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May 25, 2018

Randomness Writing Prompt

Daily Extend #183 Tell a story based on Randomness Story Generator Widget.

Random Story

Arlo stood at the side of road, watching the figures fade into the distance. He sighed. They were so sleek and slender, spinning faster and faster away. How he longed to be with them, zipping here and there.

The freedom they must feel, wind at their back, able to cross vast distances in no time. Well, alright, not no time but little time. Certainly, less time than Arlo. Short, fat, dumpy Arlo, low to the ground and, at the moment, low in spirits.

As he plodded along down the road he imagined what it would be like to be one of them. It would never happen. His legs were far to short. But oh, what a thrill it would be to sit upright with two wheels beneath him, hands on the bar, feet on peddles. He would zip away from the dust and the grit of the road, the pounding sun and the endless plodding.

Hours passed as Arlo waddled down the road. Well, alright, what seemed like hours. Who could keep track of time with the monotony of laborious step after step! Wait, what is that down the road? All those fast bikers, just standing around? As Arlo neared, he could see their problem. The bridge was out! The river was swollen with the recent rains and had taken out the only bridge across for miles in the last storm!

Hmmm, pondered Arlo. What would they do now? Embarrassed, Arlo plodded past and slipped into the water. With his powerful tail, the fast-moving water was nothing. He swam easily to the other side. His legs were short but powerful as he gripped the bank and rose from the river to glide up the bank.

Spencer stood with his bike at the side of river, watching the figure fade into the distance. He sighed. That one was so strong and powerful, swimming faster and faster away. How he longed to be with him in the river….

May 24, 2018

Sirona Vapes After Dark

The title of this post is the name of one of my Vaping Shows. For the last 18 months, I have been part of a community that produces online broadcasts using either OBS or Xsplit for the Vaping community. So what does this have to do with creating a PLN. A lot, actually. I have been very interested in different ways of communicating online with technology and I have used other interests such as vaping and gaming to explore those technologies. I found that I am a teacher and a communicator where ever I am and I have been able to extend my learning through leisure activities to my work as a faculty member at a Ontario college.

Using Coggle, I created a map of the types of communication technologies I use in different arenas of my life (pictured below). I have been a full-time faculty for almost 11 years with another 13 years of part-time teaching and support staff contracts at St. Clair College. I have been an online gamer for 13 years and a vape broadcaster for a year and a half. I have been working on a PLN using Twitter for just over a month. Not long at all in comparison.

I have more experiences in developing and maintaining a Personal Learning Network with the Vaping and Gaming communities then I do with the Higher Education community. My gaming experiences in creating a YouTube channel of instructional videos and my broadcasting experiences in the vaping community improved my ability to create videos for my work. Using chat through Skype and Discord with players from all over the world increased my cultural awareness of communication patterns and pitfalls that has helped me in speaking with and understanding my International students and tutors. Building reciprocal relationships though Facebook helps me to better understand what is needed to develop online connections on Twitter with other Higher Ed professionals. But I am still finding it hard to generalize my experiences and to understand the requirements of the Collaborator Module for Ontario Extend.

Perhaps part of this stems from my struggles in trying to create a PLN at the college with other faculty. As a faculty member in Student Services, I have found that Academic faculty and others in the Academic sector often don’t think of Student Services people as faculty. I am currently classified as a counsellor and while I may not be a professor, I do have a practice that includes teaching. I have an interest in teaching and learning but do not have many opportunities to meet with and talk with faculty outside of Student Services. The kinds of meetings we have and the sort of communication vehicles we use (email and telephone) do not lend themselves to community building or finding allies. Even our schedules make this difficult. As faculty who are scheduled 35 hours per week, we have regular lunch periods and most in-class faculty have, can I say, erratic schedules that don’t necessarily allow for a 12 noon to 1 pm break.

I will attempt to create a PLN map for the Extend Activity, I just hope I can figure out at least 10 people to put on it!

May 24, 2018

Guess who’s coming to dinner?

dinner table

Recently, our department began work on a project to identify information new students would need to ease their transition to college. The goal was to begin the work on a BlackBoard module set that could be shared with students before they arrived on campus. This process was initiated by our Director and I was given Faculty lead.

