CE 501 Teaching Learning Process

Using Comic Life to structure a learning task

2006-01-02T20:35:00.000+08:00

Here is a comic I made which I intend to use for the purpose of learning the story. I deliberately "changed the script" to allow for clarification.

The Good Samaritan Revisted
The software unfortunately is only Mac specific, and is called Comic Life. It can be downloaded at http://plasq.com/ for a 30 day trial. It's not expensive to purchase it as I did.

Class presentations today

2005-11-11T10:38:00.000+08:00

Today we had four groups share their projects which basically was to plan a six hour teaching session structured around learning tasks. Students took their cue regarding how to structure their lessons using Jane Vella's Taking Learning to Task.

Sample slides from the Myanmar missions training presentation

Why Vella's method which involves answering the seven basic questions in planning? Because by asking Who? (Participants), Why? (The Situation), When? (Time Frame), Where? (The site), What? (The content), What for? (Achievement-based objectives), and How? (the Learning tasks and materials), you develop a greater awareness of the setting, the people, the objectives, the tools, etc to get bring your people exactly where you want to bring them.

I trust that this exercise has been useful for you, and that our experience has illustrated the difference between teacher/teaching centered tasks, and learner/learning centered tasks.

Honestly, I would have made this your course text if not for the cost!

Final Class

2005-11-04T17:44:00.000+08:00

In our final class, reviewed Ted Ward's Two Rail Fence Model (click here to get a pdf document which details the model) which tries to address the gaps between cognitive input and field experience, with the occasions for the two rails to intersect often missing.

Ted Ward's concern has primarily been that education, especially that produced through formal, classroom learning doesn't produce the sort of leadership needed in the real world. Considering that the classroom continues to be the dominant, legitimate space in which Christian education takes place while at the same time, the cultural heroes in Biblical tradition are less educated within a classroom setting, I raised the question whether Information, formatioinal, as well as transformational education can take place in the classroom?

Well, obviously all of it cannot be migirated to the classroom. The vision which I set up for us is that for informational, formational, as well as transformational education to happen, a broader vision for educational needs to be adopted:

But what are the means/mechanisms which help our educational practices to transcend being merely information? I suggested several to start with and then invited responses on where we find examples in the Bible:

Here are some quotations I shared:

Regarding vision:
“It’s not what a vision is, It’s what it does!”

Regarding institutionalization and legislation:
“Institutionalization and legislation shape culture, values, ethos, conventions of social acceptability and reality more than we care to recognize it!"

Regarding modelling/apprenticeship:
“I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.”

“Values are caught, not taught”

Regarding disequilibration:
“Reflection and discourse usually begins with a DISORIENTING DILEMMA (external event or internal disillusionment) that causes us to assess our assumptions and beliefs”

Beyond that, I asked the question:
What are the implications for teaching-learning processes? For the classroom? For the church/world as classroom?

We know that in higher educational reform, educators have tried to introduce more authentic real life situations into the classroom. Thus we have simulations, problem based learning, case studies, role plays, project based learning, service based learner, game based learning, research based learning using the Internet like Webquest etc. Those are great and a lot of educational best practices are emerging through the use of these strategies.

Somehow, there is never ever any substitute for learning in different arenas. But I trust the the repertoire of tools and ideas coupled with your own creativity and imagination will help you serve as educational leaders in the communities you are leaders in.

God bless.

More assessment strategies to transform teaching, learning, and learner?

2005-11-03T21:16:00.000+08:00

Instructions:
In today’s session, you will be provided several forms of classroom assessment strategies which are designed to improve your teaching as well as student learning.

Task to perform by yourself (15 minutes)
Please spend 15 minutes looking at all the assessment techniques included in the handout to familiarize yourselves with the purpose and the process involved in each technique.

Task to perform in your groups (45 minutes)
Form groups of 3-4. If you have not grasped the assessment techniques as well as you feel you should, invite group members to help you understand the concept thoroughly. (15 minutes)

In your groups, discuss which strategy you feel will significantly transform your teaching, student learning, and the student as learner. (30 minutes)

Task to perform as a class (20-30 minutes)
Each group will be given opportunities to share with other groups what individuals in your group have concluded about the relative value of CATs in transforming teaching, learning, and the learner.

That was today's task, which was driven by the educational artifact I provided. Click here to download it for your reference.

Formative evaluation strategies can transform teaching practice and student learning. They provide valuable feedback which allow you to adjust your teaching strategies. These are all great helps. I however want us to reach for higher goals: the transformation of the learner!

Using Rubrics in evaluation

2005-10-28T15:47:00.000+08:00

We reviewed the use of rubrics as a form of evaluation. Rubrics are what are done to and with you. The big question that needs to be asked when using rubrics is what does it do for you? Like visions, the question is not what the vision/rubric is, the real question is what does it do?

I raised the question about achieving certain educational outcomes within the context of class. How does one achieve a goal by "acts of telling" in the class? That is an educational intervention, but how effective is it? One gets slightly closer by doing (experiential learning) and discussing (dialogical education) in the class. Those are educational interventions, but how effective are they?

I don't want to rubbish any or all of the named educational interventions. My task is to develop the range of educational interventions which you can deploy.

I don't feel that I have exposed you to a sufficient range of evaluative techniques which function as great educational scaffolds. I may give you short experiences with a few other evaluative methods in class next week before moving into transformative learning which must be allowed to occur in an expanded ecosystem of space and time.

Dennis, your question: when would we need to use rubrics in the church setting was matched by my question, what do you want to measure in church? Perhaps we need to name them first... Admittedly, the use of rubrics tends to be used more often in a formal setting, or when you are serious about setting standards. Using rubrics in Photostory projects can help control the quality of story telling/retelling as well as technical standards. Using rubrics (rather than checklists which are not very nuanced) can also be used to evaluate behavioral/performance traits, but if most of your work is informal/nonformal, you would probably be hard pressed to justify the use of rubrics.

Which is why I don't feel I have exposed you sufficiently to a range of evaluative techniques, even those in the class...

Final project presentation

2005-10-26T12:46:00.000+08:00

5 groups will present a short description of their final projects to the class in the final week.

One group was caught brainstorming, planning, scheming, thinking, deliberating great learning tasks for their project in bright daylight.

That's good, that's good!

Rubrics and Stop Motion Animation

2005-10-26T11:43:00.000+08:00

Moab is north of Edom

Our learning task for the first part of our class today comprised of concept mapping and applying your understanding of what rubrics are. The parts of the unfortunately undeveloped map were derived from your reading of Craig Mertler's article on scoring rubrics.

Write down three key ideas about rubrics that you learned from reading Mertler's article

Do a group concept map which reflects your understanding of what scoring rubrics are/can be used for.

How do we use scoring rubrics effectively? Know what your teaching/learning outcomes are, identify your outcomes, provide indication of what constitutes good or bad performance (eg poor or excellent development, high degree of understanding/maturity vv low degree of understanding/maturity) etc. Remember, rubrics are great for taking momentary snapshots, for doing formative evaluation which allow you to aim for higher goals).

Q: How possible is it to use rubrics to force a degree of faithfulness in an animated retelling of a Bible story? How possible is it to use rubrics to force a high standard in the technical aspects of creating a Photostory/animated story artifact?

Q: Is it possible to use rubrics to evaluate truth, love, faith, hope, and joy?

Again, thank you Ellery, Joshua, and Wei Siong for sharing with us a very creative and enjoyable way of learning and owning our story. Their company is still at a very infant stage, and we wish them all the best in their future. We also thank the Lord for their vision of using their talent and creative ideas for Him! It was a real pleasure watching the fruit of your work, as well as understanding the process of creating stop motion claymation. Like our work with Photostory 3 which used the free downloadable Bible story pictures, both focused on the necessity to do prior, pre-production research, which was then applied to the creation of our respective products.

If you are interested, I would like to recommend that you read Andrew Walker's book Telling the Story. In many ways, I feel that his book only writes a history until the last century. Animagine's work represents history in the making, and to the extent that the church in the 21st century is deploying the sort of creative, imaginative educational strategies exampled by them, it is writing another chapter which extends the descriptions found in Walker's book.

That is why I am of the opinion that educationally, this is a really exciting time to be living in. There is great promise and potential, there is also great pitfall and peril?

What may these be?

Looking ahead

2005-10-24T11:02:00.000+08:00

Next Wednesday, we will be hosting a team from an local animation company called Animagine who will show us what they are doing with their form of multimedia project based learning amongst schools and churches.

They will come at 9am and will demostrate what they do as well as take questions until 10am. I trust that their presence will help fire our educational imagination and also provide a resource for churches who want to develop their educational programs in a creative way!

