Happy Summer!

Last student comments to the blogs of Elaine and Regina! I hope that everyone enjoys the rest of their summer!!!!!

Foundations Final: Tablet-Based Collaborative Learning

Unfortunately, the Blogger video capabilities are lacking.

I posted it in 1080p at the 'appellation' website that I emailed to you all yesterday afternoon.

Its much better there!

Last Blog of the Semester

Last week's non-traditional barrage of wiki postings, as a final exam, was both new and illuminating. After eight days of blogging in a collaborative posting, our semester's authors have received at least their 15 minutes of fame.

I have blogged, argued, illustrated, and dissected collaborative medical learning and its implications, or rather its lack of complications, throughout this summer. By no means should this suggest it to be a perfect science, pardon the pun, but rather, simply, to suggest that it may be slightly more organized than collaborative freshman composition exercises. Student maturity, experience, and general acumen may be the reason. However, for a last post, I wanted to highlight clinician to patient collaborative learning.

A 2008 article by Martinez-Sarriegui et al. in Spain, illuminates a "shared care" (1) system that allows patients to log-on and perform the following tasks:

1. upload blood sugar readings and receive physician-lead medical support,

2. mentor new patients/be mentored to,

3. participate in group support,

4. change appointments,

5. chat about questions and other related interests.

Their conclusion is that "patient intervention for data retrieval and communication" are optimized (17). It sounds wonderful; however, the interesting part is that this is based on 'pre-iPad' technologies!!!! Telemedicine is looking even brighter!

Staying Organized

Blogging/wiki final for Mon. 25th through Monday Aug. 1st:

Final wiki posts: #9

Additional comments: #9

Citation Info: #2

Blogging for Finals

Blogging/wiki final starts Monday, the 25th!

A Toolbox of TC Theory! (Week 7)

If we, as rhetoricians, can't agree on a cause, then how can we reach a collaborative solution to our educational short comings. We, and many of our authors, agree that 1.) collaborative learning is a valuable pedagogy, and 2.) our general educational system is deficient in some ways. However, Bruffee, Trimbur, Harris and others can not completely agree on the etiologies of our educational struggles. Brooke's comments on the changing 'underlives' that we implore for power of identity. Bruffee identifies immediate social discourse and each participant's interpretation of those interactions, while Trimbur compares and contrasts Bruffee's narrowed view of 'situation' and Myers shotgun view of 'society' (734). Rorty examines 'communities' and the joining and re-joining of them, a notion that suits Bruffee (Timbur 737). While a treatise on the various ideologies of our concepts today, and that of the Norton author's concepts of yesterday, is beyond the scope of a blog, I wonder if each theory, or if any theory, should be accepted has broad-sweeping. Instead, I would like to see each author's criteria applied, and tested, against a specific field of study or expertise.

For example, Bruffee's social-constructivist ideals, more narrowly focused on a given situation, is best applied to medical learning in a traditional problem-based setting, while Harris' discourse communities, where words with opposing and antagonistic foes garner more meaning, might be better suited to legal venues. Brooke's theories, of course, would likely fit well within the educational system's discourse, and Myers (through Trimbur's description) may better analyze the world of politics.

Perhaps using the proper analytical tool to study and evaluate each profession's nuances may expand our inquiry in different, further reaching directions, while at the same time focusing more tightly on specific fields of study. Just a thought!-R

Staying Organized

Sixth blog, Fri. 7-15 -Status: On-Time

Sixth comments: 7-22 -Status: On-Time

Comments were to: Melanie, Dan :) , and Steve.

Underlives and Staging Will Become One! (Week 6)

I have seen several blog postings in recent weeks pertaining to collaborative learning, and although our class discussions on this methodology have not reached the crescendo that Shaugnessy's did, it appears to be a debatable topic. As such, Bruffee certainly comes to mind, but I discussed him several blog postings ago. Therefore, I have chosen to highlight a wonderful manuscript on collaborative learning in medicine.

