Back to Bloggin': Good Governance

It's been a long, long time since I've last submitted a blog entry - time to return to the blogosphere...

Thoughts lately are centered around the principles of good governance since we're hiring a new president on campus. 5 principles I've come across recently include: 1) Legitimacy and Voice; 2) Direction; 3) Performance; 4) Accountability; and 5) Fairness. Legitimacy and Voice refer to all people having a voice in decision-making especially those with the knowledge and those affected by the decisions. It also includes freedom of speech. A Consensus Orientation, where the best interest of the group is valued, is also embraced. Direction refers to both Strategic Vision and Performance. Strategic Vision includes leaders and public having a broad, long-term perspective. Performance includes Responsiveness (to all stakeholders) as well as effectiveness and efficiency - processes and institutions produce results that meet needs while making the best use of available resources. Accountability includes both internal (the institution) and external (the public) types where decision-makers are held responsible; it also includes Transparency - the free flow of information that is directly accessible to those concerned. Finally, Fairness refers to Equity - all have opportunity to improve or maintain their well-being and Rule Of Law - legal frameworks should be fair and enforced impartially.

These principles should be considered scale independent, in my opinion. They should be used in decision-making with families, schools, companies and corporations, governments, and other institutions. I'm hopeful that whomever we hire as our next president will embrace these principles.

Been-a-Bloggy-Long-Time

It's been quite a while since I've last blogged. My time is spent raising my daughters half time, focussing on their development as best I can. I've been particularly interested in teaching them problem solving and conflict resolution skills. They are in 1st and 2nd grades and they are pretty competent at being able to come up with their own ideas about how to proceed when faced with different problems and conflicts. I'm continuing to learn as a parent and find it challenging and rewarding at the same time. There's almost too many things to learn these days - keeping abreast of technological advances with GIS and GPS as well as Earth Science curriculum at school while at the same time trying to read up on and practice/apply parenting skills at home as well as learn about boardsmanship as a school board member at the school my daughters attend. Lots going on! :) Good stuff and I feel grateful for it all.

EduRetroBlog

SLO's... Student Learning Outcomes. The college is working on figuring out what SLO's are, how to write them, how to measure and report on student learning. I think this is all good stuff. It's funny to me that K-12 educators have been doing this sort of thing for >20 years and now the theory is finally becoming mainstream at the higher level. Maybe it'll also trickle up to the CSU and UC systems - maybe... When I saw that the Columbia College SLO working group had actually incorporated some of the feedback from the Brown Bag Andragogy Group (BBAG) I almost schisted my pantelones. I felt very happy. We'll see where we go from here. The whole thing needs some direction and clarity in my opinion. What could help would be to actually have the working group write an SLO (or TLO for Teacher Learning Outcome) for what it is the Accreditation Committee wants. They could then practice what they are preaching and it would model good instructional theory and practice. My 2 cents worth...

EduRetroBlog

SLO's... Student Learning Outcomes. The college is working on figuring out what SLO's are, how to write them, how to measure and report on student learning. I think this is all good stuff. It's funny to me that K-12 educators have been doing this sort of thing for >20 years and now the theory is finally becoming mainstream at the higher level. Maybe it'll also trickle up to the CSU and UC systems - maybe... When I saw that the Columbia College SLO working group had actually incorporated some of the feedback from the Brown Bag Andragogy Group (BBAG) I almost schisted my pantelones. I felt very happy. We'll see where we go from here. The whole thing needs some direction and clarity in my opinion. What could help would be to actually have the working group write an SLO (or TLO for Teacher Learning Outcome) for what it is the Accreditation Committee wants. They could then practice what they are preaching and it would model good instructional theory and practice. My 2 cents worth...

EnviorBlog

Just been thinking about the state of environmental literacy in the U.S these days. According to the National Environmental Education and Training Foundation (NEETF), about 7% or so of Americans are literate - able to pass a test on environmental issues. However, about 95% of the U.S. public say the support environmentalists at least that's what a recently released report says: http://virtual.yosemite.cc.ca.us/jtolhurst/ESGIS/Baker_Station/Miscellaneous/Environmental_Literacy_Report_2005.pdf. In 1944, noted conservationist Aldo Leopold wrote: “Acts of conservation without the
requisite desires and skill are futile. To create these desires and skills, and the community
motive, is the task of education.” So that's part of my job. I think that's why I'm so interested in running Baker Station, the field station up near Sonora Pass I'm involved with. It also couples up nicely with combating the notion of "nature deficit disorder" - the fact that so many kids these days are left inside, disconnected from nature. More on this later, time to get my girls and myself outside!

Blog-o-Diesel

I'm headed to a local biodiesel co-op tomorrow to fill up my tank and find out more about it. The guy running it is into alternative fuels and he gets his veggie oil from Yosemite, the Casino in Tuolumne City, and other local restaurants. It sounds like he's worked out a pretty good deal within the local area. I'm not sure what he's charging per gallon, but I think biodiesel is pretty competitive with petro diesel these days.

