I teach a complicated course, with multiple goals with respect to skills.
Do I present books/articles about the topics?
Allthough I have books about science, doing research, searching, writing and presenting, and I will show them to the students, I don't want them to start reading them.
Doing research is about DOING, not reading about.
So I will just mention the books (and hope they don't grab them from shelve or computer).
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
final preparations
I think I prepared well!
Made new questions to start the process of thinking about what we are doing when we conduct science and scientific research.
Printed many things to hand out tomorrow. I hope not to forget this blog, and the potentials for feedback for the students, for me.
I would like to create a relaxed atmosphere tomorrow, an inspiring one.
For the courses I take myself I have to make a logbook about what is happening during classes.
This blog will do I hope.
My expectations for tomorrow are: meeting nice, enthousiast people, a little nervous about what's coming (because the course is known).
I hope to get them away from standardized thinking, doing research as a recipe.
Hope to make clear, that research/science (at least in my view....) is a matter of asking questions, deciding how to find an answer, learning from the results and reflecting on the process, and go through a similar cirkel again (and then.... the big issue: when to stop! and wrap up).
I hope that the room works as I expected when I agreed with the selection by the planning people. I still think (23.00 day before) that I make one big table, but then: have to think about how to make notes, public notes, of what people are saying. Thus things depend a little bit on sizes and length of cable and the like.
I reorganizes my questions along the line of coach Henk Procee: actor, process, product, in reverse order, however. So: what do YOU think is science/truth and similar things; next: how to do science well, and then the final one: which characteristics have scientists?
And maybe I give them a task for home: how do you like to learn?
Just in preparation for writing and presenting, to realize that the structures one uses usually are those that the author/presentor prefers for themselves.
Made new questions to start the process of thinking about what we are doing when we conduct science and scientific research.
Printed many things to hand out tomorrow. I hope not to forget this blog, and the potentials for feedback for the students, for me.
I would like to create a relaxed atmosphere tomorrow, an inspiring one.
For the courses I take myself I have to make a logbook about what is happening during classes.
This blog will do I hope.
My expectations for tomorrow are: meeting nice, enthousiast people, a little nervous about what's coming (because the course is known).
I hope to get them away from standardized thinking, doing research as a recipe.
Hope to make clear, that research/science (at least in my view....) is a matter of asking questions, deciding how to find an answer, learning from the results and reflecting on the process, and go through a similar cirkel again (and then.... the big issue: when to stop! and wrap up).
I hope that the room works as I expected when I agreed with the selection by the planning people. I still think (23.00 day before) that I make one big table, but then: have to think about how to make notes, public notes, of what people are saying. Thus things depend a little bit on sizes and length of cable and the like.
I reorganizes my questions along the line of coach Henk Procee: actor, process, product, in reverse order, however. So: what do YOU think is science/truth and similar things; next: how to do science well, and then the final one: which characteristics have scientists?
And maybe I give them a task for home: how do you like to learn?
Just in preparation for writing and presenting, to realize that the structures one uses usually are those that the author/presentor prefers for themselves.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
things are speeding up
Today I have been thinking about the first meeting.
I use that for discussing the organization of the course.
But the remaining time I like to spend with some philosophical discussions.
I intend to show to the students that there are many questions around things that seem so obvious. I don't know yet which to discuss exactly, but topics might be:
> is there a single truth for us to be discovered, or do we construct our own truth by interpreting the results of our experiments
> what is it that makes a scientist a scientist , what is the difference with a designer (if any) or with a technician
> what can be a topic of scientific study (humans, things, ideas, theories etc)
I don't (we don't) have the time to explore these things well, my purpose is merely to show that questions can be asked.
I visited my coach with these things and he offered me a technique, that might be helpfull to guide the discussions:
> you have an actor, a process and a product, for instance: scientist, conducting scientific research, and a scientific paper/presentation
> what are the qualities of these 3 aspects?
Alternative angle: who should you be to conduct research and how do you present/write it in order to honor your results. Because I assume it is YOUR results, and somebody else would have different results, hopefully similar, but different.
I have to think about how I am going to act next week.
He reminded me of a format I have seen quite often: pose your question, let everybody think for themselves for a few minutes, exchange ideas with a neighbor and then share results in the group.
I also tried to make a feedback form, to be used for the feedback on the search strategies. I intend to give this specific feedback myself, but I was adviced to do it in such a way that I could act as a role model for the students for the later sessions.
I use that for discussing the organization of the course.
But the remaining time I like to spend with some philosophical discussions.
