course two post three.3

Learning activity two is meant to help me learn to post in the right place at the right time, without messing it up. As simple as this sounds, believe it or not, I have spent 30 minutes trying to get to the home page of this online teaching and learning site, so that I can edit these posts so that they are longer. This is now much longer, but I have no idea how I got to this spot. So. Progress in some ways, no progress in important ways – but, the typing is not too bad.

OTL101 Post 1

Hi, I’m Tory. I’m looking forward to the course. I work in the Master’s program in Education Leadership, have taught the philosophy of education course face to face three times, plus the undergraduate course, and developed and taught the online version of the course. I am currently writing an article that is a critical analysis of certain aspects of trust, in particular….how we view each other, when engaged in a power relationship. I have certainly seen power handled well, and power handled very, very badly. And so has everyone else. So, this is currently an issue for me, hopefully it will pass very quickly. My purpose in taking this course is simply to do it, so that it is done.

Learning Module One, Blog Post 2

It’s always interesting to read research, educational theory and philosophy, and consider what it is I agree or disagree with not that I might not have even considered 25 years ago – 15 years ago – 5 years ago. I like Dewey. He has offered a great deal to educational philosophy. One of my favourite quotes of his is that “The point of philosophy is not to make theory practical but to make practice intelligent” (Dewey, Democracy as a Way of Life, p. 49). While much of Dewey makes sense, what needs to be added are issues of self-efficacy, mastery learning, and the like, often seen in Bandura. In fact, if one were to review John Hattie’s 2009 meta-analysis on Visible Learning, things like some forms of inquiry do not score particularly well in terms of influencing student learning. So, the debate goes on. It’s all interesting though. And the concept that we make practice intelligent is one that I embrace. On purpose. Every time.