Schemas and Adult Learning

Recently I had was telling some of my Facebook friends about my plans for school. Christine Pence, whom I met at a conference a few years ago, asked me this:

Clare Shappee Dygert Christine -- I'm hoping my thesis will be on using ASL as a schema to reduce cognitive load in asynchronous e-learning. Whatcha think?

August 23 at 7:47pm ·

Christine Pence Hmm..could you expand a little on this? Are you thinking about the approaches to learning ASL as in your blog article? http://dygertthinkingoutloud.blogspot.com/2010/08/asl-handshapes-and-schema-learning.html Or, are you thinking about generalizing the design of asynchronous learning content? Do you have a specific academic content environment in mind?

Once I got over the thrill that someone A) read my blog and B)actually thought about it and remembered I had written, I thought about Christine's question.

Schemas (or schemata), as they are discussed in the Memory and Mind chapter, by John P Clapper ("Category Learning as Schema Induction") that I mention in my ASL Hand Shapes and Schema Learning blog post are a little different than what I am considering for my research. They are related, though. Schemas, as John Clapper uses the term, refers to categories of information. Students learn the characteristics of the category and are able to sort new information, determining if the new information is in or out of the category. This corresponds to the "concept" type in my instructional design model. (You can read more than you probably want to know about my model here: http://dygertthinkingoutloud.blogspot.com/2010/01/instructional-design-model.html).

What I would like to investigate in my research is whether or not the structures and grammar of ASL  -- use of signing space, time line, for example -- can be utilized by the graphical presentation of content in asynchronous e-learning as a schema, and would using it as a schema reduce cognitive load and make learning difficult content easier for signing learners.

To get to that question, there are a lot of other questions that have to be answered. How should I measure cognitive load? There seems to be some controversy about that topic. What features of ASL would be most useful to be used as part of a schema? How would that schema translate to graphical presentation of content?

The Chair of the Psychology Department warned me that my research question is more like a dissertation than a thesis.  It does probably have a life-time of work in it. But I think that is a good thing, don't you? If, in the next two years,  I can get the questions listed and understand what work has already been done on this topic, and find an ASL linguist who is willing to work with me, then I will consider the next two years well spent.

I'm In!

I got it in writing!

Yesterday I got the very exciting news that I've been accepted to the MS program in Applied Experimental Psychology and Engineering at RIT. I am absolutely thrilled. Here's what I said in my Personal Statement:

I’m currently working at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf as the department chair for the Educational Design Resources department. Part of my job is to develop new and novel instructional assets to support the education of deaf students. One project that I’ve been working on is the development of asynchronous e-learning for deaf students.

I am interested in figuring out how to use the features of ASL to inform the graphical presentation of asynchronous e-learning. I think that certain features of ASL will perform as a schema that will reduce cognitive load, and increase retention and knowledge transfer for signing students.

The sad fact is that much of the way instruction is presented is not effective. In order to increase effectiveness of my instruction, from the beginning of my career, I’ve turned to research. And happily, there is a lot of research out there. But it’s about hearing students, not deaf.   So to answer my specific questions, I am going to have to do this research myself.  My hope is that this program will equip me with the tools and venue to discover the answers to my questions so that I can apply what I discover in my instruction.

I am joyful and passionate about my work. I believe that what I am doing will make a material difference in the lives of our students.  It probably sounds like I’m exaggerating, but I really feel that this work will be my legacy in the world – that it will improve how instruction for deaf students is developed.

My work style is flexible and collaborative.  At work I see my primary role as connection maker and obstacle remover. And it’s the same outside of work.

I’ve worked as an instructional designer for fourteen years, developing a wide variety of content for both web and instructor-led instruction. I have thought and written on instructional design topics and cognition. Joining this program is an extension of the work I’ve done up to this point.

The program specifically at RIT is a good fit for several reasons. First, I’m interested in deaf cognition, and NTID is the place to be for that. Second, this is program has a focus on application. I actually want to apply what the results of research to my work. And I’m working here, so the convenience of the location and support of my Chair are indeed factors.

Step One: The Email Problem

I'm the girl who hates to go to bed because I might miss something. I also tend to subscribe to everything, because who knows where my next best idea ever might come from. But as a result, my in boxes, both personal and work, are stuffed with notifications about anything and everything. If it's a social media site, a newsletter, a specialty store, I'm getting email from them.

So today, as the first act of the new simply my life regime, I unsubscribed from almost everything. It's interesting -- I didn't have "Plunder" or "SOCMedia" in my life 2 years ago, and somehow managed to stagger along through life. I feel no distress at all as I unsub, unsub, unsub.

Tomorrow I will start deleting old emails, and along with that, old email folders. Hopefully this will mean that I will spend less time reading and deleting email in the future, and will begin to not find it necessary to obsessively check email even when I'm not working.

Welcome 2012! and 2011 -- Don't Let the Door Hit You on the Ass on Your Way Out!

When I evaluate my progress towards my goals for last year, I have to admit I didn't do very well at all. In fact, I would have to say this was the worst year ever, in terms of accomplishing my goals. Here's what I said I would do:

1. Using a methodology I describe here, perform an analysis of the skills and experience that I need to develop in order to determine what I need to do to maintain my position. I did exactly nothing on this. Well, I take that back. I did find a job posting that I would describe as "perfect" -- but that's about it. And I only found that by dumb luck.

