I designed my Wiki to be used in a course that I will be teaching in the fall (Literature of the American West). I genuinely hope to use it as a way for the students to collaborate and to contribute to the content of the course. I also see it as a really great repository of resources that we can use as supplemental to the primary texts that we will be reading in the course.
The pages that I created were for things that I already see as resources that will be useful for the class. I really want to focus the course on how the concept of the “American West” has been reinterpreted through (mostly contemporary) literature. We are going to start out by watching Shane and probably end with No Country for Old Men. In between, we’ll be looking at all sorts of literary reinterpretations of the West that go beyond the typical “Western” and take a look at the many populations and genres that are often ignored when we think of “Western Literature.” I added a page on my Wiki for students to upload video clips, pieces of writing and images that portray the West. There is no way that I can thoroughly cover the topic in class, and there are so many available resources, that even by having students upload two things to a page like that, we will create a great resource for them to use while they research their final essay.
Next I created a vocabulary page for Cormac McCarthy’s book, Blood Meridian. The novel uses very sophisticated language, which will more than likely challenge the students (heck, it challenges me). The language is very important to the novel, and having a resource where students can look up words and contribute will help them feel like they aren’t going it alone, while still forcing them to engage on a deeper level with language and wording in the novel.
Finally, I created a page for students to add criticism and other resources that they find about all of the texts that we will read in the course. The students will each also be responsible for giving a group presentation on one of the texts, so this will be a great place for them to gather information and collaborate with their groups as well. I may actually create a separate page for each of the texts, so that it can really become a more collaborative space for that particular group.
Each of the students will be responsible for contributing to each section of the Wiki and there will be points attached to each contribution. Not only will the Wiki be a great resource for the papers the students will write for the course, as a teacher I am very excited to have a resource that doesn’t disappear at the end of the semester and can be shared with future students in the same course. I really enjoyed creating my Wiki and I am excited to use it in my online sections of ENG 102 this summer as well. Yea Wikis!
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Instructional Design Models: Social Learning v. Project Based
1) How are the two models of instructional design similar to one another?
Both Social Learning Theory (Bandura) and Project Based Learning (Kilpatrick) focus on how education can shape the individual. Both seem to share a similar assumption that nurture is stronger than nature when it comes to developing young minds and they are both constructivist approaches in that they both value the problem solving capabilities of the individual and place value on independent learning. Both value the applicability of classroom learning to “real world situations” and encourage learners to pursue lines of questioning as opposed to searching for static answers.
2) How do the two models of instructional design differ from one another?
Social Learning Theory requires the instructor to model cognitive processes as well as behaviors in order for the student to repeat the model. It is a psychology based model that focuses on social models of behavior, such as aggression, but is also applicable as a pedagogical model in terms of modeling types of thinking in the classroom and asking students to apply those learned behaviors in real world situations. In the Project Method, learners create their own problems in order to feel a sense of “purpose” while solving them and rely less on the teacher to create the problems and model the behaviors.
3) Define the process for starting the design phase for a specific lesson you can use in your own curriculum. You should describe your potential audience (general characteristics, prior knowledge, demographics, and motivations). List any societal factors that may affect your lesson as well.
Social Learning Theory: When I teach literary analysis in ENG 102, I like to begin with poetry, because they are compact texts that don’t tend to overwhelm students as they begin to learn the new cognitive processes that are required to do literary analysis. In using this model, I would first demonstrate the type of thinking that is required to do a literary analysis, by modeling the process myself. I could do this by placing a poem underneath the document camera and showing how I go through the steps of analysis: Annotating and questioning, making observations about the text, finding places of confusion or places that seem contradictory, trying to resolve those contradictions, drafting a thesis statement and gathering evidence. It is these first steps, before the drafting of the essay even begins, that cause students the most trouble when they first begin analyzing literary texts. To further use the social learning theory method, I would need to find a “real world” situation that would utilize the same cognitive processes as analyzing a piece of literature. Sometimes I model the type of thinking as a type of problem solving similar to a riddle or a puzzle, however, I always emphasize that those often have a “right” answer, where that is not really the case with a poem. Perhaps a better analogy would be a legal or ethical question, which could also be used to model the analytical thought process.
Project Based Learning: I have always been a big believer in project-based learning because I really value interdisciplinarity as a way of getting students to see connections between the classroom and other classrooms and future workplaces. I also think that when students work on something long term, they really gain a sense of ownership of the work. For the research assignment in ENG 101, most of my students are unfamiliar with the research process at the beginning. I usually require them to choose topics that they feel some sort of personal connection to, such as a community that they belong to. This is one of the most difficult steps in the assignment for them, because often they feel hesitant to deeply explore their own societies. Eventually, however, they can relate to their subject, often on a deeply personal level, and they tend to feel a greater sense of purpose throughout their research project. I also ask them to do a number of tasks, over a period of time that build up to the final product, the paper. I suppose to truly fit the Project Based model, we would really need to do the same project over the course of the entire semester (much like the Service Learning project that we do in class). I always encourage students to continue asking questions throughout their projects and to feel a sense of ownership and expertise because of the experience that they have lived in regards to their topic. This often makes them feel more confident in pursuing the topic when they can relate it to their own life.