Eleni Kaldoudi and a few of her 'School of Medicine' colleagues in Greece authored the 2010 book chapter Web 2.0 Approaches for Active, Collaborative Learning in Medicine and Health. Their work is special in that it is one of the more recent works within medical informatics and Web 2.0 educational pedagogy. Unlike other similar works, they acknowledge the shrinking of the web, as opposed to what most would categorize as a growing web. The overwhelming dissemination of mass information to a society-at-large is being replaced with a "knowledge society" (2) seeking specifically-needed, and more valuable, knowledge. While their definitions and applications of telemedical Web 2.0 affordances are accurate, this is one work among many that actually discusses active peer-to-peer learning at the "point of care" (11). Until recently medical learning, and even PBL, have experienced a delay, delays anchored in technological problems. Teams would leave to discuss patients in what Barton would call a "back stage", and then re-present themselves to the patient with answers in a manner consistent with the "front staging". This changing of roles reminded me of Brooke's "underlife" variations.

However, with real-time, collaborative learning via newer mobile devices, a merging of these different personality genres is experienced, and patients feel more included and talked "to" and not "about". They conclude their work by recounting the ways in which technological advancements are also advancing learning paradigms.

Being Organized

Fifth blog, Fri. 7-08 -Status: On-Time

Fifth comments, Fri. 7-15 -Status: On-Time

Comments were to: Debbie and Russell.

Same Ole' PBL, New World (Week 5 Posting)

Erik Nelson's article Elements of Problem-Based Learning: Suggestions for Implementation in the Asynchronous Environment is both an interesting read and germane to my work. Problem-Based Learning (PBL) is the offspring of the longer established constructivist model of learning, and is based on poorly-structured, student driven motivation. At first glance, this may seem ill-conceived, while continued thought may induce a deeper analysis of its' many variables, and lead the average skeptic to predict a worsened prognosis for these students. Thankfully, using the right carrot for bait, can catch any rabbit; this is how America's physicians have been trained for decades.

PBL specifically uses the student's environment to promote active learning, rather than allowing a professor to muddle through a power point slide deck. A shifting of traditional roles occurs within this new paradigm and the real world becomes the teacher, while the teacher plays the facilitator. I won't presume to bore you with a diatribe on PBL. I will, however, paraphrase Nelson and conclude that adaptations in PBL continually occur in an effort to strengthen critical thinking and problem solving skills in learners, while maintaining core values by remaining student-centered, collaborative, reflective, multi-disciplinary, and reflective (99). The transfer of knowledge across these new pedagogical highways can no longer be fully explained by Richards' traditional Rhetorical Triangle, but must be refocused within the ideology of Bob Johnson and an Expanded Rhetorical Triangle. [Brandt suddenly feels a needle-like sensation in the head as Kemp stabs his student's Voodoo doll repeatedly]. It is within an expanded analysis that we can better appreciate the user's needs and the additional dimensions of 'modality' and 'location.'

It is at this juncture that my newer work with tablet-based mobile medicine dissects the older PBL methodology. Collaborative learning can now be performed, facilitated, and analyzed between colleagues on-the-go and on different continents using affordable and ubiquitous technology. Of course this is a mere trailer for a more detailed movie yet to come (I thought Joe would enjoy the reference!). More detailed remarks and descriptions will be presented Monday in my formal proposal.--RB

Being Organized

Fourth blog, Fri. 7-1 -Status: On-Time

Fourth comments, Fri. 7-8 -Status: On-Time

Comments were to: Regina and Chalice.

What's Old is New! (Official Week 4 Posting)

It should come as no surprise that our recent Bruffee assignment on collaborative learning would be of interest to me. Although, not a seminal work in the field of collaborative learning, also commonly termed problem-based learning (PBL), Bruffee's 1984 article analysed the cultural peer acceptance that is instrumental in cementing the knowledge products acquired within a PBL environment. Such conclusions are essential to some of my current work in post-graduate, medically-based, problem-based learning. In short, the seemingly 'unofficial' discourse of like-mind peers, or friends, facilitates an acceptance of new facts within a knowledge community that later solidifies the 'official' acquisition of that knowledge.

