I began this blog soon after beginning work as Director of the English program at ICU some 6 years ago. Having reached ICU's mandatory retirement age, I will be leaving at the end of the academic year. The intent of this blog was initially a way to share information and thoughts with my colleagues in the English program, but it has also attracted some interest from outside ICU, and I have enjoyed hearing from colleagues around the world.
Like many bloggers, I haven't been very consistent in posting things, but it has been a good experience and has encouraged me to use blogs with my classes. It seems like a good time for me to end this blog.
For those of you still reading this, I will add a link to a paper I published last autumn which reflects on my experience as Director over the last six years.
Best wishes to all the program directors (or indirectors) out there!
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Thursday, May 24, 2012
What Does It Mean To Be Human? A Historical Perspective 1800-2011 | Brain Pickings
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What Does It Mean To Be Human? A Historical Perspective 1800-2011 | Brain Pickings
"Ultimately, What It Means to Be Human is less an answer than it is an invitation to a series of questions, questions about who and what we are as a species, as souls, and as nodes in a larger complex ecosystem of sentient beings. As Bourke poetically puts it, Erasing the awe-inspiring variety of sentient life impoverishes all our lives.” And whether this lens applies to animals or social stereotypes, one thing is certain: At a time when the need to celebrate both our shared humanity and our meaningful differences is all the more painfully evident, the question of what makes us human becomes not one of philosophy alone but also of politics, justice, identity, and every fiber of existence that lies between."
Critical Thinking | TechNyou
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Nice site with several resources including a ppt slide show on crtitical thinking and a series of two-minute animated videos on aspects of critical thinking.
Thursday, April 26, 2012
TED-Ed | Lessons Worth Sharing
A new TED site with educational material and accompanying lessons. Teachers can customize the lessons and use the site to create their own lessons for any TEd or YouTube video content. This could be very useful in our Research Writing courses among others
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Coursera.org
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This is a good looking site for high-quality on-line courses. It might be interesting to get a group of ICU studnts to take one of these courses with the ELA providing English language support.
Tuesday, April 03, 2012
stunlaw: Computational Thinking: Some thoughts about Abduction
Article exploring the importance of a triad of induction, deduction and abduction, and the importance of the latter in computational thinking. Could be useful in explaining hypothesis formation as part of critical thinking.
http://stunlaw.blogspot.ca/2012/03/computational-thinking-some-thoughts.html
Friday, March 02, 2012
How Leaders Lose Their Luck - Anthony Tjan - Harvard Business Review
Good list of leadership qualities that are hardest to achieve and maintain
How Leaders Lose Their Luck - Anthony Tjan - Harvard Business Review
Friday, February 17, 2012
Blog posting related to complexity and learning and critical thinking.
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I am currently reading Morin's On Complexity, and find this blog posting very helpful.
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Communications & Society: Complexity and Personal Learning Environments
The problem, of course, is that we don't have much language yet to talk intelligently about this kind of complexity. Our notions of critical thinking (interpretation, analysis, evaluation, inference, explanation, self-regulation, and so on) are all pretty much individual mental exercises aimed at reducing complexity to simple clarity. We need new ways to examine and think about complex, rhizomatic structures. Morin mentions three ways to think, or principles, that help us approach the complex: a dialogic principle (dia-logic), the principle of organizational recursion, and the holographic principle (by which I think he means what I would call fractal). Deleuze and Guattari mention cartography and decalcomania. I was pleased in our Elluminate session yesterday (Wed, 2010 Oct 06) when George Siemens spoke about mapping learning and knowledge to real life and listed resonance, synchronicity, wayfinding, amplification, and learning/knowledge symmetry aspects of connectivist learning. I don't know if he intends them as critical (or perhaps higher order) thinking skills, but they resonate with me that way. Recognizing and engaging pockets of resonance in an environment seems to be a critical thinking skill needed for mapping the rhizome.
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