there is interesting monologue from Stamatis - Tuesday morning had a lot of discussion about buy-in, assessment, and other teaching issues surrounding ET. Stamatis had just read the demon model of friction quote, and here's what he says. I think this is a strong echo of what Stamatis is trying to do overall in the course (interesting to note this happens JUST after the transcript i have below about the 'route' energy takes - Stamatis runs with that conversation and says 'might that be an artifact of which model you are using?' then goes into the friction model from the demon quote):
"so this is the this is the demon's model friction right... it's the demon's model of friction and uh um when i read this uh i see a debate that can not be won, it cannot be settled, by won i do not mean one person emerges victorious, i mean uh you can not actually make progress. um. because anything that you throw um anything that YOU throw, right, Faustus (spelling?) is going to come back and invent some new feature of the demon in order to be able to account for what you think. and so i think that we have to be um very careful um we have to be very careful because sometimes we ourselves in our discussions are not disciplined enough to stick with a specific model. so sometimes we switch models in the middle of a discussion. and so it is very hard for the other person to know where you hold onto the idea and so um and so i think that that is a very important um a check in um in um scientific discourse. it's to decide what is the consensus, what are you going to take as given, and from where are you going to be the sub... (lost the last few words... would love to hear them!!)"
Then we have a dialogue from the group I'm following that could amount to a whole thesis - there is a LOT going on here - pay attention to the colored items (sorry - this is 12 mins of transcript - but I THINK IT'S HIGHLY RELEVANT AND DIRECTLY RELATED TO MY MORE RECENT POST FROM THE INSTRUCTOR'S MEETING:
[N] is that what we're talking about .. debate discussion this is something we agree about.. come to agreement
[L] uh huh
[J] like how to
[N] within the group?
[J] within how to criticise your partner without shutting them down and stuff like that how to respond to things, how to share ideas
[N] it's not really criticise so much as challenge yea?
[J] yea
[N] yea
[J] yea
[N] yea
[L] (i think she says something?)
[N] you know what i think is that one of the things that has to be established at the base and these guys have done a fantastic job of doing that doing what i'm about to say which is convince people that there's not one way to explaining something
[J] there's not one answer to or
[N] yea see that's what that's the trickiest part because so often in science when we do it by inquiry they the kids have the idea that oh you know there is an answer that they're just they're just not going to tell us they're going to make us figure it out ourselves
[J] ..?.. that we were too
[F] yea
[N] exactly! and then that's exactly right and we still aren't even sure although we're getting better after a week's worth don't you think? so that's the biggest challenge, i mean these are sort of techniques that you would use or strategies that you'd use once you
[L] (can't year it)
[N] well, yea.. they leave you and say your input is as important as...
(G re-joins the table)
[N] well i think that actually gets back to the whole buisness about they have their resources
[J] it's also a teacher resource - the teacher has to be able to somehow foster that idea from the begining
[N] well yea yea yea
[00:03:19.20]
[G] (throwing a ball in the air)
[J] because they're going to take it over fine i think as long as you can somehow show that you are accepting the...
[N] yea, see the thing that's effective about Stamatis (and the other guys??) is that i believe that they i believe that they know what they're talking about and so my students have to believe that i... believe...
[G] ... right away
[N] not right away but i know some... otherwise they're going.. she doesn't know what she's talking about. So that's what i'm cur i really want to hear
[L] ... knowing physics or...
[N] yea, yea yea yea yea yea right right
[L]as a teacher... for other lessons that you've done that you know helped...
[N] yea yea yea right..new classes.. (?).. stamatis was saying that that every community is a new community. ok. so. (laugh) what is...
[J] i think those were two good things that we should right down you know because they're kind of
[N] what two things
[J] i heard two three
[N] (nina leans over to write)
[J] trust in the teacher instructor, but then also the instructor then also then, i don't know, somehow show that everyone's ideas are getting to that final understanding - we have to foster that somehow - i feel those are very teacher centered
[N] right right
[J] because your reaction to one group like that energy theather could have quickly you know like there's a majority of ideas you know...
[N] (saying something over top that B is nodding to)
[00:05:18.03]
[N] everything is ok...
[L] (she is going on about this idea but i can't hear her - her and nina are also both talking)
[N] they don't i don't think they see us going off on our own... even if even in the most outlandish of ..
