Recently in Pedablogy Category

Follow me on twitter (user: arnzen). Once I figure out the code, I'm planning to use the site as a sideblog, so I can share links and snippets of thoughts related to teaching and academia that don't quite qualify for full-blown blog entries on Pedablogue.

[That twitter account is for my Jekyll. My Hyde side has a twitter account all its own.]

I also finally updated my bio page here on Pedablogue. Aside from a neat photo (courtesy of Jim Judkis, who did that fantastic photo shoot for the article on me in Pittsburgh Professional magazine), the major change is: I'm being promoted to Full Professor and will be Division Chair of the Humanities this coming August!

Richard Hake has generously shared a super bibliographic resource: Over 200 Education and Science Blogs. He kindly included Pedablogue in the directory. Here's the abstract:

ABSTRACT: This compilation, an expansion of the earlier "Over Sixty Education Blogs," lists over two-hundred education and science blogs, providing for each blog: the author's name and background; the blog title, focus, and URL; and (where available) the Technorati Authority [TA] and the Blogged Rating [BR]. Appendix A discusses the Academic Discussion List Sphere (ADLsphere) and the Blog Sphere (Blogosphere), indicating the strengths and weaknesses of each. Appendix B considers the ADLsphere and the Blogosphere as harbingers of a collective short-term working memory. Appendix C discusses the International Edubloggers Directory, Technorati, Blogged, ScienceBlogs; other blog directories and lists; and other social networking sites. The REFERENCES contain over 100 general citations to open access, internet usage, the ADLsphere and the Blogosphere.

Visit HakesEdStuff to download the file.

My essay on the teaching of horror fiction -- "The Unlearning: Horror and Transformative Theory" -- just went live in the debut issue of the journal, Transformative Works and Cultures. Here's the abstract:

"The Unlearning: Horror and Transformative Theory" by Michael A. Arnzen

Abstract:

Building on the foundational concepts of transformative learning theory, I argue that horror fiction strongly encourages perspective transformation by challenging student assumptions about both genre writing and educational experience. I informally describe a specific creative writing class period focusing on the motif of the scream in diverse horror texts, and I illustrate how students learn to transform what they already bring to the classroom by employing a variety of particular in-class writing exercises and literary discussions. Among these, transformative writing exercises—such as the revision of an existing text by Stephen King—are highlighted as instructional techniques. As cautionary literature, horror especially dramatizes strategies of fight versus flight. I reveal how students can learn by transforming their knowledge through disorientation that is particular to reading and writing in the horror genre.

I started thinking about the ideas in this article after writing a blog entry back in 2005 called "Shifting the Paradigm: Transformative Learning Theory" -- a response to an essay I read by Kelly McGonigal called "Teaching for Transformation."

McGonigal's article got me to rethink the role of the reflective essay assignments in my classes, and I soon found myself in the library, catching up on transformative learning theory by reading the works of Jack Mezirow and others who seek to change the worldviews of adult learners. The key role of the "activating event" in transformation got me thinking about how "cautionary" tales and other works in the horror genre often trigger anticipatory thinking that requires a revision of what one initially assumed to be true. After applying these lessons to a course I taught in horror fiction writing last year, I captured some of these ideas in a conference paper in March 2008 at the International Conference for the Fantastic in the Arts...an early draft of this now-published version. I invite comments here or at the journal, which includes a number of good articles on fan studies and popular culture.

The look is new, but the content is the same.

Pedablogue is evolving to accomodate an upgrade to our system blogging software. Apologies for any errors you encounter along the way. Permalinks may change, so if you may need to run a search to find a page you were seeking.

I have decided to begin reviewing software, web services, and other technical tools for educators on Pedablogue. Books that focus on teaching strategies/advice and/or educational theory will be considered, as well.

I write fair, and extensively analytical, reviews; I expect the average length of reviews to be between 1500 and 2000 words. My bias will lean towards teaching tools and similar products that are useful for college-level instruction, but any educational gadget, text, or gizmo will be considered.

I will also be biased toward products that are more useful in the Humanities and in English/Writing/Literature than other disciplines (simply because these are my fields!). Special interest will be paid to items related to:

+ classroom technology (from chalk to computers)
+ word processing
+ magazine editing
+ film and video screening
+ literary analysis and research
+ writers workshops and critiquing

For books, I am hoping to receive titles that are mostly pragmatic and multidisciplinary -- aimed at teachers of any profession, usually at the college level. Books that provide specific teaching strategies for college professors (like McKeachie's Teaching Tips or Bain's What the Best College Teachers Do) or pedagogical books that look at general educational principles will most likely get reviewed

I will only post reviews of products that I find favorable. If I hate a product or don't feel the product is in the best interest of other educators, I will simply not endorse it with any press whatsoever -- however, I may contrast it against more favorable items under review. My choice to only run mostly positive reviews should not be interpreted to mean I will be a shill for any corporate entity. I will still evaluate products fairly, honestly, and accurately, carefully noting where I feel products have failings, if any.