We had a nice mix of skills and perspectives around the working table and this was supplemented by others outside our group who were invited to submit information or who participated in meetings led by our Director in order to give input.

The primary form of communication was face-to-face meetings in small groups about every other working day with lots of brainstorming with larger group meetings once a week for updates and goal setting for the next week. Email communication was frequent. Given that we were all from the same institution and the core group all worked in Student Services, this process worked well for us.

The fact that we brought different skills to the table also helped our team. We had a good mix of big picture, strategy thinkers and detail oriented implementors. We had faculty, support staff and administrators on the team as well. In addition, we had students contributing their skills and ideas in the area of HTML and CSS as well as their impressions of the work from a student perspective.

Missing at the table was a representative from the IT department. This would have been helpful to address some of our questions and concerns in a more timely fashion.

This post was created as part of the Collobrator Module for Ontario Extend.

Original dinner table Photo by Stella de Smit on Unsplash

May 22, 2018

Applying the CRAAP Test

Focusing on OER textbook selection that I made for Porter’s Five Forces, I will apply the CRAAP Test in this post.

Evaluating the Industry in Mastering Strategic Management, 1st Canadian Edition (2014) by Janice Edwards on BC Open Textbooks.

Currency

This textbook was published in 2014 on BC Open Textbooks and is based on Mastering Strategic Management by University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing in 2011. While this may be bordering on dated, most concepts of Strategic Management have not changed and Janice Edwards added updated Canadian content in 2014.

Relevance

The textbook covers expected models and concepts at the college level for introductory and Intermediate study of Strategic Management

Authority

Janice Edwards, Centennial College
Dave Ketchen, Auburn University
Jeremy Short, University of Oklahoma

A full description of the authors’ credentials are available on the Open Textbook Library Website.

Accuracy

I found the textbook to be free of errors and issues. On the Open Textbook Library, the original textbook was reviewed 7 times between 2013 and 2018 and received a rating of 4.5 stars out of 5.

Purpose

The purpose of the text is to education and inform students at the post secondary level on methods and models of strategic management including the analysis of business problems. This matches my intention and audience.

This post was created for an Extend Activity in the Curator Module.

May 22, 2018

OER for Porter’s Five Forces

Teaching and learning with case studies in the area of Business has been a fascination of mine for some time. Recently, David Tell (@bdt53 ‏) and I have been debating creating an Open Education Resource on the case study method that could be used as a workshop or seminar for Business students at our college. With this in mind, I searched for Open Education Resources (OER) that might be used in this project.

My first attempts were fruitless. I started to large, seeking first if there was a seminar style resource already created. Recalling the suggestion to map out a strategy, I thought about what concepts or tools I would want to have as part of the seminar and turned my attention the Porter’s Five Forces.

Using this smaller piece of a case study seminar, I found:

One chapter in OER textbook: Evaluating the Industry in Mastering Strategic Management, 1st Canadian Edition (2014) by Janice Edwards on BC Open Textbooks.

One article: Boundless: “Porter’s Five Forces” from BUS501: STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT on Saylor Academy

An interview with Mike Porter on his Five Forces model:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJJDKKrRBNM

One instructional video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lmHhQs3HC0

And two graphics or figures, one used as the Feature Image – Figure by MIT OpenCourseWare on Flickr and a second more detailed figure also by MIT OpenCourseWare on Flickr:

May 19, 2018

Standing a different river every day

omer-salom-528416-unsplash

“You cannot step twice into the same river, for other waters are continually flowing on.” Heraclitus

“You can’t teach the same class twice, for everything is changing.” Irene Stewart

Sound like a strange teaching philosophy? Perhaps, but for me, it contains a truth. Everything is changing; every time I teach, the students are different, I am different, the world is different (even slightly) and what and how I teach must be different too.

The students are different – every semester, every year, every cohort of student are new and have unique needs. What worked last year, last semester, or, for me with workshops, last week, might not work now.

I am different – I haven’t stopped learning either. I am not the same as last year, last semester, and, because of the Ontario Extend experience, I am not even the same as last week.

The world is different – and while I could give a bunch of different examples of all the ways the world different – it’s about relevance – what was relevant last year, last semester and even last week may not be relevant today.

That is why I review my plans every time I prepare to teach to ensure that I am responding to the change. That is why I keep learning. That is why I want to keep extending.

