Post 35. New Images.

Please also remember that you can follow the progress of APSTR on both www.apstr.org and on the Google+ business page for [APSTR]

You can donate to APSTR via PayPal with this button.

APSTR's humble beginning, along with our very first donated pc in the images.

Post 34. Classrooms.

I had an idea, to create a blended learning environment that also has asynchronous components, discussion forums that build communities around classroom learning groups. The following writing describes what this might look like. The document was created as a part of a Master's in Adult Education and Training Program at the University of Phoenix. If you'd like to cite the document, it may be easiest to check the references in the document, but the following citation should do. Hixson, S. (2014, November 17). Community of inquiry: Facilitating social presence [Assignment for a course on adult education]. School of Education, University of Phoenix.

Community of Inquiry: Facilitating Social Presence Part 1: Learning Orientation and Framework      As a teacher, this writing will demonstrate that facilitating confidence in group interaction among learners who are collaborative stakeholders in a community of inquiry, can also facilitate group competence in the subject material by encouraging epistemic engagement as individuals are self-identified as collaborators within a group. Learner-centered participatory environments based on orientations that view knowledge as a collaborative social construction help to facilitate self-directed learning and engagement, as teachers are more able to understand the individual needs and personalities of students through effective communication in personal learning environments (Conradie, 2014). Teachers who are comfortable in nurturing connections between his or her own presence, the social presence of learners in the classroom, and the cognitive presence of students in the classroom, are able to increase student knowledge and satisfaction with courses offered online (Shea & Bidjerano, 2009). Continually, teachers who are able to foster connections between teacher presence and social presence in a blended learning environment, increased the cognitive mindfulness of their students in a way which improved a sense of self-efficacy and accomplishment that is thought to improve effort and increase epistemic engagement (Shea & Bidjerano, 2010).      In terms of demographics, the age of learners is increasing in higher education, and online classrooms are thought to meet the needs of the aging population of learners (Shea & Bidjerano, 2009). Age as a factor in education also can be described as a ratio of competence, as adult learners age they accrue more cognitive strategies and experience that applies in a constructive learning environment among learning group members (Shea & Bidjerano, 2009).      The age of students is increasing, and this may also increase the expected specialization and complexity of teaching methodologies employed in modern classrooms. As technology evolves, teachers must be able to maintain an awareness of current technologies as well as the content of course material, as well as the contextual and social elements of the classroom environment in order to nurture epistemic engagement among learning groups (Shea & Bidjerano, 2009). Learning spaces themselves may contribute to engagement and creativity as the presence of objects and artifacts connected to modern culture may increase curiosity in classrooms (Goodman, 2014).      Group membership as a process of intergroup differentiation increases motivation through a process of increased self-esteem that is related to group goals and ideals, based on differences between-groups, group members idealize positive in-group characteristics of group membership as a quality that motivates group participation according to group prototypes (Tasdemir, 2011). Learners who can self-identify with a learning community or group may experience increased motivation and self-esteem.      The culture of The United States is considered a low-context and individualized culture, which differs from high-context culture according to the nature of group participation (Shiraev & Levy, 2010). Collective cultures tend to view group participation as implied, and self-identification as a group member is a higher priority than emphasis on individual accomplishments within the group context, individualistic cultures tend to focus on achievement in the workplace outside of demographics and view perceived competence as a concept that is equal to capability and that influences self-perceptions of efficacy in work settings (Shiraev & Levy, 2010). Cross-cultural dimensions can affect the sense of self-efficacy among students in learning groups.       Thoughts about self-efficacy can serve to benefit learner motivation if an individual perceives herself or himself as effective and capable of influencing events that change the outcomes associated with their actions, or create negative cognitive affects if an individual’s self-appraisal does not render a sense of efficacy (Bandura, 1989). A person’s motivational, cognitive, and affective processes can be influenced by the sense of self-efficacy, and people tend to select environments that contribute to efficacy and optimal outcomes (Bandura, 1989). The ability to nurture the appraisal of positive self-efficacy provides for self-directed behavior, by appraising the ability to influence current and future outcomes socially and cognitively, and external environments also influence the self-regulation of and promotion of efficacy (Bandura, 1989).      In summary, the awareness of knowledge is a social construction that is collaborated upon among members of social groups, that can be influenced by the external environment and intentionally encouraged in collaborative blended learning environments, which are inhabited by groups who foster a sense of membership that increases self-esteem and motivation, that is supported by teaching professionals who are able to create student-centered social and cognitive spaces for learning presence and learner collaboration in diverse populations. In the context of The United States, learning as a participatory practice enhances the sense of competence and self-efficacy, as competent learners are able to collaborate on and shape the outcome of learning activities in a formal setting, thereby delineating learning group membership that increases self-esteem and motivation. Part 2: Classroom Design      This writing was created to meet the needs of a course on foundations of adult learning, and the coursework related to the assignment provides two options. This document is written to meet the second example prompt, which is a teaching activity designed to meet the needs of 35 adult learners ranging in age from 17 years old to 70 years.      