Results tagged “development” from PEDABLOGUE

Thanks to the twitterverse, I was turned on to this video by author John Irving when asked about the future of the book:

The anxieties presently circulating about the marketplace for fiction certainly are causing a lot of changes in the publishing industry lately. In October, price wars among booksellers splashed on the headlines, causing many -- including the New York Times -- to worry about the economics of publishing and the resultant devaluation of the printed book itself. Some speculate that this is all due to the mainstream attention and interest that ebook hardware is finally getting, especially the Amazon Kindle.

Updike speaks to the impact of all this on young writers. I am starting to wonder how the role of creative writing programs and the teaching of creative writing professors will change as a result, since young writers are who we serve. Here are my thoughts -- a rapid fire of brainstorming, more than fully-composed thoughts -- about what, perhaps, creative writing teachers should be considering.

For one thing, we should neither give up on the book, nor hide from the realities of the trade by squatting behind a library shelf or the literary canon. We need to be engaged with the present AND the past, with a toe dipped into the future of our students, as well.

We should adapt to paradigm shifts not by teaching to the marketplace but by teaching to the long-view and by persistently putting publishing into historical context. Students need to be aware of current industry realities, and we need to be engaged in it to understand it completely as teachers. But there is wisdom in our experience and we need to share that experience, in order for students to recognize that publishing as an ever-changing process, and is never "stable" in any fixed way. It has always been historically-contingent, and always been in a state of flux across time. The "book" has always been an artifact of the marketplace of ideas -- a trace artifact of a cultural movement always in-process. This is as true of business trends as it is of artistic movements, and often one change is simply responding and/or adapting to the other.

We should discuss electronic publishing not as the "new" or the "best" but simply one medium for messaging which is as equally valid for expression as any other. When it comes to publishing contracts, ebooks are just one license among many that a writer can act on, and while one license may be more economically viable at any given time than another, all are equally legitimate ways to transfer intellectual property to an audience.

We should inform students about intellectual property law, and advise them to protect their property -- or to know what rights they're donating to the public domain when they unleash it free online or in free ebook giveaways.

We should encourage experimentation with format just as we encourage experimentation with the blank page to poets.

Too often writers glom on to one format or medium or genre and fixate on it (usually because they derived some success within it) -- and this includes everything from the Kindle of today to the illustrated manuscript in days of old. We need to engage new technologies while also understanding the book as a technology itself. But more than that, the key point for new writers to understand -- after they've learned the art of writing and become interested in pre-professional, career trajectories -- is that the products of their imagination and craftsmanship are also ultimately social texts once they become published. Writing, when all is said and done (and revised and marketed) is a form of property that can be traded, and graduates of writing programs rarely learn enough about this stage of the process.

Publishing needs to be considered a stage of the writing process. It is the end stage, but not necessarily the terminus of the process. Books get printed, but the life of the book does not end when the ink dries. There are dialogues that open up (such as in reviews) and books are often updated and revised, serialized and sequelized...and one book experience always informs the next book experience, for writers who survive it.

It is good to teach students "the book life." To think of writing as a way of life in a culture that is not inherently friendly to that way of living. Texts like Jeff Vandermeer's recent title, Booklife: Strategies and Survival Tips for the 21st Century Writer are movements in the right direction. Courses like our own "Publication Workshop" at Seton Hill U, are others.

Sharing the end results of work produced in a classroom -- in end-of-term class readings, in class-generated anthologies, in online literary magazines -- are all forms of publication. Many teachers neglect to exploit this as an arena for learning the way. Because it's the messiest part of the process, and the part where "rejection" (beyond grading systems) looms. Bridging the conventional forms of classroom publishing (such as a reading of revised work to the classroom at the end of the term) with emergent formats (such as video recordings to be uploaded for public comments from youtube) will engage writing students with the marketplace of ideas today.

In addition to the "book life" and being aware of the status and reality of the economy of writing, there is also something simply called the "reader's life." We should remain role models for engaged readers as much as writers, with an interest in the output of the publishing world. We should advise students to take literature courses and spend time in the library. We should buy books, and practice what we preach by investing in the world that invests in us as authors. We should share and explore new technologies and trends in publishing and talk about these formats with our students. We should show that we are readers as much as writers -- we are bookish. Students need to see us reading, hear us reciting published works, spot us in the faculty break room reading a kindle, recognize us in the audience at a public poetry reading, see us browsing the shelves at the local Barnes and Noble, sit across from us at a table in the library. When they do so, they will see themselves reflected in the world of books as a real, lived experience.

Last week I bought a Kindle. I carried my ebook device around all week not to show off some new gaget, but to say Look...this might be what our future looks like. I'm interested in where this is heading...are you? I opened up a dialogue with readers on my horror writing weblog, about the ebook watershed. I uploaded documents for a Dean's Council meeting to my Kindle and brought it to the meeting instead of printing them out or using a laptop. I showed my Kindle to almost every student who came to my office for advising this past week, for both the "wow" factor and to say "hey, you might be getting your textbooks this way someday." Down the hall, my colleague ordered a Kindle DX for his journalism courses, and posted an interesting blog about the kindle's impact on academics. Teachers and writers open up conversations about books; books are portals into conversations about culture. Writers shouldn't be worried, but engaged and thoughtful; we need to be steeled up against the fluctuations inherent to the industry, but also willing and able to transcend it. That's the skill of the creative writer -- telling a good story transcends the medium and the economics of the exchange. But we also have to be creative in finding ways for getting our stories heard.

And we need to keep publishing our own writing, creative or not, as well. That's the only way to truly learn what it's like out there. To accumulate knowledge of the book world and bring it back to our classrooms, whether explicitly or obliquely. The skills and knowledge that we've always taught will never go out of fashion, but we need to recognize what is at stake in our students' lives when changes are on the horizon.

It seems almost criminal to advise a student to become a novelist without also arming them with some sort of knowledge and wisdom about the marketplace for fiction. The power of an educated writer is not simply to write well, but to join a community of like-minded thinkers and to participate smartly in the world in which they hope to operate, economically as well as discursively. We can react to changes in the industry with optimism or skepticism, but we should never abandon the one certain thing we have to give writers of the future: hope, balanced by wisdom and intelligence.

Good article by Josh Cohen on the Teacher Professional Development Sourcebook today, called "Teachers Take To Twitter." Along with giving some tips for twitter usage, the key point is that twitter is building a community of teachers. Cohen cites Bill Ferriter, a 6th grade social studies teacher, succinctly:

“Searching Twitter is searching the minds of teachers. It’s collective intelligence. When you can pick the brains of 200 highly accomplished teachers, you’ll get good success.”

I set up a separate account on twitter for my teaching-related work at http://twitter.com/arnzen. I enjoy the connection with that "collective intelligence" that Ferriter mentions. It's half faculty-lounge, half-development conference. The trick is to 'follow' other teachers...do searches for words like 'pedagogy' and connect with the most interesting 'tweeters' by following them. Your network will spread.

Of course, twitter can be used in the classroom, too (though I have yet to try this). Emerging Ed Tech gives six good examples. Academhack gives a great overview of its possible applications in "Twitter for Academia" (which was picked up by The Chronicle). H Songhai gives even more depth and anecdotes about it.

I can imagine setting up a specific account name on twitter for a class, with all students doing the same, and each 'following' each other on the site -- and using these short tweets for chats, or live (if everyon has the technology in a lab, or laptop situation) as something akin to 'clickers' in the classroom, but with many more options and critical thinking applications than simply polling quantitative reactions.

"The classroom is like my garden. There is nothing that is ever ugly in it. If it is capable of blooming, it stays." -- Louis Schmier, "My Most Important Teaching Tool", Peer Review

The quote above comes from Schmier's reflective essay in the Spring 2009 issue of the AACU's journal, Peer Review. (I blush to brag that I just learned my analysis of Rate My Professor from this blog was also cited by the editor elsewhere in this issue). In his opening anecdote, Schmier describes how he was once asked the question by her mentor, "What is your most important pedagogical tool?" and it later struck him that it was ultimately herself and "the power of [his] intentions."

