Husseinalbayati's Blog

A New Beginning

husseinalbayati — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 22:19:01 +0000

Writing a journal or a blog is a constant reminder of events, feelings, and ideas that would have disappeared in the midst of everyday life and this blog is a proof of that . When I tried to reflect on my experience in the course in the last nine weeks I immediately started reading my own thoughts and feelings on this particular blog and began somehow relive these emotions at the beginning of the course when the whole idea of online learning seemed unfamiliar and vague. However, I want to focus on the change within, the way I see things now and how my perspective has changed due to this experience. First of all, I cannot for sure measure the depth and dimensions of the change I had but one thing is for sure that I feel that I am empowered by so many ideas and thoughts, a richer vocabulary and a deep understanding of adult education and teaching adults. But more importantly, I have new “books” of people as John Corcoran would call the people that he met in his life that he learned from. In the last nine weeks I met very interesting people Samer, Maria, Angela, Aliya, Pheobe and Cecilia. I learned a lot by listening to my colleagues’ stories and discussions, I learned from their experiences and their perspectives. Moreover, I met an outstanding professor that already set the standards high for a superb quality of instruction and facilitating the learning experience. Dr.Greene has been a tremendous help for all the class and her presence in the course and during all our chat threads were always helping all to engage in meaningful, reflective discourse. I feel empowered with the knowledge I attained in the last weeks and determined to continue this wonderful journey of life-long learning.

Active Reflection

husseinalbayati — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 01:54:59 +0000

Reflecting on any experience I might have is trying to figure out what really has happened, is to ask myself questions I don’t have answers for, is to seek knowledge. In reflecting on this learning experience, I learned by trying to absorb everything I had and refrained myself from hasty judgments. If life has taught me something it would be not to judge by appearances. To make this reflection active I believe is to apply it, to learn from it and to transfer it into behavior or to deliver it to whom you think they need it. One of the things I learned is to guide your students into reflective, deep and transformational learning experiences without the need to say it out loud. Great teaching is craftsmanship that is formulated by years of experiences with great knowledge of the profession and most importantly an active reflective mind that provokes itself to find answers and engages others to look for the solution. I am still in the first step for this journey, I might not have many related, relevant experiences but I know for sure that I am willing to learn and walk the path with open mind and welcoming spirit. And all I hope is to walk my students in their own paths and trails with the same spirit of tolerance and openness to others’ beliefs and experiences.

Week7

husseinalbayati — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 19:04:01 +0000

It sure feels good to help others, that’s a human feeling we all have experienced this week by trying to donate something to assist those who are in need or by giving a constructive critique to our colleagues. The first experience of helping strangers using online resources compared to the second experience of helping a classmate by providing constructive feedback are quite two different experiences. Reflecting on these two experiences, I see that the first experience is a “Cognitive Apprenticeship” as defined by Brown, Collins, & Duguid ” Cognitive apprenticeship methods try to enculturate [learners] into authentic practices through activity and social interaction in away similar to that evident-and evidently successful – in craft apprenticeship”(Merriam et al., 2007, pp. 181-182). On the other hand, we as learners experience the role of educators who provide constructive criticism to the learners, by this we as learners have to utilize everything we’ve learned in the course to build a cohesive, deep, and constructive feedback. By doing so we learn by doing or as “the situative theory posits that knowing is intertwined with doing” (Merriam, et al., p.160).

Week 6

husseinalbayati — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 01:00:26 +0000

Human development in all its biological, psychological, sociocultural, and integrated perspectives is a fact. We all physically, emotionally, intellectually and socially develop/change during the course of our life span. When a person gets older, he or she gets more experience, a rich reservoir of information, non-formal or informal learning experiences , more acquaintances, multiple social roles and responsibilities which all lead to a better understanding of himself or herself in relation to the contextual variables that he or she lives within. Development is corresponding with the concept of lifelong learning. we develop as we learn and vice versa.

Week 5

husseinalbayati — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 17:47:14 +0000

Traditional learning theories offer better understandings of the human learning process which lead to a better understanding of human beings in general. The way we learn says a lot about us as individuals and as human beings as well. Each one of these traditional theories like Behaviorism, Humanism, Cognitivism, Social Cognivitism, and Constructivism have enriched my personal understanding about learning in general and how to implement these new approaches in my own classroom in particular. I learned from behaviorists the importance of creating an environment that leads to the change in behavior. From Humanists, I learned that human potential is unlimited and how important is the role of the students in the learning process. The cognitive approach helped me in understanding the learning process from quite different perspective of the mental process and the importance of meaningful instruction that can relate to previous experiences. The social cognitivism helped me understand the significant influence of the social context on behavior and learning.Whereas the constructivists focus on the meaning-making process which is essential, I believe, for any educator to be aware of. I believe that to be a good teacher one needs to absorb all learning theories and approaches and reflect on his/her own learning tendencies to achieve a self-understanding that will enable him or her to understand his or her own students. This understanding helps to better design the class to meet different learning tendencies that students have. It also helps in developing a class of diverse teaching methods that will encourage some students to get out of their comfortable zones( their own learning tendency) and experience different ways of learning that eventually as neuroscientists argue to make new neural connections in the brain which leads to a better learning experience. Finally, what I learned from this reading is to follow your common sense.Concentrating on theories and scientific approaches should not detach the teacher from his students. Human connection in it’s affective, social, and mental dimensions is the most important thing in order to achieve a healthy, constructive learning experience. That is why great teachers like Leopold Auer did not really define their teaching methods by words or terms that contain and constrain the unlimited aspects of teacher-students relationships simply because he preceded most of these theorists. In an interview, Auer was clear in stressing on the points of individuality and self-observation and many other teaching tips that proved to be true to this time.

