Month: April 2009

I want to take the time now to blog my initial reactions to the lecture before I forget any of it.

The questions we’re supposed to answer are: How did you feel it went?  What did preparing this teach you about teaching?

How I feel it went (both preparation and day-of):

I was incredibly anxious going into this – a blend of both excitement and nervousness. I was confident I knew the material and had really prepared my section to the best of my ability, so that was not a concern of mine. I was, for the first time, more concerned with the students in the class rather than my own performance. I knew I’d be fine. I knew my stuff – I read both books pretty in-depth in order to really understand the topics well enough to answer any detailed questions. I was happy that I was able to come up with some engaging activities on my own – although they ended up being pretty much what was expected (i.e., I thought of both Copycat and As Good as it Gets on my own, but ironically, the clips were already on tape!).

Before I started talking, I noticed that my first slide had a picture on it I hadn’t seen – so that is why I asked you if it was the right slide show (I was a little concerned at that point). In hindsight, I realize that question could’ve been misinterpreted.

Anyway, I feel it went as well as I could have hoped. I knew I wasn’t going to be very mobile – I used the podium as my comfortable base and kind of went from there. However, it’s very natural for me to speak with my hands, be expressive, and make eye contact with my audience anyway – so I wasn’t necessarily worried about that. My only concern with me standing behind a podium is that could have diminished the perception of my accessibility (as it put me behind something and sort of “cut off” ties to them). I don’t think it had too large an impact, as I got quite a few questions and a good amount of involvement.

After each section, I made sure to ask if anyone had any questions. My rationale behind this was multifaceted. First of all, the repetition drills in that they are welcome to actually ask me questions. While no one had any questions for the first two topics, they were much more comfortable asking questions after the third slide.
Second, I had four different disorders to actually cover (as opposed to being really in-depth with one or two), so I wanted to make sure the material was understood before I moved on to something completely new. I believe it worked, because they really only asked me questions about material on which I expected questioning (i.e., OCD and PTSD).

As for my ability to answer questions – I think that went very well. There were one or two stumpers, and while I could’ve answered the PTSD question if I would’ve taken more than 5 seconds to think about it, it was better that I didn’t take more time to think because we really would’ve been hard-pressed for time otherwise.

On another note, I was very pleasantly surprised when they laughed at my lame little attempt at a joke (when I said that it was ironic I was covering Anxiety Disorders, as I was quite anxious). That really eased my nervousness and allowed me to be really comfortable.

I was SO surprised at how comfortable I felt up there. I’d like to think that it’s because I know this material and truly enjoy it, but I really think it was both my attitude (I went in just thinking – “Whatever Josh, you’ll be totally fine”) and the vibe of the room. My comfort translated into the ability to even go “off script” (I usually have everything I want to say written out) – I was able to come up with a couple additional examples for OCD and PTSD that I did not have before. My explanation of agoraphobia was also sort of on the fly (adding that it displays the evolution of the psychological perspective…totally last minute thought there!).
Random note: I hope it was noticed that I did what I could to stress the severity of Panic Disorders…after watching some people’s reaction to Copycat, I wanted to make sure it was said that these sorts of things are not funny – they’re awful and distressing for the people experiencing them.

Also, there were a surprising amount of people in class today! It seemed like a lot more than in the past couple classes. Maybe it’s because I was paying more attention to that…or maybe people were more centralized due to our “reserved” seating. And speaking of reserved seating – that’s exhibit A of why Mandy is freakin’ fantastic (so funny, that woman!). More on my fellow TAs – everyone. did. GREAT. I’m so proud of our group and very excited to see what Trudi does with the schizophrenia section. Everyone’s energy and seriousness about the topics at hand was great. And kudos to Katie for being able to handle the distraction of me and Trudi running around collecting note cards. (I felt really bad about that!)

What this experience taught me about teaching:

This really gave me the insight into what kind of preparation and daily stress professors experience. It is NOT easy coming up with real life examples, interesting and relevant clips, and different ways of explaining one thing. And you never know what someone is going to ask, so that adds a whole different dimension!

