Jeremy Szteiter

December 4, 2009

I. "MY SYNTHESIS PRODUCT SHOWS THAT..."

A. I can convey who I want to influence/affect concerning what (Subject, Audience, Purpose).

a) Achievement: Through my synthesis work, I have been able to identify that I am particularly interested in developing my own progress as a lifelong learner through engaging with others who feel the same. In particular, I have developed the attitudes and communication style that help me to address those individuals who have not been given sufficient chance to pursue lifelong learning as they would like, based on their own experience and interests. Further, I feel better prepared to inspire others to take more direct control over their own learning and use their experience as a learner to experience knowledge in a new way through teaching, and I have communicated this idea to a number of workplace and academic groups.
b) Challenge: I would like to continue to engage others in the process of lifelong learning who are the potential decision-makers and highly experienced professionals in education. In addition to reaching those who are potential participants in lifelong learning through teaching, I need to better understand how professional teachers, educational and other leaders, and workplace authorities might directly support the lifelong learning of others outside of the more specific ways that they support learning within their own institutions and fields. I seek allies in these professional areas who might support lifelong learners by providing resources, developing teaching skills, providing arguments in favor of extending how lifelong learning works, and serving as mentors and guides to novice, community, and informal education teachers.



B. I know what others have done before, either in the form of writing or action, that informs and connects with my project, and I know what others are doing now.

a) Achievement: I have found that a great many of the kinds of activities that help to make lifelong learning through teaching accessible to people are already happening in numerous ways in many other contexts, and many of these activities can be used in non-expert forms that allow lifelong learners to prepare to become teachers, through exploring what I have called the “Teaching Mind”. Through personal and professional experiences, I have also become more sensitive to the ways that individual memories and attitudes related to learning influence action toward lifelong learning, and I have explored the role of teaching through professional work and have developed much greater awareness of both the challenges and limitations of resources for those who have responsible for teaching in informal settings.
b) Challenge: An ongoing challenge is to connect more with those lifelong learners who are in fact acting in the capacity of teachers to others but without any formal recognition of doing so and without having much opportunity to develop further in this way with peers. I would like to be able to develop a strong network of others who are ready to become novice teachers as a next step to their own learning or who have been thrust into teaching responsibilities without much support; this entails defining a number of things, including what conditions might indicate this readiness, which institutions might employ/serve these individuals and have goals that might be enhanced through having more members who are emerging teachers, and more specifically what commitments I am prepared to make to help maintain the network. I would also like to be able to reach out to others outside of the Boston area where formal academics are less well-developed but informal education may be happening in ways that are not being publicized or recognized; I would like to become a “collector of stories” about situations like this.



C. I have teased out my vision, so as to expand my view of issues associated with the project, expose possible new directions, clarify direction/scope within the larger set of issues, and decide the most important direction.

a) Achievement: Within my project, I have been able to present what I think is the “big picture” idea about lifelong learning, through challenging the conventional understanding of the term with a new qualification of learning through seeing self as a teacher rather than passive learner. The synthesis has provided a number of theoretical considerations to support this, and I have also been able to narrow the scope of practical application to the presentation of a model of a lifelong learning Teaching Mind Exploration Group as a practical way to bring the ideas to individuals or groups through terms that fit with their existing needs. Personally, I also feel that I am more sensitive to noticing the issues that influence lifelong learning and more capable of taking interest in the lifelong learning paths of others.

b) Challenge: I would like to more thoroughly explore institutions that specifically identify themselves with “Lifelong Learning” as a proper part of their mission and understand better how they view their goals and what they do to keep improving and responding to cultural changes. Although my project focus has much to do with the idea of how individuals can take control over their own lifelong learning rather than only depend upon institutional structures of learning, I don’t fully understand yet how institutional support and partnering can support that idea or what compromises might be needed. Next steps include finding small ways to develop the idea of the Teaching Mind in a community setting while also exploring more community resources and contacts.




