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ED 370/570 Winterim 2009 with Dr. Leslie
O. Wilson |
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© Leslie Wilson
370/570 Course Links
Course Rubrics and Forms
Posting Dates to General Forum
Webquest 1 Jan 6-7th Lederbach 1 Jan 9-11th Webquest 2 Jan 13-14th Lederbach 2 Jan 16-17th Webquest 3 Jan 19th Lederbach 3 Jan 20th Plan and reflection Jan 21-23rd
Internal Site Links
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370/570 Syllabus Note: I have been asked to teach Transforming Conflict for the Winterim of 2009. This is a course usually taught by Dr. Shaw, but since she is now chair of SOE, she has asked me to take it over for this winter semester. Some of the following assignments have been adapted from her syllabus and objectives, and her choice of book. Other elements like the webquests, questions and prompts, webpages, tips, grading rubrics and resources are original to my version of the course. Course Objectives: 1. Participants will understand how individual personality styles and assertiveness levels may impact personal perspectives and attitudes about conflict and conflict transformation. 2. Participants will understand the principles and strategies of transforming conflict through readings in Lederach. 3. Participants will examine how to implement conflict transformation strategies within their respective teaching practices. 4. Participants will investigate alternative conflict transformation and resolution programs and be able to articulate their opinions and project the possibilities inherent in these programs. 5. Participants will work to enhance their personal conflict transformation skills within their respective teaching through reflection and finding appropriate strategies based on personal and/or professional needs. Assessments: I know many of you are used to courses where you accrue lots of little points, but teaching isn't about points, it is a performance based profession. Getting you ready for that end, I have included a performance rubric for each assignment. You will also be asked to self-evaluate and peer evaluate at the end of this course. Because you are part of a professional sequence anything work below B quality work is considered unacceptable. Rubric categories are exemplary (A), acceptable (A- to B), unacceptable (B- or below). Please read and note the criteria for each category in the accompanying rubrics carefully. Discussion rubric; Webquest rubric; Plan rubric, and Self & Peer eval. Assignments: 1. D2L Discussions: Over the next 3 weeks, you are asked to discuss the assigned book readings, your webquest findings and reflections, plus your reactions, and insights and proposed solutions to conflict resolution, management, and transformation. For each segment of collective book chapters, as well as for the 3 webquest segments, there are a series of questions and prompts. It is not necessary for you to answer each and every prompt, but I have tried to ask important questions in order to get you started in thinking about how you are going to use this new information. Our cyberspace: The course has been arranged just as it would be in a face-to-face class. In a regular class you would do the readings or activities, then I would ask you to discuss things in small groups and give you a task. After a period of time we would come back together and as a whole class we would discuss the important points and elements discovered in your small groups. Our D2L space has been arranged so this can occur in cyberspace as well. In your small groups (know as PODs) you will offer up ideas, refine them into collective statements for General FORUM discussions, and cull (select) your best ideas before bringing those to the collective General FORUM. This pattern will happen for 3 cycles. General FORUM responses should be meaty, reflective, and thoughtful. I have set General FORUM posting dates as to when you should come together with the distillation of those important ideas collected and decided on in your small groups. Within your POD groups you will need to decide on internal discussion dates as this arrangement then gives you a little choice. For instance, rather than singly posting over a 2 or 3 day period (which is certainly fine) you may decide that you would rather try to meet as a POD online at a certain time making your conversations synchronistic (meeting together) as opposed to asynchronistic. Each POD member should take his/her turn summarizing POD ideas and posting them to the FORUM, but all members of the class should enter into the general discussion. Caution: Please remember that I can read and monitor all discussions in D2L. D2L also offers stats on frequencies of your readings and postings. This simply means that there is nowhere to hide when it comes to discussions. Please know I am not specifically counting responses so that volume is more important than quality of thoughts and ideas. However, I do have the expectation that you are doing regular readings of others' responses and acknowledging their thoughts and ideas on with some reasonable frequency. This is a primary requirement for any online course. For those of you who operate on a "let's do it all at the last minute," THAT WILL NOT WORK FOR THIS COURSE -- be forewarned. Pease read my discussion and response rubric carefully. Peers will also offer evaluations of one anothers' performances. 2. Completion and discussion of the Webquests. Questions and prompts have been placed in red here on the webquest portion of our website and in D2L. Again bring your best ideas and reactions to the FORUM. 3. Personal Plan for Conflict Transformation: Based on your readings and professional needs and reflective reasoning, you are asked to create a personal professional plan for resolving conflicts. This plan may extend into new understandings that you have about personal issues as well. Sometimes the best parts of our professional lives evolve from our attempts and struggles with personal issues and initiated by personal growth. An example: For instance, many teachers are highly extraverted (extroverted) and are so concerned with getting ideas out of their heads and into the space around them that they are not particularly good listeners. (I plead guilty :-) In this instance it might be a part of your plan to read more about becoming a good listener, about practicing good listening skills, or to practice being still, or even to learn meditation, in order to quell the inner drive for making outer noise. On my own journey as a teacher and a as parent, I made a commitment to stop trying to solve everyone's problems when I realized that while my solutions for others may have been good ones, what I was doing was creating a dependency rather than enabling others so that they could solve their own problems. I realized that everything I did as a parent or teacher or friend for someone else, every problem I solved or thing I tried to fix out of love, in essence denied others the opportunities to learn how to do things themselves. This was a huge revelation and gave me a whole new window on solving problems and conflicts. I have also become a "watcher" rather than a talker. In my own life this one small change, from talking to watching, has taught me more valuable lessons than I can recount. Your plan should include the following elements. Five found resources, from different sources, on conflict that speak to you and your personal/professional needs. These may be in hard copy, articles, or strategies, or websites. Also write a brief reflection about any revelations you have had during this course. These should be concrete things you have come to know, or understand about others and yourself. In your formal plan offer: A. Found resources:
B. A collective reflection: Also include in this plan at least 3 insights or reflections that you have had during this course. These may be newly developed technical skills in solving conflicts or problems, or personal/professional revelations that you have had during your readings or through your discussions. C. *For graduate students only: If you are a graduate student taking this course, in addition to the elements above you have a choice from the following:
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