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100 Day Project – Day 29 – Less is More

October 4th, 2011 · 100 Days Project, College students, Musings, Reading, Teaching & Learning, Work

100 Day Project – Day 29 – 8:03 p.m.

Less is more in so many ways in life.  Today, personally, I could sure do with less grief.  Too much to explain, but too many losses too quickly in the last three months.  Professionally, less is more in terms of my assigned readings for my classes is really working well.  I mentioned in a previous writing that I’d given up textbooks and am finding articles to assign for reading.  Students write a response and come prepared to discuss it in class.

The quality of the responses and the discussions are so much richer than anything I’ve ever encountered using a text.  Is it the chemistry of these particular students?  I won’t be able to know that, I suppose if ever, until I try this technique a few more semesters.  I think that less quantity of reading, and more in-depth reading, is requiring them to spend some time interacting in new and deeper ways with the reading.  It occurred to me – only in today’s class – that I was also assigning them the kind of material to read that they will read after they are holding jobs.  Professional articles written by their one day peers.  A student today remarked that they thought the articles respected her intelligence in a way that a textbook didn’t.

Nice.  Today I am thinking about less is more in so many ways.

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100 Day Project – Day 28 – Reading

October 3rd, 2011 · 100 Days Project, College students, Musings, Reading, Teaching & Learning, Work

100 Day Project – Day 28  – 12:49 p.m.

First a word about the numbering of days:  For those of you who care, and frankly, I’m not sure anyone does, somehow I skipped from Day 22 to Day 28.  In my real life that was only 3 days – the weekend – since I last wrote.  But, who knows – somewhere the numbering got off.  But, not to worry, my calender – my lifeline – has been numbered in red, and with any luck, I’ll stay on task!!

Today, I’m thinking about reading.  I worked up a system of reading and reading responses this semester in my Introductory course that I’ve been really happy with.  First, I should mention that I did away with the textbook.  It shall remain unnamed; but part of the reasoning was expense.  $185.00 for  a textbook is outrageous.  Another reason is that I discovered that this textbook had three versions.  Our department has used this text, which is in its ninth edition, for almost ten years.  It’s a very reputable author who we’ve met at conferences and she actually works in our field.  But this past academic year, when I put a call into the publisher, I discovered that the publisher had created three versions of the text: one for Texas, one for Florida and one for the rest of us.  I could get sidetracked and winded discussing the politics of this; but I don’t think I need to, I suspect any readers I might have will get the reasons for the versions.

At any rate, gone is the textbook.  So I choose to assign my class online reading, as well as some material from sources that allow copying (I am obeying copyright laws.).   I also have been thinking about less is more.   So, I assign one to two articles for each topic in the introductory course and the students respond in writing to that material.  They also know that they will discuss their response with other classmates.

I was thrilled today to find this resource describing almost exactly what I had designed.  I’ve not done it as a Reading Log, but the instructions I created are very similar.  This is very satisfying in terms of my own teaching to know my design is confirmed.  The less is more has worked very well.  I’m getting more quality responses to the readings than I’ve ever gotten.  And, as I suspected, those who come unprepared get “caught” by their colleagues, not by me, for coming unprepared to discuss.  I set aside 15 – 20 minutes of each class, when a reading is due, to have Reading Talks.

I’m proud of myself and really excited that this is working out so well for my students.  Today I am thinking about reading.

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100 Day Project – Day 22 – Honesty

September 30th, 2011 · 100 Days Project, family, Important People, Teaching & Learning, Work

100 Day Project – Day 22 – 9:40 a.m. (a day late)

When teaching is challenging, ask yourself what Mr. Rogers would do. (Those of my readers who know me, know that Mr. Rogers is my all time favorite person in the world – not counting family, of course.)

I’ve had a great week teaching, yet there are a couple of students who challenge me.  One is very shy, painfully shy, and perhaps has other issues or names for it.  So hesitant that when she approaches me after or before class, if I get too close — and too close appears to be within 2 feet – she backs up.  Add to this her incredibly soft voice, and it’s challenging.  I lean forward carefully whenever she speaks – she does sometimes speak in class – I try to role model body language knowing that other students are watching me interact with her.  But it’s difficult.  The most difficult is that her writing skills are quite minimal.  And, she asked me after class yesterday whether her low grades so far on her writing would affect her overall grade; and I had to be honest.  Like Mr. Rogers, he was always honest – sometimes honesty is comfortable and sometimes honesty is really uncomfortable.  It was clearly uncomfortable for her to hear my answer.  I encouraged her to use the Peer Tutoring service. I have great faith in this service at our college – I’ve seen other students really soar in their writing with one on one tutoring weekly.  But it clearly was not something she wanted to hear.

