Moving Toward Collective Intelligence from Collective Stupidity Part 1

A critical aspect of Web 2.0  is the concept that when people are connected, they create  a collective intelligence.  I would like to offer another view.  Science shows us that water will move to the lowest point , it seeks the lowest point in a river stream to flow.  If there is a break in the bank that is lower than the stream, than the stream flows in that direction.   Likewise, a chain breaks at its weakest link. In a class room, one  student can destroy a small group or even a class discussion.

In addition, a extreme amount of water becomes a flood which destroys the river bank and other objects.  Too many tall trees kill the smaller trees in a forest.  A mob operates at a very basic level,  not at the highest level of thinking.

The act of merely being connected does not provide “collective intelligence”.  We educators have to create the structure for changing from possible “collective stupidity” to “collective intelligence”.

My  book,  Successful Student Writing Through Formative Assessment, is available through Eye on Education.

My book,  Formative Assessment: Responding to Your Students, is available through Eye on Education.

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Wiki- Collaborative Notes Instead of Individual Ones

My classes use a wiki.  If the classes are sections of the same course, they share the same wiki. For example, my 8, 9 and 12:30 classes are all Writing and Research so I group them together on the wiki.  I  have been having students from each class take class notes and post them to the wiki.  As I read the notes on the same classroom  topic material, I notice  that although each student included the critical information, each student picked different things to emphasize more.

Now that students have gotten use to note taking, we are moving onto collaborate notes. The first person posts  his/her notes and writes his/her name.  Then when a person from another section of the same course logs in to post his/her notes, the second person reads what the first has written and adds to the notes or clarifies information; he or she adds her name where she added info.  Likewise, the third person from another section does the same and adds examples if there exist.  The quality of information has increased drastically. The initial notes get transformed into a complete set of notes that will help anyone who is absent.  The notes serve as a great reminder of what we covered with specific examples. The wiki notes demonstrate that students collaborate to advance everyone’s learning.

How do your students collaborate?

My new book,  Successful Student Writing Through Formative Assessment, is available through Eye on Education.

My book, Formative Assessment: Responding to Your Students, is available through Eye on Education.

Improving How We Use Wikis for Better Student Learning

Here are some handout notes for the session:

Harry Grover Tuttle, Ed. D.
Instructor, writer, consultant
harry.g.tuttle   at   gmail.com
Blog: https://eduwithtechn.wordpress.com

Purpose: To improve students’ learning through changing how we use wikis in our classroom.

Formative Assessment Focus

Improvements:

• 1. Teach the mechanics

  2. Identify the learning goal/purpose

  3. Explain the quality of responses

  4. Use students’ notes

  5. Organize the class

  6. Provide in-class and out-of-class resources by learning style

  7. Avoid common web topics

  8. Make learning “collective wisdom” instead of  “collective stupidity”
     

  9. Have exemplary work and reactions to the exemplars
     

  10. Build in real and varied interaction

  11. Build on the past

  12. Make group work transparent

  13. Have a student-help-student section

  14. Carefully use outside experts and other classes

  15. Co-create with students

A wiki has been created for you to add to  http://wikiforbetterlearning.pbwiki.com/

A mini version of the presentation is available at slideshare

Dr. Tuttle’s book, Formative Assessment: Responding to Students which is available from Eye-on-Education includes numerous ways that technology can be used in formative assessment.

Exemplar Collecting and Using For High Quality Learning

At one of the colleges I teach at, I had to submit material for a course review. I was pleased to receive not only a perfect 3/3 but also to be asked to send some of my material in as exemplary work. However, I became even more interested when I found out that this college that has at least six different campuses is collecting exemplars. My question becomes “When are they going to share these exemplars with the faculty so that we can improve by seeing the excellent work that our colleagues are doing?”

I would suggest that we all collect exemplars at our schools and use them to improve our teaching and our students’ learning. Have each teacher submit his/her best student paper, project, etc. For example, each English 9th grade teacher can submit one excellent student paper for the major types of writing. The teachers can physically put them in a cabinet or even better they can put them onto an English Wiki so that teachers at any given time can access these exemplars. These instructors can discuss with each other what makes each exemplary. They can all come to the same idea about what exemplary work is. Furthermore,They can use these exemplar papers to raise the learning level of their students. The instructors will have many exemplars for their students so that the students can realize that the high quality can be shown in many diverse ways.

