CCK09 Group Think and Emotional Intelligence

This is my response to Jenny’s interesting post on Group Think

Hi Jenny and Carmen, I love to join your conversation. @Jenny, as posted here http://suifaijohnmak.wordpress.com/2009/10/06/cck09-emotional-intelligence-in-online-and-community-learning/ I have been studying, researching EQ for more than a decade and am still intrigued by its application and implication. I always referred back to Gardner’s multiple intelligence to start with, followed by Daniel Goleman when thinking and applying EQ in education. What I found was that many educational leaders have deep interests in this “niche” area and thus got training in it. However, the implications are: They are going back to their workplace and “mentor” their “subordinate” or peer educators. The educators have since been so accustomed to the “closed door” policy and “autonomy” regime in teaching. Since a coaching or mentoring approach starts from the coachee or mentee’s needs and wants to improve and develop, if the educator doesn’t see the need to be involved in the “team improvement process or COPs” or “mentoring process either individually or in a group”, what happens? Nothing? So, the result is: “Silence” is golden on both ends”. Training and development completed on a “one stop” workshop with theory only will be hung on the wall as certificates of competency, or even hall of the fame, but not much might have happened in the workplace. What happened next? Community of Practice approach (Ning, SL, wikis, twitters, face-to-face COPs across schools or universities, on the other hand, have appealed to a lot of educators, as there would be less conflicts, when working with educators in other schools, other sides of the communities. The issues are the security, trust, autonomy, and “intrusion” of privacy as perceived by educators when surfing on net.

Besides, the self awareness, self control aspects of EQ are really personal, and not too many educators/learners would like to share their results online. Also, empathy is far from easy to fully understand, especially when people are “packed” with emotions or overly critical in heated debates, conversations or interactions online. So EQ is still a ‘myth” to many educators, and cannot be “easily introduced” IMHO.

More research is needed to unfold the realities. I have once suggested Assumption Theory (see my post on this in http://suifaijohnmak.wordpress.com ) as we have often made lots of assumptions in social networking and online learning, which would later found to be doubtful or false. I couldn’t find any significant research on this “Theory” except the one by Stephen Brookfield: The Getting of Wisdom: What Critically Reflective Teaching is and Why It’s Important I would surely look into Carmen’s reference.

@Carmen: I agree with your conclusions. It is too easy to assume in an education/teaching/learning situation. I would like to explore with you two about the implications of EQ in online learning. I would compose some more posts that relate to my experience about team working, individuals, EQ and learning. My previous experience with EQ, team working revealed that EQ could have a great impact on learning. However, it seems that the more EQ one has, the more “power” and “control” it could exercise on others – “silence” is the most powerful influence on others….

There has been a few researches done that correlate EQ with online learning. The findings were that those with high EQ would be more successful in online learning. This sounds like common sense, but is interesting. Is high EQ required in MOOC or MOON? How could we evaluate it? What are the measures of EQ in MOOC or MOON?

Thanks Jenny for your insights. And Carmen for your interesting comments.

John

CCK09 Next Generation Learning Space

Enjoy this Next Generation Learning Space, though it was more than 1 year old, and there has been a lot of changes.

Comments?

CCK09 Designing New Learning Spaces

This “Designing New Learning Spaces” sounds interesting.

Comment?

CCK09 Open Education

David Wiley discusses openness, disaggregation and the future of education in this video

CCK09 Open Content – Part 1

In this ten years of Open Content by David Wiley, he highlights:

History of Open Licence, open content, open education.

Some problems ahead

• License compatibility – How can we re-mix?
• Noncommercial

Opportunities ahead

• CCPlus is done
• CCO is close
• On the education side – Open High School of Utah – Public, online completely open curriculum

What are the implications of open licence and open content on higher or open education ?

CCK09 What to do next?

This is a response to the posting by Frances on Moodle – Comments and Reflection on Elluminate Session

Great ideas Frances,

1. Self-organised study groups -

Following CCK08, we have formed the Connectivism Ning Community Network and many of the CCK08 participants have joined it.  Every one in CCK09 are invited to join.  There is also a Connectivism wiki that participants could consider.