If you are in the education business and have a product you'd like reviewed, get in touch with me at arnzen@setonhill.edu or send products to me directly at:

Michael A. Arnzen, Ph.D.
Division of Humanities
1 Seton Hill Lane
Seton Hill University
Greensburg, PA 15601

Sending me review materials does not guarantee a review. No materials sent to me will ever be returned. Full, consumer-level products will be chosen for review over excerpts, samplers, limited demos, and crippleware. Only hard copy ARCs or actual printed books will be reviewed; no e-books or pdf galleys. For personal reasons, it is also highly unlikely that I will review books published by vanity presses or self-publishing outfits that rely on print-on-demand technology. DO NOT e-mail me any attachments (including .pdfs, graphics, or software) that are larger than 1mb without contacting me first.
Know that I am a one-man operation (and a full-time teacher); review writing is not the main intention of Pedablogue and if I receive more items than I can review, I will simply be very selective. My mission here is to assist other teachers, so if you do have a product or book that you genuinely think will help other college teachers, please do send it along, with any information you feel is needed beyond basic ordering information -- especially any educator's discounts or special/exclusive discount codes you would like to provide to the readers of Pedablogue. However, please do not shower me in press releases; let your product speak for itself.

I will e-mail a copy of my review to the review material provider. Providers are permitted to quote my reviews in whole (as a reprint) or in part (as a blurb), so long as authorship is attributed to Pedablogue (the courtesy of a link that points back to this website is appreciated).

I have already received some items for review and will be posting them shortly. Thanks!

And...scene!

I'm back. Have been returned to campus after sabbatical, actually, for about six months so far -- I just haven't been blogging, and I apologize, but I've been rather busy. I will likely talk more about sabbatical and such later on. But for now, here's something fun that I found: professor's responding to ratemyprofessor.com comments on video for MTVu.

I found this immensely entertaining for some reason, and spent hours watching profs react, respond and vent about the open-to-the-public online teacher evaluation service. It gives a lot of insight into how teachers see themselves, their profession, and (some of) their students.

Here's an example, from a science fiction writer/professor I admire, Paul Levinson:

I actually like the responses and comments I've received on RatemyProfessor.com -- and on the myspace.com equivalent -- and while I don't actually thing RateMyProf is the best avenue for student feedback, it opens up to us another way of understanding our students, whether via their praise or their protest.

[Is it just me, or are students not using this service as much as they used to? Maybe I've just been away too long....]

POSTSCRIPT: Browsing around, I discovered that ratemyprofessors.com has become a little more proactive about allowing professorial rebuttals across the board. I decided to join up and register, despite my better judgment, simply because I support this move on their part... I don't think I have any rebuttals to file with them, but there you have it.

I am going on sabbatical for the full 2006-7 academic year, in order to secure time to develop my next novel.

While I intend to keep researching and reflecting on teaching during that time, I've decided to put Pedablogue on hiatus until August 2007, when I return to full-time teaching. If I write about teaching before then, I will likely do it for traditional publication, and if anything appears in print I will alert you through a comment appended to this post.

If you're a regular viewer of this site, or if you want to be alerted when it relaunches (because, believe me, you will forget), please enter your e-mail address in the "subscribe" box on your right. This will add you to an announcement list, which will automatically send you a message whenever a new post is made to Pedablogue. Alternately, you could simply add the site as an RSS feed to your aggregrator, if you have one (if not, I recommend FeedDemon).

I want to thank everyone for visiting, reading, and referencing Pedablogue since 2003. I don't consider this page a dead site by any means -- I've simply "gone fishing" at the Isle of Sabbitcus for a year -- and I look forward to returning to this place to exchange ideas. Since I'll be focusing mostly on creative writing for the year to come, I will continue to post regularly to my other blog dedicated to horror writing, The Goreletter. If you like offbeat humor or bizarre horror, please subscribe!

It's been a great year for me: my second novel was published, tenure was approved, my classes were wonderful experiences, sabbatical was awarded, and I've got a poetry book presently on the final ballot for the the Bram Stoker Award (decided in June). I've also learned a LOT about teaching by maintaining this site and reading pedagogy and edublogs across the net. I will still be out there, reading along with you. As a final post, I will simply share some good links about sabbatical (which is often misconstrued as simply a "paid vacation")....

• "And on the Seventh Year..." by Mark Shainblum is an excellent explanation of what taking a sabbatical really means.
  
• My colleague at Seton Hill University, Lee Tobin-McClain, has written a fantastic series of "first person advice" columns for the Chronicle of Higher Education on the sabbatical experience.
  