Both Social Learning Theory (Bandura) and Project Based Learning (Kilpatrick) focus on how education can shape the individual. Both seem to share a similar assumption that nurture is stronger than nature when it comes to developing young minds and they are both constructivist approaches in that they both value the problem solving capabilities of the individual and place value on independent learning. Both value the applicability of classroom learning to “real world situations” and encourage learners to pursue lines of questioning as opposed to searching for static answers.
2) How do the two models of instructional design differ from one another?
Social Learning Theory requires the instructor to model cognitive processes as well as behaviors in order for the student to repeat the model. It is a psychology based model that focuses on social models of behavior, such as aggression, but is also applicable as a pedagogical model in terms of modeling types of thinking in the classroom and asking students to apply those learned behaviors in real world situations. In the Project Method, learners create their own problems in order to feel a sense of “purpose” while solving them and rely less on the teacher to create the problems and model the behaviors.
3) Define the process for starting the design phase for a specific lesson you can use in your own curriculum. You should describe your potential audience (general characteristics, prior knowledge, demographics, and motivations). List any societal factors that may affect your lesson as well.
Social Learning Theory: When I teach literary analysis in ENG 102, I like to begin with poetry, because they are compact texts that don’t tend to overwhelm students as they begin to learn the new cognitive processes that are required to do literary analysis. In using this model, I would first demonstrate the type of thinking that is required to do a literary analysis, by modeling the process myself. I could do this by placing a poem underneath the document camera and showing how I go through the steps of analysis: Annotating and questioning, making observations about the text, finding places of confusion or places that seem contradictory, trying to resolve those contradictions, drafting a thesis statement and gathering evidence. It is these first steps, before the drafting of the essay even begins, that cause students the most trouble when they first begin analyzing literary texts. To further use the social learning theory method, I would need to find a “real world” situation that would utilize the same cognitive processes as analyzing a piece of literature. Sometimes I model the type of thinking as a type of problem solving similar to a riddle or a puzzle, however, I always emphasize that those often have a “right” answer, where that is not really the case with a poem. Perhaps a better analogy would be a legal or ethical question, which could also be used to model the analytical thought process.
Project Based Learning: I have always been a big believer in project-based learning because I really value interdisciplinarity as a way of getting students to see connections between the classroom and other classrooms and future workplaces. I also think that when students work on something long term, they really gain a sense of ownership of the work. For the research assignment in ENG 101, most of my students are unfamiliar with the research process at the beginning. I usually require them to choose topics that they feel some sort of personal connection to, such as a community that they belong to. This is one of the most difficult steps in the assignment for them, because often they feel hesitant to deeply explore their own societies. Eventually, however, they can relate to their subject, often on a deeply personal level, and they tend to feel a greater sense of purpose throughout their research project. I also ask them to do a number of tasks, over a period of time that build up to the final product, the paper. I suppose to truly fit the Project Based model, we would really need to do the same project over the course of the entire semester (much like the Service Learning project that we do in class). I always encourage students to continue asking questions throughout their projects and to feel a sense of ownership and expertise because of the experience that they have lived in regards to their topic. This often makes them feel more confident in pursuing the topic when they can relate it to their own life.
A New Pedagogy?
I really agree with this. I think that it is a “bad choice” not to try to keep up with the rest of the world and the new ways people are using technology. When I have a student that tells me that s/he doesn’t know how to send an email, I wonder to myself what sort of preparation that student has for a professional job, and I know that it is only going to get worse out there for someone who lacks the skills to navigate an online work environment. When I have students that are coming back to school in order to prepare to reenter the job market because of the economic downtown, I think that, even though they can be resistant to using even the most basic technologies (Word Processing, emailing, basic internet searching), I would certainly not be helping them prepare for a new career if I didn’t expose them to these technologies. The kids that are coming to college straight out of high school also need to be exposed. No one can afford to be afraid of technology anymore. Richardson is right; it is not an option. The challenge is keeping up ourselves, as instructors, and doing the learning that needs to be done so we can better prepare our students.
