Sunday, July 12, 2009
A Learning Wordle
Courtesy of http://www.wordle.net/. Images of Wordles are licensed
.Labels: learning, Web 2.0, Wordle
Monday, April 27, 2009
Lessons Learned
As the end of the semester approaches, contemplating the lessons students have learned is an easy one. Based on student performance throughout the semester, it's relatively easy to determine who is doing well and who thinks they still have all the time in the world and/or already know it all anyway. One student who called themselves stubborn has turned around her attitude; we'll see if performance follows. (Answering the question asked on an essay and/or exam is quite crucial here.)
Several students have worked hard to do well and to learn more. A few have atempted to game the system with varying results.
But what lessons has the professor learned? I've definitely had a truly "light bulb" moment regarding my control - or primarily my lack thereof - over whether or not students want to do well. I can provide them all the tools and assistance in the world short of doing it for them - and that's not doing them any favors in their pursuit of a college degree or in life in general. I've done better this semester at taking a step or two back and letting the chips fall where they may. I've been at this teaching thing since 1985 in some form or fashion (if we don't count playing school until 8th grade if that tells you anything). But, I fear I've discovered students only resent it if you try to help them more than they want it and/or feel they need it.
This is especially important given the sacred trinity of teaching, research, and service. I can better inform my teaching if I take more time to do research, including teaching-related research, and less time overwhelmed by the minutia that can quickly take over my day. Before I know it, all my best productive time is gone. I have done much better this academic year requiring students to use the CMS to correspond about class matters and only checking it once a course day. This is in contrast to feeling compelled to answer it as it comes in - which is obviously very much a misuse of time. It also keeps the email organized so that it's clear what course a student is referring to along with the context (ie related emails) being right there.
I've also balanced some department politics a bit better - primarily by not letting them intrude on my getting my job done. And at least one colleague who lives in a glass house and likes to throw stones had at least one lobbed right back. The biggest joy this year has been a new colleague whom has been everything I had hoped for and more both as a teacher and as a professional colleague. His being involved in tech and blogging (which is how I became aware of him despite our distinctly diverse topical areas of study) is an added plus.
As the semester is winding down, an even busier summer is winding up. As I've discussed before, TAH grants are wonderful things but they also ensure the summer flies by before I know it.
Now to get organized to get done what just has to be done by May 30:
Teaching
Writing
Planning Teaching
Writing
Research
Writing
Finish textbook ancillaries
Writing
Several students have worked hard to do well and to learn more. A few have atempted to game the system with varying results.
But what lessons has the professor learned? I've definitely had a truly "light bulb" moment regarding my control - or primarily my lack thereof - over whether or not students want to do well. I can provide them all the tools and assistance in the world short of doing it for them - and that's not doing them any favors in their pursuit of a college degree or in life in general. I've done better this semester at taking a step or two back and letting the chips fall where they may. I've been at this teaching thing since 1985 in some form or fashion (if we don't count playing school until 8th grade if that tells you anything). But, I fear I've discovered students only resent it if you try to help them more than they want it and/or feel they need it.
This is especially important given the sacred trinity of teaching, research, and service. I can better inform my teaching if I take more time to do research, including teaching-related research, and less time overwhelmed by the minutia that can quickly take over my day. Before I know it, all my best productive time is gone. I have done much better this academic year requiring students to use the CMS to correspond about class matters and only checking it once a course day. This is in contrast to feeling compelled to answer it as it comes in - which is obviously very much a misuse of time. It also keeps the email organized so that it's clear what course a student is referring to along with the context (ie related emails) being right there.
I've also balanced some department politics a bit better - primarily by not letting them intrude on my getting my job done. And at least one colleague who lives in a glass house and likes to throw stones had at least one lobbed right back. The biggest joy this year has been a new colleague whom has been everything I had hoped for and more both as a teacher and as a professional colleague. His being involved in tech and blogging (which is how I became aware of him despite our distinctly diverse topical areas of study) is an added plus.
As the semester is winding down, an even busier summer is winding up. As I've discussed before, TAH grants are wonderful things but they also ensure the summer flies by before I know it.
Now to get organized to get done what just has to be done by May 30:
Teaching
Writing
Planning Teaching
Writing
Research
Writing
Finish textbook ancillaries
Writing
Labels: colleagues, historical research, learning, semester, students, summer, TAH, writing
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Ready to Teach
Enrollment was last Wednesday and classes started on Thursday with a day off for MLK Day yesterday. That means I see my first F2F students on Monday. This morning I woke up ready to teach - all kinds of ideas swirling in my head about how to approach the new semester. I have a course release to work on a book project and am doing the usual teaching one class online, Modern America, 1912-41, and supervising student teachers. The latter varies from 3 students in nearby towns to 15 that may be spread around 250 miles in two directions. (I don't mind being dragged to Kansas City, though . . . )
My F2F class is Modern America, 1941-1968. I took a different approach to the narrative text and made it optional since they can also utilize a survey text from a previous class to get the background. Hopefully that means less complaining about textbook costs - which I find difficult given that if I require a text, they use it and are tested on it. Winkler's Homefront USA from Harlan Davidson, a nice compact discussion of the topic, is one of the other texts along with Lizabeth Cohen's Consumer's Republic. It's my first time using Cohen and I've already found the graduate student notes that summarize it in 3 pages that shows up on the first page of a Google search. Wonder how long it will take students to find that. But, forewarned is forearmed.