This may seem quite obvious. But the key word here is "intention." It takes reflexive practice to really know what your own intentions are as a teacher. Our job title is a verb that sometimes becomes a tautology ("As a teacher I intend to teach") that focuses on the content of the teaching, rather than the actual process of how we teach and what it means to teach.

This is why, perhaps, crafting and annually revising a "philosophy of teaching" statement could be a valuable "tool" for your teaching toolbox.

Schmier's essay essentially concludes with such a philosophy. I really liked his iteration of seven elements that compose his "vision statement." These are overtly optimistic and necessarily general, leading with the metaphor above: that "the classroom is like my garden." It's a good metaphor, though it ostensibly includes nurturing rather than weeding. The teacher feeds and cultivates, but lets learning take its own natural course.

In doing so, there must be room for aberrant growth and unpredictable weather. In another element of his vision statement, he writes: "The classroom is a shop of 'serious novelties'...we must never get into a predictable, old-hat, stagnating, repetitive, and mind-numbing routine. New ways of looking at, thinking about, and using both the material and ourselves must be the rule of each day." I share this vision. Constructing moments of 'serious novelty' is the only way to prime the pump of intellectual curiosity -- which is a pro forma requirement for autonomous learning.

-- postscript: thanks for the corrections Charles B.!

Mano Singham at the University Center for Innovation in Teaching and Education at Case Western Reserve University has published a great page of advice for faculty in Managing Time More Effectively. It kindly reprints a handout I produced for a Teaching and Learning Seminar a few years back (called "Faculty Time Savers" in teaching, scholarship and service, published here on Pedablogue) among other great resources for advice online.

I love reading tips and tactics like these; one little change can make a whopping difference in not simply productivity but keeping one's sanity!

[NOTICE: The deadline for applications has ended and we have begun vetting a parcel of strong contenders. Should a viable candidate not be chosen, I will repost.]

*** A Public Service Announcement! ***

FACULTY WANTED TO TEACH WRITING OF POPULAR FICTION

Assistant Professor of English
Location: Greensburg, PA
Category: Faculty - Liberal Arts - English and Literature
Posted: 11/10/2008
Application Due: Open Until Filled
Type: Full Time

Seton Hill University seeks published novelist of popular fiction (preferably mystery/suspense), to teach and to mentor novel-length theses in the graduate low-residency Writing Popular Fiction program (half-load), and to teach undergraduate courses in creative writing and first-year composition.

Candidates should hold a Ph.D. in English, MFA considered. Background in journalism, publishing, and/or editing a plus. Teaching experience/potential at undergraduate level desirable.

Send a letter of application, curriculum vitae, official transcripts, a statement of philosophy of teaching, a writing sample, a teaching portfolio, and three letters of reference. The review process will begin February 15, 2009 and will continue until the position is filled.

Seton Hill University is a Catholic, liberal arts University, educating traditional and non-traditional undergraduate and graduate students. Classes are offered in a variety of formats - day, evening, and weekends. Seton Hill has a student-centered campus culture based on Catholic values, acceptance, community and service. The campus is located 35 miles east of Pittsburgh.

Postal Address: Dr. John Spurlock, Chair
Humanities Division
Seton Hill University
Seton Hill Drive
PO Box 507F
Greensburg, PA 15601
Email Address: spurlock@setonhill.edu
http://fiction.setonhill.edu
http://www.setonhill.edu

***
[NOTICE: The deadline for applications has ended and we have begun vetting a parcel of strong contenders. Should a viable candidate not be chosen, I will repost.]

Just file this one under "thought of the day."

"Writing is less a profession than a professing -- a way of stimulating, organizing and affirming thoughts to give meaning to some slice of life." -- William Safire

I culled this quote from the introduction to a book of quotations called Good Advice on Writing, edited by William Safire and Leonard Safir, (Simon and Schuster, 1992). At first I just liked the way Safire framed the act of writing as something akin to teaching, construing writers as professors, of a sort. But looking over it again, I think those functions he lists are precisely what defines the professorial role:

• stimulating


• organizing


• affirming


• interpreting ["giving meaning to"]

This list (perhaps incomplete) still functions as something of a "writing teacher's taxonomy." We stimulate students to think and act in the world -- a stimulus that produces a written response. We organize our curriculum and our syllabi content and our daily class periods, and we arm students with organizational strategies for their own ideas. We affirm what students do right in our comments and we reaffirm the wisdom of the textbooks and literature in our discussions and reinforcement of them. We interpret the world and its culture -- and by employing and modeling the methods of our discipline, or by having students interpret one another's work in peer groups, we help students develop these skills on their own.

The better writer you are, perhaps, the better teacher you can be. I see this all the time in our Writing Popular Fiction program, which on top of having a rock solid full time faculty base of PhDs who write fiction, also brings in professional writers as adjuncts to mentor novelists and teach courses in the craft. I see the transference of good writing to good teaching in the Freshman Comp courses taught by people who enjoy the craft and employ it as part of their career both in the English major and throughout the disciplines; and it is self-evident in the student tutors who work in our writing center, hired because of their strong writing skills. I see it in the writers who have taught me much in their non-fiction instructional books about the art and craft and methods of teaching, learning, writing, reading.

Michele Martin at The Bamboo Project just posted a link to an interesting Reflection Flow Chart (authors Alan Chapman and Sharon Drew Morgan call it a 'diary tool') that might might be useful for teachers engaging in reflexive practice through journaling (I discussed this in a book review a few weeks ago). Here's an embedded version of it:

REFLECTIVE DIARY TOOL - Get more Business Plans

Martin's blog has some great tips on reducing mental clutter, too...somewhat related to my winter break decluttering mission (still in progress!).

***
Note: The pedablogue site design is down while the webmaster upgrades us to the latest version of Movable Type. Do not adjust your set.

I have to thank Marc Sheffner for turning me on to Ed Nuhfer's excellent Nutshell Notes -- a collection of tips for teachers hosted at Idaho State U (earlier copies are also gathered in a big .pdf file by CU Denver, where it used to be published). It's a wonderful resource!

Since we're fast approaching the New Year, I thought I'd celebrate by pointing readers to Nuhfer's article "Toward a New Year: Strengthening Syllabi". It was written in 2003, but that doesn't mean it's out of date: the essay spoke to me because I, too, am revising my syllabi over the Winter Break as I prepare for the new term. The article is brief, but I liked the section where the teacher is encouraged to "Tell something about yourself [on the syllabus] because you will be the most important person in this course to each student." Simple truth, followed by good advice and what personal things to divulge.

As I browsed through the various issues of Nutshell Notes, I bookmarked another one that really made me sit up and rethink a few things. It was Nuhfer's "Levels of Thinking and Educational Outcomes" piece, which features a great table of Bloom's Taxonomy of Cognitive Domains in relation to the taxonomy of others (even DeBono's six thinking "hats"). Bloom becomes very dogmatic in educational circles, so it was nice to see this consideration of alternative frameworks for student development. Nuhfer organizes the various tables on his chart by four areas of a learner's emphasis: content-intensive emphases, process-intensive emphasis, self-reflection, and judgment from experience. The latter is the one least addressed by Bloom's Taxonomy, which gave me pause. Nuhfer negotiates these differences in terms of William Perry's treatment of the stages of intellectual growth with an emphasis on Lee Knefelkamp's discussion on "personalism" -- all this is a part of a series of essays spurred by a teacher's workshop related to Nutshell Notes that focused on Perry's book, Forms of Ethical and Intellectual Development in the College Years. I'd like to read that book. I plan to think about my syllabi in relation to these issues, too, as I revise them. [I'm also updating Pedablogue's design a bit, particularly by adding tags to entries to ease navigation... if you have a recommended tag you'd like me to add, let me know in a comment.]

