Saturday, March 21, 2015

Saturday Scholarship

Go ahead: click it.
The first sentence is meta. The second sentence tells us that the rest of the paragraph will be somewhat meta as well, and that “the good part” of this post will be coming later. I got the idea for this post from an excellent Friday Thirsty posed by Beaker Ben. I was about to answer the thirsty, but then realized that I was going in a new direction. It was BB himself who made me more aware that sometimes, things in the comments go off in a direction that could merit a whole new post. Now, it being Saturday, I’m not going to do another Thirsty; that would be insane. I could be telling you again what I’m not going to do, but I’m not doing that, because I couldn't possibly pull that off. Instead, I’m telling you how this post does not pose a question per se; rather, it invites a response. That’s completely different. Also, I’m a compleat n00b to Blogger, so I’m trying out this jump thingie, which should appear in the next line when this post is on the home page...
...but not when you’re looking at the post by itself.

So, now, here is the call for your scholarly response, should you choose to heed it:

1 - Go to Beaker Ben’s Friday Thirsty and add your contribution.

2 - Come back here and submit an abstract to be published in the conference proceedings.

I'm in a STEM field, so I've done mine in that manner.


Session 5. Alternative Pedagogical Edutainment: Scholarly Heuristics In Teaching


A-201. A super-flipped workshop promotes learning without facilitator intervention.
Hep, O.P., Bryndza, G., Panquehue, S.V., and Stilton, A.
Background: Ever since the printing press was invented, content delivery in the classroom has undergone radical transformation. Just as the book rendered the lecture obsolete, and the videocassette in turn rendered the book obsolete, even newer modalities have led to ever-improving learning outcomes. Yet the typical professional educational society meeting itself remains mired in the centuries-old lecture format. Some presentations don’t even employ overheads or carousel slides, and/or merely comprise readings from prepared scripts; others feature a panel of experts arguing with each other before a passive audience.
Hypothesis: A super-flipped conference workshop, with participant as presenter, will increase both facilitator satisfaction and repeat attendance.
Methods: Workshop facilitators were self-selected and transported to the conference location. For each workshop, the venue was determined ad-hoc by ambulatory reconnaissance and facilitator consensus that sounds good are by this one. Workshop participants were then allowed to interact with one another while study meta-data were recorded by the facilitators in silico and on absorbent papers provided by the venue. Data were also collected regarding availability of micro-brew and single-malt. These steps were repeated multiple times during the conference. All data were subjected to multi-variant post-hoc analysis for anecdotal significance.
Results: The workshop facilitators reported with high confidence that this type of workshop was better than any others they’d facilitated, and that they’d like to do it this way again; this is consistent with our hypothesis. Intriguingly, the facilitators noted that despite their lack of prompting, the participants were able to reproduce outcomes of other workshops, e.g., Autumn Sweater, Bitchin Camaro, Comfort Eagle, and Fox’s Dream of the Log Flume, which led to significant positive response from other occupants of the workshop venue.
Conclusion: Significant learning had occurred by the participants, clearly due to their desire to garner facilitator approval, with facilitators having provided minimal intervention.
Disclosures: One author wishes to disclose a financial conflict, in that when the department credit card is discovered missing, study funding will be cut.


Now it's your turn. Don't feel you have to do a whole big thing like mine, unless you want to.

18 comments:

  1. Session 11: Personality and Identity
    Chair: Whichever RGM is awake at 9am on Sunday.

    Pseudonymous Biography
    The use of pseudonyms and euphemisms ("Flat State", "Hamster Studies") should make biographical constructions dangerously tentative, but the stability of core community creates a linguistic continuity such that some biographical conclusions can be reached. Even fantastical satires can be evidentiary tools, insofar as the targets of their humorous distortions are understood and can be controlled for. "Distant reading" digital language analysis and microhistorical approaches reveal surprisingly stable and complete biographical data for many participants. Though identifying pseudonymous individuals is beyond the scope of this paper, possible ramifications for disciplinary history and biography of identification will be considered.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This is a good one. How about a study of the Pseudonymous Person intentionally remaining "in character" during parts of the day. As for myself, I'm not entirely sure if the person I play at work is the "real me".

      Delete
    2. Absolutely. We contain multitudes.

      The idea that our teaching/professional face must be our authentic and sincere side is part of the "calling" mythology that keeps our wages low.

      Delete
    3. The other idea that chafes is that we couldn't cut it in industry, therefore we don't deserve industry wages.

      Great. Why not just put that on your homepage. "Our instructors couldn't cut it in industry. We're so proud of them that we pay them shit."

      So it must be a calling. The cognitive dissonance would kill me, otherwise.

      Delete
  2. Jeez Louise, I can't stand to write this way. How about:

    Someone's farting Lord, Kumbaya.
    Someone's farting Lord, Kumbaya.
    Someone's farting Lord, Kumbaya.
    Oh, Lord, Kumbaya.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You are all glorious nerds and I cannot wait for spring break to be over tomorrow night so I can sit down at my desk and write my own abstract.

      NERDZ.

      Delete
    2. Thanks, it comes easily to some of us, 'cause it's so much FUN!

      Delete
    3. Huh. I never would have figured you for being at a workshop where they'd sing Kumbaya, Frod. Are you moonlighting outside your field?

      Delete
    4. This workshop cleared by the lactose-intolerant facilitator.

      Delete
    5. Oh, I have sung the song, I freely confess. If memory serves, it was in either 3rd or 4th grade.

      Delete
    6. Frod, your submission caught the attention of the conference's board of directors. In particular, it was clear to them that your work was previously published, which caused a bit of kerfuffle; all submissions must have at least some novel component. Your forthright admission of the infraction has allowed them to be sympathetic to the idea that you may have simply attached the wrong file onto your electronic submission. In the interest of preserving the schedule, the BoD is willing to hold your slot, provided you can submit the correct abstract within 24 hours.

      If it were me, I'd just make something up. Think of it as a movie trailer: the point is to get them interested, not to tell the truth. Everybody knows that all the good work gets done in the two weeks before the meeting, and that the overlap between the abstract (submitted several months before the meeting) and the presentation (at the meeting itself) is only about 25%.

      Delete
    7. The saying I read in Physics Today is: before sending in the abstract, make sure to do at least 15% of the work.

      Delete
    8. Well, the line in the sand needs to be drawn somewhere.

      Delete
  3. Ok, now I want to write up a grant proposal for a "doubly-flipped classroom". It'll all be cover for "going in and teaching them freaking something".

    Which is our department motto. Catchy, no?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. One in 370 (or may I call you 99.73%?), that is worthy of a Fields Medal. You know very well that modern edu-flakes (Mencken would have called them pedagogues) will go for doubly-flipped classrooms hook, line, and sinker.

      But then, they apparently go for any damn fool thing hook, line, and sinker. Examples have included New Math, teaching machines, programmed instruction, Whole Language, educational television, self-esteem, process writing, and writing about "feelings." Now it's student success, whatever that means. Seriously, I am going to file this into a part of my brain that never forgets anything, and I won't hesitate to use it when cornered.

      It should also go into the CM Glossary.

      Delete
  4. Room 101: The decline of tenure in a customer service, helicopter-parent, adminbloated, edubabble, NCLB, adjunctified, student debt, Walkerian tertiary paradigm.

    Cancelled due to the likelihood of some gumdrop unicorn in the audience saying that everything is fine at their institution, and so what are we complaining about? If every instructor taught like s/he did, all would be well.

    ReplyDelete

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