D. I have identified the premises and propositions that my project depends on, and can state counter-propositions. I have taken stock of the thinking and research I need to do to counter those counter-propositions or to revise my own propositions.

a) Achievement: In my synthesis, I have been able to address the possible challenges that might be presented to those who are lifelong learners-as-teachers and recognize that not only might there be some difficulties that relate to participation but also resistance to a change that allows people to serve as teachers without deep qualifications that might be expected. I have been able to state strong counter-counter-propositions in that the experience of exploring the Teaching Mind is primarily a learning experience itself for an individual, highly flexible processes are welcomed, and focus is on the growth of involvement rather than strict outcomes.

b) Challenge: A particular area that has not been addressed thoroughly in my project is the need for professional teachers and other educations to participate in the Teaching Mind exploration. Because I focus on the novice or “almost-novice” lifelong learners and the readiness for exploring knowledge through teaching, I do not give much attention to the idea that professional teachers might not always have such clear opportunities for re-examining their knowledge about teaching and therefore might also be invited to participate in this effort in the particular way that I have framed. In fact, I may even take it for granted that professional teachers believe that they know what they are doing and have a firm understanding of the Teaching Mind and therefore would not think they could benefit from exploring it. Instinctively, I hope though that this assumption is ultimately wrong and that professional teachers would want to explore the Teaching Mind as lifelong learners themselves, rather than just acting as mentors or resources for the exploration of others, as I have stated in the synthesis.


E. I have clear objectives with respect to product, both written and practice, and process, including personal development as a reflective practitioner. I have arranged my work in a sequence (with realistic deadlines) to realize these objectives.

a) Achievement: I have been able to plan my objectives well throughout this project by finishing a complete draft early, which allowed me to have sufficient time for revising, which I feel greatly strengthened the language that I use and even the confidence of my writings. By working slightly ahead of schedule almost all the way throughout the project, I have been able to finish the written work, participate as the facilitator and organizer of ongoing Timothy Smith Network instructor dialogues (which will continue for at least the next several months), develop a poster for a UMass-Boston graduate showcase, interview with a number of education and other professionals, participate in the U. of Exeter cohort project, participate with the CCT program through CCT Network events, and attend various outside workshops related to my project. I was able to fit in all of these experiences while also working with three different part-time jobs.

b) Challenge: Throughout the synthesis process, my own participation in freewriting, personal journal writing, and some other reflective participation has slowed greatly, which means to me that I was able to able to address the high-priority items, but at times I lost sight of the low-priority items to the point where it has become difficult to return to them at all, although they are not insignificant or unnecessary. I need some time to transform my current way of writing from the synthesis mode to the reflective mode.



F. I have gained direct information, models, and experience not readily available from other sources.

a) Achievement: One particular example of gaining direct information comes from my experiences in the Timothy Smith Network instructor dialogues and work to assist with the organization of CCT Network events. More than anything else, I have been able to experience some of the more unnoticed issues that face those who are seeking to teach others (either through community classes or single presentations). One lesson learned, for example, is that particular care, time, and attention is needed for the logistical nature of establishing the learning environment. In all of my experiences (of my own actions and observing others), I have seen repeatedly that establishing the environment is more than allocating room and space but also requires an element of being able to anticipate needs of individuals and prepare in “extra” ways for teaching, such as having extra materials, performing physical work, and being willing to switch from expected schedules and organizational structures. In continuing to explore the “Teaching Mind” in part with the use of theater, dialogue, and stories, I wonder if this may lead to a future realization of the “Teaching Body” as well, which refers to learning and teaching relative to physical spaces, senses, and materials that support lifelong learning…

b) Challenge: In order to continue to gain more direct experience in facilitating that stretches beyond my history as a teacher of particular kinds of adult education, I will would like to find more informal education “teachers” who work in areas outside of my own areas of expertise, which are education and information technology. I feel that there must be many individuals in some other areas in particular that would provide models of the potential of informal education, although I have either not been encouraged or found fewer connections to people in these fields. Such areas might be industrial arts, business entrepreneurship and management, visual fine arts, finance, and health and wellness.




