A few weeks back, one of our teacher assistants said, “You just started on Twitter this semester. I never would have guessed.” I wasn’t sure if she was talking about my quantity or quality. I chose quality and explained that it could be traced to Cambourne’s Conditions of Learning (a Foundational Framework of our Teacher Assisting Seminar).
This reminded me that John, my co-teacher, had asked me about blogging about the Conditions. I turned to him and said, “I’m thinking about writing about how the Conditions of Learning helped me to communicate using Twitter.” I thought this would be a good example of authentic learning in action.
The teacher assistant chimed in, “Maybe you could describe each condition in a Tweet.” John laughed, understanding that she had issued me a challenge without knowing it. Well, “challenge” accepted…
[Note from John - t was very tempting to put this in twitter-typical reverse order... but that would make it less readable. Please forgive the lack of verisimilitude.]
Thanks, Dave and Jim Calhoun! And Brian Cambourne, of course. The Reading Teacher has put the article introducing the Conditions online for download. Or you can read the whole story in his book The Whole Story. Also, I put the date on the cartoon at '95, the date of the RT article, but 1988 would be more accurate.
Photo Credit: Kathy Coffey, Rosaura Ochoa @ Flickr
This is great! Just think, if any one of those conditions had been missing, Dave may not be tweeting--especially #Response. What if the feedback from experienced users had been critical or demeaning, rather than helpful and always kind. Which leads back to #Expectation. The more experienced users clearly had full expectation that Dave would get it eventually.
ReplyDeleteHi Dave,
ReplyDeleteWhat a great on line case study. One of my grandchildren found it and sent it to me with the question " Who's Dave Pop?" I explained thjat you were one of the ginnts of math education in USA and I was very honoured that you used my work in your classes.
I now realise that I'm finding it difficult to take the step of setting up a blog or using twitter becuae I don't see myself as a potential blog site creator and/or tweeter.
Is this a case of "physician heal thyself"?
Brian Cambourne
Hi Brian,
DeleteIf you are ever in need of support with your blogging or tweeting, just let me know. It would be great to add your voice and work to the online sphere (Purpose). You can do it (Potential)! And it is a safe community (Protected). You know where to find me.