Chapter 4
Quote: “We call this environment a collective. As the name implies, it is a collection of people, skills, and talent that produces a result greater than the sum of its parts.” Page 52
I chose this quote because it stood out to me. I appreciated the definition because it sounded like a mathematical definition. It also gave me a very clear picture of a collective and what makes it different than a community. One of the biggest takeaways I got from this chapter is that in a collective, the participants want to be there. This is not always true of a community.
Question: What specific actions can we take in our classroom to turn our community into a collective?
Connection: One connection I made while reading this chapter was that I participated in a collective while in college. I had a close group of friends/peers who were all Math majors and we studied together frequently. Our study groups allowed us to learn from each other and we were all participating at will.
Epiphany/Aha: My hmn was at the very end of the chapter. The authors wrote, “one might be tempted to ask how we might harness the power of these peer-to-peer collectives to meet some learning objective. ..Any effort to define or direct collectives would destroy the very thing that is unique and innovative about them.” So what does this mean? I hope they address this further in the next chapter.
Chapter 5
Quote: “The collection that forms as a result provides an opportunity to do certain things (agency) and a connection with other performers who are similarly situated (identity)-neither of which exists in the other two venues.” Page 57
This quote sums up the chapter well. It is describing the difference between personal and private. The example used is a singer in a karaoke bar. Singing for an audience in a karaoke bar is different than singing on the street because in the bar, there is a collective audience who has gathered for the purpose of listening to and participating in singing.
Question: What would be the best way to utilize blogging in my classroom? My own personal blog? Requiring students to blog?
Connection: This chapter discussed that research shows “that study groups dramatically increase the success of college students in the classroom” (page 67). For this reason, I am involved in facilitating a study group for undergraduate Math majors at CSUSM. The group meets face-to-face once a week but we have also begun a Google+ community so that the members can communicate online.
Epiphany/Aha: After reading this chapter, I was thinking about the online study communities and realized that these communities provide a resource for students with disabilities, such as deaf and mute, who would otherwise experience great difficulty participating in a face-to-face group.
Chapter 6
Quote: “you can’t teach it to me, though I can still learn it. The reason for the difference is that learning tacit knowledge happens not only in the brain but also in the body, through all our senses. It is an experimental process as well as a cognitive one. It is not about being taught knowledge; it is about absorbing it.” Page 77
This chapter discussed how the new culture of learning allows tacit knowledge to be more applicable and valued. With the unlimited amount of resources available, teachers can broaden tasks to allow students to involve their own interests, experiences, and prior knowledge.
Question: What can a teacher do if they provide a question such as the one offered in the text, “What is the best way to shoot a basketball”, and students do not use this as an opportunity to further their knowledge of the content? In this case, Physics.
Connection: The topics presented in this chapter have proven true in my cultivation of my PLN. After hearing about all the different social network sites in class, I was not able to fully understand how they functioned until I made my own account and experimented.
Epiphany/Aha: I had an aha moment when the authors explained that it is not only true that people learn in different ways, but also, when giving the same information people will learn different things.