<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Re: [OSLIST] providing information -- (long from Ed Ball)</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF">
Hi Julie and Ed,<BR>
<BR>
This is a marvelous conversation, thank you.<BR>
<BR>
I too am fascinated with Ed's description of the beginning of his class. To me what he did in beginning with the departmental and university requirements was to share the givens with his students, and to allow some time for them to work with the givens before opening the space to the theme of the course. In this way, it seems that the class did become the "sponsor."<BR>
<BR>
Over my years as an educator, Julie, I too have bristled against the expectation that it is my role to assign, set required learning outcomes for others, give grades, etc. I do not believe that there is something inherently <I>wrong</I> with structuring learning experiences this way. But it is only one way. I have long employed progressive educational methodologies, to open more space within the traditional roles and structure. But recent years of working with OST has brought the limitations of traditional teacher/student roles into the sharpest relief.<BR>
<BR>
The notion of working with the givens as Ed did seems to me a powerful tool for a teacher to use in recasting his/her role as a space-holder. As I have learned from Birgitt, an essential part of working with the givens is, after listing as many possible organizational/situational givens as we can think of, to go through them and carefully ask, <I>Is this <U>really</U> a non-negotiable given? </I>For someone wanting to open space in an educational setting, some of these questions might be:<BR>
<UL><LI>Do we REALLY have to meet for only an hour each day (or could it be five hours once a week)?
<LI>Is participation at every session required? What are the terms?
<LI>What curriculum <U>content</U> is non-negotiable?
<LI>What are the explicit non-negotiables of grading/assessment?
<LI>Can other people who are not enrolled in the class be invited in as equal participants?
<LI>etc.<BR>
</UL><BR>
If I were designing a course I might gather a sponsoring group, including facutly in the department, an administrator, and students or prospective students, and ask these questions up front, so that the course title and description would serve as the "invitation" prior to students' signing up.<BR>
<BR>
The most successful use of OST in a university setting I have done was what we termed "teacher mentoring circles." We had a cohort of 30 first-year public school teachers, who had been through a summer intensive teacher ed program together. We met monthly on Saturdays. I negotiated with the other faculty for time, and usually got four hours - once I got the whole day. We invited experienced mentor teachers as equal participants. We tried out different themes - <I>Curriculum Design, Keeping In Balance, etc -</I> but the teachers would always post topics about whatever they needed the most across the whole range of the teaching experience. There was a nice development, as the new teachers did all the posting at the beginning, and the experienced mentors would attend and take part in conversation. But over time some of the experienced mentors recognized a particular skill or workshop that would be useful to the new teachers, and they would come prepared to offer this in a more structured way as a session. <BR>
<BR>
(This is my answer, Julie, to your question about whether OST is right to teach a particular skill-set: Yes! I love it when a convenor stands up and says, "My group is going to learn how to do xyz." Whoever comes are the right people. At the camp where I work, OST breakouts are often offered in technical skills - how to belay a rock climber, how to build a loom or split logs. And I am curious right now with the question of how to track and publicly acknowledge progressively acquired skills. I am using OST in ongoing settings where learners can direct their own curriculum, but also where there is a series of technical requirements for different competencies, say in canoeing, climbing, or the use of various tools. What's the mimimal appropriate structure for that, I wonder...?)<BR>
<BR>
Anyone who knows how tough a public school teacher's first year can be can imagine how useful these Saturday OSTs were. It was a chance to decompress, to be honest & vulnerable among peers, to re-orient to a deeper magnetic north (why does this matter?). The closing circles were awesome. These sessions kept some people afloat in some rough waters.<BR>
<BR>
I was facilitator for the mentoring circles, but I was not the one responsible for the students' grades in the overall program. Integrating the grading into the OST part of the course would be a neat challenge. "Sharing information" in the way Joelle and Romy are talking about would also be fun to integrate. And I am in agreement with Michael Pannwitz that the space-holder is best the space-holder alone, and not a participant. I can imagine the designated teacher/"expert" either letting his/her content expertise go and holding space, or calling in another space holder so that he/she can participate equally. Either one is good, but both at once is problematic.<BR>
<BR>
And yes Ed, I also spent late afternoons dismantling many a circle of chairs in classrooms, hallways, and on patios, to not irk the university custodial staff!<BR>
<BR>
Chris Weaver<BR>
<BR>
</BODY>
</HTML>