I will not recount the details of his work given that we completed the assignment recently, but I will, instead, review the implications his work has on mine. As you will recall, he uses the typical medical student as an example, since the same constructivist-based, PBL theory has been utilized in medical training since the 1950's. I believe newer works (e.g. Norton), place the inception much earlier in time. In such collaborative learning environments, a problem, or patient case, is worked up, discussed, analyzed, and solved in small groups. If Bruffee's assertion that many students and faculty place a paramount importance on "class discussion" and regard it as one of the most effective teaching tools, then the value of concentrated collaboration via small groups is easily accepted. This somewhat abnormal discourse can take place at lunch, in elevators, in hallways, and at medical dorm rooms, owing to the fact that rules, as Bruffee says, are set aside. Abnormal discourse can not be taught, but it is this same abnormal discourse that is "necessary to [normal] learning."

My work is an extension of such a premise, the value of collaborative group exchange can be more focused with fewer people. Hence, small rotational medical student groups are easier to work in that a class numbering ninety. After formal, and "normal", learning formats cease to exist in the post-graduate era of one's professional career, even smaller and more informal knowledge communities are utilized. The ubiquitous acceptance of mobile technology, coupled with the simple establishment of peer-to-peer social networks, which is to say one-on-one conversations, easily facilitates quick, self-directed, and multi-directional knowledge transfer. Whether by design, necessity, or 'just because we can' motivation, medicine has developed, and will continue to design, new pedagogical teaching and learning platforms. Bruffee's article was written 26 years before the iPad's release, yet his work is still important to our understanding of collaborative learning and technology's facilitation of those evolutionary tendencies. With professor approval, and a formal proposal, I will expand on this brief introduction for my course project!

RB

Staying Organized

Third blog, Fri. 6-24 -Status: On-Time

Third comments, Mon. 7-2 -Status: Late by several hours (Sorry!- Brain Freeze!)

Comments were to: Rebecca, Joe, Dan.

Misplaced Sympathies (Official Week 3 Posting)

In our last discussion, the argument was advanced that the student populous must have neglected their assignment, a notion founded in an attempt, no doubt, to explain the seemingly unanimous mutiny of Mina Shaughnessy's article and ideology, and the resulting objections that were mounted against her empathy for the ill-prepared college freshmen at CUNY in 1970. Having reread this article three times in less than two weeks, as I am certain my colleagues have also done, I will not recount its particulars, but rather, I will advance a rebuttal argument, or explanation. My, and our, lack of blinded acceptance and adoption of her guiding principles is not the product of a collective laissez-faire reading attempt, but is, on the other hand, the rudimentary representation of her most underlying conclusion- damage "has been done to students in the name of correct writing" (393). Admittedly, she was referring to the damaged BWs; however, I strongly assert, and do so with her own writings, that we, the traditionally educated Flower-Powers and Gen-Xers, are also "damaged."

Most composition teachers of the 1970's taught and evaluated student freshmen based on the "traditional standards" (387) of college preparedness or unpreparedness, which is to say those lacking a workable understanding of the "code" (395). By Shaughnessy's own concatenations, and by her fierce call for change, one can deduct that most faculty were not as forgiving as she and maintained a higher level of grammatical protocol. Hence, most budding English and composition professors, "bonehead" or scholarly, were academically raised with the same convictions. The domino effect, in most cases, explains the continued policy in our grammar, secondary, and college educators. Therefore, by default, most of us have developed with a Darwinian fear of the "error" and an evolutionary predisposition to avoid such a creature! Shaughnessy herself admits to devoting her book to the "orientations and perceptions" (390) of those teachers. In short, our belief in the non-negotiable respectibility of properly formatted grammar does not stem from mediocracy in effort, but from the "prescriptive teaching" (392) instilled in us by Mina's adversaries and their academic offspring.

