New reflections x 2

A new semester has started and I have 2 new courses to enjoy, Teaching practice in Action and Mobile Learning & Teaching. The first class was yesterday and it was great to see everybody again, ready for the next chapter. 

Teaching Practice in Action:

We had been given our new communities and paperwork 2 weeks ago and that was a really smart move because our first assignment is due on August 8th. We are to write an analysis of our teaching practice, develop our teaching philosophy, and identify potential areas for professional growth. That will be presented with an action plan designed to improve an aspect of our own teaching, as a form of professional development. I delved into what it means to write a teaching philosophy and was overwhelmed with the variety of formats and examples. Downloaded a few, and read a few as well. I filled in a template from Ohio State University and did the Grasha-Reichmann Teaching Style Survey. Interesting how I see this on a day to day basis and how I interpret questions. Overall my style is fairly even, just like my learning styles according the Honey and Mumford Learning Style Survey, or Fleming's VARK Questionnaire.

I think this is because I seem to be more open to ways of being and seeing than I used to be, and am more willing to try new tools. At the same time I found myself squirming a lot this week over the thought of having to dig deeper into the whys and hows of my actions and reactions in a teaching sense. I suspect this is going to get rather personal and I will have to face a bit more than I might be ready to.

Knowing someone would be taking my place for the theory classes this trimester, was quite disconcerting and I had to really scramble to make sure both Ralf and James had decent plans for those first three weeks! It made me see how much more detailed my lesson plans have to be if someone is truly to take over - we tend to have so much noted superficially and mentally that any one else would struggle to take over - despite our belief that we are quite clear!  The act of explaining my approach and having someone else carry that out was quite strange yet very good for the both of us. I think for Ralf it was really strange having to follow someone else's methods that use technology in a very different way than he does. The fact that I didn't have the most complete lesson plans ended up being a bonus for both of us: Ralf got some control back by revising and updating them and I had to explain what and why I was wanting certain things in place. I think together we have made a much better lesson package that a lot of other people would be able to work with.This collaboration is highlighting our strengths working together and hopefully improving our students experiences while they are with us. I feel that we are making good progress which is already enabling us to take the next step in creating more meaningful  learning experiences. This process has made me question more deeply what I mean to achieve in any given time frame, and the value of each exercise. It's also given me more confidence to explore with the students what their own thoughts and motivations for study are in an attempt to see how I can encourage them into more successful engagement.

Mobile Teaching and Learning:

Confusion reigned in my head for some time here. Were we supposed to include our peers in our current teaching groups? Were we supposed to evaluate each person's activity? If an exercise and a test was not enough then would it be acceptable to get students to learn how to do the order system I currently use for their shop planning? By the end of the day all my questions were answered and happily I can get on with planning and implementing my original thought, which is to record how to use the order sheet properly, and chunk that into bite sized pieces. Along the way I'll plan small tasks that allow users to review how successfully they are getting on with the exercise. 

I'm really pleased I decided to spend time last week researching and trialing some screen casting software. I think I'm happy with the SmartPixel format, and I'm excited to be getting a decent microphone to record with. I think I'm ok now with the idea of doing voice overs. Since making assessment videos in the last 2 years I include much more of what goes on in class as that makes it more authentic and personal to the students viewing. Hopefully over time they also get to recognise each other in the clips.

Lonely Screen lets me cast my iPad screen to the computer. For now I'm not sure how much screen sketching I'll do for this activity, but it's good to have all of that in place. I'm excited to be getting on with this as its been in my head for the past 3 months since I had to hand over the theory classes to Ralf. That really brought home to me how individually we all teach and how specific my teaching has become with regards to how I hand over more responsibility to the students. It helped me to confirm what is going well and highlighted areas that need refining, especially how to teach the ordering system for the shop day has been a work in progress for a really long time and I hope this final step of recording the process will really benefit everyone. The intention is to free up class time for helping solve problems with inputting, and let students confirm they are on the right path. The students will have a tool they can refer back to and let that guide them even if it is the middle of the night. They'll be able to give each other more support because there will be the step by step recordings to refer back to while they use the shared file to complete their work.