2. Learn to use InDesign and complete a project using it. Nope, not a bit.


3. Work on understanding what I can do to maximize the creativity and innovation displayed by my team. Write an article or give a presentation on leading a creative team. Sadly, I didn't do anything on this as well.

4. Develop an idea for a mobile device app that I recently came up with. I did find out that my idea wasn't original. So I didn't go any further with this.

5. Investigate moving this blog to WordPress that I host myself.  Didn't do this either.

Why was this year such a flop? Usually, I am the queen of list making, and generally follow through with my plans. Why not this time?

I thought a lot about this at the end of last year, and I think what it boils down to was I didn't have any real passion about those goals. They were things that I thought would be good for me to do ( and probably they would have been) but in my busy and crowded life, they didn't demand any attention. They couldn't compete with the other demands on my time. So they were abandoned.

I read a great blog post that helped me understand what went wrong, and how to create goals for myself that will actually be accomplished.  It was written by Leo Babauta and you can read the whole thing here. Here's a brief quote that I think really sums it up:

A simple life has a different meaning and a different value for every person. For me, it means eliminating all but the essential, eschewing chaos for peace, and spending your time doing what’s important to you.
It means getting rid of many of the things you do so you can spend time with people you love and do the things you love. It means getting rid of the clutter so you are left with only that which gives you value.

I started thinking about my life, and all the things that fill my time. What is really important to me?

1. Doing my Buddhist practice.
2. Maintaining and improving the important relationships in my life: My partner, my daughter, my family, my sangha.
3. Maintaining and improving my physical health.
4. Writing and other creative work.

Everything else is really just clutter. So my goal this year is to reduce the emotional, physical, intellectual, and spiritual clutter in my life so I have the time and space to do the things I love, to be with the people that I love. I will begin to ask myself: Is this important to me? And if it isn't, I will let it go.

Let's see how this turns out!

2011 New Year's Resolutions

Well, it's that time again -- time to evaluate my progress towards goals and chart my new course. 2010 was an interesting year. I experienced some turmoil in my private life, but was able to more or less maintain my equanimity.  I feel as good about that as I do any of my accomplishments. I set fewer professional goals for myself, and that helped me to focus more. So let's look at how I did.

 1. Review and re-define my personal brand. I'm feeling a little unfocused and unhappy with my direction right now and need to figure out where it is I want to be in the next 3 years.
The work that makes me happiest right now is the thinking and talking about innovation and managing creative teams. It seems to me that there isn't a lot of knowledge about transforming teams from ordinary to innovative. I think that I would like to work on that, and in doing so, refocus my brand.

2. Blog more regularly. I really enjoy this, even if (as I suspect!) it is just me and my nephew occasionally reading it. But blogging does help me focus my thoughts. I am going to try to blog weekly. The summers are the hardest time, when all I want to do is be out in my garden. But let's see if I can't be a little more regular with this.
I think I blogged here 50 times, out of a target 52. I also started a new blog for my personal musings, allowing this to become a more professionally focused space. I blogged there 44 times. So the combined effort is well above my goal. 

3. Continue to improve my ASL skills. I have 18 months to reach Intermediate level on the Sign Language Proficiency Interview. This isn't a minor goal, to say the least.
I haven't made my goal here yet, but I still have seven months. I feel like my signing has improved. My receptive skills definitely have.

4. Continue work on my Instructional Design Model for Teaching Deaf Adults. I would like to be able to present this at conferences in 2011.
I made very little to no direct progress on this goal. However, I do have a better understanding of the linguistic aspects of ASL and that is helping me further define my model.

Here are my goals for next year:

1. Using a methodology I describe here, perform an analysis of the skills and experience that I need to develop in order to determine what I need to do to maintain my position.

2. Learn to use InDesign and complete a project using it.

3. Work on understanding what I can do to maximize the creativity and innovation displayed by my team. Write an article or give a presentation on leading a creative team.

4. Develop an idea for a mobile device app that I recently came up with.

5. Investigate moving this blog to WordPress that I host myself.

What are your resolutions?

Here's hoping that 2011 is your happiest ever!

Goodbye Ellie, Hello Future

It was a very sad and exciting and busy week for me this week.

My colleague Ellie Rosenfield died. Ellie was someone who lived with so much integrity and courage. I always felt supported and embraced, and could count on her for candid feedback. Ellie, we miss you so much!

I gave my first presentation in sign language with no interpreter! Wow. Please don't get the idea that I was good -- it was definitely a C- performance -- but I did it! I presented about my team at NTID's new Major Design Project campaign and how the changes we instituted last year had worked out. My audience was the other department chairs at NTID, and a more supportive and caring bunch never existed. Small steps, but real steps forward towards my goal of mastering ASL.

Finally, I met with Gerry Bateman, Chair of the MSSE department to talk about starting a Masters of Science in Special Ed. He encouraged me to apply, saying that I'd be good for the program and the program would be good for me. I will only have to do one student teaching stint instead of two since I already have a permanent teaching certificate in the state of New York. He also said I needed to be at an "intermediate" level in sign language by the time I graduated. That's fine, I have to be there in 15 months anyway as one of the terms of my employment at NTID.

Sometimes I feel like I am not pushing hard enough to move forward towards my goals and dreams. J says I am my worst critic. I am. I can seem my failings so clearly. So it feels good to be able to move forward, even if it is just a little bit.