This post is in response to the Culminating Activity for the Teaching for Learning Module of Ontario Extend.

Photo by Omer Salom on Unsplash

May 19, 2018

Good for students; Good for us too.

Catch them doing something right. I remember this advice from when my children were small. The idea was instead of always pointing out the mistake a child was making (negative attention), I should actively watch for the actions, behaviours and attitudes I valued and give praise (positive attention). It worked.

Here’s the thing, it works with students too. In addition to the correct knowledge that we want them to have, we have skills, behaviours and attitudes we value. When we are assessing their work, we need to be looking to catching them doing something right. I was reminded of this when reading patches from the Open Faculty Patchbook. My nugget is:

“Give affirming feedback, where you highlight what the student has done well. This can be a powerful means of building student confidence and engagement, and can directly reinforce good performance. ” (Awwad & Bali, 2017)

This is sage advice for us in Extend West as we seek to grow in our knowledge, skills, behaviours and attitudes. We should give and seek affirming feedback in our learning cohort. I have been considering asking for feedback on my blog and thinking about what kind of feedback would best help me learn and grow. One technique I have used with classes is Stop, Start and Continue.

The basic model is to ask for three types of feedback. A stop, something I should stop doing. A start, a new idea to incorporate, to start. And finally, a continue, something that is good and that I should continue. The continue is always the part that makes me feel better after hearing all the things I do that I should and all the things that I don’t do that I should.

For blog posts, the model could be used by asking a critical friend the following questions:

Stop – what is something that is detracting from my blog?
Start – what is something that you have seen others do, or you do yourself that could improve my blog?
Continue – what is something that you like about my blog that I should keep?

Structuring our request for feedback in this way can ensure that we get information that we can use and that affirms. When I think about my extending experiences, I feel a bit like the climber in the featured image, I am working my way up and even though I have some safety equipment, it still feels scary. I need advice like don’t put your foot there and use your guide rope as well as the keep going, you can do it. I need the stop, the start and the continue.

If you would like to explore how to use Stop, Start and Continue in the classroom, Boston University has a good explanation of getting feedback using this model. And here is an approach on using the model for team building from Retruim.

Featured Image Photo by Tommy Lisbin on Unsplash

References

Awwad, A. & Bali, M. (2017, May 25). Patch nine: Shifting your design of assessments. Retrieved from https://facultypatchbook.wordpress.com/2017/05/25/patch-nine-shifting-your-design-of-assessments/

May 17, 2018

It’s a beach party!

Dear friend,

You came to the Extend West kickoff, but I can’t find you! Maybe you don’t like water! Maybe all this talk of dipping your toes in or getting submerged is too much and a cannonball??? No way! That’s okay, just grab a towel, spread it out on the sand and watch! And when you are ready, let us know you are here.

I know you are already busy. I know this seems strange and unstructured. I thought Twitter was stupid too. But seriously, this Extending stuff is fun! It’s a beach party! Here’s how you can come out on the sand:

Get or open your twitter account.
In the search box, type Ontario Extend, click on Ontario Extend to go to their twitter page – click on the follow button.
Go back to the search box, type #ExtendWest, click on #ExtendWest to see the posts that contain that hashtag and click on the names of some of the posters to follow them.
Log in once or twice a day and see what Ontario Extend and the Extenders you have followed are doing!
Watch for the Daily Extend. Search the #oext tag with the number to see what others have tweeted in response. Follow them. Click the heart button if you like it.
When you see one that peeks your curiosity, try it. Tweet it to @OntarioExtend.
Navigate over to the Extend West blogs, read a few. They are both informative and FUN!

Come out from the shade, and join us on the beach! The weather is fine! And you can stay out of the water if you want to.

Featured Image: Photo by Ash Edmonds on Unsplash

May 17, 2018

Crossing the threshold from peer lecturer to peer tutor

peer tutor

When we begin to work with students who are hired to be peer tutors, one of the barriers we must cross is the false idea that tutors teach. When I ask which courses they would like to tutor, I hear: “I want to teach math.” And what they usually mean “teach” in the sense of an expert who will explain the topics to a novice. This is the lecture part of teaching: I know it so I am going to tell you so that you will know it too or I know how to do it so I will show you and after you watch me, you will be able to do it too. Many first-time tutors are surprised to find out that the best tutoring sessions are where the tutor says very little and the student does all the talking and where the student holds the pencil or controls the mouse.

