Teaching Philosophy Draft

Catrina Mitchum

Teaching with Technology

Teaching Philosophy-Teaching Writing

November 24, 2011

Audience: Distance Students

As a Teacher:

            As a student, I always preferred classes that were hands on and very light on the lecture, and I preferred professors who had high expectations but were human at the same time. I preferred them because I learned more in them. Though I didn’t know it at the time, the hands on style seems to be the most conducive to learning based on neurobiological research (Brain Rules). I therefore, as a teacher, try to make my own classes as hands-on as a writing course can be. My courses are student-centered, meaning that the needs of individual students are addressed and the course content and execution does not center on my own ideas about writing. We work on synthesizing (through course readings and activities) a definition of what it means to be a writer in the world today.

Views on Knowledge and Application in the Classroom:

            I believe that what is acceptable as a communicative practice is socially constructed; however, verbal communication is something that can also be very individual (style, tone, etc). It involves taking and working through external information in order to make sense of the world from an individual perspective. So, overall, I try to find a balance between the social and the individual in the classroom in the work that both my students and I do.

            I do this by giving students the opportunity to work individually and together; I give students ample opportunity to give me feedback on the direction of the course while I keep a teaching journal in order to reflect on what I think worked and didn’t work. For my students, I require peer review and personal reflection on those reviews in order to help keep this balance between social construction and the individual. The peer reviews give students feedback on their work, but by requiring a reflection on the reviews they received (by their classmates and myself) students are able to think about why the suggestions were made and whether or not they agree with them. Peer review and collaboration take place throughout the course, not just on major essay assignments.

            In order to facilitate this continuous feedback, my classroom focuses on group workshops that allow students to help each other compose in ways that are effective rhetorically. I use discussions to make the class focused more on the students and their ideas as opposed to the teacher as the “holder of all knowledge.” Requiring reading responses that focus on what students think about what they read and why also reinforces the social constructivist and student-centered approach that I try to take in the classroom. I try to make the course cater to individual students, and this translates into one-on-one conferences to attend to individual student needs.

Student Assessment and Expectations:

I expect my students to give 100% effort to their course work. This effort translates into reading assignments carefully and closely, asking questions when they arise, and putting thought into every aspect of the coursework. In discussions and workshops, students are assessed based on: their ability to think critically about assigned topics and their ability to respond to classmates in a meaningful way. In drafts, I’m looking for a real effort to move toward communicating rhetorically. In the journals I expect to see honest thought and reflection on writings and on feedback received. Overall, these expectations and assessment criteria are geared toward a learning experience that emphasizes transferability to other writing situations and a creation of a definition of writing that is a balance between the individual and the larger group.

It wasn't me was it?

DeVoss, Danielle and Annette C. Rosati. "It wasn't me, was it?": Plagiarism and the Web." Computers in the Composition Classroom. Eds. Michelle Sidler, Richard Morris, and Elixabeth Overman Smith. Boston: Bedford / St. Martin’s, 2008: 151-164. Print.

The story that the author's open with about students being unsure of whether or not they plagiarized is one that I can relate to as it's a concern my students (especially at the for profit school I teach with) are very vocal about. In that particular Comp I course, that is canned, student were required to write an informative research paper on a topic that they were interested in. This meant they often knew little about what they were writing about. When these students submitted there work to the writing center (which was required in the course design), they often received comments about sources being weaved together. The most common question I was asked: how am I supposed to write an informative paper that I am learning about without relying so heavily on my sources.

I felt all the issues brought up (especially about new texts causing further issue) were still relevant. I particularly liked the quote from p. 159 in regard to a student plagiarizing the design of a website: "Did this student plagiarize? How does electronic publishing complicate our print-based assumptions about what plagiarism is and isn't? What is common practice on the Web? How do we separate code from design in online space? Design from content?" I think that while we do have CC, we're still navigating these issues.

I included this site because of our recent conversation about OWL's.

Computers, Copyright and the Composition Classroom

Logie, John. "Champing at the Bits: Computers, Copyright, and the Composition Classroom." Computers in the Composition Classroom. Eds. Michelle Sidler, Richard Morris, and Elixabeth Overman Smith. Boston: Bedford / St. Martin’s, 2008: 135-150. Print.

Copyright and fair use have come to the forefront of the writing classroom with the advent of new technologies. While Logie's article was dated (1998), it's still very much relevant. Not only to writing, but in the expanding definition of composition for many in the field. Even with the fair use clause, there are issues. There have been instances where student work has been taken off you tube for using clips and images that were copyrighted (even though citations were provided). I think that the creative commons site was a good way to give "creators" control, but still allow use within certain limits.

This is the site dedicated to fair use.