Welcome Wei Siong and Joshua from Animagine.com

Using Rubrics in evaluation

2005-10-22T01:16:00.000+08:00

What are rubrics?
That is the question we want to answer in our next class. In the meantime, here are some online articles from the journal Practical Assessment, Research and Evaluation: A peer-reviewed electronic journal which explain and discuss issues surrounding the use of rubrics in education

1. Moskal, Barbara M. (2000). "Scoring rubrics: what, when and how?". Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation, 7(3).

2. Mertler, Craig A. (2001). "Designing scoring rubrics for your classroom." Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation, 7(25).

3. Moskal, Barbara M. (2003). "Recommendations for developing classroom performance assessments and scoring rubrics." Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation, 8(14).

4. Tierney, Robin & Marielle Simon (2004). "What's still wrong with rubrics: Focusing on the consistency of performance criteria across scale levels."Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation, 9(2).

The urls below are links to rubrics generators:
1. RubiStar's Rubric Generator

RubiStar is a tool to help the teacher who wants to use rubrics but does not have the time to develop them from scratch.

While many teachers want to use rubrics or are experimenting with writing rubrics, they can be quite time-consuming to develop. RubiStar is a tool to help the teacher who wants to use rubrics but does not have the time to develop them from scratch. RubiStar provides generic rubrics that can simply be printed and used for many typical projects and research assignments. The unique thing about RubiStar, however, is that it provides these generic rubrics in a format that can be customized. The teacher can change almost all suggested text in the rubric to make it fit their own project.

2. teAchnology's General Rubric Generator

3. Chicago Public Schools' Rubric Bank

In The Rubric Bank, you will find a wide variety of performance assessment scoring rubrics. These rubrics are examples of scoring rubrics that have been used by schools, districts and state departments of education throughout the country.

4. LandMark Project's Rubric Builder

As teachers increasingly design online learning experiences for their students, evaluation of those activities remains a challenge. The Rubric Builder enables teachers to build effective assessment rubrics and to make them available over the World Wide Web.

5. Fairfax County Public Schools' Performance Assessment for Language

From preparation and instruction to evaluations

2005-10-21T21:42:00.000+08:00

Our class today was a transition from preparation and instruction to evaluation. What I tried to do was to help us frame the task we have as educational leaders in the church. Looking at your vision, values and vehicles which you have for your educational ministry in the church, I tried to remind us all to always be clear about what your vision and values are. In the light of disruptive technologies and differences in culture appropriateness, you never start with your vehicles which help achieve your vision and values. You change your vehicles to suit your goals.

So, coming back to Photostory, a form of project based multimedia learning, if that is your vehicle, then aim at excellence and best practice. If lecture is your vehicle, aim at excellence and best practices. I think to improve the process, a certain amount of educational scaffolding could be included, that gives initial structure, support, and direction to the tasks. I think it would have helped if we had the time to ask: "What did you learn about the story or the point of the story after completing the project?" rather than "What did you learn about movie making after completing the project?"

Some other project-based learning ideas could be a) creating quizzes (free sites include QuizStar or Script-O Quiz maker) or b) using a coding software (some free ones include TAMS Analyzer for Macs and EZ-Text for PCs); otherwise just use highlighters with paper) to research for recurring ideas/themes, etc in your Bible texts. (The principle/assumption here is that you learn more by designing a quiz, less by taking one; you learn better if you discover themes in the text for yourselves, rather than being told what the themes are)

In all this, I am reminded of the emphasis that Pazmino constantly makes in his book, about how a holistic, transformative goal for teaching involves partnership with God. Whatever we do and plan, we trust God and through the process, people will be gripped by the Word in their hearts, drawn to the author of the Word, awed by the mystery which is ours to grasp.

But how do we evaluate achievement of planned goals and outcomes? Isn't hoping for holistic transformation as really difficult outcome to achieve?

I introduced several evaluation ideas briefly, but will spend the rest of our classtime dealing with that question.

Tag board

2005-10-20T21:19:00.000+08:00

Latest: In preparation for the final session, I have included a tagboard in our blog. What does it do for us?

My response to your feedback

2005-10-20T16:12:00.000+08:00

There are two critical issues which I want to address here:

First, there is the question of how a movie making process can be deployed as an effective process for knowing and feeling for our story. At one level, I am not terribly concerned how good the movie is. I am more concerned about how the production of the movie, rather than viewing the movie can help us learn. It is thus learning through production issues, rather than learning through viewing issues that I am interested in.

Of course, if a team is able to make really high quality clips, it could inspire the group to do a series of great clips which help your congregation. It thus inspires an ongoing community of practice which learns through adopting best practices and sustains interest through producing high quality, usable, useful educational artifacts. In this respect, the comment made by one of you, to "have a best practices for movie making. Produce a Photostory that demos the effects and techniques so that students can have the demo and see how it is done" is a very important one. It would be great if you guys produce little clips which can showcase best practices which set the standards. In my AV Techniques class, that's what I do: show a really cool Powerpoint presentation and use that as the quality benchmark to equal or better!

How one ensures high quality productions can be helped through the use of story boards for digital story telling. To help with planning, you can always use the story board graphic organizers. One such GO can be found at English Online, but there are several other sites you can find story boarding GOs including Education Place, Everything ESL, and my favourite GO stop, Enchanted Learning Place.

Better still, there is a very interesting software which you can download called StoryBoard Pro. This is a free software which you install into both PCs and Macs. Best of all, Atomic Learning, which is a neat site where you can find online video tutorials, provides free tutorials which clearly teach you how to use the software. All these goodies are available at Atomic Learning's website. I trust these tools will help make the video stories you produce more professional.

You can also tighten up your process by using evaluative rubrics. Several sites have them, including Meg Ormiston's rubric in TechTeachers.com. Another example, a better one actually, is Helen Barrett's Digital Storytelling rubric. Otherwise, you can customize your own using rubric makers such as Rubistar.

But if the group is not able to naturally do that (honestly, we all expected blockbuster quality clips as well as flops right?), there is still the question of how to structure a high quality Bible-centered learning activity which revolves around making a Bible story movie clip. Here the final product matters less than creating a great pre-production learning activity which flows into the movie production. If I really wanted a high quality product to view, maybe, I would have just rented a Jesus movie.

Ok, I really didn't want to do it all over again in class, but this is where you might have to do mini-lectures, study the text together, text-mapping, discussions, research, opportunity to engage in clarification, interpretation, etc. I omitted this because of time, but at the back of my mind, I was thinking, it would be so necessary to do it to preserve the rigour in the learning. But when you are teaching a process, you don’t really want to make it too perfect because then you don’t notice where the pitfalls in the process are! Learning is so much more interesting if you can problem-pose and problem-solve, and that is what you did with your insightful comments.

This really begins to address the second critical issue which is how to keep our understanding (and the final product) faithful to and focused on the text. It's not an insurmountable task, I think I have left you enough ideas to mix/match and to combine/converge, but it still leaves the question of whether this is an efficient use of time.

I guess at the end of the day, it goes back to the question I raised earlier in the semester about filling cups or emptying jugs. You could really "expediate" learning through greater coverage, but coverage is really not a good marker of ownership of the material. I really wanted you to have an experience of a total process involving other people, not just a short experience of how to do it by yourselves! My gut feel is that a well structured and planned process which involves meaningful participation will yield great fruit as a community learning activity. The ball is in your court. Get a team together to plan the process from beginning to the end. It will be fun! Otherwise, just go back to good old lecturing and "learning by telling" rather than "learning by discovery."

One final world: In class yesterday, I mentioned the work of educational researchers which crossed my mind as I watched the process unfold. The first relates to the work of Johnson and Johnson who have advocated Cooperative learning as a powerful educational strategy. The other combines two concepts: cognition and apprenticeship, hence cognitive apprenticeship.

Why cooperative learning rather than individualistic learning? Why cognitive apprenticeship? Because I believe that the system which we have got used to which rewards individualism and self effort, and which we subconsciously believe is a higher form of learning is not necessarily theologically nor educationally well informed. I believe that a collaborative form of learning which involves apprenticeship and reflection at the same time helps to recapture an expression of learning so long lost in the clutches of modernity. Strangely enough, postmodern expressions of educational reform have shown the way forward and inspired Christian reconsideration of dominant practices within the church!

Hope the links help you to understand these really useful educational ideas which we can apply in our reflection on practice and ministry. Enjoy!

PhotoStory 3 experience: Debrief

2005-10-19T15:46:00.000+08:00

We spent today debriefing our PhotoStory 3 experience. What I did was I gave you a sheet of paper (a graphic organizer) which allowed you to do individual reflections and writing on your experience. Notice I did not let you form groups first, but gave you individual time to think/write/reflect. The questions were:

i) Define both intended/actual outcomes of this T-L Process?

ii) What are the strengths/weakness of the process?

iii) What are some suggestions for improvement?

