1) Multi modal and path learning
2) Redundancy; Good and Bad
3) Personality Types and Learning Styles
4) Effective Digital Communication
5) Social Support Structures
6) Good Resource Design
7) Openness in Engagement
8) Teacher:Student Ratio
9) Motivating Learners
10) Education, Politics & Religion
11) Assessment
12) Creativity, Fear and Critical Thinking
That's the list I have right now in the order the ideas came to me. With what's there and adding in a couple weeks extended discussion, that seems like enough to go for three months. Maybe some could be merged into a single topic. Maybe some should be dropped for the first event. This is to be an open event, so your input is valued.
Okay, I asked for input so I'll inform you about what I think each of these topics cover.
1) Multi Modal and Path Learning
Multi-modal learning is fairly well known so far as I know, but multi-path doesn't seem to be. Multi-modal has to do with tools and form of and for instruction. The path you take to get to the goal is different. For instance in math some people understand geometry better than algebra. For those people it might be better to use geometry to help teach them algebra. That's supporting different paths.
2) Redundancy: Good and Bad
Sometimes redundancy is good, and sometimes bad. Whether it is in teaching, systems, resources, requirements, behaviors or other aspects of education and learning, we should understand where it helps and hinders to improve our contributions to improving the process and results.
3) Personality Types and Learning Styles
Learning styles comes up in discussions and I think we should look a little farther than just preferred ways of learning as learning styles. By looking into personality analysis results like from the MBTI you can help the student to better grasp their strengths and weaknesses in learning. As an INTJ I "get" concepts very quickly, but as a drawback I also get bored with simple ideas quickly. So, if I pay attention to different ways of analyzing behavior and personality, I can improve my results as a student.
However there are problems to be considered as well. Most people look at the results of "tests" as definitive, when in truth these kind of "tests" really just hive a starting point. From there you can start learning about other personality types and identifying similarities and differences. You can also find that sometimes you behave like a different personality "type" than what the "test" results say you are.
4) Effective Digital Communication
Yes, there is a lot to say about effective communication, but as people using digital communications and trying to get those unfamiliar with them to use them, we need to share our experience and wisdom about these channels of communication. This goes hand in hand with the different kinds of media literacy. Learning to effectively use a new medium is learning to apply a new form of literacy.
5) Social Support Structures
Community and social learning have been brought up a lot recently as a big part of a new/older style of education and learning. Supporting the individual, group and institutions in dealing with social learning and supporting social learning is easier if you understand the value of the social support structures evident in social learning solutions.
6) Good Resource Design
This is what I started with in my idea as a response to bad and so-so resource designs. Concerns, ideas and effects of good resource design are all valuable parts of the conversations that help us design better resources. Solutions to prevented option overload while still giving a good variety of resources will be important as we move towards having a massive number of options for almost anything. That's just one example. Compatibility, licenses, formats and availability are all generic possible subtopics to consider.
7) Openness in Engagement
There's been a lot of discussion on open education and learning, but the common problem is that in using the new tools people do the same old things. Even the idea of a walled garden can be used beneficially if you have openness in the garden with options to take things into and out of the garden. Involvement, engagement; learners given the chance to do, and take the opportunity, learn more most of the time. The point is to have the the openness in the options available to those in and outside the walled gardens. Suggesting class activities, co-designing experiments and such may be limited to the class, but they are examples of openness in engagement. While openness in sharing is the usual direction people focus on, this is just as important, if not more so. Why? Well, openness in engagement can lead to openness in sharing, because people like to share cool and interesting things they've seen and/or done.
8) Teacher:Student Ratio
I'm not just talking about the number of students in a class, but rather starting there. How might we help teachers help more students? Better, smarter resources? Peer aided learning? Maybe there are solutions in qualified volunteers and combining different partial solutions. Communities have their breakdown points based on networking, as does the one to many model of teaching. Let's see what can be done.
9) Motivating Learners
Educational games have been claimed as helping to motivate learners, but I don't think that approach will be enough. Even in games there are other motivating factors to be considered, so there is plenty out there to help motivate learners.
10) Education, Politics & Religion
Learning, order and beliefs play a part in all three, and those three influence each other. How they do in different scenarios will affect the educational and learning systems, whether we account for them or not.
11) Assessment
With all these cool new tools and broader view of talent, assessment has plenty of ground to cover. How much and when does effort count? Accuracy, memory, creativity, analysis, skills and more can and should count at times. When and how much are just as important as having ways to assess them.
12) Creativity, Fear and Critical Thinking
These three things are connected. To encourage creativity, fear and critical thinking usually need to be dealt with. How to encourage and deal with these is a part of good teaching.
Some of these may just be a reorganizing of similar content and concepts, but it's the variety of views that makes this valuable. If you can look at the same thing from many points of view, you can get a better understanding of it. That in turn helps you make informed decisions.
Have fun, spread the word and tell me what you think,
Igen Oukan
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