Sept 30, 2009 - Expectations & Other Things

EXPECTATIONS Russell T. Osguthorpe

Learning over time – not learning that decays or fades with time, rather, learning that is constantly growing.

People seldom exceed their own expectations – if they do, one might argue that their expectations were too low.

3 D’s of learning:

1 – Desire

Thinking about learning, wanting to learn a new skill

2 – Decision

Actually making the decision to learn something – to do it

3 – Determination

Actually doing it – putting forth the effort to accomplish something

**Sometimes the instructor needs to provide the impetus – the motivation to begin the cycle. Many times people don’t have a desire, they don’t want to make the decision, and they have no determination to learn something. If as teachers we can ask them to do something that will help move them onto the cycle then that can start the ball rolling.

DESIGN LAYERS (architecture)

Buildings – as the layers of a building age they slip past each other.

Things are designed semi-independently. The people who designed the lights speak a different language than the people who installed the wallboard. They al worked on the same building, but they all have their own specialties. Any technology as it gets more complicated it splits into specialties.

A layer is the natural evolution of a technology. As the technology grows so do the specialties. You have to know more to work in a particular layer.

How do we balance it all?

The battle between knowing a little bit about a lot of things and knowing a lot about one thing. This is the hardest thing for me because as a teacher of all these things (photoshop to java) I have to know about all of them, as a result I don’t get to really dive deep into any one category.

How Buildings learn – Brand

Educating the reflective practioner – Schon

Design Rules – Baldwin and Clark

DOMAIN	DEFINITION	EXAMPLES
Siting	Relations of the building site	Slope, hill, gully, contour
Building Elements	Components of buildings	Gym, offices, stairs, ramps
Organization of Space	Kinds of spaces and relations	Hallway, open area
Form	Felt-path of movement through space	Carry the gallery through here and look down into here
Structure	Technologies / processes used in building	Constructions module for these classrooms
Building Character	Kind of Building	Warehouse, beach cottage
Precedent	Reference to other kinds of buildings	The sort of thing an architect would invent

** You have to consider the constraints at each level – these determine what you do as you design in a particular layer.

** The more layers that you can see and use and utilize as you design the better. It will make your design more effective and useable.

**Instructional technology is not after absolute truth – we are after utility.

**Whenever you say the word ‘layers’ you need to say the word ‘function’ as well.

As the sophistication of your design increases so does the sophistication of your layers.

REPRESENTATON LAYER

This is the only layer that has an actual sensory experience for one or more layers.

CONTROL LAYER

This is where the student makes a response.

You ‘speak’ into the system and the system ‘speaks’ back to you.

** I.E. when you rollover something your mouse turns to a finger – if you click it takes you somewhere.

MESSAGE SUB-LAYER

The substance behind the representation and the control. Why is it important – what is it driving at here? This seems to be the list of steps (the messages given to the student so they know what to do)

I.E. name of step, action of the step, what you see or hear at each step, what happens when it’s finished.