#concise

That moment when...

And I need to remind myself...

Some Thoughts About Words

This is a learning process. Not just taking an Independent study course, but blogging, engaging in dialogue through a digital platform - especially as a teaching and learning tool. To that end, I feel it good practice to reflect on some feedback I've received on my first blog posts.

• Suggestion - more frequent but shorter blogs.
• Maybe even just Twitter type blips?
• I'm NOT saying that I don't like these nice long reflections.
• I'm just suggesting an easier method for you.
• What if you aren't pressured to write long-explanatory blogs?
• What if you just posted quick memes?
• I'm just curious if that might serve as a better methodology for self reflection (due to the shorter time investment)?

• But what if blogging were NOT for others?
• What if it were just for yourself?
• A fluid flow of your conscious mind?
• Like THIS email?

At this stage, I'm thinking...but I like words. I love using words, crafting a narrative, expressing my learning through words. Yet, one purpose of learning is to try something new, to push beyond what you already know. I already know words pretty well. So, I know this still has a lot of words, but I'm in the process of working through what that means for me. How do I translate my words into fewer words, or no words at all? 

Developing a New Bag of Tricks

This week I focused on developing some of the "grab bag" topics for TEAC 959. While I still haven't been able to answer the question: "What would you have liked to know as a GTA before teaching the first time?" I did ask that question of some of my fellow GTAs. I'm a huge believer in collaboration, in sharing ideas. My background is not from a K-12 setting, and in many ways, this gives me a unique perspective on the nature of both teaching and learning. In the non-profit world in which I've spent most of my time, collaboration is required to avoid failure. When all of the parties involved are volunteering their time, their expertise, and their passion, it is vital to ensure that no one is doing all of the work. Through this, I've found that a better product (individual class, whole curriculum, assignment) is developed when multiple people are working together on it.

I started to think through ideas for grab bags - ideas of what would be useful for the student, not things that would meet some sort of end result criteria. For me, the idea was to help the students enact change in their teaching. This change need not be all consuming. It can be changing one assignment, one lesson, one viewpoint. The change could even be opening oneself up to new approaches, ideas, or pedagogy. Results are important, but sometimes the focus on results limits the process, the learning the can happen as you work towards a result. There is value in focusing on change, on process. I know this course will have a focus on integrating meaningful technology into lessons, assessments, pedagogy, and instructional design. For many, this will be a change. The initial reaction might be to focus on the results. The result being perhaps a fully online course with fully integrated multimedia lessons to include video lectures and demonstrations, virtual labs, and audio file feedback for students. That type of result is huge, daunting, and fails to allow students to focus on the process of changing. For most instructors, that type of change would be huge and without attending to the nature of enacting that change, it would probably not be sustainable.

The grab bags allow students to select specific elements of their teaching pedagogy to focus on. In this way, they are able to more closely focus on the nature of making changes to ensure results. I like thinking about this in terms of a TPACK model.

As shown in the Venn Diagram above, the TPACK model shows how technology, content, and pedagogy are interconnected. As I explain to my own students, the center of the diagram is the "sweet spot", and most teachers feel they are experts in two out of three options. I invite them, and I would invite the students taking this course to identify where they find themselves on this chart. Then to reflect on what changes they could make to find themselves more comfortably in the middle. Or, what first steps they could take towards the center. 

I have another CD in which I start to outline my ideas for grab bags, and through this I have begun to identify my own limitations, strengths, biases, and philosophies when it comes to "best teaching practices". My challenge will be to open my own mind to other ways of teaching and ways of assessing learning. In order to meet the needs of the students, especially working in the role of instructional designer, it needs to be about them. This is a true challenge because I feel that my way of teaching, my larger philosophies on effective teaching, are the best. I can't help but feel that many teachers share the same view of their own teaching. There is value in having confidence in one's method of teaching, but there is also value in recognizing that there might be other, equally valid ways of teaching. Learning from others is vital. If the goal is lifelong learning, one must be equally open to change and to differing opinions. This isn't to say that one must adopt other's ways for the sake of openness and a willingness to change, but it does mean that if one finds something he or she finds valuable, then disregarding it out of hand is limiting. 

The Nature of Beginnings

I pulled this icon from my TEAC 259 course. The icon represents the Chaos Dump used in my class this past semester. At first, I wasn't sold on the idea. I thought it would be viewed as just one other thing to do in class, one more "useless" exercise. Yet, as the semester progressed, I found myself finding more value in its use, and even recognizing my own under use of the tool.

During my first meeting with Roz for my Independent Study ( TEAC 905), we once again set up a CD for documenting our discussion, ideas, and growth. The meeting began with a focus on how my ID would go, what my responsibilities would be, and what course the team was developing would contain.

In the end, very little of our conversation focused on how the ID would progress, but we did develop an outline for further development of learning objectives:

1. "Pedagogy Bootcamp" - the pre-course requirement for students that is an intensive day of preparation for the course to be held sometime in August. 
2. Canvas Shell - to have a rough, working Canvas shell that is both useful and highly visual
3. Journal - maintain a critically reflective journal throughout the course 
4. Conference/Manuscript proposal - work on the art of conquering writing for conferences/journals

We shifted our focus to the meat of TEAC 959. The bare bones idea of TEAC 959 is to develop a course for both graduate students and faculty that focuses on meaningful pedagogy. As we talked through the baseline ideas, Roz asked me to think about what I would have liked to have learned before teaching for the first time as a graduate student. It was a difficult question. I don't know that I have an answer for that yet, but it has been a question in my mind as I think through how  to develop a meaningful curriculum for graduate students and faculty.

I thought the idea of a grab bag might be a useful approach since we will have a wide array of learners with different goals and needs. I thought back to what I know about adult learners, thinking more specifically about the faculty who will come in with a different motivation than most of the graduate students. The grab bag allows a flexibility and autonomy in learning that would appeal to many students because they have the freedom to focus on areas that they self-identify as important and relevant to their current teaching and pedagogy. The grab bags would need some sort of unifying theme, with options within that theme. And, a metric for measuring successful completion of a "task" or learning objective within each would also need to be developed. The idea is not useless assignments or testing, but a way to measure mastery of a new idea/tool/strategy.

We also discussed a sort of final assessment that is based off of an assignment from TEAC 259. The idea is that students would teach a lesson where they implement a number of the grab bag topics they focused on during the semester. This lesson would be viewed by their instructor(s) and peer(s) to display their mastery.

As we move through this process, I must admit at this stage I am on unsure ground. I now think I understand how my students feel with some assignments when they ask for more concrete direction. I find myself wanting that. It's hard to know what is expected when there is little structure and direction. This makes me think about my own teaching and how I develop, present, and assess my own assignments. Perhaps I need to refocus how much scaffolding and support I give my assignments. I want to find a better balance between students having autonomy to use their creativity and critical thinking skills to solve a problem, and leaving them out to sea. For me, balance is the big take away from this first week. It is something I have struggled with in teaching, in learning. It's usually full throttle or standing still. But, I think that balance is a key element in both teaching and learning. Vygotsky's ZPD deals a lot in balance. Knowing your learners enough to understand how far to push them, when they need an extra hand. Maybe this pursuit of balance should become one of my own learning goals.