Rudolph Diesel originally patented his motor on peanut oil - petroleum diesel hadn't been invented yet. Henry Ford's motor burned methyl alcohol (methanol) and they both had the same idea - namely that farmers could be self sufficient energy-wise by growing enough crop to produce either vegetable oil or alcohol. If a farmer had 160 acres, 20 acres or so could be set aside simply for fuel production to run pumps, motors, presses, generators, etc. There'd be no need for the utility grid or runs to the gas station.

Biodiesel is different than straight vegetable oil (SVO) or waste veggie oil (WVO). Biodiesel is brewed from veggie oil and lye or sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide. The two are mixed and glycerin along with biodiesel is produced. The glycerin can be used to make soap or other products, or even composted since it's organic. SVO can be burned directly in a diesel motor but it has to be heated first to insure the viscosity is low enough and that it doesn't congeal in the fuel lines and injector at lower temperatures (like bacon grease). WVO also has to be filtered to remove food particles from the frier and settled so that any water that might be present is separated by gravity to the bottom, then drained off - don't want water in your diesel motor! Older vehicles should make sure the fuel lines won't react with the biodiesel and corrode or otherwise degrade. Newer vehicles don't seem to have this problem, but if one does switch over, it's ultimately the responsibility of the owner to research this issue for their own vehicle.

One thing to think about in joining a co-op like the one in Groveland is storing biodiesel in a tank or 55 gallon drum so that one doesn't have to do the drive too often. Mike, the proprietor, said he's willing to work a deal where he delivers biodiesel to customers who are near his pickup route when he's collecting veggie oil.

So I'm looking forward to tomorrow and learning more...

BlogFluent

Confluent education has been ignored. Perhaps a change is in the air, though. After reading Daniel Pink's book ("A Whole New Mind") I'm thinking that affective domain issues may be more valued in the future. Confluent ed says there are 3 domains to learning: 1) cognitive; 2) affective; and 3) psychomotor. Our left-brained culture has focused on the cognitive - linear/serial processing, problem-solving, rational thinking has taken the front seat in education. he claims that they're still important, however, we need a balanced approach for the future. Right-brained processes and attributes may be moving to the forefront if Pink is right. Affective domain issues deal with feelings, emotions, and the like, and of Pink's 6 attributes of the future (design, empathy, symphony, meaning, story, and play), empathy fits right in. We have two halves of the brain to make a whole (the sum is greater than the parts...) and in confluent education, 3 domains make a whole. We can't ignore the psychomotor domain that copes with the physical elements of learning (i.e. hand/eye coordination that athletes, artists, mechanics, dancers, etc. all utilize). I saw yesterday where the Nickelodian Channel is asking kids to go outside to play in order to help combat rising childhood obesity levels. Here's a tv channel asking kids NOT to watch tv (or at least not as much...). As a side note, this helps us to combat the rising levels of "nature deficit disorder" Richard Louv discusses in his book "Last Child in the Woods". This seems to fit in as another piece of the wholistic puzzle. Too much focus on left brained activities in school, not enough emphasis on affective and psychomotor issues. Let's get kids back outside playing, learning, feeling, creating, storytelling, designing, and working together.

CoopBlog

Thoughts on competition vs. cooperation. First, a good book on this is Alfie Kohn's "No Contest: The Case Against Competition", a very thoughtful, well researched book on the topic. Alfie's claim is that competition is not only not good, but bad for society. He cites volumes of research showing the benefits of such things as cooperative learning, the "New Biology", and other support for cooperative behaviors over competitive ones. Competition causes people to worry more about how many points, dollars, rewards, or other measures one has and has them motivated more by external, rather than internal forces. He thinks that we should be motivated by internal mechanisms - doing things because they're the right thing to do, not because we'll get something for doing it (i.e. the points, dollars, rewards, etc.).

I used to value competition so highly - I'd do almost anything to win. Now my attitude has changed 180 degrees. I see the value of cooperation, having researched much on this topic for my dissertation. Cooperative learning benefits students so highly, when implemented appropriately and there's a huge volume of literature supporting this. See some of the work by Johnson and Johnson out of the University of Minnesota in the 1980's and beyond. Students will learn for the sake of learning, rather than to be #1 in class if the classroom culture is set up appropriately. They love teaching one another, helping one another learn.

This theme connects with Daniel Pink's book called "A Whole New Mind" when he claims that we should be moving toward a more right-brained culture valuing the following attributes: design, empathy, story, symphony, play, and meaning. We should still value left-brained, serial/linear, problem-solving, rational thinking, but we should also focus on developing the right-side aspects in order to balance our lives, culture, world. Left-brained jobs are being sent over seas; jobs that can be automated are being snapped up by computers and machines. The jobs of the future will involve right-brained skill sets and traits. Affective domain issues will be increasingly valued. Makes sense to me and resonates with something I've known and felt for a long time. The folks at UCSB doing work on confluent education had it right a long time ago - they were way ahead of their time. Maybe they'll end up having the last laugh - I probably shouldn't say that since it sounds so competitive...