Guy Project

I believe there is a misunderstanding out there about the "Guy Project." In short, the guy project is just that, a project for guys. In its true form, it is supplied man labor and time to build, create, design, repair, or any number of those things toward the end goal of something for the guys. It is usually an idea that the guys come up with, plan out, and try to accomplish. For example, Nick wanted to create a Beer Pong table and that was researched by Nick, myself, and Danny. Danny created a plan and we all followed through on it.

What these projects are sometimes confused with are handyman or honey-do projects. This project is completely different from a guy project. In a honey-do project, the idea is usually to accomplish something for the family or build, add-on, or beautify something as a family for the family house. Where as in a guy project, the guys associated with it are required to help as each participant works on the other guy's project. The honey-do could be something that friends assist in after being nicely asked to help, but something they can also turn down if they do not want to help without harsh feelings. A simple honey-do project maybe building cars for a kid’s birthday party or something like that on a larger scale.

My thoughts on the guy project are that each guy gets to choose a project. As Nick had the first choice, it would be either Danny's turn or my turn (after each of us accomplishes a project the system starts over again). Since I have no current thoughts on the next project, I would say that it would be Danny's turn to decide on what we are going to do or at least lead us in that direction.

Twikini

I have been using Twikini on my Windows Mobile phone for the past two months and I love it! I have a Samsung Blackjack II and it keeps me up to date on all the people I follow on twitter. It recently came out of beta and has a recent update of 1.1. I highly recommend this program to anyone with a Windows Mobile phone. You can setup how often it updates, see where the people you are following are on google maps, DM, and forward a tweet via SMS or e-mail. Twikini also allows you to stop following someone or you can add someone new to follow. What I love is that it allows you to see all your replies in a seperate screen as well as your favorites. Twikini is easy to use and uses simple one touch buttons for replies or RT. Finally if you are interested in a the public timeline Twikini provides that as well. Again, I use this everyday and it is so much easier than trying to go through the web to follow twitter. To get Twikini, which I know you want to, simply go here.

Comments From EDUC 6304

Sometimes you wonder if you are on the right track in class or if you are just earning a grade.  I had a feeling I was providing discussion to the "discussion board" on Blackboard for my online class: The Learning Process.  Somtimes it based on my own thoughts sometimes with help from Linda and Nick to redefine my thoughts.  But I created a collection of the various comments made toward my discussions.

Session 1:

Jason H.

A Math teacher/business major who is the "perfect melancholy."  Big surprise!!  I am glad you are in the class and I look forward to your contributions to the class.  Yes, these discussions are worth a lot of points.  I hope they become helpful to everyone as the semester moves on.

Dr. Lee

Session 1 (Q#2):

Hey Jason,

I think you nailed it when you wrote about the time commitment it takes to work on the work.  That is the major drawback to Schlechty's ideas for me.  It's a lovely theory, but I don't know where the average teacher would get the time to develop new ideas consistently

I also agree with the teacher needing to wear several hats, as facilitator, coach, and leader, but I think the reason is that our students are all different.  They need different types of teaching from us.

Lorri

Jason - 

I like the point you made, "... if you have activities or assignments that engage the students’ interest then you have the ability to increase their capacity to understand and use that material."  It seems so common sense, but at the same time, the educational field as a whole seems to be largely missing it.  However, this is not to point the finger at the teachers, but rather at the system, wherever it exists, that places a teacher in a room with 35 students.  I think Lorri might have been referring to the lack of time that most teachers have to actually sit down and plan daily engaging activities for our students.  When a teacher has 35 students in six different classes throughout the day, how can we expect anything more?  I appreciate Schlecthy's theory that we as teachers, instead of focusing on ourselves or the students, might want to take a look at the work we prepare for our students, but unless something is done to remedy the massive class sizes many teachers are burdened with, will anything ever really change - with teacher, students, or the work?

Session 2:

Jason

I also went back and looked again at the textbook after your comments.  I found that several others picked up on that as well.  Your comments actually helped me to synthesize a little more completely.  It's funny how people will focus in on different things when reading the exact same information.  Intersting....  I look forward to reading more of your comments in the weeks ahead.

Dr. Lee

Ritual Engagement makes me think of high school where the class was assigned a novel to read for literature class. It is a book you are not interested in, but in order to complete the assignments or report you must read the book. The student feels this activity is not important.

Jason, I really enjoyed reading your answers to this week's questions. You have a skill for summarizing text and making it interesting. This response reminded me of when I was in high school literature class and was given the assignment to read the classic novels. At first I had to force myself to open the cover, but usually I couldn't put the book down. Thanks for bringing back high school memories!! :) 

Session 3:

Hi Jason,

I loved your examples of conditioning in the classroom. The bell ringer is so true. My daughter attends Bishop Dunne and at the beginning of the year  the school hosts parent school night. We have to go to all of our children's classes and  when the bell rings we change classes. It's amazing how we are programmed to gather our belongings as soon as we here the bell. I've been out of school for quite sometime but its just an automatic response.

Session 4:

Jason --

I never saw someone have an argument with themselves on paper, but I think that's what I saw with your response.  I agree that all of the standards are designed to diminish student misbehavior.  I think a case can be made for ALL of them being important.  I just laughed at your rambling discussion with yourself.  I hope you didn't hurt yourself trying to come up with the BEST answer.  I enjoyed some insight into your thinking.  Kind of made me smile -- which is good while I'm reading all of these discussion boards.

Dr. Lee

Jason,

I enjoyed reading your two responses to this weeks discussion board. I agree that we should let "kids suggest possible consequences for poor behavior." Allowing students to take ownship of their actions might make the consequnences more effective.