Happy New Year!

I stopped at a Half-Priced Books store in Monroeville this past October and found myself burrowing around in their really great section in the back of the store, for "Teaching." In it, I picked up some really great titles cheap, including a book I want to call attention to in this review, called Reflective Practice in Action: 80 Reflection Breaks for Busy Teachers by Thomas S.C. Farrell. But before I get to it, I wanted to first say that spontaneously browsing around in the "Teaching" or "Education" section of a bookstore is a really good idea once in awhile -- especially if you're not a pedagogy specialist or teacher trainer by profession -- and I encourage you to take a moment to do this if you're shopping in a bookstore for the holidays. You might be surprised by what gifts you might find for yourself.

It's also the case that those bookstore sections for Teaching and Education are rarely well-organized and become a catch-all for any title that smacks of school. Thus, you often find exercises for kindergarteners and home-schooler workbooks placed side by side with philosophical books and guitar instructional manuals. It's a mess. That's both good and bad (and perhaps says something about the coherency of our industry): you'll have to dig to find what you need, but you might find a hidden treasure.

Of course, that's true of all bookstore shelves to some degree. And the ENTIRE bookstore is really about learning, is it not?

In any case, one of those hidden treasures I recently found was Reflective Practice in Action by Thomas S.C. Farrell (Corwin Press, 2004). It seems like just the sort of book any teacher who blogs or keeps a journal would find of interest, because it is filled with questions, worksheets and discussions intended to prompt thinking and writing about one's mission and career as an instructor. Through reflective teaching, Farrell claims, "teachers can begin to locate themselves within their profession and start to take more responsibility for shaping their practice" (6).

I know a lot of teachers who struggle over writing their annual self-reports, development plans, and teaching portfolios. Sometimes this struggle is located in one's relationship to writing itself. At other times, these documents that we have to write in the name of development sometimes are seen as empty exercises in paper shuffling, bureaucratical nonsense, and just one more thing to do on top of a million others. One sometimes wonders what the point of it all is, when only one person or committee often reads it closely before it's filed away in some infinitely-receding drawer of bureaucratic paperwork, never to be seen again.

But I have always refused to see any project that involves writing as a waste of time. It makes me a better writer and often my writing leads me to new ways of seeing a topic, inspiring me to change my relationship to it. So rather than treating those "official" forms of reflection as dehumanizing forms of busy work, I have tried to use those documents as moments to write reflectively about my career (sometimes to the consternation of those who have to read them, because I write a lot). This book reminds me that reflection -- taking stock about where one has gone and where one is going -- is entirely the point of those documents to begin with.

Moreover, this slim, 100 page book makes reflecting on one's work easier, more pleasurable and, ultimately, more significant. Grounded in the principles of reflective practice, it aims at helping teachers see their work in a less technical and more organic fashion. While not every "guided reflection break" offered in the book is equally of value, the book does an excellent job identifying the diverse areas where one might direct their attention in thinking reflectively, and it utilizes research in a refreshingly clear and practical manner, by emphasizing activity and application of the principles it outlines in a systematic (but not overly formal) way.

The book opens by exploring the theories behind "reflective practice" by immediately engaging the reader in thinking that reexamines one's assumptions about teaching and how they have played out in our practical work. It is a transformative process founded on heightened self-awareness. "...Reflective practice is a systematic and structured process in which we look at concrete aspects of teaching and learning with the overall goal of personal change and more effective practice...we change as a result of the awareness brought about by engaging in reflection." (27).

Farrell seems to draw the bulk of his research from the work of Kenneth Zeichner and Daniel Liston, authors of Reflective Teaching: An Introduction, which delves into the pedagogical theory behind reflective practice in depth. The book brings more critics into the picture -- like Daniel Schon and Max Van Manen -- and the bibliography covers all the primary sources in this field of pedagogy. I think Farrell's book can be seen as a sort of practical workbook to go along with Zeichner and Liston's title, so the two could work hand in hand if assigned in a teacher development course. Some of Farrell's "prompts" would occur naturally to a reader of Reflective Teaching: An Introduction, but what makes Farrell's book useful is the systematic and proactive way in which he guides the application of its concepts.

The first four chapters of the book provide an array of models for reflective practice and explore methods for any teacher or group to put theory into action. It's a great concise overview, while being inspirational (covering the first 24 prompts of the 80 in the book). In the book's fifth chapter, the author outlines the "Farrell Model of Reflective Practice," which identifies a wide range of different ways in which the prompts in the book can be utilized, whether in isolation or in groups, while covering the principle modalities of reflection (37). This section opens up the numerous arenas in which reflection can occur -- from journals to teacher development workshops -- and readers might be surprised by the number of reflective practices happening all around us on campus all the time, and the myriad ways one can approach reflective thinking.

The latter chapters of Farrell's book are focused on specific means toward enhancing one's reflective practice. These processes are: group discussions, classroom observations, journal writing, and the teaching portfolio. The book ends by encouraging one to be a "reflective practitioner" and is the most involved and personal chapter for helping teachers come up with their own prompts for reflection. Here he draws upon and expands Zeichner and Liston's five principle elements of the reflective practitioner in a way worthy of citing fully:

A reflective teacher:

• Examines, frames, and attempts to solve dilemmas in classroom practice.
• Is aware of and questions the assumptions and values he or she brings to teaching
• Is attentive to the institutional and cultural contexts in which he or she teaches
• Takes part in curriculum development and is involved in school change efforts
• Takes responsibility for his or her own professional development

Farrell's book is a great assistant in making one a more reflective teacher, in general. But there are other things he brings to the table that got my interest. For example, he talks about using a method called the SCORE (Seating Chart Observation Record) to analyze how teachers interact with groups that seems very useful for, say, analyzing a videotape of one's class or observing a colleague's class. This would involve drawing a seating chart,and drawing lines between teacher and students when questions are asked or addressed, which I imagine could be revelatory of unconscious habits like favoring one side of the room or calling on the same set of students over and over again.

Overall, I'm glad I stumbled upon this book and I recommend it to anyone who is looking for something to prompt their writing about teaching (like bloggers) or help in writing their own self-assessments. I think administrators and faculty development coordinators who are looking for practical ways to help faculty energize their growth in an autonomous-yet-connected fashion would benefit greatly from this title.

See ItsLife's coverage of more issues in reflective practice.

"...however effectively one 'prepares' for a class, the realities of learning alter the original orientation in a number of creative and unpredictable ways. If the structure is too tight, or the scenario is too predictable, then we move towards a tightly organized outcomes-based approach to learning. We end up confusing the relationship between clear goals (set by the teacher), and an anticipation that the student will meet the expectations of the course, because they have replicated the core meaning of the content. This is, to some degree, summarized by the assumption that teachers need to envision what students should know at the end of a course. Yet, knowledge cannot be packaged in such a simplistic way. We gain an understanding of an idea, for example, through dialogue. The dialogue can lead in an untold number of different directions. The fundamental unpredictability of dialogue is that both interacting parties may have no sense of where they are headed and may, indeed, learn in ways that they had not anticipated. This should be a source of excitement, but it is often a source of anxiety. I believe the anxiety is partially situated in how we define teachers and students." Ron Burnett, in "The Radical Impossibility of Teaching"

I have not really processed this article as fully as I should yet, but Ron Burnett's "The Radical Impossibility of Teaching" was a fascinating read for me, because -- among many interesting ideas that question the assumptions we have about institutionalized learning -- the argument cited above encapsulates my occasional resistance to "outcomes based" assessment. I believe that having assessable goals and objectives gives a class a focus, a common ground, and a sense of direction. But by the same token, there's a degree to which these outcomes need to emerge organically from the class itself more collaboratively than they typically do. Burnett argues against the notion that objectives be prescribed by the teacher's hasty, generalized prediction about what students "need" that is handed down from above before the fact -- especially if "above" means not only the teacher, but some larger institutional group which the teacher is simply delivering like some enforcer or mediator between the institution and the student. Burnett invites us to think about some radical reconfigurations which cultivate creativity in the classroom. Like, what if the students were allowed to collaborate with the teacher, modifying and revising the learning objectives in the class? (The answer asks for more responsibility from the student than you might think).

