Reading and writing – and learning, always
learning! Keeping up with literature and scholarly thought in one’s area is an
important part of doing research and writing about that area. During my quickly
dwindling sabbatical I had goals of doing both, and I have to an extent. I have
a number of books and articles in my reading pile, and while I would like to do
more, I read when I can. I also like to read a novel, usually just before
bedtime as a way to relax and escape: mostly mystery thrillers or science fiction.
Keeping up with blog posts, research articles, and books can take lots of time,
since reflection and thinking is also part of the process.
This week has been a good one for reading
that has provoked thinking. Here are a few of those ideas.
One book I am reading now is by my friend George Couros. George has skyped in to
several of my classes over the years, and he is always thought provoking and
interesting, so I delved into his book The Innovator’s Mindset. In a chapter I recently read, George talks
about engagement and empowerment. He discussed how we have dwelt on the idea of
engagement, but less so on empowerment. George makes the case that teachers
should not only engage students, but also engage them by empowering them. One
way we can do that is by extending trust, something I wrote about in my article
in HybridPedagogy. So, when we talk about
engagement, perhaps the best way to do that through the empowerment of
learners.
A few days ago I came across a brilliant article/post
by Bonnie Stewart about the
Internet as a hybrid “third place/space”. Bonnie always provokes thinking and
writes so well, and this article was no exception. Bonnie writes, “the
dominant narrative tends more towards essentializing the face-to-face and
reducing the digital to instrumental, task-based impersonality, rather than
recognizing it as a human space with all the potential – educative and destructive,
both – that that implies.” This was a great read and an interesting
exploration of the Internet as a place for connecting, meeting, and learning
with others.
Anotherpost, this one by Dave Cormier
(coincidentally, Bonnie’s husband), was about resilience as related to the idea
of rhizomatic learning. One thing that I found interesting, perhaps because of
talk about course syllabi and outcomes in my faculty, was “learning
subjectives”, rather than objectives. When talking about subjectives, Cormier
asks, how can we “design for learning when we don’t know where we are going?”
Interesting to think about, I wonder if outcomes (if we will have to have them in our syllabi) can
be stated in such a way to become learning subjectives? I will have to attempt
to include learning subjectives in my syllabi, especially since I do think our
learning should take us into uncharted territory. The ideas about rhizomatic
learning dovetail nicely with some of the ideas in this post, by Jeff Noonan (that I
had put into ‘pocket’ awhile back) that argues against outcomes in higher
education.
Lots to think about. It is great to be able
to learn by roaming about this ‘third space’ and explore new thoughts and
ideas, and the great thing is that most of these posts contain links to other
good stuff to read and reflect on.
