Huber, Mary Taylor. "Disciplinary Styles in the Scholarship of Teaching: Reflections on the Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning." Disciplinary Styles in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: Exploring Common Ground. Eds. Mary Taylor Huber and Sherwyn P. Moreale. Washington, DC: American Association for Higher Education and The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 2002:25-43. Print.
Likes: I liked the explanation of the emphasis and distinction of interdisciplinary work. I specifically like the hammer and nails analogy because interdisciplinary work is not about one taking over the others (an issues we're dealing with in English Studies), but real integration of methodologies. I've often wondered why disciplines don't talk more and why certain types of research can't simply be valued for offering different types of insights.
Confusion: None.
More Information: Reading this made me more interested in interdisciplinary work in research methodology. I would like to see where it's been done successfully.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Monday, October 10, 2011
Multimodal Composition Ch. 13
Cooper, Marilyn, M. "Learning Digital Literacies." Multimodal Composition: Resources for Teachers. Ed. Cynthia L. Selfe. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 2007: 181-186. Print.
This article started with the importance of paying attention to digital literacy. The author gave a summary of what digital literacy is in addition to discussing its importance. Following this, the author gives five strategies for teaching digital literacy. These strategies include: teaching the context of the technology, giving adequate motivation to learn it, giving enough time for learning and doing a good job, providing enough assistance, and providing opportunities to learn and problem solve with classmates. Overall, her argument is that these skills are essential to social practices and that it's not just about keeping up with the most recent technology.
This article came at an interesting time-I was researching digital literacy last week for another class. Some of the interesting information that I found was that many define it differently; however, at this point, many do agree it's more than just learning how to work a technology. Especially in a Web 2.0 world. Specifically, a particular article discussed digital literacy as directly related to a historical literacy (literacy practices throughout a lifetime). On the other hand, another article that I read last week suggested that the new digital literacy is going to necessitate programming.
I'm linking to this blog because I found the image to be funny. It came up in a Google search.
This article started with the importance of paying attention to digital literacy. The author gave a summary of what digital literacy is in addition to discussing its importance. Following this, the author gives five strategies for teaching digital literacy. These strategies include: teaching the context of the technology, giving adequate motivation to learn it, giving enough time for learning and doing a good job, providing enough assistance, and providing opportunities to learn and problem solve with classmates. Overall, her argument is that these skills are essential to social practices and that it's not just about keeping up with the most recent technology.
This article came at an interesting time-I was researching digital literacy last week for another class. Some of the interesting information that I found was that many define it differently; however, at this point, many do agree it's more than just learning how to work a technology. Especially in a Web 2.0 world. Specifically, a particular article discussed digital literacy as directly related to a historical literacy (literacy practices throughout a lifetime). On the other hand, another article that I read last week suggested that the new digital literacy is going to necessitate programming.
I'm linking to this blog because I found the image to be funny. It came up in a Google search.
Multimodal Composition Ch. 1
Takayoshi, Pamela, Cynthia L. Selfe. "Thinking about Modality." Multimodal Composition: Resources for Teachers. Ed. Cynthia L. Selfe. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 2007: 1-12. Print.
The first chapter of this book explains what multimodality is and why its necessary for the current and future composition classroom. There is an emphasis put on mulimodal composition as independent from digital composition: you don't need technology in order to create multimodal compositions. Just as Selfe has previously argued, we need to "pay attention" to multimodal composing. The chapter then discusses the reasons for this attention included the increasing necessity to be able to both read and produce these texts, expanding the definition of composition, the emphasis of the authoring of these compositions as engaging, the important of rhetoric, and the connection between this type of composing and valued pedagogical goals. This discussion is followed by a list and discussion of reasonable concerns related to both technology and multi-modality.
I particularly like the emphasis on not needing technology to be multi-modal. In one of my courses I require a visual argument with the understanding that everyone is "tech savvy." I allow my students to create a "hard copy" of this argument and either take a photo or scan it in. This allows them to be creative in whatever way they are comfortable, but still create something they can turn in in an online course. I also liked that we're reading this book I suppose because of my surprised with the article in CCC.