Next chapter

How time flies when you are studying, writing assignments and marking your own class work!
I was going to reflect on how the assignment writing went and so I'll post parts of my reflective essay since that really say what I learned in Semester 1 of 2016:

The whole process of writing a blog, thinking about what to write and creating a summary of progress (Blaschke, 2012), has been empowering and productive. I notice an increase in my vocabulary which allows more effective writing. Mistakes are more visible now, especially after a realisation that it is closeness to my chosen topic that prevents me from getting it right first time. By creating some distance, a more effective understanding of the criteria can take place. This circular process is really helpful; it just takes time.

By the third Patchwork summary, I evaluated the experience more closely, achieving a more effective way of expressing what I feel and think. Finding ways to be succinct and formulating opinions on what I am reading by using the evaluation, analysis and ‘what else could be done’ stages of Gibb’s Reflective Cycle is a big challenge. I now ask myself more often how implications and consequences impact on me and my topic.

.           This improvement in my approach to describing the emotive images in my head is very pleasing and I was blown away by the first feedback from a lot of classmates especially about my scattered thinking and the need to find my focus. The footprints resonated well here, starting off alone and expecting that soon more would join me on the learning journey. I did not realise how powerful the colours and metaphors generated by the word cloud would be to my classmates. Such imagery in a Reflection-on-action (Schön, 1983) allows for further exploration simply by reflecting on what the feedback from my peers means through what they have taught me, and how I could incorporate that into my future critical reflections.

I felt inspired, uplifted, humbled and really touched by how peer feedback has the power to set you thinking even further on what you have just shared. The act of giving feedback on everyone else's summaries is also very powerful and it helped me to see the variety of interest among eight people. Certainly through the relationship to Schön’s Reflection-in-action (1983), specifically in class discussion, we recognise that our progression and thinking is taking shape.

 Taking the advice to just think about my thoughts and feelings has enabled me to construct a more cohesive piece of critical writing as an informed action, a rationale for continued practise and helps me to take a more realistic view of my own limitations (Brookfield, 1995). This was evident in my third reflection when my lecturer’s main comment was that what I had written was much more pertinent. Classmates wrote that they gained insight into my learning journey, and they felt inspired and learned something from me each time. It feels amazing that I am able to help and inspire my peers into achieving something more than they first thought they could, so I try to always write feedback that will encourage them to reflect further on how their own experiences shape their learning, thus concluding Gibb’s Reflective Cycle with action planning.

In particular the discussion around procrastination and our interpretations of what was expected of us in class was helpful to my progress in critical reflection. Learning to deal with procrastination, allowed me to accept that there will always be distractions.  I can accept that I don't work from 9-5pm solidly on my studies. By having a flexible approach, and having daily and weekly goals, I will improve the end result. I have signed up for a study and so it is my job to complete it to the best of my ability.

 Furthering my ability to translate that into effective essay writing for my studies, I have enhanced my capability as a professional in the field of education, through clarity of thinking and writing in support of my colleagues and students. The process of giving and receiving feedback is an extremely powerful experience that inspires me to share that further in my own workplace in an effort to build a trusting relationship through which to learn and teach (Brookfield 1995).

It was worth spending a couple of hours researching and installing an internet capable referencing machine. I called the search ‘process procrastination’, but it was actually well worth the effort because it made a huge difference to collating and formulating ideas for my essay writing. Making proper notes when reading allows me to start the reference list early, stick to the topic and write effectively and critically what I'm learning and how I feel, giving me a significant sense of accomplishment to both my work as a lecturer and as a student.