2. “Moving on Connectivism” workshop could be organised after CCK09, using various social media. We could use the Connectivism Ning Community Network to organise such workshops, with Elluminate run on a need or regular basis.  

3. We have got distributed networks on Facebook, Twitters (tagged under #CCK09), CCK09 Ning, Diigo #CCK09, Connectivism Research Google Group , Delicious/tag/cck09, Friend Feed, various wiks – wikispaces on PLE/N, WordPress (tagged under #CCK09) for us to consider….

Would a list of the links help? 

Would you mind to include your links in subsequent threads?

That’s my 10 cents worth

What do you think?

CCK09 What is the desired outcome of Connectivism?

Hi Kerry,

Thanks for your response. “What is the desired outcome of Connectivism?” Great question! 

I think each of us has our own answer, especially when it comes to informal learning.  What are your passions?  What interests you most?  What makes you feel more confident, more competent, and more rewarding when learning in the network(s)?  Could Connectivism help you in fulfilling your goals?

Most of us have been involved in our formal education for decades, and at times after graduation,  we often found the skills that we have acquired are often not be good enough in tackling the challenges at work or in our daily life, especially at this time of great changes.   So this new era of informal learning could stimulate us to be more connected to the networks,  through our PLE/N or the Virtual Learning Environment, and the tools and media, that would help us to learn more effectively and efficiently as an individual or as a network, through sensemaking, wayfinding, skills building, and mutual sharing.  

We could harvest our fruits of learning through such navigation, recognising of patterns of “knowledge” and thus develop a diverse area of interests that fulfill our curiosity to learn, and learning to be “a life long learner”- as part of our vision.  We could also engage more deeply with the weak ties in this network, and broaden our perspectives as we reflect personally and together in the network in an open, autonomous manner. 

We could also be inspired by each other’s enthusiasm in networking, to become our leaders of the future, to solve problems both individually and in the network, to support each other with the use of tools and media, and to be more connected in this world of networks.  This will also help us in adding value to ourselves, our network(s), community and the social capital.  A win-win to all.

CCK09 Education and learning

In this Where have all the people gone  in CCK09 Moodle forum, Ulop says:

“It doesn’t matter if people leave the course, and go off and study on their own. That would be their option, and the connections will re-form and the networks will form elsewhere, if the ‘course’ is not serving the needs of the people. Otherwise, are we forcing people to take and remain in the course?”

Would this be of great interests from an educational authority or administration point of view?  What are the roles of educators and learners in a course? What happens if the course is not serving the needs of the people in an education institution?  What happens if the network is not serving the people it is supposed to serve?  Yes, people have a choice.  We can’t force people to remain in a course.  So, what are we going to do?

What should we do as an educator?  How could we improve our support to our learners? How could we ensure the course is run more effectively and efficiently (on a learning and cost basis)?  How could we achieve the institution goals and individual goals?  These are the sort of questions typically asked by educational leaders and educators. 

In a corporate world of education, there are intense competition between different education providers, so which is more important for surviving or thriving?  Teaching? Learning? Education? or Customers (learners) first?

CCK09 Where have all the people gone in CCK09

In this Where have all the people gone  in CCK09 Moodle forum

Ulop says “That said, there is no troll in CCK09 and people have left the forums. For what reason(s), this time?”  I would like to know too!

People have left the forums for various reasons.  Some participants (especially new to CCK09) have already indicated the reasons at the start (introduction): they felt overwhelmed with information, and have since then moved to other media such as cck2009 Ning.  But was that the only reason?   And why didn’t they join back to the forum?

Some (especially the new CCK09 participants) might have expected the instructors (George and Stephen) to facilitate or moderate the forum discussion, as in a typical on-line course.  However, they might have noticed that George and Stephen would more likely meet them in the Elluminate session instead.  Others might have used other media such as twitters, facebook, their own blogs, their own PLE/N to interact, learn and reflect, rather than using the forum.  Many might still like to lurk though. 

