This morning “Tomorrow’s Professor” Newsletter discussed a survey of the current status of graduate engineering distance education at leading US engineering schools. This is an issue near and dear to my heart as I commute 192 miles each way for classes. Since Purdue does offer distance learning courses for graduate engineering classes, I had hoped to be able to take advantage of these offerings. However, I soon discovered that this was not the case. The engineering distance learning classes that are offered through Purdue are not available to other engineering graduate students unless we wish to pay a significant premium for taking these courses. At this point, this is a significant barrier to me.

I will be very curious to see the results of this survey. I am curious to see if all of the programs are online programs only or if they are combination of distance and traditional brick and mortar classrooms. I believe that there are multiple ways to engage in meaningful learning situations. I am also curious to see if the distance programs offer similar or different degrees to that of the homeschool. Will an online degree have equal weight to the traditional degree? Are these schools using the online programs to generate cash for their home institutions or is the money going directly back into building the online program?

I have found that on-line learning environments have encouraged me to be more reflective. I have time to really think about my responses and engage in conversations at optimal times for me. In addition, e-learning is much more responsive to my needs as an adult learner.

I was so disappointed to discover that the Purdue engineering distance program would not allow me to enroll in their classes without a significant cost for each course. I hope that eventually, they will change their minds and see the advantage of making the classes available to all Purdue engineering students. By making the online classes inclusive rather the exclusive, I believe it will strengthen all of our experience. Working graduate students will gain exposure to people engaged in an academic research environment and vice versa. This is beneficial to all. I also believe it will still be beneficial to the bottom line…

From:

Distance Education Offered by Leading U.S. Schools of Engineering. Addressing Change: A Survey (July 2010)

For a copy of the report go to www.croyassoc.net.

Engineering synthesis

I thought I would share some of how I organized the synthesis of the "what is engineering" readings. I am currently working on a similar diagram for the "what is engineering education" essay. I am having a difficult time bounding the work so it is manageable. Any thoughts?

a different kind of data, PhD comic strips!

In case you are stuck on your essays and papers this week, here is a link to an example of using PhD comic strips as examples of dicussion points. I make no representations as to its quality just to the uniqueness of the approach. When you are stuck, as I was stuck on an essay until i talked with Ruthie this morning, whatever works to get the juices flowing might be considered an option.

https://blackboard.purdue.edu/webct/urw/lc4614621886031.tp4708705173151/displayContentPage.dowebct?pageID=5346537813121&resetBreadcrumb=false&displayBCInsideFrame=true

This link goes to the Methods section of Inquiry in the folder for Narrrative Presentation, Methods presentation number 6, the file labeled Narrative research_comics .

In any case listening again to 106 yr old Ann Nixon Cooper, the living example of narrative research at Spellman College from our Narrative Research discussion, is a great treat on any day of the week.
Here is the Youtube link to Ann,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95hAIlwyY78
Good writing and Youtubing this week.
dan

your first graduate student holiday joke-to lighten your mood for dead week

A man in Scotland calls his son at Cambridge in graduate school the day before Christmas Eve and says,
"I hate to ruin your day but I have to tell you that your mother and I are divorcing; forty-five years of misery is enough".
"Dad, what are you talking about?'" the son screams.
"We can't stand the sight of each other any longer", the father says.   "We're sick of each other and I'm sick of talking about this, so you call your sister at the University of Edinburgh, and tell her".
Frantically, the son calls his sister, who explodes on the phone, "Like hell they're getting divorced", she  shouts, "I'll take care of this". 
She calls home immediately and screams at her father, "You are NOT getting divorced. Don't do a single thing until I get there. I'm calling my brother back and we'll both be there tomorrow. Until then, don't do a thing,  DO YOU HEAR ME?"and hangs up.

The man hangs up his phone and turns to his wife.
"Done! They're coming for Christmas - and they're paying their own way." 

happy graduate student holidays!

Reflection Post: Dr. David Lubinski Seminar: Study of Mathematical Precious Youth (SMPY)

Last Thursday I was able to hear a seminar by Dr. David Lubinski. He is an American Psychologist at Vanderbilt University. I was very impressed by his presentation in terms of his research question and delivery of his "message" aka findings.

I will first summarize what his he presented and than give my reactions to the presentation.