G. I have clarified the overall progression or argument underlying my research and the written reports.

a) Achievement: Over the last three to four months of the synthesis process, I believe that I have been able to clarify my idea of the “Teaching Mind” as more than just a good idea about lifelong learning; I have formed my arguments around the qualities of Teaching Mind exploration that make it as accessible as possible. I was able to better relate my research to showing how existing forms of teaching and learning to teach are consistent with my message. Additionally, I was able to refine my visual map of my research process in a way that explains the progression from personal interest to theory to research to practical applications and even present some literal examples of suggestions for implementing/publicizing my ideas.

b) Challenge: One area of struggle has been to find ways, outside of my final synthesis paper, to present my ideas in condensed form, which will help to summarize my ideas to others outside of the context of reading a long paper. Recently, I attended a workshop about “personal branding”, and I feel that it would help greatly to use this as a reference point when thinking about continuing my synthesis work, since this perspective forces me to think about some key questions about how I will identify myself to others and how to capture the attention of others through an image of my work that is appealing as well as interesting. As much as I believe that I have clarified the progression of my argument in a thorough way, I need to keep exploring how to do this verbally, or over a period of time in the context of relationships with others, or through other forms of media.



H. My writing and other products Grab the attention of the readers/audience, Orient them, move them along in Steps, so they appreciate the Position I've led them to.

a) Achievement: My particular approach to a prologue helps to get the attention of readers through creating a story about my personal path toward this work in a way that others might relate to themselves, as I discuss topics such as early uncertainty about what it meant to be a student and misconceptions about learning that relate to early periods where reasons for learning was not explained adequately. The general arc of my synthesis then follows from this as I move the reader from thinking about lifelong learning as a generic phenomenon to making a claim that it involves a more specific type of behavior. Then, I demonstrate that this behavior that leads to exploring the Teaching Mind is accessible to people through readily-available activities (“inclusive, expansive, communal, familiar”), and that this way of viewing lifelong learning might actually be tried by individuals and organizations.

b) Challenge: I would like to find more concrete suggestions to make about how to get more directly involved in lifelong learning using the ideas that I have described, since the position that readers may have reached is one of interest or agreement, but the way that I present my steps to the position are intended to create a motivation to get involved more directly. I need to find the support and language to be able to describe to people some other practical approaches to doing this (without my help as a facilitator); what are the immediate tasks, discussions, reading, and explorations that individuals should be engaged in order to start their own process and actually find the community of lifelong learners that are looking to explore the Teaching Mind as I describe? Immediate next steps for isolated, “pre-Teaching Mind” individuals are not presented as clearly as I would like in my synthesis work, but I also need more time to figure out what more of these can be, outside of my own work with potential sponsoring organizations.



I. I have facilitated new avenues of classroom, workplace, and public participation.

a) Achievement: The idea of new avenues of participation is the core of what my work is about, and I have been able to work on this additionally through my engagement with the Synthesis class in particular, through class sessions, presentations, establishing a student working group throughout segments of the course, and even in workplace situations where I teach, where I have started to incorporate the idea of students as teachers into the classes. My initiation of the Timothy Smith Network instructor dialogues is another example, as there was no forum for face-to-face participation between instructors from different organizations, and I was recently encouraged to keep making progress in this regard as they are seen with high value by the participants.

b) Challenge: Something to be developed continues what I have already described above to some extent – I would like to additionally facilitate a new avenue of participation through some kind of experience that I create on my own in a way that literally follows and tests my model of a Teaching Mind Exploration Group. Although I have tried to work in many of the ideas into existing situations, I would like to develop a new experience that is primarily based on my project rather than use it as an afterthought. I need to continue exploring partnerships that might help this to happen.



J. To feed into my future learning and other work, I have taken stock of what has been working well and what needs changing.

a) Achievement: Through my synthesis work, I have been able to understand more about the kind of working environment that works best for me, and this gives me the motivation to be more selective about future work. Very much related to the combination of working through the synthesis as well as multiple jobs, I find that I need to keep focusing on ways of working that allow me to focus on thorough, creative work rather than task-oriented work, experimental more so than depending upon quantitative outcomes, and based on teams of peers rather than management hierarchies.

b) Challenge: One challenge that has been exposed about handling my future work is to continue developing organization of my time so that I take care of myself physically and mentally to a greater degree. In one way, my flexible way of working has allowed me to take part in experiences (such as workshops, meetings, interviews with others, requests for help) with short notice and regardless of need for travel, and I have been consistently able to prepare for these experiences ahead of time without rushing. These experiences were an important part of developing relationships and giving me time for discussion, reflection, and interaction in many ways. At the same time, I have occasionally allowed my own “free time” to be overtaken through my willingness to be flexible, and this has led to some neglect of my personal needs such as physical activity, rest, and nutrition. At this point, I have found that I actually need to schedule time to attend to these things in a very intentional way, and I have not yet found the ways to do that as I need to maintain my best energy and emotional disposition.