I agree with this, but not necessarily from my experience teaching at Yavapai. I have taught places in the past where I felt like the faculty didn’t really value any evolution in terms of technology (with some exceptions of course). It felt like the people that were trying to incorporate new technologies into the classroom were marginalized. I also think that it is difficult to imagine the classroom being “radically different” in ten years, so I suppose I am as much a part of the critique Richardson is making than anyone else. I have been in college classrooms for the past 10 years and I hadn’t seen much change at all until I came to Yavapai. Here, I think that there are instructors in many different disciplines that are using technology in the classroom in wonderful ways. I may not see “radical” change, but I definitely see a difference in the way that teaching and learning are being accomplished, as well as in how I present and deliver the content in my own courses.
I agree with this now, but maybe would not have a year ago. I used to really believe that the old fashioned way was the best and that students didn’t like it, but –hey—they never really had. I thought that it was laziness that caused students to rebel against engaging in lecture and discussion. Now I see how addressing different learning styles through enhancing learning through technology really does enliven a classroom. Students do better when they are enjoying themselves, even though it sometimes makes me feel like I am an entertainer and not a teacher (which I do not enjoy). I do also insist that students complete “pen and paper” assignments as well, because it is a two way street and one way can lead to the devaluation of language. As a teacher of composition, I do see my students losing skills as a result of technology and I think it is important to emphasize that they need to maintain their base level skills like spelling, punctuation, and writing in complete sentences, and the only way I can really test if they have done so is by giving them written assignments on paper. Then, they can build on that base and enhance their writing on the web with links and visuals. Sometimes I feel like, especially the younger students, trust technology too much (not in terms of their safety.) For instance, they truly believe that Microsoft Word spell and grammar check is all the editing they need to do. Sorry, wrong. Certainly, web technologies can help us teach the “larger lessons” of our disciplines, but we need to focus sometimes on the smaller lessons as well.
Funny in commercials; less so in compositions:
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Educational Blogs
http://service-learning.blogspot.com/
This was the first thing to come up when I googled "service learning blogs." I am hoping to have my students create blogs related to their own service this semester, so this is definitely something that is on my mind right now. This blog is "the online voice of the service-learning community," so it would be a great resource to refer students to learn about upcoming national service days and contests. It also has links to national publications covering service learning.
Through exploring these links, I came upon this, which is a class website for an English class at East Carolina University that participates in service learning. It is made on wetpaint, which seems like Ning, maybe? Does anybody know more about it? Anyway, I think the site is a bit confusing, but there are some interesting ideas about how to have students reflect on their service here. It's also pretty interesting to me that this course webpage is monetized and contains advertisements for "The Bachelor" and "Gossip Girl," but that's a whole other can of worms...
http://teacherlytech.net
This is a blog maintained by a composition instructor at Jones County Community College. I think that this instructor is doing a lot of the things with technology in the classroom that I am trying to work up to doing in my classes. For instance, here is a post showcasing some examples of student produced videos, which I would really like to try. I really appreciate the concrete examples of student work showcased on the blog. My favorite link from this one is to a site where students (or anyone I suppose) can create a "visual cv."
http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/
This is a blog that doesn't really look like a blog anymore, but that I use in class all the time. Mignon Fogarty, "Grammar Girl" is probably best known for her podcast, which is accessible through the blog as well. I would say that it is more of a website, and I'm cheating a little, but it still is authored by one person, provides an RSS feed, and can be commented on (and she refers to it as her blog). I use these in class because when I play them it appeals to more than one learning style by giving students the podcast to listen to, while they read along with the blog (which sometimes has pictures) on the projector screen. I don't use these every time I teach grammar, but those lessons can be really dry and this helps shake them up. She also links to You Tube videos that illustrate the concepts.
http://cce.typepad.com/cce/
This blog is particularly for teachers of English at Community Colleges. It allows anyone to become a contributor, with permission. It links to a lot of personal blogs from other community college teachers, writing about teaching, and also to the blogs of professional organizations like TYCA. This blog has a lot of really useful, practical resources for lesson plans and simple technologies to use in the classroom. It also provides a lot of links to texts available through creative commons, which is very useful for those of us who like to link to texts from our Blackboard pages. Mostly, I like the conversational feel of the blog. I like to share teaching ideas with my colleagues, and this feels just like that.
Here is my favorite link on the blog: http://www.60secondrecap.com/
They are fun. Here's one:
This was the first thing to come up when I googled "service learning blogs." I am hoping to have my students create blogs related to their own service this semester, so this is definitely something that is on my mind right now. This blog is "the online voice of the service-learning community," so it would be a great resource to refer students to learn about upcoming national service days and contests. It also has links to national publications covering service learning.
