Week #3 In CEDO 565

Whoops! This is super late, but in week 3 of CEDO 565 we took a look at "Who Moved my Cheese" a parable about being adaptive to change and being capable of looking at the big picture. I thought that it was an interesting story, but I can see that it has the capability of being misused as a justification for administration for forcing arbitrary changes on a staff. The story does not make any prioritizing for the different topics that come up. This can cause quite a problem if you just keep on flitting from topic to topic and do not have any overall goal for what you are doing. If you want to see the breakdown of topics the powerpoint is available below:

Who Moved My Cheese

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We also took a look at systems thinking and how it could be applied to the educational system.  It is a great idea to value the interconnected nature of how students learn. Again, I only have a small reservation about systems thinking (much like my reservation about "Who Moved My Cheese".)  The system provides no mechanism for prioritizing items or learning more background that could be used to gain a deeper understanding.  I kind of liken it to standardized test preparation versus actual learning. With standardized test prep (and systems thinking) you only value that which is applicable to the moment.  With actual learning you need a much deeper understanding about how things work, not just how they are related.  Over all the presentations and videos were great items that spurred some rather deep conversations with my group mates and fellow teachers.