II. DEVELOPING AS A REFLECTIVE PRACTITIONER, INCLUDING TAKING INITIATIVE IN AND THROUGH RELATIONSHIPS

1. I have integrated knowledge and perspectives from CCT and other courses into my own inquiry and engagement in social and/or educational change.

a) Achievement: My work in CCT has contributed greatly to the way that I describe my personal “ethic” to supervisors and leaders particularly in my teaching workplaces. In particular, my CCT experience has greatly increased my sensitivity to the idea that legacies often show up in educational settings in the form of rules, expectations, and formats that may not be questioned any longer, and I have been able to articulate ideas about this. One example in a recent computer education class is that existing curriculum focused heavily on procedural steps and it was never questioned that alternative organizations were possible, but I was able to show other directors and teachers that learning the skills actually related to making good judgments and responding to unexpected changes in a computer interface, not knowing how to read instructions and follow them literally.

b) Challenge: I am still seeking best ways to think about how critical and creative thinking can be appreciated more in my workplace settings in situations where the focus is on getting work done in a way that distracts from the need to make changes that actually improve how to get it done. My work involves organizations that are generally resource-starved, so there is not so much of a resistance to change through reflective practice as there is a lack of time that forces attention to practical duties rather than reflection on old ways of working.



2. I have also integrated into my own inquiry and engagement the processes, experiences, and struggles of previous courses.

a) Achievement: One example is that my experience in the Critical Thinking and Philosophy courses have helped me to redefine what it means to be “comfortable” in my (lack of) knowledge about my synthesis topic. In the transition from course to course, I have noticed that I now look at the fields of adult education and lifelong learning as massive universes of opportunity in terms of how many ideas still need exploring and how conventional wisdom seems more and more suspect the more I examine it. Previously, I experienced this struggle much more in the form of anxiety for what I thought I was supposed to know but did not understand yet.

b) Challenge: A specific challenge relates to my experience in the Seminary in Creativity-Humor course, where I felt a strong connection to the material at the time but have found it difficult to relate to it with an academic mind since then. Although the idea of humor appears in my synthesis work, I have not been able to use it in my work as I would have liked, and I have felt at times that I have pushed aside some inclinations for humor with the idea that it would take away focus from my work.



3. I have developed efficient ways to organize my time, research materials, computer access, bibliographies, etc.

a) Achievement: Through the early months of the synthesis course, I found that at first I spent long periods of consecutive time planning and then doing each kind of mechanical activity: reading, editing, taking notes, writing, reaching out to others. By the later months, I found that I had organized myself to spend lengths of consecutive time focused on ideas instead, such as “teaching in informal education”, where I was able to switch back and forth more easily between all of those mechanical tasks and do several of them in a single working session. This transformation seemed to happen only after I was able to set up my systems of organization, use each one for a while, and then use them with each other (computer synching software, RefWorks, my calendar, post-it system for marking important book/journal pages).

b) Challenge: Because I used some shorthand when working with citations, I had to take extra time late in the process to make corrections, since by then my synthesis had grown and it took substantial time to go back and identify which citations needed attention. From the beginning, I did not consistently make it clear to myself which resource was being referenced in the cases where I referred an author from whom I was using multiple publications, so I spent extra time sorting that out.


4. I have experimented with new tools and experiences, even if not every one became part of my toolkit as a learner, teacher/facilitator of others, and reflective practitioner.

a) Achievement: More so than in most other CCT experiences, I started to use the tool of visual mapping of my project as a way to see it in new ways. I have been only minimally comfortable with manual drawing or diagramming until now, but I allowed myself to take this more seriously for this project as I spent time developing a concept map of the flow of my research and refining it over a few different drafts. Traditionally, I would even prefer to come up with words that relate to my concepts and then create visual images from those words, but I find now that I am encouraged to continue trying to use visual diagrams and images as starting points of expressing ideas rather than as products of existing language for my ideas.

b) Challenge: I experimented a number of times throughout the program with recording my thoughts and “to-dos” in audio form rather than creating written notes and then listening to the audio to stimulate my further thinking, but I do not feel that I ever got to the point of making this “work” as I thought it should, or else it’s still not obvious to me how this expanded my way of working beyond my usual use of written notes.