Only after getting you to crystalize your thoughts did I get you into your groups to share your insights with each other. That took up the majority of our time together, and that was followed by a time for you to share your feedback as a class.

Now, the way I structured the process was not accidental, something to keep in mind.

Eventually, I asked you to share your findings either in the blog or by emailing it to me. Here are your responses, which I want to respond to later:

Timothy Pang sent me this from his group:

1 . Define both intended/actual outcomes of this T-L process?
Intended: for us to learn how to use and incorporate Photo Story 3 in our teaching Actual: most of us learnt how to use, can be incorporated at times

2. What are the strengths/weaknesses of the process?

Strengths: Gets the group working together on a fun and creative project
Weakness: Time-consuming (over 2 weeks), people get bored or the process gets laborious and tedious, mundane, some would shine/dominate more than others (as opposed to individual work)

3. What are some suggestions for improvement?
Do this as a graded group project on our own time
Use class time for presentation and evaluation only

Tim sent a more complete transcript from his group:

1. Intended/actual outcomes

Tim
- intended: for us to learn how to use PS3 in our teaching, actual:
most of us learn how to use
- not use it all the time, know when is good

Akshay
- intended: communication of theology truth, visually simulating,
connecting audience
- actual: don't know what truths portraying, pics can be misinterpreted

Budmaa
- PS3 seems like a promising technology,but not really satisfying,
seems everything automatic, but actually must work in every detail of the
picture (effort to think every detail/effect)

2. Strengths/weaknesses

Tim
- S: learner when watch, visual, maybe can absorb better, for young
people, certain kind of topics
- W: time-consuming, input-output ratio, amount of time put in, then
4-5 min clip, not something play over and over again, different from
sermon/BS, put in time for prep, but deliver 30-45 min, content is there

Akshay
- lacks depth
- potential to be overused, like Powerpoint

Tim
- if used to illustrate a point, rather than by itself for teaching

Budmaa
- used for his children's album
- music background, they enjoy
- more useful for photos, hence Photo Story
- more for fun, not something serious

Tim
- did a animated album like that for best friend's wedding in Jan,
wished I had known there was PS3, much more user-friendly and took up less
space (files saved were smaller)

Budmaa
- S: providing us with the script and CD pics, gives us focus, don't
need to go find ourselves
- W: limited creativeness, think in a box, following lecturer's idea,
limit our own ideas
- S: as group project, wider learning opportunity
- W: group always seek the expert/who do the best, always depend on
him/her, so learning kind of up and down, but overall still benefit for
group

Akshay
- think spent too much time on PS3, 2 weeks 4 classes

Budmaa
- can be done in 1 night

3. Suggestions for improvement

Tim
- put it as an assignment (like the Gp Project 1 and 2), we do it at
home, we still learn from it
- take-home work, rather than do in class, then just
presentation/evaluation in 1 class

Jacob
- think lecturer's concern is for those who do not know how to use at
all, or don't have the software/hardware, then doing in class will be
helpful for them

Budmaa
- 1-2 class to introduce PS3, then give some free options, anything we
want to do, about life, etc
- good for mission ppt, showing pictures of mission work, testimonies

AOB: How relevant will this be in your culture?

Akshay
- can see myself using this quite a bit, with the young people/youth
- but not for everything, like maybe after camps, showing camp photos,
but not for teaching

Tim
- maybe publicity or advertisement for something

Budmaa
- maybe a "how-to-do-something" manual, construct/do something
- something regular, not developing (evolving), just package

Jacob
- think he might use, but requires a creative mind, or else will be
boring

Budmaa
- can use, very strong tool
- depends on context, content
- but makes a lot of easy work, if don't require lots of typing
(words), just insert photos, program run automatically, with sound, that's all
- can save as different formats, very useful

Tim
- multi-platform

Dennis sent me this from his group:

1a. Intended outcomes
• Equip students through practice with Photostory; tool for teaching
• Memorable learning experience that is insightful and emotionally engaging

1b. Actual outcomes
• An uneven distribution of skill in using Photostory
• Entertainment

2a. Strengths
• New dimension of experience while learning
• Gives students free reign of creative thought
• Allows you make an informed decision as to the usefulness of the software.
• Visual, memorable, emotionally stirring, entertaining

2b. Weaknesses
• Dependent upon creative/artistic skills
• Becomes very easy for group members to become uninvolved in the production. If only computer is being used, there tends to be a monopoly on the production by one person. Ie. He/she becomes the director/producer of the whole thing
• Unequal resources among the groups. Makes for competitive attitude.
• Unstructured → leads to project becoming rushed.
• Can be time-consuming.
• Not true to text; reader-responsive
• Abuse of artistic licensing; producer interprets the text for the viewer.
• Stylistic elements can be distracting
• Some conservatives have qualms about using images of Christ/God for devotional/educational purposes as it might be a violation of the 2nd commandment of creating ‘graven’ images in worship.
• In the desire to be entertaining, the story of the text can be ‘bastardized’

3. Suggestions for improvement:
• Sharing of common resources
• Text should be studied carefully before creating a pictorial representation.

Josephine sent this on behalf of her group:

Feedback from Susan, Pin Pin, Jasen and Jo as learners

1a. Intended Outcomes
• To use as a creative means to teach
• To use as an effective “Hook”
• To learn to use it without frustration
• To learn to use it for effective teaching

1b. Actual Outcomes
• Time-consuming esp. for less savvy comp user
• Feel disappointed coz it didn’t come out the way I want
• Excited possibilities
• Limitation of time to explore
• Limited by lack of computers with XP
• Its fun coz can play around with effects

2a. Strengths
• Effective and helpful esp. for children coz its like watching TV
• Effective “hook”
• Colorful visual and sound effects

2b. Weaknesses
• Not feasible if don’t have the right program
• Time to captivate the viewers/learners may be short, thus the PhotoStory should not stretch too long.

3. Improvements
• Gives the guideline: To concentrate on the content of the story then proceed to making the movie so that students can engage in the text.
• Needs resources in music
• Improvements should come if more practice is put in
• If prepared by a person who is good in details, it should produce a ‘better production.’
• Recording of voices should be clear if not would spoil the effect.

Individuals who shared feedback in the blogs wrote:

Photostory is indeed a useful tool and is rather easy to pick up, but personally, a person who is good at Powerpoint can do the same things as Photostory (except for Ken burns effect) and with even more control and flexibility.

Here are my feedback:

Strengths: Adds impact, creates interest, aids retention, appeals to present generation, can be used as a means to penetrate closed countries with Gospel via emailing.

Weaknesses: Unsuitable pictures or sound becomes distracting, Need a PC to view, Movie cannot be retained by audience compared to handouts, Photostory lacks finer controls and effects, copyright issues on music and pictures may be a problem, time consuming.

Suggestions: Selection of picture should convey the message even without text or narration, build up a library of resources i.e. pics, music, sound effects. Have a best practices for movie making. Produce a Photostory that demos the effects and techniques so that students can have the demo and see how it is done. Send photostory via MMS?

Cheers!

This form of presentation is usable for all age groups - young and old. The strength would be its visual and sound effects, if it is well done. It takes one's creativity, depends on how much you wish to impact your viewers/learners, and inevitably, time taken is a factor to consider.

In using photostory to tell a message, I would see that the weakness is that the pictures may sometimes convey misrepresented meanings, if they are not carefully selected or being thought through whether are they appropriately used. Pictures though speak a thousand words, but sometimes they can only present a certain aspect and thus it limits what more could be said and communicated. Sometimes instead, they speak too little!

Who the audience is, is a crucial factor because it also determines how one selects and arranges the photostory.

Photo story3 is very attractive imprasive media. I had been really benefited from last three classes. It is a very useful and helpful tool for the instructor. This media can be use for all age's people and it will be easy to get their attention because it is visible.
Though it is possible to make a story from very simple photo, but it require creative thought and plan, thoes who have this gift of creative idea that story will be very effective to reach, touch and change the people's life.

Thank you for your fine efforts

2005-10-14T15:25:00.000+08:00

Dear Class

Thanks for all your fine efforts. As I promised, the group winners win an (image of an <<< opps forgot to include that phrase) iPod nano, which by now you would have received in your emails.
...but here it is for good measure.

For the rest of us who definitely put in very good effort too, here is the consolation prize:

The CD which I gave the winning team (the real prize), is a set of animated gifs. These animated gifs are actually from Animation Factory, but if don't have a subscription, you can find some royalty free ones from http://www.prayerthoughts.com.

Often it is through acting on an idea and reflecting on it that we learn very powerfully. This is really the basis for what has been called experiential learning, which in the person of Dr. David Kolb is also related to the whole learning styles movement.

