Drawing Pictures
This article struck a chord with me. Science educators are exploring an innovative way to help students learn: drawing. This is something I have been experimenting with too. Here is a picture my students came up with earlier this year when we were reading Nietzsche’s “On the Geneaology of Morals.” During the first 10 minutes of class, the small groups had to come up with something to say to the class. Depending on the work under discussion, I would change up their prompts, but one of their favorites remained: Come up with some kind of visual aid to explain today’s reading.
Students loved this job even though they found it challenging. It really forced them to grapple with ideas and synthesize them in new ways. I highly recommend this strategy. It can make even Marx a lot of fun : )
back to grading…
creativity and collaboration–LOEX 2008
I didn’t expect to get information that would be so important to me at this conference for library instruction since that is not my field. But Laurel Ofstein from the Depaul Center for Creativity and Innovation spoke as a keynote and helped me to see a model for a work environment that SO appeals to me!
We can and must CREATE a climate for creativity and collaboration. Here are the major elements the enviroment must provide:
Challenge and Involvement: meaningfulness vs. disengagement (all members part of goal setting…getting a variety of thinking styles in the group, also get all stakeholders)
Freedom: Autonomy vs. Strict Guidelines
Idea Time: slack vs. tightness (great ideas and breakthroughs happen in the bath, on the bus and in bed…) (composting time)
Idea Support (resources vs. Automatic “No”)
Low Degree of Conflict: tension is bad; climate of acceptance is good
Lots of Discussion: Participative vs. Authoritarion (**relaxed readiness–not jockeying, listening for a break to make a point. GOOD Listening skills are KEY)
Humor and Play (spontaneity vs. gravity) be glad to do things differently, experiment, play; not eyes on the prize with judgement and trying only to be “perfect”
Try this activity: assumption reversal
-write down the assumptions of your organization (eg: students need guidance from teachers) and reverse them (teachers need guidance from students OR students WANT guidance from teachers OR students do not need guidance from teachers)
another activity to try:
generate a problem/opportunity statement
–be broad, brief, beneficial
consider the outcomes: say this: “wouldn’t it be nice if…” write those statements on cards and read them out loud to the group. Discuss and brainstorm, look for themes, etc.
A couple of important points:
Negative statments discourage people from thinking of new solutions (”we don’t have the money,” etc.) ROADBLOCK!
instead: spend time imagining, defining the problem in different ways, BEFORE you jump to solution
A healthy environment will encourage “Risk Taking” and tolerance for uncertainty.
if everyone is coming to work every day scared to make a mistake, fearful, nothing good or innovative happens.
Here is a book she mentioned that I think might be helpful to us:
“Ideas are Free”
Cool session. who knew??
Of birds and blogs
That is a picture of the nest outside my window at home. I have become a bit obssessed with the bird family, watching the momma bird spread her wings to keep the rain off the eggs and snuggling down on them when it gets cold. But she abandons her job at the slightest movement, which is why I have such a good shot of those gorgeous blue eggs. Eggs don’t hatch without that warming, so I try not to disturb her too often.
I’m in Chicago right now at a conference for librarians. Olivia nd I are talking about a project we did with my students in which they had to use research blogs. (See our presentation wiki.) It seems to me that the old style “research logs” were somewhat helpful for students, but there wasn’t much opportunity for feedback. When they did get feedback, it was way past the time when the questions and doubts were happening. In a way, student researchers were on their own, incubating their thoughts on their own as best they could.
It seems so clear to me that blogs are the perfect solution. With Olivia and I monitoring their writing in their blogs, we got to jump in close to the time that students needed some advice or support. Sometimes it was enough just to tell them that what they thought was “failure” in their search was really just part of the messy process of research. Students also read each others’ blogs. We had this whole community of support! Those of us who blog know how great that kind of community can be. But I do think it is a little different from the blogging that I do; the students put their links out there along with their doubts, confusion and half formed thoughts. I used to do more “processing” like that in my blog (this the blog name) but I notice that I am not taking as many risks as I used to. Do we get self-conscious, wanting to write only well-formed ideas? The problem with that is that a great opportunity is lost: if I am not exposing my doubts and half formed ideas, I lose the chance to have others help, inspire, spark…
I dunno…just thinking out loud here…
Go 2.0!
