On being a graduate student

For me becoming a graduate student is not a transition from undergrad work. It's a transition for LIFE! I am going from writing short notes to accountants that require very little skill or thought to trying to write pages of thoughts. Thank god for computers that can spell check if I push the right buttons. When I did my undergrad work, I attended at night between 6 and 9 pm three nights a week after working a full time job. University work was always easier for the night students. Primarily because we we in the work force and that was like an internship as they call it these days. Transitions are happening all over, in work, in economies, in applications of technology. I have always been comfortable making transitions, but I have to admit this one is a big one.

10,000 Hours to Mastery

10,000 hours refers to a study conducted by Anders Ericsson. Basically it takes 10,000 hours of practice or just deliberately doing something until you can consider the task mastered. If I look at some professions, the mastery of the job of accounting kicks in by year 5 and the accountant is usually promoted to manager. In the legal profession, some of my friends would mention that they had to make partner in 4 years or leave. It was an up or out policy. When I look at how many work hours it takes to get 10,000 hours, its about right. Lawyers work much more time than accountants and thereby master their craft earlier. The 10,000 hours rule applies to sports, music and art as well. The author Anders Ericsson in "Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance" proposes that there is no such thing as a child prodigy or an innately gifted person. If you really look into the background you will find that child started music or sports at an early age and practiced more often than his/her peers. To obtain a standing that is higher than your peers requires deliberate practice. To push the envelop in your practice and try doing something you cant do or cant do well is called deliberate practice. After all the author says" sitting in a cave does not make you a geologist".

In my experience with kids bicycle racing. We would put them on fixed gear bikes and make them practice sprints. No falling asleep on long boring rides. When the athlete practiced these wind sprints they invariably reached a new level and a new plateau of performance. Deliberate performance of something that they did not do well pushed them to be faster.

My daughter draws an awful lot. She draws on everything. If no paper is around she draws on her sneakers. She actually started a sneaker graffiti fad at Kenwood Academy. Now in a university studying studio arts, she finds herself stumbling in painting. This came unexpectedly to her. I starting thinking about how 10,000 hours applies to her gap in art skills. When I explained that her constant drawing put in more than 10,000 hours compared to 2,000 hours she had with painting, it became clear to her she needed to practice painting and catch up on hours. The talent was still up there in her brain.

In the "Outliers" Malcom Gladwell has more examples of how famous people really had 10,000 hours before becoming experts. The Beatles had 1,600 music sessions performed in small venues in London before hitting America. Bill Gates had unfettered access to computer lab in his youth. Mozart ( my fav) was not really a child prodigy, he began his music lessons from his father, a composer, at age 4.

There are plenty of examples in real life of 10,000 hours. What do you have 10,000 hour doing that has given you an expert level mastery? What will you put 10,000 hours of deliberate practice on for your future?

http://www.coachingmanagement.nl/The%20Making%20of%20an%20Expert.pdf

Freakin on 15 minutes

Ok what can I teach in just 15 minutes? What is 15 minutes? I can talk about something for hours. During my lunch networking appointments I have an elevator speech, but we still go on for a hour and never seem to cover enought stuff. Who am I targeting in the 15 minute lesson plan? Sure I can teach Risk Assessments standards to my collegues at work but they have a basis to build on and prior know hows. What will I teach? What do I really know?

So I started thinking about the 15 minutes and focused on just that. I took a kitchen timer and set it for 15 minutes. What can I do in 15 minutes? Move around during 15 minutes. Stay off the internet, that's a time soaker. See how much you can talk in 15 minutes about anything. I set the timer while making dinner and talked my way thru dinner prep.

I found a book on Amazon.com. From Telling to Teaching by Joye A. Norris, Ed.D. This booked helped fill in the Who What Where When and the just the How is up to me. I found it to be a quick read and an important lesson in setting up my 15 minute lesson plan. The book has a workshop approach to helping you design a seven step plan for your lesson.

15 minutes? I can't wait to have some fun with Apples and Oranges...

Education Experiences

What was a memorable teacher or learning experience? Who was positive and engaging?

I grew up in the Catholic education system that stressed rote learning. Teachers did not need to entertain or engage us. Rinse , repeat and spit out.

Then sometime in high school, I had a physics teacher by the name of Mr Jensen. Rumor was that Mr. Jensen did not need to teach. He had supposedly invented some audio stuff that had a patent that paid him millions. I never knew if that was true. I do know that he taught his class with a passion and perserverance that I had never encountered. I was going to stay awake in this class. The class was always interactive, constantly in motion. I still have memories of his lessons. He had lots of neat stuff to do demonstrations with. He was the first person to teach me the "with and without" method of finding an answer. It was a lesson in how to set up a theory and test it. I apply it in my work and in other problem solving tasks to this day.

Positive experiences plant a seed in my mind. How can I be a engaging teacher? How will that passion transform learning so that what I teach becomes a lifelong knowledge?

The inventory

My professional identity? Yikes, I can look to external factors that outline my professional identity. An educational institution, DePaul, awarded some degree of recognition that I know how to count. The state of Illinois issued a license that recognizes my professional identity and names it : Certified Public Accountant. A business card communicates my position and confirms the status of my achievement.
But if I hold up a mirror to look at my professional identity from the inside, I am a person with a life long love of accounting and business. I see a person who has struggled with the constant pressure of balancing integrity with making a buck. My integrity is all that is real to me. The rest of the paper work and titles are mere illusions. When I wake up at 3 or 4 in the morning it's usually that integrity thing rolling around in my gut wondering if I did the right thing today.
What do I have in my inventory of skills or knowledge that makes me think I can educate other adults? I have tons of technical know how, memorized procedures and knowledge of risk assessment tools. What I dont have is the ability to simplify the whole mess into simple communications.
But this I know: I own my education, my knowledge and this inventory. I can decide who to sell it to and who not. I never lose what I sell and after I sell it I can sell it all over again.
Now I wonder how can I teach what I know?