent and automatic way. They think through problems differently because of the way their brains organize the information.
I consider myself an expert in certain areas of the field in which I teach. The one area that I am a novice in is details and specifications of electronic media equipment. I work with someone who is an expert. He could be the living illustration for how an expert retrieves information. When I ask him a question, there is a long pause, gears turn, furnaces ignite, you can almost see smoke from his ears and finally, an answer to my question, the perfect answer, the one I really needed. Would my colleague be a good teacher because he is an “expert?” No, he would not. His knowledge and my ability to tap that knowledge help ME to be an effective teacher.
I think there is a topic idea here for a future blog . . . . . How can Experts and Novices work together to create effective methods of teaching and learning?
As an example, a history teacher is an expert; a student in a history class is a novice. At some point in the past, the history teacher was a student. Not all students become history teachers. A choice must be made on the part of the person to engage in further learning of a subject. I would suggest that most students in a history class are involved in task-conscious or acquisition learning. They attend class, do what is asked of them and are learning in a general way during the class. A student, who aspires to become a history teacher, chooses to move from novice to expert thereby engaging in learning-conscious or formalized learning. The kind of learning that is educative. So an expert has a desire to learn more information about a specific subject and sets out to actively “learn” more. I must mention that not all experts are effective teachers. They sometimes forget what it is like to be in a student’s shoes.
The retrieval of knowledge also sets experts apart from novices. Novices tend to have general knowledge, less on a specific subject. Experts have vast amounts of knowledge in a particular area. Their knowledge in not just a list of facts but it is information organized around “big ideas.” This organization helps experts to retrieve knowledge in a more fluent and automatic way. They think through problems differently because of the way their brains organize the information.
I consider myself an expert in certain areas of the field in which I teach. The one area that I am a novice in is details and specifications of electronic media equipment. I work with someone who is an expert. He could be the living illustration for how an expert retrieves information. When I ask him a question, there is a long pause, gears turn, furnaces ignite, you can almost see smoke from his ears and finally, an answer to my question, the perfect answer, the one I really needed. Would my colleague be a good teacher because he is an “expert?” No, he would not. His knowledge and my ability to tap that knowledge help ME to be an effective teacher.
I think there is a topic idea here for a future blog . . . . . How can Experts and Novices work together to create effective methods of teaching and learning?
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Can we control what we become?
When I was first exposed to Marshall McLuhan as an undergraduate, I was sure he was crazy, another academic making predictions about future technologies. At that time, it was all too confusing for me to comprehend. Now, as a college professor I look to Marshall McLuhan’s theories with respect and awe.
The Horizon Report mentions emerging technologies that will have a large impact on teaching, learning and creative expression. These technologies have created the “global village” that McLuhan so often mentioned. They make the world a smaller place by allowing us to see what we could not see, collaborate with those we could not reach, access information in a keystroke that we would have had to wait for, network with others around the globe with similar interests, and enable us to address all learning styles on one computer screen. Clearly, technology has broken down boundaries that previously existed. But, might we have created new ones?
The technologies mentioned in the Horizon Report could be used in combination to teach a distance learning class. Students use an online space to get lectures and materials that are enhanced by podcasts, weblinks, and mashups. They communicate with the professor and their classmates via email, text or instant messaging, synchronous or asynchronous discussions and online chats. Several class meetings occur via a video webcast where students use eyeball cameras and mics on their computers to see and talk to other members of the class in real time. Additionally, they are able to push URL’s to direct the class to topic related websites and can bring up previously created presentations and documents that can be presented to the class or become a shared document that the entire class can contribute to with the click of a mouse. Technology, in conjunction with thoughtful and creative design, can produce a wonderful learning experience. Many of us in education go forward with excitement and hope, but at the same time wonder what we might be loosing.
Taking an entire class on line is very convenient but if we don’t have to be in the presence of another individual won’t we miss the human contact? Having online discussions gives us more time for a thoughtful response but if we don’t hear another person’s voice, won’t we lack emotion in our own? We save money on paper and ink if we do not have to print out an assignment and physically hand it to the teacher but won’t we begin to miss holding our own work in our hands? Collaboration gives us a wider perspective but if all work becomes a group effort won’t we miss having something that is our own?
As McLuhan says, “ We become what we behold.” Perhaps our biggest challenge as forward-thinking educators is not the technology itself but the inclusion of technology into our teaching environments. Can we find a way to control what we become? Can technology expand our knowledge and our learning but not “amputate” those things that we feel are critical to human nature?
The Horizon Report mentions emerging technologies that will have a large impact on teaching, learning and creative expression. These technologies have created the “global village” that McLuhan so often mentioned. They make the world a smaller place by allowing us to see what we could not see, collaborate with those we could not reach, access information in a keystroke that we would have had to wait for, network with others around the globe with similar interests, and enable us to address all learning styles on one computer screen. Clearly, technology has broken down boundaries that previously existed. But, might we have created new ones?
The technologies mentioned in the Horizon Report could be used in combination to teach a distance learning class. Students use an online space to get lectures and materials that are enhanced by podcasts, weblinks, and mashups. They communicate with the professor and their classmates via email, text or instant messaging, synchronous or asynchronous discussions and online chats. Several class meetings occur via a video webcast where students use eyeball cameras and mics on their computers to see and talk to other members of the class in real time. Additionally, they are able to push URL’s to direct the class to topic related websites and can bring up previously created presentations and documents that can be presented to the class or become a shared document that the entire class can contribute to with the click of a mouse. Technology, in conjunction with thoughtful and creative design, can produce a wonderful learning experience. Many of us in education go forward with excitement and hope, but at the same time wonder what we might be loosing.
Taking an entire class on line is very convenient but if we don’t have to be in the presence of another individual won’t we miss the human contact? Having online discussions gives us more time for a thoughtful response but if we don’t hear another person’s voice, won’t we lack emotion in our own? We save money on paper and ink if we do not have to print out an assignment and physically hand it to the teacher but won’t we begin to miss holding our own work in our hands? Collaboration gives us a wider perspective but if all work becomes a group effort won’t we miss having something that is our own?
As McLuhan says, “ We become what we behold.” Perhaps our biggest challenge as forward-thinking educators is not the technology itself but the inclusion of technology into our teaching environments. Can we find a way to control what we become? Can technology expand our knowledge and our learning but not “amputate” those things that we feel are critical to human nature?
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