NITLE alerted me to this article on a study showing how effective social networking tools are in getting information out. And this post over at the Common Carft Show tells me that May 1 is now “RSS Day”! (there is an organization promoting it who claims only 94% of internet users use RSS…could that be true??)
So I am doing my part.
Meme:Passion Quilt
I am grateful to be a reader of Tricia’s Miss Rumphius Effect because her dedicated writing gives me the opportunity to know her better–and to learn all kinds of great things about books and poetry! So I am answering her “tag” here, happy to be a part of such a wonderful quilt.
What am I passionate about teaching my students? Well, everything I know about learning I learned from my own children, so my picture for the quilt will let me tell a bit about that story:
My kids, like all kids, loved big, empty boxes. They would make me cut holes in them for doors and windows, and they insisted on painting them. They also loved costumes and pretending. It all came together one day with a large discarded window treatment and a case of the stomach flu. With both parents laid out on the couch, the boys were entertaining themselves (read:making a big mess) when they had an epiphany: Mom and Dad need us to make them feel better! They started to bring together the things they loved, making a kind of puppet theater in which they were both costumed actors and puppeteers. They told goofy, disjointed stories that had us holding our sore tummies and laughing. I could see on their faces how proud they were of themselves–they had created something effective and teh laughter they heard was all the “grade” they needed!
What I learned from that day has shaped the way I teach. I try to remind myself that the most amazing thing happens when I give people a reason to do something new, and then get out of the way. What I am passionate about teaching my students is that they have it in themselves to DO things, to LEARN things and to CREATE things. But what makes me a teacher is that I know that telling them this message is not the same thing as teaching them about this! Here is how it works out in my classroom: students read or write outside of classtime. Then, during class time, they work in small groups to come up with something new related to what they have read and written (a question, an answer, a picture, etc.). Then the small groups offer what they have come up with to the whole class. I try to facilitate a “learning community” because I think we learn best when we can work together to solve problems. It is important to me that they get back in touch with their “inner learner” who did this learning thing so naturally as a child, and connect the new stuff to themselves and to real life. I want them to know that they have the power to do this already–inside themselves.
And the interesting twist is that they seem to do this best when there is a real life product involved, when they feel that someone needs them and that what they create matters. I have written before about what I think of as my most successful class ever. I will never, never forget how I felt when I saw what had been a rag-tag bunch of flip-flop clad students with a “messy” project show up in suits and dresses to give the most amazing ,active presentation I have seen, demonstrating a deep understanding of the composition theory and pedagogy. Really–that presentation was better than most I have seen at professional conferences, and because they presented to real folks from Richmond and Henrico County, there are now middle and high school writing centers in operation in our area! Their work was real, it mattered, and I got out of the way and let them do the whole project themselves, with my only role being: designing the project, gathering an audience, and trying not to act too nervous while I paced around their group meetings like a sheep dog circling an unruly herd.
So now I will tag some educators who I would like to have add to the quilt.
Gardner
Tom
Steve
Reverend Jim
Jeff
* Think about what you are passionate about teaching your students.
* Post a picture from a source like FlickrCC or Flickr Creative Commons or make/take your own that captures what YOU are most passionate about for kids to learn about…and give your picture a short title.
* Title your blog post “Meme: Passion Quilt” and link back to this blog entry.
* Include links to 5 folks in your professional learning network or whom you follow on Twitter/Pownce.
Who is this “We” we are talking about?