In a system controlled universally through "outcome-based" assessment, where curricular administration risks becoming reduced to an act of enforcing policies rather than enhancing the development of teaching, such revision is virtually impossible. And yet at the same time, students do in their very particularity and individuality revise and adapt the learning objectives in their own ways. Assignments like "reflective essays" and "self-assessments" encourage students to gauge their own investment in course outcomes and to pursue them as they feel they need. And as long as teachers are working closely with students in interpersonal ways -- such as in individual office conferences -- the learning that happens can be guided and modulated to some degree in concert with the teacher.

While a teacher can use the course itself to "play" off the objectives, the syllabus remains the invariable law and point of accountability. The outcomes themselves are never really open to student revision in any way that can be filed, made permanent, or recognized publicly in the name of "accountability" or "assessment." Thus, I would suggest that the "radical impossibility" at work here is not one of teaching or of learning, per se, but of the very idea of a universal "outcome." Although grading and assessment have numerous modalities, a self-conscious teacher must recognize the virtual impossibility of measuring outcomes in any concrete way, beyond some abstract/numerical method (evaluations by ranking rather than providing qualitative comments) that reduces the significance of the experience and threatens to rob the quality of the course objective -- if not the course itself -- of meaningful substance.

Ah well...I'm still mulling these ideas over. Burnett's essay was originally delivered to the Federation Internationale des Sciences Sociales, in Milan Italy in 1999, and subsequently published in Critical Approaches to Culture, Communications + Hypermedia, his excellent weblog.

This afternoon I attended a great Teaching & Learning Forum on our campus on the topic of teaching with technology. Mary Spataro -- our campus technology-enhanced learning guru and Instructional Design pro -- ran a healthy discussion on implementing technology in a way that supports the Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education outlined by Chickering and Gamson for the American Assn for Higher Ed. This work was done in 1987, and though I have heard these principles in various guises throughout the years, the citation was new to me, so I thought I'd briefly blog about it.

In a nutshell, Chickering and Gamson argue that it is good practice for a teacher to employ these seven principles in their courses...

1. encourages contact between students and faculty,


2. develops reciprocity and cooperation among students,


3. encourages active learning,


4. gives prompt feedback,


5. emphasizes time on task,


6. communicates high expectations, and


7. respects diverse talents and ways of learning.

In our development session, Spataro broke the faculty into small groups, assigning one principle to each group to unearth ways that they are using technology in their courses to support such practices. My group discussed "gives prompt feedback" -- such as using e-mail to respond to student theses or topic proposals before they actually write their papers, or having some stock "comments" to copy and paste into a response to student writing. Spataro also added that recording oral notes is another way that is gaining popularity (though, as I have argued with my SHU colleague in New Media, Dennis Jerz, there are instances where too much play with this may not be fair to the student writer because it does not, for example, teach direct editing skills by example... on the other hand, such text-to-speech technology can be liberating as Norman Coombs has explained).

In their 1996 article, "Technology as a Lever," Chickering and Ehrmann similarly illustrated how these principles can be achieved with technology (and the website that this article appears on -- hosted by the Teaching Learning and Technology Group -- gives a host of good sources on the topic). They mention Coombs (again) and his use of e-mail as an example of how online discussions can get quiet students to raise issues in a more equalizing and honest setting (in this case, Coombs reports that he had taught for many years, but it wasn't until he began to use e-mail to teach his course that a student finally had the gumption to ask, “What’s a white guy doing teaching black history?” -- see Ehrmann's "Grand Challenges" for more on using e-mail as an educational tool). The article is a great I like how they conclude with the argument that "technology is not enough" and that students need to take action to learn on their own (or to make the instructor aware when they are not "respecting" the diverse ways that students learn).

If it isn't self-evident from this weblog, I am in favor of technology-enhanced learning and I do try to follow the above principles, though I am always skeptical of pedagogical AND technological dogma. I use technology in many of my courses and in advising, but I would add that there are times when technology can actually get in the way of achieving these principles. Sometimes there are simply "technical difficulties" but at other times there are "faculty difficulties" with the technology, or it is utilized in unconsciously (or even fetishistically) poor ways. If a teacher is not modulating their employment of technology in the classroom with other methods, and aren't engaging with the course technology to the same degree their students are, then, for example, these tools can only get in the way, lead to passive learning, or discourage other forms of student-faculty contact. Being receptive to student feedback on the medium for communication is crucial.

Simply put, sometimes we use the wrong tools for the job without knowing it; this does not necessarily mean one has to throw out the tool if it isn't working, but instead try another guage (swap an inch-based wrench for a metric-sized one). As Spataro urged us today, it's best to start small...you'll find the right amount of technology to use along the way.

Chickering and Gamson actually mention something similar to this final point in their original article, when they discuss the classroom as an environment that a teacher develops. Here's how they see the ideal environment for teaching the principles:

• A strong sense of shared purposes.


• Concrete support from administrators and faculty leaders for those purposes.


• Adequate funding appropriate for the purposes.


• Policies and procedures consistent with the purposes.


• Continuing examination of how well the purposes are being achieved.

All of this, I would say, obviously pertains to teaching with technology, as well. Technology is not just a tool; it is an element of a learning environment that needs just as much planning, planting, grooming, and trimming as a tree in a backyard.

...one question we might ask is: "Do we always know when we are teaching?" I do not think we do. The single most important thing I learned as an undergraduate may have been that I was capable of graduate study. I learned this from a professor who had no idea he taught it to me. Brief remarks that seem innocuous to us may have a lasting impact on our students. Hopefully, the influence is positive. I do not mean to give us more importance or power as teachers than we actually possess. However, a different but equally significant error may be to ignore the potential impact we can have at moments when we are least aware of what we are saying. -- Peter J. Giordano, Teaching and Learning When We Least Expect It

I had a similar experience, when an American Literature teacher named Beth Ann Bassein answered one of my annoying questions by saying, "Oh, you'll learn all about that when you get your Masters." It floored me. She just continued on in her lectures, not missing a beat. I barely even knew what graduate school was, let alone felt I'd be able to get into one, and here this professor was, assuming I would get my master's degree...heck, she didn't even bother trying to talk me into it! Beth Ann Bassein taught me many things when I took her classes, especially her poetry writing courses (because she's a knockout poet herself), but she was one of the toughest teachers on campus and that one passing comment -- with all its unexpected acceptance and faith in my ability -- alone gave me courage to try. (I had another moment like this when, during my Masters, a Medieval lit professor wrote in the margins of a critical essay: "Oh, shut up and go get your PhD already!") These little para-educational things mean nothing -- and yet they mean everything.

So what a wonderful essay Giordano's "Teaching and Learning When We Least Expect It" is. He reminds us that we are not always in control, that learning often happens between the cracks of the syllabus, and that what we say and do informally with (or around) our students can often teach them far more than we realize.

In his essay, he raises a very pithy question: "Do we always know when we are teaching?" And the answer is, of course not. All we really have is faith and speculation and a whole lot of intuition. Sure, good teaching is mentored, learned, and practiced, grounded in deep, lifelong study and professional development. It's based in what people call "best practices"...but I think we often draw on our unconscious well when we are teaching -- modeling our strategies and challenges off of how we ourselves learned best, and refining our techniques and personal style in a series of never-ending encores of successful teaching strategies we've employed in the past. New teachers really do make it up as they go along -- and might be surprised to learn that older teachers (usually the ones who are still engaged and excited about teaching) are making it up even still.

