Feb 2
Two movies worth checking out:
Same Same But Different (2009) [IMDB link]. “Benjamin (David Kross), a German high school student, is a backpacker on his first major tour. In a nightclub in Phnom Penh, he meets a young local girl, Sreykeo (played by Apinya Sakuljaroensuk), and rapidly falls in love with her. Ben opts for this love, even though Sreykeo turns out to be HIV positive and seems to be a prostitute. It is based on the true story of Sreykeo Sorvan and Benjamin Prüfer.”
Captain Fantastic (2016) [IMDB link]. “In the forests of the Pacific Northwest, a father devoted to raising his six kids with a rigorous physical and intellectual education is forced to leave his paradise and enter the world, challenging his idea of what it means to be a parent.”
Feb 3
Death of the private self: how fifteen years of Facebook changed the human condition (The Guardian)
“In the past, we could regularly take a break from acting, and revert to some sense of our private, authentic selves. Now, as we constantly prod at our smartphones and feel the pull of their addictive apps, when does the performing ever stop?”
- We are never off the clock. For those who spend hours of their day on social media, carefully working on their “brand”, it must be exhausting! Engaged in image-crafting throughout their waking hours and waking up to a host of apps that need to be curated. The digital self needs constant attention and maintenance; combined with our obligation to validate the content of others, when does the non-digital self get some attention?
Feb 7
Heart problems can affect your brain too, report says; An article about my kick-ass professor here at UBC.
From her blog: “My name is Jillianne Code. I am an Assistant Professor of Educational Psychology and Technology in the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia. I have a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology (Simon Fraser University), a Master of Education in Instructional Technology (University of Alberta) and a Bachelor of Education in Secondary Education (University of Alberta). Following my graduate work, I was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Technology, Learning and Assessment at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. I am the happy wife of a film maker and entrepreneur and the mother of two fat, adoring cats. I am also a survivor of heart failure, an artificial heart, and two heart transplants. “
Feb 8
When a colleague of mine facilitated a session on metacognition in our May 2018 Instructional Skills Workshop, I was reminded of the Dunning-Kruger Effect and the importance of metacognition in understanding our own understanding. At the time, I mentioned to the group that I worked with a rather disagreeable man for many years. He was extremely arrogant and believed himself to be an authority in his field when, in fact, he was a rather buffoonish character much lampooned behind his back. He once declared, with his chest puffed out, that he had 30 years of experience in his field and so had no need to join our PD session. One of my clever colleagues quickly said: “What you actually have is one year of experience repeated 30 times!” – that was one of my favorite memories of working there.
I just read the line “Humility generates curiosity and a commitment to continuous learning” and it brought the above to mind. I have come to believe that humility is a necessary condition for learning and a false belief in our estimation of ourselves, be it an over or underestimation, stands as one of the larger impediments to learning (in the sense of personal growth and development). Our progress toward mastery is necessarily impeded if we believe we already know it all or, as Thomas Jefferson put it, “He who knows best knows how little he knows.” Similarly, our understanding is hindered if we believe that we have nothing to offer as is stops us from contributing what we can, and by doing so we lose the chance to reflect on and find value in our own journey.
Feb 13
In one of our classes, the professor asked us to “Please send me an image that represents what is most important for you about teaching and learning“. My scrabble board was close at hand so I started laying out words as I thought about the task. I began by locating our earliest and most important learning at home and, from there, outward through our family and friends into society. The blanks presented an opportunity; PLA? (play, plan) and DA?E (date, dare, daze).
I also played with the idea of teaching and learning as the co-creation of meaning; Player 1’s TUITION, becomes Player 2’s INtuition (also E/Quality). I cheated and turned one of the tiles upside down and made IDEA? in the bottom-right – thinking outside the box – making ideaS/ideaL. In including the rules/instructions too; the OBJECT of the game is visible (our learning objectives) but the board itself reflects the spontaneity and playfulness inherent in the best teaching and learning.
Feb 15
Teacher Inquiry: A Mobius Trip
h/t Dr. Tony Clarke, UBC 
I came across something from one of my courses last summer that I’d forgotten about. We were looking at a book called Spirals of Inquiry as part of a teacher inquiry study. I piped up and said I didn’t like the title and then I had to explain what I meant. It went something like this:
The image of a spiral of inquiry doesn’t sit right with me as, by definition, one moves further away from the centre as the spiral grows. It seems that there should be a return to the centre, the starting point, for the inquiry to be of value. However, representing this return as a cycle of inquiry forgoes the visual representation of a change in point of view or understanding. The Möbius strip might be a better visual representation of teacher inquiry as, because it has only one surface, if one were to trace a path along the strip (engage in inquiry), one will eventually return to the point of origin but on the opposite side of the strip. This represents the potential for inquiry to allow us to see our practices from a different point of view. Continuing along the strip, one returns to the actual point of origin having been reoriented through the process. Continuing along, given the lack of boundaries, one could engage in ongoing (potentially infinite) reorientation.
- A modification to the graphic might see the strip made transparent so that one can “see” the point of origin even as they are on the other “side” of it when they are, paradoxically, at the same time both closest to and furthest from it. Another interesting property of the Möbius strip is that when cut along the center line one longer strip, rather than two separate strips, is created. This could represent the addition of participants and/or new perspectives to the inquiry as more depth or understanding is achieved. * * Warning: cutting this longer strip down the middle results in a conceptional shattering of the space-time continuum and is not to be carried out without the presence of a theoretical physicist, a psychiatrist, and a cleric of your preferred (if any) religion.
Feb 28
- I’m not sad to see the end of February. It was a long, if short, month and I had the feeling I was spinning my wheels a lot over the weeks. I was accepted into the PhD program at UBC last week so that has given me some traction. I am also facilitating another Instructional Skills Workshop starting Saturday and that usually gives me a bit of a boost, even though the process is quite draining.
- I had to start over with designing this website a few weeks ago and I am happier with the way it is looking. I started out knowing full well that I was going to have to learn a lot to keep this blog/page going and that has certainly been the case. I will be starting the third month tomorrow knowing I have made progress in this regard and I hope I can maintain the continuity as the months go by.