Reflection 0.2 - Knowledge about Models and Memory
[Suggested due date is Wednesday, January 26]
Previously, I had you do a little bit of reflection about what teaching and learning means to you. I did this, in part, in an attempt to encourage you to examine your beliefs about teaching and learning in general prior to moving on to teaching and learning programming more specifically. I believe it is important that teachers occasionally revisit basic principles/ideas, particularly as they delve into something new.
Reading
As such, I want to ask you read the following
- Chapter Two: Mental Models and Formative Assessment (in Teaching Tech Together by Greg Wilson)
- Chapter Three: Expertise and Memory (in Teaching Tech Together by Greg Wilson)
The readings are relatively short, probably only 10 or 15 minutes each at the most. But thinking about them should take a bit longer.
Reflection
After you have completed reading these two chapters I want you to write a brief reflection on how you feel these readings fit in to your previous reflection. There are at least three possibilities
- These readings directly support things you wrote about in your previous reflection
- These readings connect to things you were thinking, but you didn't actually talk about this
- These readings contradict things you wrote about
Obviously, these categories are very amorphous and you could actually exist in all three at the same time. Additionally, there are other categories.
Because there is so much possible variability in what individuals said in the previous reflection I am not going to prescribe much more than asking you to write in response to the "vague" prompt of "write about how these readings either support or conflict with what you wrote about in your previous reflection." Again, length is not a good indicator of quality here. But you should convince me you did the readings and have thought about their content.
Submission
As with the prior work, I do not see there being any right or wrong answers in this activity. Similarly, length of your answer does not necessarily correlate with the quality of your answers. Instead, I will be looking to see if you have considered a broad set of ideas/concepts for this reflection and will be looking at the clarity with which you have crafted your response(s). This includes things like spelling, grammar, formatting, etc.
Remember that I will be grading this on purely a 1/0 basis. You get credit for submitting something "on time" and that shows that you put time and effort/thought in to crafting a meaningful response.
One of the things that I have found helpful - for both of us -when I grade like this is to ask you to provide a brief self-assessment of your own work. As such, I would like you to add a 2-3 sentence self analysis at the end of your deliverable. This should consist of a reflection on the quality of what you submitted. This reflection should contain whether you think your work is
- excellent
- good
- okay
- marginal
- poor
and then a brief explanation of WHY you made this assessment
I want to be able to give you some guidance as to how this kind of response would be graded if it were part of a competency demo. If I look at what you submitted and think it is marginal and you think it is excellent, then we should talk so that we are on the same page. On the flip side, if I think your reflection is excellent and you think it is marginal, then we should also talk. I appreciate your honest admission when an assignment was rushed and you know it. It allows me not to have to have a detailed talk with you if we both understand this is sub-par but you admit is an exceptional situation
To submit your work you should word process your entire reflection (including the final, self analysis) and save/print as a PDF.
Give the file the name
- refl_0_2_LastName.pdf
for example, I would name mine
- refl_0_2_schafer.pdf
And share to the appropriate folder in our shared Google Drive