As we wrap up our week on the Role of Teacher, Stephen Downes offers this wonderful essay on groups. I’ve excerpted the key question from the much larger piece.

Half an Hour: That Group Feeling
When we look at learning, therefore, and when we ask which model should prevail, the group model or the network model, we are asking fundamentally what the role of our educational system should be. Should it be to foster an emotional attachment to a group, be it a nation, religion, or system of wealth distribution?

I think it makes a nice inflection point here because we’re going to be considering the role (roles?) of students next week. Read the whole piece before responding, but think about what this class is about and then think about other classes you’ve been in. Those of you who are teachers, think about whether you’re fostering a group or a network or something else. Think about what you’d like to be building and then consider why you might not be.

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Following up on yesterday’s post about ZPD, I got to thinking about something I wrote last year in my old Cognitive Dissonance blog.

On Context
A person exists within his or her own context which is, in turn, embedded in a larger global context. Each person has an archive that is both internal (memory) and external (artifacts) which help the person operate in context. The archive includes resources like mom’s best dish, dad’s favorite color, bank statements, phone books, tax records, class notes, etc

Read the whole thing and look at the pictures. In that post, I suggested a role for teacher that is neither Sage nor Coach nor Guide.

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Zone of Proximal Development is one of those buzz phrases you hear bandied about a lot in ed psych. It’s often mis-understood and probably needs some clarification. I think better with pictures so I drew some pictures to talk about ZPD. We tend to think about what we know like the picture below.
Read the rest of this entry »

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From the ‘gator this morning comes this note:

Get a Free College Education Online | Kairosnews
Of course, the downside to this is that you won’t earn the lambskin ticket to economic superwow this way. True, you’ll have the “knowledge,” but sans the cred. Really, though, what the heck is the purpose of learning all this stuff otherwise? I mean, really, is this more about genorisity and “giving back to the public” or just stroking some namebrand professor’s already inflated ego?

We started out talking about the purpose of education — and here’s a nice tie in with this week’s Role of Teacher discussion.

We are not alone …

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Under normal circumstances I’d just throw the topic out there and let you deal with it, but there’s one specific notion that I want you to consider along with all the others. I’ve had this discussion in several classes now — including those where I was a student — and it always amazes me. The question is:

Is it the teacher’s role to create knowledge or to organize knowledge?

This is a trick question, of course, and part of what I want you to consider is what the trick actually is.

While you’re considering that question, look up Lev Vygotsky’s idea of “distant teacher” and consider whether or not Vygotsky is a distant teacher to us.

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