When relating these developing reflective processes to Driscoll’s 2000 The What? Model, I feel I am reaching the detail of analysis, evaluation and conclusion into an action plan more effectively. Identifying my own barriers to learning and developing an insight into the benefits of critical reflection is helping me to find my own point of view on adult learning, getting to the heart of the matter by shaping the learning offered in this paper to fit my own personal context (Vella, 1995). In part, my willingness to be honest with myself breaks some of those barriers down, allowing the kind of transformative learning discussed by Nugent (2003) to be just as much a spiritual journey as one of intelligence. This transformation comes as an integral part of my own act of becoming aware of how I learn, react to my learning discoveries and find a way to express my reflective thoughts (Depraz, Varela & Vermersch, 2003) as my inner voice finds a way onto paper. There is still a long way to go in my ability to critically reflect, but I feel that this experience of Patchwork Text and essay writing has set me well on the way.

The purpose of this essay was to evaluate my experiences of self-motivated study during the past three months. Its main focus was the Patchwork Text reflections and the strategies I have developed and refined to improve how I study in relation to reflective models and theories in education. Setting out a clear plan of action on a weekly basis allows me to manage procrastination and enables me to reach my goals by following the plan. Using the tools and strategies such as focussed reading; a referencing machine; keeping the criteria and notes that belong to that in my assignment template, and writing issues that arise on a large sheet of paper next to me as I work, gives me an effective way to carry out study. This leaves me feeling as if I have uncovered something really big and really exciting to explore and share through my assignments, and I have combined the three reflective models as shown above accordingly. Moving from the centre outwards builds on previous experiences allowing a more complex critical form of reflection to take place as I move through each cycle completing the action plan by the end.

My learning, reading and writing challenge is to have a critical opinion about what I’m reading because I find that so much of the reading chimes deep notes of recognition in my soul. However, I am beginning to use discernment by looking for the parts that chime less true, helping me to clarify the way the assessment criteria and related reading become themes around which I can focus the analysis and critique. The experience of the three reflective models discussed in this essay has given me a surer grasp of my potential to succeed at whatever I set my mind to. In this manner the act of becoming aware of myself as a self-motivated student who is able to see to the heart of the matter has shown me how my own limitations can be stretched through transformative learning and recognising the benefits of becoming a critically reflective practitioner (Depraz et al, 2003; Vella, 1995; Brookfield, 1995; Bain, 2004; Nugent, 2003 and Driscoll, 2000).

This journey of self-motivated learning is inspiring me to continue critical reflections through my daily work and further study. Hopefully in the future my ability to help other adult educators will enable them also to become more fully aware of the possibilities and joys in learning and teaching.

 References

Bain, K. (2004). What the best college teachers do. Boston, MA: Harvard University Press.

Blaschke, L. (2012). Heutagogy and lifelong learning: A review of heutagogical practice and self-determined learning. The International Review of Research In Open And Distributed Learning, 13(1), 56-71.

Borton, T. (1970). Applying the Process Approach. In Reach, touch, and teach: Student concerns and process education. (1st ed., pp. 93–105). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Brookfield, S., (1995). Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Depraz, N., Varela, F. J. & Vermersch, P. (Eds.). (2003). On becoming aware: A pragmatics of experiencing (Vol. 43). Amsterdam, Netherlands: J. Benjamins Publishing

Driscoll, J., (2000). Practising clinical supervision. Edinburgh: Scotland. Balliere Tindall Retrieved 28/05/2016 from

http://www.cengage.com/resource_uploads/downloads/0748797661_302418.pdf

Gibbs, J., (1988). Reflective Cycle Gibbs. Retrieved 28/05/2016 from http://www.cumbria.ac.uk/public/liss/documents/skillsatcumbria/reflectivecyclegibbs.pdf

Nugent, D. (2003). Action Research Transforming Practice. In Zepke, N., Nugent, D. & Leach, L. (Ed.), Reflection to transformation : a self-help book for teachers (1st ed., pp. 213-228). Wellington, NZ: Dunmore Press.