I too thought that Novelty and Variety were very important too. Not being a teacher yet, I look back to my own experience to try and see what might be important to my students. As you had a problem narrowing in on one standard, I too found value in all the standards. As a student I found that variety played a big part in my personal engagement. It seems that this not only keeps the monotamy at bay, it also allows for the teacher to address different learning styles in order to reach out to all students.

Jennifer

Session 5:

Jason --

Well done.  I liked the way you made bullets to highlight the main features of your answer and the differences between the two kinds of conditioning.  Good job.

Dr. Lee

Session 6:

Jason --

Once again, you have the most complete answer so far of the discussion posts that I have read.  We will learn many more types of learning in the weeks to come, but your list is pretty complete of what we have learned so far.

Dr. Lee

Jason - 

Great analogy regarding meaningful learning about putting a central line in a medical patient.  Someone could teach me quite a bit about putting in central lines, but with only a very basic knowledge of the human body, I still would not know how to apply that knowledge in a safe manner.  I imagine my success at putting in a central line would be spotty at best.  I think that is an effective analogy on why our students are often only ritually engaged or worse, and also why they often do not retain what they are taught for very long.

I really appreciate Jason's answer with specific descriptions and examples of  the types learning. When I worked on this answer I read the question a little differently and pulled out some of the other examples of types of learning. 

Session 7:

Jason --

I don't understand it, either.  When I opened the attachment, it was actually very easy to read and quite a good summary of the three forms of cognitivism.  I would like to ask your persmission to use this as a summary of the chapter for the whole class.

I think many educators today see the value of constructivism.  As we begin to discuss social cognitive theory, I think you will see many similarities between the two.  I'll be interested to see what you think when we get there.

Dr. Lee

Hi Jason,

You have a great way of pulling the key elements out of the text. Great outline!

Session 8: None, lol!

Session 9:

Jason, I also liked what you said about automaticity.  It is a good goal to teach so that our students reach this point in the basics of our subject.  Then when they get to the more difficult strategies in their classes in high school and college, they will not have any problem building upon what they automatically remember. Jason - Thanks for your post - I like what you wrote about automaticty.  Much of what we teach, I imagine especially in subjects such as math, needs to become automatic for our students.  I think automaticity might be able to "free up" space in our students' memories for more concepts that are relatively new or have just not yet reached automaticity.  However, no matter what subject we teach, I think it is important to teach our students, despite their level of automaticty, to take a step back and look at the subject, problem or question and ask the more explanatory questions of "why?" and "how?"  Like so many other things in education, teachers need to balance their goals for the students reaching automaticity as well as for their students having inquisitive, insightful, boundless minds. Good post, Jason.  What you wrote is all true.  I just want to add one thing--if you can make the kids laugh, they'll remember more. Jason -- Another example of procedural knowledge fits with your example of declarative knowledge.  Knowing soccer rules is declarative.  Knowing how to dribble a soccer ball to the net is procedural knowledge.  Knowing that numbers can be converted to fractions is declarative.  Knowing how to do the conversion is procedural.  It is important to know that both facets of knowledge go hand in hand for students learning new skills.  As you develop skills for your own classroom, you want to always remember what works best for you in learning.  Knowing your own learning skills will be helpful in teaching someone else. Dr. Lee Session 10/11: None, darn article reviews! Session 12:    Jason -- Outstanding rubric -- I was a little confused at first at the two level scoring (5 points OR 10 points).  I finally figured it out, but an explanation up front might have been more helfpul.  You might think about making this a 50 point or 100 point rubric since you have so many points attached to it already.  It helps the students know their percentage.  55 points is kind of random for an assignment that most students do several times a semester. Your introduction to Sally was very complete, and I liked that you were going to give her a chance to write some of the criteria on her own before you show her the one you have used.  Good thinking. Dr. Lee Jason, I loved the detail you went into when setting the stage for the rubric. You really explained thoroughly the steps you would take with the teacher and how you would help. Your rubric was also very thorough. I especially liked how you left it open as to which points system the teacher could use. Also, allowing the teacher the ability to make her own rubric and then you helping her afterward is a great idea. Thank you for all of the great pointers! Jennifer Cooksey Session 13:  Jason - Sounds like you have all of the important pieces of the assignment well in hand.  If you could actually get students to act as mathematicians, that would be a great lesson indeed. Dr. Lee Jason -- Obviously, you Math teachers understand how many people react to math.  Motivation in a subject like this is difficult.  Helping them see the value of what they are learning is a tremendous way to keep them working and learning.  Support for teachers is also a great motivator.  Most teachers don't need a lot.  A shelf, a new set of pens, fixing a broken item.  I have found through the years that  in ordert to make teachers happy about their work environment, it would cost a school less than $100 in most cases.  Seems like a very small investment in morale and motivation. Dr. Lee

Session 14 (final discussion): 

Jason --

Another great posting in the discussion board.  You have always done a great job of relating to your personal experience in the classroom as well as looking to apply it to your future educational roles.  I have enjoyed reading your comments all semester.  I especially like reading your comments to your classmates.  You have always provided something for us to think about, and I will miss reading your comments at the end of the semester.

Dr. Lee

Jason - 

I think you hit the nail on the head when discussing excellence on tests as opposed to mastery of a subject.  A test is often times a one-time deal - how did we as educators (or rather, the educators before us) become so blind as to put all our eggs in one basket educationally?  Mastery is much more important and should be the primary focus of all teachers, with test preparation a distant second.  I couldn't agree with you more - good post!