Oral Presentation

In another course that I'm taking, I have to do a presentation on a major debate. I had created a class wiki (using Google Sites) for this class. Google Sites it's something I had never used before, but I played around with it to do what I needed it to do. After creating it, I created a video that showed my classmates how to go through and post what they needed to post. Between this experience, and my previous experience with my classmates and Prezi, I think that a major debate might be how much knowledge of technology do we need in order to use and teach it. There obviously are proponents who say "we don't need much if any," but then why are we not using them more often (outside of this class of course). I think where I need to go for that project is find sources that make that argument-the argument for knowing more about the technology I guess.

Prezi

I've convinced (thought it wasn't hard) a group I'm in for another class to use Prezi for a group presentation for the first time. It's interesting that when I asked if they wanted an instructional video or to click and learn and use me to trouble shoot, they opted to click and learn. It made me wonder if it's something all students would be comfortable with or if that was the case because the rest of my group members are concentrating in new media: they're not scared of it. I had another situation, this past week when creating our jigsaw, where I was helping my group members learn more about Prezi as we edited the work together. I walked them through a couple of things (showing and talking at the same time) and then they were able to do it themselves. Is it simply a difference in learning styles?

Brain Rules Chapter 11 Notes

So this week, I tried making a comic. I used Pixton, and it was my first go with the website. Overall, it was incredibly easy and quick; however, also very limiting. I suppose there may have been more options, but if you select the Quickie option for a short comic then they give you the scene layout, the characters you can pick from and their positions on the screen. In addition, I had to categorize my comic, but it didn't fit into any of the categories they set out, which was frustrating. I could see this being used in the way that I did. To make a comment about what was read or to take quick notes on something to remember it. However, I think I would try looking at other free comic creators first.

Brain Rules Chapter 10

I used Google Draw in Google Docs this week. I've never used this feature before, but found that the simplicity was actually what I needed in order to create this cartoon. The problem I was running into with other programs was that I was limited to either pictures I had or whatever the program came with. None of the cartoon programs had the option drawing and making it a cartoon. I think this program could be useful in students not only creating mutlimodal projects, but doing so as a group (because of the group features of Google Docs). A problem that I did have with the program was it didn't have all the shapes I was looking for. I also had to photoshop a foam finger to make it work for this image.

Flash in FYC

Ellertson, Anthony. "Some Notes on Simulacra Machines, Flash in First-Year Composition, and Tactics in Spaces of Interruption." Computers in the Composition Classroom. Eds. Michelle Sidler, Richard Morris, and Elixabeth Overman Smith. Boston: Bedford / St. Martin’s, 2008: 482-484. Print.

I have to say that I love Flash, and I've seen first hand how using it can create a more complete vision or message. Here is flash video created in NMTP II by my classmates and I for Dr. Mourao (a lit prof at ODU). She had several pieces (video, personal essay, scholarly work, paintings) that fed into this concept of whiteness in Portuguese culture. We were able to centralize all her work so that the viewer or "reader" could understand the full concept. I think that the elements worked together to really create a complete argument.

Integrated Composition Pedagogy in Hypertext

Williams, Sean D. "Part 2: Toward and Integrated Composition Pedagogy in Hypertext." Computers in the Composition Classroom. Eds. Michelle Sidler, Richard Morris, and Elixabeth Overman Smith. Boston: Bedford / St. Martin’s, 2008: 469-481. Print.

Again, this reading comes at a time when I'm grappling with the concept of "literacy" in all its complexity. I'm not sure that I agree with defining these literacies that we have as simple skill sets. I do like that Williams addressed the issue of visual rhetoric and literacy in this article. Visual rhetoric as it's presented in FYC textbooks is a topic that I'm looking at in that same project for another class. I do agree that there needs to be an inclusive yet expansive way to approach composition. I've always thought that the medium used alters the message and so how it's presented (or delivered) will make a big impact on the message itself. Something else that I've found interesting is this idea of rhetorical velocity that's presented by Ridolfo and DeVoss in Kairos. 

Negative Spaces

Johnson-Eilola, Johndan. "Negative Spaces: From Production to Connection in Composition."Computers in the Composition Classroom. Eds. Michelle Sidler, Richard Morris, and Elixabeth Overman Smith. Boston: Bedford / St. Martin’s, 2008: 454-468. Print.

What's interesting is that this reading comes at a time when I needed it most. In another class, I'm working on a project that argues for the production of visual texts in order to have a complete understanding of visual rhetoric. However, the issue I've been having is with the word "production." I feel that production in the way that I mean does not align with product pedagogy, and this article has given me more food for thought as I struggle with examining the term production in that project. I do like the emphasis on the connection between texts and fragments. I think that times that I've learned the most is when I'm able to make connections (however loose at the time) between fragments of information (specifically in classes). This article specifically made me think of the idea of "remixing." And this website goes into remixing in a composition classroom. (And is a shout-out to Rowan-my alma mater).