Learning how to identify what is and is not important was a skill I knew I needed to work on – and as a teacher, that is absolutely crucial. You can’t be overwhelming your students with irrelevant information, and I tend to get nervous sometimes and just include a bunch of random info that isn’t needed. This experience allowed me to pinpoint the important things and really prune out the stuff I didn’t need. I really liked that.

I think the most salient lesson is the preparation. I don’t know if I’m being “underreflective” or whatnot, but that’s really the thing I’m taking away from this whole experience. To be engaging, informative, and interesting – you have to be properly prepared to present the material. This is especially important if your aim is to make the material understandable (I have my doubts about some professors and the presence of this goal sometimes). It took me about 2 1/2 hours just to figure out how to get the slides to my liking and then another 20-25 minutes to prune everything out. It’s a time consuming job, preparing a lecture! I’m just grateful I had 5 lovely co-TAs to alleviate the pressure of doing a 75-minute lecture!

i’m writing about this here for a couple of reasons. first, because of our discussions surrounding student entitlement and the idea that students don’t really know what they’re capable of. second, because this is psychology related and third, i feel like i’m part of a group of students who would be considered high achievers and perhaps they have some advice or suggestions for

in another class, i’m a member of a 5 person group writing a paper together. once we all composed our parts, we agreed to “pass it around” via email and edit, eventually coming to an agreement on what the final product should be. i was the first to edit and not only was i appalled at the level which i thought a couple of them wrote at (high school level if even that), there were significant required pieces missing from the paper. as a disclaimer, i have a communications/public relations/english degree and 10 years++ experience writing as well as some heavy duty experience writing for this particular professor. in any case, i edited. a lot. i also put notes together for the pieces that i thought were missing and i sent an email to the group and i told those people who were responsible for those sections to put my notes in their own words. my intention was to help save time and keep things rolling. i received a scathing email from one member of the group who accused me of being too picky and my edits made her feel incompetent and stupid. in essence, i was lashed out at for being “too smart” and waving it in their faces.

needless to say, i was shocked. the response to my actions was in direct conflict with my intentions. i’m thinking a lot about person/situation attribution and where i was focused on the project, she internalized my work as a reflection of what she perceived i thought of her as a person. i’m also thinking a lot about group dynamics and task-oriented groups. this semester i’ve had 2 group projects and both experiences have been less than stellar. i see huge discrepancies in the abilities and motivations of group members, not to mention the effect of other people influencing the grade that everyone earns. i wanted to appeal the group work component of the psych/human dev department’s learning goals and be granted permission to work on my own if i could demonstrate my history of group work and demonstrate my competence achieved from my last college experience complete with intense student organization involvement and management not to mention all the training/development/seminars/work projects that i’ve done for the last 10 years. i don’t know if any professor on this campus takes the time to explain how to work effectively in groups, but it may be an idea for peer mentoring sessions or freshman seminars or something. when i’m in a group, my focus is doing the best job possible on the task at hand, not on making friends and placating to group members’ need to feel valued as people. is this a maturity issue? in my opinion, adults should be capable of separating school business from personal business.

i reminded myself several times over the weekend that i’m working with 18-21 year olds. i’m 34 with a load of experience and extremely high expectations of myself. if i have these expectations of myself that seem out of sync with my group members, is it my responsibility to lower mine to conform to the rest of the group’s or is it their responsibility to learn a little from me and expect more from themselves? perhaps they don’t know what their capabilities are and perhaps no one has pushed them to discover them. more pondering is required and i’m curious to see how the project ends up. and curious to see what grade we end up with.

i’ve been feeling neglectful towards blogging, but after i looked at what the other ta’s are doing, i was pretty proud of myself for being the most current. *high five to me*

::exam 3 review session::

something that bothers me about review sessions is the passive nature of them and the feeling that i get standing in front of a group of students, as if they’re challenging me to tell them something they don’t know. this time i thought i was doing a review session by myself so i worked on a plan. caitlin ended up being there and when i told her my plan, she was interested so we did it. we had 17 in attendance.

i printed off the powerpoint questions and gave each table a set and told them to come up with answers together. then we went through the slideshow and the table with the question answered it and we asked for agreement from the rest. it flowed nicely and while there was minimal disagreement, they did ask questions about things that they didn’t understand. following that, i handed each table a question from the study guide to put together answers for and explain the answer to the rest of the group. each question also referenced a study and they needed to tell the rest of the group what the study was and why it was important. that seemed to go well too. we finished in time and a couple of students stayed to ask some questions. i have an email out to attendees to get their feedback.

i’ve helped with 4 review sessions thus far and attendance has definitely dwindled. i think students go to the first one thinking it’s going to be helpful and that it will be the answer to getting a good grade on the exam. if they don’t feel it helped, they don’t go to any more. one question i asked of the attendees at the last one was what their ideal review session would be like. i’m curious to see if anyone responds.

