Bringing the World Closer

Assignment 1 Focus on the Leaner

Hi guys,

I'm working on my assignment and have somehow convinced myself that some of the instructions I thought I understood I no longer do.

The first question I have is what do they mean by our student being tolerant/intolerant of ambiguity? I know Missy covered this in class, but I just wanted to be sure!

My second question is about headings. I felt sure that Missy said we should be using headings (which it seems to indicate on the paper - ex. learner background, learner motivation, etc) - but then I remembered her mentioning something about narrative and I felt uncertain. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

My third question is about the word count. Do you remember if we are supposed to put it on each page or on the front/end? If it goes on each page, how should it be formatted and where should it appear?

I realize that I probably already have the answer to most of the Qs, but I am feeling so out of sorts these days that I started to worry and thought I better poll the audience!

If you have any of your own questions related to the assignment instructions please feel free to post them here.

Thanks so much for your help!

Syd

Attachments:

stress2.jpg, 58 KB

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Nicole Noran on February 5, 2011 at 11:08pm

This is what I did:

I skipped the ambiguity part because I have not seen clear evidence in my student either way.

I'm pretty sure that "narrative" was in contrast to "bullet points". Yes, headings are in the assignment as written in our folder.

Since the word count was separate for parts one and two, I put mine at the end of each part. (Actually, I'm a little short on part two... but there's really nothing else to say.) E.g. (480 words.)

I hope that helps!

nyn

Permalink Reply by Sydneyann Shook on February 5, 2011 at 11:39pm

Hi Nicole!

I think you're write about narrative being in contrast to bullet points. So, as I understand it - we use our headings and write in narrative style under each of them.

I will label each section with the word count!

I know what ambiguity is in the context of regular speech but do you know what they were referring to when it mentions our learners being tolerant/intolerant of ambiguity in the instructions?

Thanks so much for responding :)!

Syd

Permalink Reply by Kirsten Thomas on February 6, 2011 at 1:11am

Hey Syd,

So I had the same questions about the headings for the first part of the paper. Cody thought Missy mentioned something about labeling each one, but I didn't hear it.

As far as the ambiguity, I have in my notes that we are supposed to say whether they feel comfortable with a question being answered with an open ending or if they need a direct/exact answer. As far as I can tell Ibraham would not be comfortable with ambiguity, but Sarmed seems to be ok with it. Does that make sense?

Lastly, I think that the word count goes at the bottom of each page.

Hope this helps!

Permalink Reply by Joan Rankin on February 6, 2011 at 1:26am

Syd,

I understood the ambiguity point to be the same thing that Kirsten says - whether they are comfortable with leaving an issue as 'sometimes it's this way and sometimes it's that way' or if that makes them very uncomfortable and they really want an exact answer or rule for everything.

I understood the headings/narrative to mean what Nicole says - narrative, not bullet points, under each heading. For example, mine is looking something like this:

Learner background

Narrative, narrative, narrative words words words.
More words etc...........

Learner Motivation

Narrative, narrative, narrative words words words.
More words etc...........

I'd like to know if we're all sort of on the same page with this.

And I didn't realize we were supposed to actually write the word count on the paper. I have just tracked it in Word and am keeping it within the limits. I've never had to actually put the word count in, so am not sure where it would go. I'm planning to print my paper at school on Monday morning, so could make a last-minute change to something as minor as that (well, minor in the sense that it won't take long!).