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Musical Self-efficacy: Measurement and Assessment

I presented this lecture on Questionnaire Development to the graduate students of Psychology at the University of São Francisco, Campinas, Brazil on Monday, 19, August, 2019. I take you through the process I followed to develop questionnaires for Self-efficacy for Learning and for Performing in Music. Unfortunately I didn’t video this one. The slides and my full notes (nearly a transcript) are below.Read More »Musical Self-efficacy: Measurement and Assessment

Brazil Keynote on Self-Efficacy

III Seminário Internacional Teoria Social Cognitiva em Debate

Slides, video, and transcript of my keynote from Brazil.

1. Thank you very much to the organising committee for inviting me and making this trip possible. It is an honour and a pleasure to be here.

In this talk I would like to speak about self-efficacy in higher education, its power, how we measure it, the relationship it has with other constructs and factors in our lives, and how as educators we can influence the self-efficacy of our students.Read More »Brazil Keynote on Self-Efficacy

Agency and perspective

For the final week of #el30 I would like to consider some of what Stephen Downes presents in his intro to the topic of Agency (below in blue). These initial words sparked so much in me, that they were catalyst enough for a post. My thoughts are interspersed with bits from Stephen’s intro (in blue) and ideas presented by Sylvia Baldiris and Jutta Triveranus, his guests for the week’s hour-long video chat.

In Stephen’s intro he asks:

How do we ensure that what we project to the world is what we want to project, both as teachers and learners? 

I’d like to turn this on its head. How do we ensure what we project is receivable? Just as there is no one way to teach or learn, when we project, can this be received? Let’s think literally. Humour me with a metaphor: A projection, of a film can be seen. Can be seen by all seated in a theatre. Can be seen by those in the theatre if the lights are off. You can’t see it from the street. Seeing requires certain conditions and the same is true of any projection. Receiving is one step further along the line of engagement.

For me, the ‘what’ of the projection is the basics, and in considering agency, there is a need to not only project but to also consider (and I mean actively) the conditions that facilitate and enable people to receive and act upon what is projected. Read More »Agency and perspective

Learning along the path of life

Every year I learn. Every day I learn, but I tend to embrace projects. These are not about ‘achieving’ per se, or gaining external recognition or status, but about striving to be a better me. It’s about genuinely growing, because frankly, I’m not done yet.

Yesterday one of those projects happened in an old stone church by the sea. I had the pleasure of performing with some wonderful people – a mixture of my current students, a colleague from the university, guests (the local Vicar and one of my alumni who is now a musical director), and my singing teacher. One of the most daunting and exciting things was having my teacher there, in the audience, but also singing with me. Having her there, willing to stand by me was a most wonderful gift and affirmation.

I continue to learn to find my voice – in all areas of life, and it interests me greatly how freedom is gained through expression, communication, and collaboration, whether through writing, speaking, the cello, or singing. This situation was special. It was a group brought together part by necessity and part by design. The four core members will be going with me to LA as part of an educational outreach trip that is one option for the final semester of the Music with Teaching course at my University. Whoever is on that trip comes together to make music. Last night’s performance gave us a chance to have an outing as a group.Read More »Learning along the path of life

Building with learning #el30: Week 2

While watching the discussion between Tony Hirst and Stephen Downes as part of the cmooc #el30 (my other posts are here) there were moments of clarity on my part but also I found myself really not understanding. Things that I thought were the important points were not. My lack of understanding only came clear when I talked to a professional who designs and uses containers (although in a non-academic world). You could say I used the ‘phone a friend’ option for help. My friend said things like:

By maintaining a common interface and abstracting the internals you can make changes to the contents of the container by patching it or updating it without changing the interface, as in DevOps.

He went on to talk about CICD and although he said it was an elegant model, and suggested shifting in the direction of Kubernetes (which comes from the Greek word for helmsman) instead of Docker. He did suggest chapter 1 from the book Docker Deep Dive by Nigel Poulton. Thank you to the author who provided a sample of the book via his website! (yes, that’s what I linked to)

– at this point I looked like a tree (that is to say, standing there, and not communicating in an understandable way). With articulate patience he explained containers in terms I, your ordinary academic practitioner, could understand. 🙂 yay! Here’s the non-technical, common person, explanation:Read More »Building with learning #el30: Week 2

#el30 Notes Week 1

This week in the connectivist course #el30 Stephen Downes spoke to Shelly Blake-Plock, Co-Founder, President and CEO – Yet Analytics. They talked about learning, LMS, experience, users, and data and provided plenty to think about- My blogpost contains 1. My #el30 notes form the hangout, and 2. My thoughts about application and implications as an educator (and I kept them brief! My post from Week 0 is here)

Notes from the hangout:

Shelly began by introducing his company and what it does:Read More »#el30 Notes Week 1