Spring 2003, P506/P600: Workshop in Educational Psychology (via videoconferencing)
Alternative Instructional Strategies:
Critical, Creative, Cooperative, Motivational
Dates: January 18th-March 8th (8:00-1:00, Saturdays), IU-B, IUPUI, IU-SE, USI
IU-Bloomington: see Section 5785 and 9077, School of Education: Room 2140 (Contact: Curt Bonk)
IUPUI: Section V148 and V193, ES Room 2132 (Contact: Curt Bonk & Rae Kornbroke)
University of Southern Indiana (Evansville): Forum Building: Room FA29 (Contact: Shannon Hoehn)
IU-Southeast: Section M508 (Contact: Juanita Schickel)
Instructor: Curtis J. Bonk, Associate Professor
Dept. of Counseling and Educational Psychology
Room 4022 Wright Education Bldg
Work Phone: (812) 856-8353; Home Phone: (812) 335-1746
Work Fax: (812) 856-8333; Home Fax: (812) 339-1254
E-mail: ; Homepage: http://php.indiana.edu/~cjbonk
Course Web Site can be found at: http://www.indiana.edu/~bobweb.
Intended Audience:
Public school teachers, higher education faculty, corporate trainers, and administrators in all sectors are struggling with wave after wave of educational change. Many recognize the need for shifting their teaching philosophy to a more learner-centered or hands-on approach. However, they too often lack the time and resources necessary for successful navigation through such changes. This course provides a roadmap or useful guide for those stuck in the murky swamp of paradigm change and educational reform. Different versions of this course have been fun and interesting to teach since 1991. With videoconferencing added in 1996, the audiences for this course have been extended throughout Indiana. This course is now intended for:
Ø Graduate students wanting to feel better prepared to teach.
Ø Practicing teachers searching for professional development or ways to address block scheduling.
Ø Corporate trainers wanting to embed practical strategies into their workshops and classes.
Ø Graduate students looking for a thesis or dissertation topic related to nontraditional teaching.
Ø Instructional designers interested in embedding thinking skills into software and other media.
Ø Administrators and principals hoping to integrate various educational reform efforts.
Ø Graduate students seeking to explore the literature on student thinking in more depth.
Ø Private consultants offering thinking skill or problem solving workshops or training.
Ø Higher education professors wanting to enhance their instruction with innovative teaching.
Ø Graduate students looking to round out a doctoral or master's degree or minor in educational psych.
Ø Anyone interested in linking thinking skills to cooperative learning and motivation.
I truly believe that the market for people with skills from this course will explode in the next decade. Why? First of all, there are thousands of teachers, graduate students, parents, and corporate trainers in Indiana and elsewhere wanting to upgrade their pedagogical skills and knowledge related to student thinking and learning. At the same time, colleges and universities are establishing centers for excellence for teaching and learning. To help in these efforts, some materials from this course have been placed on the Web and are reusable by teachers and learners located anywhere in the world. Perhaps more importantly, there are thousands (if not millions) of bored and depressed learners who savor the brief moments when their instructors try something new. You can be such an innovative instructor!
Course Purpose:
Since the early 1980's, countless reports have detailed the shift toward an information-based economy and the need for a more technologically sophisticated workforce. With each advance in technology, there are renewed projections of increasingly higher skill levels needed to effectively function in society. Though most of these changes are occurring faster than public schools and universities can adapt, some institutions are starting to develop learning environments that stimulate and nurture critical and creative thinking as well as cooperative learning and student motivation to succeed. At the same time that educators have become aware of the importance of imagination, decision-making, and other higher-order thinking skills, business and industry leaders have cried out for flexible and creative employees who can look beyond the numbers.
In response to the emerging global marketplace of the twenty-first century, there has been a renewed interest in teaching and learning within public school and higher education settings as well as in military and corporate training environments. There has also been a parallel explosion in information about instructional practices and ways of delivering or communicating that information. No longer will people tolerate a curriculum that emphasizes individual learning over cooperative learning or the rote memorization of facts over problem solving and creativity. Instead, many new centers for teaching and learning excellence are intended to help teachers engage learners with more authentic and active learning experiences. Even with such renewed interest and resources, most teachers still lack the time and resources to adequately deal with the proliferation of instructional practices and associated ideas regarding educational change. The basic purpose of this course, therefore, is to attempt to fuse motivation and cooperative learning to thinking skill areas such as critical and creative thinking. The reason for this synthesis is to enable teachers, administrators, consultants, instructional designers, corporate trainers, and graduate students to sort through masses of information available on these topics and see some benefit within their personal and professional lives.
Instructional Approach:
As indicated above, a modern-day workforce clearly demands skills such as creativity, flexibility in thought, the ability to make decisions based upon incomplete information, complex pattern recognition abilities, synthesis skills, and holistic thinking. To get there, we need transformative ideas about teaching and learning. Nevertheless, in this course, you will have a choice: (1) you can select a few strategies to enhance your instruction, or (2) you can rethink your teaching and learning practices altogether.
