…and I'm all out of bubble gum.
Posts tagged pedagogy
Wikis for Class Notes
Nov 22nd
This post is part of a series that are components of my “Expert Plan” at my school, looking to create a shared resource for my colleagues as the school moves towards greater adoption of laptops and technology in our pedagogy.
The Model
I started off using this model in both my [high school] classes. I post an outline of the class to the wiki before class. At the start of class, as I discuss the agenda for the day with the students, I project the outline on the board. After discussing the agenda (my plan, their questions, etc.), I ask for three volunteers: one to take notes into the outline during class, one to review those notes for content before the next class, and one to review those notes for clarity before the next class. The content reviewer is responsible for correcting any mistakes (or omissions) that the original notetaker made. The clarity reviewer is responsible for proofreading and correcting the notes into a readable, standard English format.
In Practice
I found, almost immediately, that while the [media design] class was (grudgingly) willing to do the notetaking, the [computer animation] class revolted against it. The revolt in computer animation had a lot to do with the difficulty of simultaneously following along with the processes that we were learning in a computer modeling application and also keeping a browser window open and taking notes into the wiki. Theoretically, a dual display setup might have ameliorated some of those concerns (screen real estate was demonstrably at a premium as they were trying to use both applications, the browser and the 3D modeling tool). However, the real issue lay in the division of attention.
I have stopped asking the computer animation class to take notes into the wiki, but continue to encourage them to take their own notes (a practice that none of them engages in voluntarily — and their difficulty grasping new concepts reflects real difficulty storing the concepts for reflection, whether in their heads, their notebooks or their computers).
I have substituted somewhat more detailed notes of my own in the outlines for computer animation, or links to more detailed tutorials online covering the same concepts that we are learning in class, or links to screencasts demonstrating the concepts and processes we are learning in class. (One challenge that I have run into is that, using Blender, many of the tutorials and screencasts assume a great deal of prior familiarity with the materials, if not the tool, so I have been working on recording more basic level screencasts for that class).
On the flip side, we have settled into a routine in [media design] in which I ask for a notetaking team only on days when I know that we will be having a concept-based discussion/critique/lecture (as opposed to process or application-based lessons). A core of students have stepped up as fairly reliable notetakers, although I am working to spread the responsibility out across all students in the class — although I have set up no formal system of rotation (this lack of a formal system is actually based on previous experience with rigid rotations on what is, essentially, a creative task: it’s lousy. It works far better to set up an expectation that everyone will do it, and then ask for volunteers in the moment, while creating a (public) tracking system to ensure that no one is left out.
One issue that I have run into, particularly over a span of project-based lessons which are not discrete lessons but actually the continuation of a single idea (editing a video, for example), is that I lose track of time and forget to keep the wiki up-to-date. I focus my attention on the process occurring in class, rather than in documenting the process. Since my rationale for documenting the process is provide a resource for the students, this is deeply problematic and something that I need to address.
Reflections
Early on, I realized that I should have made more of an effort to distinguish between concept-based and practice-based classes, and to create different models for collaborative notetaking in each of those environments. My computer animation class did well in articulating their frustration (mostly) respectfully, and speaking up for their own needs and learning styles.
I have not incorporated the notetaking into the students’ grades (which was, really, something that slipped my mind), framing the notetaking not as an assignment, but as a collaborative study tool. I’m not sure that this is a winning motivator for students. I think it works in my [media design] class because they are a) intrinsically interested in the material at a more conceptual level and b) generally a year or two older on average than my computer animation class. That maturity is reflected across the board — preparation, classroom demeanor, participation, actual product. It would, of course, be easy to connect a grade to participation in the notetaking (do some math, figure out how many times everyone needs to do it to cover the semester or quarter and assign it that many times).
The other missing component, and this has much to do with my teaching style, is adequate review of the student notes, to provide feedback on quality (and quantity). Early(er) in the year, I should have dedicated much more of a class period to going over the previous period’s notes and pushing each of the members of the notetaking team to be more accountable. To be honest, the switch from meeting my classes 4-5 times a week to 2-3 meetings (yay for changing schools!) left me running ragged trying to keep up with material, and process fell by the wayside.
Developing an “Expert Plan”
Nov 22nd
As part of my education technology role at my school, I am a member of our high school “Laptop Leaders” group. A few weeks ago, at the end of our first quarter, the Laptop Leaders were asked to document the work they were doing, to create a shared resource, both for themselves and for other teachers. Ultimately, this is preparation for more large-scale adoption of laptops and technology in general as teaching tools in the high school.
