Reading What Happens When a 35-Year_old Man Retakes the SAT? reminded me what bullshit standardized tests are. If and when I decide to go for a PhD, I'll have to retake the GRE, an obligation that made me want to tear my eyes out and put a bullet through my head the first time around. I hearthe exam has gotten harder and longer. I'm not looking forward to it.
Thinking about standardized tests got me thinking about standardized education, which of course led me to the mos required (and most often dreaded) general education requirements. Now I'm usually the first one to defend gen eds, but I wonder...are they really as valuable as I've let myself be convinced they are?
In COM 111 (the first semester course of my college's freshman writing sequence), my students write their second essay on higher education. I charge them to rebel against some aspect of or belief about higher that they believe needs to change. The two most popular topics are soaring tuition and--you guessed it--gen eds. Every student who has ever written about gen ed requirements has argued to either abolish them or make them discipline-specific (more on that later). They are required to research their opposition (the belief that gen eds are valuable and/or necessary) and interview faculty and staff from a college or university. Most remained unconvinced by opposing arguments and more and more often the faculty they interview agree with them that gen eds are essentially bullshit--a waste of time and money.
After spending the last three years shocked and appalled by college faculty telling my students this, I wonder...Are they right? How much do you actually remember from teh gen ed courses you were required to take? It's only been 11 years since I finished my gen ed requirements, and I remember diddley squat. From an entire semester of Western Civ, I remember that the Spartans were some hard core, bad ass dudes. From Econ 101, I remember that the student worker in the library was hot, so pretending to study in the library was a hell of lot more engaging than going to class. I remember that SPE 101 did not make me any better at public speaking despite acing the course with little effort. (I'm the worst with verbal filler...um, yeah, well, ok...). I remember I was paid to create sample tests as study guides for my bio class, but I don't actually remember anything about biology. In fact, the only courses that left any lasting knowledge in my brain are the writing and literature courses I took, the classes I most enjoyed, the classes directly related to my major. Was you experience any different? I doubt it.
So why did I have to take any of these courses in the first place? What value have they actually had in my life?
The courses I teach are part of the gen ed curriculum. Students don't take writing because they love it. They take it because they have to. I find myself spending most of my time trying to convince students that the skills they will build in my class are not only valuable but necessary to their success in the world. I pitch it as power. Who doesn't want more power in the world? Apparently a lot of people. Most of them just don't buy it, and many who do just don't care.
How do we get students to care about gen eds (that is, if we still think they are necessary and valuable)? I think my students have the answer. Make them discipline specific. What if I had learned history in conjunction with the literature I was reading? What if my political science class investigated politics through 1984? What if my auto tech majors were learning American history through the lens of the auto industry and poli sci through the actual policies that will directly affect their work? What if business majors learned psychology specifically as it relates to dealing with customers and employees? I could go on and on with examples, but I think you get the idea.
Plenty of K-12 schools have adopted integrated curriculums. My daughters middle school did, and the kids loved it. Everything they were learning made more sense because they saw how knowledge and learning is interconnected. And more of what they learned stayed with them because they were being taught according to the ways in which our memories actually function. It's pure science. Why haven't more colleges and universities begun to move in this direction? We're charging students a fortune to earn a degree, a degree they need in order to get a decent-paying job (although even that is not a guarantee anymore). We owe it to them to offer the best education possible. If that education is going to include gen eds, we need to shift toward a more integrated model.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
On 3+ Hour Class Periods
I am finding this semester's COM 112 class to be one of the most enjoyable group of students to have in class. Not all of them want to be part of the group dynamic and participate in discussions, but those who do consistently amaze me with the quality of their ideas and level of critical thinking.
Despite my enjoyment of our time together every Tuesday afternoon, I am finding the 3 hour class period exhausting. If that's true for me, it has to be true for them. So today I did something I rarely do. I cut an activity from my lesson plan and let class out early.
This semester, I am only teaching two days a week. Tuesdays, I teach COM (3-hour block), and Wednesdays I teach LIT (4-hour block). My work on Thursdays and Fridays in the Writing Center is very low-stress and I don't have to spend time prepping for it or grading afterwards. So I like that, despite my other duties on campus, my work week feels over in two days.