The first chapter of this book explains what multimodality is and why its necessary for the current and future composition classroom. There is an emphasis put on mulimodal composition as independent from digital composition: you don't need technology in order to create multimodal compositions. Just as Selfe has previously argued, we need to "pay attention" to multimodal composing. The chapter then discusses the reasons for this attention included the increasing necessity to be able to both read and produce these texts, expanding the definition of composition, the emphasis of the authoring of these compositions as engaging, the important of rhetoric, and the connection between this type of composing and valued pedagogical goals. This discussion is followed by a list and discussion of reasonable concerns related to both technology and multi-modality.
I particularly like the emphasis on not needing technology to be multi-modal. In one of my courses I require a visual argument with the understanding that everyone is "tech savvy." I allow my students to create a "hard copy" of this argument and either take a photo or scan it in. This allows them to be creative in whatever way they are comfortable, but still create something they can turn in in an online course. I also liked that we're reading this book I suppose because of my surprised with the article in CCC.
Palmquist, et al. Contrasts: Teaching and Learning about Wriitng in Traditional and Computer Classrooms
Palmquist, Mike, Kate Kiefer, James Hartvigsen, and Barbara Goodlew. "Contrasts: Teaching and Learning about Writing in Traditional and Computer Classrooms." Computers in the Composition Classroom. Eds. Michelle Sidler, Richard Morris, and Elixabeth Overman Smith. Boston: Bedford / St. Martin’s, 2008: 251-270. Print.
The article explores the pedagogical practices of teachers that teach writing classes in both a "traditional" classroom and a computer classroom. The authors set out to discuss the differences between the classes. They look at teaching strategies, class preparation, teacher attitudes toward both types of teaching situations, interactions between all parties involved (student to teacher, student to student), students attitudes toward writing and student writing performance. They claim that there is a continuum of change: teachers take what works in one classroom (particularly the computer classrooms) and integrate it into other settings. Specifically, the teachers in this study took their roles of facilitator in the computer classroom and worked to recreate this in the traditional classroom. The authors propose that the computer classrooms enable the building of skills that typically don't receive attention in the traditional classroom that centers around grammar and mechanics. However, the use of the technology itself is highly dependent on teacher comfort level.
In the beginning of the article, I was surprised that the traditional classroom teachers were still using a teacher centric model. Later, it was stated that the reason was because students in the class were resistant to doing the in class writing and group work. I suppose I was surprised because my experience has been the opposite. I've always had a positive response from students when having them write in the classroom without computers. Then I looked at the original date and thought maybe it had something to do with the date of publication. I wonder if the computer had already influenced the teaching of teachers by the time I took my Teaching College Comp course.
Thought this was interesting:
The article explores the pedagogical practices of teachers that teach writing classes in both a "traditional" classroom and a computer classroom. The authors set out to discuss the differences between the classes. They look at teaching strategies, class preparation, teacher attitudes toward both types of teaching situations, interactions between all parties involved (student to teacher, student to student), students attitudes toward writing and student writing performance. They claim that there is a continuum of change: teachers take what works in one classroom (particularly the computer classrooms) and integrate it into other settings. Specifically, the teachers in this study took their roles of facilitator in the computer classroom and worked to recreate this in the traditional classroom. The authors propose that the computer classrooms enable the building of skills that typically don't receive attention in the traditional classroom that centers around grammar and mechanics. However, the use of the technology itself is highly dependent on teacher comfort level.
In the beginning of the article, I was surprised that the traditional classroom teachers were still using a teacher centric model. Later, it was stated that the reason was because students in the class were resistant to doing the in class writing and group work. I suppose I was surprised because my experience has been the opposite. I've always had a positive response from students when having them write in the classroom without computers. Then I looked at the original date and thought maybe it had something to do with the date of publication. I wonder if the computer had already influenced the teaching of teachers by the time I took my Teaching College Comp course.
Thought this was interesting:
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Web 2.0 and New Literacies
Web 2.0 technologies are platforms for what has been called a participatory culture. This is reflected in the provided quote, but many of the binaries in the quote are not new issues, ways of communicating or ways of knowing. In addition, many of the skills necessary to participate are ones that are not new: reading, writing, speaking, filming, etc. However, I do think that in order to become a part of this culture and participate in Web 2.0 technologies, we'll need to learn not only how to be a part of a conversation in combining these "old" literacies, but also learn the skills necessary to go from one new technology to the other "seamlessly." By that, I mean have a set of "this is what I need to to do in order to learn this technology right here right now." This is what we've been doing in this class. Jumping from new technology to new technology (many of them have been participatory) with a plan or an idea of how to get started.