::exam::

students seemed to finish earlier and dr. g said close to 20 students earned an 88% or better. at our last ta meeting, dr. g. suggested we look at the practice exam statistics to see if we could tell if the questions were discriminating or what the level of difficulty was.

interestingly, it appears that 99 students took the practice exam. i did a quick % average and it appears that the mean percentage was 62%, 8 students scored 92% or higher, the rest hovered in the C range. at a precursory glance, the questions appear to have the right difficulty levels, ranging from really hard ones (.3 answering correctly) to easier ones (.83 answering correctly). i noticed there weren’t any questions that everyone answered correctly, nor were there any questions that everyone missed. in my opinion, this would be an effective practice exam.

i looked at the questions i submitted next. i had a hard time with this. the difficulty lies in what i know and all the subjectivity that goes with it. the information i know clouds what i write and i assume a bit too much. in any case, one question had a 67% avereage, another had a 61% and the other 42%. evaluating the numbers, i guess i did pretty good. i asked if i could try writing some more questions. i have to do that later today for quiz 10 and dr. g said i could try some for the final exam as well.

i don’t know if i’ll ever teach psychology, or teach anything for that matter, but i want to leave this ta opportunity at least competent enough so that if i decide later in my career that i do want to teach, at least i have a foundation for it. while i have an idea of what i want to do, things happen to divert the path and i’m open-minded enough to be aware of opportunities and challenges that come my way.

4-1-09 TA meeting notes

• Jess and I took a different approach with the review session and I asked the students who attended to comment on whether it helped them more than the previous version. The comments were generally positive and emphasized the ability to test their knowledge without the session being “overrun” by the smart people. One person said the concept was nice, but didn’t think it was effective. I have some ideas for the next session…
• I read the book about preparing for a lecture and some of that is now fermenting in my brain. Dr. G follows the recommendations pretty closely, so I’m thinking if I/we tailor the lecture similar to his, it should be good.
• We also talked about John Hattie’s research and I was surprised to learn that class size does not have an effect on whether students do well. Two concepts, deliberative practice and autonomy support…giving students multiple exposures to ideas and helping them find the motivation and confidence to learn on their own.
• The other interesting item of note was that the learning style of the student doesn’t matter. Interesting. I’ve been led to believe differently.

4-7-09 class notes

• Storm water lecture…I was confused about why this was being presented to an intro psych class and who this person was. She never answered the questions: Who are you? Why do we care? It felt very disjointed and obligatory…as if it was a requirement that it be done without any care put into it. Dr. G made a nice comment relating it to social psych, but it felt forced.
• Overall this class was fun with a lot of student participation. The family feud style guessing of percentages was good, but it felt a little long. We found out later why it took so long and then it made more sense. I thought the studies used as examples were good too…they were things students could really connect to and I hope they’re getting that.

