Random Thoughts

I am no longer using Blackboard with my students.  I discovered quite by accident that there is a small pilot Moodle program on campus, and I have been allowed to join it.

I have used Moodle for a number of years, both in my former job and in my volunteer teaching for an overseas university.  I haven’t really had to learn how to use it, which is nice, but I have been pleasantly surprised by how easily my students have adapted to it.  They are already, after about 30 hours, telling me how much they like it.

So suddenly, I feel like a tremendous burden has been lifted from my shoulders!  Maybe I can make it through the semester after all!

A post over at Inside Higher Ed by Joshua Kim explains why Higher Ed would benefit from the TED approach to knowledge and sharing knowledge.

Kim mentions that these talks can guide educators as to

the optimal length, timing, pace and content of the lecture

TED talks are always very interesting.  The content is engaging.  The presentation is inviting.  I hadn’t really thought about this before since I seldom lecture, but I think I will go back and look at some of the talks to examine the format of the lectures.  It is good information to have.

Kim, though, goes on to discuss even more important things that can be learned from TED talks.  They concern access.  TED talks are released under a Creative Commons license.  Kim discusses the actual license that they use, and I won’t go into it here, but he makes the comment that using this license

strikes a good balance between facilitating the diffusion of the content while protecting the integrity of the narrative.

The second point Kim makes the point that TED talks are made available in a variety of formats and from a number of sources.  He talks of listening to talk on his iPod and suggests that students would like to listen to our content on mobile devices as well.  He says

I strongly suspect that our students will grow accustomed to and prefer media that can be consumed on mobile devices (I know I have!).

There is, as Kim says, much that Higher Ed can learn from TED.  I don’t see it happening on an institutional level at my institution, though.  So all I can do is open my own content up as much as I can.  It is something that our current technological disasters are encouraging me to do, anyway.  So now I just need to really sit down and do something about it!

Mike Rose always makes a lot of sense to me.  His most recent blog post Colleges Need to Re-Mediate Remediation is no exception.  It reflects my attitude toward teaching academic ESL, too.

Describing a typical remedial English course, Rose says

The traditional remedial writing course typically begins with simple writing assignments and includes a fair number of workbook exercises, mostly focused on grammar and usage.. The readings are fairly basic, in both style and content. Powerful—and limiting—assumptions about language, learning, and cognition drive such a curriculum, although they might not be articulated: Students like Kevin must go back to linguistic square one, building skills slowly through the elements of grammar.

Simple reading and writing assignments won’t overly tax such students’ abilities and will allow a concentration on correcting linguistic errors. Complex, demanding work and big ideas—college work—should be put on hold until they master the basics.

He goes on to assert that this approach is not only unnecessary but also counter-productive.  He and his colleagues looked at the kinds of assignments students are commonly called on to produce in their earliest courses at university and then designed a curriculum that would prepare a student to do those assignments. They

wanted to help him improve his writing in all aspects—grammar, organization, style. But we didn’t believe we needed to carve up language into small workbook bits and slowly build his skills.

They found readings, sequenced assignments, and structured the semester in a way that would truly help the student learn to write better.

To assist students, we organized instruction to include much discussion of the readings and a good deal of writing in which they could try out ideas and get feedback on their work as it developed. And because many students, like Kevin, displayed all the grammatical, stylistic, and organizational problems that give rise to remedial writing courses in the first place, we spent a lot of time on errors—in class, in conference, in comments on their papers—but all in the context of their academic writing.

That is a huge point, and one that is tied to our core assumptions about cognition and language: Writing filled with grammatical errors does not preclude engagement with sophisticated intellectual material, and errors can be dealt with effectively as one works with such material.

When I teach ESL at this level, I try to do the same thing.  We do real academic work.  In and around that, we learn grammar and vocabulary and whatever else the students need in order to be successful.  For example, in one class this semester, we have each chosen a different country to study throughout the course.  We are reading news reports every week and summarizing them.  We are now in the process of learning to write a descriptive essay – introducing the country in general.  This will take some time as we have to learn about citing sources, synthesizing information, and a whole lot more.  In a couple weeks, we will move on to another type of essay, still about the same country.  We will write opinion, compare-contrast, cause-effect, and analysis essays.  They will build from one unit to the next.  We will talk about their topics and about their readings.  We will look at their writing and the problems in it, but we won’t stop there.

Rose says

Some studies have emerged that confirm the approach we have taken. Successful remedial programs set high standards, are focused on inquiry and problem-solving in a substantial curriculum, use a pedagogy that is supportive and interactive, draw on a variety of techniques and approaches, are in line with students’ goals, and provide credit for course work.

I try to ensure that my courses meet these guidelines.  I don’t think I always succeed, but I always try.  I think my students deserve it.

Charles asked some good questions in a comment on my post on cheating.  They are important questions.  And they make me realize how imprecise I was when I wrote that post.

