but: would you be willing to open up the blog to people who started teaching this semester at two other universities, Florida Atlantic and Kent State? Those graduate students have also been blogging about the new classes they are teaching), discussing similar issues and concerns about their particular students and the classes they are taking.
This would be a way to hear how different (and similar) teaching and course structures are at other schools. You would be able to hook up with others, to share with and learn from them. You'll know other people when you go to conferences (always a good thing) and have people from other schools with whom you can put together conference proposals (also always a very good thing; conference panel proposals that where all the panelists come from one school tend not to be as well regarded as panels with people from a mix of schools).
This is a way to talk about how teacher communication helps with teaching. (Which could be the subject of a conference panel proposal, as could the use of blogging in starting to teach a new course.)
Opening up the blog this way should require no new additional writing, but some new reading, and perhaps some responding to others.
I think this would be a good thing all around -- but the decision has to be yours.
Please respond to the blog with what you think.
Many thanks....
Sunday, October 23, 2005
Thursday, October 20, 2005
the carnival of teaching
a fine sampling of blog posts on the pleasures, distractions, and figurings-out of teaching.
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
no comment
"Economic growth is crucial to reducing poverty, but the effect of tax rates is less clear. In 1993, President Bill Clinton raised taxes on upper-income families, the economy boomed and poverty fell for the next seven years. In 2001, President Bush cut taxes deeply, but even with economic growth, the poverty rate has risen every year since.”
—Jason DeParle, "Liberal Hopes Ebb in Post-Storm Poverty Debate," New York Times, October 11, 2005
—Jason DeParle, "Liberal Hopes Ebb in Post-Storm Poverty Debate," New York Times, October 11, 2005
Monday, October 10, 2005
The cat...
is stretched out along my leg here in bed, and she is purring and warm, and it just might be time to sleep, finally.
on responding to student work and still having time to breathe
Remember our talk about rubrics and being very clear in an assignment what the goals of the assignment are?
The purposes of using rubrics and being very clear about an assignment's goals are for your benefit as well as for students' benefit.
When you make clear to students the goals of an assignment, you are helping them understand what it is they are to learn. This not only helps them focus clearly on what matters in an assignment, but helps you help them develop the metalanguage that is necessary for reflection on learning and hence necessary for learning itself. When students cannot only demonstrate that they can (for example) do a rhetorical analysis of a speech but can also state what the qualities of a solid analysis are, then they can choose awarely to use the tools of rhetorical analysis in the future. Also, when you state very clearly the goals of an assignment -- and tie your responses and grading to those goals -- you are being fair to students: you are letting them know that you will not base their grade on something they didn't know they were supposed to attend to.
When you make clear to students the goals of an assignment, then how well they achieved those goals is all you need comment on. Really.
You can stick to commenting on what is in your rubric, what you specified in the assignment. You can use the rubric to figure out grades, as we discussed back in Orientation, if you are grading individual assignments: each column in a rubric has a numeric equivalent, and you average out the numbers to get the grade. (Students here at Tech, as you may have noticed, often like numerically determined grades.)
And when you use rubrics, you can use a filled-out set to focus on attending to the class's learning. By looking across the patterns of rubric feedback, you can ask: Was most of the class able to learn what you hoped? To what depth? What do you need to continue to emphasize? What can you depend on them knowing, following an assignment, to carry into the next assignment?
Responding to student work is hard, but it does get easier over time as you develop the habits and phrases that work for you. One way to learn what works is to ask people in your classes to write responses to your feedback. Ask them how they interpret your feedback, and what they see (based on your feedback) they need to focus on in upcoming assignments (or in a revision). Asking them to write such reflective responses helps *them* think about what they need to do in their own learning but also helps *you* learn how students are understanding and benefitting from your hard work.
The purposes of using rubrics and being very clear about an assignment's goals are for your benefit as well as for students' benefit.
When you make clear to students the goals of an assignment, you are helping them understand what it is they are to learn. This not only helps them focus clearly on what matters in an assignment, but helps you help them develop the metalanguage that is necessary for reflection on learning and hence necessary for learning itself. When students cannot only demonstrate that they can (for example) do a rhetorical analysis of a speech but can also state what the qualities of a solid analysis are, then they can choose awarely to use the tools of rhetorical analysis in the future. Also, when you state very clearly the goals of an assignment -- and tie your responses and grading to those goals -- you are being fair to students: you are letting them know that you will not base their grade on something they didn't know they were supposed to attend to.
When you make clear to students the goals of an assignment, then how well they achieved those goals is all you need comment on. Really.
You can stick to commenting on what is in your rubric, what you specified in the assignment. You can use the rubric to figure out grades, as we discussed back in Orientation, if you are grading individual assignments: each column in a rubric has a numeric equivalent, and you average out the numbers to get the grade. (Students here at Tech, as you may have noticed, often like numerically determined grades.)
And when you use rubrics, you can use a filled-out set to focus on attending to the class's learning. By looking across the patterns of rubric feedback, you can ask: Was most of the class able to learn what you hoped? To what depth? What do you need to continue to emphasize? What can you depend on them knowing, following an assignment, to carry into the next assignment?
Responding to student work is hard, but it does get easier over time as you develop the habits and phrases that work for you. One way to learn what works is to ask people in your classes to write responses to your feedback. Ask them how they interpret your feedback, and what they see (based on your feedback) they need to focus on in upcoming assignments (or in a revision). Asking them to write such reflective responses helps *them* think about what they need to do in their own learning but also helps *you* learn how students are understanding and benefitting from your hard work.
how do students come to be...
the people they are? How do we come to be the people we are?
How do we learn to empathize with what is distant in time or place? How do we come to understand material links between the conditions of others and ours?
I am thinking here of Kathryn's observations about a student's response to Katz's essay. How does one grow up to think that the Holocaust has nothing to do with one's current existence? Is it difficult to grow up thinking that? Is it weird to desire one's life to be easy and uncomplicated?
Under what conditions does one grow up to be socially active or to understand that there are connections between, say, the governmental response to Hurricane Katrina (or, say, Hurricane Stan) and job loss in the manufacturing sector?
And what are our responsibilities as teachers of a communications class to persuade students that making these connections -- both in order to empathize and to understand material conditions that cause what we think is evil or bad -- is not only worthwhile but a foundation of a life lived morally with others?
How do we learn to empathize with what is distant in time or place? How do we come to understand material links between the conditions of others and ours?
I am thinking here of Kathryn's observations about a student's response to Katz's essay. How does one grow up to think that the Holocaust has nothing to do with one's current existence? Is it difficult to grow up thinking that? Is it weird to desire one's life to be easy and uncomplicated?
Under what conditions does one grow up to be socially active or to understand that there are connections between, say, the governmental response to Hurricane Katrina (or, say, Hurricane Stan) and job loss in the manufacturing sector?
And what are our responsibilities as teachers of a communications class to persuade students that making these connections -- both in order to empathize and to understand material conditions that cause what we think is evil or bad -- is not only worthwhile but a foundation of a life lived morally with others?
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