Felder, R. (2013). You Got Questions, We Got Answers 2. Active Learning. Chemical Engineering Education, 47(2), 97-98.
http://cgi.stanford.edu/~dept-ctl/cgi-bin/tomprof/enewsletter.php?msgno=1309
--------------------------------
This reading was originally more for my own professional development teaching wise rather than my PhD but I soon discovered the principles being discussed would apply to my international student program!
Most of this stuff here it seemed like I already knew and agreed with. Active learning helps students retain information and engages more students than normal lectures do. This is most evident with how ENGG1100 and 1200 runs currently.
One really good point that I took from this article is this line here:
"Many students-either for cultural or psychological reasons-are strongly averse to speaking up in class,"
It then goes on and said the effects can be reduced by having students work in groups as they usually don't have as big of an issue talking to 2 or 3 other classmates. Even if they had to report back to the whole class, they would be reporting about the 'groups decision' and not their own which would take the liability off their shoulders! This piece of information could be very useful when designing this international student program as the lack of speaking up is definitely a problem with my cohort that has been identified every year.
It also suggest that you should not call upon volunteers to deliver the groups response as you will commonly get no one willing (experienced this first-hand on Monday). I'm thinking of in my exercises of having an early task which will pick a table leader and this leader will be conveying the responses, perhaps even rotating this task around so other people at the table get a chance at speaking.
I've also got to keep the tasks short to avoid groups finishing fast and ending up side tracked and chatting and also picks up the groups who are lost and gets them back on track.
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
Behind the Academic Curtain: How to Find Success and Happiness With a Ph.D.
http://cgi.stanford.edu/~dept-ctl/cgi-bin/tomprof/enewsletterWithSurvey.php?msgno=1302
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In order to secure future job prospects after completing a PhD it seems above all publishing papers is the main factor. In terms of where to go, it sounds like there are a majority of PhDs that flow on into postdoc studies, although I'm not sure if that's where I really want to go. If I was to try and work outside academia it would appear that it comes down to contacts. I know that Carl has many industry contacts so if this was a path to go down perhaps I should talk to him. At the same time it may be futile as my current thesis topic I don't see lending much impact on industry.
The final piece of advice it would seem would be to have a 'talk' planned out on how to sell your research. Most faculty don't have the time to find out what you are doing and I would have to be able to tell people effectively in as little words as possible what it is I'm doing. This is a problem that I find currently when people ask my what my PhD is about. Not sure how to sell it. Hopefully the more I write on it the clearer my research goals will become.
--------------------
In order to secure future job prospects after completing a PhD it seems above all publishing papers is the main factor. In terms of where to go, it sounds like there are a majority of PhDs that flow on into postdoc studies, although I'm not sure if that's where I really want to go. If I was to try and work outside academia it would appear that it comes down to contacts. I know that Carl has many industry contacts so if this was a path to go down perhaps I should talk to him. At the same time it may be futile as my current thesis topic I don't see lending much impact on industry.
The final piece of advice it would seem would be to have a 'talk' planned out on how to sell your research. Most faculty don't have the time to find out what you are doing and I would have to be able to tell people effectively in as little words as possible what it is I'm doing. This is a problem that I find currently when people ask my what my PhD is about. Not sure how to sell it. Hopefully the more I write on it the clearer my research goals will become.
Friday, February 21, 2014
Myths About Leadership
Komives, S. R. (2013). Exploring Leadership : For College Students Who Want to Make a Difference. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
http://cgi.stanford.edu/~dept-ctl/cgi-bin/tomprof/enewsletter.php?msgno=1304
-----------------
The following quote from this extract I believe holds influence as to why we see very few international students as group leaders in ENGG1100 and ENGG1200.
* Leadership is hierarchical, and you need to hold a formal position (have status and power) to be considered a leader.
From other readings I found that the heirarchical model is prevalent in many Asian countries. The article then mentions that leaders are made not born, reinforcing my idea of being able to change the current international student perceptions and possible see some more leaders in the long run.
It also talks about there being no single correct way to lead. It's context specific, then what is the right way we want our students to lead in engineering. Through democratic discussion? Definitely the way their parents and teachers have led them back in their home country will form what they consider is correct leadership.
