Group Meeting

Last night we met again for a pedagogical event. We were working on the second part of Sheila's pedagogical event and at 10 pm my time, we were supposed to be in VoiceThread However, when I went there, I didn't see anything new. I checked into our Wimba room but again, no one was in there either. I can always count on Theresa being online using MSn and I messaged her and sure enough, she, Stacey and Sheila were on Skype!! We spent about 15 minutes trying to get our group call working on Skype and once on, the conversation flowed til almost 1 am again! That's two Fridays in a row now where we're chatting from all different parts of the world, for free, online.

Sheila walked me through finding her summary and comments on VoiceThread. I think there should be some directions or a roadmap because I didn't see the summary at first which was on Slide 26, after the motivational images. But through a synchronous chat, Sheila guided me to her summary which is the same summary on Theresa's pbwiki. It is a summary of all of our comments on Slumdog Millionaire. Amazing how a brainstorming session can ellicit so many different responses. I posted on USQ asking "Where do we go from here?" I'd like to use this idea of going through a thinking process in litigation next year by presenting a case. Maybe it would be better to do in the winter semester after they're used to me and present the condo rule cases.

Then we talked about our group process. Someone asked whether we were really supposed to assign roles to each other. I think it was Theresa. Sometimes it's still hard for me to differentiate voices. Although we didn't assign a role, we all agreed we really gone through a group process as suggested by Tuckman. Bruce Tuckman wrote an article entitled "Developmental Sequence in Small Groups" in the 1960s and while there are various differences concerning the number of stages and their names - many have adopted a version of Tuckman's model - forming, storming, norming and performing. In 1977, he later added a fifth stage - adjourning (Tuckman and Jensen 1977). Perhaps because there are only four of us, it was suggested our collaborative process was more fluid and horizontal which fits the community of practice type of theory and fits in more with the social constructivist style. It is very comforting to be able to ask any question of each other. We haven't had any conflict as suggested by the 'storming' stage of Tuckman's process and for that I am grateful as I am not good with conflict.

Actually, in my opinion, Theresa has taken the role of group facilitator. It is she who has put together and summarized our work to date on pbwiki. She has studied with Shirley previously and is familiar with her teaching style. The other three of us commented that this confusion around what is expected is not good practice, but Theresa is very familiar with the course content and points us to particular pages of the assessment. She's good! She can also quote literature review from memory!

Sheila raised her dilemma of allotting participation marks in her class and how she doesn't feel it is fair actually, because some of her students don't speak out in class but come up to discuss their opinions with her after class. These students are learning and participating, but just not sharing that with the class at a specified time. Theresa suggested that is why she has students blog. I suggested that if they don't share their opinions with the class, then their classmates cannot learn from them - cannot build on their ideas because they are unaware of them. There is a quote in Shirley's April 23 discussion thread: "lurking should not be encouraged as the practice seems to fly in the face of the spirit of collaborative learning, the interactive nature of online learning, and the whole idea of shared knowledge construction. " I suggested thatSheila could share her quiet students' ideas by presenting them to the rest of the class somehow. I gave the example that if only two of us had participated in Sheila's VoiceThread, she wouldn't have been able to summarize as many different points as she had. So participation is important but just how students will participate is always a dilemma. I myself don't like to participate because I don't feel I am very learned and have a limited vocabularly. I understand more than I can write. Someone asked the question about managing participation when there is a large group. I believe I read somewhere that that is the ideal situation to break into little groups because just as the four of us are more comfortable with each other, so too would our students.

Shirley posted an interesting discussion thread on April 23 with respect to: The tension between flexibility and expectations to be involved in collaborative work, levels of interactivity, should grades by applied, and the issue of “lurking” ... and I can certainly see both points of view, especially because it seems I am always behind, trying to catch up (especially in this course) and I don't have the lingo. I'm not good at quoting literature but am learning with this course.

Shirley had a quote for this week: "I cannot be a teacher without exposing who I am." I concur with that and probably that is why I am hesitant to participate in big group discussions. I need to feel comfortable first with the people I talk to and share with.

I'm not sure if I'm a complex person but I know I have standards and expectations in the classroom. It is difficult for some of my students to understand that some of my rules cannot be broken so in that regard, I am strict. But I believe I am transparent and that students who take the time, know what I am about and why. Yesterday it gave me great satisfaction to have a student drop in at my home for a couple of hours just to talk. She enjoyed the year and all that she learned and is appreciative of my teaching style. We felt comfortable with each other and I have every confidence that we will continue to keep in contact.

We discussed Assignment 2. There is great confusion as to trying to figure out what Shirley wants. We've decided we will try to post our papers by May 18 so that other students can comment on them over the next few days.

We adjourned agreeing to meet on May 1/2 for Stacey's Wimba session.

References:
Smith, M. K. (2005) 'Bruce W. Tuckman - forming, storming, norming and performing in groups, the encyclopaedia of informal education, www.infed.org/thinkers/tuckman.htm.