Slow progress

Good morning!

I had two glorious hours to myself this morning where I could sit down in quiet and make some progress on week five of my course. I started by reading over some of my classmates blogs.  Thanks so much for information sharing.  I learned a lot.  I also was able to watch Eamonn's video clip and found other information in Pamela's blog about Creative Commons.  This combined with an online tutorial made adding Creative Commons to my own blog possible and only took me just under an hour to accomplish!  What a feat.  Sadly my two hours is nearly over and I would like to sneak a peak at the Power of Introverts video so will sign out for now.  Feeling a little like I am walking through mud this morning.  Am making progress but it is somewhat slow and labored!!

Yoga Practice

In my previous blog post I talked about making a mental note to apply the reasoning that I had used for my student on myself the next time I was learning a task that I had not yet mastered.  Well, the universe presented just such an occasion tonight when I was practicing yoga at the rec centre!  Although I have been practicing for a couple of years unfortunately it is most often only once a week and I am definitely not a master.  I have found an instructor that I especially like and have made progress but I still have much to learn.  Anyhow, we were in the middle of a pose called Thread the Needle in which you lie on your back, place the ankle of one leg just above the knee of the other, and then interlace the fingers of both hands behind the thigh of the leg on which the ankle is resting.  As we were holding this position my yoga instructor said that if at all possible we should balance our weight between both legs rather than leaning in one direction or the other.  She then carried on to say that if this did not make sense to us at the present time, keep on practicing and eventually it would.  Instead of relaxing and clearing my mind for my yoga practice, my mind then leaped to the importance of practice in order to grow dendrites and create networks whether it be for a physical or a mental task.  Those particular instructions actually did make sense for me tonight, however, there are many times when my mind and body cannot get it together enough to make sense of the instructions in my yoga practice.  Her simple words helped me remember my vow to myself to patiently keep on practicing and before long I will be doing things that I never thought possible.  Namaste!    
 

Learning of novices and experts

I graduated from the BCIT Medical Radiography Technology Program in 1997.  This means that very soon I will have been practicing x-ray for twenty years.  Quite frankly it’s hard to remember a time when I didn’t know how to do x-ray simply because I now have many years of experience under my belt!  Don’t get me wrong, I recollect with striking clarity those anxiety filled early days of being a student and a new grad and feeling very unsure of myself!!    

I was reading in the textbook on page nineteen about differences between learning of novices and experts.  It talks about how the expert quickly grasps new information in usable form because there are numerous connections to existing knowledge.  The novice, on the other hand, learns more slowly not because they are less intelligent but simply because, “there are no hooks on which to hang the new information, no way to organize it”.

I was working at the hospital today with a novice student.  She was slowly and methodically working away on an x-ray for a patient who was in a great deal of discomfort.  At one point the student said, “I’m just not fast enough, someone should take over for me so that this can be completed more quickly.”   The patient was tolerating the procedure well and aware that she was a student and needed more time to perform the task.  I told her to carry on, that she was nearly done and that she was getting great pictures.  In the back of my head I was thinking, your brain is busy growing dendrites right now girl, the next time you do this your brain will have an existing network and you will be more capable and on the path to mastering this task!!  I made a mental note to apply this same line of reasoning to myself the next time I am learning a task and feeling less than competent.  What a great perspective from which to view learning!

Student mini activity

Before starting on my latest entry I wanted to attach the link that I had forgotten to attach from my previous entry.   

10 Good Habits for Students: How Top Students Learn retrieved on 18 May 2016 from https://www.examtime.com/blog/good-habits-for-students/

Prior to starting my work as an instructor at Camosun College, I was given the opportunity to take the Instructional Skills Workshop offered for one week on site at the Lansdown campus.  It was illuminating.  That was in December 2014 and was the beginning of my journey along the Provincial Instructor Diploma Program path.  When I do something, I want to do it well, and I knew that this program would help me to be a great teacher.  I was just looking at Andrea’s blog and my first thought was that she had created a really amazing blog.  Lots of useful information presented in a very appealing way.  I hope that with a bit more practice and experience in blogging my own blog entries will improve and inspire others! On April 29, 2016 she presented an activity called Think-Pair-Share.  I had previously been introduced to this activity at Camosun College in the Instructional Skills Workshop and had forgotten about it.  Thanks so much for the reminder Andrea as this is a very effective way to get students brainstorming and working together to problem solve.  I especially loved the pointer at the end of the blog about reminding students that they may come across some of the questions addressed in the Think-Pair-Share activity on a test.  What a great way to create even more motivation for students to implicate themselves in the activity and take note of the best responses.

 Seeing this activity reminded me of another useful and quite straightforward activity that I have up my sleeve that was also learned in the Instructional Skills Workshop at Camosun College.  There are no instructions per se, but rather, it is a simple and effective way to have the students sum up the class lecture.  Depending on class size of course, give yourself approximately ten minutes at the end of the class to do this activity.  Tell your students that as a means to wrap up the days lecture you would like each person to share one new thing that they learned no repeats allowed.  It actually is kind of fun for a variety of reasons.  Often students will want to go first because it gets more complicated as people share to come up with an original answer, it often generates new discussion or if someone shares something that isn’t accurate it gives other students the opportunity to share the correct answer.  It also gives you as an instructor instant feedback about what information really stood out and potentially what subject matter may have to be addressed again in an upcoming class. 

Sleep and memory retention

I did a little more looking around at links for different habits of highly successful students after I signed out of my blog yesterday.  I will provide the link that I found so that you have a reference, although most of what is said is a reiteration of what I read in the links in Francois’ blog, whether it be making your own study notes or practicing under test conditions.   

The biggest thing that jumped out for in this list of information that I found on essential elements in the learning process, was the importance of getting enough sleep.  The better you sleep the better you learn.    I had actually come across this concept in our text, Student Engagement Techniques, on page 23.  I mean we all know that sleep is important, but the text says, “The encoding process from short-term memory to retention in long-term memory takes time and usually occurs during sleep.”  If you want a memory to stick in your head so that it can be recalled for the future, then sleep is necessary.

As someone who has not gotten a decent nights sleep since my daughter was born, a light bulb went on for me!!  In fact, neither of my children really started sleeping through the night on a regular basis until they were around five years of age.   My daughter is now nine and my son just turned four.  When I was younger I used to love to get a solid eight hours of sleep.  Since the arrival of my children I have been lucky to have shots of 2-3 hours of sleep at a time.  Now even if I go away for the night my body is so used to waking during the night that I don’t often stay asleep the whole night long.  The reason I am sharing this is because I often joke around with my students about being the absent minded instructor and I didn’t ever really make the link between sleep deprivation and lack of retention in long term memory.

I guess what I’m saying is that not only should our students be reminded of the benefits of knowing the importance of tucking in for the night, but also we as teachers, if at all possible, need to take care to get enough sleep as well.