I find that a great part of the information I have was acquired by looking up something and finding something else on the way.

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.

... The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something we do not understand ...

College isn't the place to go for ideas.

The human mind treats a new idea the way the body treats a strange protein -- it rejects it. My thoughts on this: we must disguise new ideas in order for them to be easily accepted.

Even rats learn from experience.

To teach is to learn.

Fool me once, shame on you Fool me twice, shame on me!

Everyone can be taught to sculpt: Michelangelo would have had to be taught how not to. So it is with the great philosophers.

"Books," said St. Augustine after his conversion, "could not teach me charity." We still keep on thinking they can. We do not realize... the utter distinctness of God and the things of God. Psychology of religion can not teach us prayer, and ethics cannot teach us love. Only Christ can do that, and He teaches by the direct method, in and among the circumstances of life. He does not mind about our being comfortable. He wants us to be strong, able to tackle life and be Christians, be apostles in life, so we must be trained by the ups and downs, the rough-and-tumble of life. Team games are compulsory in the school of Divine Love -- there is no getting into a corner with a nice, spiritual book.

Herein lies the core learning dilemma that confronts organizations: we learn best from experience but we never directly experience the consequences of many of our most important decisions.

A model of learning Stage 1: Simplicity (what is the right answer?) Stage 2: Complexity (we need to tweak the answer) Stage 3: Perplexity (there is no right answer!) Stage 4: Humility (there are some basics we can know)