Another facet of the class will be studying Jack Kerouac's On the Road. I think it's important that students read some of the literature of the period so that they better understand it. in the past, I've used Peyton Place for this class but it's not longer available for the last publisher and I don't want to encourage the used book market. Plus, I can still show the Peyton Place film and accomplish some of the same results in student learning. What always amazed me about using Peyton Place was how the men enjoyed reading it. And, of course, a "banned book" is such a foreign concept in today's culture.
The anniversary of the publication of On the Road was one motivation to use it along with my visiting a Kerouac exhibit in Lowell, MA, when we had teachers there to tour the mills last summer. Getting to view the scroll of On the Road was interesting as well as the modern exhibit interpreting his life. This was in contrast to the Lowell exhibits that are in need of updating once they get more funding - the machinery was intriguing but not anything I hadn't seen before.
I found a book in our university library about the "women in black" - the females who have often been overlooked in regard to their contribution to the Beats - not only psychologically and physically supporting the men when they weren't doing so for each other but their actual artistic contributions. So it should be a fun exploration for all of us.
One of the first things students will do is examine and debate the causes of World War II. That will be a good way to review how we arrived in 1941. And, of course, it's obvious to highlight the drama surrounding Pearl Harbor with some comparisons to what our intelligence services could tell us then and how we still have some of the same coordination problems in this century. The next challenge is how to "review" the New Deal without getting lost in that massive topic while emphasizing that World War II ended the Great Depression and not the New Deal. Taking a close look at FDR and Eleanor will also be fun.
The online Modern America, 1912-41, class will focus first on Woodrow Wilson as a person and as a president before we jump into World War I. In that course, students are reading Willa Cather's One of Ours. Cather spent a great deal of time just across our northern border - that's the Nebrasks she describes in her book and much of it isn't that different in psyche than the Kansas we know down here except that we are closer to larger population centers - especially in modern times.
Another change I made this semester is just having the graduate students write the analytical papers over the Major Problems texts from Houghton Mifflin. By confining it to that group, I can expect a higher level of achievement given that they are supposed to be surrounding by historiography and not just being introduced to it.
Here we go . . . . .
My F2F class is Modern America, 1941-1968. I took a different approach to the narrative text and made it optional since they can also utilize a survey text from a previous class to get the background. Hopefully that means less complaining about textbook costs - which I find difficult given that if I require a text, they use it and are tested on it. Winkler's Homefront USA from Harlan Davidson, a nice compact discussion of the topic, is one of the other texts along with Lizabeth Cohen's Consumer's Republic. It's my first time using Cohen and I've already found the graduate student notes that summarize it in 3 pages that shows up on the first page of a Google search. Wonder how long it will take students to find that. But, forewarned is forearmed.
Another facet of the class will be studying Jack Kerouac's On the Road. I think it's important that students read some of the literature of the period so that they better understand it. in the past, I've used Peyton Place for this class but it's not longer available for the last publisher and I don't want to encourage the used book market. Plus, I can still show the Peyton Place film and accomplish some of the same results in student learning. What always amazed me about using Peyton Place was how the men enjoyed reading it. And, of course, a "banned book" is such a foreign concept in today's culture.
The anniversary of the publication of On the Road was one motivation to use it along with my visiting a Kerouac exhibit in Lowell, MA, when we had teachers there to tour the mills last summer. Getting to view the scroll of On the Road was interesting as well as the modern exhibit interpreting his life. This was in contrast to the Lowell exhibits that are in need of updating once they get more funding - the machinery was intriguing but not anything I hadn't seen before.
I found a book in our university library about the "women in black" - the females who have often been overlooked in regard to their contribution to the Beats - not only psychologically and physically supporting the men when they weren't doing so for each other but their actual artistic contributions. So it should be a fun exploration for all of us.
One of the first things students will do is examine and debate the causes of World War II. That will be a good way to review how we arrived in 1941. And, of course, it's obvious to highlight the drama surrounding Pearl Harbor with some comparisons to what our intelligence services could tell us then and how we still have some of the same coordination problems in this century. The next challenge is how to "review" the New Deal without getting lost in that massive topic while emphasizing that World War II ended the Great Depression and not the New Deal. Taking a close look at FDR and Eleanor will also be fun.