Secondly, Shaughnessy constructed a logic argument and, incidentally, has done so without context or grammatical error. Perhaps she herself felt that to include the very errors she advocates for would decrease the perceived value of her message, the volume of her readership, or the importance of her message. She seems to have waged her own self-described "bargaining" for "goods" with the reader (i.e. us), where "errors ... are ... unprofitable intrusions" (395). Perhaps her traditional educational up-bringing, like ours, forced an obligatory, and habitual, desire to "communicate within the code" (Shaughnessy 395).

Inarguably, she is not a BW, but the exact qualifications for that designation, and the lax grammatical requirements that are afforded to those in that category, are only loosely defined and do not include a 'promotional' criteria, whereby the proverbial gloves come off in the form of a well-used red pen! Such a tipping point, an unequivocal time, must be established to both reward the work of the BW and to advance his or her skill-set. Like it or not, we, the grammar police, are the "buyer[s] in a buyer's market" (395), and much like Shaughnessy concedes her path to us and the rules of proper grammar and composition in this article, so to must her evolved BWs yield to us, the damaged, and former, students of tradition. My only explanation, although it is one better presented on stage, would not argue with Shaughnessy, but rather agree with her, "Perhaps, as some would say, the propaganda of a long line of grammar teachers took" (394)-we are who we are!

RB

Clarification (This is NOT Week 3's posting!)

Thank you for your comments on my last posting, the one on sharks! Despite my aggressive rhetoric, I am not unsympathetic to ill-prepared students or underpaid teachers. It never ceases to amaze me that those teaching our children, our future decision-makers, make a salary of "x", while a guy that dunks a basketball well makes a salary of "y". For the Geico guy living under a rock, "x" and "y" are not the same! The point of my theatrics was to dramatize the dangerous situation that our children must face. Love, kindness, coddling, threats, testing, talking, and pats-on-the-back have not fixed our adolescent educational systems, and after seeing that Shaughnessy's criticism (c. 1970) is still witnessed today, I have little hope for substantial change. The sad news is that the "triage method" WILL occur, because if educational faculty does not solve this dilemma on their own, then outside, non-teaching, MBA-holding, consulting types WILL! It's really sad, "What do you think the money from 10 years in Iraq could have done for our internal educational system instead?????

Getting Organized

Second blog, Fri. 6-17 -Status: On-Time

Second comments, Mon. 6-20 -Status: On-Time

Comments were to: Joe, Debbie, and Melanie.

Shark Infested Waters (Week 2, Due 6/17/11)

If you were drowning in shark infested waters, would you take assistance from the first boat to come along?

Logically, most of us have, or would, answer in the affirmative. We would climb aboard and be grateful for the help! In contrast, some people, albeit a smaller number, might pause for a moment and decline the ride to safety because they did not like the style or color of the boat! Silly, right?

Now, picture the writing skills of our high school students, and their futures, as the endangered swimmer in a world of sharks!

Should we as educators, academics, and technical communicators plan a rescue with the first boat that we can launch, or should we wait until we can find one with brighter colors and more impressive graphics?

The writing skills of most high school seniors entering college are insufficient and lacking, this is a problem that must be corrected forthwith. Each poorly prepared graduate is shark food. A stern triage protocol must be implemented. Triage requires loss, casualties, and tough decisions; not everyone makes it. Therefore, I find it absurd to waste time with literature, romanticism, or Shakespeare, if the child has not yet mastered general grammar or composition.

Before everyone begins to plan my tongue-lashing or buys sharper pins for the voodoo doll that is eerily similar to my likeness, I will concede that it is easier to play a Monday morning quarterback than it is to design a new writing curriculum. As such, I will at least make an attempt to comprise some meaningful ideas and input; however, I reserve the right to storm off with my laptop at any time!

1. We must introduce meaningful stimuli to the subjects. It was argued in class that the pursuit of knowledge should be their guide. While my appreciation and love for learning fosters my agreement with such an position, the triage-based answer is to save as many children as possible from the sharks. If the dream of fancy cars or piles of money is motivating, let’s go with it!

