Mentoring.
If you are a graduate student or prospective graduate student about to embark upon a program of studies aimed at a masters, Ph. D., or other certificate, the selection of a mentor and the formation of a supervisory committee are among the most critical choices you will make in your professional career.
No mentor is an open book. This page is intended to bring you as close to seeing a mentor's open book as anyone is likely to experience. I'm interested in solving problems. If your goals focus on certification – getting a piece of paper – rather than answering questions, we likely have little in common.
My research is thematic; my research interests are set forth elsewhere. There are many worthy questions in instructional technology; I'm focusing on trying to answer a subset of these. For a successful mentoring relationship to exist, there needs to be at least minimal overlapping of my professional interest areas with yours.
Although I joined UNL as a full professor in 1973, I still work 50-70 hours nearly every week. The number of weeks when I work 80 hours exceeds the number during which I work only 40.
I supervise both quantitative and qualitative studies. While both kinds of studies tend to reach conclusions that support the belief systems of the research mentor and researcher, qualitative studies seem much more prone to this outcome.
I believe that students should finish their work as quickly as possible. Only those with extremely broad and active interests should linger in a degree program, and lingering students should frequently evaluate whether the breadth of their interests is consistent with or detrimental to achieving professional excellence. There are occasions when lingering is appropriate; more such situations are imagined than real, however.
There is a popularized way of discussing personality temperaments originally due to Myers and Briggs. In this scheme of things, one considers four dimensions of personality or temperament. I've has tested as an INTJ type for 15 years. At one time I was borderline I/E, but I've always been a 'pathological' (my adjective) NTJ. I've just about never chosen a "Feeling" item over a "Thinking" item even though I complete an inventory more often than once per year. Complete a Keirsey's temperament inventory yourself. Read about my type (INTJ; Keirsey description). [There are many such type descriptions. The one for INTJ by Heiss is the one I find most descriptive of me. Instead of the single-term descriptor 'system builder,' I prefer the descriptor 'scientist.' That descriptor often is used for INTJs. Keirsey uses the term mastermind.]
How might my having this type impact on mentoring relationships? Although the results of the Keirsey test (or equivalent) tend to have very high face validity, there are few if any quantitative studies that tell one how to make use of such information. For example, I don't know how to use this information to make me a better teacher or mentor. [Pittenger, D. J. (1993). The utility of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Review of Educational Research, 63, 467-488.] I'm the sort of person who knows his type, has read about all of the types, and teaches about the types. At the same time, I stress to all students that knowing this may make you feel better and may give rise to interesting conversations but it doesn't make you a better teacher. So, if you talk to me about accommodating a student's learning style -- watch my nose wrinkle and the furrows in my brow deepen as a lean back preparing to overwhelm you with the only kind of study I'm willing to buy into where learning style is used as a dependent or independent variable, or even as a category in a qualitative study. I also would assert that, once aware of the literature in this area, most scientists will behave in a manner similar to the one I've described.
What does this mean? Well, for example, if you're a strong "F" type, you'll probably find yourself offended by me. If you procrastinate, you'll see me as driven. If you like to see lots of data before making up your mind, you'll likely think that I jump to conclusions. Before you consider asking me to serve as your mentor, consider this information. One of my characteristics is that I don't mind at all that you read about my Myers-Briggs type. In fact, for the sake of efficient communications, I wish you would. Also, before you visit with me about joining my research group, you probably should know about your own type! There is no litmus paper test in my mind about what type you are. Instead, it is a sort of test about how thorough you are likely to be as a colleague and coworker.
I will be exceptionally proud of any of my students who can describe and measure a learning style, and then use those measures to prescribe differentiated teaching interventions that lead to relatively enhanced learning. To pull this off, however, I think you have to be very clever (because you certainly won't be the first person who has tried), and you'll have to have a very tight study.
In studies of learning styles, one is mucking around in the forest filled with stickery bushes and small trees.
In order to bring about learning, we need to know something about how people learn. I have a connectionist's perspective. Learning is based upon neurological changes. Learning can be successfully modeled. Simple computer programs operating with essentially linear inputs can model very complex learning characterized by nonlinear outputs, ones that mimic human development. A difficult but readable book, Rethinking Innateness by Elman et al., does an excellent job of setting forth my views about learning and development. Of all of the efforts at effective teaching, none has a better track record than mastery learning. At the college level, mastery learning is sometimes called personalized systems of instruction. While this rhetoric may sound as if I'm a neobehaviorist, I'm not. Successful teaching involves feedback from the teacher. Feedback through training epochs is what makes models of neural systems 'learn.' Feedback is what makes kids learn. In reality, there doesn't have to be much reward or punishment connected with the feedback -- although there usually is. You probably can guess, then, that I don't think much of open-ended inquiry strategies. Guided inquiry, on the other hand, seems to work quite well in restricted situations.
Graduate Degrees. Finishing a degree takes a great deal of a mentor’s time. I can’t imagine finishing more than three doctoral students during a twelve month period. Masters students take less time – but three or four masters add up to finishing a Ph.D.. In deciding whether to accept a prospective student, one issue I consider is the traffic problem – if I take you on, will I be able to give you the time you need when you'll need it?
If you start with me but decide to change to someone else, that’s fine. If a big chunk of what you've done with me under my supervision and guidance ends up in a publication, I expect co-authorship; that’s the extent of my territoriality with respect to graduate students. Reciprocally, if I feel that our relationship is not working out in the best interests of both of us, I may terminate the relationship. (This would be unusual on my part, there being only one case when I wanted to do so.) Not only are there other instructional technology mentors (Ansorge, Fowler, Bruning, Harnsich), but there also are options at UNO (Grandgenett, Topp).
Finally, I don't mind expressing these ideas and putting them in writing. I nearly always say what I mean. Also, I don't particularly care what you think about these notions. If you consider yourself to be a fragile person or a high-maintenance person, then I’m certainly a poor choice to be your mentor.
Masters Degrees. I do not mentor MEds in C&I at Nebraska. If you seek a graduate degree with me as a mentor, you'll need to consider an MA. We hope to have a 'specialization' in Internet-based Education established effective in the Fall, 2001.
If this doesn't put you off too much, then take a look under the research heading and under recent dissertations and presentations to see the kind of work that interests me. Also, I recommend that you contact former students to ask their opinions. If you're still interested, by all means e-mail for an appointment.
As for serving on committees, I have a simple policy -- if your mentor (committee chair) says it's OK, I say it's OK. If your mentor disapproves, I'll look at it and make up my own mind. If I really can't stand what you've done but your mentor approves, I'll not serve on that mentor's committees in the future. BUT, IF I'm on your committee AND you ask my opinion or advice, be sure that's what you really want -- because you're going to get just that! In many situations I can be very helpful -- especially with respect to creating computer tools that will automate data collection or help you analyze the data you plan to obtain. I can usually turn your papers, dissertations, etc., around in 72 hours -- provided that they are well-written (i.e., reflect reasonably good use of language).