http://www.theviolinsite.com/violin_mastery/leopold_auer.html

Relevant Research

husseinalbayati — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 21:31:14 +0000

For me, relevant means anything I find that can help me understand the new subject matter in hand.It could be an article, a definition entry in a dictionary, or web search for a person or a book.All the search I do, I do it online.It starts with a name of a writer mentioned in the textbook, a title of a book or a new term I read for the first time. I always look for official websites like:

Allen Tough( http://ieti.org/tough/index.html ).
Roger Hiemstra (http://www-distance.syr.edu/distancenew.html).
the International Society for Self-Directed Learning (http://sdlglobal.com).

All these resources and many others are very important for me to know as much as I could about these new concepts, ideas and writers and to familiarize myself with these new names.One of the interesting articles I read on the latest journal of the International Society for Self-Directed Learning was the one written by Lucy Guglielmino, that was retrieved from the Society’s website, and it was especially exciting for me to see all the faces of the familiar names in our textbook on the right side of the home page where all the previous winners of Malcolm Knowles’s award for SDL including two of the authors of the textbook. Here is a link to the article mentioned earlier:

http://sdlglobal.com/docs/IJSDL/IJSDL_5.1-2008.pdf

“When life gets in the way”

husseinalbayati — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 21:30:08 +0000

Adult learners are as much alike as they are different.Adult educators,arguably believe that all adult learners have many things in common that they could fit in one theory/model/framework that define their learning process/experience.But that is not the case.Each one of us is unique in his/her personality that comes as a result of variable factors that each one of us encounters or have.The adult learners are different in so many ways that each has his/her own bubble of outer world “life” that he/she interacts/tries to get a hold of and sometimes tries to figure it out.We all have other roles we play in this life,these are interchangeable roles in which a learner becomes a teacher,a teacher becomes a learner and a son becomes a father.We all human beings that are vulnerable to that bubble called life and in our endless efforts to break through theses bubbles that surrounds us is connection.The connection/communication we have among us makes all theses barriers become transparent and almost nonexistent.one of the most vital connections we have in our life second only to parents/children connection is the educator/learner connection.We as adult educators need to connect with our students and to always keep our objectives along with theirs in mind and ask ourselves how to get there.In many trails/fields in life people do not walk all the path(they quit,give up,find an alternative,a second best) but we need to ask ourselves.Are those people/students fail because they are incompetent or lazy or they fail because we fail.I found an interesting article (Actually the article found me in a weird coincidence) that sheds the light on the fact that sometimes students fail exams for other reasons. Here is the link

http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/Papers/TestingTips.htm

Overcoming fears

husseinalbayati — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 16:52:52 +0000

I truly admit that the first couple of days before the official class began I was lost .The whole idea of interacting with people online without having face to face interactions,the concept of online classes and the details /tools to prepare for class,all seemed intimidating but some of the fear went away when I took a deep breath and started following the detailed,easy to understand instructions in the week1 video breakdown by my teacher,Dr.K. To be honest,part of the relief was seeing a face.But there was still one problem,how do I begin participating in class of people I never met before?what if I made a mistake?So i was waiting,i did not have the courage to start and kept waiting.And here it is,the first comment by Samer that changed everything and with Dr.k’s response that had a direct question to all students,to me.Then I remembered my first week in college when I did the same thing,never participated and answered only when directly asked.This experience helped me a lot,it gave me more understanding to some of my own students who might be like me,need encouragement and patience.This week also gave me a vivid manifestation of the power of teamwork and collaboration when I read all these different views of my colleagues that helped me view the materials we were given differently.

If I reflect on this week,It is more exciting than I thought of,more challenging and yes more fun.

Portfolio

husseinalbayati — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 00:22:07 +0000

Creating a portfolio is very important for learners as well as educators .It serves as a journal that documents the evolving process of learning.It is also considered as a resume for future employment opportunities. The portfolio is the image that reflects the educator’s views,philosophy and progression.The portfolio is like a good friend that you talk to when looking for a sound advice .It is also a foundation that we build on, modify and sometimes change to echo our progress and changing /evolving thinking.