It has been established in this writing that group presence and collaboration are key elements to learning, which can be inclusive across age demographics and also increase retention. Presentational classroom environments are teacher-centered and offer a space for student listening only, some classroom orientations offer a perspective called performance-tutoring, which are environments that offer group participation but that is largely based on existing formal structures for learning; epistemic engagement is a process in which learners collaborate on the methods, language, and strategies for learning course material (Shea & Bidjerano, 2009). My goal is to create a learning environment that supports teaching that engages both the social and cognitive elements of the classroom through teacher presence, that is collaborative and that maintains a record of group activity, and that creates an active blended learning environment that facilitates individual learning and contributes to group participation and epistemic engagement. This can be accomplished with technology, as shown in figure 1. Figure 1. Blended Learning Classroom Format (Smartdesks.com, n.d.).      As shown in figure 1, classrooms can be equipped with touch-screen workstations that can also be used as conventional learning spaces. Because the classroom is designed for students of a wide age range, the keyboard and mouse is not a required interface for the technology, hands-on fingertip gestures can manipulate the material presented on the screens, a projector screen at the front of the classroom can present material to the entire group without requiring interaction, on-screen keyboards are less noisy or distracting, and the workstations can employ voice recognition technology that can circumvent the need for rapid typing during class participation. The desks shown are created by a company in New Jersey (Smartdesks.com, n.d.). As shown in figure 2, the desks can be fitted with any type of display including touch screens, and can still offer a traditional keyboard and mouse input for students who require it. Figure 2. Computer Desk Features. (Smartdesks.com, n.d.)      The multi-use desks have the ability to be equipped with computer hardware that is not cost-prohibitive and that becomes the foundation for an effective blended learning environment.      Figure 3 demonstrates the collaborative features of the blended learning workstations for classroom use. Figure 3. Student collaboration during learning activities. (Smartdesks.com, n.d.).      The classroom technology is designed to be a part of the instructor’s presentation, as the instructor presents a set of course materials on the classroom projector, the same materials are accessible from each workstation. In this environment the students are thereby given a copy of the course presentation, which can be manipulated on each workstation going from one slide to the next, or viewing a collaborative document, while taking notes on the course materials. Any notes recorded could be accessible from any internet workstation through a university website.      Blended classroom interaction is recorded by the workstations according to student ID, course, and login. As the in-person elements of the coursework take place, students can submit written comments that are visible to the entire class as well as to the instructor, and a virtual space for student responses to the class can be created. Question and answer format activities can take the form of a single screen presented on the main projector, which presents questions from any of the students participating in question and answer activities. Lastly, the workstations can provide discussion spaces throughout the course material, much like modern online classrooms, that can be accessed asynchronously and provide a space for collaboration and discussion of course material while outside the classroom. As mentioned previously, class participation can be recorded on university internet storage space in a way that can be accessed from a home computer while not attending class, so that classroom discussions are available asynchronously.      Instructor communications are central to creating an adequate space for self-directed learning, as individual learner’s memory and perceptions of the course material are relevant to the foundation of self-directed participation and learning in a personal learning environment (Conradie, 2014). As demonstrated by online learning at the University of Phoenix, individual feedback and communication between the instructor, the social space surrounding the course material, and individual learners can be facilitated through the use of computer technology, in a way that is sensitive to a wide range of demographics. This next step brings the online learning technology into the in-person classroom in a way that combines course presentation, collaboration, and asynchronous communication to form a viable community of inquiry among the participants of each course.      To conclude, each student’s work would be visible and available for viewing by collaborators and by instructors, in a way that contributes to group identity among cohorts within the courses and as members of the university as a social group. This approach can increase self-efficacy and epistemic engagement in a blended learning environment, across demographics. References Goodman, S. (2014, November 11). Does your classroom tell a story? Edutopia. Retrieved from: http://www.edutopia.org/blog/does-your-classroom-tell-story-stacey-goodman?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=post&utm_campaign=blog-does-your-classroom-tell-story-link Bandura, A. (1989). Human agency in social cognitive theory. American Psychologist, 44(9), 1175-1184. Conradie, P. W. (2014). Supporting self-directed learning by connectivism and personal learning environments. International Journal of Information and Education Technology, 4(3), 254-259. Shea, P. & Bidjerano, T. (2009). Community of inquiry as a theoretical framework to foster “epistemic engagement” and “cognitive presence” in online education. Computers & Education, 52, 543-553. Shea, P. & Bidjerano, T. (2010). Learning presence: Towards a theory of self-efficacy, self-regulation, and the development of a communities of inquiry in online and blended learning environments. Computers & Education, 55, 1721-1731. Shiraev E. & Levy, D. Cross-cultural psychology: Critical thinking and contemporary applications. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Smartdesks.com (n.d.). Flip Up / Flip Top PC Computer Desks for Schools and Higher Education. Retrieved from: http://www.smartdesks.com/flipit-flip-up-pc-computer-classroom-desks.asp Tasdemir, N. (2011). The relationships between motivations of intergroup differentiation as a function of different dimensions of social identity. Review of general psychology, 15(2), 125-137.

