A workshop on metacognition run by our own Marguerite Yawin ended with a wonderful conclusion: the backbone of thinking about process and problem solving is storytelling. If you want to figure out how you got from point a to point b, you are essentially putting together the cognitive narrative: telling the story. Showing the work in math bears this mark as does a portfolio or any other sort iterative sorting.

In our outcomes assessment work, Francena Dwyer says we have to start “writing the paper”: putting it all together will reveal a story and perhaps other things.

(most people don’t know that I have an odd interest in shaving technology commercials and so I just learn about the Gillet Fussion, an implement with 5 blades. Why don’t they just put ten blades in the wacky thing and be done with it)