Missed lesson – catching up

Unfortunately I could not attend the first meeting this week with the PBL Group. But the recordet session was a big help, so I put together some thoughts on the subject and mailed it to the group, but wanted to have it in my reflection space as well.

So here are my thoughts:

• The word “objective” was used quite often in relation to science beeing objective:
  I just wanted to add that results or findings might be objective, but as soon as the scientist starts to interpret them, personal beliefs and background kicks in. Otherwise there wouldn’t be a need for discussion, I think. So, science is maybe not as objective as we would like it to be?
• Regarding the question if teachers should be more open and share personal things, too:
  I agree that students will be more likely to open up if they know more about the person they have to be open with. Which automatically includes all members of the groupe, not only the teacher, I guess.
  I think that we are after all social animals who need the feedback from others, especially when learning. The problem in digital spaces may be, that we loose the personal space to an digital space, where we do not have control (or only limited c.) over who gets the information. Also, as Lois pointed out, everything can be stored and thus reviewed for an “eternity”.
  So, how much do we have to share and what is better not to share? And how can we be authentic in this process?
• An interessting topic from my point of view was also the question on how much has a sientist to promote him/herself via social media? I think social media is more and more a platform where one advertises the research or even oneself. I once heard a talk about datamining and therefore find this extremly difficult as we probably give a lot of information unknowingly and/ or unwillingly.

Now I’m looking forward to the webinar with David White starting in few minutes.

CU