Post 33. Foundations.

It has become apparent to me that the best way to succeed in the supporting of public schools, is to find a niche' that is nonpartisan and that mutually benefits all stakeholders. This is including students, teachers, administrators, and county officials seeking to create new learning implementations that require technology and new technology funding. The result is [APSTR]: [APSTR] Has an associated crowdsourcing campaign to help us found the organization and to get started in terms of making in-kind donations sustainable to local and international businesses. You can click through to donate toward this effort!

Post 32. An Image.

Post 31.

I'm left-handed neurologically. And so having been expected to learn handwriting with my right hand I have learned a number of things about struggling while learning. I've created my own font as well as a website at www.dxed.org to help arrange and gather resources about this and other issues in education, and also to provide updates about the book that I'm writing.

www.dxed.org

The book is about public school, and promises to examine all of the social problems that develop in the context of public education. It supports public education as well as democratic education, and seeks to provide solutions for the escalating symptoms within the environments where learning is carried out.  This writing comes from the perspective of someone who had been expected to fail, and after spending decades researching and understanding the problem, succeeded instead while earning Summa Cum Laude honors. These honors came as a part of a four-year degree earned through the process of understanding the social problems that exist in the context of education, and through the self-discoveries needed to describe the processes of striving and survival in the context of Jefferson County Schools in Jefferson County, Colorado.

Post 30: Creativity.

"Don't imagine, indulgent reader, that I'm talking at you or down to you; or trying to put something over on you. No, no; imagine me, lamb-like and bewildered, muttering softly to myself, between soft groans, trying to make head or tail of myself in my present situation."

--D.H. Lawrence Certain Americans and an Englishman

Striving. I often imagine for myself that there is no perfect way to listen, nor is there a perfect way to handle any particular situation. This is much like the white space in some artwork from Japan, or the spaces in my apartment that I leave cluttered with reminders of an impermanent world. Two things about striving are that one cannot truly begin to strive until the admission that one can no longer struggle; and that striving is a kind of learning that becomes a part of the whole being. There is no perfect way to listen, or to behave, because if there were there would not be a need to improve on these aspects of life. 

