Cj's Instructional Systems Design Blog: Conceptual Models for Instruction

 Love that my favorite cognitive scientist / instructional designers are sourced for this infographic. Nice job!


Cj's Instructional Systems Design Blog: Conceptual Models for Instruction: Title: Conceptual Models for Instruction ID Basis: Learning Theory and Systems Theory Ever wonder what makes the difference be...

Will Accreditation Trump Diplomas?

Thinking about Accreditation in a Rapidly Changing World (EDUCAUSE Review) | EDUCAUSE.edu

A new path for CBE accreditation would likely focus on three key areas:

1. The learning outcomes or competencies—looking hard at the clarity of claims, definitions and rubrics, rigor, levels of mastery, scope of learning, the basis for the competencies, and more
2. The assessment of mastery—looking hard at mastery assessment, validity, rigor, and more
3. Integrity—looking hard at how the program ensures that the students taking the assessments are those who enrolled, that cheating and fraud are prevented, and that funding support is appropriate and goes to actual demonstrated learning

Tip 69: You can with Tin Can | Elearning Tips

Tip 69: You can with Tin Can | Elearning Tips

Visual Turn • jonportfolio: The education spectrum

Visual Turn • jonportfolio: The education spectrum

The best training has always been interactive, informal, and social. Socrates proved that!

eDidaktik | Inspiration and ideas for teaching

eDidaktik | Inspiration and ideas for teaching Interesting framework mono, poly, and didactic  Check out the MindMap software and other tools for teaching.

American Field Service AFS Texas 2012-13

One of the greatest experiences you can share is travel, education, family life, hospitality, a new perspective on just how culture and geography shape us.

afs.org

Adversity in Learning

Have you learned the lessons only of those who admired you, and were tender with you, and stood aside for you? Have you not learned great lessons from those who braced themselves against you, and disputed passage with you?

Walt Whitman
US poet (1819 - 1892)


In other words, not all lessons are easy. Not all teachers are founts of wisdom or sensitivity. "Disputed passage."  One of my fave learning quotes, and manly poets.
;-)

Motivation, study habits -- not IQ -- determine growth in math achievement

Motivation, study habits -- not IQ -- determine growth in math achievement

Got this from Research blogger!  Love people who do meta-analyses.  The difference between our schools and other countries, I believe has to do with this. We focus on direct instruction and don't teach enough good study habits. If you're good at something, and it's competitive -- our schools tend to reward "perfection."  Learning requires making mistakes without penalty, except you're own awareness of how to correct it and why.

What we really need to improve education in Texas

Well-trained, mentored and coaching teachers. We lose too much talent. Less bureaucracy, testing, and administrative overhead.

From James T. Mangan's "You Can Do Anything" via BrainPickings.org

The process by which you reason is known as logic. Logic teaches you how to derive a previously unknown truth from the facts already at hand. Logic teaches you how to be sure whether what you think is true is really true. … Logic is the supreme avenue to intellectual truth. Don't ever despair of possessing a logical mind. You don't have to study it for years, read books and digest a mountain of data. All you have to remember is one word – compare. Compare all points in a proposition. Note the similarity – that tells you something new. Note the difference – that tells you something new. Then take the new things you've found and check them against established laws or principles. This is logic. This is reason. This is knowledge in its highest form.

Donald Clark Plan B: Top Ten Mistakes in eLearning

Donald Clark Plan B: Top Ten Mistakes in eLearning

Why are there always acronyms I don't know in blog posts?  What is an MCQ?

Multiple
Choice
Question

There are acronyms because if you teach, you must assess learning to measure your own effectiveness. Especially with adult learners.

I do think condescension is the worst offense. PPT decks help an audience stay focused and hopefully listening on one channel to the speaker who hopefully is not reading the deck. I think the most revolutionary thing about learning is that the TED talk has defined bite-size learning in the 20 Teens.  LMS's are not the answer, or lcms, or moocs or  diploma mills.

Learning is a process of growth. Education is a process of communication. ~ Stephen Downes said many years ago.

Video Editing for Learning

The quick and dirty on using video in the classroom. I realize this may be out of date by now, but then I am a little slow . . .

http://johnjohnston.info/blog/?e=2167

List of Authoring Tools: Part 3

List of Authoring Tools: Part 3

Just found out that one of groups is going to quit using our LCMS because it's so bad at displaying graphics.  Need to review list of authoring tools. Instructional technology has come a long way since Authorware and Basic.

Virtual Learning Edge: Experience the Evolution of Virtual Corporate Learning

Virtual Learning Edge: Experience the Evolution of Virtual Corporate Learning

Interesting half-day Virtual Conference. Missed the live version, but hope to peruse the resources available.

Rapid Instructional Design - Thiagi's Take

http://www.thiagi.com/article-rid.html

Thiagi and Piskurich speed up the task by making the learning task more open-ended and constructivist in approach. Therefore, the design of instruction is often blended with the development and delivery of instruction. Most IDs don't often get to deliver (unless it's eLearning) and even then, they rarely have control over the environment in which the learning occurs.  Most instructors may have developed curriculum, but generally are often more likely to be subject-matter experts (SMEs) than curriculum developers.

I would like more opportunity to try out Rapid ISD approach and plan to do so in my upcoming projects as much as possible.

Alt•Ed Austin - Blog - Hop on the Education Transformation�Tour!

Alt•Ed Austin - Blog - Hop on the Education Transformation�Tour!

This sounds so interesting!  I'm ready to work where people love to learn and collaborate, and share, smile, coach and encourage. I'm ready for lots of positivity, energy, joy, and purpose in my daily life.

Some Differences Between Experts and Novices | Kapp Notes

Some Differences Between Experts and Novices | Kapp Notes

This is one of the challenges of being an Instructional Designer and translating the input from your SMEs into a format, chunks, analogies, visuals that work for your novices. Simplifying the complex. Often I'll feel as if I've emerged from a swamp, when I've finally distilled the intricacies and details into comprehensible overview.

Freestyle Language Center

Structure Pricing � Freestyle Language Center Freestyle Language Center

Social Learning in person.  In Houston, they have Spanish over Coffee.  Here we have Freestyle Language Center. After having studied Spanish for 5 years, I could read novels in Spanish and write book reports, but I couldn't speak it. After 4 mos. in Italy, I was fluent conversationally, especially one-on-one, but struggled with composition, reading literature, and group conversations.

Learning and Acoustics

Why Architects Need to Use Their Ears

This TED talk highlights an important aspect of communication and learning. As an ID for a call center, I'm always amazed how different our audio "scenarios" are from the real world of the call floor.

Even when I listen to calls for coaching, you come to truly appreciate how difficult clear communication is over distances with background noises.  It's funny, because I remember the original "open" classroom movement; in fact the elementary school in our neighborhood is vintage 70s school design with classrooms grouped together and separated only by moveable partitions around a center activity area where bigger groups can work together.   I believe in all of the upper grades, most of the partitions have been replaced by walls, for many reasons.

Unfortunately too often we ignore the central fact of learning and communication -- a message must be heard to be understood. Now say hooray for a moment of silence.

The Official Austin Free Day of Yoga

The Official Austin Free Day of Yoga  I believe in a mind-body connection to learning and meditating, stretching, focusing on the rhythm of your breathing can help focus and relax you. Both are helpful for processing information.

Mary Esther Middleton is my teacher and one of the organizers of FreeDayofYoga.com