Making learning visible dodging bullet points

Since January and the start of the course in Technology Enhanced Education there's been - and still is - a lot of reading to do. I've gained new and renewed insights into possible research methods and I'll share some of this in the next few weeks. The figure below is from:

Hay, D., Kinchin, I., Lygo‐Baker, S., 2008. Making learning visible: the role of concept mapping in higher education. Studies in Higher Education. 33, 295–311. doi:10.1080/03075070802049251

Figure 4 from Hay.

Over the years I've noticed and been rewarded when after a session on the care domains model some audience members have commented that the exercise made them think. There's nothing special in that of course, simple maths makes me think. Perhaps, people felt relief for a change from the passive absorption of facts, images, acting as static targets for a slew of bullet points. What comes across though is that there was some effort involved. In the figure above we can imagine the energy needed to not only create new and maintain existing concepts, but reject others. This might also constitute one front of the theory - practice gap?

This in a way reflects my thinking that although we refer to person-centred care in theory, practice and policy, this does not automatically follow. Person-centredness should take effort, work and energy. If that is the case, it also needs time.

Over Here 2: Smart Thinking or Who do you think you are?

Of all the things that tend to merge, overlap, then appear discrete only to dissolve again we can see illness, health and well-being. To these we can add - self-help, intelligent self-help, various forms of literacy (3R's, emotional, economic, information, visual, health) and self-care.

I am sure that Hodges' model can help improve health literacy and general reflective abilities. There are some really difficult-to-reach audiences, clients and communities out there. The challenge is not just spreading the word:

A crude but generally accurate definition of what makes a smart thinking book is anything you could easily imagine being the subject of a TED talk. The recipe is to find a leading expert and get him (alas, still more often than her) to write about an idea in his field that is interesting to a wider audience and which he believes - or at least claims - can help us change our lives for the better. It has been called intelligent self-help, but since most potential readers would not appreciate the implied association with the dumber varieties, "smart thinking" has a certain advantage. ... FT Weekend. p.8

- but demonstration too.

My source: Julian Baggini, Wisdom set to work, Life & Arts, Financial Times. March 8-9, 2014, p.8.
Online: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/70365226-a3c1-11e3-aa85-00144feab7de.html#axzz2wiUqgpuw

Book: Thinking as Communicating - Sfard (the intra- interpersonal domain)

Previously I wondered about a term that might combine thinking and the formation and process of mental mapping, the creation of a conceptual map - a mental conceptual geography - cogneography?

Thinking as Communicating

Finding Anna Sfard's 1998 paper this past week led me to her book. The following is from the introduction:

I define thinking as individualized form of interpersonal communication. The disappearance of the time-honored dichotomy is epitomized in the term commognition, which combines communication with cognition. The commognitive tenet implies that verbal communication, with its distinctive property of recursive self-reference, may be the primary source of humans’ unique ability to accumulate the complexity of their action from one generation to another.

Sfard's work will have to go on the 'to read' pile (part-time studies begin tomorrow), but it may help provide ways to understand and unravel the intra- and interpersonal domain within Hodges' model. The mathematical emphasis (even though I may struggle with this) is an added bonus.

Sfard, A. Thinking as communicating: Human development, the growth of discourses, and mathematizing. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Sfard, A. (1998). On two metaphors for learning and the dangers of choosing just one. Educational Researcher, 27(2), pp. 4-13.
http://www.colorado.edu/physics/phys4810/phys4810_fa08/4810_readings/Sfard.pdf