Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Connections versus relationships
Yesterday in class we discussed social network analysis and how it emphasizes the connections existing in a network (community). One of the critiques of the method that was raised was that connections may not mean the same as relationships. I have seen this in the community of youth that I have been observing. Sometimes we see that it appears the youth have relationships with each other --but they are only connections without the deep underlying affects related to friendship. In one example, a young man who had many, we thought strong, connections to others within the group stopped participating. Even those whom we thought had good relationships with him were unable to encourage him to participate anymore. Apparently he was connected to members in the group, but did not have real, meaningful relationships within the community.
Saturday, November 18, 2006
Contributing to the function of the LC
In my literature review on learning communities that I am doing for Dr. Reeves' course, I discuss several ways of conceptualizing what a learning community is, including a functional concept--or rather, that every member of the community is working towards the same function or end goal. One example might be a learning community organized at work or a classroom community, clearly organized for a particular purpose.
Going back to this youth religious community that I've been observing, there's one boy who emotionally connects to our community--he has friends in the group, he has participated before, he is always welcomed when he comes, he enjoys the activities we do, etc. However, he has stopped participating in the community. This was surprising--why would he stop when he has such a strong emotional connection to the members of the community, so we thought? In talking with his family members, we learned that he did not feel he was doing his part, playing his role, in the community, and so he didn't want to participate and just be a freeloader. So even though we would welcome him anytime, he no longer felt like part of the community because he was not actively participating in supporting the goal or function of the community.
Going back to this youth religious community that I've been observing, there's one boy who emotionally connects to our community--he has friends in the group, he has participated before, he is always welcomed when he comes, he enjoys the activities we do, etc. However, he has stopped participating in the community. This was surprising--why would he stop when he has such a strong emotional connection to the members of the community, so we thought? In talking with his family members, we learned that he did not feel he was doing his part, playing his role, in the community, and so he didn't want to participate and just be a freeloader. So even though we would welcome him anytime, he no longer felt like part of the community because he was not actively participating in supporting the goal or function of the community.
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
This is not the blog you're looking for!
If you are at AECT and happened to read about our BlogTracks presentation, you might have noticed I have this blog listed.
This is no longer the right blog for that presentation! My BlogTracks blog is http://rickwest.edublogs.org.
In the words of the great blogger, Obi-wan Kenobi:
This is not the blog you're looking for. You can go about your business. Move along! :-)
This is no longer the right blog for that presentation! My BlogTracks blog is http://rickwest.edublogs.org.
In the words of the great blogger, Obi-wan Kenobi:
This is not the blog you're looking for. You can go about your business. Move along! :-)
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
The importance of a model for newcomers
As I was reading on page 156 of Etienne Wenger's Communities of Practice book about negotiating pardigmatic trajectories, and how these can be reified milestones or actual people, it dawned on me that Wenger was talking, in layman's terms, about how people need a model for how to perform, achieve, and become. This is something I believe strongly, and I have written up some research about the importance of modeling in helping preservice teachers as they join the teaching community.
Anyway, in my own community of church youth, I have seen the importance of models. For starters, they will only ask members of the faith that they feel model good conduct to work with the youth, because they want the youth to see good models of grown adults. Also, the youth themselves are models for each other, particularly the older ones. Our scout troop is small, and contains boys of all ages, whereas most troops are only comprised of 12 to 14-year-olds. At scout camp, our troop was remarkably better behaved than all the others and must more productive. Why? Because we have a great 16-year-old Senior Patrol Leader that sets the tone and gives the model, and the other boys fall in line with him, whereas other troops have boys all of the same age, without clear models of older youth for them to follow.
I have also thought that in schools, children would learn more appropriate behavior, and we would see a decline in cliques, bullying, mob behavior, and better learning if the grades were more integrated so that older children worked alongside younger ones. The older kids would provide the model, and it would break up the cliques that occur when you have a bunch of kids of the same age associating together.
I don't know if that would really work, but it just seems logical to me that it could.
Anyway, in my own community of church youth, I have seen the importance of models. For starters, they will only ask members of the faith that they feel model good conduct to work with the youth, because they want the youth to see good models of grown adults. Also, the youth themselves are models for each other, particularly the older ones. Our scout troop is small, and contains boys of all ages, whereas most troops are only comprised of 12 to 14-year-olds. At scout camp, our troop was remarkably better behaved than all the others and must more productive. Why? Because we have a great 16-year-old Senior Patrol Leader that sets the tone and gives the model, and the other boys fall in line with him, whereas other troops have boys all of the same age, without clear models of older youth for them to follow.
I have also thought that in schools, children would learn more appropriate behavior, and we would see a decline in cliques, bullying, mob behavior, and better learning if the grades were more integrated so that older children worked alongside younger ones. The older kids would provide the model, and it would break up the cliques that occur when you have a bunch of kids of the same age associating together.
I don't know if that would really work, but it just seems logical to me that it could.
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Graves' three parts of learning community
I haven't been posting here as much as I should for our class. OK, I haven't posted here at all yet! I'm going to have to come up with some method for reminding myself to do this because it's kind of out of my regular flow of homework, so I need to somehow remind myself to regularly stop and post on this blog and not get lost in simply analyzing the literature.