[J] you know what? you know all they ever really do is rephrase what they heard and let another person in the class take it from there
[N] right (she gets up to write)
[G] yea i get the student saying that's not true sometimes
[N] but right that's what we're talking about here - how do we set it up so that they're willing to go with you this way
[J] uh huh
[N] go this way with you because i said so often so often we do an experiment that we know is going to work... what does that... (?)
[L] and we're looking for specific results
[N] we're looking for specific results and so if they don't get it those results
[J] or maybe that brings the point where you can't have this for some things - i mean it's not going to fit in maybe, you know if you're, i mean a very broad concept or conceptual ideas - i think it's a great thing for, i mean like the energy transfer, um, i think is a very broad conceptual idea but then if you actually doing a lab where they're quantiative data to show, you know, that transfer, you couldn't really do it. there is a correct - i mean there is a better answer than not
[N] you know what i've discovered in actually doing that enough times is it will you will get there...
[J] yea
[N] yea right
[J] i think in those situations it is a lot different than this kind of just talking about the ideas itself
[G] (gets up and leaves again)
[00:07:29.04]
[L] (says something i can't hear)
[J] student ideas?
[N] there is something else that willingness to engage (gets up to write on the board)
[J] what do you mean by willingness to engage
[N] Oh that that they're willing to do this
[J] the students
[N] yea the students yea the students... (writing)
[J] all right
[N] so what i think that .. maybe we should talk.. discussion about... oh - but after we... developed.. we didn't really answer the questions... (she is mumbling what the questions are) these are strategies
[J] i think we said yes if you do these
[N] but how do we how do we get these attributes the attribute would be willingness toooo learn this way (she writes)
[B] (i can't hear what she says)
[J] yea
[N] is that right?
[J] willingness to uh discuss, to stay on topic
[N] yea yea and i think the the implication is, yea yea yea absolutely right yea
[00:08:50.28]
[J] and be i mean there's more to it to stay on top of it, to be comfortable with not knowing if this is the right way or not
[N] well right yea yea yea
[J] willing to be wrong?
[L] yes
[N] right
[J] but even more because we didn't even know if we were wrong or right but we were willing to continue our thinking
[N] right so
[L] stay on top but be willing to say... (can't hear)
[J] well it's willingness to say i don't know but then continue to stay on topic
[N] yea yea yea explore without running into the wall (?)
[J] usually, there we go
[N] explore without validation?
[J] i don't know yea yea yea so because we've never gotten a validation of you're on the right track or you're going the wrong way or it's just we do it on our own
[N] so that willingness to stay on topic and explore without external ..
[J] and that's both student and teacher
(A CHORUS OF YEAS!)
[J] because if a group is going the wrong direction you have to be willing to let them go that way
[N] right until what they're doing comes back, or comes against something that isn't born out by their experience or their..
[J] yea (nina writes)
[00:10:09.07]
[G] (comes back)
[J] that's a good way to state it
[N] i think this is good - this is a huge thing and you know there there's also a willingness to let things take as long as they will take
[J] and i think that's a huge problem that we don't have we don't have that attribute in our classroom, i mean it's hard to get that in there
[N] oh god yes - i want to say i want to get that in there and see how far we get... newton's laws forever... i'd love to be able to do that, i'm not going to be able to pretty soon because all of our test scores are going to be tired to... i've got to have the courage of my conventions that my students are going to have really high scores because i'm doing - what did i just say?
[J] um it was a willingness to take the time to do this or to yea
[G] you guys are doing a great job (laughter from the table)
[N] Validation, YEA!
[00:11:14.15]
[N] willingness to uh i have no audio memory
[J] to take the time
[N] ok to take as much time as it as much time as it (writes) oh!
[J] and then also i mean we all have different levels maturity levels, but if we had some of those discussions in our classrooms where, i mean there's throught the whole you konw days there have been different groups that have been more, paid more attention than others and other groups have gone off on different tangents within their groups but as a teacher you almost have to let that happen, i don't know, i mean they can't be there every single moment because we're not even there every single moment
(IRONY - G STANDS UP AND WALKS AWAY DURING THIS STATEMENT! doesn't go far - comes back before it's over)
[N] right, right
[J] i mean that would be a very difficult - i mean i would be very frustrated with it to you know one group not on task but another group is but we were that way and they just continued going with it (nina writes)
No comments:
Post a Comment