I still prefer classes that meet two days per week. This allows me to break up the work of the course in more meaningful ways. We can work on something the first day and revisit it the second when students have had time to think about that week's lesson(s), digest it somewhat and perhaps work with that concept through a homework assignent. For example, I can ask them to write me a shitty draft of an assignment from Tuesday to Thursday, then we can talk about a particular writing strategy on Thursday, and they have five days to revise and refine their draft, implementing that writing strategy as they do so, before the next class period. Meeting only once a week, just doesn't allow for that kind of a process.
For example, today we talked about tone--creating moods and adjusting the level of formality in writing. Students enjoyed the discussion and activities we did in class, but now we have to wait an entire week to revisit how they incorporate this into the two essays they are working on. By then, I can't afford to spend another week on this issue. We need to move on, so they can get started on their research for Essay 3.
I guess the 4-hour block works out nicely for Film as LIT. If this class period were split in two, we'd spend one day most weeks just watching a film. The 4-hour block allows us to watch a film and analyze it while it is still fresh in our minds. Since we spend half of every class period engaged in a relatively enjoyable (more or less so depending on the individual and the film choice that week) activity, the class is doesn't feel as tedious.
I try to break up the monotony in COM by interspersing fun videos with discussions and small group and independent activities. For example, today I used a PowerPoint to guide discussion. In the past, I've given students an electronic handout that was just hypertext. The PowerPoint allowed me more flexibility to create a dynamic discussion aided by illustrative graphics and videos, varying fonts and colors, etc. to generate a little more interest and hopefully excitement than my old, rather traditional text-based handout with a few hyperlinks. After discussion, we had a couple of hands-on activities, more discussion on a new topic, more visual illustrations and discussion. All of these strategies certainly help create a more engaging atmosphere that can withstand three straight hours of intense learning, but it doesn't completely alleviate the tedium, at least not for me.
Despite my enjoyment of our time together every Tuesday afternoon, I am finding the 3 hour class period exhausting. If that's true for me, it has to be true for them. So today I did something I rarely do. I cut an activity from my lesson plan and let class out early.
This semester, I am only teaching two days a week. Tuesdays, I teach COM (3-hour block), and Wednesdays I teach LIT (4-hour block). My work on Thursdays and Fridays in the Writing Center is very low-stress and I don't have to spend time prepping for it or grading afterwards. So I like that, despite my other duties on campus, my work week feels over in two days.
I still prefer classes that meet two days per week. This allows me to break up the work of the course in more meaningful ways. We can work on something the first day and revisit it the second when students have had time to think about that week's lesson(s), digest it somewhat and perhaps work with that concept through a homework assignent. For example, I can ask them to write me a shitty draft of an assignment from Tuesday to Thursday, then we can talk about a particular writing strategy on Thursday, and they have five days to revise and refine their draft, implementing that writing strategy as they do so, before the next class period. Meeting only once a week, just doesn't allow for that kind of a process.
For example, today we talked about tone--creating moods and adjusting the level of formality in writing. Students enjoyed the discussion and activities we did in class, but now we have to wait an entire week to revisit how they incorporate this into the two essays they are working on. By then, I can't afford to spend another week on this issue. We need to move on, so they can get started on their research for Essay 3.
I guess the 4-hour block works out nicely for Film as LIT. If this class period were split in two, we'd spend one day most weeks just watching a film. The 4-hour block allows us to watch a film and analyze it while it is still fresh in our minds. Since we spend half of every class period engaged in a relatively enjoyable (more or less so depending on the individual and the film choice that week) activity, the class is doesn't feel as tedious.
I try to break up the monotony in COM by interspersing fun videos with discussions and small group and independent activities. For example, today I used a PowerPoint to guide discussion. In the past, I've given students an electronic handout that was just hypertext. The PowerPoint allowed me more flexibility to create a dynamic discussion aided by illustrative graphics and videos, varying fonts and colors, etc. to generate a little more interest and hopefully excitement than my old, rather traditional text-based handout with a few hyperlinks. After discussion, we had a couple of hands-on activities, more discussion on a new topic, more visual illustrations and discussion. All of these strategies certainly help create a more engaging atmosphere that can withstand three straight hours of intense learning, but it doesn't completely alleviate the tedium, at least not for me.