Intro and overview:

The Study of Mathematical Precious Youth (SMPY) a longitudinal study of five cohorts that total about 5000 participants that were recruited from 1972 till-1997. These individuals were identified as high achievers around 13 years old based on their high mathematical achievements. They were in the top 1% of the mathematical reasoning ability and most were scoring at the max of SAT and IQ test at early ages. These students could learn at a faster rate and were different intellectual from the population of people that were outside of the 1% achievement standard.

The research question that he studied and discussed with us was, within these top 1% of achievers were their any differences both intellectually (mathematics, spatial and verbal abilities) and non intellectual attributes (interest and personality).

Findings (I do not recall this in details but invite others who attended to fill the gaps):

1. there was a consistent difference in that all had higher spatial ability that their verbal ability

2. The higher achievers in math tended to have even higher variation in their spatial abilities

There was a graph the he should to represent were STEM students were relative to the spatial ability and other variables (I'm not able to recall in detail). But I think STEM are more aware of objects and things than those in Humanity.

3. In terms of motivation the high achievers worked long hours were willing to work long hour hours than required. They were motivated by the work they preformed.

(Again for those there please add what you recalled, it would be nice to have the presentation emailed to us)

My reactions:

1. HUGE BOUNDARY WORK: In 1972 who was the population of people even prepared to take a test such as the SATs. And now that there is this boundary of 1% how does this help the other 99% of people who a the majority of people in society.

I enjoyed that the message of human capitol trumps the need for inclusiveness and generalizability. What do I mean by this? Well he mentioned also as part of the results that these 1% can be beneficial to society. According to his data these people in general obtain more patents, publish more papers and just produce more in terms of what we measure as achievements today.

He highlighted the need to understand that these 1% may not all be achieving according to these standards of human capital to date. Some maybe in community service projects making societal impacts that can not be quantified by patents and journal publications.

But where is the other 99%. Is he saying that anyone with high spacial ability is capable of having the qualities he identified in the 1%? I was lost there.

2. Again lots of good stuff that I will try to recall. Another great point was the relationship of knowledge acquisition and motivation. I enjoyed the quote he shared by William James (1890) Principles of Psychology: "Millions of items of outward order are present to my senses which never enter into my experience. Why? Because they have no interest for me. My experience is what I agree to attend to. Only those items I notice shape my mine - without selective interest, experience would be utter chaos"

What an interesting quote! If William James can say this in 1980 what implication does that have for students and learners today that have many things pulling their attentions and all in the palm of their hands sometimes. Also what about does who are in low social economic standing and have to be more attentive to dealing with the basic needs of food and shelter. What types of things miss there awareness?

For me I think about my interest in engineering and my experiences and how because I never really understand engineering as a social construct it made some portions of my learning very challenging. But I wonder if there was any other why to learn without those experiences. The help trained by selection of thoughts and reframe my view of engineering.

Incomplete thoughts on what is education

Introduction

Education serves to transition knowledge with a purpose in mind. There are objectives for both the institutions of education, the policy makers, the students and parents. Noddings helps to provide an over view of the phisolophies of education historically and how it still influences the traditions in education today. In providing some of the history of philosophy she demonstrates also how influential they are in shaping today’s system of education in the United States.

Who should be educated? The answer has a strong relationship to what people believe is the aim of education

Noddings points out that most people believe that everyone should be educated. However, this question is not simple to answer without taking into account the aims of education. One example is the message where “strong students in math and science” should be educated to be science and engineering focused professions. This indirectly predetermines who gets encouraged or "educated" as an engineer or scientist. The weaker students maybe weaker because of lack of interest, motivation, misinterpretations, or the existing teaching methods?

Should education differ according to the natural interest and abilities of the student? what implications does this have to the current structure today?

What are other aspect of knowing?

Abla explores this point by examining ontology, the theory of how we become, in the contents of learning. This also informs the decision of policy makers influencing who gets admission into a educational program based standards of what they define to be part of being successful at that institution or in the related field.

How should people be educated? Should we only examine the epistemology of education and what role does ontology play in the learning and teaching practice.

The philosophies of Socrates and Plato resonate most to me when think back on the policies and practices in place today. (Trying to relate and find quotes of)

How is the learner than informed on what he or she should know and how can they apply what they have learned. Is teaching what we know overshadowing the need to understand and teach who we “become” who we are?

If we are to fully understand a knowing within various forms of professional practice, we must understand the being of those who know- Alba pg 35

The gap in teaching and practice: When did this gap or divide occur/became more apparent?

The apprenticeship system, developed in the late middle ages between 1307- 1485, was a system where students would study a trade under an expert in the craft, an apprentice). Than there was a change in society that required a system where more students could study a trade and in less time. (There is and always will be social-economic influences in educational practices)

What role should policy makers play in education?

