This document provides an overview of Dr. Z's Collectory research approach for making learning fun and engaging for students. Some key points:
1) The Collectory focuses on choice, relevance, engagement, active learning, and positive teacher attitude to inspire curiosity and lifelong learning. Students choose research topics and methods to make the work personally meaningful.
2) Collectory research incorporates attitudes, skills, and knowledge through personalized, multigenre projects involving reflection, collection, connection-making, and sharing. Students develop discovery skills like associating, questioning, observing, experimenting, and networking.
3) Quality is emphasized through ongoing reflection, input from others, and care in tracking sources. The end is just the
2. Developing Skills of Interest, Creativity, Literacy, and Innovation through the Engaging Research Processes of The Collectory A presentation from Dr. Z’s House of Fun Wilkins-O’RileyZinn Professor and Faculty Director of Teaching and Learning Southern Oregon University
3. When is learning fun (engaging and interesting) for you?“Dolphins are my life right now! This project is the most fun I ever had!!”• Sixth grader, 2004
4. Research is formalized curiosity.It is poking and prying with a purpose. • Zora Neale Hurston
5. The ability to relate and to connect, sometimes in odd and yet striking fashion, lies at the very heart of any creative use of the mind, no matter in what field or discipline. • George J. Seidel My name is only an anagram of toilets.• T.S. Eliot
6. Themes of Fun in Learning(Zinn 2004, 2008): Choice Relevance Engagement Active Learning Teacher Attitude Eiredaramac (Camaraderie)
7. It’s all about making students feel they want to be there. • Teacher’s epiphany, 2010 That’s when you’re at your best, when you’re focused and you’re serious and passionate about what you do, but at the same time, you can relax and have fun and be confident. • Derek Fisher, NBA
8. Nifty Fifty Challenge An anonymous donor will give you $50,000 to research anything you want, but you have to make your choice in fifty seconds. It must be something you are personally passionate about, and you must immediately provide a rationale for your choice in fifty words or less, taking no more than four minutes and ten seconds (5x50 seconds) to do so.
9. How can students learn essential research attitudes, skills, and knowledge in a personally-engaging way? AND how is highly individualized work evaluated?
10. The Collectory is about teaching the skills of interest essential to making lifelong learning a reality and an ongoing delight.
11. What basic A•S•K do students need to enable them to do research in any discipline? A • Attitudes S • Skills K • Knowledge What else do they need to know and be able to do that’s specific to your discipline?
12. A • S • K Attitudes • blue card Skills • yellow card Knowledge • green card Your discipline-specific ASK • pink card Is there overlap? Of course—don’t stress! That’s interesting, but it’s not interesting to me. • Laurie Richlin Lilly Int’l. Nov. ‘09
13. BREAST WISHES! I have a collection of more than 7,000 quotations about breasts that have become part of an art exhibit: Breast Wishes: Uncovering an American Obsession. It’s led to anonymous gifts like this.
14. Some Key Elements of Collectory Research • I-Search research (Macrorie, 1988) • Collage/montage representation • Multigenre writing (Romano, 2000) • Scholarly personal narrative (Nash, 2004) • Autoethnography (Ellis & Bochner, 2000) • Autobibliography (Zinn, 2004) • Self-actualizing creativity (Maslow, 1959) • Pentangulation (Zinn, 2004)
15. Autoethnography is the exploration of one’s own culture situated within other cultures, and leads to critical self-understanding through reflection and experimentation. A primary difference between autoethnography and autobiography is the creation of theory from emergent knowledge, making it particularly useful within the context of research projects.
16. Adult Learning • Adults want to know why they are learning something. • Adults need to learn experientially. • Adults approach learning as problem-solving. • Adults learn best when the topic is of immediate value. --from Malcolm Knowles’ (1990) theory of adult learning I’m fifty-three years old and this is the first time I’ve ever been excited about doing a research project! • Middle school teacher, ED 512: Educational Research, 2010
17. Enjoyment is not a goal, it is a feeling the accompanies important ongoing activity.• Paul GoodmanOngoing reflection and self-evaluation are crucial elements of The Collectoryprocesses.