One of the joys of teaching, for me, is coming up with a really good discussion question off the cuff, or dreaming up an impromptu writing prompt, and watching what happens when students get inspired by it. It's magic. I'll sometimes run back to my office and make sure I write down what I did, so I'll remember to do it again in the future. But sometimes we'll run a really great exercise or discussion prompt one year and it'll come as a surprise to us just how good it can be, but when we repeat it the following year, it doesn't click and we wonder what we did wrong. The idea is only half of it; it's the fuel -- but the classroom dynamic provide the fire.

Giordano mulls over metaphors for teaching, and how none of them are quite right, though "midwife" comes closest. I like his idea that teachers need to be "good company" to students. We have to let go of control fantasies for that to happen. Giordano's essay reminded me of the basic principle of learning: it can happen any time. The best thing a teacher can do is try to create an environment where there's lots of flint that might spark fire. But it's up to the student -- and an infinite number of variables beyond anyone's control -- to strike it.

I think it's crucially important to remember these lessons during times of (what Carolyn Segal has termed) Assessmentdelirium.

***
I found this article on a site I often mention here on Pedablogue: the Tomorrow's Professor mailing list run by Rick Reis out of the Standford CTL program. Their mailing list is worth subscribing to. I'm currently researching "Transormation Theory" for a pedagogy paper I'm delivering next weekend at the International Conference for the Fantastic in the Arts, and I found Giordano's essay very useful.

As I mentioned in my first entry after returning from hiatus, RateMyProfessors.com has grown since I first looked at it a few years ago, particularly in the ways in which professors can interact and respond to the student comments. Inspired by the video responses from teachers, I decided to join the site as a professorial member, and since I'm guessing other profs out there rarely join it (or probably only access it anonymously once in awhile to read their own ratings or those of their colleagues), I thought I'd open the curtain a little bit so you can see what it's like there once you sign up. Consider this a website review, rather than any endorsement or direct encouragement to join them.

IN FACT...
In fact, you might not want to encourage the site by giving it a hit to begin with. If you haven't seen Rate My Professors, it is an independent website where college students can post comments anonymously (virtually without responsibility, save for community enforcement of the rules). These students fill out forms that "rank" their professors on such criteria as level of difficulty...and "hotness." Indeed, beside a "highest ranked" chart for schools and teachers, the site sports a master chart of the "50 hottest professors" on their front page, which probably tells you all you need to know about the academic legitimacy of the site.

If it doesn't, a good overview of this issue appeared in Christine Lagorio's article, Hot for Teacher, which appeared in the Village Voice in January 2006 -- a highly recommended read which brilliantly compared RMP and other websites of its ilk to "the slosh of a giant virtual spitball smacking the ivory tower" while at the same time reminding us that there may be some merit in the site's purpose.

Terry Ceasar, in his lucid IHE article on the significance of the site on the landscape of higher ed, also gives much enlightenment, comparing it to American Idol and musing over the consequences.

Although in my reading of the site, students tend to use this site to recommend their favorite teachers and advisors (often with hyperbolic-yet-kind praise) more than anything else, a great number of professors have railed against the anonymous postings of students, who seem free to virtually libel a professor (or at least bias others from taking their classes and soiling their reputations) without accountability, and to post their comments and ratings completely outside the context of the usual "course evaluation" where such things might actually help the teacher review and alter the class. In other words, it seems geared more toward personality and popularity points than anything related to learning. Some profs have gone so far as to retaliate by rating their students in a like fashion, as the fascinating blog rateyourstudents makes clear. It's true that this may be going too far (or maybe even sinking to the sophomoric level of the students on RMP) because the Rate My Prof site does allow visitors to "flag" inappropriate postings...and now allows profs to "rebut" them, generally...but by the same token, unless a professor visits the site and does these things herself, it is probably unlikely that a student will police any professor's profile.

So whether you're a tenured college teacher, grad student instructor, or adjunct, you might want to join the site anyway and keep an eye on what people are saying about you, after all.

Indeed, as Towsen U professors James Otto, Douglas A. Sanford Jr., and Douglas N. Ross pointed out in "Does Ratemyprofessor.com Really Rate My Professor?" -- a thorough empiric analysis of the site that appeared in the Oct 2007 journal of Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education -- the numbers on this site might actually have statistical correlation to teaching performance, despite the occasional flames of student outburst that call them into question.

So perhaps RMP and others of its ilk -- Professorperformance.com, Pickaprof.com, or Studentsreview.com -- might have some merit. If you're interested in joining, what follows is a preview of what you'll find. I'll share my opinions and warnings along the way, and conclude with some passing ideas about how this might be turned into something teachable or work for faculty self-development.

VERIFYING YOUR STATUS
I was happy to learn that the site offers a verification process to make sure that someone who says they're a prof is actually employed by an institution before allowing them to join the site. This gives ratemyprofessors.com a modicum of credibility. They asked for my phone number and warned that it might take a few days for them to verify me; perhaps they heard my voice mail, I'm not sure. I'm not sure how they verified my identity, exactly, but my info is up online on this page as well as in the faculty directory on the Seton Hill University website, so I'm sure it wasn't too hard to confirm. Regardless, it took a few days so I'm assuming it was a real verification, either by phone or online. I was ultimately confirmed via an e-mail message that asked me to sign in from my campus e-mail account, which is the same way many e-mail lists will verify their subscribers to prevent spam. So the free enrollment process seems to function well to prevent anonymous students posing as teachers -- something other social networking pages probably could work harder do.

SIGNING IN
After joining, and being verified as a prof, and signing in for the first time -- the site then asks you to fill in the typical "personal profile" questionnaire that asks a few questions that seem almost too personal for the purposes of this site. The professor's sign-in page is really the same as the student sign-in page, so perhaps that accounts for the personality questions. I had to hunt for a button that said "I'm a Professor" to bypass some of these opening screens. But, clearly there's more going on here than just evaluating teachers. Like most social networking sites, there's clearly a degree of demographic harvesting at work. I kept my answers pared down to bare minimums and a few outright falsehoods. (I don't think students need to know my birthday, for example...but I'm sure it helps MTVu's marketers understand the age of their aggregate users. Still: isn't it clear that most users of RMP are likely 18-24 -- i.e. college-aged?! That demographic is built in to the very concept of the site! No matter: as far as they're concerned, I am a 94 year old professor who's birthday falls on Xmas day. If I start getting geriatric foot powder spam or gift cards to senior discount drug stores, I'll know something's amiss!)

RATING A PROF
We all know that websites collect information and have their own privacy policies that anyone signing up for them should read and review before signing up, and RMP has one worth reviewing before you enroll. But I raise this matter because when I browsed around the site, I noticed something interesting: even when students rate professors, they input a lot more information about the class then what you see on the main list when you look at a teacher's profile. For example, students are asked to enter whether attendance was mandatory and what sort of grade they got in the course. Where does this info go? How is it used? You don't see it on the public page of the site. We know whether students think teachers are "hot" but we don't know if they took attendance? That's odd. In any case, this info may go into a screen that no one besides the student sees -- I'm not sure, because I didn't actually rate anyone, I just went to the first page that opens up when you do so. In any case, I think maybe that course info should be reported out to the public, not kept private, because it might help readers interpret the student ratings.

One part of the rating/evaluation form that raised my eyebrow was the question about textbooks, which asked students to rank "Textbook Use" on a scale from 1 to 5 -- and then it also asked for an ISBN. Hmmm... are they sharing this information with book publishers or online booksellers? I'm not sure, because, again, this isn't reported on the public screens along with the course ratings, and it isn't clear why they're asking for it. Regardless, I seriously doubt many students look up the ISBNs of their books when rating and commenting on professor's classes, so maybe it's a moot point.