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Random Thoughts
I really want to start posting here weekly at a minimum. I don't really feel like writing, but I suppose now is as good of a time as any to start up again. I miss the great feedback from my students. So here are some random thoughts...
I registered for the Computers & Writing Conference today. It's exciting to see my name in the presentation schedule. I booked my room and the flight and a rental car. I signed up for a couple of very compelling pre-conference workshops. "Screencap Your Feedback" is a hands-on workshop demonstrating how to use screen capture to respond to student writing. This sounds very time consuming, but I'm thinking that expanding that to screen recording could be an innovative way to "discuss" my students' writing with them instead of writing my comments in the margins with Word's comment feature. It would definitely be something none of their other teachers are doing. My hope would be to engage them more in the revision process. They would all get mini conferences with me (granted, they wouldn't be able to respond immediately) for every essay. Maybe the tone of comments would come through better too. This could be a great tool if I ever decide to try teaching online again.
The other workshop I signed up for scares me a little, but I owe it to my students that are terrified of the new ways I ask them to think about writing to go to this workshop. Hell, I owe it to myself to face the fear. "The Sights and Sounds of ArchiTEXTure: Modeling Multimodal Composition" is another hands-on workshop teaching teachers to compose with audio, video, and images. We'll be experimenting with Google Draw and something called DoInk. I feel lost just thinking about it, but this too offers exciting possibilities for the future of my composition courses. I want my courses to be cutting edge. I may teach at a community college, but that doesn't mean students should be cheated out of cutting edge education. If I want my students to extend themselves beyond their comfort zones in their educations, then I must do the same.
Overall I'm very excited about the conference. I still have a lot of research to do before I even start putting my presentation together, but I'll pull it off. I always do. If you're interested in my presentation "iWrite Cool: Teaching Academic Writing through Conventions of Social Media Discourse," my proposal is just a few entries back. The center of my research is work by Jeff Rice who conceptualized the idea of the "rhetoric of cool." I'm hoping to extend his definition of that in some way.
On another note, I have three applications out for full-time positions. With gas prices rising the way they are, I don't know if I could take two of them, which would require me to drive 40-90 minutes to work everyday. I'm putting all my hope into the one at LLCC. I love that school, I love my students, and I really think I can make (have been making) a positive impact around campus.
I have a few teaching observations coming up--two in COM, one in LIT. I've never been observed in LIT before, so I'm a little nervous, but I'm really happy with the way that class is going. A couple students who were performing below expectations dropped, which means almost everyone left is in the A/B range or should be by the end of the semester.
COM is going well too. I think most everyone is still nervous about my system, but if they just invest themselves in doing the best they can, they should all be fine. So many are so resistant to radical new ideas about teaching and learning. How can they just want more of the same education they've been bitching about since grade school? I try to share things with them that catch my attention. I read part of an article from The Chronicle to them before spring break about Jeff Groom's digital storytelling class where the students really drive the course by writing the assignments each other will complete. A few students thought that was an awesome idea. The others sat in silence and would barely even raise their hands to vote on yes/no questions.
How do I get them excited? How do I get them to care? How do I get them to see how important their educations are to their futures? How do I get them to see that they're wasting it? How do I get them to see that the system itself is wasting their hard-earned tuition dollars on outdated, meaningless education? How do I get them to demand more of themselves, more of their teachers, more of their educations?
Maybe one day I'll figure it out, the secret formula to make the drones our public schools turn out wake up and give a damn that they're being programmed to not care. I know, I know, it's easy not to care. I'm asking them to work, and not just work, but work hard. Someday. Until then, I'll just keep trying every possible thing I can think of. A few get it, and that's enough...for now.
I'm thinking of giving my COM 111 students choices from a variety of assignments I've done in the past. Two essays for the entire semester, but they have to revise once a week until each essay is at least a B. I would think that could be very motivating to get students to invest themselves if the reward is they can finish the course early. I'd miss the better-prepared writers, but it would allow me to focus more attention on the less experienced writers who need more feedback. Something to think about anyway.