4-8-09 TA meeting notes

• Dr. G. talked about his teaching philosophy which I believe to be much more in depth and prepared with more care than most professors I’ve had. I don’t say that to brown-nose, rather, I’ve experienced quite a few professors and quite a few teachers/instructors in my day.
• One thing Dr. G. said today that struck me is that we have no idea what our actual potential is. While it was in reference to IP students and what grades they think they can achieve, it struck a chord with me on a personal and institutional level. On a personal level, I believe that to be true and one never really knows what one’s full potential is until they try. Therein lies the challenge…motivating people enough so they want to try. For years, I told myself I couldn’t do math or science and now that I’m psych, I realize I had no idea what I could do. Had I stayed where I was, I never would have achieved this much of my potential, not to mention the potential I’ll find in grad school. Perhaps potential isn’t finite either. Perhaps as one achieves a level previously thought unattainable, the level gets pushed higher. As teachers/instructors, it’s not necessarily our job to push information into people’s heads, rather it’s to inspire, demonstrate, motivate and coach. Is role modeling enough to show students what is possible? Can they learn to love learning and learn to initiate their own education by being around people who do so and encourage them to do so? The challenge I see here is the initial step lies with the student. We can provide opportunities to expand learning, but students have to get out of their dorms and to us…or take some action. I suppose it gets into social psych a little, but I’ve been fasinated with networking groups and what makes a good one. If one brought together a group of intelligent, motivated people and mingled them with students who showed “potential” but just needed motivation and encouragement, could being around these kinds of people be inspiring enough to produce in students the desire to take that action?
• We also talked about incivility and entitlement in the classroom and what causes students to behave and feel this way. We came up with some interesting possible causes and indicators including personality traits, environments and training. Could we create an incivility scale? Compare it to grades? I find it ironic that incivility and entitlement have been increasing along with the cost of attending college. It’s almost as if the college experience has become an entitlement in itself. Most high school graduates are “expected” to go on to school with little thought about why and I wonder about the financial accountability component.

4-09-09 Class notes

• Freud. I thought this class was laid out nicely. It’s not that I like Freud, it’s more like it’s an easy excuse to talk about sex and aggression, two topics that seem inappropriate otherwise. Lots of emphasis that it can’t be studied, which gave an opportunity to talk about psych as a science. On Facebook I posted the essay by Gloria Steinem about what would have happened had Freud been a woman. I wonder how many people have taken the time to read it. I laugh out loud each time I hear it and every time I hear a Freud lecture, I want to pull out my feminist card and shout loudly that although Freud served as a foundation for psychology that launched many other theories, all of his work was done with female clients to explain men. This is an example where I tend to take on some deliberative practice in that I look for other sources and over the summer I intend to read “The Interpretation of Dreams” in order to better understand and develop my own perspectives without the contamination of the critics and supporters. I already have Rogers, Maslow, Bandura and a few others, but I think it’s important to read the original works and let them fester and digest. That was kind of disgusting…lol.
• The class activity was a great one. I think it’s one of the best thus far. Allowing students to work on their own or decide to work with others worked well. Those who are confident enough or just shy and don’t want to work with others have the option and those who can’t do things on their own could take advantage of that. I liked how it brought together all of the concepts of personality. The development one did that a little too, but this one was much more comprehensive.

in reading the classroom incivility article, a few thoughts popped into my head:

passive learning–good term for what i believe the college experience has turned into. maybe it’s just the style of our education system, but this is evidenced in my other classes as well. when there is discussion, i’m usually disappointed at the superficiality of it…almost as if processing does not really occur. how do we teach people how to think?

35% of the participants said their parents were paying for college. how different is this from 10 years ago? did level of incivility correlate with whether or not students were accountable for their education? 

evaluations of professors and how they are used–this relates back to the other article i read. if students feel like they have an inflated sense of power because they evaluate the professor, then the evaluations are somehow used to determine a professor’s performance, perhaps institutions should consider how those evaluations are used. if a professor is going to keep classes so students evaluate them positively, they aren’t going to change their style of teaching or enforce classroom ettiquette rules. 

…moving to a knowledge age economy–one of the things i was honored to participate in 2 years ago was an entrepreneur training course for people looking to start high tech businesses. the originator of this group, drew fleck, was working for an organization in oshkosh that was promoting entrepreneurship pretty hard. it’s a big trend these days. in any case, when i told him my idea for rockin’ women, he invited me to be a part of this program called “Fast Track Tech.” during those sessions, we talked a lot about one’s capacity for starting a  business, how to understand one’s market and all sorts of related concepts and philosophies. one of the things that he talked a lot about was the fact that our country is moving into the knowledge age. what we need to be producing is people who can synthesize, creative, critically develop ideas and innovations and part of the way he saw that happening was through small networks of idea-sharers. i could ramble on more about this, but the idea of college as a consumer product that will eventually help the student generate more money is the most ridiculous idea i’ve heard in awhile. not to say it’s not a true belief that they hold, but that it’s leading them in the wrong direction. 

drew recently published his dissertation and i’m trying to get a copy of it. he has some interesting ideas about networking and not sure how it could relate to intro to psych though…

Title
The Relationship Between Network Centrality and Temperament Intelligence Type in a Small Innovation Network:  Exploring the Implications for Emergent Innovation Networks.

