Seriously, the writing retreat I just went on was wonderful. Fourteen faculty from the School of Education and Nursing staying up in a retreat area on the north coast. It was beautiful, even with the rain. More importantly it was inspiring to be with a group of people who were all working on refining their research writing, or on developing new research projects.
The new study I brainstormed and fleshed out combines audiobooks, cognitive load (extraneous, intrinsic, and germane), and statistics (standard deviation) to create an experimental design for testing out an emerging theory of audiobook learning packages that Dr. Prion and I have been working on. So between the great colleagues, the scenery, the deer, and the seagulls, the design of the new study took shape. A visual hint of what it aims at is provided below. For those of you whose hearts flutter at the sight of a 2x2 ANOVA, you'll especially appreciate the design.
Images and flippancy aside, being able to have quality time to work on a central aspect of your job (writing) is a great gift. Of course, it wasn't just time: it was also the ideas and camaraderie of colleagues.
This semester we started this course with the theory of self-determination. The theory posited that there are three essential needs: competence, autonomy, and relatedness. All three were met in spades at this retreat. Faculty certainly need to find ways to better motivate student learning. But institutions also need to find ways to support and enhance the intrinsic motivation of their educators. In this way institutions can renew the natural enthusiasm and commitment for education that their faculty always had, but sometimes gets lost, in the ebb and flow of managing our daily lives.
2 comments:
Hi Matthew,
The retreat and the results sound absolutely wonderful! Is this the study you showed us a draft model of in Cog Psych last year?
Relative to your comment about motivating faculty, there is an ongoing discussion about how to respond to "we-they" issues on many campuses between full time, tenured faculty and adjunct faculty. Most of the time the articles and their blogs are a bunch of complaints about no benefits or course schedule autonomy or office space or paid meeting times.
Ya' know what is missing? Authentic communication between ALL faculty that is founded on autonomy, relatedness, and competence. At the few community colleges where adjuncts feel they are "treated well" I wonder whether and how much SDT plays a role?
Dionne: The study does build off the theoretical model Dr. Prion and I were developing last spring. (We've now written an article about this model. Hopefully it will be accepted!)
This study tests a couple specific aspects of that model. It's a first-step in developing a systematic line of research integrating cognitive load theory and audiobooks.
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