5. I have paid attention to the emotional dimensions of undertaking my own project but have found ways to clear away distractions from other sources (present & past) and not get blocked, turning apparent obstacles into opportunities to move into unfamiliar or uncomfortable territory.

a) Achievement: Rather than even clear away distracting elements, I found that I was able to use them in encouraging ways rather than allow them to consume my attention. In particular, throughout the course of the CCT program, my father and both grandmothers passed away, and in addition to the profound effect that such a thing has on one’s life and of course mine as well, I found a particular way of working within the program that allowed me to address the needs that all three of them had during their lives. I would have claimed that they lived in environments that did very little to encourage a “CCT” way of thinking and even suppress it. Many times since their passing though, I have felt consciously that the products of my CCT work were demonstrating for them some ideas about capacities for creativity and critical thinking that I wished they had been encouraged to appreciate in themselves.

b) Challenge: Because of the nature of the synthesis project along with multiple jobs and a few other responsibilities, I have found that I have needed to quickly switch modes of thinking and energy level when moving between them, often a few times within a single day. In each case, I felt that there was often some “ramp-up” time in a work session to recall what needed to happen next and where to get the information that I needed. This improved greatly over the last several months, but I still have some concern about the perceived inefficiency that might result from working this way and how I might try some alternative ways of organizing myself.




6. I have developed peer and other horizontal relationships. I have sought support and advice from peers, and have given support and advice to them when asked for.

a) Achievement: I feel that this was a constant during the synthesis process and throughout involvement with the CCT program. Certainly, I developed relationships with immediate classmates and faculty by engaging frequently in discussion about the work, finding ways to check in with each other outside of normal class hours, and extending myself to assist with reading drafts or outlines whenever the chance arose. In another important way, I have been able to identify many peers who have completed graduate school and have made an effort to describe my current progress and status, finding that this led to many forms of advice and support, which usually reminded me that I would spend a lot more time looking at my accomplishments favorably in the future than I was spending churning over the work right now.

b) Challenge: Despite a highly rewarding and exciting number of new relationships with program alumni through CCT Network events, I regret that I was not able to make more use out of the opportunity for relationships with concurrent Master’s students at UMB in other departments. Even though such opportunities were available through school-organized functions and events, I was not able to take advantage of them or follow up very well when I did, meaning that these relationships are still superficial. The time needed to do this well was really outside of my reasonable availability most of the time, and still I feel that I would like to know more graduate students in other programs at a deeper level.



7. I have taken the lead, not dragged my feet, in dialogue with my advisor and other readers. I didn't wait for the them to tell me how to solve an expository problem, what must be read and covered in a literature review, or what was meant by some comment I didn't understand. I didn't put off giving my writing to my advisor and other readers or avoid talking to them because I thought that they didn't see things the same way as I do.

a) Achievement: I feel that I was able to turn in writings consistently over time through the start of the synthesis process, and to some degree I credit my participation in the U. of Exeter cohort project. This participation allowed me to start realizing fairly early that I would need to “find a center” of my work quickly, and by doing this, I was able to submit initial drafts, proposals, and idea statements early and then have more time for revising.

b) Challenge: Although I believe that I worked with my advisor and other students in timely ways, one challenge was in the few instances where I did wait to turn in or share writing while in progress. In these cases, I felt that I had something new to turn in, but the idea was already forming about something that needed to be changed or expanded that was not yet captured in the current draft. This caused be to hold back my current draft for extra days once in a while, since I “knew” that there was something to change. In the early stages, I think that this was really due to my uncertainty about knowing how to describe my awareness and plans for certain needed changes. Later on, I was able to ask for feedback in specific ways and describe where work was ongoing and how to prioritize the issues that most needed attention when submitting a draft, but it took a while to get to that point.