How should stake holders be informed and understand the philosophies of education? How do you change someone's views without making them feel offended? Especially when their practices are normal to the academic society they are work? And the system of reward is not their to encourage adaptive teaching techniques.

Dall'Alba, G. (2009). "Learning Professional Ways of Being." Educational Philosophy and Theory 41(1): 3445.

Noddings, N. (2007). Philosophy of Education. Boulder, Westview Press.

Belated Post on Active Learning

Back at the end of September, I attended a workshop lead by Charles Bonwell along with other members of the class. The weight of work kept pressing this post into the background, but I think even now there is a good deal of relevancy to our current discussions in class, especially last week.

There are a few things I want to say about active learning itself; Tatiana did a good job summarizing a lot of the major points Prof. Bonwell made at the workshop though so I won't spend a lot of time on this, because there is something else I'd like to explore. First, for those who aren't familiar, active learning is a learning mode that engages students in activities, discussions, and other forms of participation--in contrast to to listening to a lecture and perhaps asking questions by raising ones hand. Prof. Bonwell himself had been a history teacher, and near the beginning of the lecture he noted that bringing active learning into the classroom did not mean relegating more "passive" lecture like modes of learning to the past. Some topics are better delivered via lectures and sometimes other constraints like time may play a factor into whether active or "passive" learning may be used. He also asked attendees for examples or suggestions for active learning exercises. A number of different things were brought up like small group activities or question and answer sessions, but other interesting ones I hadn't considered before came up like role playing. We were then asked to split into groups and discuss some methods we might employ. Thinking about the many roles an engineer may potentially take, and how there is a push for including more direct educational experiences about this future workplace reality, I talked about having an exercise where my fictional engineering students would break into groups and take on different stakeholder roles in an engineering project. Given some background information on how each stakeholder may operate during an engineering project, the group could interact with itself about some fictional project. Not only would students benefit from taking on roles other than engineers, they would be able to see others acting out various roles, a faint ersatz of what they may later encounter if they enter industry. Perhaps this sounds far fetched but I found the prospect of such an activity intriguing.

That was supposed to be a short point, however clearly that goal was lost. Nevertheless, something else that really interested me about the presentation was how Prof. Bonwell actually ran the presentation. In a post not too long ago I talked about a professional development meeting I attended that was essentially a passive lecture to a captive audience. Of course this audience, for Prof. Bonwell's talk, selected to go, but the organization of the presentation was very different. From the beginning we were involved in different activities. At first he asked us to talk with our neighbors about why we attended. Then he asked the whole room for suggestions on what we wanted to learn. Here he did something interesting. He listed our various interests and talked about them, but then also went to highlight some things he thought were important about active learning, and he later went on to talk about those. I didn't realize it at the time, but in reflecting it seems he pulled a risky "teaching" move by allowing input from the "students" while still suggesting what content or topics we should cover. I don't know how much he changed what he presented from our input, he did address some points quite explicitly, but he also seemed to want to hit some major ideas about active learning. In fact later on we discussed in small groups and then "reported out" major roadblocks to the incorporation of active learning in the classroom. One of the major issues that he brought up and we discussed was the problem of teachers feeling like they had to give up part of their authority if they engaged in active learning. Whether this is a good or a bad thing is up for debate. But this incident where he asked for input but gently pushed us in a somewhat different direction (which he did at another time as well) seemed to show, intentionally or not (my guess is it was intentional, just not explicit) how a teacher can make a class more active without completing "giving" the class to the student body present.

There is a lot more I could talk about the style of the presentation, but I wanted to contrast this presentation with the professional development presentation I went to that I mentioned earlier. As the reader might guess, I found the presentation by Prof. Bonwell more engaging. But I think the point made above--about balancing active learning and passive learning--and his own discussion about working active learning in different ways provide a counterpoint to my own argument in my last post. To summarize very briefly, I noted given the constraints on professors in terms of time, they may resist changing teaching practices merely out of practical reasons. I think Prof. Bonwell makes a case that even small changes can be made to the more common modes of teaching that will make the classroom more engaging for students--it doesn't require the very detailed set of activities he set up for his own presentation that day. So while practicality may get in the way when for instance a teacher has no time to design a very active learning oriented presentation, practicality may also be used to keep that presentation from being completely passive by looking for small ways to engage students and make the presentation, lecture, or class a stronger, more involved learning experience.