My most recent journey brought me through politics, and I experienced firstly the political tensions that exist in Jefferson County, CO; as well as nationally. The pressures that exist are extremely polarized, but often this is an indicator that something will be created that enhances the stability of the community and meets the needs of all parties and stakeholders in a way that can slow or stop the extremism.

A lot of people have written in the context of dynamics, or polarities which develop energy for action. I chose an author who had written in a time that was not as critically aware of the difference between masculine and feminine tones, but in Phoenix II I found D.H. Lawrence to be capable of writing of his own femininity, albeit in a prose that met with the style of the writers of the time. So what follows is an example of the awareness of a trine of forces, between dialectics that create polarity, and their eventual offspring and resolution. 

"But life depends on duality and polarity. The duality, the polarity now asserts itself within the individual psyche. Here, in the individual, the fourfold creative activity takes place. Man is divided, according to old-fashioned phraseology, into upper and lower man: that is, the spiritual and sensual being. And this division is physical and actual. The upper body, breast and throat and face, this is the spiritual body; the lower is the sensual.    By spiritual being we mean that state of being where the self excels into the universe, and knows all things by passing into all things. It is that blissful consciousness which glows upon the flowers and trees and sky, so that I am sky and flowers, I, who am myself. It is that movement toward a state of infinitude wherein I experience my living one-ness with all things.    By sensual being, on the other hand, we mean that state in which the self is the magnificent centre wherein all life pivots, and lapses, as all space passes into the core of the sun. It is a magnificent central positivity, wherein the being sleeps upon the strength of its own reality, as a wheel sleeps in speed on it's positive hub. It is a state portrayed in the great dark statues of the seated lords of Egypt. The self is incontestable and unsurpassable.     Through the gates of the eyes and nose and mouth and ears, through the delicate ports of the fingers, through the great window of the yearning breast, we pass into our oneness with the universe, our great extension of being, towards infinitude. But in the lower part of the body there is darkness and pivotal pride. There in the abdomen the contiguous universe is drunk into the blood, assimilated, as a wheel's great speed is assimilated into the hub. There the great whirlpool of the dark blood revolves and assimilates all unto itself. Here is the world of living dark waters, where the fire is quenched into watery creation. Here, in the navel, flowers the water-born lotus, the soul of the water begotten by one germ of fire. And the lotus is the symbol of our perfected sensual first-being, which rises in blossom from the unfathomable waters."

--D.H. Lawrence The Two Principles

I heard someone say that it is always loudest before the dawn. I suppose that is true because all of our respective groups are reaching a level of polarity that is very visible and vocal, and so there must be some creative force derived from the energy that is present in our politics. This is written as a reflection on the transposition from tensions which arise in each individual, to tensions which arise among groups of individuals, as communities in the absence of groupthink we have collective personalities and needs. The pressures which exist between our groups therefore must also have the same creative potential as the pressures which exist within our individual perceptions, and so I see a way for the elections and for our internal conflicts within Jefferson County to develop something new and something bold and supportive, in a way that can empower the community while more aptly fitting our community into the larger national and global communities that we inhabit.  There will be an end to hate and discrimination, and we will find a way to develop true equity in our lives, but this is a creative process and not one of retribution. It's important to recognize the extreme political tensions for what they are, a force of creativity that is motivated toward balance and fairness. The entrenched status quo is likely to take time to erode, much like water takes time to shape the earth. Hatred is not best met by hatred, but instead by the watery forces of transmutation and creation. The eventual state of this process is entropy, and from that state we may again begin seeking individuality and fortitude as exclusion from the others of the world. This process of solution and dissolution is human creativity in social space, I've written of this in Post 9.  The need that I see in society is for an increase in cultural femininity and nurturing, as well as a de-escalation and personal acceptance of distress and uncertainty. Military cultures are deeply masculine, fearful and uncertainty-avoidant cultures. It's time for the war to end, and for most of us to learn how to increase femininity and to teach nurturing, an entropy from which a new energetic and economic development will spring in the years to come.