User talk:Fasten

From Wikiversity

[edit] Request for delete reason?

The project has no contributors. I'm unwilling to contribute - whether you accept my motivation or not - and the Wikiversity community has so far failed to make noteworthy contributions to the assistant teacher program. --fasten 13:19, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the appreciation expressed for the Wikiversity assistant teacher program. I hope that means there will be more contributors in the future? --fasten 15:18, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

I think you misunderstand the nature of wikis. People can appreciate works and think works are worth keeping around without having the time or knowledge to contribute to the works. I think its fair to say that in the beginning you'll probably find yourself being the only contributor and there is no way to tell how long that will last. You could try finding people who've got the time, knowledge and willingness to help out. In the end though, if you want something done, you are better off doing it yourself rather than waiting for other people to do it. If you feel you don't got the time anymore, are frustrated and need to take a break, or if you just don't want to work on it any more that's ok too. Everyone is volunteering their time here. Someone might discover the ground work that you have provided maybe days, months or even years later and take up from where you left off. That is the beauty of wikis, very little goes to waste. While destroying your own creations is a very zen thing to do, there is no need to go that far here. If you built it they will come, but they will never come if you remove the work you've created. Works on a wiki are like a zen garden, take time, patience and lots of love. --darklama 01:29, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

I appreciate your explanation but the nature of wikis as you see it wasn't the problem, I merely added my perception that apparently the degree of appreciation expressed in the voting didn't match the amount of contributions by others the project received so far. --fasten 17:39, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Well that can be due to not knowing enough about the subject to be able to contribute anything meaningful. As suggested elsewhere you could try having a participation list, where people who are willing to contribute to the project and people who want to learn about the subject can list themselves. --darklama 21:30, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Additionally, some projects people are interested in learning about, but not interested in contributing to. One way to try to get around this is to create learning projects which involve improving the resource in question. For example, at the Department of North American History, there's a US History course which encourages learners to write the textbook as they go. The Jade Knight ^(d'viser) 22:32, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

I've been thinking about a social net [1] for the German Wikipedia but I don't think it would attract contributors. --fasten 21:35, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] ATP mentor training

The scope of ATP mentor training seems to be for college students, yet the scope of Topic:Assistant teacher program seems to be for junior high and high school students, and the scope of Assistant teacher course seems to be for 7th and 8th graders only. So who is intended to benefit from all this? Also is this only intended to be of benefit to people in certain parts of the world? w:High school means different things in different parts of the world. -- darklama  11:32, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Something like this is the general idea. Mentors can be college students, which could for instance be the case in a college school. I imagine the program may be more useful in developed countries but the ideas for adapting it to developing countries and schools with fewer grades look promising. The intended interpretation is shown in the diagram because "middle school" and "junior high school" are not even well-defined within the USA. The chosen grades match Unterstufe, Mittelstufe and Oberstufe in Germany and are not representative for the USA.

Please note that ATP mentor training is not (yet) a course and the intended audience are instructors. --fasten 12:04, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

How about clarifying that on the pages? If the work is intended to teach instructors, people should know that. If the work is mainly intended to teach college students how to mentor junior high and high school students in the US or Germany, people should know that as well. -- darklama  12:24, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

I've modified ATP mentor training#Introduction according to your proposal but maybe you haven't read Assistant_teacher_course/Teachers'_handbook/Administration#Motivation?

I don't think the work is overly focused on the USA but it derives some good ideas from US schools that may be underrepresented in other parts of the world, including Germany. --fasten 12:38, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

I hadn't read it because its not linked to from any of the three pages I mentioned. Perhaps linking to that motivation section would encourage more instructors and teachers to read it? Ok so if the work is intended to be useful everywhere and is only making use of the US system because its useful for your teaching purpose, shouldn't it say that as well? My intent here is not to tell you what the focus should be, rather the intent is to encourage you to clarify what the focus is whatever that may be. That way instructors and teachers can better understand what parts of the work are intended to be read by them and college students know what parts of the work are intended to be read by them, or who is intended to read or learn from what parts. As an outside observer looking in, I saw what looked like a lack of clear correlation between what or who the topic/course is for and what or who the related course work is for. -- darklama  13:07, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Okay, that is understood. I think I fixed the problem. The "Motivation" section is in the Teachers' Handbook and I did assume teachers would read the Teachers' Handbook. You correctly describe the perspective of a visitor who may not yet have reached the Teachers' Handbook or is primarily interested in mentoring. Thank you for your contribution. The focus of the Assistant Teacher Program is the Assistant Teacher Program, not a particular country or education system. Particular education systems should be addressed in policy frameworks like Galileo (e.g. Freinet, Waldorf, Summerhill). So far the US schools have merely supplied more useful ideas than any other system but I'm still reading Vertiefender Vergleich der Schulsysteme ausgewählter PISA-Staaten, a comparison of the education systems of different countries in relation to Germany, so that may be subject to change. --fasten 13:14, 2 June 2009 (UTC)