"Students given the lower level of new content learned and retained the lecture information better." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TOMORROW'S PROFESSOR(SM) LISTSERV "desk-top faculty development, one hundred times a year" STANFORD UNIVERSITY LEARNING LABORATORY (SLL) http://sll.stanford.edu/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Folks: The article below makes a strong case for "less is more" when it comes to the delivery of course content. It is number 12 in a series of selected excerpts from the National Teaching and Learning Forum newsletter reproduced here as part of our "Shared Mission Partnership." NT&LF has a wealth of information on all aspects of teaching and learning. If you are not already a subscriber, you can check it out at [http://www.ntlf.com/] The on-line edition of the Forum--like the printed version - offers subscribers insight from colleagues eager to share new ways of helping students reach the highest levels of learning. National Teaching and Learning Forum Newsletter, May 2001, Volume 10, Number 4. © Copyright 1996-2001. Published by Oryx Press in conjunction with James Rhem & Associates, Inc. (ISSN 1057-2880) All rights reserved worldwide. Reprinted with permission. Regards, Rick Reis reis@stanford.edu UP NEXT: Scholarly Reflection About Teaching Tomorrow's Teaching and Learning ----------------- 1,408 words ------------------ WHAT IS THE MOST DIFFICULT STEP WE MUST TAKE TO BECOME GREAT TEACHERS? Craig Nelson, Indiana University Although I have known many quite good teachers, I would only regard a couple of them as truly great. One of these, Tracy Sonneborn, once said of research that it was the closest thing he knew to prolonged orgasm and that as soon as he found anything that was more fun, he was going to switch. Tracy's guest presentations in my classes brought such a gripping intensity and evocation of insight to the classroom that it seemed as if the students were suspended a few inches above their seats. Tracy's comment is core to what has been for me the greatest paradox in learning to teach better. I regard the content I choose to teach as mostly quite fascinating, very exciting and fundamentally important. And it seems to me that this sense of fascination, excitement and importance is the core of much of what students respond to most positively in my teaching. But they are also the core of the biggest problem I have had to struggle with in my teaching-the tendency to try to teach much more than can be learned and, thereby, to also lose the students so deeply among the details that they fail to grasp the larger picture. In much of academia, a tendency to try to cover too much is encapsulated in traditional curricula and courses-in the academic cultures we are inducted into as part of our undergraduate and graduate training. BULIMIC LEARNING Because we find the material so fascinating and important we often learn it ourselves almost instantaneously and may have trouble recognizing the extent to which we "cover" too much content. However, I suspect that most faculty can remember courses where they were forced to learn so much content that they retained almost nothing. For me the paradigm example remains a cell biology course I took in graduate school--one taught in triplets of a name, a year, and a fact. I learned these with mnemonic matrices-matrices that I had no intention of remembering long enough to exit the examination room. Nor did I! It is often clear that many of our own students are engaged in similar "bulimic learning"-they memorize the material, "regurgitate" it on the exams, and forget it so promptly and completely that no mental nourishment remains. LESS IS MORE A conclusion that many of us are presenting substantially more than the optimal amount of content is also supported by some of the scholarship on teaching and learning. From their comparison of content intensive major courses with more concept focused non majors courses, Sundberg and Dini concluded: "The most surprising, in fact shocking, result...was that the majors completing their course did not perform significantly better than the corresponding cohort of non-majors" (M.D. Sundberg and M.L. Dini. 1993. "Science Majors v Non-majors: Is There a Difference?" Journal of College Science Teaching. Mar / Apr 1993: 299-304). They suggest that we should reduce the information density in major courses so that it matches that which we have usually regarded as appropriate only for non-majors. Similarly, Russell, et al., compared lectures in which 90% v 70% v 50% of the sentences disseminated new information (remaining time in each case was used for restating, highlighting significance, giving more examples, and relating the material to the student's prior experience). Students given the lower level of new content learned and retained the lecture information better (I.J. Russell, W.D. Hendricson & R.J. Herbert. 1984. "Effects of Lecture Information Density on Medical Student Achievement." Journal of Medical Education 59: 881-889). I have found it hard to fully implement the obvious conclusion because that means letting go of much of the content that I love so dearly. However, a similar conclusion, "less is more," follows from much of the other scholarship of teaching and learning. For example, if students learn more when we incorporate active learning into our lecture periods or replace the lectures with active learning classes, then we obviously must cover less material in order to teach more (I summarized key pieces of this literature here earlier, NTLF 10 (1): 7-8). Similarly, if we are to concentrate on higher order critical thinking, as I advocated here previously (NTLF 9 (5): 7-8), we have to reduce coverage to allow time for thinking. And to get effective commitment, we may have to use cases or even service learning-an approach well exemplified by Jane Harris Aiken's "Striving to Teach Justice, Fairness and Morality'" (1997, Clinical Law Review 4: 1-64; see my summary here earlier, NTLF 10 (2): 10-11). TOOLS TO HELP RESTRAIN COVERAGE I have developed a few tools that help me do this. One is to use reading study guides. When I assign a chapter or article, I usually write out the key questions I would like the students to be able to answer as a result of doing the reading. This is helpful in several ways. First, chapters in texts often cover much more material than students can meaningfully learn-I didn't realize this clearly until I found that I could write as many as 1150 short essay questions from some single chapters I was assigning. This caused me to ask what, exactly, I wanted the students to get. The typical way to constrain the scope of the content in many fields is to limit exams to the material that the teacher can articulate in lectures. This leads to rapid delivery, to high densities of sentences that disseminate new information (compare above) and to a tendency to allow little or no time for processing or questions. Giving the students a selective set of questions over the readings and telling them that the relevant questions on the exam will be drawn from among those questions means that I only need to treat in class those aspects of that material that are difficult for the students to learn directly from the reading. The study questions also facilitate effective small-group studying outside of class. A second powerful technique is to explicitly designate one of the class periods each week for extended, structured, small-group work. This requires me to select particular material, readings, exercises, problems or cases for deeper processing. I also have found it very useful to explain to other faculty what I am trying to do and the extent to which I do or do not have any evidence of how it is working. This is often most useful with faculty from other areas, as they are more likely to ask questions that reveal my tacit assumptions. FOCUSING ON PROCESS My encounters with my colleague Tracy Sonneborn's teaching arose from a case where I was presenting the results of one of his elegant studies of multiple sexes in protozoa (where mating type A can mate with B, or C, or...but not with other As). I asked him if he could come to my class to present his own work for as little time as he wanted to give. He said that he was too busy, as it would take him a whole day to prepare. I emphasized that I didn't need a literature review, just a quick summary of one nice study. He said that I didn't understand, that it would take him a day to prepare, but that (to get me out of his way) he would do it next year. I remembered and, although he protested again about the day of preparation, he came to class. Rather than presenting the final elegant experiment and its results (which usually had taken me about 10-15 minutes in class), he started with what they had known initially and asked the students what they would have hypothesized and what experiment they would have designed. He then agreed and presented the results of that experiment. He noted that the results did not support the hypothesis but did provide new information and asked what they would now hypothesize and how they would now hypothesize and they would test the new hypothesis. This continued for several rounds until a hypothesis emerged that was supported by the data (and eventually published). In 75 minutes he interactively taught about 15 minutes worth of conclusion and more than 75 minutes on the process of science! Funny thing-the process was much more exciting than the conclusion. Another funny thing-Tracy's course for non-majors had a reputation for stealing the best majors from other departments and converting them to biology majors. Maybe there is another way to use our enthusiasm than to dump vast quantities of conclusions on the students? CONTACT: Craig E. Nelson Biology, Jordan Hall 142 1001 E. 3rd St. Indiana University Bloomington, IN 47405-3700 Telephone: (812) 855-1345 E-mail: nelson1@indiana.edu