There's also a place to mark whether a prof is "still teaching" or "retired" in this rating screen. I find this odd and wonder why it's there. Because I also question how many students know this employment status if they're writing ratings about past classes with nostalgia or long-term grudges. Instead, it should ask for "year taken" or something like that.

I really don't know where all this info goes or what it signifies, but there's more going on in the ratings then meets the public eye. And given the advertising everywhere on the site (from credit cards banners on your left to deceptive text-only sponsored links on the bottom of the page) it's fair to assess a commercial interest in some of this information.

POLICING YOURSELF, TOO
Though it didn't work for me for some reason, the site promises that you can subscribe to your own page on ratemyprofessors.com as an rss feed. This might be the best way to go if you want to keep up with new postings on your work, but don't want to succumb to the lure to check your ratings as obsessively as some writers I know who check their amazon.com sales rankings. Plus it will keep you away from browsing your college on the site, where the temptation to read your colleagues' rankings is really quite strong. You probably shouldn't do this, especially if a time may come when you are in a position to evaluate the teacher for promotion or tenure. A little empathy can go a long way here: just as you probably wish your own rankings and comments had more context, if you read your colleague's info, you are doing so out of context, and shouldn't be quick to leap to any particular conclusions. Sometimes the best teachers get the worst ratings, simply because they are challenging. Any given sampling of students on RMP entry is probably not representative of the entire class -- it is simply a collection of rankings by those who use RMP -- which is not necessarily a properly random population sampling.

FINAL SCORECARD
With over 6,000 schools from five different nations, a total of 1 million profs and 6 million opinions listed about them, RMP clearly is a "hot" site with a lot of content and data. The student opinions are often genuinely felt, even if they are sometimes irresponsible or hostile or rife with empty praise. On their own criteria, and using a 4.0 grading scale, I give RMP a 3.5 for ease-of-use, a 2.5 for helpfulness, a 3 for clarity and a 3 for rater interest. Teaching is not a popularity contest, but if you are interested in student feedback on your own teaching, this is but one of many ways to look for it. I caution you against rebutting, because this could encourage future student raters to bear bait just to see what you'll say next.

Of course, you can and should still get "anonymous" feedback from your students by passing out a handout or doing your own evaluations in class, and that's a better way to go, because such evaluations occur within a specific context, and along a direct line of communication between teacher and student, rather than student and student. You could easily borrow the criteria from RMP and make your own in-class handout and -- something I would think is best -- have a class discussion about these things. In the classroom, I think it is important to separate evaluation from the politics of judgment whenever possible, and instead to turn evaluation into a method of inquiry -- an inquiry into both the subject being evaluated and the criteria used to evaluate it -- instead. In our "American Idol" culture, this understanding and skill might be more imperative than ever to teach.

We can only learn from engaging in such evaluative inquiry; rating is about snapping to judge.

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, I made a small series of new handouts on the topic of source citation for my Composition class and, among them, attached a page of a sampling of cited sources from an older handout to the batch. As I looked over the sources, I realized that all of the samples were from the 90's...and I wondered: at what point do these examples become self-evidently outdated? While it's true that a good old source is still a good source, and that "dated" research is not a necessary condition for poor research, there will soon come a time -- if it hasn't come already -- when the post-Millenial generation will see EVERY reference that begins 19xx as foreign, alien and other. I wonder if we're there yet. And I wonder if I need to update my handout just to keep it contemporary and invisibly relevant to today's world.

I used to think that the handouts I made in preparation for a course were valuable because I would have them done -- and ready to pull out as preformulated tools for the next time I taught the class (and thereby also saving me prep time). But now I'm starting to realize that revising a handout is like revising an article: it not only improves the original, but also renews its pertinence to the mind. Working on these same handouts over and over again, refining them each time I utilize them, is a way to keep me integrated in the present class and in tune with the students' developmental process, rather than tethered to the content alone. I never want to become one of those crusty old professors who lecture off of even crustier yellowed notepaper. Updating (literally, bringing them up to date) handouts helps keep the teaching vital, even though it sounds like 'extra' work; running a class is a lot like composing a long essay and revision is a necessary part of the process.

This is why it may actually be a bad idea to, say, ask a workstudy student or a teaching assistant to update the handouts for you. A handout isn't just a matter of administrative work; it's a way of processing a body of knowledge. However, sharing a handout with an assistant or even a colleague in your department might allow you to catch things you've missed. They can function as editors do. Students often do this anyway -- I know that I've had students catch mistakes in handouts "live" in class, and I appreciate it, but I've forgotten to make the changes they recommended because I get so caught up in the moment that I neglect to jot down a note or memo.

One frequent update I have to make in my handouts is in page numbers that reference the course textbook. I often try, for example, to point students to the page in the book where I am getting a quiz question, by appending the page number to the question in the quiz itself. When I reformat the quiz, I have to remember to look up the new page numbers if the book has gone into a new edition.

Naturally, this is also one of the benefits of integrating electronic handouts into your curriculum. You can make updates and edits "on the fly" to keep a handout current at any given time. But I've found that sometimes this can lead to problems, because students will print out handouts to bring to class, and if I've made many changes, they will all have different handouts. It's important to mark the date of the update somewhere on the document when going this route.

I just signed on board the campus Professional Development Committee for the next academic year. I was attracted to this committee as an offshoot of the sort of "scholarship of teaching" I've been doing on this weblog, and I'm interested in learning how other teachers seek development in addition to discovering more about the system behind providing funding and support to faculty research.

It sounds innocent enough. Quite helpful, even, to others. But what are the ideological assumptions operating behind the very idea of "professional development"? And how does it participate in the commercialization of academic life?

In her fascinating article, "Against Professional Development" (note: .pdf format), Erica McWilliam draws parallels between the discourses that surround "professional development" and the language governments and corporations use when talking about developing the Third World. It's a subversively brilliant discussion of the new power/knowledge relationships that are artificially constructed by standardized forms of professional development. She critiques the "charming absurdities" that emerge from such practices, and discusses how the drive to be "enterprising" is rewarded, if not institutionally mandated, by colleges that are more and more using a commercialized model for managing faculty. She essentially argues that professional development often reifies new technologies (for their own sake -- like, for example, rewarding those who learn to use PowerPoint for lectures, even if it reduces their teaching effectiveness). The problem she raises is that such rewards tend to commodify pedagogy into predictable pre-packaged systems, while at the same time subordinating individualized forms of self-education and other forms of growth that might otherwise emerge from one's own discipline. Borrowing from Foucault, she challenges how structured forms of professional development are complicit "in the production of the 'malleable-but-disciplined' individual that is so necessary to enterprising culture."

A remarkable read!

A recent entry about the problems with student evaluations over at the anonymous weblog for "Bitch Ph.D." is garnering a lot of heated comments (as noted by my colleague, Dennis Jerz). Essentially, she's concerned that "our primary feedback on our work comes from children...18 year olds who don't understand what your job really is" and that "a major part of the reason we all feel so alienated and anxious is because we don't get feedback or praise from people who count on any kind of regular basis."

Having just reviewed a number of part-time faculty evaluations in my job as interim division chair this term, I can see what she means. While I don't think 18 year olds are "children," it's true that the evaluations are often emotionally-driven rants or raves, whether pro or con, and often don't focus on the teaching itself -- or, when they do, they're filled out like customer service surveys rather than critical feedback on pedagogy. While I typically garner very strong recommendations, the ones with thoughtful written comments that mention specific examples are the only ones that really help me. I'm way beyond doing this for my own ego -- so while it feels good for a moment when I read the evals that say "You're the best teacher in the world!" they are sometimes only as helpful as a blank form.

