CQIN Blog

President of GRCC and CQIN!

2006-08-06T16:23:00.000-04:00

During the opening of the 2006 Summer Institute, CQIN installed our President as their President! Sporting CQIN presidential attire, President Olivarez thanked outgoing CQIN President (Datatel) and welcome President-Elect (Jackson Community College). He reviewed the "metaquestions" and introduced the keynote speaker,, John Cleveland.

Homework Already!

2006-08-05T16:38:00.000-04:00

Our CQIN team arrived in Chicago today via Amtrak. After a quick lunch at Wolfgang Puck's, we went to the Museum of Contemporary Art for some "homework." Our assignment was to make observations in a Learning Environment. Wolfgang Tillmans was one of the major exhibits (see podcasts).

We were encouraged to start a "Bug List." In The Art of Innovation, author Tom Kelly suggests that teams can track problems they encounter when experiencing some thing for the first time. One thing I would suggest to MCA leaders is to staff the front desk with more than one person or move phone duties elsewhere. One person was trying to manage a long line of people, while passing out brochures, directions, buttons and answering the phone. Another suggestion would be to re-evaluate their parking policies (as evidenced by the RV above). Homework below:

1. What aspects of the museum environment seem to help facilitate learning?

Open, fluid spaces and multimedia exhibits seemed to keep learners engaged. People seemed to walk through and participate in the exhibits, rather than passively look at them.

2. What aspects of the environment seem to interfere with or distract from the learning experience?

Some pictures involved nudity. Some learners seemed distracted or unwilling to look at these exhibits if other learners were nearby.

3. What are the cognitive, emotional, physical and ecological needs of people while in this environment?

This is difficult to determine without drawing conclusions or interpreting observed behaviors. Some people seemed to want to connect with others and discuss what their experiences. Others, seemed to desire isolation as they observed.

4. What physical conditions did you observe that had an effect on people in this environment?

There was music with a distinct beat in one area of the museum. The security guard in this area was dancing. In a quiet area, the security was sleeping. The music (or lack thereof) seemed to influence the attitude of observers and caused them to linger longer than they did in quiet spaces.

5. What systems were in place that had an effect on people in this environment?

There was a lot of security personnel and devices (e.g. cabling on books).

6. The mission of the MCA describes them as "innovative." What do you see that you would consider innovative?

One exhibit had Mac G5 computers and large cinema displays that permitted learners to interact with the art.

7. Pick one or two things in place at MCA that could be adapted at GRCC.

Padded seating in hallways. Open spaces vs. "contained" learning.

8. What suggestions would you make to MCA leaders to improve the experience?

See reception and parking suggestions above!

Innovation, ay?

2006-08-03T08:07:00.000-04:00

Greetings:

I ranted and raved about the information in Freidman’s text so much that I was afraid I’d left little excitement for Kelley’s The Art of Innovation. But, alas, I’ve found the energy to go on and have some ranting available for this text too!

Beautifully easy to read with much applicable information (I like learning and teaching things that can actually be done—it’s a magnificent kindergarten-like epiphany feeling that more learners need to have on a regular basis). So, I’m looking forward to our IDEO assignments. The concepts on innovative/critical thinking in this text can be seen somewhat in the work done at the Willem Koning College in the Netherlands (no surprise I’ve brought this school up again is there?).

After my reading of The Art of Innovation, I went back and browsed the Koning website and found their teaching and professional development approach to innovative/critical thinking is worth a more in depth lookie-see. They use the term Creative Thinking and their website is:
http://www.svdt.com/contact/P_routebeschrijving.htm

Quality Work before CQIN

2006-07-28T11:17:00.000-04:00

Our team members are busy preparing for CQIN! Judy Stark and Andy Bowne have put together their presentation on GRCC's "Continuum of Learning." You'll find their slides, statement and graphics under "Resources." The Powerpoint slides are about 5MB. You may want to download the PDF or view the HTML version.

Another team is preparing for the breakout session "Investing in Innovation: The Faculty Laptop Initiative." They met yesterday. Team members should have received an e-mail outlining the presentation, including estimated times and responsibilities. As part of their presentation, the team has started to collect photos. Check out http://www.flickr.com/photos/gbrand/tags/cqin/.

We also met yesterday to prepare for the trip (photo on left). In addition to getting our train tickets and traditional "goodie-bag" from Donna, we received a draft agenda and history of GRCC at CQIN. We also signed up for sessions we wanted to attend.