The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance -- it is the illusion of knowledge.

Wise people learn when they can; fools learn when they must.

He is bad that will not take advice, but he is a thousand times worse who takes every advice.

You will always find a few Eskimos ready to tell the Congolese how to cope with the heat.

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

Awkwardness is natural. If people aren’t feeling awkward doing something new, they’re not doing something new.

Don’t punish a learner. If you do, you’ll immobilize him.

How can we expect a harvest of thought who have not had a seedtime of character?

Life is like playing the violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes along.

If I ran a school, I’d give the average grade to the one who gave me all the right answers, for being good parrots. I’d give the top grades to those who made a lot of mistakes and told me about them, and then told me why they learned from them. --

We must not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we began and to know the place for the first time.

If time is precious, no book that will not improve by repeated readings deserves to be read at all.

Read no history: read nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.

Men of power have no time to read; yet the men who do not read are unfit for power.

We still believe that teaching and learning are two sides of the same coin, but we ought to realize that they are not: one learns a subject, and one teaches a person. By: Peter Drucker Source: in TIME, Jan. 22, 1990, pg. 6

What is defeat? Nothing but education; nothing but the first step to something better. -- Richard Sheridan

Excerpt from "Love is the Killer App" Considering how much knowledge is out there to dine on, what do you eat? When your'e a student in college, the answer is simple: You anchor your diet around assigned textbooks, your augment your books through additional research, you take notes during your professor's lectures, and you pass a test to prove you did all of the above. But you're no longer in college. You can do whatever you want. Do you go for variety or do you catch as catch can? Do you try an even mixture--magazines, books, television, and radio? I say there is no option. I've looked at all the possibilities, and for the student of business, books are the answer. Books should be your diet's staple because they are the complete thought-meal, containing hypotheses, data, research, and conclusions, combined in a thorough attempt to transfer knowledge. If they're good, they contain that essential value prop, the meta-idea, or that statement of fact that gives the reader a unique perspective.... Magazine articles are between-meal snacks. They are Ideas Lite....The news media--electronic or print--are the equivalent of candy or soda: fun to eat, but hardly appropriate to live on.... Books give you knowledge. The news gives you awareness. The latter is a measurement of today. Knowledge is a measure of yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Awareness is finite. Knowledge is forever.... Here's another 80/20 rule: spend 80 percent of your time on books, and 20 percent on articles and newspapers. And by books, I don't mean just any book. I mean hardcovers. A paperback is meant to be read. A hardcover is made to be studied. There's a huge difference. I don't read a book just to say I've finished it. I read it so that when I'm done, the inside covers are filled with enough notes that I can use this book for as long as I need to. True, hardcovers are more expensive. But I'm talking about your career. If you can afford to party, or to buy new techno-gadgets, or to eat at fancy restaurants, you can afford a few hardcover books. And if that extra cost makes it a barrier-to-entry for your peers, remember that there are barriers to entry in any competitive field. Not only is this one you can easily overcome, but by removing those barriers you give yourself a chance to shine. The books you read today will fuel your earning power tomorrow. Simply put, hardcover books are the bomb. They are fun to hold, They become personal the first time you mark them up, the first time you bend back the binding. There's something wonderful about the sound of rustling pages. There's something exciting about writing down the ideas that interest you. Soon your book becomes more than just pages between covers. It becomes your ticket to success. Congratulations! You have just achieved traction as a student.