Charles asks:

Just questions. How do you teach someone to think about facts or to put them together without teaching them facts? Can one think about facts out of context? How does one reach an understanding of the context for facts without knowing the facts, too?

It is obvious that you have to know the facts before you can think critically about them.  What I should have said is that we don’t make the facts the important part of the lesson.  Teach them the facts.  (Although I think we have to be careful about what we call facts when we are teaching.  But that is another issue, I think.) But that isn’t what they should be held responsible for.  They should be help responsible for what they can do with the facts.

I started life (or at least it was so long ago it seems like I did!) as a history teacher.  Let me use that field and give you an example.  If I am teaching about the Civil War, I could have them memorize the facts: generals, battles, victories, etc.  I could give them a test on which they have to give me that information back.  I am teaching them the facts of the Civil War — as it was taught to me and many of the rest of us, I imagine.  The other option is that I could resent material about the Civil War (including those facts) and then have them do something with the information.  This fall when I do that, one thing my students are going to do is write a letter as a soldier from one side or the other.  It will require them to refer to those facts, but the facts are not the goal.  The goal is to have them understand what life might have been like for a soldier in the civil war, what he might have been thinking and feeling.  They will be free to look up as many of the facts as they need to when they write their letters.  I think that this will be more beneficial to them in terms of learning about that period of US history than having a multiple choice test on the facts in isolation.

Taking that example a step further, this could be a totally independent research project, actually.  I would not have to teach them any facts.  They could look the facts up themselves and then bring that knowledge to class to incorporate into class discussions and other activities.  This goes back to a discussion Charles and I had a long time ago: What is the role of the teacher – facilitator or expert?  I fall squarely on the facilitator side of that question.  Even if we learn facts, I don’t need to be the one to dispense them.

So thanks, Charles, for drawing my attention to a weakness in my other post.  I think the clarification was necessary.

Inside Higher Ed had a piece about the school where my son-in-law teaches - Central New Mexico Community College.  It seems they have an emergency fund to help students who have unforeseen financial difficulties.  The guidelines for applying for these funds are pretty specific.  Students can only get funds once a semester.  The checks are made out to the landlord, the utility company, or whomever the financial obligation is with, so students can’t go out and spend it on pizza and video games.  It seems like a very good idea.

I wonder how many other schools have similar programs?  I wonder if my school does?  It seems like a good idea, doesn’t it?

As a follow-up to my last post about Blackboard, I thought I would mention that I have spent 2 of the last 4 hours of class trying to get my students access to the course they are taking.  With all that, it will take 24-48 hours for their accounts to be activated. This is a 4 week course.  It will be 1/4 of the way over before they ever see Blackboard.   I think I am going to remove the couple things I was going to have students do there and just forget it.

While I was talking to support people about this today, I was unable to access my own account.  I could log in, and I could see my list of course, but I could not access them.  It is ridiculous.

I am always amazed by the connections I can find between the different blogs I read on a regular basis.

The first post I read today was from Bee, who wrote about how stifling school feels to her, now that she is back from sabbatical.  She says:

Going back to school in February just confirmed once again that change just does not seem to happen in closed environments.  Same conversations in the teachers’ room, same unsolved problems from 25 years ago and endless meetings, during which there is more red tape than a decision to act….

And of course, classrooms are no better.

Teachers drone, kids get bored by looking at the nape of the same neck for hours and cannot sit still.

And it is true — that is how so many, many classrooms are at any and all levels.

Then I moved on and read a post be Patrick over at Chalkdust 101 about the need for our students to really interact with what we are trying to teach them if we want them to learn anything.  He says:

The person doing the talking is the person doing the learning.

He has some wonderful graphics — one of PET scans of people engaged in different “learning” activities.  It shows increased involvement of different parts of the brain as the person is more active, more engaged in the learning.  Please go to Patrick’s post to look at that picture if nothing else.

So how do we move from Bee’s classroom with the droning teacher to one that engages students in their learning?  Bee explains that technology alone isn’t the answer.

With instructional technology alone, the difficulty in staying on task – they connect to social sites, message their friends, play games. Same problems as ages ago, just “enhanced” by educational technology.

So what’s the answer?

Patrick refers to a model developed by Fisher and Frey that shows a shift from teacher responsibility to student responsibility.  But this isn’t a permanent shift, with the teacher working his/her way out of a job.  Rather it is a shift within a lesson or a unit.  It starts out with me as teacher giving a focused lesson and then gradually turning responsibility over to the students.

I like to think this is something I do, but I am not sure I really do it.  I think I have a tendency to skip some of the steps.  And that can place too much burden on the students.  As I am struggling right now with my classes — or rather some issues in some of my classes — this is something I need to think about more.  What do I need to to do to ensure that my students are really engaged and learning?

As I am working on developing my online courses, I have been thinking about how to do listening/speaking classes online.  Then I found Academic Earth, and it became clear — or clearer, at least!

Academic Earth brings academic lectures together in one place. I know all this is available elsewhere, but it is nice to have it so easy to access.