I intend to show to the students that there are many questions around things that seem so obvious. I don't know yet which to discuss exactly, but topics might be:
> is there a single truth for us to be discovered, or do we construct our own truth by interpreting the results of our experiments
> what is it that makes a scientist a scientist , what is the difference with a designer (if any) or with a technician
> what can be a topic of scientific study (humans, things, ideas, theories etc)
I don't (we don't) have the time to explore these things well, my purpose is merely to show that questions can be asked.
I visited my coach with these things and he offered me a technique, that might be helpfull to guide the discussions:
> you have an actor, a process and a product, for instance: scientist, conducting scientific research, and a scientific paper/presentation
> what are the qualities of these 3 aspects?
Alternative angle: who should you be to conduct research and how do you present/write it in order to honor your results. Because I assume it is YOUR results, and somebody else would have different results, hopefully similar, but different.
I have to think about how I am going to act next week.
He reminded me of a format I have seen quite often: pose your question, let everybody think for themselves for a few minutes, exchange ideas with a neighbor and then share results in the group.
I also tried to make a feedback form, to be used for the feedback on the search strategies. I intend to give this specific feedback myself, but I was adviced to do it in such a way that I could act as a role model for the students for the later sessions.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
preparations under way
I take a course myself, in teaching.
Tomorrow we will discuss the design of a complete course.
For that I collected all the documents I have concerning P&P.
Now I am fully aware which documents need to be updated, and which are more or less missing.
It will keep me occupied next quarter!
I opened an account at YouTube, and found some films around writing and presenting:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=0B6A56CC7EC52C8D
Tomorrow we will discuss the design of a complete course.
For that I collected all the documents I have concerning P&P.
Now I am fully aware which documents need to be updated, and which are more or less missing.
It will keep me occupied next quarter!
I opened an account at YouTube, and found some films around writing and presenting:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=0B6A56CC7EC52C8D
Friday, March 27, 2009
busy with preparations
I've started the preparations for the course of 2009.
We have a nice room at our disposal, where we can experiment with various formats for communicating science.
I'm doing a course myself, to become an official university teacher. I use it to improve my materials, handout, presentations and the lot. It's great fun. My issue is that P&P as it was previously is marvelous to do, both for me as for the students, but I cannot handle it for large groups. Thus I'm thinking about new formats. So far I think about introducing peer reviewing and peer feedback.
I designed a schedule yesterday including a feedback session. I still have some questions, I 'll consult my tutors.
Now I need to write a manual, basically for all the separate sessions since they are all different and serve a different purpose. I'll start with some obvious elements, and then try to work out the part about peer feedback (works also for my own port folio). Next week I'll attend a meeting on designing a complete course, I might discuss my schedule for P&P. And then it can also be put into my port folio, after assessment by my peers and tutors.
I already defined the deliverables and their weight in the grading: small talk, search strategy, paper, peer feedback, presentation.
Today I worked on finding books to serve as back ground information during P&P. We have nice books on searching, writing and presenting. Found some e-books, and go to check the physical library to see the quality and value of some printed books.
We have a nice room at our disposal, where we can experiment with various formats for communicating science.
I'm doing a course myself, to become an official university teacher. I use it to improve my materials, handout, presentations and the lot. It's great fun. My issue is that P&P as it was previously is marvelous to do, both for me as for the students, but I cannot handle it for large groups. Thus I'm thinking about new formats. So far I think about introducing peer reviewing and peer feedback.
I designed a schedule yesterday including a feedback session. I still have some questions, I 'll consult my tutors.
Now I need to write a manual, basically for all the separate sessions since they are all different and serve a different purpose. I'll start with some obvious elements, and then try to work out the part about peer feedback (works also for my own port folio). Next week I'll attend a meeting on designing a complete course, I might discuss my schedule for P&P. And then it can also be put into my port folio, after assessment by my peers and tutors.
I already defined the deliverables and their weight in the grading: small talk, search strategy, paper, peer feedback, presentation.
Today I worked on finding books to serve as back ground information during P&P. We have nice books on searching, writing and presenting. Found some e-books, and go to check the physical library to see the quality and value of some printed books.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
relevant book?
I think I might have found a good book to work from:
http://opc4.utsp.utwente.nl/DB=1/CMD?ACT=SRCHA&IKT=7&SRT=YOP&TRM=0-471-65733-6
http://opc4.utsp.utwente.nl/DB=1/CMD?ACT=SRCHA&IKT=7&SRT=YOP&TRM=0-471-65733-6
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