Spore 3 Brainstorm with SOH

Notes from a conversation with School of Humanities' Akanisi Kedrayate, Unaisi Nabobo, Teweiariji Teaero, Stanley Houma, and Joseph Veramu on 18 August, 2003. We used the Spores3 output as the catalyst.

Aversion to Q Authority

E-anonymity

• "they (students) won't ask questions during (satelite) tutorials but overload my email after the session" -S
• "I speak fast because of the cost and limited time of the satellite, but Webct helps because studentsgive feedback, 'Can you slow down?'"

Face to face: encouraging questions

• "personal rapport is very important"
• "accents are often very hard to understand"
• voice projections of staff are often hard to understand due to quality of audio stream

Importance of inter-relationships: big in small

Concept Maps this was amazing! I just mentioned the concept, hadn't said anything about the idea of flowcharts, and they brought up the Map Story/ Conceptual Map up as the best way to approach this method!

• "we don't just give the concept and let them apply it; we proceed from known to unknown based on student's background, and then link to the abstract concept" - A
• "on day 1 of the course (ed153) the lecturer tells the story of the whole course, with pictures... and we are always going back to the Map Story/ Conceptual Map... relating it to a symbol" - U

Local Metaphors

• Sasa Broom: different strands show different parts of the whole picture
• Coconut Tree:"when you are a coconut, every part is useful"
• these metaphors are used to show interelatedness of concepts in a course

Language

• "ultimately some things have to be in Saamoan" -U
• "you have the whole thing (in english) and then you say it in local language and suddenly they understand 'Oh, is that it?" -U

Oral Culture

• RADIO has to be major as it is very accessible
• must allow different media to be used separately (eg Audio part for Radio), "like in ads they have the video version and then the audio version for radio"
• "make the tea and tune the radio" - advice from a Solomons grandfather in what to look for in a wife

Local Metaphors

• "Instructional designers must hire local people to oversee... good training as well" -U
  • perhaps create a library of local metaphors and icons with idea for use in courses
• these metaphors are used to show interelatedness of concepts in a course
  • Sasa Broom: different strands show different parts of the whole picture
  • Coconut Tree:"when you are a coconut, every part is useful"

Active Learning

• there is a push in SOH for more practical, group projects
• "trying to have at least 60% be coursework so there is more practical"

What should NM do:

• must allow different media to be used separately (eg Audio part for Radio), "like in ads they have the video version and then the audio version for radio"
• "make the tea and tune the radio" - advice from a Solomons grandfather in what to look for in a wife
• animations: "cartoons to break ice, help the students take control of the content"
• "If you put animation in, it is going to go because it will enthuse the students"

Followup

• perhaps create a library of local metaphors and icons with idea for use in courses
  • collect Pacific Stories used for Education from SOH
  • collect icons from artists (see Tevi)
• talk at SOH lunch series