I am thinking to do a series of listening and speaking activities as part of these classes, and these lectures provide plenty of listening opportunities on a wide range of topics.

Anyway, check the site out if you haven’t yet.

(Thanks to Ray for the link to the article that led me there!)

Someone somewhere wrote about David Silver’s blog and teaching, and I started following silver in sf.  (My apologies to whomever it was that had the original link!)

Anyway…

Yesterday’s post was his most recent assignment for a digital media production class.  It is a wonderful assignment requiring students to attend a film festival and then use flickr, blogs and twitter to record and comment on the experience.

What a great assignment!  It makes me think about how I am and am not using these tools with my students.  It makes me want to do a lot better!

So if you are looking for inspiration, check out silver in sf.

The question of what makes someone a good teacher is an important one.  It is something I have written about before.  Today in on an email list someone included a link to a New Yorker article by Malcolm Gladwell, Most Likely to Succeed.  It starts out talking about football, making a solid connection to teaching:  No matter how good someone looks in college, there are no guarantees about how they will perform in the “pros”.  He talks about a study done by folks from the University of Virginia, where they videotaped teachers and classrooms, charted what went on and “graded” teachers on their performance.  It is just like what the the football scout did at the beginning of the article.

What they have found is not surprising to me, but I think it is worth talking about.  If nothing else, this is important to talk about:

Of all the teacher elements analyzed by the Virginia group, feedback—a direct, personal response by a teacher to a specific statement by a student—seems to be most closely linked to academic success.

They say that yes-no feedback is the most typical feedback in the classroom and that it “provides almost no information for the kid in terms of learning”.

When we, the teachers, are the ones with all the knowledge, when we are at center stage, yes-no feedback is sort of natural.  We are dispensing that knowledge to our students, and they have to get it “right”.

Teacher: What is the capital of Pennsylvania, Nancy?

Nancy:  Philadelphia?

Teacher: No, that’s wrong.  Susie, what’s the capital of Pennsylvania?

Although I haven’t thought about it in many years, writing this I remember a time when just that very thing happened. I was in 5th grade, and my mother was in the classroom for some reason.  The teacher, a nice old man, was quizzing us on the state capitals.  I was asked the capital of Pennsylvania.  I don’t remember now if I said Philadelphia or Pittsburgh, but I know I didn’t say Harrisburg!  I was embarrassed, of course.  My mother later asked me how I could have missed that one.  (She is, after all, from Pennsylvania.)  I didn’t learn the capital of Pennsylvania that day.  I didn’t really learn that until many years later when I lived in Pennsylvania myself.  And except maybe for those few years, I have never had any reason to know what the capital of Pennsylvania is.

The researchers Gladwell talks about say feedback should provide a chance for the student who was “wrong” and for the rest of the class to learn. They talk about tying what goes on in the classroom to the kids’ lives.  So how could that teacher have handled the situation differently?  He could have asked me if I had ever been to Pennsylvania.  I would have told him I had been there just the summer before.  He could have asked me where I went while I was there.  I probably would have told him we went to Philadelphia, at least.  He could have spent 30 seconds or so talking about Philadelphia, explaining that it was not the state capital.  Then he might have asked other students if they had ever been there.  The answer probably would have been no.  He would then probably have had to ask anyone else if they knew what the capital was, and someone would have known.  I would have felt less stupid in class that day because I had some knowledge and information to share with the class.  And, because I was really thinking about it, I probably would have learned that very day that Harrisburg was the capital of the state of Pennsylvania.

Gladwell says:

Educational-reform efforts typically start with a push for higher standards for teachers—that is, for the academic and cognitive requirements for entering the profession to be as stiff as possible. But after you’ve watched Pianta’s tapes, and seen how complex the elements of effective teaching are, this emphasis on book smarts suddenly seems peculiar. The preschool teacher with the alphabet book was sensitive to her students’ needs and knew how to let the two girls on the right wiggle and squirm without disrupting the rest of the students; the trigonometry teacher knew how to complete a circuit of his classroom in two and a half minutes and make everyone feel as if he or she were getting his personal attention. But these aren’t cognitive skills.

I couldn’t agree more.  You can’t teach teachers to do this in a course in a college of education.

Gladwell goes on to talk about apprenticeship programs as a possible solution.  But of course, as with all possible solutions, there are some people who won’t like it.  I think we have, in effect, a type of apprenticeship program already.  Look at the teachers who leave the field within a few years because they discover it isn’t what they want to do for the rest of their lives.  But by then they are discouraged and disillusioned and, I would imagine, feel bad about themselves in the process.

I have had people in colleges of education tell me that they work with some people who just “get it” right off the bat and others who struggle throughout their “training”.  Somehow there must be a way to work with those two groups of students differently.  Maybe those who struggle could begin to “get it”.  And those who “get it” could either finish sooner or go one to learn about more and different possibilities.  But that would require changing — really changing — the way we educate future teachers.  And like all major reform to education, chances of that happening seem slim.