“Moments happen quickly, and changes come slowly.”

The title of this post, and its contents are synthesis and reflection of my thoughts while reading James Nahachewsky and David Slomp’s book chapter “Sound and Fury: Studied Response(s) of Curriculum and Classroom in Digital Times,” originally published in Beyond ‘Presentism’: Re-Imagining the Historical, Personal, and Social Places of Curriculum (2009). Similar to Borges‘ introduction, “like […]

Curriculum as Black Box

“…a black box is a device, system or object which can be viewed in terms of its input, output and transfer characteristics without any knowledge of its internal workings.” In conducting an inquiry into curriculum, the black box may prove a useful metaphor to consider possible avenues of discussion or research. In his essay What […]

Summer Book Project: Narcissus & Goldmund

I first read Narcissus and Goldmund ten years ago this February – finishing it at 11:33pm on February 16th, 2004 (the inscription in the back cover tells me). It’s likely that I was at my house on Barbara Circle, in Little Rock, an idyllic three bedroom where I spent my senior year of college. It’s possible that […]

Emergent Knowledge and Institutional Learning

“…if educators wish to encourage the emergence of meaning in the classroom, then the meanings that emerge in classrooms cannot and should not be pre-determined before the ‘event’ of their emergence.” Deborah Osberg and Gert Biesta A conception of learning I have been exploring and experimenting with in the last year has been attempting to […]

Attention!

In discussing whether or not technology is harming students’ capacity for attention”(as those of us embarking upon EDCI 335 this week have been asked to do), each of these terms inhabits a range of contextual definitions that make first attempting to determine a common understanding necessary if any meaningful discourse is to emerge. Many of […]

On Memorable Learning

Whether working with the TALONS, philosophers, or the #IntroGuitar community, I am fortunate to get to spend a good deal of time planning lessons and thinking of learning experiences that are not only ‘memorable,’ but hopefully also: personal, meaningful and – optimally – transformative. I would agree with a definition that sees learning as Jeanne […]

On Knowledge

It’s a great thing to receive invites like this one from Manitoba civics teacher extraordinaire Matt Henderson, and be prompted to a discussion of knowledge spanning two continents and including some of my favourite edu-thinkers in a single Tweet. A huge admirer of GNA Garcia, Zoe Branigan-Pipe, and Thomas Steele-Maley for their influence on my […]

On 21st Century Schools

As I’ve explored at some length here, I think of schools today as guided by our mission statements and legal mandates to pursue an ageless ideal of education along the lines of how John Dewey characterized schooling as the act of “preparing students for the adult vocations needed for society to continue to exist.” The question […]

EDCI335: Introduction to Learning Design

Recently returned from a two-week odyssey around my girlfriend’s native land of Barbados, I’ve been tasked as part of our first module in EDCI 335: Learning Design with introducing myself and my intentions in the course. I’ll admit that it’s something that – this far into the ongoing learning project of this blog – strikes […]

Ethics Unit Feedback and Reflection

This semester I’ve been using Google Forms to collect reflections, self-assessments and unit feedback from both the Philosophy 12 bunch, as well as the TALONS. As with many aggregating aspects of the web, what I appreciate about this method of collection and feedback is the ability to analyze trends and other information (beyond the individual […]

Simplicity of Cause

Musings on Modern Learning

philosophy