• The Teaching and Learning Center at Truman State University offers a good compilation of Tips for Writing a Sabbatical Proposal
  
• Inside Higher Ed's running column on What They Don't Teach You in Graduate School by David E. Drew and Paul Gray is chock full of hard-knocks advice that you could probably use, generally; they offer a few tips on taking sabbatical, as well.
  
• Sabbitcal Overview Basics at Hays Recruitment
  

Keep teaching well. No matter how hard it might seem, or how little you feel you're accomplishing, remember that it always matters. -- Mike Arnzen

Happy news. I received tenure in my position as Associate Professor of English at Seton Hill University this week.

I'm grateful. To mark the occasion, soon I'll be writing letters to the important teachers I've had in my life, just to share the good news and to let them know how much they really made a difference. I'm joyful, but also almost too busy to celebrate. I have to finish up a conference paper I'll be delivering next week at the International Conference for the Fantastic in the Arts, in addition to grading papers so I can submit midterm grades to the registrar before I leave. Oh, and there's the search committee dossiers I have to read before I can go to that conference. And the campus litzine editorial meetings I need to attend, as well, so the magazine will be out on time. And then more papers to collect. And then....

Ah, tenure.

I'm no less busy than I've always been. But it's an exciting achievement. There are a lot of myths attached to tenure -- mostly that it provides "lifetime job guarantee" (which it doesn't -- nationally, 2% of all tenured faculty are dismissed each year) -- or that it means a faculty member can kick back and rest on his laurels (which they don't, and can't since there are future reviews, evaluations for promotion to "full" professor, and more ... stats say that tenured faculty work an average of 52 hours a week!). But one thing that it signifies, which I hope is not a myth, is the security of academic freedom. As a creative writer, one who works in the taboo-breaking realms of horror fiction, that means a lot to me. (Not that I intend to suddenly start writing satanic bible study manuals featuring nude torture illustrations or anything like that -- I realize, naturally, that with tenure comes the responsibility for representing my college, my field, my colleagues, my home, my students, my future... -- but when I see articles reporting how professors are being fired for inane things like using the "f-word" in class, I cherish the academic freedom of tenure all the more.)

I don't have a lot to say here about achieving tenure (other than "whew!" and "now what?" and "hey, is there any more champagne in the fridge?"). But I am trying to take the time to think deeply about what tenure really means, to both myself and to others, because I have never really thought of tenure as the "brass ring" of my academic life (and, frankly, I rarely trust anyone who does... the autonomy granted by tenure is simply a tool enabling one to achieve higher aims). So I'm reading a lot. Here are some excellent sources I've come across.

• "The Truth about Tenure in Higher Education" from the NEA
  
• The Tenure Trek from Continuum Magazine
  
• The AAUP on Academic Freedom and Tenure
  
• The Economics of the Tenure System by Jeffrey A. Miron
  
• Michael Berube's analysis of the politics behind attacks on academic freedom
  
• Wikipedia entry on "Academic Freedom"
  
• The Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship
  
• Protecting College Freedom
  
• Humbly, older pedablogue entries on tenure
  

Whew. Now what? Ah yes, to the fridge!

1. If you peer through the frosted window, you'll see that I use a stickie note that says "Be Right Back -- Please Wait!" that I keep at the ready, in case I need to step out.

2. Promotional postcard for my novel, Play Dead.

3. A Gary Larson "Far Side" cartoon (cut from a calendar I once had in my office). The caption reads: "Notice all the computations, theoretical scribblings, and lab equipment, Norm...Yes, curiosity killed these cats."

4. A Peanuts comic strip, copied from Snoopy's Guide to the Writer's Life. Lucy is critiquing Snoopy's novel, saying a good book should be witty, beautiful, etc. In the final pane, Snoopy asks, "Sick doesn't count?"

5. A Valentine's Day gift from the SHU Craft Club. A handmade, heart-shaped pin that reads "WRATH" in the center where you would normally see something like, "Be Mine" or whatever.

6. Corporate signage, common in shape and appearance to all faculty doors at Seton Hill University.

7. Self-made signage, including this term's office hours, and full contact information (including this website). I print a new one of these out every term and just tape it to the door.

8. Cover flat from my short story collection, 100 Jolts: Shockingly Short Stories.

9. Redundant card with basic contact info. I need to remove this; it's taking up valuable real estate!

Forward, our slick campus alumni magazine, ran this excellent feature story (note: 500k .jpg image) on me this Fall, after I won the Bram Stoker Award in Alternative Forms for my free horror fiction-oriented e-newsletter, The Goreletter. The interview is quirky good fun -- it opens with a few offbeat quotations from students extracted from things I've said during lectures (sort of like what you'd find at profquotes.com), asking me to explain myself.