So we have experienced a teaching learning process which was set up with intention to facilitate learning of the Bible. But there were gaps: Were the desired outcomes achieved through this particular process??? If we wanted to attain the outcomes stated, what do we need to do to ensure it happens?

That will be the focus of our next session when we do our debrief of the experience.

Ensuring text-centeredness is not lost in the process...

2005-10-13T12:58:00.000+08:00

If recovering the text is the primary objective of "movie making," what can we do to ensure that a faithful understanding of the text is conserved?

TO BE REVISITED

A PhotoStory Movie making competition

2005-10-12T12:44:00.000+08:00

Today, we engaged in a Photo Story Movie making competition in the very short time we had in class. I gave each group a CD of NT scenes which can download from the World Mission Collection Website, and invited you to create a story out of a selection of the pictures.

This is a record of the what you did in class:

1. Deciding which pictures to use for your story

2. Inputting your pictures into Photostory

3. Providing the narrative framework...

4. Putting final touches to the movie

5. The main purpose of the exercise was really to provide an opportunity to recapture our lost story...which is why I emphasize that this must be a very text-centered activity!

Here is the product of your work:

1. Title/link

2. Title/link

3. Title/link

4. Title/link

Beyond the production of the story, there are issues which need to be tackled if my primary purpose of helping people learn our story is to be achieved. These include:

1.

2.

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PhotoStory 3 and the power of durian

2005-10-07T11:33:00.000+08:00

What we did today was to familiarize ourselves with a tool for story creation, ie PhotoStory 3.

I am still amazed at the stories that you created out of a couple of pictures relating to durians.

Anyways, that was just the warm-up for next week's story creation context. As I said, it is not really about movie making. I have chosen a really easy to learn tool so that most of your energies can be focus on the learning of the story, and not dealing with frustrations with the technical aspects of producing the story.

As we continue our journey learning how to structure teaching-learning processes around a movie making project, think about the pros and cons of using this approach to facilitating learning. The philosophy behind it is what some call "constructivism," i.e. allowing learners to construct their understanding and meaning of the text.

Anyway, watch out for next week's experience in active, participatory learning.

Regaining our story

2005-10-05T12:29:00.000+08:00

Here are some quotes which set up the dilemma faced by the globally connected, pluralistic church:

The business of the church is to tell and to embody a story, the story of God’s promises concerning what will be in the end. The church affirms the truth of this story by celebrating it, interpreting it, and enacting it in the life of the contemporary world. (Newbigin 1993, 76)

In the modern world, this story is now either forgotten, half-remembered, distorted, fragmented, or misrepresented. (Walker 1996, 2)

There was once a time when the Christian story had few competitors in the West, and its ideological dominance was assured. Now in a pluralistic society, it is merely one story among many in a culture which is overflowing with stories. However, in a world of ‘soaps’ and commercial advertising, where brand loyalty is notoriously difficult to establish, the stories we tell that are so crucial to our cultural identity, and which are so important in giving us values to live by, are easily disposed of or exchanged for others. (Walker 1996, 4)

In the meantime, those in the knowledge class are producing and promoting their stories which shape values, worldviews, and create cutlural heros. One such example is Jean Jacques Annaud, the director The Name of the Rose, Seven Years in Tibet, The Brothers...

"You know," Annaud said, "I spend a lot of time creating rain, mist, mud, fog, wind, and other effects. You need those elements because the viewer doesn’t have the temperature, the smell, the three dimensions. So you need to create the visual effects of nature, or place, for a viewer to recreate the feeling intellectually. If you don’t, they won’t get it. "I want my images to carry an emotion you can hardly describe with words," he adds. "They ring a secret bell in your heart, and those are the bells I love to ring." Laurence B. Chollet, "Seven Years in Tibet"

So who is ringing the secret bells of your heart? How can we design teaching-learning processes which help ring the secret bells of the hearts of God's people in celebration of Him and His story?

My response? You want to set up conditions where you can have an interplay of a number of elements which connect people and which allow the Spirit of God to work His work. Some of the critical elements which I think must be important include (in no particular order of significance): Imagination, Music, Food, Imagery*, Love, Trust, Commitment, Study, Reflection, Discernment, Prayer.

*who says imagery needs to be visual? Think about aural imagery or textual imagery?

That is the reason why I am trying to set up a multimedia, active learning, participatory teaching learning activity which forces participants to familiarize themselves with their own story through a process of production, clarification, interpretation. and ownership.

Of course you could end up with producing a revisionist version of what is found in the biblical text, of course you could change the point of view of the gospel writer and make Jesus one who is uncertain of his identity (as was the case of the "Last Temptation of Christ" and "The Da Vinci Code"), but I trust there are sufficient checks and balances in place within your communities which ensure the story is textually faithful.

Oh, for those who are interested in images to use for PhotoStory 3 projects, go to QuickBlogs which is the blog I create to support audio, visual, video blogging work. I have aggregated sites which collective offer tens of thousands of pictures. If you go to the May 3 and 4 2005 posts, you will probably get the best returns for your time spent.

One thing you could do is to play with Bible maps. Like I said, the project I am interested to work on is on Hebrew reading.

Oh, while you are in QuickBlogs, check out the post on July 10, and visit the link to Tim Buckeley's site. He has done some really scholarly work on biblical archaeology using PhotoStory 3. Tim's a good guy - same guy who introduced the Hebrew vocab site to me. He is directly involved in the project.

Preparation for Wednesday's class

2005-10-03T17:45:00.000+08:00

What I want you to do is to visit the Photostory for Windows site and download PhotoStory 3. This software allows you to make movies out of a set of digital stills. The software is quite easy to use, and you can experiment using the software if you wish. To get started, you can view some free video tutorial at Atomic Learning or you can visit Digital Diversity for a quick static tutorial.

If you want to have a very comprehensive printout to takeaway, click here.

On Wednesday, I want to show you a demonstration of what it can do, and how you can make a story out of some of the Bible story pictures I have shown you. Beyond that, I want us to think about how we can structure a teaching learning process around the production of a movie.

The process is very similar to Mel Gibson trying to make a movie about the Passion, and being forced to do textual research to craft thestory. Or about other film directors trying to make afilm out of a book, and being forced to read the book in order to make a movie that is faithful to the sense of the text. What do you need?

1. Windows XP

2. Photostory 3 (Mac Users - try using iMovie which is free in your computers - its does what PS3 does and more...)

3. Digital images

4. A $5 microphone (for ibook users, you need to buy a $23 adapter, and use a free software called Audacity to do your recording)

5. Windows Media Player 10

6. Lots, and lots of imagination and a willingness to experiment with an active, participatory, socially engaging process which is supplemented with reflection, study, good food and good drink.

You might want to create your educational artifacts using this powerful and free tool. It would be wonderful if a couple of you did artifacts out of Photostory 3 which we can post on our school server to showcase the creativity that you can come up with if you are given the right tools.

Letting the blogging dust settle...

2005-09-30T15:57:00.000+08:00

OK, I think I have had enough blogging for a week. Participation in any form of active learning, online or not, can be tiring.

I have tried to give you guys a blogging experience, I have tried to help you to understand how to use it. Maybe in the future, I should get you to do reflection papers on community blogging. Writing and reflection is a wonderful active learning strategy, and allows for thoughts to be collected.

In their book entitled Promoting Active Learning, Meyers and Jones write:

Like talking, writing writing clarifies thinking. We write to communicate to a reader, even if it is ourselves, as in journal writing. Writing is an act of creation and clarification, as anyone knows who has laboured over an article, a book, or even a department memorandum (23)....The purpose of writing as a form of active learning, however, is to help students explore their own thinking about concepts and issues, expanding their mental structures. (24)

I am intending to teach about another set of online learning environments for more serious work at higher education level in a ThM class in the near future, and will be introducing a site called Nicenet as well as another called Tapped-In. These are password protected sites and are closer to learning management systems (like Blackboard, WebCT, Moodle). The community blog is a popular level, non password protected place which allows anyone to enter. With the other sites, there are layers of security which you need to negotiate before entering. Obviously, there are advantages for each and one makes decisions on the basis of what one needs.

While we are still on the path of technology, I want to introduce you to a software called PhotoStory 3. While it is often used for making movies by apply what has been called the Ken Burns effect, I want to deploy Photostory 3 in a different way, i.e. I want to get people involved in a movie making project while at the same time learning about the Bible. The secret? Come on Tuesday and we'll spend two weeks on this skill!!! Church education will never be the same again!!!

Looking ahead...

2005-09-28T11:21:00.000+08:00

Next class, we do the Pazmino "P" thing:

If I want to set up
a community learning space using blogger, how do I prepare the room?

What technical skills do we need?
This is your time for questions and answers!

Reflections on your community blogs

2005-09-28T10:58:00.000+08:00

There are blogs, and there are blogs. What kind of blog is yours?

