Personal Curriculum Mapping (PCM)

Personal Curriculum mapping can begin with a Concept Map.

I believe one of the missing pieces of the Personal Learning Environment (PLE) is Personal Curriculum Mapping (PCM). I've thought this for a while and have discussed it with friends during my conversations around an OpenPhD. This was greatly reinforced by watching Dr. William Pinars conference speaking video regarding his recent paper "Allegories of the Present: Curriculum Development in a Culture of Narcissism and Presentism." I took many things from this video and what stood out from a curriculum development perspective is it needs to be individualized and have the engagement of the learner. This will provide the learner greater attachment to the materials, content and context for learning and force a reflection of the subjects history, present and possible futures. This reflection will provide them a deeper connection to their chosen subjects curriculum and to humanity as a whole.

William Pinar "Allegories of the Present: Curriculum Development in a Culture of Narcissism and Presentism" from Tallinna Ülikool on Vimeo.

I was also inspired by this 2011 Wilma Kurvink webcast from the ASCD conference. It provides some wisdom about how to map curriculum within a learner focused approach. It talks of how curriculum development, at a high level, is better done by others outside of the subject matter area who have insight into how the subject relates to other subjects and where learning content could be missing when looking at the whole of curriculum. Librarians are a good example for they can be unbiased regarding a subject area; therefore, not a stakeholder in curriculum mapping. You may want to consider finding a few librarians to be a part of you personal learning network.

If you want more reference to Wilma Kurvink's work on this subject follow these two links;

1. accompanying ppt slides from the presentation.
2. website that provides a hyperlinked description of the approach.

This is kind of a follow your bliss kind of thing; but you really do need to get to know how you learn and what you are motivated to spend your time learning. This is step 0 of creating your own personal curriculum map.

This is how I alter Wilma's 5 step process to become more personal (Note: it is not not a linear process and therefore fits well within Agile Learner Design)

1. audit the unit - get to know the subject matter landscape, review all the resources you can (academic and otherwise) to get an understanding of the subject area and what you know of it. What skills are needed for success? Where would you start your focus? Where does context fit?
2. use student perspective - how do you personally relate to the subject area? Are you excited to emerse yourself in the subject? Where would you share your learning and excitement? How does all this relate to what you already know.
3. confirm revised skills/content/focus to matching tools -  from the audit you may have identified new skills required, you need to develop learning plans to acquire the required skills. Look to new web2.0 tools to also assist here. Identifying the important skills is the best place to start. This is where it gets fun, for you need to devise / identify ways to assess your mastery of the skill. Be sure to communicate and engage you social network here. How does this iteration of learning relate to previous skills/content/focus iteration? What is new? What has changed?
4. ensure tools align with key focus of unit - once all is done has your learning and work aligned well with the focus of the current iteration. Has your assessment approach worked. Would building your own rubric to assist here? Your personal learning network should be engaged here!
5. evolution of student perspective - this is where you need to assess the current iterations learning against the skills and knowledge you set out to develop. This then feeds back into step 1. the audit of the unit. Iterate! And remember, keep blogging!

Creating a Personal Curriculum Map is a very important first step while envisioning and planning your Agile Learning. Having to develop your own curriculum is important to building your understanding of the knowledge domain being pursued in your learning. The process of creating the PCM is also iterative, so the map doesn't need to be complete to begin your learning. Once a skill or two has been identified within the subject (or curriculum) domain the learning can begin. And during the iteration a better understanding of the curriculum will develop. The curriculum map is also very personal for it connects you with the skills and knowledge from the past and the present. It will also provide insight into the future. As Dr. Pinar believes the understanding of the past and present of a subject domain connects you with all of humanity. And what makes this even easier is that creating a curriculum map that is personal could be one of the most important things you do. In the timeless words of Bruce Lee, "(Hu)man, the living creature, the creating individual, is always more important than any established style or system".

Getting Started with PCM
To get started with creating a personal curriculum map simply phrase the learning as a question and begin to build a concept map. In the above example I state that I want to learn to play the pipe and tabor and I begin to hang other nodes around the question. Put all you already know about the subject as nodes around the question. This should be enough to identify a few skills to begin your learning. For the time being, however you imagine the concept map is correct. The most important thing is to begin capturing the idea and what you already know. This concept mapping will be described in more detail in a future post. Stay tuned...

Narcissism and Presentism

This is an important video when describing curriculum development and how it could offer a journey out of the current culture of narcissism and presentism. I wanted to watch this video as reference to my post on "Personal Curriculum Mapping" (coming soon). It supported well my belief that it is important every individual be engaged in curriculum development. And from my perspective, the development of their own curriculum. I have embedded the video and included the main points that meant the most to me and my idea of personal curriculum mapping.


William Pinar "Allegories of the Present: Curriculum Development in a Culture of Narcissism and Presentism" from Tallinna Ülikool on Vimeo.

