Chunking is starting to make more sense to me as a facilitator. I have
benefited from chunked instruction, but have not been conscientious
about chunking instruction for my students. I knew that some of my
instruction via video that had short videos say 3-6 minutes was very
appealing, but the readings brought more understanding about the good
reasons for chunking. So motivating, that I have started to put more
intentional planning into chunking some of my course materials for my
future students.
Adapting is really helpful. I am trying to do as much as I can to
possible take advantage of adapting existing content to my brand new
courses in manufacturing. In fact I can see how this is already
benefiting me. Those courses I find more options for material already
developed are being easier to put together than those where I have to
develop stuff from scratch or from barely existing content sources.
Yes, IP and fair use, these are big ones. My last job at West Point
was one where the concepts are almost like the "10 commandments". The
academy has a very strong emphasis on intellectual property rights and
everything associated with it. I had a chance to meet with some
experts the institution brought to mentor faculty and students about
this topic. I little bit extreme I thought, but it makes sense to
emphasize such and important topic when you think about the rule the
graduates will have as future leaders in society. They take things so
serious as far as intellectual property that a student is dismissed from
the academy if found s(he) has broken any of the rules associated with
the IP code.
I am curious how strict things are at Dordt and if there are
instances of penalizing students or faculty for breaking intellectual
property laws.
Oscar,
ReplyDeleteI responded to your last question about fair use of materials in the Discussion Forum for Module 5. Your points about chunking materials make a lot of sense. The readings for this week also surprised me in terms of students only retaining around 7 main concepts per time. I think I grew up in a different time where many, many concepts had to be memorized, and somehow we did! Apparently, the attention span of students is decreasing over time, and obviously education will have to deal with this in order to get anything across.
I'm curious to learn more about your time at West Point, especially in terms of teaching. How are your experiences in terms of student concentration and retention?
Leendert and Oscar;
DeleteMarshall McLuhan suggests that culture follows the formation of the communication media it uses. If we consider how the internet is shaping us with multiple windows open at one time and social media sound bites constantly interrupting us, it stands to reason that 7 minutes might be generous. We are an always changing people, and I think you're right. Our attention spans have decreased dramatically. I am the first to say that this is probably a bad thing - but I am curious what can we do to adapt to this new phenomena within our student body? I can't help but assume that some form of online integration/learning has to be involved. Your thoughts?
The question now is: Shall we give in to the ever decreasing attention span of students or is there anything we can/should do about it. It seems to me that public education has intentionally done its part to dumb the populus down. This has always been a tool to make people less "rebellious" and more compliant. Anyway, the question is whether we can meet the students where the are and still stretch their minds a little bit. When I was a student we were constantly overwhelmed but we survived and it helped learning to be disciplined in our minds.
ReplyDeleteThere are still situations, I am thinking graduate school, medical school, vet school, where they still have expectations of a lot of memorization and long times of required attention. Now not all students would have to be prepared for that but it is probably a good idea to expect all students to have some experience with that. I can think of other job situations where the same is required. A somewhat related situation is the lack of ability to do mental math. So accommodations should probably be made but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be stretched out of their comfort zone as well as the faculty.
ReplyDelete