Schön, D., (1983). Reflection in Action. In The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in action (1^st ed., pp. 49–69). New York: Basic Books

Vella, J. (1995). Learning to Teach, Learning to Listen. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Bringing it all together

      Well this has been a very useful week. I was able to get the time off so I could sit down and WRITE and I did that! I submitted one draft and one final version today, and that feels really good. I have one more to complete which is not due until June 13th because as a reflective essay it should incorporate the writing process for the final essays. I am always wary of saying how I feel about these things until I get feedback, because I've got it wrong plenty of times in the past. The high school exams I found easiest gave me the lower marks and the ones I thought I bombed out on were my best marks. Upon reflection I guess that means that what I worked harder on gave better results, and that makes sense to me.
Don't we say if it's worth doing it's worth effort? Hopefully I have now been critically analytical enough, it really does get hard to tell because every sentence we write becomes our 'precious'! I did learn this week to slash and burn though, and I don't miss those whole paragraphs I got rid of.

The last reflection I wrote was much better than the first ones I did. Partly because now I get it, and can see how to write reflectively, and partly because I have been practicing in here as well. 
So, dear diary, where to from here? I'm not going to share much about my first 2 essays today, other than they are both very different even though they started out with the same introduction, and that I am quite surprised that the process for writing each one has turned out to be very different.
I tried a different tactic this time as well. My class notes were so confused that I really couldn't see what to do with them. I printed them off, cut them up and stuck them onto big sheets of A3 paper that I divided up into the Criteria, and started to add in the thoughts and themes I had running round in my brain.
Bingo! All of a sudden I had a plan! Actually 2 plans! and it was nice just to hand write in different colours and highlight things, and be away from the screen as well. I am not quite sure yet if I want to do mind mapping electronically. Today someone drove into a power pole just down the road - it needed to be replaced completely so I ran out of laptop battery by 3.30, and would have been stuck if it wasn't for good old pen and paper, and I have now set out my last essay  for this trimester. ( when I saw the pole so bent and broken I just hoped they were all right, it was pretty bad)

What else has worked to keep me on track?
I love that Linda gets us to put together a summary of where we are at. Not only is this grist for our reflection essay, but it really got me thinking, so, really, where am I and where am I going with this essay of mine?
Part of the fun has been putting together the reflections, in PowerPoint form and styling it, also to see what visuals I can use, the word clouds are  a bit if a thing with me -  here's my latest one showing some of my learning these past 3 months:

Here's my Special Topic Summary too:

Monique Special Topic Summary 2

It's 6.15pm and I better take a look at what's for dinner. I've come a long way this week and I'm feeling pretty good about things, but there is still tomorrow and one more essay to draft out, this one too, needs to relate not only to my learning but link with relevant theory. I think I'm getting a handle on how that works, and I think I like the effect of that - am feel more able to share what and how I am learning, and I no longer get as nervous as I used to, when it comes time to share.

Goals for the next two weeks:
1. write a decent draft of the reflective Patchwork essay
2. finalise the Special Topic essay when I get feedback
3. take the time to tidy up my Mendeley pdfs, they are pretty good and I want it to stay that way!
And that will do for now!

Referencing and Citations

2/5 - 7/5
I've had an interesting week in my Special Topic. We've been told we are in effect, doing a literature review, so I went back to Gina Wisker's Post Graduate Research Handbook, and looked that up. Here she tells me to consider using a referencing machine that can help sort out the pdf files I've been gathering which sounded good to me. Happy to search that out.
I settled on Mendeley which is super easy to use and copies references into a Word doc without any fuss, unlike End Note which can cause formatting issues. It also lets me save my reading notes on a couple of formats which are transferable to my word doc as well. Feeling excited!
Then I found these 2 websites which gave me a good idea of what a Lit Review can look like, and recognised them in some of my sources, so proceeded to make one of my own like that. Feeling quite pleased and clever.
So far so good....

http://www.literaturereviewhq.com/guest-post-how-to-get-your-literature-review-to-write-itself/

http://phdtalk.totallyvidya.net/academic/the-four-cs-of-literature-review/

I even looked at a writing tool!!!!! but Scrivener costs US$40.00 after the first 30 days so not really an option at this point. What I am needing to do as these 2 blog posts suggest, is more active note taking. I made a good start with the Mendeley programme for referencing and I will use those notes on the side to be a part of my Literature review. If I'm right I can drag and drop this notes which are attached to the highlights in the PDFs I have stored in there. Not feeling smug yet, but getting close....