Ours are community blogs, designed for a selected, restricted number of people to enter as active participants, shapers of the blog. An invited participant is not a viewer--everybody else is a viewer, but to you, invited participant, has been given "active participant" and "knowledge creator" status.

And that is why community blogging works well to promote learning. Participants are empowered to contribute. Sure some need to be coerced to participate, but if I give you a project which means something to you, which can add value to your professional life, to your learning, to your transformation, then I trust that you will find it worthwhile.

I have asked you to visit The One Community blogsite. What about the site is valuable to their participants?

Take the role of the alien anthropologist again, and ask what 'material' lore (focusing on the architecture and the artifacts), customary lore (focusing on the ritual behavior), and verbal lore (what is said in and about the place) has unfolded.

If you were to start a community blog (for whatever purpose), what can you bring which is valuable to that community? How can I serve there? How can I contribute?

Acts 20:35

In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.' "

PS: A year ago, my knowledge of the technical aspects of blogging was close to zero. I forced myself to learn so that I could operate in a world where Christian leaders are too readily cast as dinosaurs. Did I have my frustrations trying to master the technical aspects? You better believe it! But what I have learnt, I pass on to you...plus, we have the benefit of others who are power-users who can share their skillss and understanding.

The church of fools - aborted task

2005-09-26T11:19:00.000+08:00

The Teacher's Reflections

What a failure!!! I really wished that we could explore the Church of Fools site. There are so many rich theological discussions that could have arisen from a field visit there.

Anyways, some have started discovering the blog. Others have yet to get on board.

I am thinking aloud and wondering what might be a good task to set as an introduction to community blogging? Here are some possibilities:

1. Discussion Question: a) What metaphor for you best describes your perception of the world of the Internet? Elaborate on your answer. (Superhighway, cyberspace, etc.) b)

2. Wang Qingsong is a Chinese avant garde artist whose work often functions as a powerful social commentary. (Three of his pictures are ...- place links later). What is the point he is trying to make in his artwork? What can the church in (whatever country) learn from the message he is trying to bring across?

Single strand intelligence or multiple intelligences?

2005-09-22T15:42:00.000+08:00

If we insist on looking at the rainbow of intelligence through a single filter, many minds will erroneously seem devoid of light.
-Renée Fuller

I love this quotation from Dr Renée Fuller. If you wish to click on this link to read her article entitled "Beyond IQ"

Blended Learning and Community Blogs

2005-09-21T12:24:00.000+08:00

What I tried to do today is to sketch the transformations which have occurred in educational, technological, and socio-cultural landscapes in Singapore and beyond. That is the reason why I have decided to introduce to you possible teaching-learning processes which you can design in the electronic agora.

I left a quote in my other post today. The purpose of the quote? Like Resnick, I am more inclined to think that a relatively unused metaphor for the Internet is a place (as opposed to a highway or a library or a database) where you can learn together -- hence my teachiing you how to use the blog - not as a personal journal, but a place for community learning.

For those of you who are technically challenged and have techno-phobia, this is your opportunity to learn. Use your classmates (and your kids) as resources persons. I am really quite willing to spend time helping you to get over those fears.

For those of you who want a copy of my Powerpoint presentation on blogging, just click here.

Incorporating digital learning spaces

2005-09-21T11:18:00.000+08:00

The Internet acts as a type of Rorschach test for educational philosophy. When some people look at the Internet, they see it as a new way to deliver instruction. When other people look at it, they see a huge database for students to explore. When I look at the Internet, I see a new medium for construction, a new opportunity for students to discuss, share, and collaborate on constructions.
-Resnick, M. (1996). Distributed Constructionism. Proceedings of the International Conference of the Learning Sciences, Northwestern University.

Circular Responses exercise

2005-09-18T06:24:00.000+08:00

On Friday, we had opportunity to practice and become aware of rules of engagement and assumptions which we bring during discussion learning sessions. I got the participants to sit in a circle of 8 with the others observing what was happening in the fish bowl.

We did a first round of talking, with certain rule applying: i) you could only talk about a minute, ii) had to pick up on a point made by the previous discussant, iii) could not speak out of turn etc. After the first round, I got the group outside the inner circle to comment on pathologies during the process (my main complaint was that you guys were turning around to look at the wall and that many were just too inaudible), and then we resumed the inner circle dialogue.

What the exercise surfaced for me was fascinating. Bearing in mind the purpose of the exercise––which was to make the point and coach you to be better listeners––the outcome illustrated our inclinations and assumptions much better than I had hoped for. Several themes which can be explored surfaced in the course of the exercise.

1. Domination by strong participants is a common thread which is talked about in the literature, and the most mindful strong participant continues to struggle with speaking your mind and shutting up. In the course of my PhD classes in Chicago, I have had to learn how to shut up because I was such a strong participant it encouraged other strong participants to talk, but killed off other's ability to contribute. I learnt a lot from a fellow participant who is a very strong participant. Mark used three coins which he could spend, after which "NO MORE TALKING." Observing him has helped me toward the position of listener. As a teacher, I sometimes practice what the famous Brazilian educator Paulo Freire calls "the death of the professor." I need to die, in order that others can live in the dialogue. There are so many other intelligent, informed, but hidden voices that need to be surfaced. How can I get them to surface and how can I listen to them more carefully?

2. Related to that is cultural practice. We all struggle with this, even more because cultural practices in a globalized word are like shifting goalposts. If you go back to a very traditional isolated society, that is fine, but most of us will be leaders in societies in transition. I dare invite female voices, silent voices, etc to be surfaced in dialogue because I respect your contributions, and want to have them incorporated into the dialogue. In relation to practice in church committees, etc if you were a leader in a multicultural setting, how would you balance up the voices? Is your inclinations to speak or to listen at every turn? What do others say about your inclinations?

3. Intuitions. Every oportunity to speak is also an invitation to shut up. Every opportunity to shut up is also an invitation to speak up. What are your inclinations toward? Experiment with the opposite!

One final thought. One of you mentioned at the end of the class that in debating, you are trained to speak because if you don't that represents a lost opportunity (I hope I heard that correct). For some reason, that short session after class just continues to haunt me in the weekend because I keep hearing a voice in my head which goes: "...Yes, but are the goals and assumptions of public debating the same as that of learning by dialogue?"

I think public debaters listen only because they want to reload, and to nurture a particular point of view, to score points. In a dialogue we listen to a range of views so we can learn. And in our responses, if our first instinct is to speak rather than to ask a question to allow a point made to be clarified, it might be an indicator of how we operate in our homes, offices, committee meetings, etc.

I think if there is one point out of this which I want to teach about being a leader in the 21st century, it is that we need to be better listeners. So much of our training is aimed at advocation work, so little at true inquiry. Even our research aims to find bullets to support our predetermined, or invested point of view, not to incorporate needed other voices which could teach us a thing or two.

I pray we will find the right balance appropriate to our context. In the spirit of developing our repertoire of understanding and skills to facilitate a range of teaching-learning processes, I hope we can take some positive lessons out of Friday's class.

Pazmino's "Basics of Teaching for Christians" notes

2005-09-14T17:25:00.000+08:00

Dear fellow teacher-learners,

Here's a short outline of Pazmino's book. It might come in handy when you want a broad overview of key concepts discussed. Feel free to use it as you wish.

http://www.geocities.com/pangtimothy/pazmino_notes.doc
(34 KB file)

Shalom,
Timothy

Learning how to be better participants in the dialogical process

2005-09-14T12:10:00.000+08:00

Here is a copy of the Powerpoint we used in class, and here is the handout.

Also, I am including a Word Document of the Stephen Brookfield notes I distributed this morning. These notes were distributed during a workshop I attended at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in 2003. It was for the faculty there. My focus is really the great activities and practice exercises which help initiate us into good discussion practice.

In the exercise below, I got you all to be involved in a discussion about David Kantor's 4 Player system involving movers, followers, opposers and bystanders using the snowballing technique found in Brookfield's notes.

What does snowballing involve?

Here is an excerpt from the notes:

SNOWBALLING
One way to illustrate how discussions can be developmental and increasingly inclusive is to use a process called "snowballing" or "pyramiding".

Students begin this activity by responding to questions or issues as individuals. They then create progressively larger dialogic groups by doubling the size of these every few minutes until by the end of the activity everyone is reconvened in the large group. At each stage as students move from pairs to quartets, quartets to octets they recap the chief point of difference, or the chief question that emerged, in their previous round of conversation.

Here're the instructions students follow:

We are going to try something a little different today. It's called "snowballing" and it gives you a chance to think and talk about issues in a variety of different configurations. Please begin with some private, solitary reflection in which you gather your thoughts about the questions at the bottom of this sheet. Jot down some notes if you wish.