8. I have revised seriously, which involved responding to the comments of others. I came to see this not as bowing down to the views of others, but taking them in and working them into my own reflective inquiry until I could convey more powerfully to others what I'm about (which may have changed as a result of the reflective inquiry).

a) Achievement: My revisions were extensive given my feedback, as my first full draft contained about 50 pages of text, and my final draft contained about 200 pages. Comments from my adviser, reader, and fellow students (in response to written drafts, presentations, or verbal discussion) were systematically addressed and confirmed. I find that I actually saved about 60 distinct drafts of the synthesis through 8 months of work (many only contained minor corrections or edits, but some contained substantial additions or changes to existing text, and some contained completely new chapters or major sections). Although I realize that I did not need to revise every item exactly as suggested or in the same context in which the feedback was given, most of the time I actually did revise close to the feedback, because I realized that if something in particular struck the reviewer as important, then my project simply did not yet convey an important idea as effectively and yet as simply as possible. In this process, I actually found it surprisingly easy to let go of control of my writing and exact language because I was able to see that if someone else “didn’t understand me”, then this is a de facto indication that a point being made is less than obvious, so it is in my best interest to improve it.

b) Challenge: While I was able to learn about and practice using Peter Elbow’s methods of responding to writing in previous coursework, I found it highly useful and greatly insightful, and I wished I had been organized enough to try this again more precisely through my synthesis revisions. I might have found other support in my writing if I had done a better job isolating limited sections of my writing more often and then asking for feedback based on the specific criteria. This would have made me feel more comfortable asking for feedback from fellow students also, since I would not have felt then that I was imposing on their time by asking them to read my work when they had their own work to do.



9. I have inquired and negotiated about formal standards, but gone on to develop and internalize my own criteria for doing work—criteria other than jumping through hoops set by the professor so I get a good grade.

a) Achievement: Although I mentioned above that I was a little late organizing my references and citations in a way that made writing as easy as possible, I found a systematic way to make sure that I was following formal standards. By creating a list of all of the kinds of standards that I knew needed to be checked, I allowed myself to address them a little at a time, so that I was not perfecting every standard through every draft. On a given draft, for example, I would address one formatting standard, after finishing writing the prose, by passing through the entire draft correcting only that standard. This means that I could focus attention on the content without being overwhelmed with the formal standards, since I knew that I was only focusing on proper indentation, for example, during the current writing session.

b) Challenge: I was pushed to explore more about using qualified web-based research on a project such as this but still do not perfectly understand all of the angles of connecting web content to the process of writing an extensive paper. As a result, I probably avoided the web a little more than I really needed to, not necessarily as a source of written materials to be quoted, but as a source of ideas about education, teaching, and learning. That is, when I find a web site that describes a particular educational program or endeavor, developed by a specific organization, is that content serving as supporting evidence to my writing? Is it an indicators of possible constituents and future colleagues? Is it simply background information to help me generate my own ideas? All of these possibilities may apply, but the volume of possible exploration sometimes seemed very huge relative to the time I though I could spend deciding if the content was high-quality.




10. I have approached the CCT synthesis course and the CCT program as works-in-progress, which means that, instead of harboring criticisms to submit after the fact, I have found opportunities to affirm what is working well and to suggest directions for further development.

a) Achievement: I have found numerous ways to participate in the program, both as a student and graduate assistant. I believe that I have taken advantage of most opportunities that were presented to me, within reason given my time and interests. Through this participation and the way that it converges with my synthesis topic of lifelong learning, I feel firmly involved in the program to the point where I still feel that I have a number of accomplishments to finish that relate to the program rather than my work life outside of it, such as my Reflective Practitioner’s Portfolio, the CCT Network events, the CCT Network social networking ning, and continued participation in university events, as possible.

b) Challenge: Finding ways of helping to distribute the way that support works is an ongoing challenge. I have thought many times about what it means for students to be more involved with the program, attend events, meet outside of class time, and generally think of themselves as more than students and really as future alumni who have a vested interest in making sure that the CCT program is recognized and appreciated. I will need to make sure that I can be firm about making commitments to do these things myself, and this will likely work better if I can actually explicitly and publicly state my goals as a CCT alum just as I have had to do as a student.