After following some links, I ended up at this post over at Connectivism. Various people are discussing the merits of the idea that, when discussing technology and teaching, we should always put pedagogy first. It is an interesting discussion, to be sure, but I want to raise a different question, a question that I think has to come BEFORE that question: who or what is the referent for that pronoun? (Ahh, now I have revealed myself for the English teacher that I am…)
Seriously, who are the people involved in these discussions? Obviously, some of the party must be teachers. But I know that most of us in this conversation spend part or all of our days supporting others who teach. We are faculty development specialists, instructional technologists, directors of centers for teaching excellence, etc. And, as one of that cohort, I find myself in this position: what is my role here? In what way should I bring up the “P” word at all, let alone decide what part it plays in the design of the class or the use of a tool?
Let me put it another way: am I a paraprofessional or a professional? Do I support faculty, or am I leading change? In my early years, I worked as a paralegal, so perhaps that colors my view of this, but if I am support staff, is it really my job to lead change? Paralegals aren’t out there teaching lawyers new things about the law. But they are professionals in their own right, with their own duties and responsibilities toward the clients. They bill their hours just as lawyers do, just at a lower rate. In a typical teaching center (if there is such a thing) we are not teaching the classes ourselves, we are only supporting people who do teach the classes. I suppose this analogy places students in the role of “clients” which may or may not be accurate, but go with me here. In this scenario, why are we supporting faculty? Ultimately to inprove the educational experiences of the students at our institutions.
I think that any time we end up in the position of “instructing faculty” we end up in trouble. Yes, I know that they didn’t learn about education theory in grad school and that what we know can help them. Yes, I know that technology opens amazing new doors of opportunity for classes and students, and that we know about technology tools that most faculty haven’t heard of. But I am not sure conversations in which we develop a “holier than thou” attitude will help us in any way with the folks who have to go in the classroom on Monday and work with the people who get to say anything they want on student evaluations that are read by department chairs and deans and ultimately play a part in raises and tenure.
Am I saying “we” shouldn’t exist. Not at all. I think the answer lies in doing development in a different way. I think we can help faculty to know what we know and get them to be our change agent partners only by entering into community with them. I think we create opportunities for faculty to find supportive, stimulating community that they may not be able to find anywhere else. These communities that function as safe places to ask hard questions can change a whole campus culture. No matter how small the project, some of the same hard questions come up. For example, in a group of faculty members all using podcasting in their classes for the first time, the question will inevitable come up: how do you grade these things? It is not too productive for me to hand them a rubric at that point. What IS productive is to get the faculty talking about what grades mean, what their students expect, what the goals of the project are, etc. Anything they come up with will work better than some generic rubric, and the added magic of sharing ideas about teaching and learning has happened. I think that magic is the really important part. And so I think that, instead of a “paraprofessional,” I am a community building expert.
To read more about community, technology and risk taking, read on over to Jeff’s post.
And, just for fun, to see a really interesting way of viewing grading and the way community can build a shared grading system, read Barbara’s post.
A Little Dreaming
Sometimes, with other educator friends, I will get into one of those converstations: If you could create a school any way you want, what would it be like? Recently, I saw that an educator that I so admire is leaving the confines of the academy–maybe to pursue such a dream? I only know that higher ed is losing someone special when we lose Barbara Ganley. But because of her and Middlebury, I was looking at colleges in Vermont with my son who has never quite been happy in the K-12 world, and we came across Bennington. I have to say, if I were designing a school, I think it would be a lot like Bennington.
The school is very small, but has big, complex ideals. When I first read this presidential speech, I was sure of that. It is well worth reading the whole thing, but here is an excerpt:
Bennington is designed to move in the direction where things need to be done, where the stakes are high, where its flexibility, its unusual diversity of faculty resources (as rich in the arts as in the traditional academic disciplines) combined with its small size, and its fascination with what matters, are the drivers.