Presentation Reflection
Our presentation set for 9/28/11 was to focus on the ECAR Study of Undergraduate Student and Information Technology 2010 and The Horizon Report 2011. Beth and I met on Skype Video Chat to discuss what we thought we should cover and how we should cover it during our time as discussion leaders. We ended up going into areas in the reports that we thought were interesting when we were reading to develop discussion questions. This seemed to be the most effective way to approach it simply because of the vast amount of information in both of the studies. We tried to make sure that the questions we were asking led to discussion of access (the current issue we're discussing) and thinking technology issues and usage in the classroom. We thought it was important to connect our experiences with technology to what is being said about undergrad experiences and to kind of see all that in action. This all led to our focus on usage, perceptions of IT in coursework, and the Navigator exploration.
We originally planed to include a 10 minute traditional freewrite on personal technology usage and perception, but decided to incorporate those question into the discussion questions when it was decided that class would be asynchronous. The purpose was to get our classmates thinking about their usage in preparation for the discussion questions we were asking. Our decision to use the Discussion Forum was based on a couple of reasons: 1. neither one of us are there, which makes other types of presentation difficult when using Skype as a platform. 2. it was a format that is typically used asynchronously, but can also be effective in synchronous classroom settings (something I've seen as a student, but never tried as a teacher). Our decision to use Worlde to tie everything together came from the desire to see the words most used to describe these activities. We were hoping it would give a clear glimpse into the language being used.
Using the discussion forum effectively took some playing around. We had to post a test topic (which we later deleted) to see what it would actually look like when discussion was happening. Beth's whole page was in Spanish (we later found out it was because of her browser-it's amazing how much difference a browser can make. Right now, the version of Blackboard I have to teach with isn't compatible with Explorer 9 and it's been wreaking havoc on my students).
I suppose it worked out well that we used the discussion forum since we ended up having to do class asynchronously this week. That's something that you just have to "roll with" and that attitude is exactly what saved us I think. Neither one of us panicked. We just adapted what we had to an asynchronous environment. We both teach at a distance, so that wasn't a huge stretch. The adaptation included creating videos and overall more instruction than the original lesson plan. We had to consider what students would have accomplished in the amount of time given in the class, which led us to our word counts and number of responses. Something else we considered was the fact that the students were graduate level. We didn't feel it was necessary to require more than one response in each discussion.
The experience was time consuming, but I suppose that's the nature of technology. In the process of converting the lesson plan, we got to work with pushing a Jing video to Youtube and weebly.com-two things neither one of us had done before.
Overall, based on the Wordle Clouds, we seem to have focused mostly on students, technology, the classroom, usage, competency or knowledge, and mobile and gaming devices. I would imagine this is would have been true even if the whole class had participated. I was disappointed to only see about half. That is a known issue when teaching distance courses asynchronously, and the synchronous discussion would have made it a non-issue. Something to think about when teaching distance courses: could we have done something differently?
We originally planed to include a 10 minute traditional freewrite on personal technology usage and perception, but decided to incorporate those question into the discussion questions when it was decided that class would be asynchronous. The purpose was to get our classmates thinking about their usage in preparation for the discussion questions we were asking. Our decision to use the Discussion Forum was based on a couple of reasons: 1. neither one of us are there, which makes other types of presentation difficult when using Skype as a platform. 2. it was a format that is typically used asynchronously, but can also be effective in synchronous classroom settings (something I've seen as a student, but never tried as a teacher). Our decision to use Worlde to tie everything together came from the desire to see the words most used to describe these activities. We were hoping it would give a clear glimpse into the language being used.
Using the discussion forum effectively took some playing around. We had to post a test topic (which we later deleted) to see what it would actually look like when discussion was happening. Beth's whole page was in Spanish (we later found out it was because of her browser-it's amazing how much difference a browser can make. Right now, the version of Blackboard I have to teach with isn't compatible with Explorer 9 and it's been wreaking havoc on my students).
I suppose it worked out well that we used the discussion forum since we ended up having to do class asynchronously this week. That's something that you just have to "roll with" and that attitude is exactly what saved us I think. Neither one of us panicked. We just adapted what we had to an asynchronous environment. We both teach at a distance, so that wasn't a huge stretch. The adaptation included creating videos and overall more instruction than the original lesson plan. We had to consider what students would have accomplished in the amount of time given in the class, which led us to our word counts and number of responses. Something else we considered was the fact that the students were graduate level. We didn't feel it was necessary to require more than one response in each discussion.
