Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
From a professor's perspective, awareness of the variety of cultural backgrounds
and similarities and differences in students' points of view and experiences pro-
vides a framework for better curriculum and instruction to respond to the unique
characteristics of each class. Seeing the differences in their depth and complexity
of thinking, and differential use of abstract generalizations and personal examples
can facilitate teaching metacognitively by providing insights which guide planning,
monitoring, and evaluating instruction for individual classes (Hartman, 2001b).
Students' responses externalize their thinking about course material so professors
have the opportunity to learn what students have difficulty understanding, identify
relevant prior knowledge that students can build on, identify and strategize to over-
come misconceptions, see how students connect what they are reading to their own
experiences, and assess their mastery of course material. Students are also able to
help clarify each other's thinking by providing explanations and/or examples of con-
fusing concepts. Meaning is thereby socially constructed through interactions of
peers with each other and the professor.
In addition to questions, I embedded hyperlinks in the article so students could
learn more about material by accessing Internet resources. One example was a link
to details about “Tanner's 4 stages of pubertal maturation” which was mentioned as
important, but not described.
Unpublished Document
In Fall 2008 I uploaded my Summary of Research on Parenting Styles so stu-
dents could learn the content and practice using HyLighter for their major project
of the semester, described later in this chapter. Fifty-one comments were made.
Figure 21.3 is a screen shot from the beginning of the document showing some of
the highlighting and comments.
Following are color-coded annotated excerpts from this screen shot with the cor-
responding comments. Contributors were identified online (see Fig. 21.3), but not
here to preserve students' privacy.
Text: Diana Baumrind (1991) defined parenting style as the normal vari-
ations in parents' attempts to socialize and control their children. Baumrind
studied 100 predominantly white, middle class preschool children (green, “ours”)
in California (1967, 1971).
Corresponding comments:
•
“Baumind findings may not relate to all ethnic group.”
•
“While there may be interesting implications and findings from this study, the
same study should be done in different settings using different populations
(e.g., other ethnicities or socio-economic status (SES)). How interesting to then
compare the results of the same study on different populations.”
•
(Me) “This makes the implications limited for our community because of our
extensive ethnic and cultural diversity.”