Abstract
This study explores whether centrality in a small emergent innovation network might be related to individual temperament intelligence type when it comes to sharing new and innovative ideas.  Using data from a 17-member innovation network devoted to creatively building and improving the Internet, the researcher tested whether centrality and temperament intelligence type within the network might correlate.  This study reflects a multidisciplinary approach to research and practice that integrates two important fields of inquiry—social network analysis and personality theory.  Combined, the two fields provide a rich analysis of the individual in relation to others in social and organizational networks that cannot be obtained solely through one approach or the other.

Besides employing a social network survey designed to uncover relationships based on new and innovative idea sharing within the network, this study also uses a Five-Factor personality assessment (IPIP-NEO) and converts the assessment results (T-Scores) to a temperament taxonomy (MBTI/Keirsey).  This study does not rely solely on correlation analysis, but supplements the quantitative analysis with graphical illustrations (sociograms) to enable the researcher and the reader to gain greater insight into the data.

The pilot study supported the methodology.  Yet, due to the extremely homogeneous nature of the innovation network in the dissertation study, combined with its small population size, the dissertation study correlation analysis did not confirm a statistically significant relationship between centrality and temperament intelligence type.  However, the supplemental sociograms did suggest a relationship.  Also, the temperament analysis of the innovation network members appears to support the temperament research literature regarding which temperament patterns are more inclined to participate in certain kinds of innovation and entrepreneurship.  Further research using social network analysis, temperament analysis, and statistical analysis is recommended.

Committee

• Chair:  Milton Lopes, PhD
• Faculty Reader:  Leonard Bacca, EdD
• Faculty Reader:  Jeremy Shapiro, PhD
• Student Reader:  Bill Huffaker, PhD Candidate
• External Examiner:  Bruce Hoppe, PhD
  

Andrew M. G. Fleck – Biography
Drew is a 20-year veteran of the High Technology industry working with virtual teams and work design within collaborative knowledge networks.  Drew has worked in various capacities with ADC WorldMap, Dell, Empower, Microsoft, SpatialSherpa, TerraGraphics, and Toshiba.  He is known for designing integrated marketing management systems and creating worldwide innovation alliances for technology start-ups and projects.  He co-founded a Business Intelligence firm serving High Technology start-ups in the Pacific Northwest.  Drew also co-founded a networking group for technology professionals called The Hive.  He is an adjunct faculty member specializing in virtual and blended learning systems at the ADVANTARA Global Executive Learning and Coach Training Institute in the United Kingdom.  He is an adjunct faculty member at Concordia University teaching International Business in their MBA program.  Drew is a Certified Facilitator for the Kauffman Foundation’s FastTrac TechVenture learning program for high-impact entrepreneurs and is currently part of a Kauffman entrepreneurial SWAT Team responsible for expanding innovation and entrepreneurship during the current economic downturn.  He practices strategic management consulting under his GlobalVoyager Enterprises banner. 
 
Drew completed Fielding Graduate University’s Ph.D. program in Human and Organizational Systems with an Information Society and Knowledge Organization (ISAKO) concentration.  He also earned a Master Degree from Fielding in the same area of specialty.  Additionally, Drew has a Master Degree in Management & Organizational Behavior with emphases in International Business and Training & Development, a Bachelor Degree in Management & Communication, and a Bachelor Degree in English Literature.  Drew also spent eight years in the US Air Force and US Air Force Reserve as a member of the command section in an award-winning Air Base Ground Defense unit.
 
With a passion for cross-cultural dynamics, innovation and entrepreneurship, network weaving, systems thinking, and unified communication technologies in organizational design and development, Drew believes in building virtual and learning organizations through organic management systems and collaborative knowledge networks.  In short, Drew wants to change the world by creating better ways to foster human and organizational systems that are more natural, healthy, and productive in light of our new realities.