Endings and New Beginnings. . .

Dear Blog, here was my beginning in August, fall semester, 2008:

Hello, here I am at my computer (as usual) exchanging ideas and drafts and feelings with students--late into the night. Let's add to our late night date blogging! The purpose of my blog is to save fleeting ideas that develop out of teaching/learning sessions whether in class or online. I am experimenting so that come the spring 2009 semester, I will have developed a blog project for English 112 students who will also develop and share their blogs during the course of the semester. I've just completed the development of English 111, a course that establishes the foundations of writing from sources and of information literacy skills. English 112 will continue this development but will also take flight with our experimenting alternative, 21st century communications. (Text messaging anyone? How might this genre be examined and discussed in a writing class?)

At midterm, f08, here is my ending. . . and introduction to a new beginning spring semester, 2009. I began this blog to experiment what is a blog and how I might be able to structure a blog project for students in English 112? I found my resource! Joyce Barnes (Assistant Coordinator: JSR Center for Distance Learning) sent a making-sense article that will become the basis of this semester-long writing project.

Reynard, R. (2008, October 1). Avoiding the 5 most common mistakes in using blogs with students. E-learning Tips. Campus Technology. Retrieved October 25, 2008, from the World Wide Web:http://campustechnology.com/articles/68089_2/.

From the 5 pointers, I will follow the suggestion that blogs are private: a blog is not a discussion forum, nor will students' entries be publicly shared. However, near the end of the semester, I will ask students to upload a favorite posting to the class discussion board and comment on what they have learned from the semester-long blog project.

Time will allow for only 5 postings, which are built into the syllabus at regular intervals, as Reynard suggests. Useful learning outcomes for a blog project are that students synthesize the ideas developed in the postings to arrive at new knowledge, that blog writing--as all writing--is discovery.

What strategies would be built into the assignment to invite students to ponder, to analyze, to discover? Might students pose a question to investigate? A blogged research project--dependent on primary research--observing, note taking, analyzing, summarizing.

What about my designing of a template for a blog posting, one that would lead students through a process of observation, note taking, summarizing--and then reflecting on the meaning of the activity. "What have you learned? What new questions do you have?"

I wonder if my blog, dear blog, would offer such an example? I have been investigating my classroom to observe how the assignments and the classroom activities are playing out--and getting some surprises along the way, leading to more questions.

Time to say 'goodbye, dear blog': one note before we part: I did construct a text-messaging unit! Colleagues give it a thumbs up! (Will the students come S09?)

Accountable, Energetic, and Proactive

Yes, one-to-ones continue: when students come to the instructor's station, most with flash drives in hand to share work in progress, I hear, "I overheard that . . . ." Ah, ha, indirect teaching is producing active learning. Here's Elizabeth (to your right) and me. Elizabeth has just been accepted into the Nuring Program. Here she's pointing out features of her draft titled

"The New Green." Upon my first viewing of this pic (just processed a few minutes ago), I am feeling Elizabeth's energy and focus as she points out some feature of her draft . She is instructing me rather than my instructing her. When the pedagogy encourages students to exert authority, the more authority they will have over their production, resulting in more successful learning outcomes. P.S. Thanks to Amanda for taking the pics!

One to Ones becomes the primary pedagogy

Monday evening class: Bet the students haven't a clue that the teacher is nervous about the success (or failure?) of her class. The teacher's worst nightmare: No one shows up! Not an exaggeration since her students didn't show up this past Sunday evening on her screen (or very few). Well, okay, here again is our classroom in 117 Massey Library & Technology Center-- that great big room. Remember my first entry, dear Blog? I wondered how the space would be used: well, there's too much space: we are not cozy enough. And this room is not half as brightly lit now that we are approaching November. It's dark outside--and will be darker come Eastern Standard Time.

The morning after: anxieties have past--at least for Monday night: students did show up--to work in class during our two hours and 40 minutes--and to work one to one at the screen with me. I did not have to invite students to come visit the instructor's station: each came quite willingly. Some are very anxious about really being able to achieve a product, an essay. They are too much looking ahead rather than focusing on what's assigned here and now. Some haven't recognized that the summary writing about the articles retrieved is the essay being developed: "Readers need to know what you know. The writer needs to present the context, lay out the information before talking about/arguing about the information. There were moments on Monday I considered successful: nervous students came up to me with questions time after time--little bits of hesitations, little bits of nervous questions.

The conversations are best when unannounced, unexpected ideas emerge--for example, writing electronically opens up the opportunity for visual rhetoric. Anthony is arguing about the proposal to raise the bar on the legal age to drink alcohol: the strongest proponent for this argument is Mothers against Drunk Driving: "Why not, I asked, google for MADD posters? Analyze the rhetoric of the posters? Do they have a case? Are the messages credible? Some essays in progress need more discussion: but how? To several I suggested primary research: "Find out what your classmates and friends are experiencing since more of their budgets are being spent on gas. Ask your classmates to tell you stories. Make a plan as an appendix to your essay. Email your questions to get feedback. Report your respondents' narratives, which also allows for the strategies to present direct and indirect quotes."

Anne is arguing that Sarah Palin is hardly (and laughably) a 'green' candidate: why not find other of her claims that are fallacious? Have fun with your argument--as much fun as the Saturday Night Live parodies about the Vice-Presidential candidate!" With this suggestion, light broke: Sarah was into her essay--really into it. Now she sees (as she said) "the big picture" of this essay: not a 5-paragraph dinosaur but writing beyond the margins. "And, by the way, I offered, if you had been offering a strongly pro-Palin argument, I would have given you just as many suggestions to support that stance. You will never know where I stand."