Does this fall into a similar pattern to CCK08?  May be in a much smaller scale in the forum, but their involvement or interaction may be spreaded all over with a much wider arrays of networks, media and tools.

This time, a lot of past CCK08 participants rejoining CCK09 might have already experienced “enough” forum discussion, and so they would like to consider other “new” or emergent personalised learning network or media.  This leaves a few CCK08 participants remaining active in the forum.  Roy, Frances, Ailsa, Ulop, Ken, Dolores, Geoff, Roel, Mary, Nicola, Edgar together with other CCK09 (new?) participants – Gus, Luz, Leila, Maijann, Dean, James and Roland, and some others.

Another possible reason is that: Connectivism is about new and emergent learning, not just (online) teaching.  A lot of educators might be expecting to learn “how to teach or moderate” or the teaching or net pedagogy in an online course using forum or virtual learning Environment (i.e. using Moodle etc.).  However, as Stephen (and George) has mentioned in the past forum, connectivism is a theory about learning at this digital age, and so the emphasis is on learning.  For some of the educators/learners who might have used to instructivism, constructivism or social constructivism as a teaching/learning theory or pedagogy, they might have expected a similar approach to be adopted under connectivism in online teaching/learning.  What are their reactions?  Are they convinced of the connectivist approach?  Does connectivism as a learning theory resonate with their teaching practice? 

Are these educators/learners joining the course for their own reasons which we have all assumed?  That they would join the forum to discuss, to interact, to teach or to learn?  Or they would set up their PLN/E?  Or they would just like to lurk? 

In summary, it all comes back to the choice of learning amongst participants (with learners and some educators).  And whether they would resonate with the theory of Connectivism as espoused by Stephen and George.

Again this leaves us with more questions.

1. If you are coming from CCK08, what would you expect from CCK09?  What are your needs?  How are your needs fulfilled? Are these needs fulfilled in the forum?  What sort of “new and emergent concepts, knowledge, connections” would you expect from the forum?

2. If you are new to CCK09, what would you expect from CCK09?  What are your needs?  How are your needs fulfilled? Are these needs fulfilled in the forum?  What sort of “new and emergent concepts, knowledge, connections” would you expect from the forum?

Do the concepts and theory of Connectivism resonate with you?  Why/Why not?

May be the research question is: Why would you like to join/not join the forum?

CCK09 Is the future a race between education and catastrophe?

In the words of H.G. Wells: The future is a race: A race between education and catastrophe 

We Are The People We’ve Been Waiting For is a full-length feature film on education which was inspired and guided by Oscar-winning producer Lord Puttnam. The film is supported by various sponsors including independent education foundation, Edge. The film follows the experiences of five Swindon-based teenagers. What unfolds during the course of the film is a very inconvenient truth about education. It concludes that, while there are signs of spring, a transformation of the education system is vital if the UK is to continue to compete effectively in an era of globalization the world has changed enormously but our education system has not kept pace. We need to recognise that there are many paths to success for young people and provide the right support and opportunities for them to develop their individual talents.

Globalization has exploded the Information Age. Yet our education system isn’t preparing our children for how to compete in the Global Economy. America is a nation in crisis. Did you know how little media attention this very real crisis receives?

Instead of teaching information that’s quickly obsolete, teaching students how to take standardized IQ tests and achievement tests, labeling our children with learning disabilities and prescribing ADHD, ADD and Dyslexia medications, we should be celebrating and building the brainpower of each individual child.

Back to school is a nightmare for many parents – watching their child fall further behind – when we can identify learning weaknesses and FIX learning problems at the brain level. Brain fitness is the #1 competitive edge in the 21st century and our children’s brainpower is America’s future.

This new brain development science is both effective and affordable. Join the Learn To Learn Revolution – a Parents Revolution today. http://www.LearnToLearn.com

Comments?