8/5
Upon going back to the criteria (a day later!) I see that I have not been critical AT ALL and need to address that, so go and look for examples of how to go about that as well. Feeling worried I wasted time.

9/5
BUT NOW!!!!! oh dear I think I am getting bogged down in the idea of a proper Critical Literature Review! And I am sure that is not the intention! There's still time to unstick myself, and I have heaps of notes - I just need to opinionise and sort them into more coherence for my topic. At least there is plenty of evidence to be found for my topic!!!! Still feeling worried, started an email to Linda. Time to re read the criteria with more attention, I think.
Saving the mail as a draft - I seem to be answering my own question - but a second opinion is always a help. Feeling a bit confused.

Sent the email, feeling better about that.

Wondering if I should be feeling sheepish or can I just not see the woods for the trees!!!!

Goals for this week:

1. Get the critiques sorted!!
2. get stuck into the Research Essay by Wednesday since that one also needs to be tended to sooner than later.
3. Keep this blog going, I am finding it useful to keep setting down my thoughts, but concentrate on writing how it helps me learn - still struggling with that.

Books, books and more books!

I've bought BOOKS!
I've never bought books for my teaching before, I go to the library and borrow theirs, or I read extracts from what I have been given as recommended readings, and up to now not really thought too much of it all. I tend to work instinctively and allow my referencing to fit around that, and move on to the next thing.
So what prompted this then?

I am a voracious reader and always have been. Part of my aim for this stage of my learning in the Graduate Diploma was not to create too much printing and paperwork - but the Research topic has caught me and I need to be ABLE to write all over stuff to get my thoughts around what I am learning. The word clouds are a fun way to visualise the mess in my head and from there I need to articulate my way into a cohesive body of writing. On Saturday I need to present where I am at for the Research Topic as well as for the Special Topic, and I want to present them both on different ways. They are both about my learning so far, not necessarily what my essay will be about. So I want to present what I have found in my bookish adventures and see where that will take me, for the following two subjects:

Research topic will be to describe how I would research the following question:
Why is reflective writing helpful in a practical course?

Special Topic is to summarise my learning journey so far on this topic:
How can students be encouraged to engage in deeper learning during a more compressed time frame?

What does that have to do with books?
I read Kathleen Gabriel's Teaching Unprepared Students in one sitting and realised that this book gave me so much insight into my own students and the issues we face, I can do a lot with that for the Special Topic, and that will lead to the Research in time as well.
Jonathan Bergman's Flip your Classroom I haven't read yet, but some Google Scholar articles helped me realise that more detail and examples will inform how I engage students more deeply. (Special Topic)
Ken Bain's What the Best College Teachers Do is somewhat familiar to me since I read a portion of his writing during the Tertiary Teaching Certificate in January this year for our Team Teaching exercise:
Looking at this photo of where we started I can see the beginnings of my current topics quite clearly. Reflection, action and an ending are all pointing to the directions I want to take in my Special Topic as well as relating to the Research.



Learning, Change, Engagement and happy students are the products I wish to achieve through this deeper engagement and reflective writing. The challenge to me is in how I can unpack this and how can I measure the depths of the outcomes?



