Understanding

Just looking through the papers for the 10th European Conference on E-Learning which starts tomorrow here in Brighton...

A maze of workshops to be attended, half of them with titles that I don't understand! Just when I think I'm getting a handle on what I'm trying to do with all this, I'm thrown back into conscious incompetence mode and feel like I've learned nothing.

Gave an input to my fellow Ed D students on Saturday: forced myself to go for it because it made me clarify where I'd got to in terms of learning in this last year. Muddled through some difficult questions from the group  in terms of my epistemology but it has confirmed that my views are firmly tied up with my professional identity, and has given me some direction in terms of where I need to develop my thinking now. 

 Conscious incompetence hit here too - the impression that my learned colleagues know a lot more than I do or that they perhaps spend more time thinking it all through? I like the fact that Dewey rejected the term 'epistemology' in favour of "the theory of inquiry or experimental logic": sort of takes the sting out of all this talk of post-modernism, positivism, constructivism etc. For me the following is what is important: that no matter where we come at a problem or dilemma from, the abstract is just that, abstract, until it is applied in some way and learning is gained from that experience. 

In terms of Honey & Mumford learning styles, I come out as pragmatist/activist which fits Dewey's quotation below, that of having to apply in order to be convinced or to believe. The terminology is interesting, must do some research into their basis for using 'pragmatist' as a style....

John Dewey. Experience and Education (1938)