Hello Jan, Allison, Maria and everyone else who has joined in the discussion.
Thank you for your comments. This is all great feedback. Allison and Maria - is there any documentation of this new role of teachers as 'educational consultants' or 'guidance providers'? At the e-learning conference, we were calling teachers "WIki- gardeners". Should we start building the evidence base on what this looks like in practice and develop certain principles based on our varied experiences? Jan - totally right about 'optimizing'. When I first say this, I balked as well. It made me aware how medical education was still stuck in the 'cathedral' mode, with a wise man speaking to the assembled masses. Also agreed that learning through talk, informal learning, is way important in professional development than formal learning. What about with the use of social software - does learning change? Can it lead to better alignment of teaching and learning? Should we start a separate thread on this? Gurmit On Sep 8, 7:44 pm, "Jan Visser" <[email protected]> wrote: > Maybe this is the teacher's role. Rather than imparting knowledge, a teacher > works with learners to help them make decisions about how to approach a > subject: what content materials to use, how to pace themselves through the > material, how to self-evaluate their learning, what groups of learners can > do together to support each others' learning, ....( Alison Snieckus) > > There is probably nothing inherently wrong with teaching, even in those > cases when teaching means lecturing. What is bad is if it is seen as the > sole mode of contributing to other people's learning; when it's not what the > learner is looking for and yet it's being forced upon the learner; when it's > not passionate, beautiful, informative and emotionally and mentally > engaging. Of course, there are some excellent examples of good lecturing > available, including for free on the Internet. The mainstream practice is > unfortunately often less exciting. The ability to recognize and appreciate > the autonomy of the learner and to do all those things Alison suggests, is > indeed part of what one must expect of any teacher worth her or his salt. > And much more! > > Incidentally, I don't see it as a matter of "Optimizing Knowledge Transfer." > This phrase suggests that it's basically a process of getting knowledge (as > if it were a thing) from someone's head into some other person's head. The > phrase doesn't adequately emphasize how essential dialogue is for true > learning, which always involves more than the single learning individual. > Learning is never done alone, at least not from the perspective of the true > learner. Even when reading a book, or for that matter a WE document, the > learner engages in a dialogue with its author(s). > > Jan > > --- > > Jan Visser, Ph.D. > > President and Sr. Researcher, Learning Development Institute > > http://www.learndev.org > > http://www.wikieducator.org/User:Jvisser.ldi --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "WikiEducator" group. To visit wikieducator: http://www.wikieducator.org To visit the discussion forum: http://groups.google.com/group/wikieducator To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
