Executive Summary
This course was rewarding, educational, and fun. The suggested readings were all useful in different ways, and the discussions were most useful of all. I left the course with a better understand of how to teach, why each method is useful, and how to improve and help others improve. Of all the exercises we performed, I enjoyed the final “give a 2 hour seminar” the most because it allowed me to try everything we’ve been discussing in a cohesive singular effort, as well as helped me curb my perfectionist tendencies.
Readings
Each reading was useful in a different way. Facts and Fallacies to me suggests a set of facts which should become standard education to the field. The book is a record of triumphs and failures of human history in software. Many of which we probably know, but some we don’t, and all of the facts are supported with some amount of evidence whether anecdotal or researched. I basically thumbed through until I found something I either didn’t know, or for which I couldn’t clearly explain the reasoning.
How Learning Works overall was a delight to read, though I found it difficult to slog through the repetitious sections. It’s still worth the entire read because the studies and scenarios presented within together build a strong conceptual framework for methods to facilitate learning. I learned a lot from this book and will endeavor to read it every year because it is quite dense with information. (we’ll see about the every year bit…)
The readings for webcast and media creation were a good reminder of the do’s and don’ts of creating educational multimedia. These were good to skim through just before attempting the “Make a Video” exercise.
Exercises
4.1 — Concept Maps
Concept maps are a new favorite tool of mine, though frustratingly they are very honest. By that I mean they will easily tell you when something you want to teach is probably too complicated for one session, because the map becomes impossible to draw. And I can be stubborn.
I found providing feedback on other maps to be a very good exercise in critique and identifying holes and potential ambiguities in maps. All of this in turn helps me create better concept maps today.
4.2 — Evaluating Expertise
To evaluate another person’s knowledge using limited questions is a very difficult task. I found the exercise itself not that enriching, only because during the discussion did I realize how incorrect my attempt had been. The discussion for this activity was very revealing and eye opening and I found myself enthralled with assessment design.
4.3 — Presentation of a Fact from Facts and Fallacies
In a way, this was a good exercise to perform just before making more educational multimedia (in 4.4). Despite knowing that pictures would highly engage people, few people used pictures in their presentations. I learned how important it is to set the mental stage with activation of prior knowledge, as well as draw and guide attention using images.
4.4 — Educational Video
This was a great exercise to put a number of things we’ve learned into use. One big takeaway was the large amount of time it takes to prepare educational material like this. On the whole, collegial comments seemed quite valuable for everyone.
4.5 — 2 Hour Seminar
Definitely a great exercise after the rest of the course, allowing us to try our hand at using everything we’ve learned. My own difficulty stemmed from attempting to prepare too much. The topic I selected was The Command Line with my goal was to get novices to the point of being able to solve their own problems and work at the command line, and to show slightly more experienced users more powerful techniques. In retrospect, my failing was not being perfectly set up to deal with (novice) Windows users. It would have also helped to narrow my audience, but I wanted more attendance so wasn’t as selective.
Greg
Our instructor, Greg Wilson, was ceaselessly patient and understanding during the inevitable hiccups of distance education. Through all of this he remained focused on guiding and facilitating our education. I particularly appreciated his insight and experience shared while being truly interested in helping us become better educators. I would suggest recording our discussions, but it really wouldn’t be as good.