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We all have crisper and less crisp days, right?  Thanks for finding the crisper parts (and apologies, Kathy, for making it more obscure than it needed to be)

"I saw the soduku puzzle as a form if inquiry, in that we had to develop our own strategies to solve the puzzle. I took from this lesson, that students can't always be taught one way, that many paths must be presented to allow them to find an outcome. "

"It's not about Soduko anyone.  Actually it was torture for me doing those puzzles.  I guess I find it crazy that I am saying this since I want my students to think critically and logically and be able to cogently express their thoughts."

"Today's discussion had me thinking about how frustrating learning can be.  I was able to understand my frustration and I've concluded that I put to much emphasis on completing the task successfully and when I did not accomplish this I was even more dismayed.  Looking at the story and the conversation after the story is the story."

"I thought that the lesson was a good introduction to inquiry and conflict."

"What struck me in the conversation was creating classrooms of collaborators instead of  competitors ... In my school there is little collaboration. I think this is because teachers aren't willing to have conflict among the school community and within their classroom. It is safe to discourage discourse."

"I always tell my students "You don't need to be friends, you just need to be friendly."  Students and parents are very appreciative of this statement as nobody wants to be friends with everybody.  Now I wonder if I need to add something about the importance of conflict in friendliness.  Otherwise people will be polite, but no real "group story" will develop."

"We need to be more nurturing with our students as well as our peers. We need to share, and listen. Listening is something we are failing at...why do we stop listening to other people-our students...this is where we fail ourselves as educators. Inquiry needs listening in order to be successful..."

I agree with all the following.  Mea culpa

The post-Sudoku discussion helped, but it still seemed more a 'piece of' rather than a connected link."

"I wish we had spent more time looking at the article ..."

"I wish we had spent more time discussing the article and I think we could have learned  more by listening to the author's thoughts!"

"I loved this article, it addressed my biggest concern... at the beginning of this institure, I was interpreting some people's comments in this class as being PRO-"Infinite Stories."  I did my best to articulate the concerns I had with this.  Vallabha's article does an excellent job summarizing the deficiencies of this model.  He goes on to answer my question "What IS the balance between flexibility and structure?"  It effectively addressed the need for structure while students pursue their interests in order to acheive success."

"I wished in today's session that Alice and Barath were more involved."

A few additional things from this moring I want to think more about

The personal story/group story interaction is really a 4th loop and ought to be presented as such.  Distinguishing personal and group stories can be an important way to reduce peoples' discomfort with interpersonal conflict.

The sudoku exercise was successful in bringing out peoples' tendency to be made uncomfortable by the inclination to evaluate oneself in comparison to others and others in comparison to oneself.  Probably too successful.  It was successful as well in drawing attention to the need to somehow bring into o.-e.c.i. conversation issues of enhancing the ability to think/communicate "critically, logically, cogently."  One of my mistakes was to think we could handle both of these issues in the same relatively short time. 

The idea that there should be in classrooms more explicit attention to group projects, so as to encourage everybody to recognize individual skills as opposed to deficiencies, seems to me a very important one. 

Thanks all for both thoughts and tolerance of my deficiencies.  I'm still learning ....