Tuesday, February 20, 2018, 09:32 PM - Adult and Popular Education
Facilitating an online course for the Carsey school of Public Policy, Small and Microenterprise Development Institute at the University of New Hampshire.
According to the 70-20-10 principle, 70 percent of learning and development comes from "on-the-job" assignments that "stretch" us, 20 percent from mentoring or social supports and 10 percent from the classroom or information. Of course, these %s vary by context, organization and nature of work but the broad strokes are important. Our course is uniquely designed along this ratio of activities taking advantage of what e-learning uniquely offers. It focuses on their own self-directed inquiry alongside of peers. Participants have the time and space to engage in the field with groups real time while learning with and from others around the world. Critical reflections help participants ground their analysis in self and social awareness, gender and power.
Saturday, February 17, 2018, 04:10 PM - Inspiring
Rebecca Thomas has been an inspiring Poet Laureate. Perhaps one of the most touching and historical moments in Halifax was the removal of the Cornwallis statue last weekend. Click on the link below to hear her poem that moved Councillors to vote for the removal. Social norms and what we sanction can be changed slowly if we keep, as Rebecca says, "tough skin and soft hearts." Also such a powerful reminder of the role of art in our collective imagination. | related link
Friday, January 26, 2018, 02:08 PM - Adult and Popular Education
A key element of transformative learning is experimenting with real-world problems. David Kolb's experiential learning cycle continues to be central. Yet cycles, even spirals, don't capture the dynamism now possible with online and blended learning. Frames have never had more possibility to engage with such a complex range of realities and inter-sectionalities. But emergent paths are also unclear and frustrating, subject to norms. How to bring critical pedagogy (andragogy) to these spaces? Working on a paper to extend the learning cycle with a hologram which helps to capture online multi-dimensionality.
Holographic visualization offers multiple dimensions, movement, refraction, doubt. Likewise, online learners can be supported to move freely where they find meaning between their online community and their own deliberations. All the while, they are embedded in life and work. This shared reflexivity and muddling is key to the transformative potential of online learning. The lag between insights and experimentation, negotiation is gone. The space also collapses gender and power dynamics in interesting ways as learners shape their own paths and voices at their own pace for reflection. Framing is even captured to better support both self-directed and collective learning. Facilitators and peers can act more like coaches, real-time in real messiness.
Friday, December 29, 2017, 04:41 PM - Inspiring
Met an inspiring dancer/professor, Jo Blake, at a meditation/yoga retreat in Nepal. He uses dance and movement in community. He introduced me to Crystal Pite who also uses dance and theatre to work through trauma, freedoms, self-actualization. I've really come to realize, in my work, that these forms and explorations are so critical to our collective analysis and action. The spaces it opens for connection, healing. We are somatic, individually and collectively. | related link
Friday, December 8, 2017, 09:13 PM - Poetry and Writing
Dragon flies in drag
over river spits,
mustard grasses,
tissue wings
zim hummering.
Their needled bodies
threaded beads, azure
hyphened by ebony
to the period of their
tails. Tumid eyes to tips
to eyes, waging circles
where another begins,
where mist and sigh,
early sky shaking its wings,
water below splitting,
spreading hemispheres
a slow spinning blue
mouths
consuming
tails
consuming
mouths.
(earlier version published Antigonish Review 151, Autumn 2007)
| related link
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