Through exploring these links, I came upon this, which is a class website for an English class at East Carolina University that participates in service learning. It is made on wetpaint, which seems like Ning, maybe? Does anybody know more about it? Anyway, I think the site is a bit confusing, but there are some interesting ideas about how to have students reflect on their service here. It's also pretty interesting to me that this course webpage is monetized and contains advertisements for "The Bachelor" and "Gossip Girl," but that's a whole other can of worms...
http://teacherlytech.net
This is a blog maintained by a composition instructor at Jones County Community College. I think that this instructor is doing a lot of the things with technology in the classroom that I am trying to work up to doing in my classes. For instance, here is a post showcasing some examples of student produced videos, which I would really like to try. I really appreciate the concrete examples of student work showcased on the blog. My favorite link from this one is to a site where students (or anyone I suppose) can create a "visual cv."
http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/
This is a blog that doesn't really look like a blog anymore, but that I use in class all the time. Mignon Fogarty, "Grammar Girl" is probably best known for her podcast, which is accessible through the blog as well. I would say that it is more of a website, and I'm cheating a little, but it still is authored by one person, provides an RSS feed, and can be commented on (and she refers to it as her blog). I use these in class because when I play them it appeals to more than one learning style by giving students the podcast to listen to, while they read along with the blog (which sometimes has pictures) on the projector screen. I don't use these every time I teach grammar, but those lessons can be really dry and this helps shake them up. She also links to You Tube videos that illustrate the concepts.
http://cce.typepad.com/cce/
This blog is particularly for teachers of English at Community Colleges. It allows anyone to become a contributor, with permission. It links to a lot of personal blogs from other community college teachers, writing about teaching, and also to the blogs of professional organizations like TYCA. This blog has a lot of really useful, practical resources for lesson plans and simple technologies to use in the classroom. It also provides a lot of links to texts available through creative commons, which is very useful for those of us who like to link to texts from our Blackboard pages. Mostly, I like the conversational feel of the blog. I like to share teaching ideas with my colleagues, and this feels just like that.
Here is my favorite link on the blog: http://www.60secondrecap.com/
They are fun. Here's one:
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
My Philosophical Journey as a Teacher of Composition
Teaching composition is a really big responsibility. Composition instructors make first contact with students who are new to college, new to writing and new to critical thinking. Many times I feel, as I’m sure all of us teachers feel, that I’m not only teaching my students how to write essays, but I’m also teaching them how to be college students.
When I first started teaching, I only wanted to teach my students about how literature could be a meaningful force in their lives. I saw myself as sort of a gatekeeper of a traditional form of literacy that I saw being devalued among members of my generation (I am, after all, a millennial, just like my students). I have always been a very traditional learner (see my learning styles graph at the top of the page). I can listen to a lecture for hours (I even like traffic school). While I was in graduate school, I was adamant about teaching books that I found valuable and teaching primarily literature in all of my freshman composition classes. I admit that I was college teacher who really only knew how to teach my subject of study. After all, I was only 24 years old and I didn’t have a degree in Education, or in RCTE. I was a student of Literature (with a capital “L”) and that is what I was going to teach. So, I did. I read Hawthorne with my students and I lectured about psychoanalysis and postmodernism, and I think they learned something, but I don’t think it was always “composition.”
Nevertheless, every semester, more of what I learned from my colleagues with degrees in Education would sneak into my teaching. One semester I would start to incorporate “nontraditional texts” and the next I would have my students working in groups in hopes of creating a student-centered classroom. By the time I came to teach at the community college, I was much more open to running my classroom in a way that, frankly, made me uncomfortable. I started to use the techniques that I had learned through my pedagogical training: addressing varied learning styles, utilizing classroom technology, using a combination of group and individual work, active learning. I started teaching things I was resistant to in graduate school: like rhetoric and grammar. Turned out that I liked it. It took me a while to recognize that my own strengths- my ability to read and comprehend easily, my long attention span for lectures and my seemingly natural love of writing – were my weaknesses as a teacher. I had to learn to see things more from my students’ point of view, so that they would be engaged. It was only after I got their attention that I could make real learning take place.
Now, I enjoy revising my courses every semester to fit my student’s changing needs. After all, one of the things I’ve always enjoyed about teaching is the constant opportunity to learn and I learn new things from my students everyday. Beyond learning from them, I feel the constant responsibility to learn for them. There is a lot of information out there, and I constantly feel like I am changing and adapting, so I can better help by students learn to navigate it. I think that learning to write is also learning to think and to read the world around us. Students are constantly bombarded with so much information; I want to help them sort it out. I also care quite a bit for my students and I genuinely want them to succeed. I am always trying to improve myself, so I can be of help to them. I remember the moments in my own education when I made connections that helped me learn to think, or to see, and I hope that I have those moments with my students. I see teaching as a both gift and a constant challenge, but one that I’m happy to accept either way.
P.S. I still teach Hawthorne almost every semester.
For those who haven't seen it, here is a video that outlines some of those challenges.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Hello!
This is my welcome post with my welcome video. It's an experiment, but I think it turned out pretty hilarious. The monitor of my computer is really big and I have a really hard time making eye contact with my camera...Oh well. Enjoy!
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