The world is flat so Learn How To Learn

2006-07-26T23:30:00.000-04:00

Greetings:

Friedman has four criteria for how education might prepare people for living in a flat world. Not a single one of them are based on knowing a specific area of study (not to say this is not important, it’s just not the emphasis). He places emphasis on HOW TO LEARN. This was one of the more poignant points for me. One of the questions I sometimes ask my students (now I think I should always ask it) is for them to tell me how they learn. If they don’t know I tell them they need to find out pretty quickly!

The first criterion for an educational foundation in a flat world is Learning How To Learn.

So what does it mean to learn how to learn? A colleague recently shared with me that he didn’t learn how to learn until college. We both agreed that is a bit too late. However, just because it’s late doesn’t mean helping students learn how to learn is not our domain. It is.

This “Learning how to Learn” idea came up recently at this year’s “Future of the Black Community in Grand Rapids” an annual dialogue hosted by several young community leaders. A young local high school student asked the panel of seasoned community members the following question:You say students don’t want to learn, but why can’t learning be more interesting and in a place where kids wanted to become excited about learning? I want to wake up and want to go to school.

The response he got left me cold. He was told that schools can’t tailor themselves for every student and at some point students have to learn how to conform because there are goals schools must meet.

As I think about what the young man said, I truly believe his question was one of teaching people how to learn thereby getting them invested and excited about learning (my comment was going to be something like that but I didn’t get to give them because the dialogue ran quite over its time).

Friedman’s response to the 9th grader who asked him a similar question was to take classes with teachers who have a passion for teaching. The course subject matter is secondary because we need to focus on knowing how to learn and developing a passion (or at least a habit) for learning.

The second criterion Friedman gives is to be born with or develop a passion for learning—develop your Curiosity quotient (CQ) and Passion quotient (PQ). A high IQ alone does not translate into success (it never has and Friedman fries this idea more in a flat world context).

If you want to see more of my (Murslata's) thoughts about Friedman's book, go to resources (right side of screen) and click on "The Life Academic" I'm pretty much putting the bulk of my responses there because I don't want to be hoggish with this blog space.

Friedman's Ties to Education and Life-long Learning

2006-07-25T06:54:00.000-04:00

Mursalata's ( summum bonum to those in the blogosphere) thoughts were buried in the comments:

"After finishing Friedman's The World is Flat I’m very intrigued at how a significant amount of his economic study is tied, inextricably, to education. There is more work to be done in education than we’ve been articulating and acting on! His work continues to empress the need for individuals to become life-long learners. What I found most thought provoking about his work is where information on education appears in the text. It is simply everywhere, there’s not like one section where education is covered. Sure, there are concentrations of educational talk, but Friedman manages (out of necessity, I think) to mention educational influences on “the flat world” in areas of the text where the subject at hand isn’t necessarily education only.

Friedman’s assertions about getting more people into community colleges serves as a both great kudos and challenges to institutions like ours. So what are we to do? Well earlier this year I was introduced to the life-long learning approach used by the Koning Willem I College in the Netherlands. Their teaching/learning approach was phenomenal as indicated by their presentation at the Chair Leadership conference, last April. I found their presentation so fascinating and intriguing that break time was an intrusion into what we learning. The college’s mission statement: School for the future devotes itself to a solid future and better world.

Coen Free, the college’s president, has written a brief overview of their approach to life-long learning (24 pages) titled Moving from a Campus Centered Environment to a Learning Village. I think it’s a must read (I’ve got copies for anyone interested in reading it). This community college is considered one of the most innovative in Europe. Currently they have a special project called School for the Future – “a very innovative Center for Teaching and Learning, E-Learning and Creative Thinking” endeavor. I so want to go there and absorb a bit more!"

Thanks for your thoughts SB! I'll take a copy of Free's overview. What do others think of Friedman's book?

Welcome!

2006-07-10T15:39:00.000-04:00

This blog is hosted by the GRCC Learning Academy and is intended to promote collaboration among Continuous Quality Improvement Network (CQIN) teams. Most of the posts and resources will initially be related to the 2006 Summer Institute. The Institute will be held in Chicago, August 6-9, 2006 and the theme is "Breakthrough Learning – Creating Dramatic Improvements Through Innovation."

GRCC Leads Two Breakout Sessions

2006-07-10T15:29:00.000-04:00

As part of the Institute, selected colleges have been asked to showcase innovative practices at their institution. GRCC will be making two presentations:

Investing in Innovation: The Faculty Laptop Initiative
(Vicki Janowiak, Garry Brand, Mike Light and Laurie Foster)
Sunday, August 6, 3:45pm, Westin Hotel

The Learning Continuum
(Judy Stark and Andy Bowne)
Wednesday, August 8, 8:15am

More details are available at http://cqin.org/summerinstitute.