What fascinates me is the “HOW” of all of this. Students don’t “choose” a major”–they design one for themselves with the guidance of a group of faculty who mentor them. They don’t only study in the classroom, but also in the community when they work at an internship every January. They don’t make “art” or “new knowledge” in an ivory tower, but they explore the relationships between art and democracy, between creativity and logic. Students are active co-creators of the education at Bennington, and they are not only “allowed” to be active, they are expected to be! My son’s phone interview with Bennington was a conversation with a student. On the windows in the admissions building, there were hand painted portrait/sketches of people who work in admissions–done by a student for a class project. Students barged into the d-hall and made a big announcement like town criers about a lecture from a visiting expert on giant moths.
For my son, who was sometimes chastised in school for “asking too many questions” and reading too much that wasn’t in the text book, this could be just the place to make friends again with education. Heck, I wish I could go there! But at least it has given me a lot to think about, and to talk about the next time I am in educational dreaming mode.
on faculty development and small colleges
Michael Reder is leader of the Small College group at POD, and a wonderful colleague. He was one of the first people to help me see the particular challenges of talking about teaching at a liberal arts institution that values teaching. I know, that sounds like I have left out a word or made a mistake or something, but, no, that is exactly what I mean. Here is Reder’s description of the problem:
However, because [good teaching] is assumed, there is often the collective illusion that good teaching happens “naturally” (which is bad) (Reder and Gallagher 2007.) The false logic goes something like this: “We all value teaching; that is why we are here; therefore, we must be good at it.” Not surprisingly, most administrators are complicit with the idea that good teaching always happens on their campuses, without the need for support or intervention. And, as a whole, faculty members do care about their teaching and improving student learning, but caring is not enough.
(Read the wholearticle here.
How do we get past that? There are many different ways, but they have one thing in common. Again, I will let Reder speak for me:
Our work provides faculty with the opportunity to overcome what Lee Shulman, the president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, terms “pedagogical solitude.” Faculty from different departments, some on the opposite ends of our campus, many with differing levels of teaching experience, work together and learn from each other. By providing occasions during which faculty may talk about their teaching, we create the opportunities for them to learn: from each other, from the literature about teaching and learning, from reflective practice.
One interesting tension in my own work is that I find that I can help faculty well one on one, to identify their own goals, to reflect on their own teaching, and to facilitate their learning. But that doesn’t help create the kind of community that talks about and values teaching. Well, it doesn’t directly create that community, but it creates individuals who will be LOOKING for that kind of community. Maybe it is the first step. Patience is not one of my strongest virtues.
As if the universe heard my angst…
of the last several days, this article appeared in Inside Higher Ed (or if not the universe, at least my pal Libby who alerted me to the article!) Now, I know, most people don’t get excited by articles with “Assessment” in the title. But listen to this:
The problem is not that we don’t value good teaching, as our critics still often charge, but that we often share our culture’s romanticized picture of teaching as a virtuoso performance by soloists, as seen in films like Dead Poets Society, Dangerous Minds, and Freedom Writers. According to this individualist conception of teaching — call it the Great-Teacher Fetish, the counterpart of the Best-Student Fetish — good education simply equals good teaching. This equation is pervasive in current discussions of school reform, where it is taken as a given that the main factor in improving schooling is recruiting more good teachers.
In fact, this way of thinking is a recipe for bad education. According to Richard F. Elmore’s research on primary and secondary education, in failing schools the governing philosophy is often, Find the most talented teachers and liberate them “from the bonds of bureaucracy,” which are often seen as infringements on academic freedom. (In the movies, the great teacher always works her classroom magic against the background of an inept, venal, or corrupt school bureaucracy.) Elmore reports that the pattern of teachers “working in isolated classrooms” is common in unsuccessful schools, where everything depends on the teachers’ individual talents “with little guidance or support from the organizations that surround them.” Conversely, as Elmore argues, successful schools tend to stress cooperation among teachers over individual teaching brilliance, though cooperation itself enhances individual teaching.