STAGES OF LEARNING (Stephen ? # Theory - I read the background (including even books) or theoretical basis for the discipline # Example - I look at examples of what I am trying to study, deconstructing the work, finding out what part does what # Practice - I write software, articles (like this one), or create web pages # Community - I distribute part of what I create, soliciting feedback, engaging in dialogue, participating in the discipline community

In a book I read recently the author says that some people get up to age thirty-five or forty, level off and never climb any higher. He said that during the younger part of your life just being alive is enough to drive you forward, but then that energy starts to level off and unless you have a spiritual urge to drive you forward, the physical urge runs out and you level off. The non-physical urge that drives you forward is the thing that is a great motivation. One of the sources of motivation is reading. We can't keep up without reading. Let me ask you --- what do you read? Do you read objectively for yourself? Do you say, "what do I need to read to improve me?" Until you do, you miss the best of reading. It is impossible to read everything. You need to make clear decisions about what you read and why. I wear glasses and maybe you do, too. Mine probably cost about the same as yours. Would you trade lenses with me just because I asked you to? Of course not! That would silly because yours fit you and mine fit me. Reading is the same thing. Are you reading what the boss is reading or are you reading what fits you? Are you reading a book because someone sent it to you? How about because it is on the Best-Seller list? You wouldn't wear someone else's glasses - don't let them pick your books. Understand what your purpose is for reading and carefully discipline your choices. This week, look at the books on your desk or nightstand and ask why you are reading each one. Read to keep up, but not to keep up with the Joneses.

Leadership Development That Works By Steve Moore The ongoing effectiveness of every leader is dependent on his or her commitment to keep growing; and the most important growth steps leaders take over a lifetime are the result of self-directed learning. By definition, self-directed learning is triggered by an internal source of motivation. It is the fruit of something within us stimulating a desire to learn and grow. In his book Primal Leadership, emotional intelligence expert Daniel Goleman says it like this: “The crux of leadership development that works is self-directed learning; intentionally developing or strengthening an aspect of who you are or who you want to be.” The Other Big Mo Most leaders associate Big Mo with momentum. The other Big Mo is motivation. And motivation comes before momentum, especially as it relates to self-directed learning. Both Big Mo’s are exaggerators. John Maxwell has said that with momentum, you look better than you are when you have it and worse than you are when you don’t. I would add that with motivation, life appears easier than it is when you have it and harder than it is when you don’t. Imagine this experiment: two people of equal capacity are given the same task, the same tools and the same amount of time to complete the job. The only difference between them is that one is internally motivated to accomplish the task and the other is not. Without motivation, the task will appear to be harder. That’s the power of motivation. String several completed tasks together and you generate momentum. Self-directed learning hinges on an inner, renewable source of motivation to keep growing. Sources of Motivation for Self-Directed Learning Children engage in self-directed learning out of curiosity. They have a natural bent to spontaneously explore their world. But curiosity is a rather unpredictable source of motivation and tends to wane quickly when the exploration ceases to be fun. Chasing a butterfly can give way to picking a flower or digging for worms in a matter of seconds. Curiosity, as a source of motivation for self-directed learning, does not go away as we age, but it does diminish in intensity as it is joined by capacity. Capacity-based learning tends to surface in teens and young adults as they discover their talents. The presence of ability in sports, drawing or debate, for example, generates an inner source of motivation arising from the convergence of interest and skill. We tend to like what we are good at (interest) and are good at what we like (skill). Most of us can remember the difference in results that came from music lessons that were imposed upon us by loving parents (external motivation) as opposed to capacity-based pursuits that bubbled up from springs of desire in our own heart (internal motivation). While curiosity-based learning is spontaneous, capacity-based learning is both spontaneous and structured, as we often pursue a self-directed learning agenda in the context of a team or other organized activities. As adults, curiosity and capacity-based learning should give way to a sense of destiny. Life long self-directed learners tap into a sense of purpose, a greater cause or a life-dream that serves as an inner source of motivation to keep growing. While capacity-based learning is spontaneous and structured, destiny-based learning is often systematic, incorporating a broader combination of structured activities into a comprehensive growth plan. The life-dreams that flow from one’s sense of destiny expose the difference between what is and what could or should be, while stimulating an inner sense of responsibility to do something about it. You show me a person with a big dream and I’ll show you someone motivated to grow. Practical Implications for Leaders 1. Accept personal responsibility for your continued development as a leader. If you are not growing, it is not your supervisor’s fault; it is not your team’s fault. This is an empowering truth that frees you from being dependent on others; no one else can hold back your developmental journey. 2. Nurture all three motivational triggers for self-directed learning. Cultivate curiosity by continuing to explore uncharted waters. Develop your capacity through structured activities. Embrace your destiny and pursue the life-dreams God has put in your heart. 3. Affirm self-directed learning in the leaders around you. When members of your team express interest or potential in a given area, actively encourage them to pursue it. Create space and provide assistance whenever possible. Motivational Triggers for Self-directed Learning Childhood Teen-young adult Adulthood Curiosity-based Capacity-based Destiny-based Spontaneous Structured Systematic Focused on fun Focused on goals Focused on dreams