This is exciting and motivating, and what I have to recognise is the bit in the middle:



Patience will bring its own rewards - but I only have 14 hours to save the earth (oh no that's Flash Gordon)  a limited amount of time to instil that into my studies and my students....so IMMEDIATE engagement has to be the key - how to get that - RELATIONSHIPS, empathy and being accessible. Building up an equity of trust will develop the engagement so necessary for the deeper learning, and the best way to encourage that is to be myself.
This is what I have learned from not only my own adult educators, but from my bosses, my peers and from my readings, including Jane Vella, Ken Bain, David Boud, Kathleen Gabriel, Nathalie Depraz et al, Carr and Kemmis, and Mcniff and Whitehead, among others in my reading adventures over the past 6 weeks.
My own students have helped to crystallise a lot of half thoughts that have been lurking in the basement of my thoughts, and by asking the class on a regular basis how they feel about the use of technology and what they would like to see improve, I gain better insight into how to keep them better engaged and what does and does not work, particularly where it comes to how they find out the information needed and how we can confirm that more clearly in class.

Goals for Friday so I can get 9 copies for the class and Linda:

1. Separate this out into a presentation each for Research and for Special Topic - take a clear stance I think.
1. Research needs to be about the reading
2. define the terms of engagement - what is the question and for whom is it asked? Where and how will the paradigms and methodology be? What are the kinds of research that I need to take into consideration and how will I choose what wold be the most appropriate form of research? How did I get there?
2. Special Topic about the learning journey
1. define that - what have I learned - where did that come from? What do I feel about that now, in comparison with 6 weeks ago - what have I done with that time? What do I need to do next?
2. Why do I still feel I am skating around the target? I just found a list of questions to help with reflective writing - better use that then!

And now it is Saturday and class was really good. This combination of a few weeks away to think, read and work, then come in to class for 3 hours and share and discuss, is very helpful. The act of summarising where we are at and then sharing that for feedback is a very powerful method of informing us how we have progressed and whether our direction in thinking is not too far from the criteria we are aiming to meet. I had a 'phenomenology moment' after lunch today (Sharon from class called it that when she noticed how I had an AHA!! moment at our last class in March. Today's moment was realising how an answer to my questioning why even as facilitators of learning, when we are students, we make the same errors as our own students. My thought is this: as a teacher, we are one step removed from the learning, and are looking from the outside in, to what the student is doing, and that distance allows us to see where things need improving. When we study, we are emotionally involved, because now we a re the ones striving to achieve the goal of passing the assessment and ultimately the course. This closer proximity clouds our judgment and means we don't always see what we need to do, to be our ultimate best, so we make the same kinds of mistakes and leave bits out, just like our own students do.

For our next class we do one last Patchwork Text, now I know to just keep to my own journey and not put too much about my class or about reference my writing, but stick with how the events affect me and how they help me to learn.

Mini Steps in Research and Big Steps in Confirmation

As I wrote 2 weeks ago in the Hamster blog, I gave myself some goals:

1. Read the books and get the relevant extracts
2. Start on the introductions for my essays and put my subject matter into context
3. SAVE the blog as I write 

1. I got through a lot of the books I got from both the library at AUT, and the one at MIT, Interesting in itself, I know the MIT library very well, & got some great advice from one of the librarians about using the online website. At AUT on the North Shore, first I had to find what I thought were the relevant sections, and then find the books. Not happening, so I finally found a computer that would allow me to search for books - I was allowed 10 minutes only and I wanted about 6 titles so that was hard, then I found out that the books were all in unexpected places, that is, if they were in the collection to start with. Somewhat frustrating, and found myself wanting to be in a familiar library where i knew how it worked. To top it off I could only have the books for 2 weeks, not the 4 weeks I am used to from MIT! I finally found about 3 from the list as well as one or two that I thought looked suitable for my 2 courses. It was good advice from Linda to look at the Introduction and the conclusion to see if I was interested in the text or not.