These moments pain me with students; but unlike a colleague or two I’ve known in my teaching career, I believe it does the student a disservice not to be honest with them.

To ask oneself what Mr Rogers would do, and then to do it. This is also, incidentally, a rather good way to live one’s life.

Today I am thinking about honesty.

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100 Day Project – Day 21 – Librarians

September 28th, 2011 · 100 Days Project, librarians, Quote of the Week, Teaching & Learning, Work

100 Day Project – Day 21 – 8:04 p.m.

Today at the community college where I teach the librarians hosted a Banned Book reading.  The librarians had a few excerpts to read, and others brought readings as well.  We heard segments from Harry Potter, Lolita, And Tango Makes Three and the entire Howl.  I was very moved (and literally, for the first time, I understood Howl.  Thank you to our Dean for that reading.)

If I had had time, and had given it some thought, I would have loved to have brought a book.  It was a group of about a dozen folks, and seemed an even mix of faculty, students and librarians.  The presentation and discussion of each book and why it was banned/challenged was really enlightening.

While my work day is very packed, I’m always glad I make the time to attend a few of these activities.  College activities are so enriching – during this same week, I went to hear a storyteller who was both deaf and blind.  I learned so much about the individuals, culture and who I am when I sit in the moment and take in one of these events.

When I began writing tonight, I thought I would write about censorship.  But, like everything else, you can go online and read and find folks to debate with or try to convince into your point of view.  After some thought, though, I realized what I’m thinking about – although tied to censorship – is the freedom I have to read and to read what I choose to read.

The first librarian to read an excerpt today summed it up for me:  “If we don’t have something in this library that really pisses you off, we aren’t doing our job.”  (L.H.)  Thank you to the librarians of the world.  Tonight I’m thinking about what librarians bring to me, instead of what others try to keep from me via censorship.

 

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100 Day Project – Day 20 – Pride

September 27th, 2011 · 100 Days Project, Children, College students, Teaching & Learning

100 Day Project – Day 20 – 7:41 p.m.

Today, my grasp of the craft of teaching was there for me in one of my classes.  In a course – a 100 level class – with a focus on learning to bring creative experiences to the young child – I changed my plans completely 20 minutes before the class started.  I had the idea hours before when I drove to work and the sun appeared to be coming out.  According to the forecast when I went to bed, it was going to be 60% chance of rain.  But the hours weren’t available to prepare.  Before this class, I teach three others.

It’s been raining quite a bit and the ground is pretty mushy.  Each semester, in this class, we spend one class time (1 hour and 50 minutes) outdoors.  We explore nature with paper bags in hand to collect items, we play with the parachute and learn how to use it with young children, we act out a story, and do some class business.

The rain has been regularly occuring each class meeting; and it’s been impossible to go out (I would bring children out, but adult students, even when forewarned, still show up in elegant combinations because they have to go straight to work after class).  So, I figured if they weren’t going to be dressed appropriately with warning, we’d just go out and play anyways at the last minute.  They dealt!

To switch gears this easily, for me, is to really know the content of the material and to know how to present it out-of-doors in a different environment.  In this case, we enjoyed an area of the campus lawn fairly close to one of the driveways exiting a parking area; and so students had to begin to really experience that working with children means being comfortable with your body.  To be a bee, a bridge, a frog, an oar and a flower while others that you know might drive by!  But, once the fun began; they forgot to worry.  They dealt!

And, while gathering items from nature, two students managed to catch a tree frog, hold it captive in the brown lunch bag long enough to share it and take its picture so they could research exactly what it was.  I was thrilled to watch all of the students converse about how it could begin a study on frogs and list creative ideas.  I actually crossed my legs on my carpet square and listened.  This was a joyful moment for me – although not so for the frog for a few minutes!

To take pride and joy in teaching is vital to quality – I got to have that today.  Today I am thinking about Pride.

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