Talk:Colleen's Portfolio Page

Student beliefs and approach to learning -- Jianwei Zhang 16:40, 4 March 2009 (EST)

I'm impressed by the work you've done so far especially your survey and analysis.

As you've found out from your survey, what has prevented students from engaging in productive classroom discussions/inquiries is not (merely) the specific conversation skills but their understanding of the classroom (culture) in terms of what they are expected to do, when and how to talk, what's their role, etc. So it is about their belief of and approach to learning, which I mentioned earlier in emails.

Here are a few references you may want to read: [http://ctiwebct.york.ac.uk/LTSNPsych/Specialist/Norton/Introduction.htm] [http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=main.doiLanding&uid=1997-07777-003 [http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~sfinger/raire/report/schommer.html]]

Re. Intent, you said: "It is the intent of this mini-course to help secondary students learn how to become involved in class by utilizing these four strategies: active involvement, social integration, self-reflection, and personal validation” (On Course Workshop, 2000)." I think you need to highlight how this course will help teachers who need to understand this topic themselves, so they can help their students to use this course to re-understand learning and develop a deep approach to learning. So teachers should be your target learners, and you will further provide them with lesson plans (and survey tools) they can use with their students.

Re. your ICM -- Jianwei Zhang 21:42, 27 March 2009 (EDT)

I'm fascinated by the outline of your mini-course. It looks very interesting and informative, and properly sequenced!

Two issues for you to consider:

(1) Your unit 1 currently begins with teaching specific learning skills/strategies. To make these skills more meaningful to students and provide students with an "organizer," it would be helpful if you start with helping students re-understand what it means to be a deep, active, and collaborative learner. The references I suggested u earlier may help you in this regard.

(2)I'd love to see all the units fully developed, although I'm a bit worry that you may not have enough time to do everything you've mapped out. So you may think about the possibility of further narrowing down. For example, you may think about addressing the skills in your unit 1 only very briefly related information finding and evaluation and concept mapping and provide external links/resources. Then you can focus more on units 2-3.