Worth Repeating: Tim Minchin’s Commencement Address

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GRAD038At a time when many have just finished either high school, or something in higher ed, this is worth watching.

More than once.

“Published on 3 Oct 2013
Comedian-musician Tim Minchin addresses graduates at the University of Western Australia where he was presented with an Honorary Doctor of Letters Degree. Minchin is a graduate of UWA. Note: the video has been slightly edited from the full-length version for brevity.”

Here they are, in brief:

  1. You don’t have to have a dream.
  2. Don’t seek happiness.
  3. Remember, it’s all luck.
  4. Exercise.
  5. Be hard on your opinions.
  6. Be a teacher.
  7. Define yourself by what you love.
  8. Respect people with less power than you.
  9. Don’t rush.
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How to Re-Teach Something

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lookThis post is a further exploration of the “How do we re-teach something?” question raised in a previous post.

Suppose, for whatever reason, you (the teacher) realize your students didn’t understand something you have already ‘covered’. What should you do?

  1. Ignore it and conclude that those people don’t deserve to be here if they didn’t get it the first time. to my mind, this is NOT acceptable, but I know more than a few people who do it.
  2. Repeat yourself. – not as effective as we’d like, but does sometimes work.
  3. Draw pictures.
  4. Enlist help from class members who do get it.
  5. Have them explain what they DO know – maybe there is a simple misunderstanding early on that messes up what comes after.

The LAST thing you should do is conclude they just aren’t smart or motivated enough to get it.

ALWAYS start off assuming that they didn’t get it because YOU didn’t present it in a way that worked for them.

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Personalized Learning: Accommodation or Pandering?

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It seems to be one of the “in” things right now. What does it really mean? Is it always a good thing? How can it be implemented in a way that is meaningful?

What Do We Really Mean When We Say ‘Personalized Learning’? | MindShift | KQED News.

What does it really mean?

According to this article, some people think that personalized learning is letting the student go through a prescribed set of activities or work at their own pace. I agree with the article that this isn’t really it. What they are describing is more in line with Programmed Instruction, although it’s still missing the actual personalized part. That would require assessing the student and only requiring them to do those parts that they need to (I talk about a variety of different kinds of instruction in my upcoming book).

According to the article:

(A) truly personalized learning experience requires student choice, is individualized, meaningful and resource rich.

Apparently, THIS is personalized learning:

 

So, personalized learning is about learning how I want, what I want, when I want, where I want and why I want.

Is it always a good thing?

I would say no. Allowing for a considerable degree of variability, sure. Allowing for this approach sometimes, also sure. But one thing I have learned in my 35+ years of teaching: most of us don’t know what we don’t know. Sounds obvious right? But think about it. If students are given too much control of and choice over their own learning, we are likely to end up with a generation that is even more selfish (and therefor less empathetic) than they are now. We can’t afford that.

How can it be implemented in a way that is meaningful?

  1. Be clear on what is important in learning. It is fine to say that students need to learn certain things. Be sure you understand why they need to learn this and what it is good for.
  2. You choose the endpoint, but let them choose how to get there. Be prepared to help them along.
  3. The younger or less experienced the student, the more guidance they may need, but be prepared to back off when they demonstrate that they can do it.
  4. Set the standard. You need to decide what constitutes ‘good enough’.  By all means help go beyond what is required when they want to, but you must also make sure they meet the minimum standards (and that those standards make sense).
  5. Be an example. Don’t ever make your students do something you wouldn’t do yourself.
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Why does formal education always seem to think that anything new is better than what came before?

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Apparently learning to print and write is no longer important after grade one. the focus will be on keyboarding.

Why? Did anyone give any serious thought to what we might lose by not teaching people how to write by hand? As it turns out, we could be losing something important.

What’s Lost as Handwriting Fades – The New York Times.

Turns out learning to print has a different effect from learning to write, and that BOTH are important.

Why do we keep doing this? Why do we automatically assume that anything new must be better than anything old when it comes to education. We are forever dumping existing knowledge and skills and techniques and replacing them  whatever is new and shiny and ‘cool’ without understanding the benefits of either.

That doesn’t make any sense.

We’ve tossed out the teaching of Latin. Sure, no-one speaks Latin anymore, but what do we lose when we only learn one language?