The teachers in this Laptop Leaders group were selected last spring, so I joined the group late, at the beginning of the school year and had, really, only a sketchy plan for what I would be working on. The outline (lightly revised) is below. My intention is to share my various write-ups related to this process in this space.
Collaborative Writing and Editing
I’m working with students to develop a class wiki as a collaborative information source, with students contributing class notes, screencasts and other updates and expansions on course content.
Blogs
I’m working with students to use the class blog as a publication platform for ideas/questions relevant to the greater community in their discipline (e.g. develop [my class] blog into a discussion of [media and design] and related ideas in the outside world).
Social Bookmarking
I’m working with faculty (and students) to use social bookmarking tools (specifically Diigo) to create dynamic and annotated resources for each other (and for and by students).
Social Media
I’m working with faculty and students to develop personal learning networks that tie together all of these Web 2.0 tools to create an online identity and a group of “fellow travelers” studying and exploring the same area. In students’ case, we’re working on this as a class (blogging), but for faculty tools like Twitter (and personal blogs) may also be useful. Also looking at other sharing sites (e.g. Flickr) for use as collaborative tools.
Useful Tools
In the interests of sharing, when I was at my last school, I sat down and created an iusethis.com profile of the handy applications that I use day-to-day. I’ve added this to my profile [on the school wiki], along with a (slowly growing) list of tools that I’ve built for special purposes around school.
Updated November 22, 2009: I should mention that I have Bowdler-ized some of these posts to protect (at least a little), the identities of my students. When posted to our school wiki, there are a number of links to examples. If you pop me an email or a comment and identify yourself, I’m happy to share these examples. Just trying to do some due diligence with regard to my students’ privacy.
Striving To Be Less Authoritative
Sep 5th
I’ve been working and reworking this idea, and would rather get it out there short and sweet than turn it into an epic:
The hardest thing that I am doing right now as a teacher is to try to be less authoritative and expert in my own classroom. This springs from the realization last year that, as it is my inclination to answer questions as they are posed to me, projects that I have structured for my students to do their own learning are sabotaged by my answers. If it’s easy to ask me a question and get a (decently accurate) answer, my students have no incentive to work out their own answers.
With my change in schools, I suspect that I am also experiencing a shift in student culture, so this may be a moot goal in another month…
Teaching Through Fear (And Coming Out the Other Side)
Sep 1st
I meant to finish preparing for my first day of classes tomorrow, but something that Shelly Blake-Pock posted about earlier was preying on my mind. (Well, that and all the fun-fun-fun of being at a new school, learning new culture and mores.) He posted about the fear of social media that he was observing in the class he’s teaching (on social media) at Johns Hopkins.
Go read his post. Go on. I can wait. Come back here when you’re done.
There are some kind of sarcastic and, well, crappy comments immediately following the post. And it irks me. It irks me enough that I wrote this:
Whether or not social media is the wave of the future (I use Twitter, but have not lost my sense of its absurdity)… I think it’s important not to lose sight of the big message here: we’ve spent a long time, as a society, fretting about how big and scary (and new) the internet and its encumbrances are. And now we have people joining the teaching ranks who have been educated with this mindset. And they’re scared of the internet. It ain’t a big surprise. Cue South Pacific: you’ve got to be carefully taught…
I, myself, take heart in (and stand behind) something that Gary Stager said a couple of weeks ago during our faculty technology workshops: “Sure, I’ve probably not gotten some jobs because of things I’ve said on the internet. But I’m sure I’ve also gotten jobs because of those things.” I think of the job interview I had a few years ago where I walked into the room to be greeted by a laughing group of administrators who had just finished showing each other this — and then roundly agreed that I was just the sort of person they needed working with them in technology with students.
But there’s another level to all of this that is worth thinking about: educating teachers to educate their students in public exposes the foibles of the students (directly) and of the teacher (at least indirectly, and sometimes directly) to public scrutiny. It’s scary business. It requires some very real confidence in yourself as a person and as a teacher to be able to not know something in public — or to correct a mistake in public.
For many teachers faced with social media, I think this is part of the very real threat that they feel: they are turning their classrooms open to (potentially judgmental) strangers — and ceding centerstage, and ceasing to be the expert, but instead being a learner with their students.
It’s big stuff, and technology is a symptom, and not the disease. In almost every case where we talk about technological issues, what we’re getting at are fundamental questions of pedagogy and philosophy. The technology just exposes some of these more-buried issues.
And, with that, I’m off to finish preparing for my first day of classes tomorrow, where I will point my students to social media (both internal to the school and external), admit that I’m not an expert, and talk about how excited I am to learn with them this year.
And so I am: off to finish preparing for tomorrow.
