On Mon, 16 Mar 2009, Caroline Meeks wrote:
Hi Greg,
Love this idea. What do we have right now? 20 developers and 1 teacher?
More than that, probably. :)
One suggestion based on the group work I've been doing and studying this
semester and my experience is that groups of 6 might work better on
average then groups of 2.
Maybe 4 developers and 2 teachers working on 4 activities.
Sure. These numbers are flexible. The problem is clear, though: we need
more teachers of 4th grade math, and we need them badly -- and it's not
going to be the geeks who recruit them. :)
And although the activities should not be perfect, they should be very
thoughtful. That is full of thought about why what you are trying might
work for learning. Team members should be thinking together about
learning and it would be great if we could transfer some of those
thoughts to the next person who picks up the activity and improves it.
Maybe the next person will also improve or have a different view of the
pedagy of the activity too.
This is all true, of course.
I'm not frustrated. I'm excited!!! I just know from research how many
learning technologies are totally ineffective and sometimes even reduce
learning. So I want to encourage thinking about pedagogy and learning
during the design stage.
The brilliant thing about open source is that "failures" always contain in
them the seeds of future success. So while I agree that we don't want to
be precipitous, I also think that open source is most effective when
there's a bias towards action.
I also want to encourage reflective practice in general.
I want to encourage rapid failure in general. Very yin and yang between
us. :)
I do this for two reasons. First, I think it will make your work better
and second, its the change we need to accomplish in the schools and with
the students, it just makes sense for us to try to practice it
ourselves.
I'm excited because having kids using instructional materials that
really promote thinking and result in learning is the whole point. What
you are starting is important. Thinking about it is important too.
My learning style is a rapid loop of doing and thinking. Reflection and
action together. A structure that allows exploration and celebrates
failure.
Of course, until we find a whole bunch of teachers to set us right, we're
just talking to ourselves. :) How can we recruit teachers to our cause?
--g
--
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