Get your team to start collecting and using exemplars now!

For any one who is interested in implementing formative assessment in the classroom, my book, Formative Assessment: Responding to Students is available through Eye-on-Education.

Pool Curriculum Resources for Students’ Success

I have been asked to do three courses next semester, two of which are new to me. I was given a one page syllabus listing 7 outcomes and the name of the textbook. This course has been taught for over 16 years and surprisingly, that is all the resources I’m given. Why do school districts or universities not have a pooling of resources so that any new teacher can not only start off running but can start off at a high level of running? If schools and universities want their students to be successful, then each course should be built on the students’ successes from when the course was taught in the past. What helped the students to advance in the standard? Which learning experience were not helpful in moving the students forward? Where did students encounter learning problems in the course? Of course, each class is different but if teachers had all that previous information at their fingertips, they could have their students soar in their learning.

Does your district, school, or team pool resources so that each teacher is curriculum rich in practical strategies to help students be successful?

Teacher Sharing and Technology WikiSharing: APA Reference List Practice

I talked with my son who was lamenting the fact that he could not find a worksheet on certain Spanish verbs as he searched the web. I shared that I had searched for APA style practice for a class that I am teaching and I could not find any. (By the way, I have a twenty minute rule for searching. If I cannot find it in 20 minutes, then I create it myself usually in less time than if I continued to search.) We both were amazed that with the thousands of teachers who teach and have taught the same subject for many years, teachers have not developed an Internet pool of resources. Imagine if all the high school English teachers pooled their resources (if each teacher contributed even one of her/his best worksheets), we could have a fantastic resource pool. We could build on what others have done instead of having to individually recreate materials. Instead we tend to keep our resources to ourselves so others cannot benefit. Maybe some educator should set up a wiki for specific subjects and then have parts of the wiki devoted to special areas of each subject. The wiki can be the sharing resource pool.

In the spirit of sharing, here is some mini-practice on developing an APA reference list for research papers.

Last Name:
In APA format,
last name, first initial (period) second initial (period)
so Maria Santiago
would be
Santiago, M.

Practice:
Robert Jones
Linda Tami Antone
Eileen Judy Tedun

If there is more than one author, an “&” goes between the next-to-last name and the last name
such as Smith, R.J. & Jones, E. I.

Practice
Robert Jones Marzini and Louis Samuel Lewis
Bonnie Pauline Frazer and Nancy Louise Davis
Connie Harriet Buly, Kevin Burke, and Alan Robert Potter

 

Year of Publication goes next in parentheses ( ) followed by a period.
a book published in 2004 will become
(2004) followed by a period such as Jones, R. J. (2004).

Practice:
a book published in the year 2000 by Jack Eugene Cooper and Albert Edward Stinson
Samuel Tobins and Grant Wigham published a book in the year 2006

 

Book
The book title follows the parentheses.
It is in italics. It is followed by a period.
For example, Everyday Candle Making becomes Everyday Candle Making as in Jones, R. J. (2004). Everyday Candle Making.

Practice:
A book, Country Schools, published in 1999 by William James Pophill
Kevin Patrick Connor’s book, Science Today, was published in 2006.

Location and Publisher
Following the book is the the location (city, comma, state abbreviation), a colon, the publisher (do not include words like publishing company) and a period. For example,
Berkely, CA: McThought.
Upper Sadle River, NJ: Merrill Prentice-Hall.

Practice:
Charlotte May Fish had her book, Ontario History, published in 2005 by History Heralds that is located in Shortsville, Vermont.

The Association for Supervisors which is based in Alexandria, Virginia published in 2004 Daniel Avery Tompson’s book, School Playgrounds

Website
Follows the basic format for a book.
Author (individual, group, or organization) + period
Date in parentheses + period. If there is no date, use (n.d.)
Webpage title + period
Retrieved Month, Day, Year, from web address + period.
(If there is no author, start with the title of the webpage)

Example:
Williams, J. (2007). Creating New Images. Retrieved November, 12, 2007, from http://www.pid.edu/curriculum/photographs.html.

Practice:
You want to refer to the article Data Power by Huan L. Long that you found at http://www.datamunchers.org/datapower/data.html on the fifth of May, 2007.

You want to refer to Vernon Nicholas Shafer’s website, Read On that you found today on the website http://www.readingpower/read.html

If you know of any sites that have shared quality teacher handouts, please share.