A Wise Woman Knows She Does Not Know

Well… this has been enlightening.

As a Teacher Scholar, I thought I had Bloom’s Taxonomy down, but now I realize that over the last few years I have gotten lax about my teaching practices. I strive to ensure there are always learning outcomes posted at the beginning of each of my classes, and I honestly believe that my scaffolding teaching style was effective. However, I am now wondering if there are instances where I am merely hitting some surface outcome and ignoring the deeper learning that is required for success.

When I went back to school, I was a mature student who know what my goal was, so I know I often forget that there are students out there who are filling in blanks and trying to get through university as painlessly as possible. It is the educator’s job to trick them into learning more than they planned.

As a course designer, I am excited to re-evaluate what I have done thus far and revise using SOLO Taxonomy. I think that Hattie’s theories about feedback will also be useful for this endeavor as well as for my classroom practices. I am looking forward to the next two modules. – Tara

Feedback on Feedback

I feel there is a gap in my feedback practices – namely face-to-face feedback in the classroom. I wonder if, like Hattie explains, my “that’s great” could be misconstrued as “you are doing fantastic”…period. This is especially true when students perform group work. I am sure they recognize that I am watching the group as a whole, and I recognize that out of four or five students, two or three are doing the bulk of the work. “That’s great!” is often meant for those students, but the ones who do not wholly participate will take that praise and run with it. I do not think that does anyone any favours.

This false sense of accomplishment is evident in essays when the work we have done in class is not followed by some. I try very hard to leave a lot of comments on student papers (this takes a lot of time), but am also learning that often the comments are not read – at least not the ones in the margins. Leaving longer comments at the end of an essay seems to work the best for the courses I teach. I am also including “peer feedback” for final essays. I find that this component makes students work harder on their papers earlier. Their peers’ evaluation of their work seems to be more important than mine. However, if this means that a student will try harder on a critical summary or a research paper, then I think it is an effective practice.

I think I can improve on my own feedback skills by  balancing my constructive criticism with praise a little better. I know I often provide a lot of criticism and a few check marks (often time saving). Students need to see where they are improving and doing well. They need to read “that’s excellent” or “good” rather than just see a red check mark.

Aligning My Teaching and Designing With Student Success

Although I am not teaching my Eighteenth Century Novel course at this point, I am in the midst of designing a Shakespeare and Contemporary Film course for Open Learning. I have been stalled with design lately. What are my intentions for learning outcomes? What kinds of activities will enhance student understanding of Shakespeare and Shakespeare and Film and ensure engagement and success.

I think these online tutorials will be beneficial for my course design as I have relied on Bloom’s Taxonomy in the past, but I think it is time to move on to another, more applicable, framework.

The intended learning outcomes for the Shakespeare course is for students to ascend from a mere understanding of Shakespeare’s time (history), Shakespeare’s texts (literature), and by viewing film adaptations of these plays, reflect on how Shakespeare’s texts are adapted and reflect on the ways in which they have been presented on film throughout the 20th and 21st centuries.

One of the first activities students will be required to complete is a journal entry (after required readings and videos) about what they understand about Shakespeare’s time (cultural and political). There will also be a graph they must fill out about low and high culture and classify where they believe Shakespeare and other cultural activities fit

From this first module, students will compare two versions of each of the required texts. I have made sure that the film adaptations the course will examine were produced in completely different decades, and that even thought they are Shakespeare plays, they are also a reflection of the period in which they were produced.

My desire is that students will eventually be able to theorize as to why Shakespeare’s works have transcended the centuries and are still relevant today.

Looking at my learning assessments, I am noting that the word “understand” is coming up much too often. I know this assessment is not enough (Bloom’s even says so), and I must work harder to come up with more pertinent assessments for each of the module. However, I do want to start slowly and work toward more comprehensive assessments. I am pleased with (see below)

Assessments

 

Short Essay: Personal reflection about the student’s initial comments and concerns about experiencing Shakespeare’s works on film rather than on the stage. Using the learning resources and activities as guides, students will critically consider the issues that they believe would necessarily plague filmmakers who produce film adaptations of Shakespeare’s works. (material from activities and resources must be cited)

(500-750 words)

 

10%

However, what do I mean by “Critically”? I think I am going to have to refine what my requirements for this assignment will be.