2. We should divide high school into college-like semesters, which would allow for more variation in program selection, classmate groupings, and triage. By switching courses more frequently, the better students would be identified and could be grouped together in future courses, which would raise the level of competition and production in those courses. Those unwilling to increase their efforts would not advance. The sentiment of, “No student left behind” is touching, but impractical. The triage protocols dictate that we save the ones we can.

3. The standard school year must be lengthened to include Saturdays for some children. Those who perform well would continue to attend school Monday through Friday, while the poor writers would attend extra writing workshops every Saturday. If this extra help proved unsuccessful, non-air-conditioned summer classes could become available. The triage mindset is that medicine may not taste good, but it is sometimes necessary!

I realize that these are extreme, and perhaps militant, ideas from a teaching outsider, but correcting the problem WILL require assistance from a non-related, unbiased, and unaffected evaluator- just like triage!

R.

Getting Organized

In an effort to both organize my thoughts and satisfy my detail-oriented personality, thats what people with a Type-A personality euphemistically call it!

First "blog" assign., Fri. 6-10 -Status: On-Time

First "comments" (to 1st blog posts), Mon. 6-13 -Status: On-Time

Comments were to: Elaine and Chalice.

Week 1 (Due June 10th)

"Why do you think we try so hard to teach writing?"

In order to properly address such an open-ended question, a brief rhetorical analysis must be performed and a few simple definitions cast. For the purpose of this exercise, we will designate "we" to mean modern academics, graduate students, and English departments in general, as opposed to the antiquated historical examples in our recent readings. Additionally, we must take notice that "we" as a nation are also ranked last among the most industrialized countries of the world in the discipline of secondary adolescent education (i.e. high school). Lastly, we must concede that at this level, as well as within the undergraduate college system as a whole, the definition, requirements, and expectations of a "writing" course have not yet been uniformly accepted.

We, as a national "English" department consortium; complete with literature, composition, rhetoric, communication, english, and writing sub-units; try so hard to teach writing at the undergraduate level because the preparatory programs and course at the preceding level have underperformed and left America's youth without a essential life skill. Of course, such a statement may not be applied grossly and without exception; but few would argue that such communication skills have not been developed in many young adults. The multitude of reasons, which blend social, political, financial, educational, and psychological reasoning, are beyond the scope of this simple blog posting. However, some clues may lye in our recent readings. I will advance the primary argument that an unsteady foundation can not support a growing, overly burdened structure.

In Colonial America, and shortly thereafter, English departments within universities and colleges were ill-defined, politically-driven, and overly polymorphic. This sloppy methodology did not allow for curriculum development or standardized testing. Across the pond, the Queen's Englishmen were also enticed to manipulate" English" and "writing" education in attempts to advance their standing. While the former tried to promote themselves and their social agendas, the latter were busy trying to elevate their individual positions within their society's preconceived hierarchy. One author, noted that in Britain certain nobles earned degrees while only being required to attend 13 days at college in a given year.

The aforementioned disorganization was further compounded by the fact that college was attended by people of means and prior schooling. Reading, and "writing", were advanced to college new comers as a matter of practice in their privileged lives, unlike the sub-optimal preparation some college applicants receive today. Because the goal was social placement before academic stature, one author noted that writing was taught in some universities and not prioritized in others. The sum of these actions led to a de facto devaluation of writing skills and English departments and curriculum in general. In some departments, only literature was taught.

Lastly, and beyond personal social climbing, departments as a whole in American schools were also trying to advance their standing within the larger university structure. As such, departments wrangled to absorb uncharted fields of study and scrambled to increase their budget share and status within the larger education framework. The result meant less educational curricular development.

In conclusion, we try so hard to teach writing to college newcomers today because our current English and Communications departments have still not overcome the shortcomings set forth by their predecessors. This non standardized and poorly focused methodology, coupled with the less-parepared applicants of today, have forced current faculty to bear the burden of making up for lost education time and proficiency, and do so within a not-so-improved framework.

P.S. I thought there was a question about the final testing apparatus? My vote is to leave it open to individual student creativity!

RB