a domain of their own

This semester I am requiring my students to start working in public. I'm trying to adopt principles of open pedagogy - an educational philosophy that calls for sharing ideas freely, and for doing so in a manner that engages the student with the world.

It appears UMW is also embracing the concept - giving students their own domain name where they can put their work on public display, creating a portfolio. Here's a nice article from one of their students about the experience, and what makes it work:

https://brightreads.com/the-web-we-need-to-give-students-311d97713713#.ld613alrf

I'm calling my requirement a "portfolio". I've shown the students how to set up a blog, and I've suggested they use the blog format to document their journey, but I am not requiring they use a blog. What I told them was they could use a blog or some other web-based technology, so long as the work was in the public sphere. I've also told them they can do it anonymously - they don't have to use their real names.

I like this quote from the article:

And then — contrary to what happens at most schools, where a student’s work exists only inside a learning management system and cannot be accessed once the semester is over — the domain and all its content are the student’s to take with them. It is, after all, their education, their intellectual development, their work.

The key, though is for the work to be meaningful. One of the principles of open pedagogy is to not assign work that is thrown away at the end of the semester. The standard, "Write me a 2-3 page paper about what chapter 7 says" is an example of an expendable assignment. It is strictly an exercise not meant for retention.

I am hopeful that the process of building a portfolio of reflections is a worthwhile process. I am afraid that they are so used to the disposable, check the block kind of assignments that they will not be able to embrace this idea.

teaching and engagement

So day one of my org behavior class where I am trying to use open education principles to run the class.

Here they are working through a warm up exercise where they had to contain a reactor meltdown after a tsunami hit the New Hampshire seacoast. Of course they had to wear protective gear while they were so close to the radiation. Luckily they had audio communications with the rest of their team.

I have been drawn to open education primarily because I see it as an opportunity for greater engagement - for the students, and for me.

Unfortunately, I spent most of the class talking at the students about the class. I had hoped to actually have some conversation, but we had relatively little. That's me, reverting to "sage on the stage" type. This is not going to be easy.

They did make decisions about how to assign mentors. It was somewhat arbitrary, but I suppose that is partially because I rushed the issue. Lesson learned there.

Turning the controls over to the students is going to be a challenge for both them and me. I'm still looking forward to the opportunity!

here we go again!

Spring semester starts for me a couple of minutes and I am, as always, excited and nervous for the first day of class. This semester I am trying something completely different - an experiment with Open Education as I have noted previously - so I am excited to try something completely different and a little nervous that it is going to be an epic fail. But that's the nature of innovation - you have to take chances.

As the Army Core of Engineers says, Essayons! Let us try!

article summary: Attributes of Open Pedagogy - A Model for Using Open Educational Resources

For my ongoing article a day for 30 days effort - day 13:

Bronwyn Hegarty, Attributes of Open Pedagogy: A Model for Using Open Educational Resources

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ca/Ed_Tech_Hegarty_2015_article_attributes_of_open_pedagogy.pdf

I've chosen this article because I have decided to try "open pedagogy" for my OB class this spring. I'll be looking at a number of articles about employing this educational approach.

Notes:

“Open Educational Practices (OEPs) constitute the range of practices around the creation, use, and management of open educational resources with the intent to improve quality and innovate education” (OPAL, 2011a, p. 4)

Five principles of openness are considered by Conole (2013) to be necessary for OEP, comprising open tools and processes that promote:
(1) collaboration and sharing of information;
(2) connected communication about learning and teaching;
(3) collectivity to grow knowledge and resources;
(4) critique for the promotion of scholarship; and
(5) serendipitous innovation. (Conole, 2013)

 Attributes of Open Pedagogy

1) Participatroy technologies
2) People, openness, trust
3) Innovation and creativity
4) Sharing ideas and resources
5) Connected community
6) Learner generated
7) Reflective practice
8) Peer review

more trait theory stuff

This looks like an interesting site. Connected to Northwestern University's Personality, Motivation, and Cognition Laboratory.

https://sapa-project.org/

Haven't taken the test yet. Anyone else?

trait theory web site

Here's a trait theory site with a free test:

http://www.outofservice.com/bigfive/

The Meyers-Briggs (MBTI) is based on preference theory. I happen to like the Meyers-Briggs personally, probably because I've used it and thought about it so much. But psychologists tend to poo-poo it in favor of trait theory and the "Big Five".

Here is the basic difference:

The essential difference between the trait theory and type theory is this: type theory views characteristics of people as discrete categories whereas trait theory views these same characteristics as part of a larger continuum. For example, where a type theorist would claim that introverts and extroverts are two types of people, a trait theorist would claim there is a gradient leading from introversion to extroversion and it is possible for individuals to fall somewhere in the middle. 

from: http://blog.motivemetrics.com/Psychological-Traits-vs-Personality-Type-Theory  

I recently read a book based on the Big Five - Me, Myself, and Us by Brian Little. Very good. A bunch of fun exercises to test your placement.

fun Meyers-Briggs personality sites

I'm getting ready to teach and OB/Leadership course and the first thing we are going to do is the Meyers-Briggs type indicator.

Here is a free online version of the MBTI:

https://www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test


I found this web site and I really like it as a resource.

http://personality-types.careertrends.com/

Criticism of Meyers-Briggs: https://sapa-project.org/dmc/blog/myersbriggs.html