Two Arguments for Using (Some) Rubrics
Aug 21st
On an anti-rubric argument
Shelly Blake-Pock has written a very thoughtful, honest and, in many respects, bang-on attack on rubrics. He clearly defines the extreme ends of the spectrum for disastrous rubric usage:
First of all on the issue of transparency. Most rubrics come in one of two varieties. Either they are extremely didactic in a step-by-step hold-your-hand IKEA instruction manual sort of way or they are touchy-feely rubbish where you get a ’1′ for ‘not demonstrating significant understanding’ but a ’5′ for ‘demonstrating unique depth and content mastery’. Rubrics of the latter variety are meant to satisfy the political needs of institutionalized learning, while rubrics of the former are theoretical expressions of teaching to the lowest common denominator.
I’m pretty solidly on board with everything he says here. I don’t want my students to think that the one true way to do anything is to haul out my rubric for the assignment and fill in all the squares completely. I want them to think critically, to creatively synthesize ideas that we have learned together and to develop analyses, ideas and outcomes that are novel and unexpected — and well-supported, thoughtful and demonstrate clear connections to the ongoing work of the class. I don’t want my students to think that life is simply about checking off boxes on someone else’s list.
Point #1: Rubrics are a covenant between a teacher and a student
But here’s the rub, he goes on to attack the idea that rubrics can act as a tool that promotes objectivity by the teacher:
I don’t want students to do ‘what I want’. I don’t want students to follow ‘objective’ rules. In fact, that’s entirely the type of behavior I’m trying to break my students out of.
I hear his argument that it’s counter-productive to educate our students for their lives to come by aiming them at expectations based on our own experience. Clearly, new contexts require new ideas and new expectations, and our goal should be to help our students learn to develop those new ideas free from the constraints of our own, out-dated thought patterns.
But, we also need to help our students develop skills and techniques for critiquing their own work, for judging whether or not it is objectively good for what it was meant to do (or even serendipitously good for something unexpected — therein lies a window into the power of portfolios, but I digress). A number of commenters suggested working with students to develop collaborative rubrics.
And, I say, this is exactly what we are doing whenever we challenge a student to identify their audience, to present their ideas, to argue for and support their own efforts and creativity and analysis and learning. In fact, there is an implicit rubric at play every time we work with our students to develop qualitative understanding of how they can improve their work.
In this case, the rubric is not a checklist, and it is not an attempt to trample the students’ learning with “my” objectivity: it’s a contract that I am making between myself and my student. “Here, this is what I am looking for in your work — and what you should be looking for in your work.” I believe that there is real value in making this contract explicit where possible, by developing rubrics for and with my students to anticipate what areas of their work I should be focusing on when evaluating drafts and final submissions.
And I think that this idea of the rubric as contract is particularly important because what it really represents in a covenant between the party with power (myself) and the party with less power (my student). I didn’t choose to set the stage this way, but at the end of the day, I’m the one who is entering grades for this student, and it is my evaluation of this student that will be definitive for this course. By making this covenant, an agreement between a party with power and a party lacking in power that effectively binds both parties, I am helping my student not only to focus their efforts, but hopefully alleviating distracting pressures by agreeing not to evaluate on certain aspects of his or her work.
Point #2: Not all learning is divorced from specific facts and skills
The flip side of this rubric conundrum is that not everything that I teach (or that is worth learning) exists without an objective, clearly-defined, body of specific facts and skills that must be mastered by the student. For example, if I were teaching Latin, I would need to work through at least some specific grammar, vocabulary and idiom as a foundation for more open-ended and creative learning. And I would have an objective standard for determining whether or not a student gets it — why would I not communicate that standard to my students? Why would I not give them a target to aim for?
I recall my high school graphic design teacher putting forth what I believe to be a sensible argument during a discussion of the rules of composition. Someone had pointed out that there were great works of art that violated all of these rules, and yet were still great: why should we have to follow them? And Denny Heck responded: “You don’t get to break the rules until you understand the rules.” Yes, she wanted us to learn the rules of composition, but she also expected us to be creative and find ways to violate them and still achieve successful compositions. But those violations would be educated, conscious decisions, aware of the challenges that we were facing — decisions made thoughtfully, well-supported and judiciously.
For assignments at lower levels and earlier in my courses, I do favor rubrics as a way of framing the goalposts for my students. I think that giving them a target to aim for when working to master concrete concepts and facts is a solid support of the education. In providing the rubric, I am also acknowledging that I am not looking for a total understanding of everything, that there could be some confusion in some areas, without the student being entirely at sea when it comes to building on that knowledge. The rubric lets me show my students that there is a “good enough” knowledge of the subject matter that will let us converse about more complicated concepts fluently and without distraction by their confusion.