After about 1 minute of solitary thought join with one other person to continue the dialogue. After about five minutes you and your partner should join another pair to form a group of four. As the two pairs merge, each pair should recap the chief difference that emerged, or a question they raised, in their conversation.

The quartets will continue the discussion for another 10 minutes and then they will merge with other quartets to create octets - groups of 8. . As the two quartets merge, each quartet should recap the chief difference that emerged, or a question they raised, in their conversation.

The discussion proceeds for 20 minutes this time and continues in 20 minute intervals until the whole class is brought together at the end of the session.

This exercise gets a lot of people talking to one another, while retaining much of the value of small groups. It also contributes a festive quality to the class. People mill about excitedly and greet each other warmly as they meet in new configurations. On the other hand, snowballing can sometimes have a frenetic, disjointed feel.

I raised an important question which we need to answer for ourselves as Asia and Asian kids are being transformed.

Are the challenges that we struggle when trying to balance Mover, Follower, Opposer, and Bystander actions in a dialogue a result of Asian culture or a lack of awareness of good dialogical practice?

Or are they a result of us hiding behind "Asian culture" and a lack of awareness of good dialogical practice?

Reading "Basics of Teaching for Christians" together

2005-09-02T17:32:00.000+08:00

Today we attempted to learn one chapter of "Basics of Teaching for Christians" together using William Fawcett Hill's Learning Through Discussion process.

Here is a summary of what we did:

1. Checking in (2-4 min)

What do the two slides have in common?

Because of time, I did a group check in by connecting you to the two metaphors he adopts which have "gut appeal."

2. Vocabulary (3-4 min)
Some of the vocab items you discussed were a) instruction/training/nurture b) prelude/lude/interludes/postlude, c) transformation, d) advanced organizers, e) hyperbole

Note: You don't have to unpack the meaning of every word that you can find, just the significant ones and the ones you really want clarification

Monkey interluding
3. General statement of author's message (5-6 min)
Paz's recommendations on what you could do through instruction - Paz however is a little sophisticated here in that the tries to help us envision instruction in terms of a movement involving prelude, lude, interludes and postludes. Instruction for him is therefore not a unidimensional, undifferentiated occurence but is carefully nuanced, intentional, planned.

Your statements include:
Group One:

Group Two:

Group Three:

Group Four:

Group Five:

Why don't you send me your statements and I can post it in the blog?

4. Identification and discussion of major themes or subtopics (10-12 min)
I guess very broadly you would have been unpacking the meanings of prelude, lude, interlude, and postlude at this point of time. Remember, LTD is supposed to be very text centered, so you would have been focused on what he was saying in the text, and not applications - not yet anyway.

5. Application of material to other works (15-16 min)
Some of you began to make comparisons between Basics of Teaching with LTD - that was good!

Now, in your discussion of the different types of transformations he was hoping to achieve (ie cognitive, psychological, psychomotor/behavioral transformations), if you were familiar with the transformative learning literature, you could have been allowing many books to dialogue.

One of the questions I would ask is if the lecture is an effective means for achieving transformation of actions, heart, thinking. Interestingly, the research literature suggests that dialogical education has a greater impact on changing attitude than does the lecture...

6. Application of material to self (10-12 min)
...so, if my goal is to achieve transformation, maybe I should be designing learner centered tasks and praying for the Spirit to do His work through those tasks, rather than to be designing teacher centered tasks and praying for the Spirit to do His work???

That's food for thought!

7. Evaluation of author's presentation (3-4 min)

8. Evaluation of group and individual performance (7-8 min)

We didn't get to do the last two steps, but you really should try to bring some closure to the activity.

In relation to Point 8, I want you to know that many writers about teaching-learning processes speak of using critical incidence questionnaires. These are simple questions which allow important feedback to surface which the teacher can respond to.

I will be showing you some of these when we explore evaluation.

One really nice feedback method is called The Muddiest Point. It is really a very effective way of helping students to clarify their thoughts quick and for teachers to know what was not clearly communicated. Here is a little more information about the Muddiest point.

William Fawcett Hill's Learning Through Discussion

2005-08-31T22:02:00.000+08:00

By way of summary, I spent the two periods today focused on "dialogical education" or "discussion learning."

I left you a quotation "No discussion class can thrive if the teacher does most of the discussing." (Abby Hansen), which I like a lot, after which I gave you some time to talk about your experiences with dialogical education.

I think the issues that you raised were very, very good and they did generate a good exchange. If any of you want to email me what you said/jotted down during the discussion, that will be good. I can then post them on this blog.

The 8 steps of the LTD process include
1. Checking in (2-4 min)
2. Vocabulary (3-4 min)
3. General statement of author's message (5-6 min)
4. Identification and discussion of major themes or subtopics (10-12 min)
5. Application of material to other works (15-16 min)
6. Application of material to self (10-12 min)
7. Evaluation of author's presentation (3-4 min)
8. Evaluation of group and individual performance (7-8 min)

We will spend the next class using LTD to appropriate a broader and deeper understanding of Pazmino's chapter on "Instruction."

Looking forward to the week ahead...

2005-08-26T10:47:00.000+08:00

Next week, we will be using William Fawcett Hill's Learning Through Discussion to help us understand in depth our text book Basics of Teaching for Christians. Please make sure you have read the relevant chapters well and come ready for a group discussion focused on the text.

Your objective? To know the content of the book, to share your perspectives, allow others' perspectives to be surfaced, and to incorporate their perspectives into your cognitive framework. Finally, we want to identify areas of application of ideas found in the book to life and ministry!

Observation about use of space and artifacts

2005-08-25T08:04:00.000+08:00

Remember your alien experience?

Well, if you reflect on what we did yesterday, you will realize that the active learning tasks you created were in part determined by the learning spaces you we put in and also the "image" artifacts which you were given. Pig, I mean big, pictures lent themselves to certain activities whereas small card sized ones allowed for different types of activities. Using digital images with Powerpoint or Photostory 3 allows for a different set of activities although I am aware that many of you are not too ready to try that out. That is another dimension which could be usefully explored.

Dennis raised an interesting question about the time it takes to create these artifacts which are often one use. I think that is a very critical question for those of us in ministry who are not specifically in charge of "church education ministries," and whose energies are normally spent other ways. Well, designing learning centered tasks never seem to be easy, yet they seem more engaging and they seem to have a deeper impact.

I think from a teacher centered point of view, the most efficient way of dealing with the images would be to make an 18 slide powerpoint presentation and just tell the story. But, I think experience tells me that that would get boring after 10 minutes. Remember my analogy of emptying the jug and filling the cups, and the tasks you came up with, I suggest, have a greater potential of helping to fill the cups and to transform them.

I am very interested in the response of those of you whose ministries are situated in cultures outside of Singapore. Do share with me via email or some other means your responses to yesterday's activity.

Use of images in teaching-learning (ii)

2005-08-24T12:00:00.000+08:00

Here are the stamps I showed you which you can create learning activities around:

My offer stands: If you want to make photocopies of the stamps to make matching games, just pay me a visit.

Use of images in teaching-learning

2005-08-24T10:33:00.000+08:00

Today I posed a challenge to you: "What teaching-learning processes can you create out of a pile of pictures which tell a Bible story?"

Put in other words, "How many ways can you structure teaching-learning experiences with just a pile of pictures which tell a Bible story?"

Pictures from http://www.thebricktestament.com

I got you into groups, left you with a few artifacts, and this is what you did:

(Matthew, Paul, etc - sorry for the oversight, I missed out your group!)

You came up with really interesting ideas which I will post later. Thanks for participating.

I shared some of the sites where you can get the pictures/pictures from.

World Missions Collection Clip Art
This is a nice site which provides woodcut like pictures of scenes from the Bible. They are obviously culturally biased and betray interpretive slants, but they are very high quality pictures in gif format.
http://www.wels.net/wmc/html/clip_art_graphics.html

Images from Gustave Doré's Bible
http://www.studylight.org/art/dore/

Art from Henry Martin

http://sermons4kids.com/hmartin.htm

Bible Atlas Online
This site offers scanned pages of a complete Bible Atlas with colour maps. The headings in the table of contents will give you an idea of the scope of this online resource:
http://www.anova.org/sev/atlas/htm/

The Bible Resource Center
Studying the Bible means reading about many places and features of the ancient world. With these maps, you'll now be able to see where these places are within Israel and ancient Near East. The downloadable maps are arranged in chronological order, following the events in the Bible. Use these maps and watch the places of the Bible unfold before your eyes.
http://www.bibleresourcecenter.org/Learning/multimedia/maps/

The Net Bible
The Net Bible site has a small collection of beautiful satellite maps of the Bible lands. The maps are there to support the great work of the NET Bible, a project of www.bible.org
http://www.bible.org/page.asp?page_id=2055

Comments from students on your text mapping experience

2005-08-20T15:37:00.000+08:00

Here are some thoughts I have on the textmapping exercise. Although we saw your scroll, and got the reading material, questions, compilation of resources on textmapping, and stationery, we were not actually briefed on HOW to go about doing it; yet, everyone seemed to just get down to working on it, with a few of us cursorily browsing the booklet. And we seemed to have done a pretty decent job too ... I guess.

