This is Lynda Banks signing on to recap this week’s 800-2 class. As usual, it was a very interesting class—even though it started off with a test.
The test/quiz
Before the actual test, we reviewed a student-designed online series of quizzes using multiple-choice questions that covered the topics we have learned so far. It was designed with instant feedback: a green “Well done” box, or a red “This is the wrong answer, try again” box. I did not find this quiz to be aligned with the actual test we took, but it gave us another take on the interpretation of the material.
On the “real” test, there were 20 questions divided into three categories:
1) Several multiple choice
2) About 6-7 fill-in-the-blank
3) One “give an example”
The test gave us empathy for the learners for whom we are designing instruction. This week we will have the opportunity to design our own exam questions, so it was a useful experience to have taken an actual test before creating our own exam.
Communities of practice
The focus of the class discussion was situated cognition and its implications for instruction. Dr. Foreman reviewed the results of this week’s assignment that asked us to describe our own Communities of Learning/Practice, our place within them, and our learning trajectories. The results were fascinating, further revealing (in addition to the digital storytelling) what a well-rounded class we have:
Insiders and inbound:
- Jen Bamesberger is an “insider” in her contra dance community. She explained contra dancing with its spinning and jumping, and about the interaction of the participants.
- Dan Dworkin has been an insider for some time in the extreme sport of mountainboarding (a fast-growing sport worldwide). He has been a competitor, teacher, and events organizer on the national and international level. Since many of us did not know about the sport, Dan explained it to us and issued an invitation for us to join him in Snowmass, Colorado next summer for lessons.
- Ben Burling was previously an insider in the car-modification community and is now an insider at his company, having moved into a senior position where he is now mentoring others.
- Marshall Taxer is an insider in his company in the area of standards and compliance. In this company there are many “lone rangers” and forming a community of practice is not always easy.
- Michelle Gilkey is an insider in her company that is a network of computer consultants. There the community has formed easily and people readily share info and ideas.
- Cecile Lelievre is an insider in the metalsmith community. She is a goldsmith who creates her own jewelry in addition to being active in the association and publishing and updating various websites.
- Jana Rathman has been, and remains, an insider in the now-defunct startup company Epiphany, that created marketing analytics products. Even though Epiphany no longer exists, Jana receives calls to do consulting on the products and, now that she is taking instructional design courses, has been asked to develop training. So, she has been outbound in this community but is still a participant. Currently she participates in an online community of high school parents.
- Lynda Banks is an insider in a couple of non-profit organizations and is inbound in the sport of modern pentathlon (fencing, horse jumping, running, swimming, shooting) because her teenage daughter has been training at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs and aspires to compete in the Olympics.
- John Gulixson is the parent of small children and so is trying to remain on the periphery of his communities. However, his wife is a recruiter and John finds himself becoming an insider the recruiting community where he is teaching and designing courses for different types of job centers
- Carol John is inbound to becoming an insider in the ITEC community because she has already taken eight ITEC courses. Dr. Foreman clarified for us that to be a real insider in the ITEC community, a student must donate time to the department and contribute to the instructional design field.
- Karen Giehler is a busy teacher who is trying to be outbound in her school community where she has been involved on several levels including curriculum committees.
- Dr. Foreman is attempting to be outbound in the Korean community where she has been very active as a volunteer.
- Cecile Lelievre is outbound in the martial arts community of taekwando, however she still updates their website.
- Marshall Taxer and his wife are outbound in the organization Canine Companions for Independence. Last week we saw in his digital story just how involved they were when he described caring for litters of rambunctious puppies!
- Dan Dworkin is outbound as an English and History teacher. He is now a Tech teacher but he still mentors the English and History teachers a few times each week.
Dan compared being outbound to a 12-step program where you have to remove yourself from the context where you were an insider. Dr. Foreman described how the university handles outbound professors who are about to retire. They are put on a 5-year outbound path where they are not required to attend meetings and thus become less and less of an insider.
How does one assess whether a person is outbound, or an insider?
- Look at the relationships with others in the community. Is the person viewed as an expert?
- Survey people in the field to see who is considered an insider/expert
- Observe who is giving presentations, writing articles for newsletters, speaking
- Look at the person’s portfolio of work
- Evaluate the person’s contribution to the organization
We discussed the roll of the instructor, learning outcomes, and the role of the learner. The primary job of the learner is to have a goal and to actively participate—it is a community of “practice.” With today’s explosion of knowledge, we must rely more and more on our communities because it is increasingly difficult to possess all the knowledge ourselves that we need for projects.
Component Displacement Theory (CDT)
Dr. Forman presented the matrix developed by David Merrill, a student of Gagné, that explains how learners use knowledge. The x-axis progressed from Fact, Concept, Procedure, to Principle. The y-axis began at Remember and went to Use, then Discover. She instructed us to consider Merrill’s Component Theory when creating our quiz questions for next week.
Final Class Project
Dr. Foreman will post the criteria along with examples of former projects. In the meantime, be thinking about possible topics. We will write lesson plans considering all the theories we have covered, and synthesize them to develop our own learning theory.
The final class is December 12, so we have 3 class sessions plus the presentations on the 12th. There is no class on Nov 19, the week of Thanksgiving. Next week Susan Cline will be here to teach us about creating a wiki.
See you next week, Lynda Banks
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