I read two articles by Richard Williams on agency, since I think that it is a fundamental component of a theory of conversation and any theory of instruction. The argumentation of the two articles was pretty similar, although the later article (Williams, 1999) addressed a Mormon audience and thus applied the concepts to principles within … Continue reading Agency as Living Truthfully

The topic in IPT 692R this week fit right in with a presentation Taylor and I made at UVU on Friday at the Scholarship of Teaching and Engagement Conference.  We spoke about learning communities, drawing on a framework explained by Brook & Oliver (2003), who drew strongly on McMillan & Chavis (1986) (though the framework … Continue reading Online Learning Communities

This week in Dr. Graham's class our four readings had to do with issues of self-directed, independent learning versus collaborative, group-based learning.  It's interesting that I didn't think of the "vs." element until later.  While reading the articles the tensions between collaborative and independent learning were not foremost in my mind. Of the four readings, … Continue reading Independent vs Collaborative Learning

Since I want my theory of conversation to include agency and human freedom, I want to record a few key lines from Richard Williams, a professor of psychology who has written about meaningful human action. "The meaning of the action (or of any concept) resides in its possibilities and alternatives, its meaningful network of ends … Continue reading Richard Williams on Meaning

I finished Keith Sawyer's very interesting book Creating Conversations.  In addition to being an academic, Sawyer is a jazz musician, and spent two years as the pianist for an improvisational theater group.  In this book he brings together his interests in creativity, conversation, collaboration, and improv to argue that conversation ("casual, unplanned conversation" p. 1) … Continue reading Sawyer’s “Creating Conversations”

For pleasure, I'm reading Bill Bryson's At Home: A Short History of Private Life.  I found this passage funny (I'm chuckling as I type it out), and fitting to Sawyer's discussion of the effect of setting on conversation: If we were to go back in time to a house in Chippendale's day, one difference that … Continue reading Bill Bryson on Conversation

As I have read Keith Sawyer's Creating Conversations, I have liked his very approachable style of writing.  This book feels substantive, but is not written with so much academic jargon as to be incomprehensible to the layman.   He makes more difficult concepts understandable.  He has inserted personal experiences (with jazz music and with improv theater) … Continue reading Style of Writing

Dr. West recommended this article some time ago, and I kind of forgot about it.  I came across a note to myself about it, and finally got a copy of the article.  Now I'm kicking myself, since this has lots of good leads in studying conversation, which I really should have been following a long … Continue reading Sawyer on Collaborative Discourse

I found out today that I am accepted into BYU's Instructional Psychology and Technology Ph.D. program.  I've been taking classes since last summer, but now it's official.  Whew! 🙂

With a neo-Vygotskian theoretical framework, Roland Tharp and Ronald Gallimore present a theory of teaching in their book Rousing Minds to Life.  First, they define teaching in this way: "Teaching must be redefined as assisted performance.  Teaching consists in assisting performance.  Teaching is occurring when performance is achieved with assistance” (p. 21, italics in original).  … Continue reading Tharp & Gallimore: Instructional Conversations