I haven’t been subtle in this blog about suggesting that teachers should seriously consider incorporating the tools of instructional technology to enhance their students’ learning. Gregg Stull just provided the best statement I’ve yet found to support this argument. Read it here.
Monthly Archive for October, 2006
David Warlick just published a provocative article in TechLearning called “A Day in the Life of Web 2.0″ which provides a vision of what School 2.0 could look like. It’s similar to an earlier piece by Will Richardson. It also speaks to the future of higher education.
There was one discordant note as I was reading–it was a reaction I had, rather than anything the article said. I had an image of teachers being required to write blogs that reflect on their teaching practice; think of a mandate by the administration. I wonder if this would work. Unwilling teachers could be forced to write, but they couldn’t be forced to write well. A couple of mitigating factors come to mind: Hopefully, after writing for a while teachers would see the value of such a blog. But what if they don’t. Perhaps not everyone would benefit from such self-reflection or at least not from this format. Fortunately, blogs that weren’t well done, probably wouldn’t end up being read–that’s one advantage of the blogosphere.
Interesting seminar today. Charlotte Jones gave an excellent presention on library research skills–something I thought freshmen got in English composition, but this presentation was very much tailored to our course.
Hart overslept, but Stephen clued me in that he was backchannelling via IM. Stephen was giving him the play-by-play. I joined in, which was something I’d never done during my class before. I felt like a student… of the net generation. I posted Charlotte’s powerpoint on the course webpage, so Hart and any others who wanted could the presentation.
Recently, I’ve been writing about reality intruding on my First Year Seminar, where students are beginning to worry about their grade in the course rather than their learning, and where I fear some students may be using the freedom the course affords to study for other courses and not this one. I had an opportunity over Fall Break to think about this and have come to at least some conclusions.
A leader shouldn’t ask anything of those he is trying to lead that he isn’t willing to do himself. By that standard, I haven’t been a very good role model of late. I haven’t been blogging very frequently, so why should I expect them to. Okay, I’ve been posting on the class blog rather than my personal (class) blog, but I feel like I haven’t been doing my part as a member of the learning community that I want this course to be. Additionally, I haven’t been reading widely for the class. I have been hoping that the students would pick up the slack I was creating. My excuse is that I’ve been busy with other things, other classes, other projects. But isn’t that what the students would say?
I’m not (too) worried about the situation. The first thing I need to do is catch up: I have added a number of blog postings in the last few days. I need to add some structure to the course, to make it a bit more directed. We’re now ready to do that.
I have a research topic that I will be exploring in parallel with the research projects of the students. I plan to model the process used by economists through a series of blog postings. That should be a start.
I came across a fascinating article today on the future of higher education. It was a keynote speech given a few years ago by W.R. Conor, President of the National Humanities Center. The title of the speech is Liberal Arts Education in the 21st Century. I think what appealed to me was that after framing the issue very well, he left us with a question, rather than an answer. This inquiry stuff makes sense, after a while.
Laura just posted a thought-provoking note about reviewing student papers. It reminded me a bit of my recent postings on responding to metas in my principles course and papers in my first year seminar. But Laura takes it a step further, giving audio feedback using audacity. And she subsequently conferences with the students via IM. Very cool! I’ve been meaning to explore audacity, but haven’t found the time yet. (Question for the tech folks: What type of microphone is necessary to do this? If I wanted to try this out, do you have one I could borrow?) I’ve held virtual office hours with IM, but never a conference per se. Back when I used to conference regularly with all my students, it often seemed a waste of time. Now I tend to do it only with students who request it. Laura suggests that IM might be a better medium for this. Sounds like both of these ideas are worth exploring.
Yesterday for the first time all semester a student raised a question about grades. (Clearly this doesn’t mean yesterday was the first time students have thought about it.) He mentioned that his mother asked how he was doing and he had to say he has no idea. I asked him if he was in the class primarily to learn or primarily for a grade and he said, “to learn, but that won’t satisfy my mother.” He’s an excellent student, and I believe him.