Trusting . . .and the power of indirect teaching

Dear Blog, we are completing our sixth week of instruction. Workshops are centering on constructing an annotated webliography of a limited number of sources, one required article to be retrieved from the Reynolds' Database collection. Students are peer critiquing in the Blackboard group space (File Exchange) and the Group Discussion Board. This seventh week students are summarizing sources using a mapping process (borrowed from effective reading techniques) and inserting in-text citations. Thus one file that the student and instructor exchange as an attachment to email is developed with each exchange.

Pictured (to the left) is Tresa, our most talented student in this Learning Community section of English 111 (teamed up with a Computer Concepts course). Tresa has been a home school mother/teacher. She instituted social programs for homeschoolers and is focusing on this theme for her first essay. Next to her is Sally, her scribe, who keeps her posted on the lecture she cannot hear.

Although we are into our seventh week, I am feeling for the first time that students are trusting me. Nothing else will hold our class together but trust: trust that I'm teaching on target to address their academic needs, trust that I will support and teach them, and teach them, and teach them; trust that I will not abandon them. How have I observed and assessed this trusting? I see that attendance in each class is high; that students are sending starts and stops of the assignment so that I can return timely feedback. One key to establishing trust, I have discovered, is the one-to-one mini-conferences (Donald Murray gone electronic) held during class time and conference hours before class. The student and instructor review the draft in process on the screen. The instructor asks questions for clarification, comments, makes notes. The updated file is returned to the student by attachment to email for continued development.

The key to the success of these one to ones is that each conference is overheard by the other students. They see how the instructor is behaving. They observe the affect of the student, their peer. Most important, they overhear the instruction. Overhearing or indirect teaching is a powerful and effective pedagogic tool. Think about it, don't we learn by observation and overhearing more effectively that by direct teaching? That is to say, in an informal setting, we become active learners by our own choice; our conscious choices lead us to select out and focus on what we target as important to us, what we really want to know. I mentioned this observation of mine to a signer for a deaf student some years back. She became really excited at the notion: "Yes, yes, that is why the deaf miss out on so much. They only understand what is specifically addressed to them, but they miss out on so much that is being communicated around them."

A Learner-Centered Event: Harrison, Lollie, and Me

English 111, Fall 08, sections: Because librarians use Google to test out key words and phrases for a research question in mind, students might take their cue also to browse with popular search engines and to contact relevant websites to build a firmer grasp on search terms and be ready for the Reynolds' reference librarian to instruct the collection of databases. Here's Lollie Hoel working out a search method for Harrison whose research question is a comparison of a 1960s auto engine compared to contemporary models. Lollie is advising that Harrison's issue is too narrow for a search: he might do well to surround the specifics he wants to write about with some history: the Encyclopedia Britannica might give useful results. We can see the outlines of his project and prospective strategies: he will be writing to inform, as well as to construct a product comparison, and he will frame a personal narrative: the story of Harrison and his 1960 engine. (I daresay I will be able to be more specific when I read Harrison's first drafts). Here is learner-centered teaching at work, which is exciting because it places the instructor in a position of not knowing (like any reader of a text). Instructional cues to the student writer are centered on making sure the reader understands by clarifying specialized language and procedures. The student is in the empowered position because he knows more than the instructor. Because the student chooses an issue meaningful to him, he is constructing a useful project: Harrison will need the skills of technical writing in his automotive field--and he can begin to hone that expertise right now, right here. I'm glad of that, dear blog, as I like to see a development before my eyes; I like moving along not-knowing to knowing with the student taking the lead.

Discourse (ahem, pardon the lingo) communities: the stuff of English 112 Preparation

For English 112, along with my students, I want to examine the language of text messaging in contrast to the conversational writing in the academic/professional setting: For the past year, 'i' (a text-messaging protocol) has cropped up for "I," which provides a way to introduce the idea of 'discourse communities.' Steve Brandon really tuned my consciousness into this concept when he did an exercise with a few of us last summer: he instructed us to take out our wallets and to display items we carry with us daily: most of us had the Ukrop's store card; we had the requisite keys for cars and offices. But then we diverged, displaying membership in other communities such as a Virginia Museum card membership--and one of us (which really struck this concept home)--one still had his Army Draft Card (that goes back to the Sixties, right, and to male-only membership, right?). Thus, with each of our varied experiences in diverse communities, we have added to our individual lexicons shared with our exclusive groups. How to begin this examination with students? Certainly those who have a shared lingo and are using a cool venue of communication (the jazzed-up cell phone) must also share more that is beyond the language of abbreviation and lower case. I want to find out more about the bonding and how the bonding also might create exclusive groups. Why? Is 'exclusive' good? Is it bad? Is it a necessary phase for late teens? We'll delve more in English 112.

Our Room Gets Populated with Eighteen Year Olds--and Tech Heads Besides

What a surprise: English 111 81PR on Monday evenings is a group of late teens just graduated from local high schools--and most know each other. Well behaved and computer savvy, here they are composing their Blackboard homepages. We are looking over Britany's shoulder as she uploads her image from her cell to the Blackboard program. (She's deeply into text messaging). I love the ringed fingers working the mouse . Doing a quick survey, text messaging and iPods are the technology of the moment; some do blogs. Some time ago a colleague queried about how to divert students' attention from their prospective high school prom to the focus of the course. My response--but only here and now to my dear blog-- is to make the academic focus the high school prom! Go where there is energy and interest: make the high school prom a focus of research and writing--well, why not? Ira Glass spent an hour of This American Life on the high school prom. Of interest are those who don't attend and why? I was one who did not go to the prom--because I thought I was too fat. My friends coaxed me; I would not go. But the best thing in the world happened: early--say 7:00 a.m.--my friends came to my house to spend the day after prom with me. My father got out the pancake batter and served flapjacks to all. It is a splendid memory.