An Intellectual Pool...

I'm drowning, in a pool of intellectual knowledge. This week's reading in the "Learning and Change" book were extremely challenging. I think Jessie summed up the challenge the best, each chapter taps into the research of adult learning authors. The text translates their highly recognized work into a coupe of pages. When you look at that equation, it's certain to spell confusion and doom to introductory readers like me. I don't see how it's possible to take a lifetime's worth of research and work and then translate it into comprhendable material, especially in a few pages. Would a PHD student be able to sum up their dissertation into a blog? No! The text teases the reader with a summary of each author's academic history. The descriptions are great, but can I accurately look at the reading and gain a full understanding of the material? I hope not, because if I am supposed to, I'm not!

I can relate part of my struggles to the simple fact that I am not a theory developed learner. I understand one of the biggest keys to comprehension is gaining a understanding of the initial findings and then build upon those finding. I am not a good "theory development" learner. One of the quotes I often refer to is "live in the 'is' and not the 'was'. A student could spend a lifetime investigating and comprehending the author's work. The introduction to each author's work is an incredible task to take on.

The resources for this week were as good as I have ever seen so far. Props to the cohort leaders for providing outstanding examples for these difficult areas. I am a charts and graphs kind of guy. I like the fact you can see all of the authors listed on a chart and then find all of the summarized information. It's a great way to begin a compare and contrast angle or serves as a great reference tool.

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Chapter four took the information on rubric construction and added student participation to the back end of it. I thought the text did an outstanding job in its description of the five rubric models. I was surprised to read the pros and cons on the model descriptions. The text was very forthcoming about what could potentially happen (positive or negative) if a model is used in certain situations.

The most glaring conclusion I took from the readings was the level of work for the instructor and students. I thought the pass-the-hat and Post-it models incorporated a lot of work from the students and not as much work from the instructor. I wouldn't call it these models an easy way out, but they both involve a tremendous amount of work from the students. Since the instructor is key to the successful development of a rubric, I am not a particular fan of rubric models that have a high level of student involvement.

I don't want to touch an awful on on this chapter because I will do so in my seminar reflection (to be posted Monday) Stay Tuned!