2. I did get started on the introductions and I tidied up the working essays quite a lot. Added references from the books as well as form internet documents that I managed to find through Google Scholar - that's another interesting website. So many likely looking works require a log-in to their site, or else they demand payment for the work. It took quite some time to find some readings that looked suitable for my topics - I had to work out what to formulate as a search topic as well; my questions as they stand, brought me in circular motions to where I needed to go. While looking for deeper learning and compressed time frames, I ended up with a fair amount on studies about block vs semester vs trimester delivery (Impact of Course Length on Student Learning by Adrian M. Austin and Leland Gustafson 2006), as well as studies about flipped classroom and reversing delivery, ie going away from didactic delivery to student centered activities. (Flipping for Success: Evaluating the Effectiveness of a Novel Teaching Approach in a Graduate Level Setting by John Moraros, Adiba Islam, Stan Yu, Ryan Banow and Barbara Schindelka, 2015). What I seem to be discovering, is that what I began doing in July 2015, is more or less what the writers of these documents themselves delivered after a significant amount of time researching methods and preparing lessons.

The data from student surveys indicate that despite students' wish for teacher led delivery, they discovered that group work and preparation beforehand, gave them deeper learning in the long term. Now to find something that connects deeper learning with compressed time frames - (or have I got it already implicit in these findings already? Or, if it is not to be found, then I really do have a researchable topic!)

3. SAVING is now something I have learned and will keep doing, not putting myself through that again. I used to always tell myself to write in a Word Document and then transfer that over - which really is the wisest thing to do, but psychologically, I find that I like to write within the blog because that is more tangible as I write my reflection.

Goals for next week:

1. Take the time to write a lot of what I have been reading in a way that fits both my Research Question, and my Special Topic. I can feel deeper down that they are very interchangeable. I'm thinking to the future as well, as I have a dark brown feeling I'll be researching something next year or the next (all going according to plan) - so I need a topic for research that will last the distance. If I can't find much about deeper learning in a compressed time frame, and at the moment that's my Special Topic. So if I stick with that then I can see how that develops in there and apply that to research at a later date. Hopefully the Research paper will allow me to get a good feeling for the way I would like to conduct research in the future, and apply that to the deeper learning in a compressed time frame.
2. Prepare for class on 30 April, I need to put together a short presentation about where I am in both topics. For Research it's a 5 min presentation, and for Special Topic it's another summery to be used for feedback from my classmates - so will need to be very careful that I follow the guidelines more effectively than I did a month ago.

Last Big Step for the week:
I found a great website for an interactive Wordle: https://tagul.com/
So my latest foray is for my Level 4 baking students:
Interactive Biscuit Wordle

The beauty of Tagul is that each word will act as a link to a website, so I can link each word to a relevant website to get the definition I want in a baking context. This picture is not linked but the link Interactive Biscuit Wordle above it is. This is my first attempt so it is about 85% accurate, but you'll get the idea.

This week's conclusion:

While I write, I catch myself reflecting on what I have achieved in the last 2 weeks. Even though I don't have a lot of pages of my own written work to show for it, there is a lot of material that I have gathered up, both online and in books. I've photocopied and highlighted a LOT of pages, and discovered a lot of common ground between what my readings have shown me and what my deeper thoughts tried to tell me. It's been very satisfying being able to confirm such a lot of my current practice as being relevant and useful to student activity and their successes.
I want to incorporate more of my reading into the writing that I produce, I think it will be a good habit to refer back on a regular basis, as it should actually consolidate the thinking that resonates within my mind. I'm pleased with the progress in my head, but still find it incredibly challenging to translate that into tangible efforts. I allow myself to get caught up in what is going on at home - keep saying I'll do it later and of course before I know it, it is Sunday evening and I wanted to do more  seem to struggle with the concept of an hour here and there - once I am into it, I want to keep going, as I find I can keep my train of thought going better when I spend 3-4 hours working.

So, my Mini Steps in Research are bigger than I think, and my Big Steps in Confirmation are very satisfying to my current professional practice.

Hamsters and Guinea Pigs

Before the Easter break this past week, I asked my students what self directed learning means to them, and the Learning Tree I made up from their concept ideas is something inspiring. I can certainly take a leaf (or a few) from this! It shouldn't surprise me anymore that even though as their lecturer I know exactly what I want from my students, as a student myself I make the same missteps and neglect the full circle - what is the topic and what are the criteria? My 'consciousness' knows what to do, I have a 'direction', yet my 'preparation' does not always see me making sure I have actually covered all of the ground needed for the next class as I found out pretty quickly for the Special Topic class on March 19th. Certainly I have an 'interest',and most definitely a 'goal', so that's all right then.

