Joe,
Great piece...maybe you could throw me on that mailing list of yours?
I'd sure appreciate it.
> Dan Keller and Lee Shulman are singing from the same hymnal. Thanks to
> these and other heroes, we know how to create learning in the small, but
> what can we do to _sustain_ learning, to create processes that will help
> good teachers be great and help the great ones have influence beyond the
> walls of their classrooms?
Oddly, many of us become motivated to learn by actually seeing something
better. Yet this rarely happens in the sense that teachers are not
usually found attending and watching each other work. Most are in fact
uncomfortable with the very idea.
Video-conferencing has its limitations, but it does have the benefit of
easily bridging this barrier. One can just as easily use non-technical
systems to create the same result, of course.
> What can we do to create processes that
> enable life-long learning within ourselves?
Covey's time-management philosophy includes a critical category called
"sharpen the saw." by incorporating the need to include such activities
as part of one's weekly planning process, the long-term difference
becomes considerable.
> And if these giant problems are beyond our ambitions, how can we make
> sure at least that, within the boundaries of HP-IT, we take advantage of
> what Dan and Dr. Shulman know and practice?
IDEA: "Each one, teach one." Upon completion of the course, students are
encouraged to teach at least three key points to two other people within
the next two weeks. This is the step that formally completes the course,
and it is logged, verified, and reported.
Not only is this a good way to lock in learning, but it makes a short
primer on "teaching skills and techniques" a logical component of each
course. Over time, exposure and practice will expand many people's
skills and begin replicating these effective habits.
----------------------------------------------------
Joe Katzman, MBA kat@pathcom.com
"The more you know, the more you can imagine."
http://www.pathcom.com/~kat/
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--Joe Katzman <kat@pathcom.com>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>