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.