I gather from these observations that the concept/process of textmapping is somewhat intuitive. Along that line, I suppose what helps is the visual impact of having all of the material before us, more or less inviting us to highlight, draw lines, scribble notes on it, and so on.

One idea: would it help to have wide margins all around each page? This allows those doing textmapping to do what could be done on a whiteboard - making notes, consolidating ideas, etc. This will enhance the usefulness of the scroll and make the whiteboard less of a necessity to the exercise. -Chin Hong

Ok, about the whole concept of text mapping - in a nutshell, awesome, powerful, stupendous...yeah i really like this teaching/learning tool.

Reasons:
1) Big big picture - When i was younger i studied the Bible from a pastor who loved to teach one verse at a time. he would spend hours/weeks on a verse, disecting it into little microscopic pieces. He would elaborate on the Greek meaning of every little word, even the articles - he loved articles. Around a verse he would build vast theologies and take the congregation on every variety of bunny trail. Yeah, he was always working with verses and passages in isolation, not really concerned about
contexts, literary or historical.

Looking back on those times, i don't think i really got to know the God of the Bible. In fact the Book remained a vast mystery for many years, until i became an English major at university and started handling large and complicated texts on a daily basis. Upon applying the methods i learned there in analyzing and interpreting prose and poetry to the Bible, my whole world opened up.

My eyes and understanding began focusing on the big picture, contexts. Instead of painstakingly pouring over minute verses trying to squeeze some meaning out of them, i was focused on the macro - contexts, relating the smaller parts to the greater whole. The meaning of the parts can only be understood in realtion to the units of meaning and structure in which they find themselves. My eyes were opened wide at this point and ever since i have been obsessed with learning and teaching with this in mind.

I discovered Wednesday that text mapping can be a very effective way to get people looking at the macro side of things, looking at the text as a whole unit of meaning. Text mapping forces us into this perspective; we can more easily visualize such things as: the author's flow of thought, major themes, repeated ideas and words, etc........WE can tackle the BIG things first and handle the minutia later...It's actually how we instinctually approach every kind of reading with which we come into contact.

Somewhere along the way, i guess the Bible stopped becoming a book - it is a divinely inspired book, but a book nontheless. A great way to establish literary context. - Matthew

I am afraid that I am a die-hard structured person and find text mapping a bit too messy and unorganized. Perhaps I find following lines and bubbles a bit tiring to my eyes :)

Anyway, I do think concept mapping, text mapping etc. do have its strengths and uses in certain situations e.g. explaning concept of Trinity (concept mapping) or aid in doing a sermon outline(text mapping).

Hence my experience of this morning's textmapping is mixed. Personally I wouldn't use it for personal study but would be keen to use it rather in a classroom teaching environment to help students see the big picture. I had fun doing the textmapping because it was done in a group but I doubt I'd enjoy doing it alone. Since it was done as a group, there was a sense of ownership and shared satisfaction.

Wrt suggestions, since text mapping needs space to write, it would be better for the scroll to have blank columns between the text. (e.g. divide A4 page into two columns with text on the left and space for writing on the right).

Though textmapping is free form, it may be helpful to include a few conventions e.g. use bubbles for comments, boxes for statements, triangles for conflicts etc. (like a standard legend you find in a map), anyways, just some brainstorming thoughts...Raymond

Thank you guys for your thoughtful comments. Oh, please read Tim's input which is embedded as a comment in the 17th August 2005 entry.

Floor? Bare Wall? White board? Table?

2005-08-19T16:18:00.000+08:00

We debriefed the important question of which was better for text mapping - the use of the floor, bare walls, white boards or tables? This is what you said:

FLOOR

• Comfortable
• Informal

BARE WALL

• Viewing at eye level was comfortable
• Writing on the scrolls, unlike scribblings on the white board left your work intact and permanent
• Writing on the wall was a primal instinct which you practiced as a kid
• Having large margins was good, and could be created by pasting the scrolls on mahjong paper

WHITE BOARD

• The white board area acted as spatial extensions of the scroll and gave you space to make sense of text

• Writing on the white board allowed you the flexibility to change points written

LONG TABLE

• Provided a natural perspective from which to view the text
• Gave a sense of control, no need use antigravity methods like sticking text on the wall, portable
• Because of need to facilitate movement, chairs should not obstruct space immediately around the table.

(one of you expressed preference for an inclined table for ease of writing)

Alex's winning quote:
Maps on the wall are for looking, maps on the table are for planning!

Equipment you need for textmapping

2005-08-18T23:31:00.000+08:00

The best thing to do in a debrief immediately after a textmapping exercise is to debrief for what was learnt. However I debriefed with you the equipment which you need to bring for a good text mapping exericse:

This is what you said you needed:

• Coloured markers/highlighters/color pencils (as many colours as possible)

• Scotch tape, blue tack, staplers

• White board to extend your comments/thoughts (or blank wall, or table or floor)

• Long scroll or individual sheets which are later scotched taped together? (you preferred a long scroll)

• Photocopy of pages from book/ or typed texts ? (you discussed the flow, spacing between lines, type size, a font which gave the text a greater feel of dignity and authenticity)

• Scroll cylinder holder size to keep the scrolls (I have strong feelings about using this to introduce the exercise because it adds to the mystery - its like pulling a rabbit out of a hat)

• Portrait or landscape orientation (I think the consensus was for a landscape orientation)

Don't forget the snacks and the drinks!

Text Mapping

2005-08-17T11:19:00.000+08:00

This week, explored the use of textmapping in class

1. Individual members in the class were given copies of the text to read...

2. This was followed by the five groups finding a place to map the text...

This was followed by a debrief session.

Here is a copy of the Powerpoint Presentation I used in class.

A thought about artifacts

2005-08-15T22:42:00.000+08:00

Hi all

I posted two pictures of participants at a Problem Based Learning workshop I attended at the University of Delaware in December 2003. There they are working on concept maps to help define what problem-based learning is all about.

As I compared the two sets of pictures (of you guys doing your concept mapping exercise and of those other guys doing their concept mapping exercise), it suddenly occurred to me that Jo, you would probably not have worked on a list if I had given you post-it pads to write on. In a sense you would be creating a list, but on different pieces of post-it paper. I would have "forced" you away from list making tendencies without you feeling that I was imposing a learning style preference on you.

It reminded me of the alien anthropologist exercise. For a similar activity, there are diffferent artifacts you can use, and you know what, it would have made all the difference if I had given you post-it pads!

My point? The artifacts you choose to structure learning tasks with matter!

CC

Reflections after the third week

2005-08-12T15:16:00.000+08:00

This week, our focus was on moving on from linearity, a narrow definition of textuality, and individuality to explore alternative educational possibilities which allow for hyperlinking, multimedia (hypermedia) and collaboration. My personal opinion is that there is some value in exploring these new possibilities especially if we have a vision for being incarnational in a 21st century information world. To get a sense of what the literature is saying about hypermedia/non-linear learning, you might want to just read the abstract of one article by Sherry Chen entitled Cognitive model for non–linear learning in hypermedia programmes published in the British Journal of Educational Technology, 2002.

We did spend some time exploring the idea of structure. Structure is exhibited in the way the teacher relates to student, furniture is arranged, how we take notes, etc (you know, going back to the alien anthropologist exercise, look at the material lore, verbal lore and customary lore), etc. Structure is good, just don't get too stuck in one particular expression of it.

What I have tried to do is to introduced you to concept mapping and concept mapping tools.
So what literary genre would the historical books of the bible fall under?
This is complex - there are too many variables to explore in such a short time!
For list of benefits of concept mapping, see the link I left for Anna at the bottom of this entry!

In some ways, it does open up both the practice and the discussion of alternative modes of structuring a teaching-learning process. I tried to illustrate how the barrel analysis and the use of spider/radar charts, -- both very visual experiences -- can be merged as tools to do problem posing and problem solving. Interestingly, the US Navy has a site which allows you to generate Spider charts which shows in a visual matter, the performance at its different centers. It's useful just to get a sense of how spider/radar charts works.
The amount of water you can hold in a barrel is dependent on the shortest stave, not the longest stave. Also, watch for the gaps!

If they are helpful, explanations of what concept mapping and graphic organizers are are available at http://ed-innovations.blogspot.com (see the April entries). So are the printable, downloadable graphic organizers which can be used immediately. The Inspiration 7.6 templates, which are conceptually more sophisticated are available for download here.