While spring break has all but killed my drive, I do look forward to getting back in the classroom. There's an energy in teaching, in reaching to the bottom of myself to put everything I've got into trying to motivate my students that I feed off of. There's no momentum to spring break. I feel drained, not rested. Maybe it's just because my daughter broke my heart for the first time today. Ah, teenagers. :/
I registered for the Computers & Writing Conference today. It's exciting to see my name in the presentation schedule. I booked my room and the flight and a rental car. I signed up for a couple of very compelling pre-conference workshops. "Screencap Your Feedback" is a hands-on workshop demonstrating how to use screen capture to respond to student writing. This sounds very time consuming, but I'm thinking that expanding that to screen recording could be an innovative way to "discuss" my students' writing with them instead of writing my comments in the margins with Word's comment feature. It would definitely be something none of their other teachers are doing. My hope would be to engage them more in the revision process. They would all get mini conferences with me (granted, they wouldn't be able to respond immediately) for every essay. Maybe the tone of comments would come through better too. This could be a great tool if I ever decide to try teaching online again.
The other workshop I signed up for scares me a little, but I owe it to my students that are terrified of the new ways I ask them to think about writing to go to this workshop. Hell, I owe it to myself to face the fear. "The Sights and Sounds of ArchiTEXTure: Modeling Multimodal Composition" is another hands-on workshop teaching teachers to compose with audio, video, and images. We'll be experimenting with Google Draw and something called DoInk. I feel lost just thinking about it, but this too offers exciting possibilities for the future of my composition courses. I want my courses to be cutting edge. I may teach at a community college, but that doesn't mean students should be cheated out of cutting edge education. If I want my students to extend themselves beyond their comfort zones in their educations, then I must do the same.
Overall I'm very excited about the conference. I still have a lot of research to do before I even start putting my presentation together, but I'll pull it off. I always do. If you're interested in my presentation "iWrite Cool: Teaching Academic Writing through Conventions of Social Media Discourse," my proposal is just a few entries back. The center of my research is work by Jeff Rice who conceptualized the idea of the "rhetoric of cool." I'm hoping to extend his definition of that in some way.
On another note, I have three applications out for full-time positions. With gas prices rising the way they are, I don't know if I could take two of them, which would require me to drive 40-90 minutes to work everyday. I'm putting all my hope into the one at LLCC. I love that school, I love my students, and I really think I can make (have been making) a positive impact around campus.
I have a few teaching observations coming up--two in COM, one in LIT. I've never been observed in LIT before, so I'm a little nervous, but I'm really happy with the way that class is going. A couple students who were performing below expectations dropped, which means almost everyone left is in the A/B range or should be by the end of the semester.
COM is going well too. I think most everyone is still nervous about my system, but if they just invest themselves in doing the best they can, they should all be fine. So many are so resistant to radical new ideas about teaching and learning. How can they just want more of the same education they've been bitching about since grade school? I try to share things with them that catch my attention. I read part of an article from The Chronicle to them before spring break about Jeff Groom's digital storytelling class where the students really drive the course by writing the assignments each other will complete. A few students thought that was an awesome idea. The others sat in silence and would barely even raise their hands to vote on yes/no questions.
How do I get them excited? How do I get them to care? How do I get them to see how important their educations are to their futures? How do I get them to see that they're wasting it? How do I get them to see that the system itself is wasting their hard-earned tuition dollars on outdated, meaningless education? How do I get them to demand more of themselves, more of their teachers, more of their educations?
Maybe one day I'll figure it out, the secret formula to make the drones our public schools turn out wake up and give a damn that they're being programmed to not care. I know, I know, it's easy not to care. I'm asking them to work, and not just work, but work hard. Someday. Until then, I'll just keep trying every possible thing I can think of. A few get it, and that's enough...for now.
I'm thinking of giving my COM 111 students choices from a variety of assignments I've done in the past. Two essays for the entire semester, but they have to revise once a week until each essay is at least a B. I would think that could be very motivating to get students to invest themselves if the reward is they can finish the course early. I'd miss the better-prepared writers, but it would allow me to focus more attention on the less experienced writers who need more feedback. Something to think about anyway.
While spring break has all but killed my drive, I do look forward to getting back in the classroom. There's an energy in teaching, in reaching to the bottom of myself to put everything I've got into trying to motivate my students that I feed off of. There's no momentum to spring break. I feel drained, not rested. Maybe it's just because my daughter broke my heart for the first time today. Ah, teenagers. :/
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