18. Pentangulation • Self as source of knowledge, experiences, reflection, metacognition • Observation, formal and informal • Talking with others • Formal research, scholarly literature, historical context ª Informal research, popular culture, multiple media, historical context You don’t understand anything until you learn it more than one way. • Marvin Minsky
19. I have used Spark Notes, Cliff Notes, or other reading aids and pretended the ideas were my own. I have pretended to read an article, text, or other assigned materials. I have appropriated material from the internet and passed it off as my own work. I have cheated on a test. I have copied someone else’s homework or other assigned work. I have done an assignment that was due at the start of class while I was in class instead of completing it out of class as assigned. I have worked on other things during class, including but not limited to other coursework, surfing the net, texting, etc. Ethics Quiz It’s hard to do your best at something you don’t really want to do. Why should I go research information on something I don’t care about? • Comments from a pair of cheaters on ABC’s 20/20, November 19, 2004
21. You can teach students a lesson for a day, but if you can teach them to learn by creating curiosity, they will continue the learning process as long as they live. • Clay P. Bedford Activate the skills of interest, innovation, and lifelong learning through personally resonant Collectory research
22. Discovery Skills of Innovation• Dyer & Gregerson, 2010• Associating: making connections among the seemingly unrelated.• Questioning: asking “what if?” and “why not?” Challenging the status quo.• Observation: closely observing details, including people’s behavior.• Experimentation: trying new experiences; exploring new worlds.• Networking: including with people with whom you may have nothing in common, but from who you can learn.
23. There is a formula for drudgery (Ruediger, 1932), and many students have learned how to be actively disengaged in school. Skills of Interest
24. Where do ideas come from? I am often asked, “Where do you get your ideas?” The short answer is everywhere. It’s like asking, “Where do you find air to breathe?” Ideas are all around you. • Twyla Tharp
25. Choice I know how I learn and I understand that this may not be the same in every context. I actively seek opportunities to maximize my learning by integrating my interests and passions into my coursework. Students choose Collectory topics, methods of pursuit and sources, manner of presentation.
26. Relevance I find purpose and connections among things I’m studying. I connect personal resonance and pragmatic reality. I know who I am and what interests me. I choose a Collectory topic thoughtfully, engaging in metacognitive activities that help me understand my interests and my preferred ways of making meaning.
27. Engagement I attend class and deliberately find ways to be actively interested. I care about my learning and am truly present through thoughtful interaction in and out of class. I apply course content to my life and to other courses. I engage in ongoing disciplined and informal Collectory-related reflection, collection, and connection and am alert for interconnections.
28. Active Learning I don’t just attend class; I am an integral part of making the class interesting because I am interested. I seek out additional information related to what I am learning. I use all facets of my life as sources of information. I understand that learning doesn’t just happen in school and I actively seek additional learning-from-life opportunities.
29. Teacher Attitude What makes teaching fun? I put myself in the place of the teacher and make my interest apparent. I go beyond requirements and produce quality work. Collectory teachers are open to possibility, trust learners, emphasize the journey, involve learners in evaluation, expect quality.
30. Camaraderie I talk with others in and out of class—instructors and classmates. I get involved in clubs, study groups, sports, student government, and/or other activities. I am interested in learning about other people and their cultures and I know how to listen and be a friend. I actively seek other perspectives related to my Collectory topic and I share my work regularly, helping others with theirs as well.
31. A student once called me the “Ex-Lax of writing teachers.” Collectory processes can really help get the writing going!
32. WHAT IS QUALITY WORK?WHAT SHOULD A GRADE OF A REPRESENT? Quality is not an act, it is a habit. •Aristotle
33. How to insure your Collectory doesn’t suck!Some advice from the Vampire Team: • Pick a topic and begin your research right away. • Tell other people what you’re exploring and ask them to watch for related information. • Record what you’re doing, the sources you find, and your thoughts and reflections REGULARLY. You will not remember! • Keep careful track of your sources. Get all the biblio information as soon as you look at something. • Be open—keep your topic at the front of your mind and you’ll be surprised how much you start to see. Winter 2011
34. How about you?With The Collectory, the end is just the beginning. . . How could you use Collectory processes with your students?
35. El Dia deLos Muertos mIImaII Zinnpix are from Olvera Street, Los Angeles, and Dr. Z’s House of Stuff
36. Zombie Haiku (Ryan Mecum, 2008) They surround the car and all are moaning something. Is that the word “trains??! (p. 17)
37. Vampire Haiku Ryan Mecum (2009) As I’m writing this, my syllable-counting hand is starting to smoke (p. 133).
38. In Finito To find a form that accommodates the mess, that is the task of the artist now. • Samuel Beckett