Leadership vs. Management are 2 different things it seems. Where leadership focuses more on the ability for someone to inspire and motivate people to do things where as the manager is more about resource allocation and organisation. But at the same time both roles overlap. Can we get our students to understand the value of both, perhaps they cannot lead overall but make them see the possibility of Leadership in their strength, teaching and inspiring to learn a skillset that they might be particularly proficient in and learning how to manage their own work. Whilst they might not be the type of people to manage everyone else, there is still management responsibility in effectively communicating your work with the rest of the team, managing who gets what information at what time.
Leadership is developed. Events can catalyze this, maybe through EAC we expose more students to leadership and spark their interest, who knows.
http://cgi.stanford.edu/~dept-ctl/cgi-bin/tomprof/enewsletter.php?msgno=1304
-----------------
The following quote from this extract I believe holds influence as to why we see very few international students as group leaders in ENGG1100 and ENGG1200.
* Leadership is hierarchical, and you need to hold a formal position (have status and power) to be considered a leader.
From other readings I found that the heirarchical model is prevalent in many Asian countries. The article then mentions that leaders are made not born, reinforcing my idea of being able to change the current international student perceptions and possible see some more leaders in the long run.
It also talks about there being no single correct way to lead. It's context specific, then what is the right way we want our students to lead in engineering. Through democratic discussion? Definitely the way their parents and teachers have led them back in their home country will form what they consider is correct leadership.
Leadership vs. Management are 2 different things it seems. Where leadership focuses more on the ability for someone to inspire and motivate people to do things where as the manager is more about resource allocation and organisation. But at the same time both roles overlap. Can we get our students to understand the value of both, perhaps they cannot lead overall but make them see the possibility of Leadership in their strength, teaching and inspiring to learn a skillset that they might be particularly proficient in and learning how to manage their own work. Whilst they might not be the type of people to manage everyone else, there is still management responsibility in effectively communicating your work with the rest of the team, managing who gets what information at what time.
Leadership is developed. Events can catalyze this, maybe through EAC we expose more students to leadership and spark their interest, who knows.
Thursday, February 20, 2014
Education Superpowers: How Finland, South Korea, and Poland Produce High Achievers
http://cgi.stanford.edu/~dept-ctl/cgi-bin/tomprof/enewsletter.php?msgno=1305
---------------------------
The article compares 3 superpowers of education: Finland, South Korea and Poland.
The first difference between US (which is arguably similar to Australian education) and South Korea highlights the dog-eat-dog nature of the Asia education system which is very brutal and very results focused. It's all about getting to the top 2% of the cohort at the end of highschool to qualify for the best university. Possible it would indirectly promote rote learning for some students who at that young age would no see the value in life-long learning and would prefer to live a more results-focused academic life (I can reflect on this as there was a period where this was me). It seems this learning culture is even promoted by their government and families. Applying this to my current research I see one possible difference between the goals of international students studying at UQ and that of domestic students; that is whether they are here to learn the skills necessary for them to be applicable in the workforce, or whether they are here to get that GPA of 6.9+.
Motivational goals compared, it would seem that Finland and Poland were found to be more balanced in terms of lifestyle and academic culture. Although the article doesn't go into much detail it hints as stronger pastoral care in the Finnish education system whilst the Poles had reformed their educational system (no details on what happened here) but the key to their success was 'Rigor' - the will to push and incite change despite opposition. I feel that Rigor will definitely be needed in my work as there is lots to do and if I don't do it, no one else will.
It seems like secondary education systems vary far beyond my understanding in foreign countries and I will need to understand it more. I've had special pastoral care classes in my high school but never understood what they were for, perhaps other countries use it to better effect and I can learn more from them to make sense of my past?! Furthermore, if I could learn how to apply pastoral care to program design I could possibly incorporate stuff into my proposed international student program.
----------------------------------
---------------------------
The article compares 3 superpowers of education: Finland, South Korea and Poland.