This morning I emailed him to say that on the basis of his blogging, in-class participation and the one graded essay he’s turned in his performance is excellent and I would rate it as an A. I wonder if this will solve the problem. I’m not sure I could do this as easily for all the students.
As I read over my principles students’ second metacognitive activity this weekend, I had a couple thoughts. First, the administrative one: Fewer students submitted this meta: 54% versus 70% for the first meta. Still, it’s more submissions than meta 2 last year. There may be a time constraint at work here–we are beginning midterms, indeed, our first exam will be this coming Friday. [Note: This post was started a week ago.] We have one more meta to do before then. My plan is to discuss Meta 2 on Monday, then do the same for Meta 3 on Wednesday before the exam.
The way I’m doing the metas this semester seems to have helped with the timing problems I experienced last year, when I ended up having to review several metas the class before the exam. This year I discuss the meta before I’ve read the student responses. Then after I’ve reviewed the responses I make any short follow-up observations that seem necessary.
Now, the more interesting thought: I was struck again that reviewing the students’ meta submissions isn’t grading. Grading isn’t the point here. When I’m “grading”, the emphasis, especially when I’m tight for time, is giving the students appropriate credit and writing comments to justify the grade. What I’m doing here is more a conversation with the students. Do I understand what they think and how they are thinking? That’s what I comment on. It’s a very different mindset and dynamic for me at least.
Late Friday afternoon I found out I had to be away Monday thru Wednesday, which meant I would not be able to attend the first year seminar Tuesday. What to do?
Saturday morning while listening to our new President Bill Frawley’s powerful inaugural speech, I got an idea. I would ask the class to read and discuss the speech, and explain its relevance for our class. The assignment is here. After the speech, I ran into Martha and casually asked if she was planning to come to class Tuesday. She said she thought so, after which I asked if she would moderate the discussion in my absence. She agreed.
Sometime later, I had another idea. Gardner has been after me for a couple of years to podcast one of my class sessions. Perhaps this would be the opportunity. I emailed Martha and Jerry and asked if they could record the class session Tuesday. They assured me that it would be very easy to do so.
Monday I went off on my trip. Tuesday morning I made a posting to our course webpage letting students know I wouldn’t be there for class, but that I expected them to carry on in my absence.
The discussion was held. A student unilaterally decided to take notes on the class wiki. (The notes make more sense in conjunction with the audio recording which I hope to post later when it gets cleaned up, but I’m getting ahead of myself.) He later reflected on his perceptions of the discussion in his personal blog.
Wednesday afternoon, as I was returning to my trip, I called Jerry to ask if the audio was available for my listening pleasure. He said it should be ready later in the day. Last night I downloaded it from home. This morning, on my commute, I listened to the audio and was very pleased with the thoughtfulness of the discussion. I identified seven of my fourteen students’s voices on the discussion. That’s fewer than a discussion where I’m present but then I call on the students who don’t speak up on their own. Martha and Jerry didn’t do that. The second great pleasure of the recording was to hear for the first time really, how Martha and Jerry teach a class. Of course, I’ve witnessed their teaching technology tools before, but this seemed different. We are very fortunate to have these minds at our institution–they are indeed (administrative) faculty.
I began today’s class by asking their impressions of the discussion, and in particular, whether they felt intimidated by the recording. The consensus of the students who responded was that they did feel uncomfortable at first but soon forgot about it. I don’t what those who didn’t respond thought and it’s possible that was a reason for their not participating.
I observed that my view of class is not where the instructor delivers predigested knowledge to the students who absorb it. Rather, I stated, the class session is a crucible where knowledge is created through our collective engagement with the material. As such, it’s not my presence per se which is important for learning, but theirs.
One final note: At the end of class today when most other students left, Stephen told me that during the discussion, he and Hart had been carrying on a side conversation about the topic via IM, because they didn’t want to disturb (or dominate?) the rest of the discussion. It was as if he had gotten away with something.
Does the episode described here constitute teaching on my part? If so, it sure is a different mode than giving a traditional lecture.
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