The online Modern America, 1912-41, class will focus first on Woodrow Wilson as a person and as a president before we jump into World War I. In that course, students are reading Willa Cather's One of Ours. Cather spent a great deal of time just across our northern border - that's the Nebrasks she describes in her book and much of it isn't that different in psyche than the Kansas we know down here except that we are closer to larger population centers - especially in modern times.
Another change I made this semester is just having the graduate students write the analytical papers over the Major Problems texts from Houghton Mifflin. By confining it to that group, I can expect a higher level of achievement given that they are supposed to be surrounding by historiography and not just being introduced to it.
Here we go . . . . .
Labels: classes, Kansas, Kerouac, learning, Modern America, Nebraska, on the road, One of Ours, semester, students, teaching, Willa Cather
Monday, January 21, 2008
Teaching About What Humans Do
Education Historian Sherm Dorn has tagged me to discuss why I do what I do so I am snagging his post title and running with it. Finally meeting Sherm in person was one of the highlights of going to the Social Science History Association meeting last November. Sherm discusses how his work allows him the opportunity to "navel gaze" and puts his teaching into the larger context of his students' higher education.
I've taught at five distinct types of state institutions and now teach at a former normal school in a rural area. Many of our students are first generation college and are still learning what it takes to do well in school. As with students everywhere, many are still doing more work to try to avoid doing the consistent and thorough work usually required to be a successful student. In many cases, students are so busy with their jobs and/or families, that most studying takes place late at night right before the exam or paper is due. The change I've noticed in the last few years is that students are more willing to overtly to assign outside blame when they do not do well - missing a deadline or not fulfilling the minimum requirements is somehow irrelevant. On the other hand, there are numerous students working really hard and trying to fit quite a bit into their busy, overscheduled lives.
Working with pre-service and in-service teachers allows me some unique opportunities to explore a wider variety of topics than my stated doctoral fields (20th century US political, diplomatic, Borderlands, oral, and local history, and teacher education) and explore new research options that overlap into my scholarship. Our 12-hour teaching load means that teaching dominates our lives and finding research and focus time is especially critical. One of the ways I've managed this is by teaching online and teaching 3-hour classes instead of a 3-hour class one-hour slice at a time. I find we get much more done and students have plenty of time to fit in the reading given the week between classes or the usual two weeks between online assignment due dates.
My primary mission is helping my students - many of whom are already teachers themselves or will soon be - become lifelong learners and enhance their quest for new knowledge. And, as with most other humans, those who are the busiest are the most likely to find time to do this. There's always something new to learn around the next corner and hopefully I inspire students to keep finding their own paths to discover their own learning.
Another important facet of what I hope to instill in students is the ability to trasncend the facts and dates of history (not ignore or forget but actually build on them as a foundation) to develop their own theories and analysis of the history of the world aroudn them to better inform them about their world and what part in it they want to play.
I've taught at five distinct types of state institutions and now teach at a former normal school in a rural area. Many of our students are first generation college and are still learning what it takes to do well in school. As with students everywhere, many are still doing more work to try to avoid doing the consistent and thorough work usually required to be a successful student. In many cases, students are so busy with their jobs and/or families, that most studying takes place late at night right before the exam or paper is due. The change I've noticed in the last few years is that students are more willing to overtly to assign outside blame when they do not do well - missing a deadline or not fulfilling the minimum requirements is somehow irrelevant. On the other hand, there are numerous students working really hard and trying to fit quite a bit into their busy, overscheduled lives.
Working with pre-service and in-service teachers allows me some unique opportunities to explore a wider variety of topics than my stated doctoral fields (20th century US political, diplomatic, Borderlands, oral, and local history, and teacher education) and explore new research options that overlap into my scholarship. Our 12-hour teaching load means that teaching dominates our lives and finding research and focus time is especially critical. One of the ways I've managed this is by teaching online and teaching 3-hour classes instead of a 3-hour class one-hour slice at a time. I find we get much more done and students have plenty of time to fit in the reading given the week between classes or the usual two weeks between online assignment due dates.
My primary mission is helping my students - many of whom are already teachers themselves or will soon be - become lifelong learners and enhance their quest for new knowledge. And, as with most other humans, those who are the busiest are the most likely to find time to do this. There's always something new to learn around the next corner and hopefully I inspire students to keep finding their own paths to discover their own learning.
Another important facet of what I hope to instill in students is the ability to trasncend the facts and dates of history (not ignore or forget but actually build on them as a foundation) to develop their own theories and analysis of the history of the world aroudn them to better inform them about their world and what part in it they want to play.
Labels: education, history, learning, Sher Dorn, teaching
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