The books and activities selected, therefore, will enable us to understand and address coinciding trends in education related to creative thinking, critical thinking, motivation, and cooperative learning. In starting on this path, specific techniques and ideas will be offered as well as implementation steps. Integration of these approaches in terms of reforming one’s instructional practices will be a key end of course goal. Demonstrations and hands-on experiences of various methods will be used to highlight method similarities and differences. In addition, students will be exposed to ways to use technology to increase student thinking skills and teamwork. Strategies specific to particular content areas will also be highlighted. Finally, advice will be offered for getting started using these alternative instructional strategies.
Course Objectives (after the course, students should be able to):
1. Understand the commonalities and differences of creative thinking, critical thinking, cooperative and collaborative learning, and motivation.
2. Feel comfortable in using creative thinking, critical thinking, and cooperative learning methods in teaching.
3. List thinking skill and cooperative learning options for different age groups and tasks.
4. Design innovative curricula with meaningful problems and projects based on learner-centered principles.
5. Arrange learning environments wherein students will reflect on thinking skills and teamwork.
6. Appreciate the importance of individualizing instruction and personalizing thinking skill activities.
7. Motivate students through an assortment of instructional techniques.
8. Understand possible roles of technology in student critical and creative thinking and collaborative learning.
9. Reflect upon educational innovations in the areas of motivation and thinking skill development.
10. Focus on the aspects of thinking enhanced by different cooperative learning formats.
Required Texts:
1. Gary A. Davis (1998). Creativity is Forever (4th Edition). Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt Pub.
2. Bonk, C. J. (2003). Packet of Course Handouts.
Topical Sequence:
Week 1. Jan 18th General Introduction to Course and Motivational Techniques
Week 2. Jan 25th Creative Thinking Defined and Explained (Read Davis 1-4)
Week 3. Feb 1st Creative Thinking Methods (Read Davis 5-7 & 10; Due: A. Curric Brainstorm #1)
Week 4. Feb 8th Critical Thinking: Defined and Explained (Read Davis 8-9 & 11)
Week 5. Feb 15th Critical Thinking Methods (Read 2-4 chapters of new book) (Due: 2 Task II due)
Week 6. Feb 22nd Cooperative Learning Methods I: Generic (Read 2-4 chapters of book selected)
Week 7. March 1st Cooperative Learning Methods I: Specific (Read 2-4 chapters of book selected)
Week 8. March 8th Critical, Creative, Coop, Motiv. Integration Wrap up (Due: Final Presentations)
Note on readings for Weeks 5-8: P506 students are to read one additional book during the second half of the course. P600 students are to read 2 additional books or one book and relevant one special issue of a journal. I want you to read books either in critical thinking, cooperative learning, motivation, or problem solving. For P600 students, at least one of these books should be research related. You pick the book(s) or journals. Some of the books that I recommend include:
Sample of Other Books:
K-12 Books:
1. Baer, J. (1997). Creative teachers, creative students. Allyn & Bacon.
2. Bellanca & Fogarty (1991). Blueprints for Thinking in the Coop. Classroom, IRI/Skylight Pub.
3. Campbell, Campbell, & Dickinson (1999). Tchg & lnrg through mult intelligences. Allyn & Bacon.
4. Johnson, D., Johnson, R., & Holubec, E. (2002). Circles of Learning, 5th ed.
5. Johnson, D., Johnson, R., & Holubec, E. (1998). Cooperation in the Classroom, 7th edition.
6. Kagan, S. (1993). Cooperative Learning. Kagan Cooperative Learning.http://www.kagan.online.com
7. McCombs, B. L., & Pope, J. E. (1994). Motivating hard to reach students. Washington DC: APA.
8. McCombs, B. L., & Whisler, J. S. (1997). The learner-centered classroom and school: Strategies for enhancing student motivation and achievement. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
9. Perkins, D. (1992). Smart schools. NY: Free Press.
10. Slavin (1994). Coop learning: Theory, research, & practice (2nd Ed). Allyn & Bacon.
11. Starko, A. J. (1993). Creativity in the classroom: Schools of curious delight. Longman.
College Books:
1. Angelo, T. A. & Cross, K. A. (1993). Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for College Teachers (2nd Ed). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
2. Bransford, J. D., & Stein, B. S. (1993). The ideal problem solver (2nd ed.). NY: Freeman.
3. Johnson, D., Johnson, R., & Smith, K. (1998). Active Learning: Cooperation in the College Class.
4. Huba, M., & Fred, J. (2000). Learner-centered assessment on college campuses. Allyn & Bacon.
Corporate and Adult Training Books:
1. De Bono, E. (1990). Lateral thinking: Creativity step-by-step. HarperCollins.
2. Scannell, E., E., & Newstrom, J. W. (1991). Still more games trainers play. McGraw-Hill.
3. Higgins, J. M. (1994). 101 creative problem solving techniques: The handbook of new ideas for business. The New Management Publishing Company.