I introduced you all to computer software for concept mapping, but please remember one thing: concept mapping is not just for computer users, it can be a very low tech activity! In fact, when I was at the University of Delaware attending a Problem based learning workshop, we used post it pads on mahjong paper! That was useful because you could really explore relationships and keep adjusting the relationships by moving the post-it pads!

This group had people from all over including quite a few South American professors

This was my group - the guy directly in front of the blackboard is a Brit from a leading engineering school in Leicester. Interestingly, he found this exercise the least helpful part of the learning experience. Any clues why???

One final word, I was going to show you some Powerpoint tips, but decided to hold that back for next class.

Have a great weekend ahead!

PS. Anna, you asked the question about the difference between concept maps and mindmaps. I haven't forgotten - here is a short answer

Advantages and Disadvantages of simulations you named...

2005-08-05T17:17:00.000+08:00

Advantages

• It provides an offer of an educational experience

• Personal, hands on

• Free from constraints of books

• Participation involving emotions

• Higher retention because of involvement and ownership

• Potential to tap on experiences of participants

• Active participation

Disadvantages

• Low on content – hook function, gateway to content

• Some people are just not ready for active participation (cultural/age inappropriateness)

Some quotes about simulations

2005-08-05T17:13:00.000+08:00

What are Educational Simulations?

Simulations are learning experiences that create a thirst for learning: When you put simulations into your curriculum, you establish a new contract with your students. You are saying it is no longer sufficient to just memorize and recall facts, you must learn to deal with values, feelings, and use higher order cognitive skills to solve problems and make judgments.

Learning Through Experience Simulation Training Systems

The secret in good educational simulations is to get participants intellectually challenged and emotionally or professionally invested in the simulation to the point they are playing out their deepest subconscious values. This is very different from doing a roleplay or acting out a script. Only when these connections are made will they see the consequences of certain actions, phenomena, or conditions and develop broadened perspectives and deepened convictions.

Obviously, the more details are added, the more time people have to immerse themselves into the simulation, the most invested they are, and the powerful the impact. At the end of the day, we note that design is of essence and skill (together with some field testing) is necessary to come up with really high quality simulations.

Have a nice weekend ahead!

Reflections after the second week

2005-08-05T16:05:00.000+08:00

I feel that we have finally managed to shake off having to give attention to administrative matters in the class and enter into the phase of the course where we can actually explore alternative teaching-learning processes in education.

Thank you for your participation and for your insights shared. Let me share some snapshots of what transpired this week:

On Wednesday, I spent some time clarifying assignments, debriefed the Alien Anthropologist (requires Quicktime player)and then went on to talk about educational simulations. Budmaa, your response on Wednesday about how questions sometimes shut people off because that is the Asian way continues to challenge educators who want to introduce dialogical education. There is a very famous Brazlian educator named Paulo Friere who has done some very important work to try to address this issue. We will keep that in mind and try to allow a deeper discussion about this to surface.

Coming back to simulations, why did I pick simulations to start off our journey exploring alternative learning task centred processes? I think I wanted us to start our time together with educational experiences which have the potential to generate transformation in attitudes, mindsets, worldivews. Simulations which are well designed have a very powerful affective impact on participants which is why i keep saying Debrief feelings first, before dealing with the more heady intellectual content. As I said in class, these are wonderful invitations to explore a topic, gateways to information about which you have an emotional connection with.

I mentioned debriefing a two levels: the point of the simulation game and ii) the design of the simulation. If the design is so well done, you only need to spend time debriefing the point of game, but because this class is about picking up ideas about how to be better designers, the debrief about simulation design was probably an important part of our learning.

In the past, I have come across some good materials about good simulation design (both for online and non online simulations), but because I have not really paid too much attention to it in recent years, I'm not in touch with the material.

One final observation: Have you noticed how simulations are used extensively in the corporate training world as well as in the online gaming world? In the corporate world, very elaborate designs have emerged which truly help people change their mindsets (which in turn translates into profitability). In the online gaming world, simulation games are entertaining and yet have a very powerful educational function.

How about those of us in the church? What do we really want for our sunday school kids, our adults, our colleagues, our evangelistic target groups? Would including educational simulations in our repertoire and adding the occasional well designed simulation in our teaching make a significant difference in your ministry?

Would somebody consider starting a group which is constantly designing good educational simulations to serve the church?

Assignments

2005-08-02T23:39:00.000+08:00

Note that for the second assignment, it would be good if you visited my Web generators for a web generation blogsite to get easy access to the weblinks.

For the third assignment, I have asked you to use Jane Vella's 7 steps for planning educational experiences. For an example of how the seven steps have been applied, click here to get a pdf file of my "A six session pre-field missions orientation curriculum for mature adults preparing for a short-term missions trip to Cambodia"

There’s an alien anthropologist in my learning space

2005-07-28T23:20:00.000+08:00

I saw a space ship land on the basketball court at SBC this morning. It was not very large - the size of a compact sized car at most - with large portholes and a flashing red light on its top.

Thoughts of what might happen next ran wildly across my mind when suddenly the door of the spacecraft opened. A solitary alien walked out of the ship toward me and said:

Take me to your leader!
"My leader is away," I replied, sizing up the little green creature. "What is the purpose of your visit?"

"I have been sent from the Planet EdhukateWel and we want to find out how earthlings learn. We want to discover how earthlings transmit knowledge of the head, heart, and hands. Take me to your leader!!!" he insisted, taking off his space suit.

"My leader is away," I repeated. "but I can help you. I will take you to different places where you can observe what happens in our learning spaces."

"I have learned your ways of observing educational spaces" said the alien. "An old Earthling told me about your observation sciences. He said to observe the material lore, the verbal lore and the customary or ritual lore in your educational spaces."

"What that lore stuff again?" I inquired.

"Material lore, verbal lore and ritual lore. The old earthling told me these are terms from the study of human culture and anthropology" he responded, pleased that he seemed to know more than an earthling.

"The material lore in your educational spaces would comprise of the architecture of your learning space and all the artifacts found within that space. The verbal lore is what is said within and about the educational space, and the customary or ritual lore would be the ritual behavior found there."

"I see. I was confused for a moment. I thought you were speaking Singlish. I thought you said you wanted to observe material lor, verbal lor, and customary lor. It didn't make sense at first, but now I understand lor." I replied.

Thinking in his mind:
Singlish is very confusing!

"Hey, can you explain ritual lore and ritual behavior again?" I asked

"These are the regular rituals and fixed behaviors performed either consciously or unconsciously by the participants in learning spaces." he replied "In our planet, all the participants including the leader walk in circles when we learn. That is just the expected customary behaviour. We don’t question why."

"But enough talk. We will go now" the alien insisted impatiently.

"Where shall we go?" I asked

"Take me to your leader!" he insisted strongly.

"I cannot, but I will take you to observe two spaces:

1. Large evening school class in the Block 3 basement auditorium between 7:30-9:30pm.

2. Four SBC students having lunch at Block 6 after class.

"I am keen to observe you earthlings. We have many problems on our planet, and we need to learn from others to educate our people well."

Further Questions for your consideration:

1. What teaching-learning processes do you think the alien will observe in Christian educational settings?

2. Will it be very monolithic? Elaborate on your answer.

3. What educational innovations and best practices will it observe? Where?

Click here to get a pdf version of "There's an alien anthropologist in my learning space"

Welcome to the CE 501 class

2005-07-26T14:28:00.000+08:00

Hello class

I would like to welcome you to the class.

In our class, I mentioned the article by Karen King entitled "Sage on the Stage or Guide by the Side?" I am making this article available to you, so please download it here.

Road Map of the Teaching-Learning Process class (CE 501)

2005-07-25T23:13:00.000+08:00

Here is roadmap of the teaching learning class. What you will notice about it is that it has two parts running parallel with each other.

The first map (the yellow section) establishes the pervasive, default teaching-learning process which we find in most learning encounters. That is what some have called the default setting which we are double cultural captives of (Asian as well as British legacies!) In order to transform the default teaching-learning process which inevitably most people will perpetuate, I will be introducing several alternative educational experiences. These are not meant to replace the default teaching-learning process, for that would be throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Instead, I am seeking to widen your repertoire of teaching-learning processes which you can employ in the different settings. Some of them involve the use of computers and the Internet, others will not, but all are attempts at encourage active learning.

The second map (the green section) involves reading, understanding and discussing the literature available which give you labels, concepts, theories, imaginative ideas. I will be requiring you to read sections from the literature, and to discuss them as a class.

These two maps are not intended to be independent of each other. All through the course, I want you to be asking how the literature informs practice/experience, and how the practice/experience confirms or challenges the literature.