The first difference between US (which is arguably similar to Australian education) and South Korea highlights the dog-eat-dog nature of the Asia education system which is very brutal and very results focused. It's all about getting to the top 2% of the cohort at the end of highschool to qualify for the best university. Possible it would indirectly promote rote learning for some students who at that young age would no see the value in life-long learning and would prefer to live a more results-focused academic life (I can reflect on this as there was a period where this was me). It seems this learning culture is even promoted by their government and families. Applying this to my current research I see one possible difference between the goals of international students studying at UQ and that of domestic students; that is whether they are here to learn the skills necessary for them to be applicable in the workforce, or whether they are here to get that GPA of 6.9+.
Motivational goals compared, it would seem that Finland and Poland were found to be more balanced in terms of lifestyle and academic culture. Although the article doesn't go into much detail it hints as stronger pastoral care in the Finnish education system whilst the Poles had reformed their educational system (no details on what happened here) but the key to their success was 'Rigor' - the will to push and incite change despite opposition. I feel that Rigor will definitely be needed in my work as there is lots to do and if I don't do it, no one else will.
It seems like secondary education systems vary far beyond my understanding in foreign countries and I will need to understand it more. I've had special pastoral care classes in my high school but never understood what they were for, perhaps other countries use it to better effect and I can learn more from them to make sense of my past?! Furthermore, if I could learn how to apply pastoral care to program design I could possibly incorporate stuff into my proposed international student program.
----------------------------------
Confirming the MOOC Myth
The following reflection is based on the article:
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/12/06/mooc-research-conference-confirms-commonly-held-beliefs-about-medium#ixzz2mibalZVa
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The article talks about the current state of MOOCs. The first point of interest brought about was that "engagement falls dramatically especially after the first 1-2 weeks of a course". Last year I enrolled in a statistics MOOC which was quite interesting the whole way through but similar to what is mentioned, my engagement fell off around week 4 onwards. I still found all the content relevant and interesting, it was just the lack of rigorous class times which made it difficult to keep to a schedule of learning all the new topics and thus I myself would have been one of the statistics reported in this articles and agree with the program with student engagement.
The rest of the article questions the cost/time-effectiveness of MOOCs. The time investment to translate courses to an online environment as well as finding the supporting staff infrastructure to run it when there is little to no immediate investment return makes it hard to justify. From my perspective, the rapidly changing landscape of technology and the fact the many of the staff on producing the MOOCs are from an older generation can sometimes bring about design ideas which may not be ideal for the current generation to maximise learning. Young adults these days surely think differently from what the 'professored' generation preferred 30 years ago. I'm not arguing that what they implement is bad, in fact the tried and testing teaching methods are all still viable. Just that there might better ways to do things these days that people may oppose just because people are resilient to change.
Getting backing from key stakeholders is indeed difficult as like the article says, 10% student retention isn't going to sell the MOOC idea very well. Seems like financial support is a major limiting factor to taking MOOCs to the next step but then again what innovation can be done without money, so I guess my statement applies to everything.
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http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/12/06/mooc-research-conference-confirms-commonly-held-beliefs-about-medium#ixzz2mibalZVa
----------------
The article talks about the current state of MOOCs. The first point of interest brought about was that "engagement falls dramatically especially after the first 1-2 weeks of a course". Last year I enrolled in a statistics MOOC which was quite interesting the whole way through but similar to what is mentioned, my engagement fell off around week 4 onwards. I still found all the content relevant and interesting, it was just the lack of rigorous class times which made it difficult to keep to a schedule of learning all the new topics and thus I myself would have been one of the statistics reported in this articles and agree with the program with student engagement.
The rest of the article questions the cost/time-effectiveness of MOOCs. The time investment to translate courses to an online environment as well as finding the supporting staff infrastructure to run it when there is little to no immediate investment return makes it hard to justify. From my perspective, the rapidly changing landscape of technology and the fact the many of the staff on producing the MOOCs are from an older generation can sometimes bring about design ideas which may not be ideal for the current generation to maximise learning. Young adults these days surely think differently from what the 'professored' generation preferred 30 years ago. I'm not arguing that what they implement is bad, in fact the tried and testing teaching methods are all still viable. Just that there might better ways to do things these days that people may oppose just because people are resilient to change.
Getting backing from key stakeholders is indeed difficult as like the article says, 10% student retention isn't going to sell the MOOC idea very well. Seems like financial support is a major limiting factor to taking MOOCs to the next step but then again what innovation can be done without money, so I guess my statement applies to everything.
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