(emphasis mine)
I am so relieved that he is articulating well what I have been struggling to put into words! When teachers reflect on their teaching with a focus on student learning, students benefit. Graff is looking primarily at the benefits that come because of creating a more coherent curriculum and of articulating our own goals.
But he may be missing the richest part: when faculty focus on student learning and ask themselves “What did they learn?” and “What can I do that might improve their learning?” And then, when they talk to each other they are creating a culture that says “Teaching is something that we are always learning more about, and helping each other to learn.” Then, you get a good faculty development person in the mix to faciltate communication, gather more information, bring in outside experts, even help with gathering feedback from students… Wow. Imagine what that university would be like! Who wouldn’t want to teach there? Better yet: who wouldn’t want to be a student there?
The Measure of a Teacher
Almost a month ago now, Tricia wrote a post that has remained on the edges of my thoughts. She says:
I guess it all depends upon the “lens” through which we choose to look at these things. The numbers can be helpful to an extent, but seeing candidates in action is really the most telling piece of evidence we have. I DO know a good teacher when I see one, and so do you.
I think I have been stuck on this one because, in the words of an old college friend “I feel strongly both ways!” On the one hand, it is true that the very things that make for good teaching can be the hardest things to quantify. The things that don’t really matter so much, (like getting forms in on time…or like getting students to memorize facts and then measuring how well they spit them back) are a lot easier to represent in some numerical fashion. So, that hand says that it is stupid to try to measure good teaching.
But the other hand holds some wisdom as well. Clearly there ARE people who make a difference in students lives, who create a spark, who move students from assumptions to questioning to discovery. Yes, there is a difference between gifted teaching and ho hum teaching, and if there is a difference, we should be able to quantify it in some way. In fact, it is crucial that we quantify it in some way, or else we end up saying “Either you ARE a teacher or you AREN”T a teacher” which implies that learning and improving are not part of the process of great teaching. And I don’t believe that is true.
Today I heard a fascinating discussion between 2 nationally recognized, award winning teachers. Hoyle teaches Accounting and Ayers teaches history (when he is not president-ing that is!) I hear from them what I heard from Ken Bain last spring: great teachers capture the attention of their students, get them invested in big questions (or puzzles, as Joe likes to say) and then coach, question, and cheerlead as the students learn.
What I have learned in my work in faculty development is: there are ways to do this, techniques. Just having techniques is not enough, but just having passion and no techniques is not so effective either. Most great teachers I know have horror stories of their first times teaching. Part of what makes them great is they didn’t give up, or decide “well, that’s good enough.” Some teachers go out and find information on their own (dare I say this tends to be the “traditional masculine model?”) I think both Ayers and Hoyle described something like that, saying they thought about their teaching and their students’ learning, and then consciously made changes, searching for new strategies. Perhaps what I am tuned into was that my search for a better way to teach led me to a group (for me it was the National Writing Project) and to a community of teachers who cared deeply about learning.
In higher ed, we haven’t done such a great job making the academy friendly for females, and most of the time what I hear people say is “yes, we need more flexible tracks to tenure and a day care center on campus.” Agreed. But I also think we need to support teaching in a more community-oriented way if we want to support the growth of teachers who are more suited to a community approach. Some of those people will also be men! The point is that we teach the way we were taught until we experience something different. When we talk to other teachers and read about other ways to teach, and go to conferences and see different methods, we can get to the style which will work for us. But I also believe that we must continually be about this process. (Hoyle likes to say “trying to improve every semester by 5%, but he is an accountant : ) ) And getting conversations going on campus that will help people find new ways and reach their 5% is not easy! And nothing makes it more threatening to talk about your struggles than the idea that great teachers are born, not made. If that is the case, then admitting you want to improve your teaching is the same as saying you are a failure and always will be.
So I don’t disagree with Tricia, but I fear a slippery slope, one which I think has held back educators for a long time.