OK, first to define my learning community that I will observe. In my free time (who has that? :-) I am a scout leader and young men leader for the youth in my local unit of my church (the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). As YM leader, I try to teach the boys religious principles on Sunday, and then we meet on Wednesday nights for youth activities/scout activities. Then we have a monthly campout that I sometimes attend (there are other youth leaders as well). Our youth group is unique because it is composed of two of our church units: A regular English-speaking unit and a Spanish-speaking unit. These two units meet separately on Sundays but combine for youth activities on Wednesday nights. Ironically, I work with the Hispanic youth while Peter and others work with the English-speaking youth (and actually, "English-speaking" is a misnomer because they all speak English. However, the Hispanic parents often do not, which is why we have a separate unit for them to attend on Sundays).
So this learning community has the goals of 1) learning our religion; 2) learning good social, physical, and mental skills to prepare the youth for adult lives. This learning community meets twice a week (Sundays and Wednesdays, with occasional campouts on the weekend). They also see each other occasionally at school, but they attend a lot of different schools.
As leaders we want these youth to feel a sense of community together, that they will support each other, help each other, and that they will have similar goals. Sometimes, I feel this is working very well, and I'm pleased to see how well racial differences haven't kept the youth from getting along well and being friends. However, I also see where a few youth have not felt like strong members of the community, and of course I want to help them integrate into the community more. It is not surprising to me that those youth who are not as integrated in the learning community are not learning or progressing in the Boy Scout or young men program as much.
As I read the literature this semester, I will try to apply it to this learning community because 1) this is a group I really care about and want to succeed, and 2) it's a different type of learning community than I bet many others in the class will be observing, so maybe it will yield different insights!
OK, first to define my learning community that I will observe. In my free time (who has that? :-) I am a scout leader and young men leader for the youth in my local unit of my church (the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). As YM leader, I try to teach the boys religious principles on Sunday, and then we meet on Wednesday nights for youth activities/scout activities. Then we have a monthly campout that I sometimes attend (there are other youth leaders as well). Our youth group is unique because it is composed of two of our church units: A regular English-speaking unit and a Spanish-speaking unit. These two units meet separately on Sundays but combine for youth activities on Wednesday nights. Ironically, I work with the Hispanic youth while Peter and others work with the English-speaking youth (and actually, "English-speaking" is a misnomer because they all speak English. However, the Hispanic parents often do not, which is why we have a separate unit for them to attend on Sundays).
So this learning community has the goals of 1) learning our religion; 2) learning good social, physical, and mental skills to prepare the youth for adult lives. This learning community meets twice a week (Sundays and Wednesdays, with occasional campouts on the weekend). They also see each other occasionally at school, but they attend a lot of different schools.
As leaders we want these youth to feel a sense of community together, that they will support each other, help each other, and that they will have similar goals. Sometimes, I feel this is working very well, and I'm pleased to see how well racial differences haven't kept the youth from getting along well and being friends. However, I also see where a few youth have not felt like strong members of the community, and of course I want to help them integrate into the community more. It is not surprising to me that those youth who are not as integrated in the learning community are not learning or progressing in the Boy Scout or young men program as much.
As I read the literature this semester, I will try to apply it to this learning community because 1) this is a group I really care about and want to succeed, and 2) it's a different type of learning community than I bet many others in the class will be observing, so maybe it will yield different insights!
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
This blog is being transformed!
As I posted last time, my "official" blog where I do most of my thinking about educational research has been moved to http://rickwest.edublogs.org.
I LOVE Edublogs. What a great community of educational bloggers!
Speaking of community, I am now in a "Community as a Metaphor for Learning" course with Dr. Julie Moore and Christa .... For this class, we are each maintaining a blog connecting our readings and discussions with our observations and experiences with learning communities. Because I don't want to create a new blog for this purpose (who needs another password and username to remember? :-), I will use this blog for that class.
So from henceforth, this blog is where I will talk about learning communities! But check out my other blog if you are interested. It's good. Really.
I LOVE Edublogs. What a great community of educational bloggers!
Speaking of community, I am now in a "Community as a Metaphor for Learning" course with Dr. Julie Moore and Christa .... For this class, we are each maintaining a blog connecting our readings and discussions with our observations and experiences with learning communities. Because I don't want to create a new blog for this purpose (who needs another password and username to remember? :-), I will use this blog for that class.
So from henceforth, this blog is where I will talk about learning communities! But check out my other blog if you are interested. It's good. Really.
Friday, August 11, 2006
Movin' on
Well, since the day I entered the blogosphere and set up shop at Blogger as my first home, I knew this day would come. I'm packing my thoughts, and having them moved over to my home at http://rickwest.edublogs.org. Why? For several reasons. One, I love Wordpress and how it seems to stay a little more innovative and contemporary. Second, I like the edublogs community, just a bunch of educators bloggin' together! Third, I have more features available to me using WordPress. Fourth, the templates are just better! I'm sorry, but I've never been a fan of blogger templates, but I'm not much of a web designer, so I admit I couldn't do much better.
Thank you Blogger for giving me my first bloggin' home, the first online space where I could easily share my thoughts with others.
To you, my readers (all 2 of you! :-), follow me over to http://rickwest.edublogs.org. I've already been blogging there and have some things up to read as I get ready for a BlogTracks presentation this upcoming AECT convention.
See ya there.
Rick
Thank you Blogger for giving me my first bloggin' home, the first online space where I could easily share my thoughts with others.
To you, my readers (all 2 of you! :-), follow me over to http://rickwest.edublogs.org. I've already been blogging there and have some things up to read as I get ready for a BlogTracks presentation this upcoming AECT convention.
See ya there.
Rick
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