Useful advice from a fellow graduate student about sharing your interests
Posted onMarch 28, 2010
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Amusing article in the Chronicle, particularly for folks like me who did graduate work in the humanities. What do you think the buzzwords for higher education students would be?
Teddy’s Reflection Log 03.16.2010
Posted onMarch 25, 2010
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Teddy’s Reflection Log 03.25.2010
For CTCH 604 class session 03.16.2010
Last week’s class was just superb! It was an honor to have guest speaker Barbara Cambridge with us. She gave us insights into many of the issues pertaining to scholarship, teaching and learning. Dr. Cambridge asked each of us to explain our position concerning the securing of permission to use student research as instructors. At first, I did not feel obligated to share such credit as a college instructor. It was clear that I was wrestling with the topic. Actually, I felt at the time that inquiries taking place in courses using in-class subjects was the property of the teacher/researcher. After a bit more conversation with Barbara I was convinced that sharing credit for research, obtaining permission, no harm policies and ethical issues were of too great significance to the student and the institution. In other words, it was best to be safe than sorry. Proactive instead of being reactive!
Next, we had a great discuss about (IRB) Internal Review Boards. This fascinating topic explored the internal and external determinants that faculty must compete with in order to secure IRB approval of their research. The three levels of risks are considered with great care in regards to the use of student work so that participants of the course are not damaged or intimidated. Students are not required to take part in the project. Some students may feel that they will fail the course based on non-participation. So, Internal Review Boards must implement procedures to protect student research data & privacy. Again, it was an honor to meet and speak with our distinguished guest and mother. Thank you Darren for such a fabulous mom! Thank you Barbara for an incredibly brilliant son!
Hope Amid Disappointment
Posted onMarch 23, 2010
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This is the article about the removal of anticipated funding for community colleges from the health care bill that was mentioned in our discussion last week.
Aracelie_Reflecting on Reflections_23 Mar
Posted onMarch 22, 2010
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In our 16 Mar class, Darren gave us handouts containing general guidelines for writing reflection papers. Although we have been doing these writings for the entire course, this was our first exposure [in this class] to examples of what a reflection might look like to be most beneficial for our practice. Our task for this week was to look back at our previous contributions and using some or all of the given guidelines, critique our method of reflection used so far this semester.
I feel like I have done an okay job on my posts, but not stellar. Looking back at my entries, I recognize a few things. When posting, I did try to follow questions similar to that of the Rough Guide – What happened? What was important about it? What do you do with it? Each time, I would start writing, I had no problem summarizing events. Figuring out something significant was slightly harder to do. Determining what to do next was the most difficult piece every time. I don’t practice teaching, so it was almost as if I would have to translate most of what we are doing into something related to my job before I could come up with the “now what?”
Additionally, I noticed that I prefer to do my reflections in stages. First, I take some notes in class that I think of as little sparks. Almost immediately after class, I phrase a few initial sentences. Finally, I let it stew for a few days, before putting it all together in prose format. The more time I have to reflect, the better the reflection seems to be. My most recent posts are shorter than my first two because I had the time to focus on the former and complete the stages I just mentioned.
I also realize I feel more comfortable than I did my first few weeks. I was a little afraid to post things on the blog because I did not have an example to follow. Plus, I had entered a brand new field that I felt I knew very little about. Not a very good feeling when you are used to knowing what you are talking about. Luckily, I also feel that I have enough learned material in class to where I do not have as many “definition/meaning” questions.
Now that I have been through the entire process several times, I find it is much better to put yourself “out there” (professionally speaking, of course) when it comes to reflection. That seems to be beneficial in generating more questions for the blog entries and the classroom discussions. I also know that the “Now what?” will always be the hard part because we don’t always know what else is out there. As it has been said before, “You don’t know what you don’t know.”
Jason’s reflection on class reflections
Posted onMarch 22, 2010
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After reviewing the chart handed out in class entitled The rough guide to reflection. I can see that in my previous posts I have been leaving out the NOW WHAT portion. I have outlined WHAT HAPPENED and discussed the SO WHAT but I have failed to fully outline the NOW WHAT. So I want to attempt to fulfill all three general “columns” as applied to last class meetings discussion.
We were discussing classroom environments and successful strategies to encourage courage. How can we get students to try new things? A great example was given of a student writing a play for the first time even though her strength was in other forms of writing. This was viewed as courage in the classroom by a student, and it was an example of just that.
I couldn’t help but feel very saddened by this discussion. It is really upsetting to me that most classrooms are environments that require individual acts of courage from students to try something new or to, god forbid, fail at something new. This is exactly the opposite from how I want my students to feel in my classroom. I caught myself thinking back to a classroom incident from that week in one of my intro classes. We were discussing beauty norms and I asked the question “what are the societal beliefs and meanings attached to obesity?” and secondly “Do we as a society discriminate against obese individuals”. I had a number of students that wanted to frame the discussion as a “health” (how much it costs society in terms of health care etc.) issue and I asked “so the four year old that teases the other four year old for being “fat” is concerned with the burdens obesity places on our health care system?
After this questions a female student that had been teased throughout life about her weight “courageously” jumped into the discussion and told numerous stories of how she had been teased and treated unequally because of her weight. The fact that this took “courage” on her part I see as mostly my fault. Somewhere along the way I let the classroom culture shift to one of judgment of individuals instead of judgment of ideas. Yes she still spoke her mind but it was in a confrontational environment instead of an open learning environment.
This illustrates that I still have trouble creating an open classroom culture in my larger classes. For example my summer classes are usually under 20 students (and meet for 3 hours twice a week), in those classes I have found it easier to get across the message that learning is a process, trying out new writing styles, looking at things from new perspectives, and openly displaying life experiences that frame our way of interpreting the world should not be considered risky behavior. I think my difficulty creating this kind of environment in my online classes and my larger classes is a great opportunity for SoTL research.