My MDE Journal
A personal look at one students
journey
By Richard Giroday
Well today, I am about
as stressed and scared as I could be as I have received my first communication
from my MDE601 Prof. I have surfed all
the Intranet materials, cut pasted and printed all the information I will need
at my fingertips. This has opened up a completely
new world of struggle doing online courses.
So much information (course, program, people, research, etc, etc, etc)
in so many places (computer, manuals, course books, emails, conference, MDE
intranet, course section of the intranet), and I am still stuck in a
print/classroom mode I think. But I need to find a system that works for me and how to do
this. I spent this week working on
setting up professional researching through on line libraries: that was a
challenge in itself.
With everything on line,
I cannot just “flip” to things and look them up. I have no memory clues as to where things
are, which is different from organizing information in a binder. I looked at the schedule and assignments and I
am just plain excited, terrified, insecure, unsure, committed, I can/I will/I
always/Of course/Yes – positive. I keep asking myself, what do I have myself into.
This is going to be a steep learning curve for this first semester and
especially for this first course. The
other MDE602 is going to be a struggle as well, but some how I will get through
it all. It will mean a lot of
commitment, and doing without on my part.
I am now more
dependent on my computer than I have ever been, and on adequate backups. I haven’t even set
up a backup procedure or system yet…..scary.
I need to keep my
stressors from becoming a snap point onto the family. More challenge. I sure do not need any distractions from my course
work. I spent two weeks, only partially
successful, trying to set up a routine that would fit everything in. I may have to re-evaluate my approach to
these courses because of the load (Work, Family, 2 heavy courses). Only time will tell. I need to focus on each part, one at a time,
but not lose site of the big schedule for the semester. Then it is manageable. Like they say – LET”S GET IT ON.
I have explored the
MDE601 section of the intranet…and printed the important information I will
need. I have finally landed at the Unit 1
conference. I sat for a long period just
staring at the screen trying to organize a coherent opening comment based on
Prof. Mugridge’s opening comments. But for the life of
me I am finger tied. I realize that in a
classroom I would throw out an idea or comment that
would rattle around the room in peoples’ minds until someone sent one of their
own out to rattle back in mine and along side mine in others’ brains. We would dialogue quite openly: supporting,
expounding, explaining, pointing out, referring, iliciting,
and even arguing. It is awkward to do
that here. By the time I come back to
discover peoples’ comments back…I will have well lost my train of thought….this
is tougher than I thought.
Discovered today that
Distance Education, at least the courses I’m involved
with, are a more active form of learning rather than passive. I must make the effort to dig things out,
read, analyze, connect. There is no lecturer to guide my
direction. I must piece together the
parts I have been given (resources) and bring them all
together on my own. My notes are
important for that purpose. I must
decide, no one decides for me what is important or not important. That could be guided by a set of questions,
but even with 602 using the text book, that doesn’t
help sufficiently for me. Interesting.
The difficulty of
mathematics via DE is the need for “intervention” with those students who are
having difficulty. One must ascertain
what the difficulty is that the student is having, and “re-educate” the student
in the missing parts of information….in that “re-education” process, you must
use visual clues from the student to ascertain how much further back you must
go until, the student “understand” the original concept. It is the LA process of discovering what the
holes, all the holes, how much of a hole the student has, and deciding where to
begin with this student to bring them back to where they need to be. For many of the students in our school, that
process can be many layered. In fact I have seen a grade 11 student often with whom I must
work backwards until we are at fundamental grade 8 skills. Only then can we bring them to understand the
processes they are trying to learn at the grade 11 level. That is intense assistance. As we grow, will we be able to continue that
level of assistance. Truly
students need to required to begin at an appropriate level. But we really have
no skills testing, or background testing tools that we use.
I have discovered
today why this form of interaction is so hard.
Dialogue helps the ideas in one’s mind evolve. Here I have to evolve those ideas myself
with less input from others, less immediate feedback and direction. This is much harder and takes time.
As I read the “bates”
paper for unit one, it struck me that I am in the middle of a body of
experience and knowledge. It feels like
one has sat down late in a meeting, has no agenda, doesn’t
know what was discussed before (though reference made to those discussions),
and wondering totally “what’s going on here”.
How do you get “up to speed”? Do
I need to get up to speed? What’s the big picture?
Obviously the papers chosen were chosen for a
purpose. Am I suppose
to pick out the purpose myself? What
holds this stuff together, brings it together, helps me to understand its
purpose and not get lost in the whole field of information that is being fired at me?
Should I raise the question on the forum? Am I missing the point here? Maybe I need to re-examine the unit
objectives to help me narrow my focus. I
am in a forest wondering where the path is and it is not discernable. I seem to wonder along, every now and then
reaching a hill and seeing more forest.
The landscape is huge. I have been placed on this particular part of the forest for a
purpose. But I
feel I am losing my connection with that purpose. Would be so much easier to
just raise this issue with others in a short conversation. I realize that in a classroom situation I
would gravitate to certain individuals with whom I could raise these issues in
comfort. Here if I raise the issue, the
whole class sees it and the professor. I’m not comfortable to “bare my soul” to every one. Now isn’t that a
problem with the model of delivery.
Finally, re-examined
the unit objectives and everything fell into place. We have been given a
broad view of distance education. Truly we have been placed in the forest and every tree and
the surrounding hills are a part of the forest of distance education. We have had distance education defined for
us. We have had the counter argument
against defining it separately from Education ( a
paper which at the same time re-enforced the need for 2way communication as an
important part of distance education). We
have been introduced to the various avenues of the debate on defining distance
education from those seeking a general definition that will encompass all
situations, to those trying to identify the concepts that form the basis for
distance education (Roberts & Keough 1995), to
those who would argue against any attempt to isolate and define distance
education (Shale 1988). Well, there we
have it I just struggled through my first set of APA references. Now some people must have a great advantage
at writing this way. Yup…should
have taken some of those “other” courses instead of math and physics….lol. I am realizing
that it would be so much easier to feel out the group in a F2F classroom and
find someone that I could have check my references for correctness. So I think I will
have to throw them out to the group.
Haughey, M.(1995). Distinctions in distance: Is distance
education an obsolete term? In J.M.Roberts
& E.M. Keough (Eds.), Why the information highway? Lessons from
open & distance learning (pp. 2-14).
Shale,
D. (1988). Toward a reconceptualization of distance
education. The American Journal of Distance Education, 2(3), 25 – 35.
I was pondering the
problem of not knowing how to address a simple email to the professor in the
course – should I address him as Hi Ian…or Dear Sir…. Or Hi Professor M….. What is appropriate. I always write my emails as Hi <Firstname>…..but felt it too personal for the
situation…. Beside I felt it was more appropriate to some how recognize his
position of Leader of this course “the Professor”. Not that he would probably even care…. However. Interesting socialization there. That led me to realize that it could be
important to someone else. For instance
what if the professor was in
Well, I’m a week ahead on my readings in 601, and a week behind on
my readings in 602 (well actually not behind because I had the good fortune of
being able to start my studies early…having received my books early. But is I was
following a tight schedule I’d be behind on 602. I’m really
struggling with writers block today. I
am having a hard time wrapping my mind around so much information regarding
Distance Education.and bringing it all to bear on the
paper I have decided to write. It’s not that I don’t know the situation, or information, I
just don’t know how to formulate it, how to use the mechanics of writing to my
advantage. This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and this is only the first
writing…yikes. But
I will persist until I am satisfied that the structure is okay, and the
content/ideas are okay. (I found a great site to help with my writing… http://www.wisc.edu/writing/Handbook/CriNonfiction.html
)