But student evaluations are only part of a larger process of self-reflection and administrative evaluation. What "Bitch, Ph.D." neglects to say is that we already are (or should be) the "authorities" on our own course teaching and that the best people to teach the teacher is the students because they are the living embodiments of our course objectives. Our peers also function as our continued mentors, but they can't sit in on the day-to-day experience of our classes. Though nothing's stopping a professor from inviting colleagues to sit in on her classes, and most colleges have a system of peer review. We also get our feedback in teacher development sessions and tenure review letters -- help that comes in an academic and collegial manner, not from some outsider boss up on high. Teachers need to take advantage of all the forums for the scholarship of teaching if they really want to improve.

Besides, she kind of misses the point of the evaluation process, too: the students really are the ONLY ONES "who count on any kind of regular basis." Not because they're the customers, but because they're the learners.

Of course, I do understand her point. If a class were a book, the sort of feedback we get from editors is what we'd like to get on our teaching. Students (esp Freshman) aren't really skilled in evaluating teachers -- and yet, perhaps they are to some degree because they've been studying teaching as much as course content their whole lives. The problem is that they haven't thought of what they're doing as students in a critical manner. But evaluation skills, too, could be taught in some classes and the teacher can "prep" the evaluation at the end of term. I often directly solicit comments on specific events, telling them outright how much I depend on their feedback to improve the class -- "last year's students who took this class influenced what I taught you this year," I'll say, and so I urge them to be specific about course activities. And before the class fills out their evaluations, I'll have them brainstorm orally while I transcribe on the board all the different sorts of class activities performed across the term. This works to get concrete feedback far better than just tossing the evaluation instrument at them blindly with a fistful of pencils. I also always seem to get better evaluations (meaning thorough and critical, with cited examples and thoughtful reasoning, not just "way to go" responses) in my courses that have writing workshops, because they train students to evaluate in thoughtful ways. Any class that has students engaging in "evaluation" as part of the course content can tie those same skills into the end of term course evaluation as well.

Anyway, I think the system is indeed a "weird gig" but I'd much rather have students evaluate me at the end of the term than some sort of outside inspector watching over my shoulder the whole time. A string of bad evaluations may not be a sign of badly taught classes at all, per se -- they may instead be a sign that the teacher isn't engaging in their own development as an educator (whether by attending pedagogical conferences, soliciting peer class sit-ins, or simply talking about teaching and genuinely revising their syllabi) in the scholarly and self-reflective ways that they probably ought to be. Students tend to write positive evaluations about those who genuinely care about teaching more than they do about their own needs and are flexible in adopting the course to the students learning...even students who aren't getting good grades respond positively to teachers who care about their jobs.

I'm not saying Bitch, PhD. doesn't care about her job...if she didn't she wouldn't host such a GREAT blog about education and she wouldn't have let those evaluations get to her. When bad evals sting us, they hurt because we do care. But we can't blame the students for it. The instititution might be partly to blame, but that's only because, perhaps, the system (at some research colleges anyway) is designed in a way that is more interested in what is taught than how it is delivered. That's one reason why "teaching certification" isn't required of professors. But when the scholarship of teaching is valued by a school, then the purpose of student evaluation becomes more meaningful.

Here's a good resource: an adapted version of “Looking for Good Teaching: A Guide to Peer Observation,” by B. B. Helling (1976). It is a surprisingly lengthy checklist for teaching observations that focuses on the "good" elements of the teacher's performance, in the name of specific and positive criticism, rather than "generalities that do not deal with behavior we can do anything about...[which] rather than providing the guidance we had hoped for, they leave us feeling threatened, helpless, and discouraged." I like the optimistic tone of this -- the emphasis on reward rather than punishment. Whether you're looking for help when evaluating or observing another teacher, or simply interested in what sort of things "good" teachers do, you might want to take a look at Helling's checklist.

Discovered at the wonderfully generous Center for Teaching and Learning at Western Michigan University.

Sometimes the simplest concepts are the most problematic. Take, for example, the notion of the "credit hour." It seems like a self-evident term: one earns a college "credit" for an "hour" of academic work. But quantifying work is a very complicated affair and one "hour" of work is often a misnomer.

I've been thinking about this problem a lot recently, not only because I've hit that time of year when the grading stack avalanches down on me and I wonder whether or not I'm assigning too much. As I peruse student developmental portfolios, browse student course weblogs, and chat with faculty about the amount of reading and homework they're assigning, I really start to wonder how much is "just right" for three credit hours worth of work. Some colleagues in literature assign two or three short stories per week of reading; others assign a whole novel. When I see how much "work" students are putting into their other classes, I can't help but compare it to my own, and sometimes I end up feeling like I'm either a fascist slave driver or a dribbling softie, depending on the comparison. Perhaps that's a sign that I'm somewhere in-between and getting it just right, but since faculty seem to have such wildly disparate concepts of student workload, it's impossible to know for sure.

Although it's the gold standard for determining faculty workload and student progress toward a diploma, The "credit hour" is a slippery a concept because college students and teachers put far more "work" into a course than the typical three hours-per-week, student-in-seat interfacing. Homework, preparatory readings, office consultations...the whole gambit of learning tasks complicates matters. I try to use what I think is the "classic formula" for estimating student work: 1 hour of in-class time + 2 hours of study outside of class = one credit hour. But as Peter Ewell (from the PEW Forum on Undergraduate Learning) notes in his excellent inquiry, "Notes on the Credit Hour", there are too many inconsistencies among class approaches and that the credit hour system might be an inappropriate measurement standard for learning. Even if we set aside the impossibility of accounting for student labor outside of the classroom (though research suggests they aren't working very hard), the standards of measurement aren't "standard" at all. Different campuses design different measures of a "credit." Heck, just defining "in class" activity is slippery: some labs, internships, stage rehearsals, independent studies and other non-standard instructional activities are incongruous with the typical credit hour system.

At bottom the problem is the assumption that an hour spent in class equates with an hour of learning. But the "credit hour" could be an anachronism, given the various asynchronous methods of learning (as in online courses), and other changes that electronic media and new approaches to teaching have on the notion of "time" spent learning. Jane Wellman and Thomas Ehrlich have put a lot of work into investigating the shifts in the time and space of learning. In a Chronicle article related to their book, How the Student Credit Hour Shapes Higher Education, they recommend radical alternatives, predominantly because so much rides on the credit hour -- from faculty salaries to government funding. They smartly advocate replacing the term "hours" with "units" and suggest that emphasis on a "competency-based" system of learning assessment might be more meaningful. I haven't read this book yet, but the publisher's online excerpt from the introduction (.pdf format) suggests the following rationales for revising the system:

• The credit hour is a barrier to innovation in teaching and learning.
  
• The credit hour is a basic element of state budgets, and the measure gets in the way of budget reform.
  
• The credit hour is more often enforced as a regulatory measure in public institutions than in private institutions and within the public sector in two-year institutions more often than in four-year institutions.
  
• Innovative institutions work with and around the credit hour as a measure of student learning, but relatively few alternatives to the credit hour have occurred with respect to faculty workload.
  
• Credit hours are awarded inconsistently, with little internal policy guidance or external review about the basis for awarding them.
  

These are big institutional issues, and so much red tape has been secured to the "credit hour" that reform will be slow to come. Institutional funding and faculty workload issues are one thing, but what about student learning? Since financial aid and other forms of support require students to be enrolled "full time," at our college (which is typical of most, I think) students take 12-16 credit hours, or roughly four courses a term. This, in effect, makes sure they process out with their diplomas in four years. But some students leap for overloads because they aren't challenged, while others crumble under the weight of four when when they might more easily juggle three courses instead. At issue isn't so much the "in class" time, but the ambiguous amount of out of class work attached to any given course. While researching this topic, I found a newspaper article ("How Much Homework is Too Much?") that suggests that students can only do so much homework before their learning "plateaus" -- that is, there comes a point where doing extra homework won't do you any good. They loosely cite one study (my research suggests that it's this report from the Nat'l Center for Education Statistics), in which kids who worked on schoolwork for more than three hours a night scored lower overall than kids who had studied just 1 to 3 hours per night. I'm not sure if this holds water, because the stats tell me that the older kids get, the more extra studying pays off, but it does support the notion that maybe two hours of studying for each one hour class meeting might be "just right" for maximizing learning. Even so, time is always relative. So is learning. A "credit hour" can only operationally be defined.