I thought I was well prepared, I had my wordle in the shape of this hand below all ready, and had printed off my last blog to share with everyone. So far so good, right? Well, yes, but for two small factors:

1. I didn't specifically share what my actual topic would be
2. I didn't make clear how I felt about my learning journey up till then 

Sort of the whole point, which I didn't quite twig, until Linda's feedback asking me exactly those 2 points. Felt a bit sheepish and kind of clicked that I had sort of felt that but liking what I had written, left it as it was. Hmm.

Lesson learned? I hope so! Instructions are there to help as I am so good at letting my own students know - why do we revert to exactly that as students ourselves?

Another contemporary issue worth exploring I think?

But I AM going to stick to my original thoughts and so here is my Special Topic Question after some input form Linda and my own process of deciding what the question will be:

How can students be encouraged to engage in deep learning during a more compressed time frame?

I am keeping the compression as that is the whole point - yes deep learning is important, and we will get that  - but HOW do we get earlier and sustain it,when the Certificate and Diploma programme I deliver is now finished  within 4 trimesters, not 4 semesters? This is a 5 month difference overall, and that will show somehow, I would say. 

I've also got my Research question:

Why is reflective writing helpful in a practical course?

Actually, I think the two are clearly linked but I wont go into that, there will be a time for that at a later stage I think. I'm really pleased that I left the class 2 weeks ago feeling much more clear about how to find the questions and formulate them more clearly, and was even more pleased to feel I had got a much better grasp on what the terminology means. Ontology, epistemology, methodology and paradigm now actually have meaning and don't confuse me so much. I spent 5 hours critically reading a 700 page book in Research in Education, (thanks to Mona from MIT Student Support who taught my class how to read effectively - it works!!) and I could actually understand it!!! Progress has been made!
Today I set up my assessment work and tidied up my research notes - what a mess! but now it all makes sense and I can get down to the business of more reading (about 6 books to go through for both courses) and getting my introductions written.
Another useful day under my belt, so feeling ok about things again!

Getting back to my learning journey so far, I want to acknowledge my classmates and Linda too, for their feedback on my presentations. I was blown away by the recognition from a lot of people about my scattered thinking and the need to find my focus - the footprints resonated well here, starting off alone and expecting that soon more would join me on the learning journey.
I did not realise how powerful the image of the hand with words would be let alone the impact of the colours - high five, hands on, heaps to carry with me...
I felt inspired, uplifted, humbled and really touched by how peer feedback has the power to set you thinking even further on what you have just shared - so I did that while we were giving each other feedback.
I found the act of giving feedback on everyone else's summaries very powerful as well, as it helped me to see the variety of interest among 8 people, and hopefully I can take some of that with me to enrich my own journey. Just looking at the hand and reflecting on the words there actually helps me to focus on what they mean both singly and collectively to me at this stage. The hand is not trying to be confrontational, but to invite you to 'stop' and 'think' about what the words themselves mean to you. The colours were also meant to 'pop' and stand out, the dark background helps with that I think- we can find light by learning.
The blog I am happy with, I love the staircase representing my learning journey, and the fade into the distance gives me the same feeling as the footprints - this was the beginning, and there is so much out there!

Goals this week:

• Read the books and get the relevant extracts
• Start on the introductions for my essays and put my subject matter into context
• SAVE the blog as I write - I nearly lost it all, thank goodness for the history button! Google Drive is great, but teaches me VERY BAD HABITS! 

Hamsters - saving up my thoughts and words to share them on my blog for further perusal
Guinea Pigs - finding out how I want to continue is always somewhat experimental - as long as I keep the goal in mind it will be all right