4. Owen, H. (1997). Open space technology: A user’s guide (2nd ed.). Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
5. Thiagi, S. & Parker, G. (1999). Teamwork and teamplay: Games and activities for building and training teams. Jossey-Bass.
6. von Oech, Roger (2002). Expect the unexpected (or you won’t find it). Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
About the Instructor:
Curt Bonk is interested in nontraditional and informal learning environments as well as the use of technology in education. Dr. Bonk’s has done research on higher-order thinking, teamwork, mentoring, and emerging educational technology. Such interests stem, in part, from working for five years in the business world as a CPA and corporate controller. During the past decade, Curt has provided hundreds of workshops for teachers, trainers, administrators, and other educators on online learning, active learning environments, distance education, cooperative learning, critical and creative thinking, and case-based reasoning. He received a number of teaching and mentoring awards as well as recognitions for using technology in his teaching. He currently teaches educational psychology courses within the Learning, Cognition, and Instruction program at IU as well as in the Instructional Systems Technology (IST) Department.
Guest Speaker:
Note that Carin Neitzel will be the guest speaker for Week 6. Carin has received awards related to excellence in teaching as an associate instructor in educational psychology at Indiana University. She teaches statistics, childhood socialization, and introductory educational psychology. Her interests are in young children’s academic self-regulation and metacognition, parent-child interactions, and creative teaching approaches. She successfully completed this class in the summer of 1996 and team taught the course with Dr. Bonk in the summer of 2000. Carin is an extremely creative and popular instructor who plans to defend her dissertation early in 2003.
Grading Scale:
I will use a 90-80-70-60 scale based on 180 total points.
168 pts = A; 162 = A-; 156 = B+; 150 = B; 144 = B-; 138 = C+; 132 = C; 126 = C-
Class Activities: (I) Class Participation; (II) Reflection and Personal Exploration Activities; and (III) Final Project
I. Class participation and attendance (30 points). The instructor will note attendance and participation each week in this class. He will abide by all policies of Indiana University concerning student attendance.
II. Reflection and Personal Exploration Activity Options (90 Points--Pick any three):
Note: Most of the tasks below will be graded for coherence and organization (10 points); originality and generative learning (10 points); and completeness and thoroughness (10 points). Two tasks are due February 15th (Week 5 meeting) and the other is due March 8th (Week 8 meeting).
A. Curriculum Brainstorm (30 points)
In this option, I want you to spend 1-3 hours (don't spend much time on this) all alone brainstorming all the possible ways you could use critical and creative thinking and motivational techniques and cooperative learning in your job setting (page 1). After we share some of your ideas in class, you will spend more time personally ranking these ideas and reconfiguring your original 3-4 lists. For example, you might sort your ideas into categories or prioritizations that are useful to you this coming year (page 2). Next, I want you to reflect and jot down notes on this list and how it changed (page 3). On the Bobweb Web site are examples of good curriculum brainstorms from prior years. I will give feedback on this three-page (single-spaced) assignment related to your creative ideas, coherent reflection, and practical relevance. (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED for practicing teachers!)
B. Thought Paper (30 points)
The exploratory thought paper allows you to summarize some of the thinking you have been doing as a result of this class (e.g., the effects of thinking skills and cooperative learning on your life). Your thought piece will be a 2-4 page (single-spaced) exploration and explanation of a thinking skill, motivational strategy, or cooperative learning technique or idea that you have been contemplating. This is not mindless idea doodling, but, instead, is a way to coherently explore something that "inspires" you (at least temporarily). Your basic contentions should be based on strong logic and relevance to class, personal feelings, and at least some creativity and personal exploration. See Bobweb Web site for examples.
C. One Super Summary Search (30 points)
You might conduct a library (preferably ERIC) search on a topic within motivation, critical thinking, creative thinking, or cooperative learning that you find important (this must include at least 10 articles; for P600 students, at least half of these must be research-based articles). For instance, you might be interested in cooperative learning in science classrooms; or, more specifically, cooperative learning in environmental science classrooms. If that is your topic, you would search through the research and practice literature on this topic (let's say for the past 3-5 years) and then create a personal bibliography on this topic for your later use. I would like for you to categorize the articles somehow (e.g., according to research or practice, task, age-groups, domain, time required, etc.). In addition, I would like for you to write a one paragraph summary for about 3-5 of these articles, wherein you summarize the article and discuss its importance to the field and to yourself and your colleagues. You will turn in the following items to me: (1) bibliography of the articles found listed in important categories/topics and (2) 4-5 brief summary abstracts. I will look for the following in your work: completeness, relevancy to topic, and coherent analysis and categorization. Unless I ask, I do not need copies of any of the articles you select though you might include the first pages of every article. See course Website for examples.