Driving Question Reflection Clarity is everything. When planning any lesson whether it is reading instruction or technology instruction, it is essential to know and understand what it is you want your learners to master. Clark breaks down the important components to ensure that this clarity of purpose takes place before beginning your lessons. Clark's Developing Technical Training lays out the process of building and creating effective lessons to support technical training. Moving from assessing need to implementation are a series of steps that looks closely at what skills and understanding is necessary for corporate and classroom success. Tying this together with Dervin's Sense Making and understanding how our students process information, empowers educators to create lessons that effectively deliver essential content to our students. It isn't enough for math teachers to understand how to add and subtract themselves, but rather they need to know the essential steps for completing these processes, and understand how the individuals they teach understand and process those steps. All of this is pushing us closer and closer to providing content that is not only pertinent to our students, but digestible and practical. The driving question I began with: What impact does learning a computer programing language (html/css) have on critical thinking skills, remains relevant to me and my students. As I continue forward building our technology design lab, I want to ensure that content I deliver is practical, accessible and relevant. As my students begin their journey through the digital landscape, it is important that I thoughtfully empower them to navigate this road in ways that are safe and useful. No learning exists within a vacuum nor is it disconnected from other subjects or content, so as I build lessons I must not only look closely at the content I am delivering but ways to connect to other areas of student learning.
Need to Know: Which computer languages would be most useful to students? What activities are supported with these languages? How can computer programming become embedded with regular course content? How can I create cross-curricular connections?
SENSE MAKING AND MAKING SENSE (FOR BEGINNERS)
Dervin's Sense-Making is not for the faint of heart. It is a concept that requires careful reading, rereading, and thought. I found that the best way to understand what I was reading was to create pictures and diagrams. This helped me understand what was being communicated to me. I also read the article in small chunks and then reread it another time using my own drawings as references. Interestingly, the drawings that I created nearly matched some of the diagrams that were included in the reading. This gave me a sense that I was understanding what I was reading. This confidence led me to continue forward, and make more notes and drawings. It was the encouragement that I needed to reassure me that my understanding was on the right path. Dervin was trying to communicate the important idea that it is essential to understand HOW individuals make sense of the world around them. Specifically for my classroom experience, it would be helpful for my to understand how students make sense of HTML or CSS. If I have a clear understanding of THEIR understanding, I can connect to them in ways that help THEM make sense. Relying on MY understanding doesn't necessarily assist my students. I need to consider things from their perspective and must understand how THEY make sense of computer programming so that I can better help them bridge the gap of their understanding. Sharing the material that Dervin has written with others would be no small task. Understanding my "students" for this task would be essential. I would of course break into chunks as that is the way that I and my colleagues approached it. But it would be important to understand how my students best learn new and complex material. Do they learn best through video examples? Role play? Reading? If I were to truly explain and assist them across the gap I would need to understand how they make sense of complicated information. What would be the most effective way for them to bridge that gap of understanding.
Sense-Making
a methodology for understanding how individuals make sense
an on-going process that looks at human behavior
takes the perspective of the seeker and asker
looks closely at how an individual might make sense in a particular situation and what help they would utilize to bridge a gap of understanding
emphasis on communication with the seeker
the seeker's reflection about the process if critical to understanding
Some methodologies for sense-making
Satisfaction survey - focuses on a specific interaction and a seeker's reflections
Image survey - used for looking a specific impressions/experiences with a specific corporation, event or experience. Asks questions like, "What were your impressions of X event?"
Help Chain Survey - asks questions in each step of the help process "How did it help you?"
Messaging/Q-ing - asks the question "What was your experience like?"
All of these methodologies focus on the asker/seeker's experiences and how they make sense of an event, material, or concept. This information provides those supporting the asker/seeker with techniques and approaches that will help that seeker bridge the gap. It is important to understand that sense making does not make blanket assumptions based on culture or society. It is a much more individualist approach and an on-going process. How a person makes sense in one situation may not be the way they make sense in a different situation, and simply because two people come from similar culture or background, does not mean that they will make sense in the same ways. Perhaps the reason that sense making is such a complex and dense topic is simply because it is taking a close look at human behavior and humans themselves are complex. Sense making is a beautiful portrait of the complexities involved in education. Students are infinitely unique, and thus the way the understand and interpret the world around them is infinitely unique. Sense making is an approach to understanding these complexities and in this never-ending process, find ways to help our students gain understanding and success.