As far as determining the amount of material that I put into my class assignments, I'll just have to keep trusting my gut. And keeping my ear to the ground. Talking about these things with students and faculty and administration -- and measuring them comparatively in such interdisciplinary assessment tools as developmental portfolios -- is the only way I know how to gauge whether my three credits are the same as anyone else's.

I've been moping a little bit this weekend because -- after a year's "release" from teaching the freshman composition course (my first "break" from teaching basic writing classes in twelve years of teaching) -- I'm back at "the front lines" of what many teachers would term a "service" course (i.e., a course that "serves" the college and its students rather than my field). Like most profs, I'd prefer to teach all upper division courses in my own field of specialization -- putting my PhD to work and engaging in material related directly to my interests -- rather than teaching basic argumentative and research skills to students who, initially anyway, are often hostile because the course is a requirement rather than an elective. Whether a former AP English student or a person who's English is a second language, most of the students dread the course. I always strive to make it interesting and I enjoy enlivening and energizing students to overcome those fears....partly because I'm well aware how this sort of situation can easily generate a "neither of us want to be here" vibe and undermine the student's education. I also believe deep in my heart in the mission of the course: I want to help others become better writers, no matter what grade level or major they are in.

My campus is in the minority in this country when it comes to full-time faculty teaching basic writing. On most college campuses, grad students -- or adjunct instructors with MA degrees, at best -- teach this sort of course. One source estimates that only 7% of the composition courses in this country are taught by full-time faculty. That statistic amazes me. We probably ought to be very proud for remaining so committed to our students' writing skills and the core curriculum. I should proud, too, to not be part of a community that exploits adjunct faculty or grad students for cheap labor. And yet I personally find myself wondering if my advanced degree ought to be put to better use. More than once, I've whined to my colleagues: Why did I bother spending seven years earning a PhD when I'd be "qualified" to teach this course fresh out of a BA program in English?

Of course, composition is just one course in my load. And it does keep me in touch with the students at the college. I like getting to know new English majors when they're fresh out of high school. I like seeing the non-majors -- people I wouldn't have known otherwise -- when they walk the graduation platform four years later, with pride. I like talking about current events and arguing with the younger students about various cultural issues. I enjoy teaching first year seminar. Most of the students are more honest with me because they know that I'm not going to be their advisor or major professor, so their motives -- while sometimes questionable -- are often more genuine. And while the work is sometimes more difficult than a course in my major, the payoffs are plenty.

At The Chronicle today I read David Perlmutter's optimistic essay, "Teaching the 101" , which was helped to remind me why I enjoy this often difficult course. The essay argues why full-time faculty ought to teach introductory courses, rather than graduate teaching assistants or newly minted PhDs. Granted, Perlmutter is talking about courses in his major (introduction to media courses) rather than general writing (composition courses -- which, while grounded in the field of rhetoric, often isn't taught by specialists in it). Regardless, Perlmutter rightfully asserts that these types of courses are better taught by wiser, more experienced teachers, and that they can rejuvenate the veteran faculty member in return, offering up "an anti-aging tonic" because they keep the teacher on his or her toes. Introductory courses challenge profs to think carefully about their discipline and force them to explain and justify what they do more clearly, rather than relying on jargon.

I generally agree and I am -- ultimately -- a little excited about going back to freshman composition. So far, my students are wonderfully energetic. I have a class of active talkers, eager to discuss the readings, which is always a good thing. And I just read their first drafts on a paper (an 'extended definition of education' essay) and I was actually impressed by their talent. Generally, the writing wasn't as poor as I remember it being in my other comp classes. Perhaps I'm coming at it with a new set of eyes and a renewed sense of interest. Whatever the case, the variables at work are always different...indeed, while my standard courses in creative writing often blur together in my mind, the composition sections are always distinctly unique.

But as much as teaching the intro classes challenges the teacher to "justify what they do" I do sometimes tire of justifying the academic life/work to the student who simply wants the ticket to a job. Whereas an intro or "101" course teaches a student "What does a ____ major do?" a comp class teaches "What does a generally educated critical thinker do?" I'm not convinced that that's as challenging to the teacher as an intro class in one's specialization. I think I'm particularly good at "selling" the life of the mind to even the most jaded business-minded students, but it can still be exhausting playing the roles of a motivational speaker for reading, a cheerleader for critical thinking, and a used car salesman for the pleasures of writing. Teaching the same skillset for basic collegiate survival over and over can be a bore. Especially if the students are bored by it!

Luckily, teaching freshman composition allows me to customize the class and assign new readings that interest me, and set the stage for argumentative discussions for the term to come. The pleasure of teaching comp isn't so much a return to "the foundations" as many "intro" (or 101) courses are -- instead, it lies in cultivating the student's development. It lies in hearing students argue a case with authority for the first time, or seeing a student defend a position righteously in a discussion, or in simply watching a student's voice emerge across the semester. The challenges are unique and though the general impact of the first weeks of classes still stings, I'm rising to one challenge that I hadn't thought about too much: how to be a better teacher of composition than the former me, that jaded guy in front of the classroom who's taught it for twelve years. For every freshman in my comp class, I am their first (and sometimes only) writing teacher ever. I need to remember that. Likewise, these are not the same students I've taught in the past. I can probably learn quite a bit from them -- even quite a bit about teaching from them -- than I assume.

My colleague down the hall, Dennis Jerz, has been doing some faculty development in inclusive uses of technology for the past week, and the reflective entries about this in his blog are quite a fascinating read. I empathize with some of the experiences he relays, especially with students whose in-class behavior is abberrant (and possibly psychotic). It's hard to know how to deal with problem students, particularly those who have disabilities that we're not aware of.

One of the primary subjects in my repetoire as a teacher is film studies. I've always wondered how I would accomodate a blind student in my Art of Film course. (Would a blind student even take a film course?) A deaf student could have a translator, but the instruction on film sound would be very difficult for them to comprehend.

As Richard Villa puts it, "Inclusion is changing the rules of the game so that everyone can play and everyone can win." As far as I understand the term, "Inclusive education" comes out of "special education" circles and espouses a philosophy that seeks to accomodate and adjust to the special needs of students with disabilities, whether mental, learning, or physical, in order that all learners in a campus environment are empowered to develop. Quite often, the "status quo" of classroom management doesn't take into account the needs of, say, a blind student, or a student with a learning disability.

The Center for Studies in Inclusion offers a better definition and rationale for inclusive ed worth reading.

I've had students with visual disabilities in my writing courses, and have learned more from them than about accomodation than I'd ever learn in a book. Nonetheless, chance favors the prepared mind and the web -- luckily -- has a trove of information on inclusivity. University of North Iowa has a good webpage on the philosophy and practice of "inclusive" education that's worth a look-see to get started. The "Inclusion Institute" compiled a good hotlist of web resources for more information. There are many more sites addressing specific disabilities.

I've often felt that inclusive education is not only difficult, but sometimes virtually impossible. I've harbored feelings that students with severe disabilities -- like schizophrenia -- probably don't belong in college and shouldn't interrupt the flow of the traditional class. But I also realize that to some degree, inclusivity is a primary goal of student-centered teaching. As the front page of the Florida Inclusion Network puts it, "the most disabled person in the world is a negative thinker." Reading Jerz' blog reminded me to think positively when planning my own strategies for creating an inclusive classroom. I've successfully worked with students with disabilities, but I know I can do much better.