<img src="http://glenandpaula.com/quotes/uploads/1106872736ch940127.gif" width="600" height="191">

A beautiful student goes to a male professor's office and says, in a breathy voice, "Professor . . . . I'd do anything to get an A on your exam." "Anything?," the professor asks, conspiratorially. The student leans closer. "Anything," she says. The professor says, "Would you . . . study?"

Beware you are not swallowed up in books! An ounce of love is worth a pound of knowledge.

The choicest morsel, if eaten by a pig, turns–to put it bluntly–into pig's meant. Let us be angels, so as to dignify the ideas we assimilate... But, let us not be beasts, like so many, so very many!

<img src="http://glenandpaula.com/quotes/uploads/1107571205phd012805s.gif" width="600" height="260" />

But negative lessons are just as valuable as positive ones. Perhaps even more valuable: it's hard to repeat a brilliant performance, but it's straightforward to avoid errors.

We don't believe what we read; we read what we believe.

How rebuked are they by the apostle! He is inspired, and yet he wants books! He has been preaching at least for thirty years, and yet he wants books! He had seen the Lord, and yet he wants books! He had had a wider experience than most men, and yet he wants books! He had been caught up into the third heaven, and had heard things which it was unlawful for a man to utter, yet he wants books! He had written the major part of the New Testament, and yet he wants books! The apostle says to Timothy and so he says to every preacher, "GIVE THYSELF UNTO READING." The man who never reads will never be read; he who never quotes will never be quoted. He who will not use the thoughts of other men’s brains, proves that he has no brains of his own. Brethren, what is true of ministers is true of all our people. YOU need to read. Renounce as much as you will all light literature, but study as much as possible sound theological works, especially the Puritanic writers, and expositions of the Bible. We are quite persuaded that the best way for you to be spending your leisure, is to be either reading or praying. You may get much instruction from books which afterwards you may use as a true weapon in your Lord and Master's service. Paul cries, "Bring the books" — join in the cry. Paul herein is a picture of industry. He is in prison; he cannot preach: WHAT will he do? As he cannot preach, he will read. As we read of the fishermen of old and their boats. The fishermen were gone out of them. What were they doing? Mending their nets. So if providence has laid you upon a sick bed, and you cannot teach your class — if you cannot be working for God in public, mend your nets by reading. If one occupation is taken from you, take another, and let the books of the apostle read you a lesson of industry"

Experience Without Reflection Is Worthless

Experience can expand your wisdom, understanding, maturity, resilience, credibility, and confidence as well as your knowledge base, expertise, proficiency and skill. But only if you learn from it, reflecting on what happened, what resulted, and what can be learned.... A donkey may have participated in ten military campaigns but when all is said and done it is still a donkey.