Reflecting on Teaching CT/CS to Grad Students

Posted on by admin
abstraction
I am in the midst of teaching a class on using technology in education with some really terrific and interesting graduate students. Last night, we began our exploration of Computational Thinking and Computer Science. Most of the students reported themselves as novices in both areas, and so I planned to do an introduction using one of my favorite platforms, TurtleBlocks. TurtleBlocks in a successor to LOGO, one of the first coding tools designed for children. It allows users to create ...
Read More

Technology and Relationships

Posted on by admin
iron lung
I found myself really fascinated by this article about the development of respiratory ventilators. It does a really good job in walking the reader through the history of the development of medical apparatuses to support breathing. Two things really stuck out for me. The first is that the first major hurdle in developing these types of devices was a conceptual one -- and not a technological one. In order to help patients breathe, we needed to understand how breathing works. The lungs r...
Read More

Current Research into Student Interaction Networks, Part 2 – (the second of a series)

Posted on by admin
Previously on... For the past four years, I have been experimenting with a social learning platform, which I call Pace Commons, which is based on Elgg social networking software. Pedagogically, my major goal was to flatten the typical instructor centered hierarchies endemic to most learning management systems (such as Blackboard). As a teacher educator, it seemed philosophically inconsistent to be working with teachers and teacher candidates to promote student-centered, autonomy supportiv...
Read More

Current Research into Student Interaction Networks (the first of a series)

Posted on by admin
Introduction For the past four years, I have been experimenting with a social learning platform, which I call Pace Commons, which is based on Elgg social networking software. Pedagogically, my major goal was to flatten the typical instructor centered hierarchies endemic to most learning management systems (such as Blackboard). As a teacher educator, it seemed philosophically inconsistent to be working with teachers and teacher candidates to promote student-centered, autonomy supportive cl...
Read More

Classroom Discussions in Science, Part 4

Posted on by admin
This is the third of a four part series. Here is part 1. Here is part 2. Here is part 3. I have been working to delineate and describe a typology of four types of conversations that could be powerful and effective in secondary science classrooms. They are: Conversations that gather, focus student experiences or insightsConversations that make real the processes of science and reflect science as a human (as opposed to received) activity.Conversations that deepen and expand observations mad...
Read More

Classroom Discussions in Science, Part 3

Posted on by admin
This is the third of a four part series. Here is part 1. Here is part 2. I have been working to delineate and describe a typology of four types of conversations that could be powerful and effective in secondary science classrooms. They are: Conversations that gather, focus student experiences or insightsConversations that make real the processes of science and reflect science as a human (as opposed to received) activity.Conversations that deepen and expand observa...
Read More

Classroom Discussions in Science, Part 2

Posted on by admin
This is the second of four part series. Here is part 1. I have been working to delineate and describe a typology of four types of conversations that could be powerful and effective in secondary science classrooms. They are: Conversations that gather, focus student experiences or insightsConversations that make real the processes of science and reflect science as a human (as opposed to received) activity.Conversations that deepen and expand observations made during classroom demonstrations or l...
Read More

#EL30 MOOC, Take 2

Posted on by admin
Back in October, I began participating a the E-Learning 3.0 MOOC organized by Stephen Downes. While I got a lot out of participating in the MOOC, I never did all the work I wanted to do. But this is why I am so interested in this work: "Connectivism is based on the idea that knowledge is essentially the set of connections in a network, and that learning therefore is the process of creating and shaping those networks." [This last piece has shaped a good deal of my own research over the pas...
Read More

Classroom Discussions in Science, Part 1

Posted on by admin
I was asked last week, preparation for professional development work I had been asked to do with some high school science teachers, to describe ways that classroom discussion could be used in secondary science classrooms. To my surprise, I was able to delineate and describe a typology of four types of conversations that could be powerful and effective in secondary science classrooms. They are: Conversations that gather, focus student experiences or insightsConversations that make real the...
Read More