• Curriculum is mostly focused upon economy and society. In general, it is not localized to community needs. Most curriculum development is procedural and assessment focused.
• Curriculum development should encourage ongoing forms of intellectual engagement.
• Advanced capitalism has created an environment of narcissism and presentism. People have retreated from public life. People no longer engage with the past or future.
• Allegory (storytelling) provokes reflection and engagement to the past and future. It also is an internal and external journey as one will reflect internally to the history. Allegory stretches in many directions and allows individuals to find personal relation to the story. Study of history is important, it fits very well to allegory.
• Curriculum guidelines should be no more than guidelines. Teachers should have freedom to explore wherever their imaginations take them.
• Intellectual labor is also an emotional undertaking. Allegory allows for intellectual depth mediated by the learner.
• Allegory and analogy both connect the individual internally to external objects, events and other people. They connect people to the world. Contributing to curriculum development connects us to others, the past, present and future.
• Self-reflective understanding transforms the present.
• Move from curriculum standardization to curriculum differentiation. Working through the legacies of the past enables finding the future.
• Presentism. All that we have is now. One task follows another task. It erodes the lived links among originality, creativity, spontaneity, anger, risk-taking, excitement, pleasure, discomfort, anxiety, all of humanity.
• I don't want teachers to be the same, a good mix of people. We need teachers to be individuals. We need an intellectual differentiation.
• The tests that only make sense are those that are devised by the teachers for the particular class.
• Outcomes based curriculum are manipulative and too limiting, we want to keep the future open. It is the excitement of becoming educated.

My take away; distinctiveness of continents, nations, states, provinces, cities, municipalities, neighborhoods, families and individuals is good for humanity. Diversity will keep our knowledge base broadening. Curriculum development  needs to include the learner. It would connect the learner to the past, present and future of the subject domain when they have greater responsibility in creating the curriculum.

Harmony House Super Mentor

If you follow this blog you are aware of my inspired learner series of posts. The idea being that there are already many people learning online and using social media as a part of their learning. I also believe that the role of the super mentor will become increasingly important for self-directed learners.

Sandi Melody is a super mentor who has created something very special. She has created a school where youth can come for music and live performance training. What she provides goes far beyond the regular music teaching, she provides mentorship to many aspects of being a musician, not just the chops of playing your chosen instrument. What Sandi does is well described by Curtis Bonk in his book "The World is Open";

This will be a person to consult with at critical junctures in your learning process. Such individuals will be critical in helping sort out the myriad ways you can learn today as well as the interesting routes you might take to reach new learning milestones. As learning becomes increasingly essential in our lives, super mentors will continually provide the breath of life by leading us to relevant and meaningful learning paths.

What I also believe is done very well with Harmony House, Sandi and her students is their use of social media to promote their activities. Being public with your learning increases its depth and quality. And by engaging your social network during your learning increases opportunity for reflection, peer engagement and mentorship.



I believe Sandi Melody is an inspired super-mentor who uses many of the available social media technologies to deepen peoples learning by engaging others and provide opportunities for reflection and public support. Sandi is an Inspired Super-mentor and her students are Inspired Learners.

The days first task

http://www.flickr.com/photos/naotakem/

Seth Godin often prompts me to think different. And this morning was no different, he essentially asked the question "what do you do when you start your working day?" Do you consume online media or do you create. I believe the morning sets the tone for the day so how you start is important, and most days I start by consuming online media. This has got to change for me. I consider myself a creative and I need to seize this important and productive time to create something. This is how I intend to flip my mornings around, I will start my daily online activity with an act of creation. Depending on the time available it will either be;

• with a short time, I will reflect upon my learning and my professional life and post a tweet that I believe would have value to those who follow me.
• with a longer time, I will use a pomodoro to add to my blog.

I will consume online media through-out the day using my netbook or smartphone. This is what I do already, so... I hope this new way of starting the day will add to the collective intelligence of everyone's day rather than my just lurking within the collective stream.

Hire Me

After three years of recent project successes and an amazing adventure in Thailand with family I am back to Vancouver and looking for work. I am looking for short to medium term contractual opportunities as Director of IT or Enterprise / Solutions Architect.

• My strength is to leverage my 25 years of IT experience in bringing complicated technical projects to completion. Regardless of when I join the project.
• I am at my best as Enterprise / Solutions Architect,  Director of IT or Technology Focused Project Manager. Though I can take on a large number of technical roles as the project need arises.
• I am looking for projects that will assist in making the world a better place by bringing balance and equality to all things.

If you have a technology team or project and want to get to finished, I can help you get there. I can start immediately and am willing to work both from home and in your office. The best way to get a sense of my professional abilities and my project successes is to visit my linkedin profile and my technology focused blog.

Sincerely,

Peter Rawsthorne

Kickstarter Success

Back in May 2011 I contributed to my first Kickstarter project, Computational Thinking Illustrations. And this week I received my benefit for contributing; signed by the artist, prints of the created images. I completely agree with the goal of this project; to create some cartoon images to help teach computational thinking. In my opinion, computer science skills are neglected by K12 education, these images will assist as open educational resources.

I'd like to thank Benjamin Chun and Tim Piotrowski for bringing this kickstarter project to completion. Way to go Ben and Tim.

Emersive Learning

What is it about emersion that works so well? A couple of months back I wrote about how progressive inquiry and tranformative learning are a great way to learn. During my recent family adventure I was presented the opportunity to spend 24 hours in Wat San Goo. I was excited by spending time in a traditional Thailand Wat and was looking forward to what I would also learn. I really had no idea what was going to unfold and as the time to emerse myself neared I became increasingly hesitant. Throwing myself into a world I had never experienced and being surrounded by a language I was only just beginning to hear was creating a little fear. Needless to say I was pushing a few boundaries.

What emerged from the 24 hours became the subject of a rather detailed blog post. And what stands out for me was the amount I learned during the 24 hours. I would almost say I created a transformative learning experience for myself. Could it be that my hesitancy and mild fear pushed me into a heightened awareness that enabled me to assimilate more information and the unfamiliar surroundings increased my ability to learn about these surroundings?