Tutor do need to have excellent knowledge of the course material and do need to be able to explain concepts and demonstrate skills but that is a small part of what a tutor should be doing in a tutoring session. Good tutors move from being a lecturer and demonstrator to acting as a facilitator and guide. They need to understand that tutoring is more about questioning and listening than speaking. This is the threshold concept that tutors need to work through.

Once you pass through that threshold, you can’t go back. You sit down with a student and start asking, what do you understand now about this material, where are you getting stuck, what questions do you have, what have you tried? Show me your text, your notes, your materials. Walk me through the problem you are struggling with. This is the blind spot.

Even as I write this, it is hard for me to explain the transformation that happens. So, in tutor training, I talk about tools and techniques. These are the smaller skills that lead to tutoring instead of lecturing. I use the example of tutoring Math and begin with the idea that the tutor should put down the pencil and the whiteboard marker. The student begins the problem while the tutor observes. Not the other way around. The tutor listens for confusion, missed steps and misinformation.

To ease tutors into this practice, I recommend they use the Simulated Instruction Model*, a technique I first learned in my study of Learning Strategies and Assistive Technology for student with disabilities.

After identifying a math problem, the student finds challenging, the tutor works through a similar problem (because we don’t do student’s homework). As they are working through the problem, they must say out loud everything they are thinking as they tackle the problem. They must make real their internal thought process. They talk out every step to solving the problem.

Then the student starts the same problem and they are asked to say out loud everything they are thinking and the tutor listens intently looking for missed steps, missing knowledge or concepts that have been misunderstood. The tutor and student can then discuss the errors in thinking, if any and in some cases, the tutor can identify the missing knowledge and help the student develop a prop. For example, the student may have forgotten about order of operations. The tutor can reintroduce BEDMAS (Brackets, exponents, division, multiplication, addition, subtraction) and invite the student to create a prop by writing BEDMAS and an explanation of their own on an index card.

The student then attempts a new similar problem with the prop visible on the desk still working out loud while the tutor listens and guides if needed. The student can try this problem or the first again until successful. When the student is successful, they attempt a third similar problem. The student is encouraged to turn the prop over and only access it when needed.

This process is very effective for tutoring math and is also very effective for moving a tutor from an expert lecturing/demonstration mode to a facilitator and guide mode. It can be used in a group setting as well where students solve problem together with the guidance of a tutor by having the students, in turn, up at the whiteboard solving the problems instead of just watching the tutor do it.

*Note about Simulated Instruction Model (SIM), I do not have a citation for this model. I have search the internet for more information about SIM and where it came from to no avail. Perhaps I am remember it wrong. If anyone has insight, please let me know so that I can credit this.

This post is in response to Ontario Extend’s Teaching for Learning Module’s Blindspot Extent Activity.

May 16, 2018

It’s a beautiful day in the neighbourhood!

As I am growing my PLN on Twitter, I am breaking a known social convention. Just because you follow me, I am not following you back. In order to get my follow-back, you must have something worthwhile to offer me, unless you are a cat. Cats always get follow-backs.

I need there to be a reason to follow you (or your organization). You have to fit into one of my LISTS on twitter, you need to belong to a ‘hood! New people I am meeting through Ontario Extend belong in one list. These may be folks involved in #ExtendWest or folks recommended by Extenders. That along with Education – Organizations is my Professional Development School of Awesomeness, if you will.

The St. Clair College list is my work, Vaping Advocates is my political interest and Chatham-Kent is my local news. Opinions of Interest is a group of people who are famous in some way but that is not why I am following them. Each has a different perspective on life and the world that they share that is beyond tabloid nonsense. I may be a fan of their work, but I follow them to read their ideas.

Finally, I think everyone should occasionally stop and pet the cats. Or smell the flowers, or run with dogs, or watch a sunset… a little lightness and humour give you some balance in your neighbourhood.

I want to shift out the noise and nonsense of twitter and keep it meaningful.

P.S. I used Snag-it from TechSmith to take the picture and add the monster stamps. I purchased this using their Student/Education pricing policy which was reasonable. I would recommend this tool.