I am unsure if this assessment from Module 2 will be limiting since I have tried to be as clear and comprehensive as possible. Any feedback would be appreciated.

 

Critical Summary: Of one of the three articles under Learning Resources

(400-500 Words):

10%

 

ESSAY 1:

Two of the greatest actors of stage and screen take the role of Richard III with very different results. How do their performances add or detract from the written words? Please consider training, nationality, and the medium by which Richard is presented in both films (docu-drama versus quasi-historical drama). A close comparison of a specific scene will be beneficial.

(1000-1200 words): 20%

New Considerations for Teaching and Learning

It is becoming clear there are certain aspects of my face-to-face teaching practices that will translate well in the Open Learning platform. Namely, having students think about a topic from a different perspective. As a scholar of Renaissance/Restoration literature, I have noticed that students often come into these classes with the mindset that the texts are old and no longer relevant to their lives. Often, they are taking the class to fulfill a graduation requirement, or they think they “should” take a class such as Shakespeare’s Tragedies or Milton’s Paradise Lost because these works are part of a very old literary canon. They ARE! However, these texts are still relevant to the world we live in today in many respects.

I think the concept of the “triggering event” is very useful, and it probably works much better in an OL environment since students are not put on the spot in the span of a 75 minute class. There is time to process information and to think critically and thoroughly about it rather than being forced to respond basically on the spot. I had never considered that before. I will probably also incorporate some similar practice in my lectures – leave students with a question to mull over until the next class. We all think we know, and then we find out that there are many different ways of knowing. This integration technique will be useful for teaching literature courses that focus on earlier time-periods and will make the literature more relevant than students initially believe.

My only concern is Collaborative Constructivism. Since I have not started teaching my course (and am in the middle of designing another one for Open Learning), I am unsure how this will work when students will all be at different points in their coursework. I guess that will be worked out.

I was pleased to read about “The Educational Experience” as this is very helpful for course design as well as a basic framework for teaching and learning. It is important to remember that students are people. I think we forget this simple fact sometimes – especially when grading a stack of essays. It is easy to lose sight of this. I imagine that facilitating a course where there is no (or limited) face-to-face communication between faculty members and students means that the FM must remain diligent in recognizing that every name and number on the student list is, in fact, a person with feelings who wants to do the best they can in the course.

– Tara

From the Classroom to the Computer (a new journey for a relatively new TRU faculty member)

 

As a former Thompson Rivers University student, I am still amazed that my journey has brought me back to Kamloops and the TRU campus. Living in Saskatoon and studying at The University of Saskatchewan for eight years was a wonderful experience, but I am happy to be home. I am also excited about branching out from classroom to Open Learning teaching. I look forward to the opportunity to connect with students from all over the world who are interested in Renaissance to 18th Century English Literature.

As a lecturer, I spend a lot of time thinking about and revising my teaching practices. There is always room for improvement, but these improvements must be tempered with the knowledge that there are some areas where we excel (as educators and as students), and others where we must work extremely hard. That’s completely okay!

One area where I do excel is connecting with students and making them feel comfortable in their learning environment. I tell my students that my job is to ensure that when they finish my courses, they are better scholars and people than they when they began. In order to achieve this, it is imperative that I am engaged, knowledgeable, accessible, enthusiastic, and kind (enthusiasm and kindness go a long way…trust me).

I rely on specific learning outcomes for each class. Learning outcomes help to keep lessons on track. Since this will be my first Open Learning course, I will be looking for advice from more experienced faculty members, and I hope the enthusiasm I bring into my face-to-face lectures here on campus will be evident in my work with Open Learning. – Tara