The experience was time consuming, but I suppose that's the nature of technology. In the process of converting the lesson plan, we got to work with pushing a Jing video to Youtube and weebly.com-two things neither one of us had done before.
Overall, based on the Wordle Clouds, we seem to have focused mostly on students, technology, the classroom, usage, competency or knowledge, and mobile and gaming devices. I would imagine this is would have been true even if the whole class had participated. I was disappointed to only see about half. That is a known issue when teaching distance courses asynchronously, and the synchronous discussion would have made it a non-issue. Something to think about when teaching distance courses: could we have done something differently?
Monday, October 3, 2011
Expanding Boyer
Braxton, John M.; William Luckey, Patricia Helland. "Institutionalizing a Broader View of Scholarship through Boyer's Four Domains." ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report. 29.2 (2002): 55-96. 1 Oct. 2011. Web. <http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/contentdelivery/servlet/ERICServlet?accno=ED468779>
Likes:
I liked the focus on the scholarship of integration. Probably because I prefer those areas where disciplines begin to overlap. I think that's why I like ODU's English department-the interdisciplinary in the dept. as well as the willingness of many English dept. to be informed by other fields. I wouldn't say I like it, but I do like that they bring up collaboration as an issue because it's relevant today. Specifically for those trying to do New Media Dissertations without an expert knowledge of coding.
I specifically like the quote "Rice concludes by reminding us that all faculty should remain students throughout their careers" because I am a perpetual student. I liked the emphasis on classroom research by Cross (73) as I haven't bought into the idea that the scholarship of teaching absolutely needs to be published. Classroom research is ongoing, and I think should be shared at that level when something new is going to inform the field. That's not to say it can't be shared, but shared on a smaller level. I have a colleague that I work with to improve our courses-we do research on our classes each semester and share with each other what did and did not work in our individual classes. Our classrooms become our essays.
I like that the issues of traditional scholarship assessment templates in the scholarships of application, integration and teaching were brought up (87). The idea that the current reward structure (more publishing more benefit) limits the ability to institutionalize Boyer's domains to be an interesting one. Only "discovery" is rewarded. Also, I thought that the statement that CC's don't reward scholarship-especially for the adjunct-rang fairly true in my experience.
Confusion:
None
More: I have a list of questions to put under "More" because they weren't areas of confusion, but area's that I would like more information.
So has an agreement been made on who should be understanding the teacher's work? (I suppose this could be confusion-it just wasn't apparent to me)
Where would tutoring and writing center's fit into all this?
Self-assessment, peer assessment, student assessment-could we triangulate an assessment for our projects?
Likes:
I liked the focus on the scholarship of integration. Probably because I prefer those areas where disciplines begin to overlap. I think that's why I like ODU's English department-the interdisciplinary in the dept. as well as the willingness of many English dept. to be informed by other fields. I wouldn't say I like it, but I do like that they bring up collaboration as an issue because it's relevant today. Specifically for those trying to do New Media Dissertations without an expert knowledge of coding.
I specifically like the quote "Rice concludes by reminding us that all faculty should remain students throughout their careers" because I am a perpetual student. I liked the emphasis on classroom research by Cross (73) as I haven't bought into the idea that the scholarship of teaching absolutely needs to be published. Classroom research is ongoing, and I think should be shared at that level when something new is going to inform the field. That's not to say it can't be shared, but shared on a smaller level. I have a colleague that I work with to improve our courses-we do research on our classes each semester and share with each other what did and did not work in our individual classes. Our classrooms become our essays.
I like that the issues of traditional scholarship assessment templates in the scholarships of application, integration and teaching were brought up (87). The idea that the current reward structure (more publishing more benefit) limits the ability to institutionalize Boyer's domains to be an interesting one. Only "discovery" is rewarded. Also, I thought that the statement that CC's don't reward scholarship-especially for the adjunct-rang fairly true in my experience.
Confusion:
None
More: I have a list of questions to put under "More" because they weren't areas of confusion, but area's that I would like more information.
So has an agreement been made on who should be understanding the teacher's work? (I suppose this could be confusion-it just wasn't apparent to me)
Where would tutoring and writing center's fit into all this?
Self-assessment, peer assessment, student assessment-could we triangulate an assessment for our projects?
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