Online Reading Circles Role Sheet

Creative Connector
Name: Alan Ledford
6
Group Identification Group B
2015

Book Chapter: Chapter 5`

Date: June 19,

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Your job is to find connections between your circles required readings and the world outside. This means
connecting the reading to your own life, to happenings in the place of your profession, your community,
to similar events at other times and places, or to other people or problems that you are reminded of. You
might see connections between the required readings and other writings on the same topic. You might be
able to make connections to other books by the same author or another author. There are no right or
wrong answers.
In other words, you will be responsible to make creative connections to other important ideas and or
personal or professional experiences of the members of the group.
This role can be combined with the Illustrator Role *** strongly recommended for small groups.
You should plan to spend at least a total of an hour or an hour and half in each online reading circle
meeting talking about all 5 roles.
Some connections I found between this reading and other people, places, events, authors are and
based on our discussions, more connection are . . .
1. Wlodkowski talks about understanding Dimensions of intercultural nonverbal communication is
key to successful adult instruction (pg.128). To me this multicultural aspect is a very powerful
motivator or in some cases limiter to educating adults. I have seen this first hand when I have
taught classes with student from other cultures, what our culture considers acceptable may be
taboo in others. For example in one of my high school history classes I had a few students from
Japan, these students were very quiet and goal centered while the American students were loud
and needed constant supervision. In the Japanese culture total respect is instilled in students
minds and success is considered a requirement not a hopeful outcome.
2. Wlodkowski also discusses that a successful adult instructor must developed some type of
connections with adult learners through introductions, multidimensional sharing and sharing
personal values. For me as a adult instructor I believe it is important that time at the beginning of
the class is dedicated to introductions of the learners. In many cases I have gained valuable
insight from these introductions regarding participant prior knowledge, past experiences and class
expectations. The students feel better about you and your course material, because they believe
they know and you know the.
3. Wlodkowski next gives examples of how to eliminate any negative conditions that surround the
subject you are presenting (pg. 177). In the subjects that I have been privilege to teach some has
been positive or interesting and some have been boring but necessary, it has always been my
policy to make the subject matter as interesting as possible. Sometimes this has been easy but

others cases I have had to work hard and overcome the negative aspects because it has to be done.
The first thing I will usually do is identify those negative conditions to the students and challenge
them to help me make more interesting. Some instructors will come out and identify the negative
aspects and keep them negative throughout the instructional period or complain which builds on
the students anxiety and hatred of the material.
4. Lastly the author looks at the use of learning contracts, learning contracts can accommodate
individual and cultural differences in experiences, perspective, and capabilities (pg. 210). Like
the author I have had some success in the utilization of learning contracts especially for students
who were not putting the effort required into being successful. I have also used these for students
to judge and dedicated the amount of time and effort required to successfully complete the
assignments.