What do we lose when we no longer memorize anything? Is it really just as good to be able to look things up? How is our thinking, our creativity changed when we have long passages of prose or Shakespeare memorized in our heads?

Did anyone bother to find out?

We are in such a rush to embrace all things new that we too seldom look at what we are really doing. We should.

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Types of Game Perspectives | Mozzastryl

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For anyone who’s ever wondered what it means for a game to be 1st person, isometric, top-down, etc, here’s a handy illustrated guide:

Types of Game Perspectives | Mozzastryl.

Here are some simplified images:perspective-sideview2perspective-isometric2

perspective-topdown2

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21st Century Tech: Is it harder or easier to become informed?

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girl2I’ve been pondering this for some time now.

It is easier now than ever before in history to get your word out there. This blog is an excellent example. All I need is a little bit of computer knowledge and to have access to one. I don’t need to know the first thing about how any of it works, and so long as I have access to some public space that lets me use their computer (like a library) I don’t need to own anything.

Anyone with these two qualifications can now broadcast their ideas and opinions to the whole world. I’m not sure that’s necessarily a good thing. Now, I’m absolutely NOT in favour of censorship, but at the same time, I also think that not all opinions are of equal value.

“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”

-Isaac Asimov

What if people actually had to know something about the technology they used before they were able to use it?

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Why Don’t Universities Hire Half-Time Faculty?

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Picture17I blogged about sessionals earlier this month and the claim was that sessionals (adjuncts) are sessionals because they don’t want tenure track positions.

It may be true for some, but it’s certainly not true for all of us, and it may not even be true for most of us.

Some of the sessionals I know would love to have full-time, tenure-track jobs. Some want positions that include research, but others don’t. Many of them love teaching but aren’t really interested in spending 2/3 of their time trying to get grants so they can do research (that likely won’t be seen by anyone after the grant runs out). It’s a real shame that so few universities recognize the value of people who are dedicated to teaching and the scholarship that goes with that.

Others – and I fall into this category – actually want something most universities don’t seem to know how to do: tenure-track (or at least long-term) part-time positions. I’m talking about 1/2 year full-time (i.e. 6 months), or full-year 1/2 time (i.e. 5 full days every 2 weeks). I’ve never understood why universities don’t do this (unless it’s simply b/c they can use sessionals instead). Anyone who has ever worked 1/2 time can tell you that the company always wins – they always get more than 1/2 time.

I have a pretty impressive publication record if I do say so myself, I am a pretty good teacher and a great instructional designer. I also watched first my only brother, and then four months later my mother die of cancer four years ago. My brother was only 56 and was just getting ready to start doing the things he had always wanted to (he was a musician) – and then he was diagnosed with leiomyosarcoma. He was dead less than a year later. My mom has been diagnosed with breast cancer, and although she was doing OK, I think losing her son was more than she could bear- she died less than four months later. My dad died when I was 12, so that left only me. It has changed my perspective on life, and how tenuous it can be. As a result, I want to balance my time between the various things I love – only one of which is teaching.

I’m pretty sure I’m not the only academic who wants a part-time position. Universities are missing out on some stellar talent. It’s a shame they don’t seem to care.

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Valuing a Job Well Done

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You know how chance or fleeting encounters with people who cross your path can sometimes leave a lasting impression? The man who drove the forklift at the local feed store has become a symbol in our household. He is a reminder that pride in one’s work is something to respect and to strive for – REGARDLESS of the nature of the work.

gargoyle1_wmI have a farm – with animals. This means that I need to buy feed for my animals on a regular basis. For a number of years we bought our feed at the nearby Co-Op feed mill. I would back my truck up to the loading dock doors, go into the office, place my order, and by the time I got back to my truck the feed was neatly loaded into my truck. It was always right, and the counts were always exact (I would buy 20-40 bags at a time). The guy who loaded the bags into my truck used to drive around the warehouse at breakneck speeds on his forklift. His speeds were such that if he miscalculated even a little, he would crash into something. He never did. He was GOOD. He was also happy, friendly, and polite. ALWAYS. This job helped pay his bills and he appreciated that. And I always left feeling happier for having talked to him. He taught me (and I passed this on to my kids) that people who take pride in their work and do it well deserve our respect. This is true no matter what they are doing.

Who are we to judge people on the basis of the kind of job they are doing?

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